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

GM's Ed Whitacre meets the press in Web chat

General Motors' new front man, Ed Whitacre, remains a bit of an elusive figure in the car world. But at the very least, the former telecom honcho who's now the leader of the nation's largest automaker does like cars. “Oh yes,” he answered in response to that question during a Web chat on Tuesday, one of his first interactions with the media so far in his tenure at the helm of GM.

Audi RS5 engine confirmed, plus RS5 cabrio

By Tim Pollard (artist's impression by Radovan Varicak) Motor Industry 13 May 2009 13:44 Audi will fit a refettled naturally aspirated 4.2-litre V8 to its secret new RS5, CAR can confirm. We had previously reported the RS5 would use a twin-turbo iteration of this engine, but a senior source has told us it will not feature forced induction. We’re told it’s the same high-revving engine that powered the outgoing RS4, albeit spruced up with the latest Ingolstadt know-how.

New Boxster and Caymen swell Porsche’s order book

The 2009 Porsche Cayman S - helping to boost Porsche sales [ad#ad-1] We’ve run stories on how well Porsche, and the whole VW/Audi group, is holding up through the current malaise in the car industry. Porsche’s last lot of profit figures were very impressive, but were mainly due to the huge amounts Porsche made on its trading in VW shares. We noted at that time that Porsche reckoned its sales were slow because people were waiting for the new versions of the Boxster and Cayman, and when that happened sales would increase.