Crane Cams Vintage Sticker on 2040-parts.com

Japan's concept cars - the craziest of the noughties

By Alex Michaelides Motor Shows 19 August 2009 10:00 Here we are, celebrating the best cars that Japan has produced, but what about the ones it hasn’t? At many motor shows – and particularly ones in its back yard – the Japanese industry serves up some wild concept cars which boggle the brain and tickle the ribs. It’s hardly surprising that few of them hit the mainstream.

2012 Saab 9-5 & 9-5 SportWagon prices and models

Saab 9-5 SportWagon arrives in the UK in the Autumn. Possibly Is it just us, or does it strike you as a bit odd that Saab are sending us information on the 2012 Saab 9-5 revisions and on the yet-to-actually-launch Saab 9-5 SportWagon, when Saab doesn’t even know if it will survive beyond tomorrow? True, it’s always best to be optimistic and plan for success not failure, but wouldn’t it have been pragmatic to wait until Uncle Tom Cobley and all have had their say on whether Saab can take the Chinese Shilling to survive.

New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.