Toyota Crown 1999 Throttle Body [8020300] on 2040-parts.com

Volkswagen Woofwagen – There’s a dog for every VW (video)

There’s a dog for every Volkswagen Instead of focusing on marketing just one car in its enormous range, Volkswagen UK has decided to go mad and produce one video advert for its entire line-up. Sensibly, VW has used a simple mechanism to make sure the advert gets the attention of British car buyers by using 36 different dogs to identify with the over 20 car VW model range (and it’s not the first time VW has used a lot of dogs to promote their cars). With getting on for half of all UK households owning at least one dog, it’s a simple way to get attention from viewers along with lots of ‘Aaahs’ and ‘that one looks just like ours’ to keep attention to the end of the sales pitch.

L’argus Student Competition 2009

French magazine L'argus de l'automobile has announced the winners of its seventh Student Competition Awards, themed ‘Automobile Design for Social Utility'. Open to students studying design within the European Union and Switzerland, the competition culminated at a recent awards ceremony at the Eiffel Tower. The first prize of €3000 and an internship at Renault's Technocentre in Guyancourt (near Paris) went to Damien Grossemy, Thibaut Dereymacker and Maxime Dimarco from the Institut Supérieur de Design in Valenciennes, France.

China automaker Brilliance halts Europe exports, executives say

Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd., BMW AG's partner in China, has halted its car exports to Europe after its BS4 and BS6 sedan met with a cool reception, and there is no timetable for a resumption, senior executives said on Thursday. The head of Brilliance's former importer for Europe, Hans-Ulrich Sachs, told Automotive News Europe in March that another reason the automaker struggled is because it refused to lower the starting prices on the BS6 and BS4. "They didn't want to lose any money per car," said Sachs, the former boss of the now dissolved import company HSO Motors Europe.