Kawasaku X2 Jetski Covercraft Xw806ul on 2040-parts.com

Could Michelin’s Active Wheel truly transform the car?

Cars today have evolved and been refined to an extraordinary degree, but carmakers – and car designers – are still always looking for ‘the next big thing'. Yet despite a myriad of recent technical innovations, ask the man on the street what is the problem with cars of today, and he'll likely reply along the lines of "they all look the same". Mass production processes, packaging requirements and safety and regulatory constraints are just a few of the reasons why it is hard to make a car that looks truly different.

2011 BMW 6 Series Convertible: First photo

First photo of the 2011 BMW 6 Series Convertible We got the reveal of the BMW 6-Series Concept at the Paris Motor Show last week (well, the car BMW are calling the 6-Series Concept. If you believe that) and as far as we can work out, BMW has a very small window to make the 6-Series ‘Concept’ in to a production car. Our sources tell us it’s due to go in to production in March 2011 – that’s just five months away.

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.