98 99 00 01 02 Lincoln Town Car L. Side View Mirror 445820 on 2040-parts.com

Autoweek America Adventure: The search begins

I sit in a darkened hotel room near the Oregon coast waters. The noise I hear sounds like a loud industrial air-conditioning unit in a marginal, national hotel chain. It could not be further from that: The constant thrum is the crashing of Pacific Ocean waves on the beach, no more than 200 yards outside the hotel room.

Land Rover previews Discovery Vision Concept ahead of NY show

Land Rover has given a first taste of the Discovery Vision Concept, which will debut at the New York International Auto Show later this month. The concept introduces the design themes that will define both the next generation of Freelander/LR2 and Discovery/LR4 models. Land Rover had previously announced that it would align its models under three pillars - 'luxury' for Range Rovers, 'leisure' for Discovery models – of which the Freelander/LR2 becomes – and 'dual purpose' for the long-awaited replacement for the Defender.

Beanz Meanz More Eco-Friendly Future Fords

THE car industry is full of interesting and unusual business partnerships, but this latest tie-up between Ford and Heinz promises to be one of the more intriguing. Far from seeking to produce 57 varieties of any particular new Ford model, the two firms are exploring the use of tomato fibre to develop a sustainable composite materials for use in vehicle manufacturing. For example, boffins believe that dried tomato skins could become the wiring brackets in future Ford vehicles or the storage bin a customer uses to hold coins and other small objects.