Oldsmobile Gm Oem 10359040 Cluster & Switches-hazard Switch on 2040-parts.com

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.

Chevrolet Sonic at the 2011 Detroit auto show

One of GM's numerous debuts at the 2011 Detroit auto show was this: the Chevrolet Sonic. Shown as a hatchback and four-door notchback, it's one of The General's weapons to tackle the now-globalised Ford Fiesta and its ilk. Good spot. That's because this is the US-spec Aveo - albeit shown in US-only notchback form as well as the more Euro-flavoured hatchback.

AT&T Labs and Carnegie Mellon develop GPS-enabled haptic steering wheel

AT&T Labs and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new GPS-enabled steering wheel prototype that incporporates haptic technology. For those who need a quick refresher, haptic technology is a feedback system that uses vibrations to provide alerts, for example vibrating mobile 'phones or your games console controller. Here the tech is used to alert drivers when navigation maneuvers are approaching, with the steering wheel syncing with GPS-enabled computer systems.