Hurst 3160014 Quarter Stick Automatic Shifter on 2040-parts.com

New Mercedes A45 AMG has 105 years of 4WD on its side

With the new Mercedes A45 AMG on the horizon – complete with 4WD – Mercedes chart the history of all wheel drive on their vehicles. We tend to think of 4WD road cars as a modern innovation, and certainly very few 4WD road cars hit the road in a mainstream way much before the 1980s (the Jensen FF was hardly mainstream before someone points out that was in the 1960s). But the history of 4WD goes back, certainly in the case of Mercedes, a surprising 105 years when Daimler built the Dernburg-Wagen, a 4WD vehicle that not only got all-wheel drive but all wheel steering too.

Follow Coventry University students' grad projects on their Tumblr

We always aim to highlight as many college exhibitions as possible, but with so many graduating students each year, it's not surprising some are taking the promotion of their work into their own hands. The transportation and automotive design students at Coventry University have done just that by setting up a Tumblr highlighting the development of the final projects we'll see towards the end of May. The quality and variety of work looks very promising, especially considering they're some way from finished.

Tesla Model S turns in to Jaguar XF

Jaguar XF - or is it a Tesla? Tesla seem convinced – or at least they’re doing all they can to convince the public – that the Tesla Model S is a soon to be reality, despite all in the industry saying they can’t deliver what they are offering – a high-end, luxury, high-spec sports saloon with a 300 mile range – for the sort of money they claim. That money – as we learned recently – is to be $69,500 for the Tesla S with the 300 mile battery, a price that’s had many scratching their heads over how Tesla can stick enough laptop batteries in the Model S to go that far, and how they can do it at a price that’s a good thirty per cent less than the ‘Lotus-with-batteries’ Tesla Roadster.