Grand Am 2004 High Mounted Stop Lamp 537780 on 2040-parts.com

Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.

Ferrari World Record at Silverstone Racing Days

Ferrari F1 driver Felipe Massa led a parade of 964 Ferraris to claim a new world record at Ferrari’s 2012 Racing Days at Silverstone. Ferrari Racing Days have been back at Silverstone this weekend, for the first time in 5 years, and to celebrate the occasion Ferrari has managed to claim a new world record for the number of Ferraris on track at any one time. When the last Ferrari Racing Days outing was at Silverstone, in 2007, Ferrari managed to garner 385 of Maranello’s finest to parade round Silverstone’s track for a new world record, but that record was broken later that year by Ferrari in Japan with 485 cars.

Schumacher being taken out of coma

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER is being slowly brought out of his induced coma but a leading neurosurgeon has warned it remains too soon to determine his long-term prognosis. Seven-times Formula One world champion Schumacher, 45, has spent the last month in the University of Grenoble hospital fighting for his life after sustaining brain injuries following a skiing accident in the resort of Meribel. Concern was growing as to whether he would ever make a recovery, or even wake again, but manager Sabine Kehm has now provided official confirmation that steps are under way to bring him out of his coma following the accident on December 29.