Toyota Crown 1996 Electric Fan [8067650] on 2040-parts.com

Porsche Macan 2.0 litre 4-cylinder coming to the UK – but not Europe

The Porsche Macan 2.0 litre Turbo will be available in the UK Porsche quietly revealed their first car with a 4-cylinder engine in almost a generation at the Beijing Motor Show last month with the arrival of the Porsche Macan 2.0 litre turbo, produced to mop up sale in China. China’s tax system mitigates against thirstier, bigger-engined cars, so a 2.0 litre turbo attracts tax at less than half the rate of the 3.0 litre V6 in the Macan S, so it will be the big volume model for China. But the demand from China for the 2.0 litre Macan means Porsche won’t have the capacity to build it for other left hand drive markets, so Europe won’t be getting the little-engined Macan.

Porsche reports big drop in sales

Well, it’s not exactly a surprise, given the doom and gloom in the industry at the moment, but Porsche has just reported a 27% drop in sales, down to 34,000 units, over the last six months. As you would expect, some models fared worse than others. The recently updated Porsche 911, which has had mid-cycle tweaks including the new PDK ‘box, held up pretty well.

Bertone BAT 11

By Guy Bird Motor Shows 10 March 2008 11:43 What’s new on Bertone’s Geneva Motor Show stand? Italian coachbuilder Bertone might be in deep financial trouble – it didn’t have a stand at the Geneva show – but its styling division, Stile Bertone, revealed an incredible one-off car on the night of the first press day instead at Auto Design Night, a special event for car designers held at city centre night club La SIP. The stunningly streamlined BAT 11 doesn’t take its odd name from the bat-like rear wings, but because BAT stands for ‘Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica’ in Italian, the ‘11’ indicating that it is the fourth in a series of one-off Bertone designs for Alfa Romeo following on from the BAT 5, 7 and 9 from the mid-1950s.