Bosch Windshield Wiper Blade 3397008006 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.

Nissan Resonance SUV: 2013 Detroit Auto Show

The Nissan Resonance SUV Concept has been revealed at the Detroit Auto Show, previewing many design cues for the next generation Nissan Murano. The Resonance Concept has been designed by Nissan’s design team in California with what Nissan are calling ‘boldly futuristic aerodynamic styling’ and gets a hybrid powertrain with a 2.5 litre ICE engine with a pair of electric motors, CVT ‘box and a laminated lithium-ion battery pack. The Resonance gets a design they’re calling ‘V-Motion’, which is meant to flow the design through the car from the front grill, move through the bonnet with the boomerang headlights adding to the flow.

College Exhibition: RCA/VW - Day and Night

Vehicle Design students at the Royal College of Art in London, UK, started work on a project sponsored by Volkswagen in October last year. Asked to research and visualize future market sectors and the needs, aspirations and desires of potential users; VW's brief to the students was to create a vehicle which had an innovative, integrated interior to reflect the research the students conducted, in a space that had equal value both in the daytime and at night. The brief also called for new space concepts for the person/machine interface through new functions and new packaging of components.