Champion 195 Diesel Glow Plug on 2040-parts.com

Jaguar XF is ‘Car of the Decade’

The Southern Guild of Motoring Writers has declared the Jaguar XF the car of the decade at the SGMW’s 10th anniversary event. Designed by Ian Callum, under Ford’s ownership, the XF demonstrated that Jaguar had finally realised that building cars that were a pastiche of past glories was no longer enough to guarantee sales. Under the skin, much of the Jaguar XF carried over from its predecessor – the Jaguar S Type – but it was in the execution that the XF demonstrated it was capable of giving Jaguar new life.

Jaguar/Land Rover Virtual Reality Center

Jaguar Land Rover has opened a new 'Virtual Reality Center' at the Design and Engineering Center in Gaydon, UK. The 'state-of-the-art' design facility draws on advanced audio visual technologies with the projection power of the world's highest resolution projectors to significantly speed up product development cycles following an investment of £2 million. The new Virtual Reality Center allows engineers and designers to see and interact with life-size, three-dimensional models of vehicles and components, reducing the need for physical prototypes.

First Fiat 500s will have stick shifts

The 2012 Fiat 500 , heading to U.S. dealerships later than first expected, is enduring another hiccup: The first units arriving in dealerships in late February will have manual transmissions, the company said. Moreover, only about 20 percent of the 130 Fiat dealerships will be open when those first cars arrive, said Laura Soave, head of the Fiat brand in North America, at the Detroit auto show last week.