Bendix 33734 Rear Wheel Cylinder on 2040-parts.com

Art Center Summit 2009

The Art Center Summit, now in its third year, has finally seen the rest of the world catch up with its preoccupations. Initially conceived in 2006-07 to bring government, academic, and business leaders to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, to discuss issues related to mobility and sustainability, the summit has benefited from the financial turmoil that has recently gripped the world. Previously, the event was highly speculative and appealed mainly to designers working in the advanced mobility community; this year, the summit occurred against a backdrop of meltdown in the US auto industry, chaos in the global financial sector, and a growing realization - supported by the incoming Obama administration - that energy and transportation policy will form a key part of a Green future.

Pink Rolls Royce FAB 1 actually has a pink vinyl ‘Wrap’

But it seems Rolls Royce must have thought much the same, as it turns out that the impressive paint job isn’t actually that at all, but a pink vinyl wrap provided – free of charge – by car vinyl wrap experts Raccoon. Raccoon chose a gloss laminated film to wrap the Ghost to make sure it looked as indistinguishable as possible from a bespoke paint job, and it worked. No one has noticed the pinks Rolls Royce doesn’t have a custom paint job and that’s down to Raccoon taking extreme care to carefully wrap not just the outside panels, but also stuff like door sills and any areas that might otherwise give the game away.

Concept Car of the Week: Ford Synergy 2010 (1996)

In the early 1990s, the US government instigated the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles research program (PNGV). This brought Ford, GM and Chrysler together to collaborate in developing cars that could achieve up to 80mpg, and be ready to market by 2003. While working on the PNGV, in 1996 Ford introduced the Synergy 2010, featuring the firm's 'New Edge' design that debuted a year earlier with the GT90 concept.