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

MINI Goodwood ‘Rolls Royce’ range to grow

the MINI Goodwood range is going to grow We finally got the MINI by Rolls Royce – The MINI Inspired by Goodwood – at this year’s Shanghai Motor Show, although it had been on the cards for a couple of years. ‘Inspired by Goodwood’ is a bit less blatant than ‘MINI Rolls Royce’, but it still reflects the prestige and craftsmanship associated with Rolls Royce, as these days Rolls Royce are put together on the Goodwood Estate. When MINI officially revealed the Goodwood, they said they would be building just 1,000 cars, based on the MINI Copper S, but with a non-vented bonnet and custom alloys, burr walnut and cornsilk leather.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Volvo Compare: A very useful car data comparison tool

Volvo has launched ‘Volvo Compare’, a very useful car data comparison tool, with data supplied by motoring experts CAP. Why didn’t we think of it? Volvo has launched a very good car data comparison tool – Volvo Compare – on their website allowing motorists to compare any Volvo model against any three other cars and get an instant display of features and prices of all four cars.