The name alligator is an anglicized form of the Spanish “el lagarto”, meaning “the lizard”, a name which early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida called the alligator. Currently, there are only two living alligator species: the American Alligator and the Chinese Alligator. Until now.

According to Car magazine, under a Project named Alligator, Aston Martin & Mercedes Benz are planing a wide-ranging tie-up to collaborate on engines, hybrids, transmissions and even entire platforms.

Here are the highlights of the so called Alligator project:

- Mercedes engines power future Aston Martins
- AMG’s 6.3 liter V8 would make its way into the Vantage models
- Diesels and Hybrids from Mercedes would be used in Astons
- Whole platforms to be shared by top-end models
- 8 speed automatic tranny for AM sports cars
- Maybach and Aston would be cooperating on future models

There is more info coming in CAR magazine’s September issue. For now however, we’ll just have patience and wait for more details on the Alligator Project.

As you may know, British Automotive show TopGear is back and in full swing for their 11th season already. And to show that they are still “in touch with the needs of the people” they felt the need to give advice on fuel economy and saving money. (That and apparently the BBC is sending them letters and letters and letters). And in true Jeremy Clarkson style, he decided to gather 5 supercars and have a race. But it wouldn’t be an ordinary race, oh no. It had to have that Topgear / Jeremy Clarkson touch.

The 5 cars in the race, the Mercedes SLR Mclaren, the Lamborghini Murcielago, the Aston Martin DBS, the Ferrari 599GTB, and the Audi R8 would only have 1 gallon of gas each. They raced around their TopGear Test Track until the winner was decided.

While we couldn’t link straight to the video, as the BBC would eventually come knocking down our AutoAlerts tower for copyright infringement, I’m sure you can find the results rather easily by heading over to your favorite video site and searching for the appropriate terms. Here’s some search terms we suggest: TopGear, 11, Supercar Economy Test.

We will give away a little of the result though. As Clarkson said: its not what you drive, its how you drive it.

Like a family crest, most Automotive emblems actually represent something important to their maker. Whether it be something historically important for the founder, ideals the brand strives towards, or a testament to someone’s ego, the symbol of each company has a history.

We stumbled across this encyclopedia of sorts that has cataloged the origins and meanings for almost every one of the worlds major automakers, and we must say, it’s pretty darn interesting. For instance Chevy’s logo has come about from…

…Popular legend has it that the Chevrolet logo was inspired by wallpaper in a French hotel where William C. Durant was staying (the legend says he saw the pattern marching off into infinity as a design on the wallpaper and tore a piece of it off to keep to show to friends and later turn into the company logo). However, his wife says that the bowtie emblem was first seen by her husband in a Virginia newspaper on a vacation around 1912, upon which he told her that the thought it’d be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet (per Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine, October 1986).

Or, Smart’s logo…..Apart from the Smart name (all lowercase), the Smart logo features a ‘C’ for ‘Compact’, and an arrow for ‘forward thinking’.

Cool Stuff, I Swear!

Take a look at the full list here.

Filming a sequence that’s believed to be the climax of a chase scene for the brand new James Bond film “Quantum of Solace,” the one and only Daniel Craig and the rest of the Bond crew deliberately crashed an Aston Martin DBS into an Italian quarry.

That crash is believed to conclude a 15-minute chase scene in which Bond is pursued through the Italian Alps by bad guys in Alfa Romeos. All of the previous inadvertent crashes, the degree to which the Aston appears destroyed in these photos and the elaborate filming taking place at dramatic locations across Italy point to this chase sequence being quite the doozy. Head on over to MI6.co.uk for the full scoop.

Perhaps to be filed under “Loonraker”, a stunt driver was on his way to deliver the £120,000 Aston Martin DBS sportscar to the set of “Quantum of Solace” when he drove the car off a narrow bend in heavy rain, producers said.

Italian television showed the car – reportedly the only one available for the film – being fished from the lake after the accident in the early hours of Saturday morning.

While the car was a quantum of sogginess, the driver managed to escape a water-soaked fate with only minor cuts and bruises. We’re thinking it’s almost ok to lose such a car while following the script in front of the camera and crew, but a tad bit less acceptable when you’re just trying to deliver the car to the set.

Oh, and for the Aston, it was fished out of the lake, to Dry Another Day….