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

BMW i3 EV revealed. It’s clever, but it’s not exactly pretty

The BMW i3 electric city car (pictured) has been officially revealed The BMW i3 – the first of BMW’s production ‘i’ electric cars – has finally been revealed at events in London, New York and Beijing as BMW plots its course to bring a premium electric city car to the world. Looking much like the original Mega City Concept, the i3 debuts a number of innovations from BMW – which are very clever – but it also debuts perhaps the worst looking BMW we’ve ever seen, with its incongruous lines, bulging bonnet, odd shapes on the flanks and slab-backed rear view. But what underpins the i3 is clever indeed, with a lightweight inner body made from carbon fibre and carbon fibre reinforced body panels providing the skin, all conspiring to make the i3 light – 1195kg, despite 25 per cent or so of that being batteries – and very rigid.

Defending an old-school Land Rover

I don't know how to respond today after seeing on our very own homepage that the Land Rover people will bring the successor of its beloved Defender to the United States market. The Defender is a vehicle about which “lust” is an insufficiently weak noun or verb; current and vintage Defenders elicit something beyond an emotive response. They are visceral.

2010 Buick LaCrosse launches at Detroit Auto Show

Update: Click here to watch video of the Buick LaCrosse: http://miad.autoweek.com/vidcast/2010_buick_lacrosse.m4v General Motors’ Buick division will launch the redesigned-from-the-ground-up Buick LaCrosse at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 12. GM says the new LaCrosse is truly global, with an exterior designed in the States (and reminiscent of the Invicta concept from the 2008 Beijing motor show), an interior developed in China, Buick’s biggest market, and a platform done by Opel in Europe.