Original S&s B Carburetor "cycle" Air Cleaner W/ Backing Plate #8 on 2040-parts.com

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

Nissan BladeGlider EV Sports Car Concept for Tokyo Motor Show

The Nissan BladeGlider EV Sports Car Concept (pictured) will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show Nissan are trying to push the envelope for road-going electric cars with the BladeGlider electric car concept that will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show this month and looks – at least in some form – to be heading for production. Inspired by the aero industry – and taking inspiration from Nissan’s DeltWing Project – the BladeGlider gets a very narrow front track and a much wider rear, wrapped in carbon fibre reinforced plastic with an interior that offers a 1+2 seating arrangement. Nissan say the extremely narrow front track reduces drag and enhances manoeuvrability for extreme cornering, and its 30/70 rear-biased weight distribution could give plenty of tail-out fun.

BMW M3 M Performance Edition & M5 M Performance Edition for UK

BMW M5 M Performance Edition BMW is teasing two new performance cars with short videos – the BMW M3 M Performance Edition and the M5 M Performance Edition. It seems today is the day car makers stopped sending press releases. First we had Aston Martin not bothering to send out any information on the DBS Ultimate Edition before revealing it on their site, and now BMW are playing the same game.