Engine Intake Manifold-performer 289 Edelbrock 2121 on 2040-parts.com

One Lap of the Web: No school like old school

-- You don't see a Packard-powered hot rod very often, and we have to wonder why. Stuff your Ford flatheads, ditch your boring V8s! Few things in the world are cooler than eight cylinders lined up in unwavering authority, to the tune of 327ci, with a McCullough supercharger feeding four Stromberg 97 carburetors above aluminum heads.

Audi e-Tron Spyder – The CES Star

Audi e-Tron Spyder at the CES Audi keep on dragging versions of their e-Tron out at any given opportunity, usually focusing on a different take on some form or other of electric and/or hybrid propulsion. Our favourite so far has been the Audi A1 e-Tron, which may seem odd to those of you who know of our penchant for the fast and exotic. But hybrid cars are best suited to urban environments – even more so electric cars – and the Audi A1 e-Tron’s combination of electric motors and a range-extending Wankel engine really floated our urban boat.

Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.