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

17,000 solar panels to power Toyota’s Derbyshire plant

Toyota’s manufacturing plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire, where the Auris and Avensis are built, will install the biggest solar panel system yet seen in a UK car plant.  British Gas, which will stump up the £10 million cost of installing the solar panels, and Toyota are working together to save 2000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. Once the solar panels are installed, they claim it will save enough energy to build approximately 7000 cars a year.

Mazda Takuya: Mazda2 Takuya, Mazda3 Takuya & Mazda6 Takuya for 2011

Mazda2 Takuya, Mazda3 Takuya & Mazda6 Takuya for 2011 As we’ve mentioned – more than once – the start of the year is prime time for the ‘Limited Edition’ and ‘Special Edition’ and any other sort of ‘Edition’ car makers can conjure up as they try to keep metal moving. Today, it’s the turn of Mazda. Mazda have done the whole ‘Edition’ bit in spades this time, with the return of the range-topping Mazda Takuya.

Bluebird Electric aiming for UK Land Speed Record

Bluebird Electric You’d hope that anyone of any age would associate ‘Bluebird’ with ‘Campbell’, but as many of our schools don’t seem too keen on anything that may be even remotely considered part of Britain’s history, perhaps not. So we’ll just throw in that Sir Malcolm Campbell drove a variety of Bluebird (or Blue Bird) cars to new land speed records on Pendine Sands in the 1920s and his son, Donald Campbell, matched his father’s achievements with world speed records on both land and water – the only man to have held land and water speed records at the same time. And he too used the Bluebird moniker for his record-breaking transport of choice. Fast forward the best part of fifty years and it’s the grandson of Sir Malcolm – Don Wales – who’s plotting to take the Bluebird Electric to a new UK Land Speed Record, and planning to make a start on that quest at Pendine Sands (a location Top Gear fans will probably recognise – and was it Pendine Sands on the new Torchwood series last week?).