08 Aston Martin Vantage V8 Right Hand Side Speaker 6g33-18808-ma on 2040-parts.com

Toyota and Mercedes-Benz are top global car brands

Toyota & Mercedes-Benz are the Top Global Automotive Brands 2011 Interbrand, a branding consultancy, delivers a report on the world’s brands every year, and in 2011, despite recall woes and the devastation of the Japanese Tsunami, Toyota leads the automotive brands, with luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz just behind. Interbrand uses three measures to gauge how effective a brand is – performance of branded product, the brands ability to secure earnings and the role of the brand in purchasing decisions – to come up with a chart of the top 100 world brands. At the top of the tree are companies like Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft and Google, but car brands do well with Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, VW, and Ford all making it in to the top 50.

Geneva motor show: 2010 Saab 9-3x crossover debuts

At next month's Geneva motor show, Saab looks to provide a right-sized crossover with the introduction of the 2010 9-3X. Beginning with a 9-3 SportCombi wagon, Saab engineers raise ride height by 1.4 inches, add the XWD all-wheel-drive system that we first saw on the Turbo X and pump up the exterior styling. According to Saab, the 9-3X provides customers with the perfect alternative to large crossovers and SUVs, while offering respectable utility and off-road capabilities.

New Datsun makes its first appearance

The first new Datsun in a generation )pictured) will be revealed on July 15th As we reported in 2012 Nissan, having spent countless hundreds of millions replacing the Datsun name with Nissan on its cars a generation ago, decided to revive the Datsun brand for a new range of affordable cars for emerging markets. It looks like the new Datsun – codenamed K2 – will be a mix of the current and last generation Micra with new styling and pitched at around £3500 when it launches in the Indian car market. With the same – but de-tuned – 1.2 litre petrol engine as the Micra, the new Datsun is aimed at cars like the Indian market Hyundai i10 and Maruti, and sales are expected to start in early 2014.