Draw-tite 9465-56 Gooseneck Trailer Hitch-under-bed Kit on 2040-parts.com

Nissan’s black cab: what will London’s new taxi be like to ride in?

Nissan Around 300,000 people use black cabs in London every day, and by the end of 2014, they’ll be faced with a new alternative in the form of Nissan’s NV200 London Taxi, unveiled today. See Nissan's new London taxi The Japanese manufacturer has done its best to make the NV200 echo the carbon-dateable TX4 (which owes much of its styling to the 1958 Austin FX4), but let’s be honest – the new Nissan looks like a van. No coincidence there – it is based on the NV200 commercial vehicle.

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.

JJAD P1 EV gets closer

Jim Dowle used to work as a designer for McLaren, and was involved in the original F1 development. So he knows a thing or two about lightweight performance cars. Last year Jim first announced details of his P1 concept, which was well received.