Jeep Mutt Motor Mounts on 2040-parts.com

General Motors design landmark gets second life--as a school

"The profession was invented in this room,” says Richard Rogers, president of the College for Creative Studies (CCS), as he stands in the dusty construction site that used to be the General Motors Argonaut Building. “And this is where Harley Earl's office was.” Looking across the top floor of the building, it is easy to see a circle of concrete like the landing mark of a flying saucer. The circle is the remnant of an early platform for clay models, developed here for the first time as design tools for mass-production autos.

Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.

Ford Focus is the best selling car…in the World

In the week Ford built its 350 millionth car, the Ford Focus has been  revealed as the best selling car in the world in 2012. It probably helps that the Ford Focus is now a proper world car, rather than just a European model, but it’s still an impressive claim - the Ford Focus sold 522,181 in the first seven months of 2012, making it the world’s top selling car. Of that half a million plus Focuss (Focii?) Ford shifted over a  quarter of them in Europe (153,400) and the Focus outsold both the Toyota Corolla and VW Golf worldwide and in the last year a massive 860,00 Focus have found homes round the world.