Equus 8257 Boost/vacuum 2" Diameter on 2040-parts.com

Defending an old-school Land Rover

I don't know how to respond today after seeing on our very own homepage that the Land Rover people will bring the successor of its beloved Defender to the United States market. The Defender is a vehicle about which “lust” is an insufficiently weak noun or verb; current and vintage Defenders elicit something beyond an emotive response. They are visceral.

Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.

The BMW M5 is back!

BMW's M division has gone back to the drawing board with the M5, giving the fifth generation of the iconic four-door a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 engine—the first time Munich's class-defining performance sedan has gone without a naturally aspirated powerplant since its introduction in 1984. Further changes see it adopt a dual-clutch gearbox as part of a complete driveline rethink that resigns the old model's sequential manual transmission to the history books. Revealed here officially for the first time, the new M5 is planned to make its world debut in concept-car guise at the Shanghai motor show later this month.