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Lotus, Toyota celebrate engine deal

Lotus CEO Dany Bahar presented Toyota president Akio Toyoda with a Lotus Elise this week at the British Embassy in Tokyo, celebrating the companies' long partnership. The Elise was equipped with Toyota's last 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i engine, the same engine found in older versions of the Lotus Elise and Exige. “The presentation of Toyota's last 2ZZ engine in the Elise is a symbolic gesture of our continued respect and deep appreciation for our partner not only acknowledging our past, but also looking forward to our future together,” Bahar said in a statement.

Video: 7 sexiest car-wash scenes on film

It's Friday afternoon, and in an effort to help you faster pass the last few hours of the work week, we want to call your attention to New York Magazine's video slideshow of the hottest car-wash scenes on film. The spread is entertaining enough in its own right, but the real fun comes from the deadpan commentary provided by Debra Gorgos of Professional Carwashing & Detailing Magazine, who critiques the scrubbing skills of these scantily dressed stars. As for the common (in Hollywood, at least) practice of using one's bikini-clad chest in place of a soapy sponge?

Driven: Volkswagen Passat CC GT

Elegant and refined. Forty years ago these two words would not have been used to describe the Beetles bought in droves by the counterculture in the US; a symbol of the hippy movement and the definitive people's car, designed at a time when Germany sought to put people in motion. With the Passat CC, however, Volkswagen is indeed making a sharp move away from the ‘volks wagen', and these two words rolled off the tongues of those who saw the car in all three countries we drove through on our winter holiday.