Grote 91740 Grommet 60-1025-01 Brand New on 2040-parts.com

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

Awesome Astons! DB9 enhanced for 2011, pricing details revealed

Messing with near-perfection can be a dangerous proposition, so Aston Martin used a light but deft touch to refashion the DB9 for 2011. The British sports-car maker updated the car with subtle styling and underskin improvements. The DB9 goes on sale in the United States this summer with a starting price of $188,965 for the coupe and $202,465 for the open-air Volante.

The Woodward Dream Cruise with Ian Callum

Try describing the Woodward Dream Cruise—a pulsing expression of Amer-ican automotive enthusiasm condensed into an endless, eight-lane traffic jam—and your audience will fall into one of two groups: The ones who shrug it off as inexplicable gasoline-fueled hysteria, or the ones who simply embrace it as the day-long automotive flash mob it is. Ian Callum, principal designer for Jaguar, falls firmly in the second camp. That's right.