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Mini Cooper first pictures (2013) BMW’s new Mini goes back to the future

By Phil McNamara First Official Pictures 18 November 2013 09:00 Here comes BMW’s third new Mini since it relaunched the brand in 2001. But its appearance seems resolutely stuck in time, like John and Jackie Kennedy in Zapruder’s film of the Dallas motorcade, or like the fans who berated Bob Dylan for going electric.   There are no design surprises: the bodysides are curvy and more crisply pressed, the rear lamps supersized, otherwise the floating roof, wraparound chrome piping and wheel-at-each corner stance are all present and correct. ‘We need to be careful,’ BMW Group design director Adrian van Hooydonk told CAR.

Honda CR-Z Mugen (2011): the first sketches

This is our first glimpse of the new, Mugen-tweaked Honda CR-Z. Developed by Mugen Euro, the UK-based arm of Honda’s long-standing tuning partner Mugen, this CR-Z features a whole raft of tweaks to turn it into a hot hybrid. As with the previous UK-spec Civic Type R Mugen, this new Mugen model is currently being touted as a one-off prototype, but just as that Civic was then built in limited numbers the same may happen with the CR-Z – and the individual parts may become available as aftermarket accessories too.

BMW 640d xDrive announced

On Thursday, Greg Kable waxed effusively about the new BMW M550d xDrive coupe, suggesting that it was the ultimate 5-series for everyday use. On Friday, Munich announced that the 5's two-door sibling will receive an AWD diesel variant: the 640d xDrive. While not quite as high-zoot as the 5-series' top oil burner, the 640d's 3.0-liter, twin-turbo straight-six cranks out a respectable 465 lb-ft of almighty torque between 1,500 rpm and 2,500 rpm, plus 313 hp at 4,400 rpm—numbers that, according to BMW, will carry the 6-series to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds.