1966 Ford Thunderbird Grill Ornament C6sb-8194-a on 2040-parts.com

Premium Sound System For Premium Lexus SUV

JAPANESE car maker Lexus has released a new version of its RX premium SUV. The firm claims that its RX 450h Advance model is even more generously equipped than before, with the added luxury of a Mark Levinson premium 7.1 surround sound system as standard. Despite the inclusion of the Lexus-bespoke audio package (that has a £1,000 list price) and a set of new-design 19-inch alloy, wheels, the price tag for the new Advance variant is unchanged, matching its predecessor at £48,495.

College Exhibition: RCA/GM - Fast Forward 2049

First year students at the Royal College of Art recently held an exhibition at the London Transport Museum commemorating the 40th anniversary of the school's vehicle design course. Sponsored by GM's Opel/Vauxhall division, 19 students responded to a brief that called for them to ‘Fast Forward into the Future'. Divided into three groups - Inside Out, Urban Flow and Automark - the students devised their own notions of vehicles for the year 2049, and in some cases entirely reinvented Opel brand values and aesthetics.

One Lap of the Web: A wiseguy in a Cadillac

-- Not many car reviews feature a shot-for-shot remake of "Goodfellas." (We're still banking on Ford's re-introduction of the Crown Victoria for a shot-for-shot remake of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage.") Matt Farah of the Smoking Tire did for its review of the Cadillac CTS V-Sport, which took four days to shoot and six to edit, and probably three more to steal the dolly cam from Scorsese's basement. -- You might not remember the Saturn Pioneer, but back in 1979, "the new marque Saturn was developed to play on the increased attention to astronomy NASA's deep space probes were generating," writes automotive historian/inveterate liar Jason Torchinsky. One of GM's many H-Body cars, the Pioneer -- named after the probe, not the Probe -- carried an innovative version of GM's venerable "Iron Duke": it had both a carburetor and throttle-body fuel injection, which undoubtedly added needless complexity that could have better served the real Rocket Division, Oldsmobile.