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

Flavio Manzoni to Head Ferrari Design

Flavio Manzoni, Head of Creative Design at the Volkswagen Group, is set to take on a new role as Chief of Design at Ferrari starting January 1, 2010. Manzoni, currently part of the design team headed up by Walter de'Silva, will be based at Centro Stile Ferrari and charged with creating a new brand identity for the Italian marque. He will report directly to Managing Director Amedeo Felisa.

Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet – it’s a bonkers Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet

Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet So you fancy a Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet, but you feel Mercedes has failed miserably to endow any E-Class Cab with enough power to whip the skin off a rice pudding. What do you do? You go out and grab yourself an E-Class Cab tweaked and fettled by Brabus – something like the new Brabus 800 E V12 Cabriolet with 800 continental horses at its disposal – more than enough speed on tap to whip the syrups off your back-seat passengers.

Alfa Romeo 4C Spider revealed: Geneva Motor Show

The Alfa Romeo 4C Spider (pictured) revealed in Geneva The Alfa Romeo 4C is the epitome of a modern ‘supercar’, with ultra light weight (for a production car) allowing the 4C to produce very good performance from its modest 17500cc engine. So producing an Spider convertible immediately raises the weight issue in a more dramatic way when the car’s abilities are so dependent on it low weight, but it seems the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider – previewed as a production car with a concept at Geneva today – has managed to keep the wight penalties of the convertible 4C down to a minimum. Thanks to a canvas roof and carbon fibre rollover bars, the weight penalty for the Spider is only about 60kg (around a 7 per cent gain) which shouldn’t hurt performance too much.