Arctiva Gear on 2040-parts.com

Renault buys Caterham out of the joint Alpine sports car venture

Renault buys Caterham out of the joint Alpine sports car venture It’s more than eighteen months since Renault and Caterham joined forces to create a new breed of sports cars around the Alpine brand. Renault say the arrangement is a mutual one and officially brings to an end the joint venture, and that the business will be renamed Société des Automobiles Alpine this month, although Renault aren’t excluding further ventures with Caterham in the future. The split means that the Alpine project will now be a purely Renault one, and Renault are planning to get their Alpine to market by 2016.

Ford Focus EV certified at 105 mpg-e by EPA

The Ford Focus electric is officially the country's most fuel-efficient five-passenger car. The Environmental Protection Agency certified the vehicle at 105 miles per gallon-equivalent (mpg-e) in the combined cycle of city and highway driving. Mpg-e is how the government measures the efficiency of alternative-fuel vehicles.

Dodge Viper takes Nurburgring Record – sort of

Dodge Viper - new Nurburgring record Back in 2008, the Dodge Viper ACR went to the Nurburgring and proved that cars built in the former Colonies really can go round bends, even bends at the ‘Green Hell’ of the Nurburgring. Not only could the Dodge Viper go round bends, but it made a pretty good fist of blasting down the straights too, culminating in a record-breaking lap of 7:22.1. But since 2008 things have moved on, with even a Lexus LFA posting a ‘Ring time of 7:14.64, so the SRT has returned to the Nordschleife to set about squeezing a bit more out of the Viper.