Suzuki Lapin 2010 Front Right Lower Arm [3951720] on 2040-parts.com

Transmissions gone wild!

If you've been car shopping recently, or just paying attention to Autoweek car reviews, you've noticed that the six-speed automatic -- de rigueur as recently as a year ago -- suddenly has ratio envy. The new hotness? Eight- and nine-speed automatic transmissions.

Michelin Challenge Design 2007: The not so ugly truth about rising vehicle safety standards

Can cars be safe and beautiful at the same time? That may not have been the case a few decades ago when automakers were forced to hang those big, ugly so-called federal bumpers off the ends of their vehicles.  With vehicle safety standards on the rise around the globe are designers today feeling a little '70s deja vu when it comes to meeting the challenges of making cars safe as well as more fuel efficient? "(Back then) we said it was the end of automotive styling," says Patrick Le Quement, senior vice president for corporate design at Renault and one of the world's most influential automotive designers.

Chris Evans CarFest: It’s all coming together

Chris Evans’ CarFest South & CarFest North are on track to deliver great weekends of petrolhead delight at Laverstoke Park Farm & Cholmondeley Castle. Listeners to Chris Evans’ Radio 2 Breakfast Show discovered Chris’s plans for his very own car festival – to benefit the BBC Children in Need Charity – when Chris was looking for a way to take his mind off bread for Lent, and CarFest was born. The CarFest plan was nothing more than a brief outline for a great weekend – super cars, great food and terrific music – but soon gained a life of its own as word spread of Chris’s plans.