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

New Volkswagen Golf: World Car of the Year 2013

The VW Golf MK 7 has been declared World Car of the Year at the New York Auto Show, beating Porsche, Mercedes and Toyota to the title. That bunch included cars like the Porsche Boxster, Mercedes A Class and Toyota GT86, so competition was strong, but just as the new Golf had triumphed as European Car of the Year 2013 the Golf was also victorious on the bigger, global stage. It’s the fourth time in five years VW’s cars have nabbed the WCOTY award, with the Golf Mk 6 taking the gong in 2009, the VW Polo in 2010 and the VW Up!

Smaller Mercedes SLS confirmed, and with front-mounted V8 too

Baby Mercedes SLS AMG - or at least how it could have looked if mid-engined We’ve believed for some time that Mercedes were planning a smaller version of the SLS, but so far there’s been no official word. But that’s now changed, with AMG’s Christoph Jung telling AutoExpress that Mercedes and AMG are currently working on a smaller SLS, to go head-to-head with cars like the Porsche 911 and Audi R8. Interestingly, we’d thought that Mercedes would go the route of a mid-engined two-seater for the baby SLS, and that it would probably get a turbo V6. But it would appear not.

Ford opens online reservations for the 2012 Focus electric

People can now place their online orders for the 2012 Ford Focus electric, Ford's first all-electric passenger car. The electric Focus carries a base sticker price of $39,995 including shipping charges, but that price does not reflect any tax credits available. The electric Focus comes standard with MyFord Touch with an eight-inch touch screen, two 4.2-inch color LCD displays in the gauge cluster for EV monitoring screens, and the MyFord Mobile App for remotely monitoring the charge status of the lithium-ion battery.