BMW & Toyota agree joint development of new sports car

BMW and Toyota have signed a binding agreement to co-develop a new sports car and continue with co-developed and shared technology. The way forward for car makers seems to be either to be as big as possible for the benefits of economy of scale, or to work together on joint products to cut development costs. Which is why BMW and Toyota are getting cosy.

SoCal stuff you just have to see

If you live in Southern California or might visit anytime soon, here are a few things to do: Legends Of Riverside III Riverside International Raceway may have been closed for 22 years, but it has never left the memories of those who drove on it and the fans who sat in the brown dirt and scrub brush around the outside. For the last three years, the Riverside International Automotive Museum has honored those memories with a big reunion of great drivers, race cars and movies. In 2009, the featured hero was Southern California's own Dan Gurney.

New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.