Marine Speedometer on 2040-parts.com

Luxury car buyers get kid-glove treatment from dealerships

Luxury vehicle buyers want service -- not just repairs done right, but the kind of pampering they get at high-end hotels, restaurants and boutiques. It's all about the extras. In response, luxury vehicle brands are stepping up their games, rolling out unprecedented customer service, training staff and reconfiguring showrooms to cater to these buyers.

MINI celebrates 100 years of car production in Oxford

MINI will be celebrating a century of car production in Oxford on 28th March 2013, 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford was produced. It’s 100 years since the first Bullnose Morris Oxford rolled out on 28th March 1903, since when 11,655,000 cars have been built – with as many as 28,000 people employed in its heyday – and even Tiger Moth planes and Iron Lungs built alongside 80,000 repairs to Spitfires and Hurricanes during WWII. What is now MINI’s Plant Oxford was founded by William Morris – and Morris Motors kept control until 1952 – and has been owned and run by BMC, then British Motor Holdings (when Jaguar arrived), British Leyland (when Leyland Trucks, Triumph and Rover joined), nationalisation in the 1970s saw a variety of names, Rover Group arrived in 1986 and was subsequently privatised and sold in 1994 to BMW.

Vauxhall Astra (2009): first interior photos

By Ben Pulman First Official Pictures 18 June 2009 15:15 Vauxhall has released the first interior pictures of the new sixth-generation Astra, showing that the inside of the five-door hatch has been heavily influenced by the bigger Insignia's. The architecture broadly follows that of the Insignia, with (at least in top-spec models) a high-set sat-nav system, sitting above the audio and air-con controls and flanked by the central air vents. The air vents themselves are more angular than the items you'll find in the Insignia, and the dash itself also appears more upright.