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Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Ferrari P4/5 designer Castriota heads to Saab

Jason Castriota, the noted designer who created the Ferrari P4/5 and the Maserati GranTurismo, is taking his talents to Saab. He will be in charge of design for the Swedish automaker as it looks to develop a new image after being sold by former parent General Motors, Bloomberg News reports. Castriota will work on developing an upscale model of the 9-3 and will try to bolster Saab to better compete with BMW and Audi.

Revolutionizing the BMW M3

BMW is less than a year away from officially revealing the fifth generation of the menacing M3, the first to receive turbocharged six-cylinder power. The performance sedan, code-named F80, is expected to appear as a lightly veiled concept at the 2013 Geneva motor show, debuting the appearance and mechanical package of the M division's eagerly anticipated Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG rival. A showroom-ready version with a production interior arrives at next year's Frankfurt motor show, BMW sources say.