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

Volvos to get twin-clutch gearbox

By Ben Pulman Motor Industry 14 May 2008 13:33 Volvo’s C30, S40 and V50 are now available with a new six-speed twin-clutch ‘box – dubbed Powershift – mated to the company’s 134bhp 2.0-litre diesel. The new twin-clutch gearbox has been developed with Getrag (and Volvo's parent company Ford), and is basically the same unit recently announced in the Focus and C-Max. Volvo claims the new gearbox offers an 8 percent improvement in fuel consumption over a conventional six-speed automatic.

New Skoda Octavia Scout price and spec – costs from £25,315

New Skoda Octavia Scout costs from £25,315 The new Skoda Octavia Scout arrived at the Geneva Motor Show in the Spring, bringing an ‘Allroad’ version of the latest Skoda Octavia Combi (Estate) to the market. As with all estate cars with offroad pretensions, the Octavia Scout comes with a more butch set of bumpers and a more purposeful nose, black cladding for the door sills and wheel arches, a new set of alloys, a raised ride height and a few tweaks for the interior so it all looks more than capable of taking on a muddy boot sale car park. The Scout comes with a choice of two 2.0 litre TDI engines at launch, with a lower powered, 148bhp with a six-speed manual and a more powerful, 182bhp version, getting a six-speed DSG gearbox, both of which return official economy of 55.4mpg (although, oddly, the lower-powered gets emissions of 129g/km and the more powerful 134g/km).

Infiniti-designed Santa's sleigh (2010)

Today's sleighs are courtesy of Infiniti. The design team in Japan have sketched out a couple of Infiniti sledges for Father Christmas to deliver his presents across the globe in imperious style. The first sleigh looks like an Essence supercar concept meets an FX crossover - from that long snout and high-mounted, wedgy headlamps to the complex, textured surfaces, sliced and diced by a laser-pointer's worth of sloping lines flying off at all sorts of angles.