Subaru Brz Polished Stainless Steel License Plate Frame, Official, + Free Gift on 2040-parts.com

Auto-safety history gets its place in the Smithsonian

Smithsonian museum officials say their new collection of auto-safety objects dating to the 1930s is about America's love affair with its cars. But really it's about our passion for, well, staying alive. While some enthusiasts might question whether their cars should be braking for them, it's hard to quarrel with most of this technology.

2012 BMW X1 Facelift at New York Show

2012 BMW X1 Facelift The still quite new BMW X1 is getting a minor facelift for 2012 and will debut at the New York Auto Show. It’s really only a couple of years since the debut of the BMW X1, but BMW are already giving it a tweak and a titivate in a 2012 facelift designed, it would seem, to make the compact SUV seem a bit more upmarket; more in line with the rest of the BMW range. Revealed ahead of a debut at the New York Auto Show this month – after which it goes on sale in the US from $31.5k – the latest version of the X1 gets a new front bumper and grill with silver bars, deeper recessed fogs and silver detailing in the lower bumper to give the nose of the X1 more identity and make it a but more urban-warrior trendy.

Volvos get a facelift: V70, XC70 & S80 get tweaked

2011 Volvo S80 Facelift - tweaks to cosmetics and diesels Well, if you’re going to have a fiddle with one car, you may as well have a fiddle with three. That seems to be Volvo’s point of view as it performs a bit of plastic surgery on the Volvo V70, Volvo XC70 and Volvo S80, and fettles the oily bits in to the bargain. Under the skin, it’s tweaks to the diesel lumps that dominate, with both the D3 (2.0 litre) and D5 (2.4 litre) getting some work.