Celebrating the Spirit of Ecstasy's centenary

In a bumper year of anniversaries for automotive manufacturers, Rolls-Royce is celebrating the centenary of the Spirit of Ecstasy. Quite possibly the world’s most famous automotive icon, the flying lady will be honored by renowned photographer Rankin through 100 images inspired by the figurine. Just as Charles Robinson Sykes – the man behind the original figurine – turned to his wife for the form of the Ecstasy, Rankin is using wife and model Tuuli Shipster for his work.

Volvo S60 Polestar goes in to production

It sounded like a plan to put it in to production – even if it would probably need twin turbos to make it nicely wieldy on the road – and that’s exactly what Volvo and Polestar have done. The Volvo S60 Polestar has gone in to limited production, initially for the Australian market, but instead of the mighty 508bhp of the concept it has to make do with a more pedestrian 350bhp, little more than the V60 we reviewed last year with the Polestar upgrade. But the extra power is enough to get the production S60 Polestar to 62mph in 4.9 seconds and, thanks to tweaks to the suspension, brakes and aerodynamics, the S60 Polestar looks like it will be able to handle the power quite well.

Eighty years of major motion…from Nissan

Today, Dec. 26, 2013, Nissan claims to celebrate 80 years of "moving people with innovative and exciting cars," according to a tersely worded press release. But like all stories, the press release is only the happy, corporate-sanitized version: the real story is a bit more involved than that.