Mercury Grand Marquis Front Left Door Speaker 1998-2002 on 2040-parts.com

Car Design News Contest 2008 Winners

It's been five months since the Car Design News Contest 2008 brief was first announced. And now, the last of our nine esteemed judges have completed their assessment of the 20 finalists. We are pleased to announce the winners in the professional and student designer categories, respectively: Jay Wen from New Zealand and Seyyed Javad Ghaffarian from Iran.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

2013 Skoda Superb Facelift revealed

The Skoda Superb has been given a facelift for 2013 with cosmetic tweaks and improved emissions and economy. Debuts at Shanghai Motor Show. The usual facelift fodder applies – for the hatch and estate – with new bumpers front and back with a new grill, lights, front wings and bonnet with a tidying up at the back and LED lights.