Bridgestone Potenza 225/45 R18 Tire on 2040-parts.com

Mercedes A 45 AMG: Price from £37,845 – first deliveries August

The new Mercedes A45 AMG (pictures) starts at £37,845 The new Mercedes A45 AMG promises to be the first small Mercedes to put a dent in BMW’s baby M cars, and now you can place your order. The order book for the A45 AMG has opened, and with prices starting from £37,845 it promises yo be a lot of bang for your money, with 181bhp per litre from its 2.0 litre 4-cylinder and 0-62mph coming up in just 4.6 seconds. As we already know, the A45 gets an AMG body kit with new front bumper, front splitter, gloss black sill extensions, new back bumper and a set of 18″ or 19″ alloys.

Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid: Production to double to cope with demand

It’s particularly appealing if you like a car with a decent turn of speed – the V60 will do 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds – like the reassurance and practicality of 4WD – the V60′s electric motor drives the back wheels – drive in to London on a regular basis – the 48g/km emissions are congestion charge free – and get taxed as BIK from your company. If all those apply – and you already appreciate the Volvo V60 is a very good car to start with – then the V60 plug-in hybrid is a bit of a no-brainer, even with a headline price of nearly £50k (which gets within £6k of an equivalent non plug-in after the taxpayer has chipped in). It seems that many buyers agree, and Volvo is being inundated with orders.

Lexus HS250h – the Posh Prius

Lexus HS250h Dedicated Luxury Hybrid. Well, that’s what Lexus calls it. I reckon the LS600 made a pretty good fist of being a ‘Luxury Dedicated Hybrid’, but that doesn’t count apparently because you didn’t have to have the LS as a hybrid.