New Land Rover Discovery gets ‘see through’ bonnet. No, it’s not an April fool (video)

The ‘See Through’ bonnet on the new Land Rover discovery The idea that the new Land Rover Discovery family – which we’ll get a first look at in New York this month – will come with a see-through bonnet does seem like it’s a story we should have run on 1st April. But it’s not. In fact, the Transparent Bonnet virtual imaging Concept is an augmented reality view of what’s ahead when you’re off-road, so you have full visibility of what’s ahead and below the car.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Ford Ranger (2012) Revealed

The 2012 Ford Ranger launches in Australia The Ford Ranger is one of those strange hybrid vehicles. No, not hybrid in the sense of a mixed power sources for the oily bits, but in the sense that it’s really neither fish nor foul; neither a commercial truck nor a private car. What the Ford Ranger is is a pick-up.