Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Starting Out: Portfolio Development

Setting out your portfolio can seem like an endless task; as soon as you finish one, it's time to start over with the latest stuff, a cycle that often continues beyond design school. To give you a few pointers on how to go about it, Car Design News spoke with agents from recruiting agencies and designers in America and Europe for advice.  First and foremost: the content. For young designers, high sketching skill is paramount -and lots of it.

Brits take the world steam land speed record – twice +video

The British Steam Car Challenge team has set a new land speed record for a steam car at 148.308mph All of which tends to suggest – admirable though the achievement is – that steam technology has not moved on much in 100 years. An improvement of around 1mph a decade. Still, a challenge is a challenge, and the team on the British Steam Car Challenge rose to the occasion.

VW CrossBlue Coupe Concept heading for Shanghai

Volkswagen are heading to the Shanghai Motor Show with a new SUV concept as car makers strive to satisfy car buyer’s lust for rugged cars to prowl the urban landscape. But the VW CrossBlue Concept doesn’t seem to be a car that fits in to the fad for compact SUVs, rather it’s a full-size SUV that appears to be a coupe version of the VW CrossBlue Concept we saw earlier this year in Detroit. So far we only have a sketch of the CrossBlue Coupe, and you can be pretty sure it won’t be quite as ‘Coupe’ as the sketches indicate when it does turn up in Shanghai this weekend; think more Audi Q7 than Mercedes GLA.