Acdelco 214-1345 Egr Valve Gasket on 2040-parts.com

BMW X7 SUV confirmed to top BMW’s X Range

The BMW X5 Plug-in Hybrid will be built at Spartanburg along with the new BMW X7 The idea for BMW to build an SUV bigger than the X5 was put on ice when the world’s economy went in to meltdown in 2008, but the idea of a range-topping BMW X7 was back on the cards as long ago as 2010. Now, four years on, BMW has confirmed that they are planning an X7, that it will be built at their Spartanburg Plant in South Carolina and that it will arrive in 2017 or 2018. BMW aren’t prepared to divulge what platform the X7 will use, but it looks likely it will arrive on a revised version of the platform used for the next generation BMW 7-Series, a platform that will likely also be utilised for the new Rolls Royce SUV when that arrives, with the announcement of the X7 making a Rolls Royce SUV even more likely.

Porsche acquires Nardo Test Track as its new playground

Porsche Nardo Test Track (map from Google Earth) The enormous Nardo Test Track near Lecce, Italy, has been acquired by Porsche as a new testing ground. Top Gear viewers will probably remember the opening episode if the last series of Top Gear (series 18) with the Lamborghini, McLaren and Noble in Italy or, more specifically, in the Lecce region of Italy which nestles in the warmth of Italy’s heel. The Lecce region also houses the Nardo Test Track which is where the boys took their supercars to hammer round the slightly bumpy outer oval seeking top speed.

One Lap of the Web: Toyota in the Motor City, GPS-enabled headlamps and a mobile Fiat shop

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- From Bring a Trailer, it's a 1966 Fiat Furgone panel van equipped as a mobile workshop.