Mclaren Gt Umbrella on 2040-parts.com

Budget 2011: Fuel duty CUT & tuppence for potholes

Motorists Budget 2011 No once expected huge give-aways in George Osborne’s second budget – especially as we now have cruise missiles to pay for in Libya – but the hope was that the Chancellor would at least address the inexcorable rise in the cost of fuel. Which he has – sort of. Fuel was due to increase by around 5p a litre next week if he’d left Labour’s fuel duty escalator in place.

Aston Martin AM 310 Vanquish

Aston Martin has released details of its 2013 AM 310 Vanquish, the modern interpretation of its classic luxury sports car which is set to replace the DBS. One-77 design cues such as the flowing waistline and LED light blade rear clusters and new design elements such as the lift-reducing rear Aero Duct, bonnet vents, sculpted roof and side strakes feature. A splitter, light-catching side skirts and a rear diffuser form a near-continuous ring of exposed carbon fiber at the base of the car.

Lexus Hybrid sales top half a million

Lexus has revealed that they’ve sold more than 500,000 hybrid cars, with the Rx 450h the top seller and the CT 200h catching fast. Unsurprisingly, as it was the first Lexus hybrid to be introduced in 2005, the biggest seller - accounting for half of all Lexus hybrid sales to date (259,000) – has been the RX 400h / RX 450h, but the CT 200h, which was only introduced in 2011, is catching up fast with sales to date of 122,000 to date. During the last seven years Lexus hybrid sales have risen from 26,000 to 113,000 a year and 25 per cent of those Lexus hybrid sales now happen in Europe, even though we don’t get cars like the HS 250h (56,000 sales) and the ES 300h (8,000 sales).