1982 Kawasaki Kz1100 Kz1100a2 Final Drive/oem on 2040-parts.com

Aston Martin drops Cygnet city car

Autocar is reporting that the diminutive Aston Martin Cygnet has been dropped from the company’s portfolio. The automaker, now owned by Prodrive and private equity firm Invenstindustrial, will focus on its “core product range,” also known as “good cars.” Autocar posits that the justification for the Cygnet was to continue producing V8 and V12 cars, while keeping its average CO2 emissions down. The Cygnet shared bones with the Toyota iQ city car and used a 97-hp, 1.3-liter engine and got 58.9 mpg using the U.S.

EV maker Coda trims staff

Not much more could go wrong for electric-car maker Coda, which has struggled to sell its four-door EV in the United States since officially launching it here in March. But Web reports, first seen at www.plugincars.com, say the company laid off 50 employees, or 15 percent of its workforce, last week, mostly in the sales and marketing departments. Efforts by Autoweek to contact Coda have not been successful.

Red-hot VW Golf R400 is headed for production

If you thought the Volkswagen Golf R400 concept displayed at the Beijing auto show seemed suspiciously like a real product -- you know, one you'll someday be able to buy rather than something trotted out to tease the world's enthusiasts -- you were on to something. VW says a production version of the car is in the works. We should clarify: We didn't get confirmation of that, exactly.