New Pierburg Secondary Air Injection Control Valve, 11 72 7 540 471 on 2040-parts.com

Lorenzo Ramaciotti visits RCA for 'Two of a Kind' project

Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Fiat-Chrysler's head of global design, has visited the Royal College of Art as part of the Fiat ‘Two of a Kind' project explaining how Italian design has become world-famous in all fields in a talk themed ‘The Roots of Italian Car Design'. The ‘Two of a Kind' project asks four teams of four Vehicle Design students to design innovative exterior and interior proposals for how the Fiat 500 and the Panda might look in 2020, taking interactivity, digital interface, sustainability and global appeal into account. Maserati brought along a Quattroporte, a GranTurismo Sport as well as an Alfa Giulietta Sportiva to complement his talk in the hope it would encourage students to consider what the carmaker believes are the three concepts of the legacy of Italian car design: sportiness-dynamism; elegance-balance; and character-personality.

Jaguar reveals first ‘new’ lightweight E-Type

CLASSIC car fans and speculators alike will be rejoicing as Jaguar has revealed the prototype of its ‘new' lightweight E-Type. Six further examples will be built by Jaguar Heritage and sold as period competition vehicles, using previously unused chassis numbers to give them true authenticity. In 1963 Jaguar started the 'Special GT E-type' programme to build 18 lightweight racers, but only 12 were ever made.

Lexus LFA (w/ Gallery)

Lexus presented the LFA at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show last week, the culmination of four years and two show cars. The new front-mid engined supercar is skinned in carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), which, aside from being both lightweight and strong, also enabled greater freedom to create shapes, curves and edges. Seen in the flesh, however, the white bodycolor did the LFA few favors, though this choice may have more to do with slighting Acura - the last NSX, the Type-R, was also white with a red and black interior.