Standard Motor Products Ac401 Idle Air Control Valve - New In Box on 2040-parts.com

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.

Moody's boosts Ford's credit rating

Moody's Investors Service upgraded Ford Motor Co.'s debt to investment grade, culminating the automaker's six-year struggle to win back the Blue Oval and other assets mortgaged in 2006. Moody's is the second agency to upgrade Ford's debt from junk status, paving the way for the company to recover assets it mortgaged in 2006 to stave off bankruptcy. The company raised $23.5 billion in a move that allowed it to avoid government bailouts or bankruptcy when the industry collapsed in 2008.

Pagani Zonda Tricolore: One-off Zonda at Geneva

The Pagani Zonda Tricolore - Geneva bound (click for bigger image) We already know that Pagani are taking the Zonda Cinque Roadster #4 to shove on their stand at the Geneva Motor Show, and you can add to that what could be considered an even rarer version of the Zonda – the Pagani Zonda Tricolore. This particulay Zonda has been created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Italian equivalent of the Red Arrows – the ‘Frecce Tricolori – and ordered up by a Pagani  distributor, which almost certainly means it’s already sold – for €1.3 million. Based on the Cinque, the Zonda Tricolore gets a fancy paint job which includes stripes which mimic the colours of the Frecce Tricori.