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

Audi Q5 facelift (2012) first official pictures

Audi is upgrading its Q5 mid-sized SUV with a mid-life facelift for 2012. A facelift for the Q5? But it looks exactly the same!

Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.

Ford’s 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine now going in to 1 in 5 new Fords

Half the Ford B-Max (pictured) sold get the 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine Who’d have thought, just a few years ago, that a 1.0 litre, 3-cylinder engine would become one of the most popular engines in a new car in Europe? But that’s exactly what’s happened with the increasingly impressive 1.0 litre EcoBoost from Ford which, as its power output has increased, has become a more and more popular engine of choice. The little Ford EcoBoost even seems to have persuaded buyers that they should forsake dirty diesel engines for it, and Ford has fitted 120,000 in the first six months of 2014 with almost half B-Max models, a third of Focus and 30 per cent of Fiestas getting the little wonder.