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

Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition launches

Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition - AMG cosmetics to garner the last sales It’s usually a fair assumption that when Mercedes launches a car with a ‘Grand Edition’ badge attached to its boot that the end for that model is nigh. And so it is with the Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition. So before the 2012 S-Class arrives with its Magic Sky and Magic Body and Magic everything else, Mercedes has bolted a lot of its high-end cosmetics to the more lowly S-Class models to try and wring the last few sales out of a car that is long in the tooth and no longer as good as the BMW 7 Series, Audi A8 or Jaguar XJ.

Video: Michael Mauer on the 991-series Porsche 911

Porsche has released a video featuring its Design Director, Michael Mauer, explaining how he and his team went about redesigning the 911, an ‘automotive, engineering icon' as he describes it. "What we as designers are striving to above all is to optimize the width to height ratio with the result that although the 911's width has not increased, the front axle area has become wider, and we've managed to make the roof a bit lower," Mauer explains via a rather dramatic-sounding voiceover.

Honda back in F1 as engine supplier to McLaren from 2015

We reported that Honda were looking likely to be heading back in to F1 as engine supplier to McLaren nearly two years ago, and this morning Honda has confirmed they have formed a joint project with McLaren to supply engines and energy recovery systems to McLaren from 2015 in a joint project with the McLaren team becoming McLaren Honda. The new F1 partnership revives a very successful period for McLaren when it last used Honda engines and Prost and Senna dominated F1 with Honda powered McLarens, and fits in nicely with Honda’s return to making supercars with the new Honda NSX. Formula One engines will drop to a 1.6 litre V6 in 2015 – with a turbo – and it will be very easy for parallels to be drawn with the V6 hybrid plant Honda are using on the new NSX, which is going to do its credibility no harm whatsoever.