Volvo Penta Marine Condenser Capacitor P# 841262 Previous P# 834560 on 2040-parts.com

MINI First introduced

MINI has a new budget model - The MINI First With all things Eco the flavour of the month, and with budgets stretched in households everywhere, a cheap, entry-level budget MINI is a tempting prospect. You still get the iconic shape, and you still get a very good chassis – which translates in to good handling and a decent ride – but you’re not paying a fortune for the fripperies. After all, there are MINIs that will set you back £25k (the MINI JCW Cabriolet), but the new MINI First is a very tempting £10,950.

Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.

GM recalls midsize cars for transmission fix

General Motors is recalling the Chevrolet Malibu, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura to fix a problem with the transmission shift cable. GM says the tabs on the cable end may break. If that happens, the shifter indicator may not match the transmission's gear.