Motec Traction Control Multiplexer (tcmux) on 2040-parts.com

Back to basics for VW, says Walter de Silva

By Adam Towler Motor Industry 25 June 2008 13:01 It was an odd place for an inside line into what future Volkswagens will look like, but when head of VW Group design Walter de Silva invited CAR to the old Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin - now a conference and shopping centre – we could hardly say no. De Silva described VW as being immersed in a 'process of defining their design language' which could be read as ‘we’re still sucking our designer thumbs to see what happens’. Audi, De Silva said, had already been through that process and its design DNA was ‘understood by everyone in the company, right down to the smallest details'.

Driven: Hyundai i40

CDN recently spent a day sampling Hyundai’s new i40 Tourer, which has just been launched in Europe. For the launch, Hyundai invited us to Waddesdon Manor, the home of the Rothschild banking family and a venue that has been used for previous Louis Vuitton events. It has recently added a new art gallery with fabulous views across rolling countryside, and contains work by Anish Kapoor, Michael Craig-Martin and bronzes by Angus Fairhurst.

One Lap of the Web: Janky Jettaminos, scary supercars and a two-wheeled tour of the Packard plant

-- Our friend Corbin is back! And he's got an even more terrifying car this time: the Jettamino, a Volkswagen Jetta diesel with the structural stability of a pool noodle and the hipster styling of an LCD Soundsystem reunion tour on wheels. (Fabric wheelarches have never been done before, for good reason.) Somehow, Corbin suckered his friend David into chopping off the roof.