Cardone Industries 50-1028 on 2040-parts.com

Bristol Cars sold to China. Possibly.

Bristol Cars - is it a Chinese Takeaway Earlier this month we reported the sad demise of the quirky and eccentric supercar maker that is Bristol cars, forced in to administration through a shortage of equally eccentric millionaires to buy their creations from another time. The good news is that they still look like a viable entity if they’re properly marketed, so we didn’t expect it to be too long before a buyer popped up and grabbed the Bristol Cars name, its Kensington showrooms and the handful of staff left. So we weren’t surprised to get an email this morning from China telling us the press there are reporting that the Xinjiang No1 Tractor Company – a State-owned maker of tractors (you’d never have guessed) – had snapped up Bristol Cars from the administrators.

Aston Martin V8 Vantage S (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

Good news for fans of Aston Martin's V8 Vantage, and especially those who found it a touch slow: the new, musclier V8 Vantage S.  The Aston Martin Vantage S is a tweaked-up version of the regular Vantage, and a full production model. It's the fastest Vantage yet! The biggest change is under the bonnet. The 4.7-litre V8 now has a stouter 430bhp, which makes it 20bhp more powerful than the Vantage N24 and 30bhp up on the N400 special editions.

2014 Kia Sportage gets a mild facelift

2014 Kia Sportage (pictured) gets a mild facelift The Kia Sportage is Kia’s best-selling model in the UK, and Kia are keen to keep things that way so they’ve given the Sportage a bit of a tweak for 2014. The changes are quite modest – just enough to mark this Sportage as a 2014 model – with a new version of the ‘Tiger Nose’ grill with added chrome and restyled mesh, better back lights, new 16-18″ alloys and LED tail lights on the top-end models. The interior has been given a bit of a lift too with new soft touch trim on the doors, nano paint finish on the dashboard and centre console, heated steering wheel and electric driver’s seat on top-end models and repositioned audio tweeters for better sound.