Wise Boat Seat W/swivel on 2040-parts.com

Design Contest: ANFIA announces Italian Styling - Young Designers Competition 2004

The deadline for entries in the fourth edition of the 'Stile Italiano Giovani' design competition (Italian Styling - Young Designers) is coming up. The competition is a biennial event run by the designers of the ANFIA Coachbuilders Group, who have set out to help discover new talent in the field of car design. The target of the initiative is to find and select new talents from all over the world, capable of interpreting and fostering the tradition of Italian automotive design.

Old is new again: Will a floor-hinged throttle pedal be in your future?

If you think that every little nut, bolt, switch, gear or widget in your new car wasn't scrutinized by a team of highly educated, overworked car geeks (read: engineers), think again. A couple of recent conversations with automotive engineers confirmed that virtually nothing that goes into a car today is taken for granted. During the recent Pebble Beach weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with an engineer for Jaguar, and the subject turned to materials used for various switches in the cabin.

Ford Explorer (2011) launches +video

The 2011 Ford Explorer Because it’s unlikely we will get the 2011 Ford Explorer on this side of the Pond, we haven’t covered its interminable tease in any real detail. Yes, we reported on the 2011 Explorer getting Ford’s new Curve Control, an electronanny designed to cure understeer, but we didn’t report every silly photo Ford released. But not being thorough on reporting a really boring and drawn out tease is one thing, but we can’t ignore the launch of a new version of a vehicle that until quite recently was selling almost 500k a year.