Vintge Chrome Rocket Fender & Body Exterior Mount Car Mirror Rat Hot Rod on 2040-parts.com

Design a steering wheel for Ford and win a trip to its Cologne studio

Ford UK, and product development publication DEVELOP3D, have announced details of a new competition, asking designers to create a concept for a future Ford steering wheel. The competition is open to UK-based designers from all industries, and submissions should be emailed in the form of digital sketches or hand-drawn images. The deadline is 7 November, 2014.

Fifth Gear Tonight: Skoda Fabia vRS, BMW M6, DIY Servicing & best small cars

Fifth Gear tonight sees Vicki in the Skoda Fabia vRS, Tiff testing best small cars, Jason with the BMW M6 and Jonny on DIY car servicing. With no Top Gear on TV now the latest series has ended (well, apart from the ‘Best of’ Sky+ insists on recording) it’s Fifth Gear for your TV petrolhead fix, with tonight’s episode – episode 6 – offering old-fashioned consumer advice as well as a bit of blasting and blatting in something interesting. Vicki Butler-Henderson is off for a performance motoring triathlon in the company of Norwegian rally star Andreas Mikkelsen, with fun in a pair of single-seat race cars, a race against the clock in a 200bhp off-road buggy and a proper play and test of the appealing Skoda Fabia vRS (you can see a clip of the Fabia vRS test in the video below).

Video: Rendering a Le Mans racer using layer masks and pixel locking in Photoshop

Local Motors' designer and community manager Aurel Francois has made this short video explaining how he created his 'Alpine A444' render for the Le Mans Themed Sketchwall Challenge. His side view may be simple in terms of perspective but by using layer masks and pixel locking in Photoshop, the blue race car soon comes to life. Worth a watch of you're looking to get to grips with computer rendering techniques.