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

Frankfurt Motor Show news review: making sense of the 2013 IAA show

Newspress Frequently the car that attracts people’s attention at motor shows is an exotic-looking beast that everyone ‑ creators included ‑ know will never see the grind of a production line. Unusually, at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show press day, the car on everyone’s lips was a model that many journalists have already driven, and for which dealers are already taking orders: the BMW i3. With its skinny tyres and boxy, upright stance, the all-electric model isn’t as easy on the eye as the usual headline-grabbers.

BMW boss tells the truth about electric cars. And then has to apologise for doing so.

BMW US CEO Jim O'Donnell - "EVs won't work for more than 90% of drivers" Really, you do have to ask what kind of barking mad world we live in when the boss of a car company is forced to apologise for telling the truth, simply because it upsets a vocal minority (and his bosses, no doubt) We’ve been banging on for years about how useless electric cars are as a replacement for the internal combustion engine, and how they are really only viable as inner-city runarounds and as toys for the better-off. Even then, electric cars have their problems. As inner-city cars EVs certainly do the local environment a favour by transferring emissions to the point of electricity generation instead of the point of use.

Hottest 911 ever!

A few weeks back, we revealed spy shots of the next-gen Porsche 911 GT2. But now the Web is awash in reports from a Porsche dealer meeting in Germany where the company revealed the even-hotter GT2 RS. Reportedly pushing 620 hp from its turbocharged boxer-six engine, the track- and street-legal GT2 RS is said to be 200 pounds lighter than the GT2.