Seat Ossa Enduro 72 America. on 2040-parts.com

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.

New Land Rover Discovery Sport final development testing

The new Land Rover Discovery Sport testing ahead of launch With the new Land Rover Discovery Sport expected to debut at the Paris Motor Show in October – and be on sale in early 2015 – Land Rover are busy testing it through its final development stage. That’s meant some pretty rigorous shakedowns going on, with a total of 181 prototype Discovery Sports covering 750,000 miles and completing 11,000 test at locations around the world, from extremes of hot and cold to all points in between. But instead of just giving us the test numbers, some new photos (above) and new video (below) of the new Disco Sport, Land Rover are taking the opportunity to big up their partnership with Virgin Galactic and the similarities in the two company’s aims and objectives with their projects.

Lotus to invest £500 million to build Esprit, Eterne, Elite & Elan. 1900 new jobs

The new Lotus Esprit Dany Bahar – Lotus boss – revealed plans at last year’s Paris Motor Show to turn Lotus in to an East Anglian Aston Martin. Those plans included one car we knew about – the new Lotus Esprit – and a number we didn’t – the Lotus Eterne, Lotus Elite, Lotus Elan and a new Lotus Elite. But the plans seemed to be nothing more than a wish list, and although it was intimated that Lotus owners Proton were going to provide a war chest of £770 million to fund the development, that later appeared to be an intent to provide Lotus with funds to develop a new range of cars, rather than an actual commitment.