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

Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet price cut – down by £5,600

The VW Golf R Cabriolet (pictured) drops in price by £5,600 We’ve long wondered why Volkswagen hadn’t built a Golf R Cabriolet. But when they did finally bite the bullet and take the top of the Golf R for a production run, it was a bit of a let down. It was a let down because it seemed so cynical.

Vauxhall VXR8 & SMART for-two CDI take MPG Marathon honours

Vauxhall VXR8 & SMART for-two CDI take MPG Marathon honours On the face of it, it’s reasonable to expect a car as small as the SMART for-two CDI to be capable of astonishing economy if driven in a certain way. And the ALD Automotive / Shell FuelSave MPG Marathon, run last week near Cirencester, proved exactly that, with a SMART driven by Mick Linford and co-driver Ella Flynn managing to use less than four gallons of diesel to cover the 370 mile route. That means the SMART fortwo CDI averaged 99.24mpg on the route on real roads, an improvement of 16 per cent on the official combined figure of 85.6.

Microsoft demos Apple CarPlay rival

The battle between Microsoft and Apple is being fought on the desktop, on the smartphone and now in the car. At its Build 2014 developer conference, held earlier this month in San Francisco, Microsoft demoed an early version of Windows In The Car, its response to Apple's CarPlay system we saw at the Geneva Show back in March. As you'd expect, In The Car's design follows the look of Microsoft's latest Windows and Window Phone operating system pretty closely.