Subaru SHARC wins LA Design Challenge [w/video]

Subaru's SHARC (Subaru Highway Automated Response Concept) has been named the winner of the 2012 LA Design Challenge. The judges chose the futuristic drone as the best embodiment of the 'Highway Patrol Vehicle 2025' with the judges declaring that the studio captured "the vision of Design Challenge theme by combining functionality and problem-solving technology around a dynamic and plausible story" from a choice of designs from six other automotive design studios. Studios from BMW DesignWorksUSA, General Motors, Honda North America, Honda Japan, Mercedes-Benz submitted concepts that would create a highway patrol vehicle for 2025 that tackled the ‘protect and serve' aspect while considering emissions, population growth and transportation infrastructure.

Vectra wins US Car of the Year

By Phil McNamara Motor Industry 08 January 2007 02:05 It's enough to make Jeremy Clarkson's hair curl – even more. A US version of the Vauxhall Vectra – the Saturn Aura – has won North American Car of the Year. The car derided by TV presenter Clarkson won the award, following a vote by 49 enlightened motoring hacks.

Watch the Jaguar Project 7 F-Type go up the Goodwood hillcimb

Jaguar Project 7 F-Type (pictured) tackles the Goodwood FoS hillclimb One of the surprises of the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed has been the debut of the Jaguar Project 7 car, an F-Type with the more bountiful 542bhp supercharged V8 and styling stolen from the D-Type. Jaguar are saying Project 7 isn’t heading for production, but we’re pretty sure most of what’s underneath it – principally the 542bhp version of the supercahrged V8 – is in a production F-Type R. Perhaps surprisingly, fitting the 542bhp vresion of the V8 doesn’t seem to have done a lot for the F-Type’s sprint times, with 62mph coming up in 4.1 seconds, just 0.1 seconds quicker than the 495bhp engine in the standard Jaguar F-Type V8.