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

'American Nitro' is back!

"Seventies drag-race mayhem is back!" bills "American Nitro," a schlocky drive-in exploitation film whose only quote of praise, from a dog-eared period issue of "Car Craft," reads, simply, "SPECTACULAR CRASHES!" Director Bill Kimberlin says that he made "American Nitro" in 1979 as a response to Tom Wolfe's influential 1965 essay, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." "I was just getting out of high school in a small town in Northern California when Wolfe's book came out," he said. "Nitro came about as my response to the car culture I was exposed to in the small valley town of Boonville, Calif. Instead of 'American Graffiti,' I made 'American Nitro.'" A fitting comparison, in fact, considering Kimberlin later worked for George Lucas at ILM, starting with" Return of the Jedi." Now the movie is being released on DVD for the first time -- beware of bootlegs, warns the website -- and digitally remastered, while retaining the explosive charm and goofy narration of the 1979 original.

Subaru BRZ: First official BRZ picture

Subaru BRZ - First Photo Released We’ve had a raft of images of the Toyota FT-86 in the last week or two, but very little on its Subaru sibling – the Subaru BRZ. But now, with the Tokyo Motor Show and the official debut of the BRZ (and the FT-86) looming, we have the first photo of the Subaru offering in the Toybaru project. Developed by Subaru and Toyota – with, it seems, Subaru doing the oily bits and Toyota the styling – the ‘affordable’ sports car from Japan does seem to be a tempting offering.

New Vauxhall VXR8 GTS gets 576bhp & costs £54,999

The new Vauxhall VXR8 GTS gets 576bhp If you’re going to make your most potent saloon car more powerful, you could just tweak the engine management a bit to add a few more horses. But Vauxhall have gone a bit further with the latest VXR8 GTS – it gets a 6.2 litre V8 from the Camaro ZL1, a whole 150bhp and 140lb/ft of torque than the old VXR8. Vauxhall has based the GTS on Holden’s new GEN-F GTS – Australia’s maddest production Holden – and the increase in power comes courtesy of a supercharger, new exhaust system.