Nissan Cima 2001 Cd Changer [6261250] on 2040-parts.com

Alfa MiTo TwinAir arrives

Alfa Romeo has bolted the 875cc TwinAir engine from the Fiat 500 in to the MiTo to produce a congestion charge busting new MiTo. The new Alfa Romeo MiTo TwinAir is a logical move by Alfa to produce a MiTo with green credentials but which still offer a decent drive and a dose of fun. In the Fiat 500, the TwinAir engine is a bit of a hoot, sounding a bit like a cross between a lawnmower and a 2-stroke and with bags of character and lively to boot.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

BMW i3 EV: More than 8,000 ordered already

The BMW i3 EV already has 8k orders BMW has invested heavily in their new ‘i’ range of electric cars – as much as £2 billion it’s estimated – with the ‘i’ cars being developed from scratch rather than based on an existing BMW model. The first BMW i to be launched is the compact city car BMW i3, revealed in production form in July, which costs from around £30k for the regular EV and an extra 10 per cent for the i3 with a range extender engine. Despite being revealed in July BMW has not yet officially put the i3 on sale, but that hasn’t stopped potential buyers lining up to palce a reservation, with more than 8,000 already signed-up for an i3.