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

Volkswagen Passat R36 (2006): first official pictures

By Phil McNamara First Official Pictures 17 November 2006 10:13 VW Passat R36: the lowdown Volkswagen has pulled the wraps off its 'R' flagship Passat – and the five-door is the fastest estate VW has ever made. Scooped by CAR Online a few weeks back, the R36 puts out 296bhp, which launches the estate fromk standstill to 62 in 5.8sec. Available as a saloon, too, the R cars go on sale in early 2007, with prices starting at an estimated £28,000.

Lotus lusts after Lutz?

Lotus seem to be pursuing Bob Lutz The Lotus five year plan calls for the track day cars to make way for much more substantial and upmarket cars to become the force at Lotus; a move to become the Aston Martin East Anglia. Probably the first obvious move in this plan was to grab Dany Bahar from Ferrari last year (and Ferrari designer Donato Coco) and now Lotus are casting their net again to snare some big names to drive them forward. Top of the list is almost-octogenarian Bob Lutz who retired from GM – but certainly not from business – last year.

Video: Porsche GT2 RS attacks GingerMan Raceway

You saw our walk-around and overview of the 2011 Porsche GT2 RS earlier this week. As promised, here's the VBox footage of Autoweek editors blasting around GingerMan Raceway in southwest Michigan doing what the Porsche does best. So far we've brought you track-day action featuring the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and the Porsche GT2 RS--what's missing?