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

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.

2014 Corvette Stingray twins spotted in the wild

Sure, we've seen the new Corvette Stingray, crawled all over the C7 at car shows, seen interior 360 videos of it and maybe, just maybe, had some time behind the wheel (you'll know soon enough). But there's something special about spotting the car on public roads -- there's something even more special about spotting a pair of them nose-to-tail in rush-hour traffic. The new Corvette in front appears to be Crystal red tintcoat, a darker, extra-cost color.

Saab back online as NEVS rebuilds the Saab Brand

The Saab website has now come back online with NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden) outlining its plans to rebuild the Saab Brand. Back in September the long-running Saab Saga was finally concluded, with the sale of what’s left of Saab after Victor Muller’s  little adventure saw Saab left as nothing more than another defunct icon brand from the annuls of motoring history, with NEVS taking control of Saab. The plan is to build a range of electric cars in Trollhattan and China, initially based on the Saab 9-3 platform but eventually developing the Phoenix platform in to the basis for Saab’s future.