1990 1991 Honda Prelude Upper Intake Manifold on 2040-parts.com

Jaguar Land Rover in talks to buy Aston Martin

Talks have taken place between Tata – owners of Jaguar Land Rover – and the Kuwait Investment Dar – owners of Aston Martin. We reported a year ago that Aston Martin needed a big car maker behind it to have any chance of survival, and just last week the world caught up with that story as it was revealed the Kuwait Investment Dar – majority shareholder in Aston Martin – was seeking a buyer for Aston Martin. We said a year ago that Jaguar Land Rover was the best fit as a buyer for Aston Martin, but we doubted JLR would want to go back to being the poor relation to AML – as it was in the days of Ford’ ownership of the brands – where a Jag was a poor man’s Aston.

Vauxhall Mokka (2012) first official pictures

This is the Vauxhall Mokka, a B-segment SUV that will be revealed at the 2012 Geneva motor show this March.  So the Vauxhall Mokka isn’t a move into the hotly contested hot drinks market? Err, no. Instead it’s a Vauxhall (and Opel) version of the Buick Encore 4x4 that’s just been revealed at the 2012 North American International Auto Show.

Skoda Octavia vRS breaks 200 mph at Bonneville

Skoda Octavia vRS breaks 200mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats You can tell just how far Skoda has come from its days as makers of mobile skips when they can justify going out to play at the Bonneville Salt Flats with a Skoda Octavia vRS, just for the glow the outing will cast on its range. But they haven’t just gone to play, they’ve also achieved the quite remarkable feat of taking a modestly modified Octavia vRS to 202.15mph, which is going to do no harm whatsoever in drawing attention to the very appealing vRS cars in the Skoda range. To drag an extra 50mph plus out of Octavia vRS did necessitate a tweak or three, but nothing overly dramatic.