You can now add diamonds to the growing list of ostentatious and extravagant finishes being applied to cars these days. Longtime Porsche tuner Gemballa has announced a new automotive finish that literally uses diamonds to create its million-dollar sparkle. Funk Flex
Auto Talk: Honda projects 30 percent of motorcycle sales to come from India by 2020
Honda recently released its financial report for the the manufacturer’s motorcycle division. Not surprisingly, two-wheel-friendly Asia accounted for a lofty 79 percent of the company’s total sales in 2011. The entirety of North America, meanwhile, soaked up just 1.6 percent of the brand’s total volume last year. What’s more, Honda fully intends to expand its operations in the blooming Indian market. Until last year, Honda worked with Hero MotorCorp to sell its bikes in India. With the two entities officially split, the Japanese company reports it expects to see somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent of its sales come from the Indian market by 2020. Funk Flex
(Video) Auto Talk: Man creates DIY Lexus LS 400 convertible with Sawzall
We love four-door convertibles, reciprocating saws and watching other people make bad decisions, so the video seen here is a bit like our perfect YouTube cocktail. In it, the owner of a slammed Lexus LS decides he’s had enough of living under the oppressive shadow of his sedan’s roof. While at StanceWars Belgium 2012, he decides to fire up a generator, plug in his trusty sawzall and go to town. Not surprisingly, the sheetmetal on the roof gives up quickly, and the whole extraction takes less than eight minutes from start to finish. Funk Flex
Auto Talk: Dacia rolls out Dokker vanlet in Casablanca
Morocco may not be a place that often pops up on the radar of the international automotive industry, unless it’s about al-Qaeda threats on the route of the Dakar rally. So you’d be forgiven for discounting the Casablanca Auto Show as largely irrelevant, but that’s the location Renault chose to unveil its latest utilitarian model. Funk Flex
Auto Talk: Nissan announces production of funky e-NV200 electric van
There are two directions automakers can go to produce a vehicle with electric propulsion – be it a hybrid or an outright EV: make it look the same as any other car, or make it stand out. Like Toyota (for example) did with the Prius, Nissan made the Leaf look (for better or worse) unlike a conventional sedan. But while Toyota answered the call for more space with the equally “distinctive” Prius V, Nissan has gone a different route in producing a bigger brother for the Leaf. Funk Flex
Auto Talk: Mercedes-Benz S-Class ain’t no bag lady
We’ve seen weirder camouflage. But despite the fact that this next-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class prototype looks like it drove through a garbage bag warehouse, we now have a very clear glimpse at some of the new car’s details – namely, the shapely front fascia. Funk Flex
