Dorman C94469 Brake Cable-cable - Parking Brake on 2040-parts.com

Geely at Shanghai 2011: Geely MINI Cooper & Geely London Taxi

Geely's take on the London Cab & MINI Cooper Regular readers – in fact anyone who takes notice of car news – will probably recognise Geely as being the Chinese car maker who bought Volvo in 2010. Proper car anoraks may also remember the ‘Chinese Rolls Royce‘, a Phantom ‘Homage’ from Geely that came equipped with a ‘Throne’ in the back to transport a lone plutocrat. It looked a lot like a Russian cold war ZIL meets cartoon Phantom and there was no mistaking it was a Chinese car for a Chinese market.

Mini Vision concept: what does it say about the brand's future?

The sight of Mini design head Anders Warming presenting a holographic, 3D projection of the Mini Vision concept as if appearing in his own cartoon was certainly a new one on us, but it captured the quirky, slightly left-field image the subsidiary of BMW Group has cultivated since its relaunch 13 years ago. As the 'Vision' tag suggests, this is billed as a marker of intent for the brand's future design direction rather than a pre-production teaser of the new Mini hatchback (Cooper in most markets) we'll see later this year. However if the third-generation 'new' Mini doesn't look remarkably similar we'd be amazed, such is the level of productionized detailing on this purely digital model.

Mercedes GLA 45 AMG Concept: Los Angeles Auto Show (video)

The Mercedes GLA 45 AMG Concept has been revealed in LA Over the weekend we had a teaser video from AMG for the GLA 45 AMG Concept, although Mercedes didn’t actually name it as such. But a GLA with the same powertrain as the A 45 and CLA 45 AMG is exactly what Mercedes’ AMG concept tease was, and it’s now been revealed in LA ahead of a likely debut in production form in 2014. The GLA 45 AMG Concept gets bold graphics – something buyers would be unlikely to want – and 21″ forged alloys painted matt black with a red rim and red brake callipers to shout its intent.