83-94 Gm Family Of Cars, 8-1/2" Pressure Plate, B/w # 351910 on 2040-parts.com

Drink Drive Limit Cut: Binned for now

The Drink Drive Limit safe - for now Having already criminalised a huge swathe of the motoring population of the UK by sticking endless ‘Safety’ Cameras anywhere they will catch drivers unaware and rake in huge fines, it seemed the Con-Dems were about to emulate the last administration’s actions on motorists and move to a stupidly low drink drive alcohol limit to try and criminalise the handful of motorists the speed cameras hadn’t already nabbed. Earlier this summer a quango report – lead by ‘Expert’ Sir Peter North – declared that the UK’s drink drive limit should be lowered from the current 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg – less than a pint for most people. In our risk averse, nanny-state, ‘elf ‘n’ safety obsessed world it seemed a dead cert that the UK would adopt a lower limit – as the report recommended -  in line with much of Europe.

New Mercedes S Class starts production – & reveals the new S 63 AMG

A new Mercedes S 63 AMG coming off the production line Last month we finally had the reveal of the new 2014 Mercedes S Class and it’s now started production in Sindelfingen in Germany. Which is what you’d expect. What you wouldn’t expect is that Mercedes would release a video (below) to accompany the news and manage to reveal a car that’s not yet been officially shown – the new Mercedes S 63 AMG – in the process.

2014 BMW X3 Facelift and more efficient engines

The 2014 BMW X3 (pictured) gets a facelift and new engines The current version of the BMW X3 SUV has been with us for more than three years, so BMW are giving it a bit of a mid-cycle facelift and more frugal engines to keep the X3 on top of its – very successful – game. Engines on offer for the 2014 X3 include the 2.0 litre diesel in the sDrive18d which offers 148bhp and 56.8mpg and the 187bhp in the X3 xDrive20d which returns 52.3mpg, the xDrive30d – which gets the 3.0 litre diesel unit – with 254bhp and 47.9mpg and the X3 xDrive35 which has an impressive 309bhp but still manages official economy of 47.1mpg. When it comes to the cosmetic facelift bits, BMW hasn’t really pushed the boat out, but the new X3 does get a new headlight design which is sleeker, new front and rear bumpers and a new surround for the kidney grill, which all contrive to make the new X3 look even more like a baby X5.