One Lap of the Web: Diesels, Deadmau5, Excalibur and Excelsior!

-- It's the 50th anniversary of Excalibur, the company with fine craftsmen who keep the neoclassical motoring dream alive, or in some vaguely zombielike semblance thereof. And while the Excalibur's retro vibes arose from the mausoleum of the Mercedes-Benz SSK, Hemmings has discovered Brooks Stevens's other neoclassic: the Excalibur 35X, meant to look like a Bugatti Type 35. Just 27 were built in Italy on the chassis of Opel Commodores, fitted with inline-sixes.

GM axes deal with Peugeot Citroen: how it helps Vauxhall

Wolfgang Rattay, Newscom, RTR Strange as it sounds, the sale of GM’s 7% share it only just bought in Peugeot is good news for Vauxhall buyers. The reason is that it is the last stage of GM’s plan to improve the plight of Opel and Vauxhall by getting rid of all the distractions and focusing on improving the cars and the marketing. The Peugeot move has to be seen in the context of GM pulling Chevrolet out of Europe only a few weeks ago.

Honda's future: small cars, no NSX or Euro Acura

Honda CRZ concept at the 2009 Tokyo motor show; one of the cars unveiled by Honda CEO Takanobu Ito By Ben Pulman Motor Industry 23 October 2009 11:22 Honda chief executive Takanobu Ito today spelled out his vision for the next decade at Honda to CAR Online. No successor to the NSX is under development, but there will be a smaller city car slotting under the Jazz in Honda's range. It will be launched in Asia at first, potentially following in the rest of the world.Ito, who is also president of Honda R&D, said that the company had no firm plans for a pure battery electric vehicle at this stage – the onus is on hybrid petrol electric cars and fuel-cell models.It will continue to develop diesels for Europe, but Ito admitted a project to build clean-fuel diesels for the US market had been cancelled.