442 Lg Shirt Olds Muscle Car on 2040-parts.com

MINI celebrates 100 years of car production in Oxford

MINI will be celebrating a century of car production in Oxford on 28th March 2013, 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford was produced. It’s 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford rolled out on 28th March 1903, since when 11,655,000 cars have been built – with as many as 28,000 people employed in its heyday – and even Tiger Moth planes and Iron Lungs built alongside 80,000 repairs to Spitfires and Hurricanes during WWII. What is now MINI’s Plant Oxford was founded by William Morris – and Morris Motors kept control until 1952 – and has been owned and run by BMC, then British Motor Holdings (when Jaguar arrived), British Leyland (when Leyland Trucks, Triumph and Rover joined), nationalisation in the 1970s saw a variety of names, Rover Group arrived in 1986 and was subsequently privatised and sold in 1994 to BMW.

2012 Mercedes A-Class revealed in patent filings

The slightly drab 2012 Mercedes A-Class Car makers must hate filing for patents on new cars, because it means trusting images of their new and secret car to a third party. Basic images, admittedly, but the real-deal nonetheless. So Mercedes must be spitting feathers today as the images they sent with their patent applications on the 2012 A-Class leak out of every open window, door and PC and straight on to the interweb.

New Range Rover Sport races a Spitfire on the Goodwood Airfield (video)

The new Range Rover Sport takes on the iconic Spitfire (pictured) in a race at Goodwood They may have stolen the idea from Top Gear, but Land Rover has taken up a challenge from FortyOneSix.com to turn up at the Goodwood Airfield with a new Range Rover Sport and take on a WWII Spitfire on the Goodwood Airfield. As the Goodwood Airfield is a grass strip, it’s a proper test of the new Range Rover Sport’s ability to get away on slippery surfaces and the Spitfire provides a worthy challenger with its 1750bhp V12 Merlin engine offering a 400mph performance in the air and over 80mph at take-off. The Vickers Submarine Spitfire was piloted by Matt Jones from the Boultbee Flight Academy and the RRS by Mike Cross, so there was no doubting the abilities of both to get the best out of their charges.