Nos Yamaha At1 .25 Ring Set on 2040-parts.com

Demise of kei cars on the horizon?

The kei car has long been a staple of the Japanese automobile industry and its car culture. Too diminutive for Western markets, the tiny cars and trucks are a strong influencer of design in Japan. Now, as The New York Times reports, the Japanese government has hit kei cars with increases in sales tax, gasoline prices and has reduced the kei car tax break introduced to make the cars popular in the first place by 50 percent.

Opel rolls out new cars at Frankfurt motor show

While some automakers had just one or two new cars to show off at the Frankfurt motor show, GM's Opel division flooded the show with seven new offerings that'll be revealed as the show progresses. While there were plenty of new production models to be seen, including the revised Opel Insignia lineup, it was perhaps the Opel Monza concept that was designed to grab the attention of showgoers. We got a sneak peek at the Opel Monza concept a couple months ago, and even though a production version is not planned, the Monza is meant to showcase Opel's recent resurgence.

2013 Aston Martin Vanquish in the wild on video

The new 2013 Aston Martin Vanquish – Project Am 310 from Villa D’Este – has been caught on video in Italy in production guise. The story of the replacement for the Aston Martin DBS – which we now know is to be the new Aston Martin Vanquish – has been playing out over the last month or so. We reported at the start of May that the DBS name would be dropped and then exclusively revealed that it would debut at Villa D’Este as the Project Am 310 to try and mop up the honours in the Concept Category (it actually lost out to the Alfa 4C).