Arctic Cat F1100 Turbo 09-16 Z1 Lxr Xf Procross Zr 9000 Front Plastic Nose Cone on 2040-parts.com

Fourth annual World Automotive Design Competition winners announced

The fourth annual World Automotive Design Competition was hosted by the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto, Ontario, on February 17. Students were asked to design a world car that has universal appeal. Christophe Charbault, a design student from the Ecole de design at the Universite de Montreal, won the first prize of US $10,000.

Citroen DS3 hits 200,000

The upmarket Citroen C3 – the very appealing Citroen DS3 – has hit the 200,000 production mark this week, a little over 2 years from launch. But we had to do a complete volte face when we finally had the new Citroen DS3 in for review – it’s an absolute cracker. In fact, so impressed were we with the DS3, we thought it probably the best car we’d had in during 2010, something Top Gear ended up agreeing with us on when they made it their car of 2010.

2013 Nissan LEAF updated

Nissan has updated the LEAF EV in Japan for 2013 with better range, less weight and a new LEAF S entry-level model. Revealed in Japan – but likely to come to the UK from 2013 when the LEAF starts rolling out of Nissan’s Sunderland factory – there are significant upgrades to the powertrain which result in both less weight and better range. Nissan has had a play with the electric powertrain and made it both smaller and lighter with a new motor that uses 40 per cent less dysprosium (a rare earth metal) than before, and comes in 30 per cent smaller and 10 per cent lighter, and a new streamline battery case and a few other tweaks drops the LEAF’s weight by 80kg.