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Formula 1 2012: The Cars [w/video]

Nine of the 12 Formula 1 teams have released images and details of their cars for the 2012 World Championship as the first day of pre-season testing draws to a close at the Jerez circuit in Spain. Motor sport may fall slightly outside of Car Design News' usual remit, but the big story this year is the new 'stepped nose', which all teams bar McLaren have introduced to comply with new safety regulations, much to the chagrin of aestheticists. And with designers such as Daniel Simon (he produced the livery for HRT last season) and Peter Stevens (most notable for the Brabham cars of the 1980s) involved with the sport over the years, it's always interesting to check out the season's new machines.

Oh, puh-leeze: Lighten up, people

Rarely do I come to the defense of a competitive member of the fourth estate, but the people at Car and Driver are getting the hooey knocked out of them by everyone from "professional media representatives" to the NASCAR faithful. What was CD's egregious sin? Its editors concocted an April Fool's joke with them good ol' boys Chrysler and General Motors as its punchline.

New smart fortwo electric drive enters production

Mercedes has announced that the third generation 2012 smart fortwo electric drive has gone in to production. Mercedes may, very sensibly, be pursuing hydrogen fuel cells as the real future of motoring but they still have an eye on electric cars as urban runarounds. That urban EV takes shape as the Smart EV, and the third generation smart fortwo ED (electric drive) debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in March and has now gone in to production.