1969 Mercedes 230 A/c Consule Switch Oe on 2040-parts.com

VW Polo R confirmed for 2013

VW Polo WRC makes the case for the 4WD VW Polo R We speculated a year ago that the Polo GTI wouldn’t be the top of the Polo tree, and that Volkswagon would roll out the VW Polo R in 2012, but perhaps with FWD instead of the 4WD its big brother, the Golf R, enjoys. But just a few months later it seemed clear that we would end up getting a 4WD Polo R at some point after Audi lost its bottle at the last minute and pulled the Audi S1 badge off a FWD A1, instead calling it the Audi A1 1.4 TFSI. That change of heart by Audi – saving the S1 badge for a quattro S1 – meant that a quattro platform would be developed for the S1, and as the A1 uses the Polo platform it meant a 4WD platform would be available for the Polo too.

Skoda CitiJet Concept revealed – heading for Worthersee

Skoda CitiJet Concept – created by students What you see in the Skoda CitiJet Concept (above) is what you get if you let 16 Skoda design students loose and tell them to take the CitiGo and turn it in to their ideal concept car. The Skoda CitiJet – which will be joining the SEAT Ibiza Cupster and Audi A3 Clubsport at Worthersee – took six months to create and gets its roof removed as well as its back seats – where there are roll-over bars instead – a rear wing twin exhausts and 16″ alloys with red brake calipers lurking beneath. Under the bonnet sits the regular 1.0 litre 3-cylinder petrol engine with 74 bhp you’ll find in the normal CitiGo, and the interior is lifter straight out of the CitiGo Sport so there’s red stitching to make everything look a bit more ‘sporty’, a leather steering wheel and Sport seats.

Crunch watch Jan 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard, Ben Pulman and Gareth Evans Motor Industry 30 January 2009 12:39 Friday 30 January 2009• Honda is about to close the Swindon factory for four months when Friday's shifts are finished; the shutdown will affect 2500 of the 3700 staff, who will receive full pay for two months and then 60% pay for the next eight weeks (BBC News)• Porsche has announced a sharp drop in sales and likely profits. It forecasts a 27% drop in 911, Boxster, Cayman and Cayenne sales to around 34,000 units in the six months to the end of January 2009 (Financial Times, subscription required)• Ford wants Washington to do more to stimulate car sales, after posting a record loss of nearly $14.6 billion earlier this week (Detroit News)• Honda's quarterly profit has crashed by 90% – forcing the Japanese car maker to halve its annual profit target (Detroit Free Press)Thursday 29 January 2009• Ford of Europe is a bright spot in the Blue Oval's quarterly results today, making $1.06 billion pre-tax profit in 2008 (up from $997m in 2007). It's the first profit of more than $1bn since 1989 (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Volvo suffered a 'disastrous 2008' with a pre-tax loss of $1.46bn.