General Five Star Moped Side Cover (right) on 2040-parts.com

Mercedes-Benz backs Smart with ads, deals

Smart USA will launch a TV, print and digital marketing campaign by year end to jump-start the struggling microcar brand that Mercedes-Benz USA took over on July 1. "People are not avoiding the brand or the product, but there is a great majority of people who are not aware of the brand," said Tracey Matura, the new general manager of Smart USA. Mercedes is also offering lease and finance deals for the Smart brand through its Mercedes-Benz Financial Services captive finance arm.

Who killed Pontiac? Ask Bob Lutz

Bob Lutz is not a man who can be contained within 140 characters. This past weekend he spoke at the Petersen as part of the Inside the MotoMan Studio series, hosted by friend of Autoweek George Notaras (past events have been with Ralph Gilles and Derek Jenkins). Lutz talked at length about his childhood in Switzerland, early memories working for Ford and Chrysler, the time he swayed BMW management away from building Mercedes-like luxoboats, and what Lee Iacocca was really like behind closed doors.

Next Volvo infotainment system will look like an iPhone

After more than a decade of disparate and clunky systems that have tried to force their ways of doing things upon our already-overloaded brains, it appears that smartphones and cars are finally going to be friends, after all. And by that, we don't mean that it's suddenly OK to text and drive. Rather, the infotainment systems in cars are finally going to have operating systems that mirror those of smartphones as they interact with your own phone.