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Lotus lusts after Lutz?

Lotus seem to be pursuing Bob Lutz The Lotus five year plan calls for the track day cars to make way for much more substantial and upmarket cars to become the force at Lotus; a move to become the Aston Martin East Anglia. Probably the first obvious move in this plan was to grab Dany Bahar from Ferrari last year (and Ferrari designer Donato Coco) and now Lotus are casting their net again to snare some big names to drive them forward. Top of the list is almost-octogenarian Bob Lutz who retired from GM – but certainly not from business – last year.

ZF boss thinks 9 speeds is enough for transmissions

The nine-speed transmission might be where the race to add gears ends, ZF Friedrichshafen CEO Stefan Sommer said. He referred to nine speeds as the "natural limit" because going beyond that number adds weight and complexity that cannot be offset by gains in fuel efficiency. "There is no hard line, but you have to consider the law of diminishing returns.

BMW 4-series Gran Coupe: First look

BMW has revealed the new 4-series Gran Coupe, over a month before it is due to make its public debut at the Geneva motor show. The introduction extends BMW's new 4-series lineup to three individual models, joining the recently introduced 4-series Coupe and Cabriolet in move similar to that taken by rival Audi with the A5, which also comes in Coupe, Cabriolet and Sportback guises. All three 4-series models share the same front-end styling.