Walker 51016 Connecting Pipe on 2040-parts.com

Range Rover Hybrid on the Silk Trail

A trio of Range Rover Hybrid s (pictured) on the Silk Trail The new Range Rover Hybrid (and the Range Rover Sport Hybrid too) are heading for a reveal at the Frankfurt Motor Show in a week or so, but they’re not quite ready for showrooms yet. Land Rover are still busy doing the final shakedown of the hybrid powerplant and have decided the best way is a high profile jaunt from Land Rover in Solihull to Mumbai in India following the ancient Silk Trail route to test the robustness of their new hybrid. So they garnered a trio of Range Rover hybrids – and support vehicles – enlisted a team consisting of Land Rover development engineers and motoring media from 10 countries, and set off from Solihull on 22nd August on the almost 10,000 mile expedition.

VW Touareg BlueMotion hits the UK

Volkswagen has announced the VW Touareg BlueMotion for the UK Offering improved economy and lower emissions, the Touareg BlueMotion manages to drop in to a lower Co2 band by emitting 219g/km (a reduction from 244g/km on the V6 TDi) and it delivers 34mpg as opposed to 30.4mpg on the V7 TDi. These improvements have been achieved by the usual ECU tweaking, low rolling resistance tyres, some aerodynamic tweaks and a lower ride height (exactly the same sort of stuff that Ford has done on the EConetic range). And the penalty for the lower emissions and better economy is very slight, with the Touareg BlueMotion still managing the 0-60mph in 8.5 seconds and a top speed of  126mph.

Suzuki Jimny SZ4 released

Suzuki has launched a new higher-spec Jimny - The Suzuki Jimny SZ4 The Jimny is pretty much in a league of its own, but that’s probably because no one else wants to play, rather than the Jimny being exceptional in any way. It’s not exactly a comfortable car, although it seems to cope with big bumps reasonably well, it’s just everything else it has trouble with. But we can’t argue that it’s not well put together, because it is.