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

2013 Range Rover: Configurator live & new video

The online configurator for the new Range Rover has gone live, and we have the first official video too. This week saw the reveal of full details on the 2013 Range Rover, and it’s certainly looking set to move the Range Rover to a new level, ten years after the last model arrived. Now we have online a 2013 Range Rover configurator, allowing you to explore all the options available at launch for the new RR.

New Honda Civic Black Edition launches

New Honda Civic Black Edition launches The Honda Civic in normal guise – as opposed to the Type R – might not be the most inspiring car on the market, but it offers a convincing package nonetheless of great quality and decent looks and, in the latest Civic, better ride and better handling. As a Ford Focus and VW Golf competitor, the Civic perhaps suffers from a slightly boring image, which would explain why Honda has launched the Civic Black Edition with a meaner look to entice buyers who want a Civic that looks a bit less an older generation car. There are no power upgrades, suspension tweaks or promise of more dynamism from the Civic Black Edition, but it does get exterior gloss black elements and black side skirts and rear bumper, together with gloss black roof spoiler, integrated covers for the door mirrors and a gloss black fuel filler lid.

Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.