Centric 120.50018 Rear Brake Rotor/disc-premium Rotor-preferred on 2040-parts.com

End of the road for 'Queen's favourite' car

ONE OF the most-loved and long-lived road vehicles, and a favourite with the Queen, is to cease production. The last Land Rover Defender will be produced by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) at Solihull in the West Midlands in December 2015. Featuring in the Angelina Jolie film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and in the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, the Defender name can be traced back to the early 1990s.

Porsche acquires Nardo Test Track as its new playground

Porsche Nardo Test Track (map from Google Earth) The enormous Nardo Test Track near Lecce, Italy, has been acquired by Porsche as a new testing ground. Top Gear viewers will probably remember the opening episode if the last series of Top Gear (series 18) with the Lamborghini, McLaren and Noble in Italy or, more specifically, in the Lecce region of Italy which nestles in the warmth of Italy’s heel. The Lecce region also houses the Nardo Test Track which is where the boys took their supercars to hammer round the slightly bumpy outer oval seeking top speed.

Mazda to make 1,000 more copies of final RX-8

Wankel wankers, rejoice: The Mazda rotary engine has received a short stay of execution. Mazda is building 1,000 more RX-8 Spirit R models, and then the car is gone forever. Well, maybe not forever.