"motorcycle Parking Only" Metal Sign on 2040-parts.com

Smart car inventor Nicolas Hayek dies

Nicolas Hayek, the engineer and industrialist who founded the Swiss watch company Swatch and brought the world the Smart car, died on June 28 of heart failure at his office in Switzerland. He was 82. Hayek saved the Swiss watch industry from lower-priced Asian competition in the early 1980s by offering colorful, inexpensive Swatch timepieces that he backed with equally colorful marketing.

2014 Volvo XC60 upgraded by Heico Sportiv

Polestar isn't the only Volvo tuner out there, and it's about to face some stiff competition from Stuttgart's Heico Sportiv. If you're not familiar with the company, it offers performance and design upgrades for virtually every Volvo model of the last 20 years. Heico Sportiv took its offerings to the Essen Motor Show in Germany last month, an event often compared to SEMA.

BMW M5 manual mess-up

By Chris chilton Motor Industry 27 January 2007 01:34 North American customers were delighted when BMW bowed to their demands for a full three-pedal manual version of the current V10 M5 super saloon, but aren’t quiet so enamoured with the finished product. The issue is not with the gearbox itself – BMW successfully replaced the European model’s seven-speed SMG box with the old-shape M5’s six-speed manual – but with the compromises that were needed to get there. Without the benefit of computer control for the opening and closing of the clutch plates, M division’s engineers couldn’t eliminate axle tramp under hard take-offs.