Volkswagen of America, Inc. has created a series of humorous and informative webisodes starring Saturday Night Live comedian Bill Hader paired with trained Volkswagen product specialist, Danielle Gumro, and SNL writer John Mulaney.  The series, titled ‘Inside the VW Academy,’ shows the duo weaving together useful and hard-hitting product features in a compelling and entertaining way.

MINI is expanding its cooperation with Red Bull by becoming a partner of Red Bull Crashed Ice, where groups of four athletes on ice skates plunge down an ice cross downhill track some five metres wide and peppered with bumps, jumps and banked turns. This innovative and—in every sense—cool winter sports events comprises four events. The races take place on an artificial ice cross downhill track specially created for each event and extending to around 350 metres in length. As in 2010, the venue for the season opener on 15 January 2011 is the Olympiapark in Munich.

Adopting the idea employed by another player on the auto market, Honda Jazz, MINI Canada offers its fans to stuff all of their friends into just one vehicle. The brand is encouraging Facebook users to gather all their online buddies and see how many of them can fit into MINI Countryman model. The more people you manage to invite to get into the car, the higher is the chance of winning the vehicle.

Usually hitchhikers are not very picky about cars of what brands to travel by. Stefan Gbureck, Berlin-based emerging street photographer, performance artist and an ex-Hugo Boss-model, is different. Ten days ago, on November 30, the creative mind launched adventurous expedition ‘Tramp a Benz’ by going on a road trip to the south with Mercedes-Benz exclusively. He has also started his travelling photo blog for everyone interested to follow his unprecedented journey from German capital to where the destiny will take him.

Porsche teamed up with Designboom to launch a competition for those who “have an abundance of imagination, a passion for cars and a resourcefulness to achieve amazing and unexpected results” in developing patterns for the Porsche Cayman model range. The entrants are encouraged to unveil both repeating and non-repeating original designs, which will be featured on both sides, back, front as well as on the roof of the sports cars.