Hastings 19-1276 Disc Brake Caliper on 2040-parts.com

Details of UK's £5000 Plug-In Car Grants published

The Government has signed off the Plug-In Car Grants, giving details of which electric cars qualify for the £5000 grants. The incentive means that cars such as the Vauxhall Ampera will cost £28,995, GM confirmed today. Transport secretary Philip Hammond and business minister Mark Prisk announced the scheme and confirmed which areas will qualify for the second round of Plugged-In Places funding - allowing councils to install electric car recharging networks.

Let Q modify your Aston Martin

We imagine there were really two options for naming Aston Martin's new personalization program: Q, or something boring like Amalgamated Personalisation & Colour Programme, complete with British spellings that will vex most spell-checking software and render it unsearchable in Google. Fortunately, Aston Martin has wisely decided to adopt the same name as the Quartermaster in Ian Fleming's "James Bond" novels -- a pure coincidence, we're told. Lucky owners of these customized machines will be able to tell their friends that it was Q who added a few special touches to their cars.

A sideways look at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2012

Car design enthusiasts without even a passing fondness for a carefully calibrated engine note may struggle at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. A quiet place for the contemplation of automotive art it is not. However, the sheer scale and variety of vehicles on offer – crucially moving as well as static – is what makes the event, set within Lord March's huge country estate on England's south coast near Chichester, like no other in the world.