Luk 17-065 New Clutch Set on 2040-parts.com

Exclusive: Honda to Close European Design Studios

In a surprise announcement, Honda has decided to close design operations in Europe, based in Germany. The decision to shut down both the car design and motorcycle design studios of Honda R&D Europe (HRE-G) in Offenbach, near Frankfurt was taken at the end of September and came as a shock announcement to employees. It represents the latest casualty in cuts for the car design community.

BMW M1 Hommage to show at Melbourne

[ad#ad-1] BMW has announced that it is going to use its M1 Hommage (or Homage, if you’re not German) as the centre piece of it’s stand at the Melbourne Motor Show in February. The BMW M1 Hommage was created last year to celebrate 30 years from the M1 road car creation in 1978, and was developed by BMW’s M Division. The M1 Hommage takes many styling cues from the original M1, such as the air vents on the bonnet, the louvres on the rear window and the round decals at the extremes of the wings, but makes a distinctly 21st century take on the original.

Mercedes-Benz scores double wins at German Design Council awards

Mercedes-Benz took home two design trophies from the 2014 German Design Council awards, winning Special Mentions for the 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-class and the Ener-G-Force concept vehicle. The German Design Council traces its history back decades, and every year dozens of experts evaluate more than a thousand entries, with just a fraction of them being automotive designs. This year 30 well-known design experts judged approximately 1900 submissions, assessing a variety of design elements in picking their top choices, and this year a duo of Mercedes-Benz vehicles won the praise of design gurus.