376791 Complete Gearcase 15" Transom, 1957-1958 Fleetwin Evinrude on 2040-parts.com

Bedford Autodrome to get Ariel Atoms for 2012

Corporate track-days at the Bedford Autodrome will get lairier in 2012 - Somerset-based Ariel has announced it’ll supply ten cars for the PalmerSport track-day events next year. Stopping short of the unhinged Atom V8, the PalmerSport-spec cars get the normally aspirated 245bhp Civic Type-R engine, and some key changes to set it aside from the Joe-Public Atom. The Palmer-spec car will get a Sadev paddle-shift sequential gearbox, which swaps ratios in 60 milliseconds, whilst some choice chassis mods optimise the Atom for its full-time track-toy brief.

Mitsubishi Mirage, Concept PX-MiEV II (2011) news

Mitsubishi will show the Mirage city car and Concept PX-MiEV II concept cars at the 2011 Tokyo motor show, which opens on 30 November. Both are world premieres. It's our first look at Mitsubishi's new city car in production trim and a concept car which clearly points to 2012's new Outlander.

Driven: Volkswagen Passat CC GT

Elegant and refined. Forty years ago these two words would not have been used to describe the Beetles bought in droves by the counterculture in the US; a symbol of the hippy movement and the definitive people's car, designed at a time when Germany sought to put people in motion. With the Passat CC, however, Volkswagen is indeed making a sharp move away from the ‘volks wagen', and these two words rolled off the tongues of those who saw the car in all three countries we drove through on our winter holiday.