Winners named in teen-safety video contest

Sometimes, the best way to get a teen's attention is to let another teen do the talking. Especially when it involves a subject such as driver safety, which many teens tend to tune out as just another lecture from parents. Tire maker Bridgestone Americas adopted the teens-talking-to-teens philosophy in 2006 with its Safety Scholars video contest.

Nissan hires Magna Steyr to build new entry-level Infiniti car

Nissan said Thursday that Austrian contract manufacturer Magna Steyr will build a new premium compact car for the Infiniti brand, starting in 2014. Infiniti boss Andy Palmer said in a statement that the car will help the brand to reach new consumers and grow in key markets such as western Europe. Nissan did not give any more details about the car or say whether it will be sold in markets outside Europe such as the United States.

'American Nitro' is back!

"Seventies drag-race mayhem is back!" bills "American Nitro," a schlocky drive-in exploitation film whose only quote of praise, from a dog-eared period issue of "Car Craft," reads, simply, "SPECTACULAR CRASHES!" Director Bill Kimberlin says that he made "American Nitro" in 1979 as a response to Tom Wolfe's influential 1965 essay, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." "I was just getting out of high school in a small town in Northern California when Wolfe's book came out," he said. "Nitro came about as my response to the car culture I was exposed to in the small valley town of Boonville, Calif. Instead of 'American Graffiti,' I made 'American Nitro.'" A fitting comparison, in fact, considering Kimberlin later worked for George Lucas at ILM, starting with" Return of the Jedi." Now the movie is being released on DVD for the first time -- beware of bootlegs, warns the website -- and digitally remastered, while retaining the explosive charm and goofy narration of the 1979 original.