C-X75 Jaguar

However the big news was under the rear compartment.
The concept car housed two gas turbines which powered electric motors. Speaking with CarAdvice, Gordon Snoddy, Global Jaguar Brand Manager, explained the reason behind choosing gas turbines.
“The main advantage is weight,” said Mr Snoddy. “The two engines only weigh 35kg each, yet they produce 95hp each.”

“They can also run on just about any fuel, which means they’re extremely versatile, which is great for future fuel research and alternative sources. They charge batteries very quickly, too, and they’re also extremely efficient.”

While the turbines don’t produce direct thrust (this isn’t the Batcar, remember), they supply generators linked to four 195hp electric motors, one for each wheel. So why won’t we see gas turbines in the production version of the C-X75? Gordon Snoddy tells us.

“The main problem is cooling. These turbines run extremely hot, and we haven’t quite got the cooling sorted yet,” said Mr Snoddy. “We have people working on that, in conjuction with the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). It’s definitely the way of the future, we just have to overcome some hurdles first.”

It seems a strange path to take, until you realise that Jaguar’s parent company Tata has just taken a major stake in Bladon Jets. Jaguar says that it will develop this technology as a medium-term aspiration, and it will definitely play a part in Jaguar’s future.

Future Jaguars may well be run as hybrids powered by gas turbines, but in the mean time, the C-X75 will come to market with an F1-derived four-cylinder turbocharged engine run as a parallel hybrid with four powerful electric motors for each of the wheels. Efficiency is still the key here, with Jaguar touting that the 99g/km CO2 level has been achieved and is a certainty for the C-X75 production car.

MINI Cooper S

MINI Cooper S – small, tight fit and not a lot of boot space either, but who’s complaining? Not me.
There’s a guy in a Porsche Carrera 4S that clearly doesn’t like the fact that the MINI Cooper S has just flogged him through a tight little section on my standard test drive route.
For some odd reason it’s been way too long since my last road test of one of these ‘hot’ MINI Coopers. The last time was more than a few years ago, when I was privileged to take ex-formula racer Warwick Brown on a hot lap of the Pier One area in a John Cooper Works special edition. That was early on a Sunday morning and Warwick stepped out of the car and said he was buying one, just like that.
That’s what a drive in a MINI Cooper S can do to you, because there simply isn’t another car on the road that offers this much fun behind the wheel. That’s despite the fact that the cons probably outweigh the pros, at least from various practicality aspects.
The MINI Cooper is small, very small. Thankfully though, it’s about twice the size of the original car designed by Sir Alec Issigonis. Even so, if we were talking apartments – this would be a studio. While there’s not a lot of elbowroom between driver and front passenger, there’s even less legroom for rear-seat passengers, but it’s fine for kids though. In the rear cargo space, you might just be able to squeeze in the weekly grocery shopping – but that’s only if you don’t have kids.

Infiniti G25 2.5-liter V6 power plan

Until now, the company had only the G37 to do battle with entry-level versions of BMW's 3 Series and the Lexus IS, which in terms of cost and performance was sort of like deciding between a cigarette lighter and a flamethrower. The G25 now shoulders that duty, positioned squarely in the same output and price category as its entry-level lux-marque competition.
Known as VQ25VHR in Nissan-speak, the G25's 2.5-liter V6 power plant is built on the same architecture as the 3.7-liter V6 found in the G37. The G25's engine is consequently only smaller in terms of swept capacity — externally, the two engines are clones.
This commonality presents something of a problem since the "smaller" engine doesn't result in significant weight or manufacturing cost savings. Fuel economy, too, at 20/29 city/highway mpg, betters the G37's 19/27 mpg showing by just a hair while giving up a not-inconsiderable slice of power and torque.
So in order to keep the 2011 Infiniti G25's sticker from potentially ballooning past that of a bare-bones G37, Infiniti withheld from the G25 a few whiz-bang option packages. The G37's Premium, Sport and Technology offerings are deleted for the G25, as is a navigation system. But then, this is the entry-level version, remember?