Avon Black Scalloped End Contour Shift Peg Harley-davidson Sp-cc-86-ano on 2040-parts.com

Mercedes SL (2012) first official pictures

All-new SLs seem to come around as often as Halley’s Comet, but here are the first Stuttgart-sanctioned shots of Mercedes’ sixth generation premium roadster – the 2012 Mercedes SL. If it looks familiar, that’s because it’s already had more lenses pointed at its disguised bodywork than Pippa Middleton’s derrière – and CAR’s own renderings earlier this year weren’t far wide of the mark. So what’s the big news with the new 2012 Mercedes SL then?

Nissan LEAF EV: 15,000 sold worldwide, but UK hasn’t fallen for electric cars

Nissan LEAF EV - 15k sold worldwide, but just a handful in the UK As electric cars go, the Nissan LEAF is one of the best. It looks like a proper car – even if it’s not exactly drop dead gorgeous – it has the accoutrements of a real car and you can pile in your shopping and the kids just as you could in any other family sized hatch. But from our perspective the LEAF is an orange trying to be a banana.

Volkswagen GTI Roadster for Gran Turismo uncovered – gets 496 bhp

The Volkswagen GTI Roadster (pictured) is uncovered We revealed last week that VW were making their GTI Roadster from the Gran Turismo game in to a real car for the Worthersee show, and they have. Blurring the lines between the real and the virtual (which is the way all our lives are going) Volkswagen has taken the opportunity to build a real life GTI Roadster – without the constraints of a concept heading for production – and has come up with a tw-seater open roadster that has some design cues from the Golf but is shorter and a lot lower. Those deign cues extend to a a front end that looks like a squashed GTI with its headlights and grill on show with big air intakes, all of which conspires to make the GTI Roadster look even lower, emaner and wider than it is.