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Autoweek in review: What you might have missed

The rain-delayed Daytona 500 provided multiple headlines this year: Matt Kenseth won the big race, while Juan Pablo Montoya crashed into a jet dryer under caution and Brad Keselowski tweeted from his race car. It was a 500 to remember as NASCAR went prime-time on Fox on Monday night. Click here for all of the Daytona 500 coverage.

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.

Bio-Fuel Skycar to go in to production

Parajet's Skycar looks set for road-legal production in 2010 [ad#ad-1] Three months ago we brought you news on the plans of London Company Parajet International Ltd to take their Skycar on a trip to Timbuktu. Well, not only was the trip a great success – they arrived in Timbutu on 26th March – but the Skycar is now destined to go in to production next year. Bedfordshire Company Rage Motorsport, best known for producing Buggies, is to partner with Parajet to produce completely road-legal versions of the Skycar, with Rage producing the cars/buggies and Parajet adding the bits to make it fly (which makes sense!).