Yanmar Sd40 Sail Drive on 2040-parts.com

Aston Martin DB9 1M: Aston’s Facebook celebration

To mark reaching one million followers on Facebook, Aston Martin invited its fans to help design a car – the Aston Martin DB9 1M. Just like every other car maker, Aston Martin is beginning to embrace the web as perhaps the best way to get their message across and showcase their products. Yesterday we had Aston Martin trumpeting its website traffic on the back of the launch of the new Vanquish, and now we get an Aston designed with the help of Aston’s Facebook Fans.

The Jaguar F-Type's a closet Star Wars geek

Our friends over at Jalopnik are currently at Jaguar F-Type media event over in Seattle, where they had a chance to catch up with its design Wayne Burgess (check out our full interview with him here), who revealed some interesting sources of inspiration for some of its detailing. The first is a real easter egg - a detail that once you've discovered it you can't help but see - the front lamp cans are based on Star Wars' TIE Fighter. What has been seen can not be unseen.

Coventry University MA Degree Show 2006

MA students from UK's Coventry University Automotive Design course presented their annual MA degree exhibition earlier this month. The Show, entitled 'Icons', which this year revolved around the central theme of designing tomorrows automotive 'Icons', displayed the students' work at Coventry's Transport Museum. Patrick le Quement, Renault's senior vice president of Corporate Design presented the Corus Award for 'Best Vehicle Design', which was awarded to Dev O'Nion who won for his design concept 'Apto Sapor.' O'Nion's project - an interior design concept - was inspired by organic themes in nature - what he called 'Natural Design' - to create a harmonious interior; a blend of the natural, biological and technical.