Intellitec Battery Disconnect Solenoid # 01-00055-000 on 2040-parts.com

Aston Martin Slash 1/3rd of jobs

It’s getting silly out there. Aston Martin has this afternoon announced that it is to cut around a third of jobs at its Gaydon facility. That’s 300 full time and 300 part time.

C'est si bon: Mullin Automotive Museum celebrates the best of the Art Deco era

The French supposedly have a word for everything, but we couldn't muster any in English let alone the remnants of high school language lab upon first entering the new Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, Calif., just west of Los Angeles. All we could do was grin giddily at the sparkling array of Bugattis, Voisins, Delages, Delahayes and other unique examples of French automotive masterpieces from the 1920s and 1930s in an exhibition hall evocative of the salon that housed the 1936 Paris motor show and similar exposition halls of the Art Deco era. The collection is an immersion into the excitement and optimism of Art Deco design, especially in terms of automotive design.

BMW's N20 engine--four cylinders, more power

More power, greater torque, reduced fuel consumption, lower tailpipe emissions and less weight--but better? Before driving the BMW X1 xDrive28i, the first model to feature the German carmaker's new turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine, we weren't so sure. The new engine, known as the N20 and set to lead a return of four-cylinder BMW models to North America for the first time since 1998, has been conceived to (indirectly) replace the company's long-running naturally aspirated 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder.