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

Video: Jaguar's Julian Thomson on the importance of design values

Jaguar's Head of Advanced Design, Julian Thomson, appeared at this month's PSFK Conference in London giving a talk on design values. Thomson's talk, ‘Concepting Dreams, Making Reality Happen', dealt with questions of creating a design story as well as how Jaguar uses the value of its heritage while keeping things original and new. Thomson – the man behind the 2010 C-X75 and the recently revealed F-Type – said, "You can't get a good design story if you don't look at your heritage, where you came from, where your values came from." He went on to discuss the ‘sad years of Jaguar', from around 1968 to 2004 where Jaguar was too timid to develop and "essentially made the same-looking car." He put this down to a reluctance on Jaguar's part to move too far away from its successful models and, quite interestingly, because "not only did we start doing market research, we started asking Americans what they wanted." Watch the full video on the left.

2014 Mercedes S Class REVEALED

There’s not a huge more to say about the new S Class than we already have, but it does look convincing. It takes styling cues from many of Mercedes latest models, but even without the big bulbous wheel arches at the back it’s still very recognisable as an S Class – just a new one. We already know much about what ‘s likely to be on offer at first – S350, S400 and S500 – and what’s to come – S250, S63 AMG, S Class Pullman – and that we’ll see, in due course, both an S Class Coupe and a convertible S Class.

Alfa Romeo Giulietta; Uma Thurman; William Shakespeare. Mix & Serve

Uma Thurman is the new face - and everything else - of Alfa Romeo We do have a huge passion for Alfa Romeos at Cars UK. From the rust bucket Alfa Suds of our youth (well, at least us oldies in the office) to the less than convincing drive that is the Alfa 8C Comeptizione. Flawed?