1967 Ford Fairlane Steering Idler Arm on 2040-parts.com

17,000 solar panels to power Toyota’s Derbyshire plant

Toyota’s manufacturing plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire, where the Auris and Avensis are built, will install the biggest solar panel system yet seen in a UK car plant.  British Gas, which will stump up the £10 million cost of installing the solar panels, and Toyota are working together to save 2000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. Once the solar panels are installed, they claim it will save enough energy to build approximately 7000 cars a year.

Toyota will install brake override systems to prevent runaway vehicles

Toyota will install brake override systems on all Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles by year end as a way to prevent unintended acceleration. The new system will be put in all vehicles globally, said Yoshi Inaba, president of Toyota North America Inc., in an interview at the Detroit auto show on Monday. The initiative follows a recall last fall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles in the United States to correct the problem.

New MINI Paceman highlighted on video

With the production version of the MINI Paceman now revealed, MINI has produced a couple of videos to show off its new Coupe. The new MINI Paceman, the Coupe version of the MINI Countryman and MINI’s answer to the Range Rover Evoque, was revealed earlier this week before heading off to thye 2012 Paris Motor Show. And although MINI did manage to produce a whole heap of photos of the new Paceman, there’s nothing quite like a video or two to get proper perspective.