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Winners announced in Factory Five design competition

Earlier this year, we brought you news of an open-sourced design competition from American kit car manufacturer, Factory Five. The brief called for a compact, two-seat roadster that shared a drivetrain with the Subaru Impreza. The car would feature a bespoke space-frame chassis, but the mechanicals would be lifted from the Impreza to allow the car to sell for under $15,000.

Alfa MiTo Quadrifoglio Verde SBK Limited Edition arrives

There’s a new limited edition Alfa Romeo MiTo on offer – the MiTo Quadrifoglio Verde SBK – with just 28 cars on sale in the UK at a price of £21,595. Which explains why, when Alfa were scratching their heads to come up with a new Limited Edition MiTo, they settled on the the Superbike link with the Alfa MiTo Quadrifoglio Verde SBK Limited Edition. The MiTo Quadrifoglio Verde SBK has now arrived on UK shores – although there will only be 28 of them – complete with Superbike titivation and a few publicity photos featuring the MiTo Quadrifoglio Verde SBK on two wheels alongside a Superbike.

E85 makes inroads on cost and availability

Three years ago, we embarked on a Midwest road trip in search of what was then the Holy Grail of fuel: E85. Our findings weren't too positive--there were far more E85-compatible vehicles on the road in 2006 (5 million) than there were E85 pumps to fuel them (about 700 out of some 200,000 fuel stations nationwide). In addition, those burning the mix of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol were paying a pretty penny for their earth-friendly ways, losing about 15 percent in fuel economy while often paying the same price as regular unleaded.