Dacco Bm44 Torque Converter on 2040-parts.com

Interior Motives Design Awards 2011

After months of waiting, the Interior Motives Student Designer of the Year 2011 has finally been announced. At a glamorous awards ceremony at Frankfurt's Cocoon Club earlier this evening, the world's top designers and automotive journalists gathered together to watch Felix Godard from Strate Collège in France sweep to victory at the Interior Motives Awards, securing himself a total prize of $5,500 and one the most prestigious accolades in the world of automotive design. Launched earlier this year and themed ‘Back to Basics – Making Cars for People, Not Markets', this year's contest attracted entries from an incredibly diverse range of schools and nations, including Israel, the Czech Republic, Australia, Taiwan, Canada and China.

Fiat 500L gets a helping hand from P Diddy (video)

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs gives Fiat a helping hand with the 500L Fiat has done well to convince a trendy section of American car buyers that the Fiat 500 is a funky, cute and desirable runaround – especially if you live in the city. But having effectively put all their eggs in the 500 basket, they have the problem of convincing sceptical US car buyers that the much bigger Fiat 500L is an appealing – and much more practical – proposition for families. So Fiat has enlisted Sean Combs (P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Diddy or whatever moniker he’s using this week) to give the Fiat 500L a bit of much needed profile.

2012 Porsche 911 7-speed gearbox in action +video

2012 Porsche 911 7-speed gearbox video below Some of us are old enough – just –  to remember when a 3-speed gearbox was normal. And, quite often, located on the column. Cars like the Vauxhall Cresta and Ford Zephyr had them, but they now belong to a completely different world to the one inhabited by the 7-speed manual gearbox in the new Porsche 911.