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

Petersen museum executive director to retire

The executive director of the Petersen Automotive Museum is retiring after a 12-year-run at the helm of one of the nation's preeminent car collections. Richard Messer is stepping down to concentrate on other business interests. He will be replaced by Buddy Pepp on June 15.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

Opel Flexstreme concept

By Tim Pollard Motor Shows 11 September 2007 03:13 Opel Flextreme: the lowdown Vauxhall’s European sister brand Opel showed off its surprise at Frankfurt today – the new Flextreme concept car. Under that voluminous monocab body lies GM’s E-Flex plug-in hybrid system. It’s the latest trend in hybrids, allowing up to 30 miles of zero-emissions electric operation, after which the diesel engine kicks in to recharge the battery.