Petcock M18 X1mm Honda Vt500c,vt500ft,vf500f, (after Market) on 2040-parts.com

F1 Budget Cap – No two-tier system says Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone says there will be no two-tier system in the F1 budget cap row [ad#ad-1] All eyes have gone off the stunning start to this year’s F1 circus with the news that Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull and several other teams have threatened to quit F1 next year in protest at the budget cap proposal and the two-tier system that appears to create. In a nutshell, the FIA – lead by Max Mosley – has imposed a £40 million cap on F1 team expenditure for next year (excluding driver costs, marketing costs and transport), but has said that teams who don’t adhere to the cap can still compete, but will be handicapped. Not surprisingly, the richer teams have objected and, on the face of it, it starts to look as if F1 as we know it is going to bite the dust.

EV maker Coda trims staff

Not much more could go wrong for electric-car maker Coda, which has struggled to sell its four-door EV in the United States since officially launching it here in March. But Web reports, first seen at www.plugincars.com, say the company laid off 50 employees, or 15 percent of its workforce, last week, mostly in the sales and marketing departments. Efforts by Autoweek to contact Coda have not been successful.

New Mercedes S 63 AMG costs from £119,565

New Mercedes S 63 AMG (pictured) costs from £119,565 The arrival of the new Mercedes S-Class in May saw MB move their range topper on properly for the first time in almost a decade, but with UK prices staring from £62,650 for the S 350 BlueTEC it wasn’t going to be on most people’s shopping list. And if you can’t afford Mercedes’ entry-level S-Class there’s no hope of affording the new S63 AMG, which Mercedes has revealed will cost an eye-watering £120k when it arrives in the UK in November. To be entirely fair, the new S63 is an awesome car with immense performance (which would be even more impressive if Mercedes endowed it with 4WD, as they do in other markets) with its 5.5 litre bi-turbo V8 developing 577bhp and getting the S63 to 62mph in 4.4 seconds.