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

One Lap of the Web: Porsche 917, a karting brawl and the premiere of Drive

The Porsche 917, in Gulf livery, is one of most famous racers of all time. Only 65 were built between 1969 and 1973. Petrolicious is looking at #13, which was one of the first 25 examples built.

Volkswagen give the VW XL1 Ducati power

Volkswagen give the VW XL1 Ducati power It’s more than two years since Volkswagen rolled out the VW XL1 Super Efficient Vehicle as a demonstration of how light weight and low power can make for extremely economical motoring. But the silly mpg VW quoted for the XL1 – 313mpg – comes at a fairly horrible price, with the news at Geneva this year that the XL1 is heading for limited production, but with a price tag likely to be around £100k. Bit it seems that VW has found a new use for the XL1, and this time it’s not about extreme economy but more about real performance.

Jaguar Land Rover open new engineering test centre in Dubai

Jaguar Land Rover are growing at a tremendous rate, and that means more and more testing of cars to make sure they can cope with the extremes of climate they’re subjected to by owners around the world. So as part of their growing test programme, JLR have extended their testing and engineering facilities in the Al Barsha area of Dubai so they can test durability, calibration and hot weather testing for heat and humidity as well as test the powertrains, chassis, HVAC and, as this is Dubai and it has plenty of sand, they can also give the Land Rover Terrain Response systems a proper workout. JLR has been hot weather testing in Dubai for more than 12 years – an area where temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius – and the new facility replaces a much smaller one in the same area, and joins Jaguar Land Rover’s other test facilities at the Nurburgring, Arjeplog in Sweden and Phoenix and International Falls in the States to ensure all JLR’s new cars get subjected to everything from extreme hot and cold to track work.