Brake Pedal Scooter Vespa 125 Primavera. on 2040-parts.com

Lotus V8: the new engine plan in full

Lotus has confirmed details for its new inhouse V8 engine family, which will make its first road car appearance in the 2013 Esprit. Responding to feedback which said the 'New Era' plan to launch five new models was weakened by its reliance on Toyota engines, the new management team decided last Christmas to design and develop its own engine. 'The feedback from customers was "how can you justify a £100,000 car with a Toyota engine?",' said chief executive Dany Bahar.

New Hyundai Test Centre at the Nurburgring revealed

Hyundai’s new test centre at the Nurburgring If anyone had said, just a few years ago, that Hyundai would develop a test centre at the Nurburgring to help shake-down their cars, they’d have been laughed at. But Hyundai – and Kia – have come so far in recent years that it makes absolute sense for them to develop a full-time testing facility at the Nurburgring to test their cars for the road, along with just about every other car maker of note. James May may object to the Nurburgring factor in the suspension set-ups of many road cars (and we do have some sympathy for his point of view), but the sometimes extreme nature of the Nurburgring’s surfaces – and its endless twists and turns, uphill and down – do offer car makers an easily accessible place to test cars in the (almost) real world.

Renault Eolab Concept

Renault has bucked the trend of rather uninspiring Paris Motor Show previews with the Eolab. This B-segment-sized car that has been designed to a brief that states it must return fuel economy of 2l/100km (118mpg US/141mpg UK), and that all of its major technical innovations must be production-feasible by the year 2020. The Eolab is actually two cars – the Eolab prototype, which the engineering team has signed off as capable of 1l/100km (235mpg US/282mpg UK), and the Eolab Concept, which was overseen by the design team.