Mercedes Ponton Side Maker Light Lenses. on 2040-parts.com

Nissan and Fiat marketing heads trade insults over 'visual pollution'

A war of words has erupted between Fiat and Nissan's marketing departments over their electric vehicle designs, the Leaf and the 500e. Matt Davis, head of Fiat product marketing, told Bloomberg News before the launch of its all-electric 500e at the Los Angeles show last week that "ugliness is probably one of the worst forms of pollution," seen as an indirect attack on Nissan's electric offering. The then 500e came under attack with Nissan criticizing the fact that it was created only to meet Californian emissions requirements.

No performance upgrades for Subaru BRZ STI?

Earlier this week we brought you first news and pictures of the Subaru BRZ STI – and discussed the potential for a set of high performance upgrades taking the car’s output to around 300hp. However, according to people who claim to be in the know, this first round of  STI add-ons for the Subaru BRZ could be little more than cosmetic and chassis changes. On Bing: see pictures of the Subaru BRZ Find out how much a used Subaru BRZ is worth on Auto Trader Subaru originally rebuffed suggestions that it would fit a turbocharger or supercharger to the car’s 2.0-litre flat-four engine, which would easily take power from the standard 200hp output up to around 300hp.

Bugatti Grand Sport Venet edition (2012): a 253mph art car

This is the latest one-off Bugatti Veyron supercar: the Bernar Venet editon. Partly inspired by the 1970s BMW art cars of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, French artist Bernar Venet's creation pays tribute to the eggheads responsible for the Veyron's conception, by covering the front panels in mathematical equations relating to the output of the car's enormous engine. It's certainly different to the sort of motoring artist's impressions we usually bring you on CAR Online...