Excel Takasago Front/rear Rim - 10x1.60 - Gold Kcg412 on 2040-parts.com

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.

Concept Car of the Week: Nissan NX-21 (1983)

In the early 1980s, with the new millennium still seemingly an age away, Nissan Design America was tasked with imagining the family car of the future, while giving potential buyers a preview of the forthcoming N13 NX and EXA models. The resulting concept would be shown at the Tokyo motor show in 1983. Given confidence by the increasing success and expanding global presence of Japanese cars, including the previous generation N12 NX, Nissan's designers, led by Tom Semple, decided that the NX-21 (for 21st century) was the answer.

Ford Fiesta Titanium Individual and revised Fiesta range launched

The new top of the range Ford Fiesta Titanium Individual Despite the success – or perhaps because of it – Ford are having a play around with the Fiesta range and adding a new model at the top – the Fiesta Titanium Individual. The new Fiesta lineup now consists of Studio, Edge, ECOnetic, Zetec, Titanium and Zetec S, with the Individual standing at the top. The Studio now comes as either a three or five doors and gets electric windows thrown in; the new Edge range gets AirCon as standard as does the ECOnetic (something we asked for when we did the Fiesta ECOnetic review – Ford must have been listening again?