New Mercury Quicksilver 99169a1 Outboard Exhaust Divider Plate Bin 68 on 2040-parts.com

New Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer (2011) Revealed

The Vauxhall Astra ST 2011 You can’t have a new Vauxhall Astra without a new Astra Estate, so Vauxhall has now got round to revealing the Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer, which will go on sale at the end of the year and be built at Vauxhall’s plant in Ellesmere Port. Vauxhall has done a good job of making a load-lugger from the stylish Astra. The wheelbase remains the same but the load length grows by 28mm, not a huge amount but enough to give the Astra ST 500 litres of load space with the seats up and 1550 litres with them down.

NYC approves Ford Transit Connect for taxi fleet

New York signed off on the Ford Transit Connect to be used for taxi service, paving the way for the nation's largest city to begin switching to the small van in place of the aging Crown Victoria. The move was announced Thursday after a public hearing; New York joins Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago on the list of major cities that have approved the vehicle for taxi service. The Transit Connect (and Taurus sedan) is approved for use now, but a Nissan van will become the exclusive vehicle in 2013.

Crunch watch Jan 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard, Ben Pulman and Gareth Evans Motor Industry 30 January 2009 12:39 Friday 30 January 2009• Honda is about to close the Swindon factory for four months when Friday's shifts are finished; the shutdown will affect 2500 of the 3700 staff, who will receive full pay for two months and then 60% pay for the next eight weeks (BBC News)• Porsche has announced a sharp drop in sales and likely profits. It forecasts a 27% drop in 911, Boxster, Cayman and Cayenne sales to around 34,000 units in the six months to the end of January 2009 (Financial Times, subscription required)• Ford wants Washington to do more to stimulate car sales, after posting a record loss of nearly $14.6 billion earlier this week (Detroit News)• Honda's quarterly profit has crashed by 90% – forcing the Japanese car maker to halve its annual profit target (Detroit Free Press)Thursday 29 January 2009• Ford of Europe is a bright spot in the Blue Oval's quarterly results today, making $1.06 billion pre-tax profit in 2008 (up from $997m in 2007). It's the first profit of more than $1bn since 1989 (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)• Volvo suffered a 'disastrous 2008' with a pre-tax loss of $1.46bn.