Suzuki Escudo 2007 Rear Bumper Assembly [2415100] on 2040-parts.com

Artega’s new model future and interview

By Georg Kacher Motor Industry 08 September 2008 12:50 Artega has just launched the brilliant GT, but CAR Online has grilled the top brass to bring you the inside line on the next generation of sports cars from the fledgling German manufacturer. Artega is planning a second model, smaller engines and more besides. Click here for our first drive of the GT – a cut-price rival to the Porsche Cayman – but today we can spill the beans on the cars that will follow it.

Mercedes launch new 9G-Tronic gearbox on E350 BlueTec

New Mercedes E350 BlueTec (pictured) gets 9-speed 9G-TRONIC auto It’s not exactly a million years ago that automatic gearboxes offered poorer performance and economy than manual gearboxes, and came as standard with just three gears. But now, automatic gearboxes are so good they can  change quicker than any driver and, with the proliferation of eight-speed auto ‘boxes, offer improved economy and performance too. The next logical step is even more ratios in an auto ‘box, and Land Rover has already revealed they’ll be fitting the Evoque with a 9-speed ZF ‘box from 2014, and the new Jeep Grand Cherokee gets a nine-speed auto ‘box too.

Volvo’s self-parking car will park your Volvo for you

Volvo’s self-parking car will do parking for you It’s rapidly getting to the point where drivers will need to do little more than be in the car to ‘drive’ it, with technology taking away control of tasks like parking. But a new technology from Volvo means you don’t even need to be in the car to park it. Volvo has been working on an autonomous parking that uses Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology – which is basically sensors built in to the road – where the sensors guide the car to a vacant space.