Nissan Laurel 1999 Hood [3910500] on 2040-parts.com

Autoweek Design Forum returns for 2012

Last year, Pixar gurus gave attendees an early preview of their hit summer blockbuster, Cars 2, five months before it premiered in theaters. Two years ago, Chrysler's Ralph Gilles brought down the house with an insightful, hilarious keynote on the state of styling. This year, well buckle up: The 2012 Autoweek Design Forum returns on Jan.

MINI Cargo – the Mini Van is back

MINI Cargo Van - based on the MINI Clubman (pictured) BMW are set to revive the Mini Van, with a MINI Clubman based MINI Cargo debuting at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show. We’ve got the regular MINI and the MINI Clubman. We’ve got the MINI Coupe and the MINI Roadster.

Local Motors 'Design Our Car' competition opens

Local Motors has opened its first-ever ‘Design Our Car' competition, which encourages collaboration within the manufacturing community. The open-source automaker is providing two of its Rally Fighter cars, one of which will be built at the company's micro-factory in Arizona while the other will be built live in the Emerging Technology Center at September's International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago. Ideas from the design and engineering community are being sought to help design and select a skin for the Rally Fighter that will be built by the Local Motors team this spring.