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

BMW i3 EV revealed. It’s clever, but it’s not exactly pretty

The BMW i3 electric city car (pictured) has been officially revealed The BMW i3 – the first of BMW’s production ‘i’ electric cars – has finally been revealed at events in London, New York and Beijing as BMW plots its course to bring a premium electric city car to the world. Looking much like the original Mega City Concept, the i3 debuts a number of innovations from BMW – which are very clever – but it also debuts perhaps the worst looking BMW we’ve ever seen, with its incongruous lines, bulging bonnet, odd shapes on the flanks and slab-backed rear view. But what underpins the i3 is clever indeed, with a lightweight inner body made from carbon fibre and carbon fibre reinforced body panels providing the skin, all conspiring to make the i3 light – 1195kg, despite 25 per cent or so of that being batteries – and very rigid.

Audi A6 allroad 3.0 TDI is the five millionth Audi with quattro 4WD

The first Audi qauttro hit the headlines in 1980 and now – 33 years later – Audi has produced its five millionth car with AWD – an A6 Allroad. It’s thirty years since Audi became the first mainstream car maker to offer a four wheel drive road car when the Audi quattro hit the road, offering a (certainly for then) fulsome 200PS with the added reassurance of four wheel drive for added grip. True, others had flirted with 4WD road cars before Audi made it mainstream, such as Jensen with the FF in the 1960s, but Audi’s bold move was a real first for a mainstream maker, even if the Audi quattro was not exactly an entry-level model.

Audi Metroproject Quattro concept (2007): first official pictures

By Ben Pulman First Official Pictures 19 October 2007 12:42 Audi A1: the lowdown Welcome to the new Audi A1. Or as it is officially known, the Metroproject quattro. It's currently tagged as a design study, but we've already scooped the prototype out on the road.