Blog on 2040Parts

Nissan Puts Self-Cleaning Car To The Test

NOT a fan of cleaning your car? If so, you might want to make friends with your local Nissan dealer, as the Japanese firm has begun tests on a "self-cleaning" vehicle which could wash away the worries of those weary of doing the job themselves. Boffins at Nissan's European technical centre in Switzerland are testing an innovative paint technology that repels mud, rain and everyday dirt.

Nissan developing the self-cleaning car

Motorists may never need to wash their cars again, as Nissan is helping to develop paint that repels mud, rain and dirt. The technology, which Nissan tells us is “super-hyrophobic and oleophobic”, creates a protective layer of air between the paint and the environment, preventing dirt sticking to the car. Nissan Nissan Note already uses self-cleaning technology Called Ultra-Ever Dry, the tech is currently being tested on the Nissan Note, which already features a ‘wash and blow dry’ function on its rear view camera.

Which car has the best residual value? A MINI

The MINI has the lowest depreciation of any car in the UK When it comes to buying a car, many of us decide how much we can afford to spend and then go and look for a car that fits our budget. But what we should really be looking at is how the car we want will be worth in the future – its residual value. Because the residual value of your car is often where the biggest costs lies, and it has a major impact on monthly payments if you decide to acquire your nice new car on a contract hire or leasing deal.

Top 10 car adverts revealed

THE UK’s favourite television car advertisements have been revealed and Honda has grabbed the top two places. Its Hands advert was an easy winner with more than 12 million views, followed by the Japanese firm’s An Impossible Made Possible ad in second spot. Third place went to one of two Chevrolet adverts in the top 10 with the American company’s Outstanding Design ad in third followed by its LifeTest promotion in fourth.

Lamborghini Urus SUV – made in SLOVAKIA

The Lamborghini Urus SUV to be made in SLOVAKIA It could be argued that the appeal of Lamborghini stems from its ‘Italian-ness’, but it seems ‘Made in Italy’ is not an honour Lamborghini are going to bestow on their new Urus SUV. Instead, the plan is to build the Urus alongside other VW Group SUVs at VW’s plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. Autonews is reporting that VW are planning to build the Urus alongside the Porsche Cayenne, Audi Q7, VW Touareg and the bodies for the new Bentley SUV (they were planning to build the Bentley SUV in full in Bratislava too, but now it will be just the body to make sure the Bentley SUV is ‘British’).

Top seven notes from Beijing’s 2014 VW Group motor show

By Ollie Kew Motor Industry 25 April 2014 07:30 On the eve of every major motor show, the Volkswagen Group steals a jump on the competition by staging its own mini motor show to reveal its big-hitters for the imminent event. Here are seven things you won’t have heard from Beijing’s ‘Group Night’. As soon as the floor was opened to journalists, the Chinese media made straight for the stunning new Lamborghini Huracan and Bugatti’s latest Veyron Vitesse Legends Edition, the ‘Black Bess’.

Seat dealer wins 'special edition' Leon design contest

A MIDDLESBOROUGH Seat dealership has won a national competition to design a new 'special edition' Leon hatchback just by using the existing customisation options... and a bit of creative thinking. Jennings Seat won Seat UK's inaugural 'King of Leon' contest with its blue and black Leon FR that has been dubbed the 'S-Tech'.

Britain's favourite car brands revealed

Earlier this week, we revealed the results of the Driver Power survey by Auto Express, where drivers were asked to rate their cars for factors including reliability, running costs and performance. Now, MSN Cars can exclusively reveal the results of the manufacturer survey. In short, according to more than 50,000 motorists, these are the most satisfying and reliable brands in Britain.

'Grid Autosport' finds its motorsports roots

Video-game maker Codemasters is back in the news today, this time with its next driving game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The trailer for “Grid Autosport” appeared on YouTube on Tuesday, and it looks like the company is going back to its beginnings. From the trailer and interviews at videogamer.com, we can see that nearly every shot features real racetracks and race cars.

2014 China Design Schools League Report

As well as recognizing the best student automotive design talent, Car Design Awards China also acknowledges the school whose students have had the most success in the competition. For the first time in the competition's five-year history, an award for Most Successful School was given, with the China Central Academy of Fine Art taking the inaugural win. The new category recognizes the institution that has entered the most prize winners and finalists into this year's competition, celebrating its excellence at nurturing the talent that is the life blood of the automotive industry.

Project Car Hell, Straight Eight, Two Doors Edition: '47 Buick or '53 Packard?

Welcome back to another session in the Hell Garage, where you choose between a pair of projects that match coolness with torment. We've been through air-cooled German cars, cheap Italian cars and incomprehensible French cars in recent weeks, and now we're going to winch a couple of big American two-doors with straight-eight power out of the Lake of Fire. Before the V8 reigned supreme in luxury-car land, cars with long hoods and smooth-running inline-eight engines showed that you had made it, and we've found a pair of such cars that should be gorgeous when restored…after about a decade of work.

Watch the 'Mad Max' video game trailer

“Mad Max: Fury Road” comes out in 2015 with Tom Hardy (Bane, "The Dark Knight Rises") playing Max Rockatansky in the wasteland that used to be the Australian outback. Lucky for us, that means a demolition-soaked, open-world, off-road-style car game is on the way, too. We checked out the trailer on Friday for the "Mad Max" video game, which has been delayed until 2015, and found that it hits all the right buttons.

Concept Car of the Week: Peugeot Proxima (1986)

Presented at the 1986 Paris Motor Show, the Proxima concept was the ultimate vision of '80s futurism, both in terms of its design and engineering. To assert its blue-sky vision, Peugeot named its creation after Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun. The exterior design was directed by Gérard Welter, and featured a long wheelbase, mid-mounted engine and very small overhangs, putting the accent on power and performance.

New Ferrari California T gets its UK debut

The new Ferrari California T gets its UK debut Ferrari’s entry-level model – the Ferrari California – was not the most loved of Ferrari’s, with Ferrari ‘Anoraks’ proclaiming it a cynical marketing exercise by Ferrari. That didn’t stop the California selling well, but five years on from when the California arrived Ferrari has decided to make the California more focused with the arrival of the new Ferrari California T at the Geneva Motor Show. Ferrari Anoraks still had room to moan, mind you, as the California T eschews the naturally aspirated route and goes turbo for the first time in a Ferrari since the F40.

Nissan tests self-cleaning paint

Well that took long enough. Nanotechnology is here, and Nissan is reportedly using it in the paint on its little Versa Note hatchback. We would have started on something a little more exciting, like the hard-to-care-for matte finish on the GT-R's rear spoiler, but that's just us.

Film Friday: Auburn Speedster tackles the Bonneville Salt Flats

Inspired by a recent trip to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Ind. (more to come on that soon!), we're diving into the historical film archives for some A-C-D goodness. And it doesn't really get any better than vintage footage of the classic Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster tearing up the Bonneville Salt Flats circa 1935 followed by a demonstration of the big Duesenberg streamliner, “The Mormon Meteor” thundering across the lake bed.

Toyota Aygo gets new engine technology to make it more economical

The new Toyota Aygo (pictured) gets new engine tech The new Toyota Aygo has only just arrived as Toyota’s part of the city car triumvirate which includes the new Citroen C1 and new Peugeot 108, but its already set to get improvements. Toyota have been playing with the little 1.0 litre three-cylinder that lurks under the bonnet of the majority of Aygos, and have managed to do some serious tweaking. The tweaks include a higher compression ratio of 11.5:1, a cooled exhaust gas recirculation system, changes to the timing, better combustion, less friction and lower weight.

Kia Picanto Quantum – a new ‘Originals’ model from Kia

It’s the ‘Original’ Kia Picanto Quantum As a little urban runaround, the Kia Picanto is a perfectly decent offering. And now you can get a more ‘Original’ Picanto. Kia like to think of their ‘Originals’ range of models as having distinct personalities and get changed at regular intervals just like a fashion collection.

Nissan creates a self-cleaning Note – and this one’s for real. (video)

The Nissan Note that cleans itself The Sunday chore of cleaning the car is beloved (and loathed, in equal measure) by those who’d rather do it themselves than pay a man with a bucket, a sponge and a chamois  to oblige. But regular car washing – for anyone – could be a thing of the past thanks to a new nano-paint technology. The newly developed super-hydrophobic and oleophobic paint manages to repel water and oil, which means stuff like everyday dirt, mud and rain don’t have the chance to cling to the car’s paintwork.

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid – now with Volvo’s R-Design spec. Price from £51,675

The Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid now get the R-Design option The Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid is already selling at such a rate that Volvo can’t keep up with demand, and now they’re making it even more difficult for themselves by launching an R-Design version. Volvo’s R-Design models add a range of tweaks to the regular range that add more visual purpose, but do so subtly and without too much fanfare. The R-Design version of the V60 Plug-in Hybrid is no different, with R-Design bumpers and grill, rear diffuser and 18″ Ixion alloys on the exterior and sports seats, sports pedals, sports floor mats and charcoal headlining on the interior giving the car a more focused appeal.

Audi TT Offroad shows off at Beijing auto show

Audi introduced the TT Offroad concept at the Beijing motor show last week. The company says it comes with a plug-in hybrid drive system delivering 408 hp total, while getting 123.8 miles per gallon -- impressive, but we're guessing not exactly real world. To get that power, the TT Offroad concept uses the company's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, making 292 hp and 280 lb-ft of torque.

17 definitive concept cars feature in new Atlanta exhibition

Atlanta's High Museum of Art is gearing up for the opening of a new exhibition featuring some of the world's most influential concept cars. Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas runs from 21 May to 7 September and includes 17 concept cars – and associated drawings and models – from the 1930s to the 21st Century. The aim of the exhibition is to demonstrate how these vehicles shifted the notion of The Car from that of a purely functional device to an embodiment of future possibilities.

One Lap of the Web: Car creatures of the Hollywood Hills

-- Jay Leno, presumably back from filming McQueen's Jaguar XKSS, now places his chin atop the front seat of a 1925 Doble E-20, which, being steam-powered, fulfills Leno's interpretation of alt-fuel. Abner Doble built his first steam car while he was still in high school, and by 1915 the Doble Detroit had set new standards of reliability, convenience, noiselessness, and speed -- in 1925, Howard Hughes drove Leno's Model E to 132 mph. -- Los Angeles, car culture capital of the world, has its fair share of hipsters, eccentrics, airheads and Chrysler LeBarons.

Car insurance small print longer than Animal Farm

Aslan Alphan | Getty Images The small print on car insurance policies from a number of leading firms is longer than George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, according to a consumer website. Fairer Finance waded through the small print of “every” car insurance policy, and found that the policy documents produced by Endsleigh, Sheila’s Wheels, Esure and M&S Bank run to more than 30,000 words. Less than a third read car insurance terms and conditions The highest word count found by researchers came from Endsleigh, with a grand total of 37,674 words in the small print.

Weird Chevrolet pickup roadster hot rod probably inspired the SSR

Here's a thought: If you've ever wanted to be buried in what you're driving, it's a boon if your car is already shaped like a coffin. Behold this "cute little roadster," which resembles the unholy union of a Ford T-Bucket and a mechanical pencil lead dispenser and probably will make its way into a Jimmy Buffet video. (Click here if the ad goes down or if one of the Autoweek editors snaps it up first.) A 1972 Chevrolet pickup truck is scattered in there, somewhere after the bowtie-shaped everything.

rusEFI: Open-source homebuilt fuel-injection set to rival Megasquirt

Electronic fuel-delivery and ignition controls have given us a new golden age of engine efficiency and performance. Most of us would never go back to the dark ages—say, before 1990—when you could still buy new vehicles with carburetors and clunky distributors. From the point of view of those of us who like to modify our cars, however, the black-box nature of engine-control computers limits our options for making changes to how our fuel-delivery and ignition systems function.

Watch 'The Million Dollar Mustang' part one: Shelby GT350 R

“The Million Dollar Mustang” is not about how much these great cars go for at auctions in today's heady times, but about what made them worth so much in the first place. Nearly five years in the making, the documentary starts out talking about the Ford Mustang in general, how they sold 22,000 of them on the first sales day and then sold a million of them in the first two years and things like that -- the notion that the Mustang was a revolution in American car design and in the American consciousness. Then it starts to narrow its focus more and pretty soon the bulk of the piece is all about the Shelby GT350 R.

Police to target uninsured drivers by crushing their cars

The Metropolitan Police operation to cut down on uninsured drivers by crushing their vehicles could be rolled out nationwide, claims Auto Express. Operation Cubo has seized more than 14,000 vehicles in London since it was introduced in October 2011. The campaign sets up sites targeting specific areas, using automatic number plate recognition systems to identify cars being driven without insurance.

Audi A3 crowned 2014 World Car of the Year

10 years in, the World Car Awards are now the most recognised awards for new car excellence on the planet. As a member of the UK jury, I strive to appraise, analyse and drive every contender, from what is a long roll call.   The final shortlist was announced at the Geneva motor show in March, with the results revealed at the New York Auto Show.

Watch this 'Fast and Furious' remote control tribute

The convergence of great remote-controlled cars and super cheap video cameras has brought us more RC spoof videos than we know what to do with. But this one stands head and shoulders above the rest. Vax Studios put this “Fast and Furious” homage together and dedicated it to the late Paul Walker.