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Aston Martin at the Paris motor show 2008

By Ben Barry Motor Shows 03 October 2008 10:13 The buzz around Aston Martin continues. The now independent brand is teasing motor show visitors with a styling buck of the One-77 (the ultra-exclusive £1.2 million supercar that’ll be limited to a run of, yep, 77 when it arrives in 2009) that reveals just its front right and rear left aspects, plus there’s an automatic DBS on display and talk of exciting future Aston Martin projects. James Bond’s favourite Aston now comes with Touchtronic – a six-speed ZF automatic gearbox that’s borrowed from the DB9 but substantially beefed up.

Volkswagen Jetta gets a small facelift – debuting at New York Auto Show

The VW Jetta gets a minor facelif It’s three years since the current VW Golf with a boot – the Volkswagen Jetta – arrived, so it’s time for a nip and a tuck to keep it relevant. Volkswagen are planning to roll out a facelift for the Jetta (above) at the New York Auto Show in a few days time and, although this is the North American version of the Jetta, the European tweaks will be much the same. That means an improvement in aerodynamics – by 10 per cent, say VW – with stop-start and low rolling resistance tyres to help economy too, a new nose with new grill, new bumpers and integrated fogs.

Jaguar XJ Diesel – The Swansong plaudit

The Jaguar XJ 2.7 Diesel has won the 'Greenest Luxury Car' Award And although one of the strengths of Jaguar has been its heritage it has, to a degree, also become its Achilles Heel. The first Jaguar XJs were a triumph when they were launched in 1968, and put Jaguar leaps and bounds ahead of the German competition, in the same way Jaguar had taken the world by storm with the E-Type a few years before. But things started to fall apart for Jaguar in the ’70s with the fiasco that was British Leyland, and by trying to emulate Porsche by making each iteration of the XJ an evolution of the original all they managed to do was cement in the public mindset the failings of the XJ.