Honda Saber 1998 Rear Left Combination Lamp [9915600] on 2040-parts.com

Smart car inventor Nicolas Hayek dies

Nicolas Hayek, the engineer and industrialist who founded the Swiss watch company Swatch and brought the world the Smart car, died on June 28 of heart failure at his office in Switzerland. He was 82. Hayek saved the Swiss watch industry from lower-priced Asian competition in the early 1980s by offering colorful, inexpensive Swatch timepieces that he backed with equally colorful marketing.

Porsche 918 Spyder: The first ride in the future game changer

Faster than the iconic Carrera GT yet more economical than parent company Volkswagen's frugal new Up supermini, Porsche's next supercar, the 762-hp gasoline-electric powered 918 Spyder, promises to offer the best of both worlds—scorching performance and ultralow consumption. Autoweek joins Porsche's engineering team for the very first test of the car that is already causing headaches in Maranello and Sant'Agata. For all of its intense promise and awesome potential, the very first running prototype of the upcoming Porsche 918 Spyder looks suspiciously like a refugee from a shadowy postapocalyptic movie set as it glides silently into view across the vast expanse of bitumen at the Nardo test track in southern Italy.

BAC Mono

Another name to emerge amidst the numerous English niche manufacturers, are Briggs Automotive. Taking the fight to cars like the Aerial Atom and Caparo T1, the BAC Mono is a lightweight carbon fiber tubbed single seater, proving that once again less is more in terms of performance. Boasting a kerb weight of just 540kg, the single seat ‘ultra high performance, road legal sports vehicle' was produced using race-bred technology in order to deliver a purist driving experience.