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Tomorrow’s world: future petrol engine tech news

By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 28 September 2009 14:15 Petrol engines are changing dramatically. You’ll have heard of the phrase 'downsizing' and most major manufacturers are shrinking their regular gasoline engines to trim emissions and fuel consumption – while employing new tech to keep up the horsepower and torque outputs. This is the holy grail for engineers: maintain the power and performance of the existing big capacity engines we’ve become wedded to, but in a smaller, more economical package.

Skoda Fabia and Roomster: the 2010 facelifts

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 25 February 2010 23:05 Skoda's big news at the 2010 Geneva motor show is a brace of facelifts: the Fabia and Roomster duo both receive a cosmetic makeover, new engines and a smattering of fresh tech to keep mpg up and emissions down.As these first pictures confirm, this is a modest facelift. The massaged radiator grille and reprofiled, wider headlamps are the most obvious changes, but there's also a looping detail line on the bonnet that swoops down to encircle the badge, reminding us of the hood on the latest BMW 5-series.The changes are also rolled out to the muddy-puddles Scout models. And what's all this about a new Fabia vRS hot hatch?Ah yes.

Volkswagen to buy Italdesign-Giugiaro

Italdesign-Giugiaro S.p.A could soon become another group under the Volkswagen AG umbrella, according to Automotive News Europe. The industry publication cites two sources that claim the German company is set to buy a controlling stake in Italy's largest design and engineering firm, a deal which could be clinched as early as next week. Founded by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani in 1968, Italdesign-Giugiaro currently has 975 employees and 800 CAD workstations.