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

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.

BMW X5 M50d (2013) first pictures of the new super-diesel SUV

BMW has created the first high-performance version of its new X5 SUV: the X5 M50d. It’s a triple-turbocharged, six-cylinder diesel-powered model good for 42mpg, apparently. Until the new V8 X5 M sends purist enthusiasts into a froth-mouthed frenzy, this circa-£65k leviathan is the most powerful, fastest X5 you can buy.

Volvo to unveil new SUV tomorrow [w/video]

Volvo will premiere a mystery new vehicle tomorrow after releasing a series of three teaser videos. The highly ambiguous videos, which give few details of the car, all feature members of the band Swedish House Mafia, which end with the words "Leave The World Behind" and the date of its official debut. You can catch sight of the vehicle in the distance during the second video (left), however, which looks to be the rumoured XC40 compact crossover, rather than the larger XC90 SUV.