Works Connection Frame Guard-15-102 on 2040-parts.com

Porsche to add 1,000 employees

To keep pace with its planned model expansion and sales targets, Porsche AG will add more than 1,000 employees by 2015, Automotive News Europe has learned from Volkswagen Group sources. About 500 jobs will be added for production of Porsche's new compact SUV, codenamed the Cajun, which will go on sale in 2013 in Europe and in North America about six months later. Porsche's supervisory board will make a decision on the production location of the Cajun in mid-March.

2014 BMW 4-series coupe pricing to start at $41,425; base six-cylinder costs $46,925

Tantalized by the 2014 BMW 4-series, but hesitant to put money down on the 3-series coupe replacement until you've had the chance to pore over a complete list of options packages? Once you've worked your way through the pricing guide below, you'll have no excuse not to head to your local BMW dealer. The online configurator went live a few months ago, but this is perhaps the most straightforward and easily digestible pricing breakdown so far.

Mercedes touts future safety with research vehicle

In 1980, when several automakers began to use airbags, there were people who thought that cars couldn't possibly get any safer. Karl-Heinz Baumann, a safety researcher at Mercedes-Benz AG in Stuttgart, was not one of them. "We said, 'No, it cannot be all,' and we kept doing more research." The results of that research are presented on the company's most recent Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV), on display now in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart.