Wilwood #260-3392 Reservoir Cap on 2040-parts.com

Ford testing self-parking cars – with or without a driver (video)

Ford testing self-parking cars – with or without a driver It seems we’re heading to the point where cars can do more and more for the driver, and fully autonomous cars seem to be less than a decade away. On the way to the fully autonomous car, car makers will be offering stages on the way as the ability of cars to be self-controlling moves along, and Ford are heading in that direction with their new systems for parking and obstacle avoidance. Ford are running prototypes with Fully Assisted Parking, a system that manages to sense a space, control the steering, gearbox and brakes to park the car at the touch of a button, even if the driver isn’t actually in the car.

New Aston Martin Vanquish Volante arrives – costs £200k

The New Aston Martin Vanquish Volante (pictured) costs £200k It’s almost exactly a year since the Aston Martin Vanquish arrived as a replacement for the DBS, and now we get it’s convertible sibling – the new Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. Aston are claiming the new Vanquish Volante is the stiffest Aston convertible ever and have also managed to keep the usual weight increase for a soft top down to just 9kg by giving the Volante a full carbon fibre body. The result of that is the Volante manages to produce exactly the same performance figures as the Vanquish Coupe – 0-62mph in 4.1 seconds and 183mph – from its 565php, 6.0 litre V12 and shouldn’t, we hope, shake and shimmy in the way many Aston convertibles do in the process.

Entries open for Opel/Vauxhall Interactive Design Competition

Entries can now be submitted to the interactive design competition from  Opel/Vauxhall, in partnership with CDN, which asks students: "What do you think is our lounge style?"  Students are invited to upload their entries to the competition website www.cardesigncontest.com, where they can be viewed and commented upon by the design community as well as other students. CDN and Opel/Vauxhall is encouraging entrants to start uploading material from day one to increase their changes of getting useful feedback on their entries. The competition judges, as well as the design community and other students, will be looking at your research imagery and mood boards, sketches, renderings and video – whatever you feel best represents your vision.