One Bridgestone Dueler H/t 689 245/65/17 Tire (z3683) 8/32 on 2040-parts.com

Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS: Another ‘Final’ 911 arrives

Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS - now you can have your GTS with 4WD It’s never been easy to pick a 911 to buy. Despite all 911s looking much the same to all but the Porsche nutter, there’s a choice of at least a hundred different models (well, it feels like it when you try to decide), from the pure 911 Carrera 2 on up to the Turbo Cab and all the bonkers ‘Track’ 911s – the GT this and the RS that. And now, just to confuse things even more – and to extract a few more sales before the 997 version of the 911 joins the list of 911s that once were – we get the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS.

CPP to buy Browns Lane

CPP are off to Browns Lane - where every E-Type Jaguar was built As regular readers will know, we’re big fans of CPP and are always happy to big them up at the drop of a hat, even before they acquired Vladimir Antonov’s money and set forth on a mission to buy up the world’s niche car makers. So with solid funding from ‘Vlad the Investor’, CPP are on a fast road to being a sizeable force in world car manufacture; not in the volume sense, but certainly in the impact their products are making. Despite pointing out to us that they haven’t actually bought Zagato (technically correct) Zagato is now very much part of the CPP portfolio, as is extreme off-roader Bowler – a more recent acquisition – both solid names to exploit in a high-end car maker future Nirvana.

Merc to revive straight six, plus 4cyl and smaller V8s

Mercedes has just signed off a new engine family which will see most full-sized Mercs in future run four-cylinders, downsized V8s and… straight sixes. A friendly Mercedes engineer recently met CAR to disclose the engine plans for future models, including the surprise disclosure that Merc plans to switch to straight sixes, like its rivals over in Munich.  It's fair to say I almost choked on my breakfast croissant when I found out the details of the next MB engine generation which has just been signed off for release in 2015. Mercedes' future four-cylinder engines Again, there will be a family of new low-cost fours, and the big-bore V8s will be replaced by a series of downsized turbocharged 4.0-litre units.