Kawasaki H-2 Piston Ring Set on 2040-parts.com

Audi Snook at the 2008 Michelin Challenge Design

German design student Tilmann Schlootz has been named one of the winners in the 2008 Michelin Challenge Design competition for his Audi Snook project. Selected for special exhibition at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit by a jury of professional designers and educators, the Snook scale model concept answered a design brief entitled: 'Sharing the Road - Big Safety/Small Vehicles', which called for enhanced real and perceived safety for smaller vehicles through design innovation. The visionary concept vehicle, which rides on a mono-sphere wheel, is heralded as a new vehicle category, implementing the principles of agility through instability learned from aerospace technology.

One Lap of the Web: Peking to Paris Rally, classic car inspection guide and pointless cars

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Join the Hooniverse debate as they ask: What's the dumbest car sold on the market today?

Ford posts rare increase as industry gains from clunkers

Ford Motor Co. posted its first U.S. sales increase in 19 months in July and most rivals pared their declines as the federal cash-for-clunkers incentive helped lift industry demand to its highest rate this year.