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Ugly Moto makes beautiful motorcycle art [w/video]

Ugly Moto is a horrible name for a company that makes such wonderful motorcycle art. The creation of artist Francis Ooi, the company's illustrations focus on some of the iconic racing bikes of the 1960s and 1970s.
The artwork has an elegant simplicity that really makes it pop. It would fit just about anywhere from a home office to the bedroom of a young gearhead. Ooi has completed six illustrations so far covering classic cycles from Honda, Ducati, Yamaha and even Harley-Davidson. According to his site, the Suzuki RGB500 ridden by Barry Sheene will be the next one released. All of the prints are priced at $65 and are limited to 100 copies. They are all about 16.53 inches by 23.58 inches in size.
According to his website, these prints are just a hobby for Ooi and his real career is as the creative director at an ad agency. He creates the illustrations on his Mac, and he estimates that each design with about 800 components and layers takes about a month to complete. You can get idea of the process involved in the time-lapse video below.

2014 Honda Civic priced from $18,190*, new CVT boosts city mpg

For the third consecutive model year, Honda has given its Civic lineup some substantial improvements, and with the 2014 Civic Coupe and Sedan going on sale this week, the automaker has released pricing and fuel economy numbers for its gas and non-Si models. Honda has not released any images of the 2014 Civic Sedan yet, but we got our first look at the updated Coupe last month at SEMA.
Aside from styling changes introduced on the 2013 Sedan being carried over to the 2014 Coupe, the biggest update to all 2014 Civics might be the addition of the continuously variable transmission (CVT). Fuel economy figures carry over for cars with the manual transmission, but models swapping the previous five-speed automatic for the new CVT are seeing a boost in city fuel economy by 2 mpg helping the Civic max out at 31 mpg city for the fuel-miser HF trim level.
In terms of pricing, the 2014 Civic is getting a modest price hike of $225 for the base LX models, which now start at $18,190* for the Coupe and $18,390* for the Sedan (*not including $790 for destination charges). The sedan-only HF trim level is up $175, there's a $275 price increase for the EX and EX-L Coupe and EX Sedan models and an extra $475 has been tacked on to the EX-L Sedan.

It turns out Takata isn't willing to expand airbag recall nationally after all

There have been "approximately 0.000006 failures per air bag deployment, which is far below the failure rate" of most recalls, Takata claims. Takata has seemingly made an about face following reports that it would expand its regional airbag recall into a nationwide repair effort, issuing a scathing, four-page letter rebutting allegations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its Office of Defects while simultaneously attacking the government's handling of the situation. The Japanese supplier claims in its letter that the "currently available, reliable information does not support a nationwide determination of a safety defect," arguing that there were "approximately 0.000006 failures per air bag deployment, which is far below the failure rate in the vast majority of the thousands of recalls," The Detroit News reports. Takata then breaks down the two specific incidents mentioned in NHTSA's original recall request letter, a 2005 Honda Accord and 2007 Ford Mustang. Referencing the two crashes, NHTSA Administrator David Friedman said last month "one incident is an anomaly, but two are a trend." The supplier, though, argues the Honda issue is already being covered by that company's soon-to-be-national recall (more on that in a moment). The company then goes on to point out that neither Takata nor NHTSA has been able to analyze the Mustang's airbag inflator, saying that such a lack of examination meant there was "no way to ascertain what actually occurred during the incident, whether any inflator ruptured, and whether any inflator rupture that may have occurred was related to the incidents that led to the current regional campaigns." Takata alleges that NHTSA has disobeyed its own statutes. Takata also took the opportunity to take a few swipes at NHTSA's behavior during the airbag scandal, saying it was "very surprised to receive" a recall request letter because the ODI had yet to even receive the company's responses to a pair of special orders. It also alleged that NHTSA was disobeying its own statute, which says only manufacturers of vehicles and replacement equipment can "decide in good faith whether their products contain a safety related defect," and that the government can only "issue an initial decision that a safety-related defect exists" to those same entities.