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

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid qualifies for £5,000 taxpayer incentive

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid qualifies for £5,000 taxpayer incentive When Porsche revealed the first facelift for the Panamera back in April, they also revealed the Panamera S E-Hybrid, a plug-in hybrid with the power of a V8 and the fuel consumption of a city car. It’s a brilliant demonstration of how car makers have worked their way round the daft CO2 tax regimes designed to strangle the marketplace for powerful, luxury cars by using technology to attain far lower official emissions figures than ever. In the case of the Panamera S E-Hybrid that means a plug-in hybrid with a 94bhp electric motor to boost the power from the 3.0 litre V6 to 410bhp.

Mercedes S400 Hybrid – and a facelift as well

Mercedes S400 Hybrid launched - and a facelift for the S Class Range [ad#ad-1] Mercedes has long held the ‘Best Luxury Car’ mantle, despite build quality issues in the early part of this century, but the competition, particularly from Audi and BMW has got stronger with each model change, so they have to keep upping their game (and the new Jaguar XJ may make them up it even further before long). So we knew it time for a facelift for the current S Class, but Mercedes has decided to link that with the launch of the first S Class Hybrid – the S400 Hybrid. The S400 Hybrid gets a 3.5 litre V6 petrol engine, which on its own delivers 279bhp, but linked to an electric motor it gets a 20bhp boost and a big jump in torque.

Lamborghini Aventador J at 2012 Geneva motor show

There maybe other Italian sports car manufacturers looking to hog the limelight at the 2012 Geneva motor show (and Ferrari and its 730bhp F12 is one of them) but Lamborghini will vie for attention with the Aventador J. A two-seat, open top speedster based on the Aventador LP700-4, it has some intriguing bits of carbonfibre tech and highly individual design. Named 'J' after the FIA’s Appendix J that governs the tech spec of race cars in certain classes, it’s proper bedroom wall material – but little boys and girls are unlikely to ever see it on the road as it’s a one-off and will go to a lucky owner after its appearance at Geneva.