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

Mandelson to announce help for car makers

Lord Mandelson is the man charged with finding ways to fund UK Car purchases (yes, he of the dodgy mortgage debacle – at least he should know a few tricks!) as the credit crunch has dried up funding, leading to an unprecedented drop in new car sales in the UK. Mandelson is due to make a statement in the Lords just after 3pm today, outlining the help the government is going to offer to ailing car makers. Central to this package is expected to be a funding channel directly from the Bank of England to inject liquidity in to the car financing sector.

SEAT Leon X-Perience is a high-riding Leon ST Crossover

SEAT goes butch with the SEAT Leon X-Perience. SEAT seems to be launching the Leon X-Perience as a precursor to the arrival of a proper SEAT SUV in a year or two to get buyers used to the idea that SEAT can produce butch crossovers. That said, the SEAT Leon X-Perience is a valid standalone model – much in the mould of cars like Audi’s Allroad, the Citroen C5 CrossTourer and VW Passat Alltrack – as a butched-up estate car with some off-road pretensions and better equipped to deal with the urban jungle too.

Peugeot 2008: First photos arrive

The first photos of the Peugeot 2008 – an SUV / Crossover version of the new 208 – have arrived ahead of an official reveal next week. Peugeot’s new offering in the compact SUV sector is the Peugeot 2008 – a compact crossover version of the new 208 – which we saw first at the Beijing Motor Show last year as the Peugeot Urban Crossover Concept and now, ahead of an official reveal next week, we have the first official photos of the new 2008. So far, we have no real detail on what’s under the bonnet, but visually the production version of the 2008 seems little changed from the concept – which means a decent-looking offering for a competitive market place.