A look at Acura future products

Acura is in the middle of a major product changeover, reflecting plans to challenge second-tier luxury rivals Audi, Buick, Infiniti and Volvo rather than Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus. Acura has launched the ILX compact sedan and redesigned the RDX compact crossover. It will redesign the RL flagship this fall and make changes to the MDX crossover and TL mid-sized sedan in 2013.

Rolls Royce sponsors Bloodhound 1000mph World Speed Record attempt

The last time we had news about a sponsor for the Bloodhound 1000mph World Record attempt aproject, it was all about a carbon off-set company sponsoring the project with off-set credits so the speed record project could claim to be carbon neutral. This time, it’s something of proper value to the project. Rolls Royce – the plane people, not the car people – are supplying their EJ200 jet engine from the Eurofighter Typhoon – and technical support – which will be bolted in Bloodhound to get it up to 350mph before a rocket engine takes over and thrusts it on past 1000mph.

Ford Escort returns – for China: Shanghai Motor Show

The Ford Escort Concept has been built by Ford with the aim of taking a sizeable chunk of China’s compact saloon market – estimated at 5.5 million sales a year – and looks remarkably production viable and far from ‘budget’. Escort is a badge China knows – there are plenty of old Escorts floating around Chinese roads – so it’s a sensible move by Ford to revive a badge that already resonates as a compact, affordable saloon with Chinese car buyers. This new Escort gets a proper version of Ford’s latest design language – including the Aston Martin grill – and has good lines and strong detail including jeweled headlights with the lucky Chinese ’8′ discernible ; it looks entirely cohesive and nothing like a Focus with a boot grafted on.