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.

Mazda RX-8 facelift (2008): first official pictures

By Ben Pulman First Official Pictures 13 January 2008 10:47 Mazda’s facelifted RX-8 arrived at the Detroit Motor Show, and it’s more of a mild nip and tuck than a drastic overhaul. Mazda hasn’t suddenly dropped in a V6 or anything like that – so far over 165,000 rotary-engined RX-8s have been sold and Mazda doesn’t want to mess with a recipe that works. That means it’s still a four-door, four seater with 'Freestyle' (suicide to you and me) doors, and a unchanged 1.3-litre turbine engine available in 189bhp and 228bhp states of tune.

Jaguar XFR (2009) tops 225mph at Bonneville

By Sarah-Jayne Harrison Motor Industry 13 January 2009 16:00 Jaguar's new XFR has reached 225.675mph, making it the fastest car Coventry has ever produced. Running at a secret test at the Bonneville Salt Flats, the one-off prototype, using a tweaked version of Jaguar's new supercharged 5.0-litre V8, topped even the legendary XJ220's 217mph top speed. Not a chance.