Chilton's General Motors Repair Manual 1982-92 on 2040-parts.com

Vauxhall Ampera price cut by £3,500

The Vauxhall Ampera (pictured) drops in price by £3500 Although we still feel the range-extender is the right way for car makers to go to get the car buying public to accept EVs, the range-extender Vauxhall Ampera has not exactly been a runaway success. Despite Vauxhall offering potential Ampera buyers the option of trying it for 30 days and handing it back if they don’t like it, the Ampera has failed miserably to sell in any sort of volume. So, with new competition on the way from the range-extender BMW i3, Vauxhall are taking drastic action to try and tempt buyers in to the Ampera and are slashing prices by £3,500.

New Lexus IS 300h, LF-LC and Lexus F-Sport all at 2013 Geneva Motor Show

We’ll get to see the new Lexus IS 300h at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show together with an Opal Blue LF-CC and extended F Sport range. Probably of most interest – because we’ve not seen it in Europe yet, is the new Lexus IS 300h, the hybrid version of the 2013 Lexus IS – revealed at Detroit last month – which Lexus hope will pick up sales from the diesel competition. Lexus will be adding the F Sport trim to the IS 300h too to show that their cars can look as dynamic as those from Audi’s S Line, Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M Sport which, with an expected output of around 220bhp from the electric motor and 2.5 litre engine, isn’t all that incongruous.

Smart fortwo Edition Limited Three

Mercedes has had stick in the past for playing with its ‘Toy Car’, the Smart. What was a quality maker like Mercedes doing involved with a car the size of the boot on an S Class Mercedes and named after a watch maker (the name stands for Swatch Mercedes Art)? Don’t get me wrong; there was always going to be a market for a car designed to park ‘nose-in’ in busy European streets, but its seemed like Mercedes was stretching itself too thin at a time when it was suffering a big loss in the reputation it had for building high-quality machinery.