Arias Pistons 12.5:1 Compression 82mm Bore Honda B-series on 2040-parts.com

Seat at the Paris motor show 2008

By Ben Whitworth Motor Shows 02 October 2008 15:12 Seat wheeled out its feisty new Ibiza Cupra – all 180bhp of it – and followed it up by its new old A4-based Exeo, and topped off its show with its ultra-clean Ibiza Ecomotive.  Penned by ex-Lamborghini designer Luc Donkerwolcke, the Cupra is the first Ibiza that we’ve really warmed to. On its chunky 17-inch alloys, aggressive body kit and go-faster details, it looks far closer to the Bocanegra concept we saw in Geneva at the start of the year. And that’s a good thing.

Toyota: Runaway Prius accounts ‘inconsistent' with testing

Toyota is challenging the accounts of a motorist whose Prius sped out of control last week in San Diego, calling his reports of the incident “inconsistent” with the initial findings of the company. Toyota released the results after two days of testing on a 2008 Prius hybrid that sped out of control last week in California, and it maintained that the car's brakes and throttle functioned properly. The now-infamous incident occurred on March 8, when a Prius driven by James Sikes was reported in a 911 call to be speeding uncontrollably.

Grab a ‘VAT Free’ Skoda Octavia

In yet another ‘Sign of the times’ Skoda has announced that they are now offering ‘VAT Free Octavias’ until the end of the year. No, this is not a tie-up between Alistair Darling and VW, it’s just Skoda’s way of offering a headline price decrease of a bit over 13% (less expensive to Skoda than last week for the same headline, to be fair, and there is a new model due in January!). Grab a VAT free Skoda Octavia I’m pretty sure that there will be a raft of these ‘VAT Free’ offers floating around on everything from cars to washing machines, capitalising on the fact the VAT is in the headlines.