I’ve come across some crafty ideas from the automotive world, visualized in Photoshop, 3D, and sheetmetal:

• BMW tweaks nature to demonstrate why they don’t do front wheel drive.
• Volkswagen drives home their power-to-weight ratio in this series of GTI ads (see larger).
• Vive le blur: Recent design school grad Ian Hart created some rather excellent Ford Mustang ads as a student project. He writes, “Constructed from GE Lexan EXL semi-transparent resin, the billboard accurately blurs the scene behind it regardless of day, weather or season.” [Via]
• Peugeot & Microsoft challenged designers to devise cars of the future, and you can see a gallery of the winners here.  Peugeot will build the winning entry as a full-scale concept car, and MSFT will feature a drivable version of the car in one of its Xbox 360 games.
• No Photoshop necessary: Automotive artist Billy Gibbons (aka one of the bearded dudes from ZZ Top) has created the weirdly wonderful Bus Ball [Via].  It reminds me in some way of Heatherwick Studio’s groovy rolling bridge (video).