1989 Mercury Mariner Swivel Tube 42213a 6 6/8/9.9/15hp on 2040-parts.com

Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations division launches

Cars like the Jaguar F-Type Project 7 (pictured) will come from JLR’s Special Operations If the creation of the Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations division to create bespoke, heritage, ultra luxury and high performance Jaguar, Land Rover and Range Rover cars doesn’t shout how positive JLR are about the future, nothing will. Jaguar call it “meeting the increasing expectations of today’s most discerning and enthusiastic car customers“, but what they really mean is that JLR have now got so much back on their game with cars like the new Jaguar F-Type, new Range Rover and new Range Rover Sport that they now have buyers with deep enough pockets to pay for just about anything, so that’s what JLR are going to do with the Special Operations division; give them anything they want – at a price That will mean car like the Jaguar Project 7 F-Type we saw at Goodwood last year being possible, ultra-luxury versions of the Range Rover and even the creation of heritage cars like the new Lightweight E-Types could become a regular occurrence. With a team of engineers and and designers led by Paul Newsome, recently recruited from Williams Advance Engineering, the plan is to create halo vehicles for both the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, and a team of 150 at a new Technical Centre near Gaydon will have a customer commissioning suite for bespoke and premium personalisation.

Honda’s Uni-Cub Beta review from Tokyo

Japan – the land of crazy gadgets, of that there is little doubt. But the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show was surprisingly highly focused on proper, viable products instead of pie-in-the-sky futurism. Which is not to say there weren’t some intriguing exceptions.

Is Stefan Sielaff about to jump ship from Audi to head BMW interior design?

Here at CDN we hear plenty of gossip, much of which ends up as hot air and hardly any of which we publish. But when the source of a potential story is as reliable as Georg Kacher – a giant (physically and metaphorically) of a journalist with uncannily strong connections to those within the Germany industry – there's good cause to pay attention. His 'predictions' rarely fail to materialize.