Eastwood Pistol Grip 3" Mini Pneumatic Air Sander on 2040-parts.com

Tax-return car deals

Automakers are offering cut-rate financing, cash back and lease deals just as our income-tax-refund checks are coming in the mail. These timely tax-return car deals are paired with the necessity for automakers to make room on dealer lots for all-new models. (See the Cadillac CTS deals.) Here, we break down some of the incentives being offered this month.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Bentley Continental Supersports Convertible (2010): first official pictures

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 17 February 2010 10:46 Bentley today opened up its new Continental Supersports Convertible – the soft-top version of the E85-swilling Supersports coupé. It's the fastest rag-top ever to roll out of Crewe's gates, hitting 60mph in 3.9sec and 202mph flat out.The four-seater Conti Supersports Convertible follows closely the format of the 2009 coupé and arrives as Bentley has extended the Supersports' E85 diet across the entire 2011 model year Continental range. It's all part of Bentley's pledge to have every model biofuel-compatible by 2012, a key plank in its bid to make Bentleys acceptable in a carbon-crunched world.