Smart wins 2011 LA Design Challenge

Daimler's Smart division won this year's LA Design Challenge, the brief of which was to create ‘Hollywood's Hottest New Movie Car'. The entries were judged on how well the vehicle reflected its brand attributes relative to the plot, how the vehicle related to the target audience, and the level of imagination found within the entry. Befitting the ‘Hollywood movie car' theme, the uniqueness of the story concept and the character development of the vehicle were also factors that helped determine the overall winner.

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.

Audi Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS arrives in the UK

Audi Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS now available Audi has launched the Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS in to the UK with 39.2mpg and reducing CO2 to 189g/km. Starts at £39,995. A less powerful engine for the Audi Q7 isn’t the first thing that jumps to mind as the right way to go, but Audi thinks there’s a market.