Muffler, Open Modified 1 5/16" Exf4106 on 2040-parts.com

Future products: Mazda's new direct-injection engine family arrives in 2011

The big news at Mazda is a new family of direct-injection gasoline and diesel engines that will start to arrive in 2011. Mazda will make significant changes to vehicle platforms to accommodate the Sky engines, which will be more powerful and fuel-efficient at lower displacements than the company's current engines. The first Sky gasoline engine is expected to debut in the United States in 2011.

BMW M3 coupe gets stripped down to go club racing

BMW's M division is back in the business of building specialty street-legal race cars with a new lightweight version of the M3 called the GTS. The lightweight coupe, set to go on sale in early 2010 at a yet-undisclosed price, was conceived as a limited-edition model primarily for club-based racing in much the same way that Porsche builds the 911 GT3 Clubsport. But in a clear effort to link its track-based activities with the production-car side of its business, BMW's M division is offering the new car with a homologation package that will allow customers to register the M3 GTS for street use.

Italdesign Giugiaro transforms 'Golf Vision 2020' winning design into hard model

Italdesign Giugiaro transformed an Istituto d'Arte Applicata e Design (IAAD) student's thesis project into a 1:4 scale model after it was chosen by Giorgetto Giugiaro as the best Masters project in the ‘Golf Vision 2020' challenge. The challenge, launched in collaboration with the carozzeria and Volkswagen, asked students to design the Volkswagen Golf of 2020. The best designs from the Bachelors and Masters courses were picked at the end of the year by renowned designer and school sponsor, Giorgetto Giugiaro.