BMW 750 Hybrid will show at Frankfurt 2009

BMW 750 Hybrid will launch at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009 [ad#ad-1] Hybrid cars are starting to make their presence felt in the market place, and even at the top end of luxury saloons the market is moving in that direction. Whether you buy in to the planet-saving ethos or not, it’s hard to argue against something that costs less to run and helps you be perceived as a caring, sharing conscientious member of society – even if you drive a huge great Merchant-Banker-mobile! Lexus have made inroads with their LS 600, and recently we reported that Mercedes has not just given the Mercedes S Class a mid-cycle refresh, but has announced the imminent launch of the Mercedes S400 Hybrid.

Bluebird Electric aiming for UK Land Speed Record

Bluebird Electric You’d hope that anyone of any age would associate ‘Bluebird’ with ‘Campbell’, but as many of our schools don’t seem too keen on anything that may be even remotely considered part of Britain’s history, perhaps not. So we’ll just throw in that Sir Malcolm Campbell drove a variety of Bluebird (or Blue Bird) cars to new land speed records on Pendine Sands in the 1920s and his son, Donald Campbell, matched his father’s achievements with world speed records on both land and water – the only man to have held land and water speed records at the same time. And he too used the Bluebird moniker for his record-breaking transport of choice. Fast forward the best part of fifty years and it’s the grandson of Sir Malcolm – Don Wales – who’s plotting to take the Bluebird Electric to a new UK Land Speed Record, and planning to make a start on that quest at Pendine Sands (a location Top Gear fans will probably recognise – and was it Pendine Sands on the new Torchwood series last week?).

70-year-old Bugatti Type 64 chassis gets a body, the old-fashioned way

In a workshop north of Detroit, craftsmen have been at work for months pounding pieces of aluminum into panels. The panels will eventually cover a Bugatti chassis that has been bodyless for more than seven decades. Three Bugatti Type 64 Coupe chassis were built in 1939 by Jean Bugatti, and two of them got bodies before Bugatti was killed while testing the Le Mans-winning Type 57 C “Tank” in August 1939.