Thor 2901-5595 Pant S6 Phase Hyper Yl 30 on 2040-parts.com

Third annual World Automotive Design Competition

The third annual World Automotive Design Competition, sponsored by Alias, was hosted by the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto, Ontario, on February 12. Britain's Coventry School of Art and Design, and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China were the big winners, together garnering seven of the eight prizes. Ninety-four students from twenty design schools from China, Brazil, Japan, France, Korea, England, Wales, Italy, Spain, India, Sweden, the USA and Canada competed to win over US$140,000 in prizes.

Volkswagen XL1

This, remarkably, is the production version of the Volkswagen XL1, the most fuel-efficient production car in the world, a car we'll see in Geneva in a little over a week. Barely changed from the concept version shown at the Qatar motor show two years ago, the production XL1 is the first production result of VW's 1-liter project – to design a car that uses less than 1l/100km (282.5mpg imperial) – that started with the lozenge-shaped, tandem-seat 2003 1L and the later L1 of 2009. The XL1 actually beats that by sipping just 0.9 liters with CO2 emissions of 21g/km.

BMW-Toyota partnership may yield hybrid Z4, new Supra

The BMW-Toyota sports-car lash-up has been reported on for a couple of years now, but new information from a report in the U.K.'s Autocar sheds more light on the future of the BMW Z4 and what this year's Toyota FT-1 concept will ultimately herald. Like the current Z4, its predecessor and the Z3 before it, as well as every generation of Supra, the new platform will feature a front-mounted gasoline engine. From there, things look to be diverging wildly as technology marches forward.