Better Boards Ski-doo Zx Chassis on 2040-parts.com

CDR Insight Quarterly – Q1 2013

Car Design Research Insight Quarterly – Q1 2013 Independent consultancy, Car Design Research's 'Insight Quarterly' looks at the latest trends in the automotive design world and beyond, four times each year. Currently distributed to a handful of their design contacts in the industry, we'll be running these quarterlies to highlight the latest trends and insights from a firm who work regularly and closely with the design groups of many major OEMs. In this year's first Insight Quarterly, the team highlight the notion of 'designing for export'.

Top Gear in U.A.E. – with Supercars!

The Top Gear Crew in UAE with an LP670-4 SV, Veyron, SLR 722 and McLaren F1 The whole Top Gear crew – including His Stigness the White Stig – have been spotted out playing in the United Arab Emirates with what looks like a mouth-watering selection of cars at their disposal. Which rather seems to suggest that the budget for the new series is not quite as small as we’d feared! So what’s on offer on this jaunt?

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.