Yamaha Xv1600 99-03 Road Star Rear Passenger Studded Seat on 2040-parts.com

GM preps for new engines, 8-speed transmission

General Motors is spending $332 million to upgrade powertrain plants in three states to build a new eight-speed automatic transmission, a new V6 and a new family of small-displacement gasoline engines. The plants are in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. GM is also adding $46 million to an earlier $600 million program to upgrade powertrain plants in Saginaw and Romulus, Mich.

Aston Martin V8 Vantage S (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

Good news for fans of Aston Martin's V8 Vantage, and especially those who found it a touch slow: the new, musclier V8 Vantage S.  The Aston Martin Vantage S is a tweaked-up version of the regular Vantage, and a full production model. It's the fastest Vantage yet! The biggest change is under the bonnet. The 4.7-litre V8 now has a stouter 430bhp, which makes it 20bhp more powerful than the Vantage N24 and 30bhp up on the N400 special editions.

Mercedes digs at Jaguar for EATING its Chicken

Mercedes digs at Jaguar for EATING its Chicken Just a few days ago we had a great video from Jaguar poking fun at Mercedes advert for Magic Body Control that featured chickens demonstrating how MBC worked. Jaguar’s response was to mimic Mercedes opening to the video but following it up with Jaguar’s big cat eating Mercedes chickens. It was a great response and we hoped it would signal a nice bit of back and forth between the Germans and the British as they each tried to outdo the other.