Captains Boat Chair on 2040-parts.com

Lexus IS Design contest winner to be built for SEMA 2013

Somewhere in the shortlist of 25 semi-finalists from the Lexus IS Design contest lurks the design that will be built by tuner VIP Auto Salon and take pride of place on Lexus' stand at SEMA later this year. Hosted by online art community deviantART, the competition asked entrants to customize a Lexus IS saloon using any method they liked. The winner will also be given a one-year lease of the IS and other prizes.

Mugen Honda CR-Z Hybrid Video ahead of Goodwood

Mugen Honda CR-Z Hybrid playing on video We reported back in April that Honda had turned to Mugen to see if they could inject anything in to the CR-Z Hybrid that might make it even remotely appealing to a driver. The plan was to take the resulting Mugen Honda CR-Z to this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, to see if the knowledgeable petrolheads that gravitate to the Goodwood Estate like moths to a Summer flame could find something to love in the Honda CR-Z, once it had had some Mugen fairy dust springled on it. We were a bit reluctant to expect anything much of the CR-Z even after Mugen had played, but we were pleasantly surprised to learn that the CR-Z would get a wider track, new suspension and brakes and a drop in weight thanks to some carbon fibre in the mix – most notably the carbon fibre bonnet.

Land Rover Range_e – Hybrid test-bed

The Range Rover Sport based Land Rover Range_e Pragmatically, Land Rover are working hard to change the world’s perception of its products by shouting as loudly as they can about the ‘Green’ credentials they have, from off-setting carbon emissions to 45k miles on every car they sell to adding stop-start to the Freelander 2. But long-term Land Rover are looking to introduce new, lightweight cars in 2012/2013 with the same aluminium underpinnings as Jaguar, and introducing some hybrid technology on the way. With that in mind they’ve put together a Range Rover Sport based Range_e to trial the tech ahead of its use in the next generation of Land Rover’s cars and are planning on running five cars as test-beds this year.