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Mercedes AMG engine guru to join VW

The man credited with development of Mercedes-Benz AMG's latest line of high performance gasoline engines, Friedrich Eichler, has been lured to the Volkswagen Group, where he will take up an as yet unspecified position this summer, sources with knowledge of the move tell Autoweek. Eichler, who joined AMG after working his way up through the ranks at Porsche, was instrumental in the development of AMG's naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8, twin-turbocharged and naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V8 and twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V12 that powers the Pagani Huayra. Friedrich Eichler also developed turbocharged four-cylinder engines for upcoming Mercedes AMG cars.

Nissan Celebrates 80 Years

Nissan held a little gathering at its Yokohama headquarters two nights before the Tokyo Motor Show opened to celebrate 80 years of building cars. It has been making them longer than any other Japanese manufacturer. CEO Carlos Ghosn, who can do everything except maybe juggle, addressed a crowd of several hundred executives, suppliers, car club members and even some media, giving his remarks in what sounded like pretty good Japanese.

Art installation moves 100,000 toy cars an hour

IT'S NO PICASSO, but this installation by conceptual artist Chris Burden certainly has the potential to be moving. Called Metropolis II, this amazing construction took Chris and his chief engineer four years to design and create and expands significantly on Metropolis I - the latest version has 18 roadways including one six-lane carriageway. It also has a rail network with HO-scale model trains, and running at capacity it pumps 100,000 cars around its network at a scale speed of 230mph.