Ford agrees to sell Aston Martin

Ford Motor Company announced this week it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Aston Martin, its prestigious UK sports car business. The new owner of Aston Martin is a consortium comprised of: David Richards, founder and chairman of Prodrive, a world-leading motorsport and automotive technology company; John Sinders, an avid Aston Martin collector and a backer of Aston Martin Racing; and Investment Dar and Adeem Investment Co, international investment companies headquartered in Kuwait. The sale is expected to close during the second quarter and the transaction values Aston Martin at GBP 479 million ($925 million). As part of the transaction, Ford will retain a GBP 40 million ($77 million) investment in Aston Martin.

Honda petitioned to bring Civic Type-R Turbo stateside

Change.org is a website that helps users make petitions. Taking a quick tour, we spot petitions to free prisoners, plenty of social justice-type petitions, and then there are the ones from car guys. We’re not saying the petition to “Bring the 2015 Honda Civic Type-R VTEC Turbo to North America” isn’t world-changing.

Volkswagen GTI Roadster for Gran Turismo uncovered – gets 496 bhp

The Volkswagen GTI Roadster (pictured) is uncovered We revealed last week that VW were making their GTI Roadster from the Gran Turismo game in to a real car for the Worthersee show, and they have. Blurring the lines between the real and the virtual (which is the way all our lives are going) Volkswagen has taken the opportunity to build a real life GTI Roadster – without the constraints of a concept heading for production – and has come up with a tw-seater open roadster that has some design cues from the Golf but is shorter and a lot lower. Those deign cues extend to a a front end that looks like a squashed GTI with its headlights and grill on show with big air intakes, all of which conspires to make the GTI Roadster look even lower, emaner and wider than it is.