Donkervoort GTO

After two and a half years of development in close collaboration with Audi Quattro GmbH, Donkervoort has released details of their eagerly awaited new Donkervoort GTO open sports car.

The Donkervoort GTO has a beautiful shape, with a capacity of 340 to 400 HP from its 2.5-litre TFSI Audi engine and is larger than its predecessors, the closed GT and D8 270RS. The new Donkervoort GTO Audi engine is also lighter by 30kg and this lighter weight is reflected by its extra performance, being one of the fastest cars on the European market.

Donkervoort GTO

It has a special race module switch, which can instantly increase the capacity of the car from 340 to 400 HP at once and also has traction control on board if required. The car clearly takes many of its design themes from the aviation and rocket industry and production should start in 2012, with first models being delivered next summer. The first “regular” versions should be on European roads by 2013 however you will need deep pockets, as the car is priced between 100K and 150K Euros excluding taxes.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has released the data on new car registrations for February 2011. The numbers fell less than expected due to strong demand from fleet customers, however overall the market dropped 7.7% to 63,424 units. Registrations over the first two months of 2011 were down by 10.2% to 192,235 units.

Fleet volumes recovered in February by 8.6% but private registrations continued to decline to 22,584, a fall of 26.7%. Demand for the mini and supermini segment cars also continued to fall, but registrations of executive, luxury saloon, sports cars and MPVs showed a double digit growth in the month. Diesel market share was 50% in the month, rising by 8.9% and the Volkswagen Golf was the best seller, followed by the Vauxhall Corsa (2nd) and Ford Focus (3rd).

Aston Martin Cygnet

The Aston Martin Cygnet luxury city car is set to go into production in 2011 at the company’s Gaydon headquarters in Warwickshire. This new luxury city car sets a new benchmark for urban commuting and builds upon nearly 100 years of Aston Martin’s experience in building high performance sports cars and luxurious long range grand tourers.

The Aston Martin Cygnet city car is just three metres long and will be able to utilise the smallest parking spaces in town, consume the least fuel and offer low emissions, all combined in a luxurious package. The Cygnet will be the eighth production car Aston Martin has introduced since 2004 and further details of the Aston Martin Cygnet pricing and full vehicle specification will be announced later this year.

Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover has announced their official sponsorship of Coventry Rugby Football Club for the 2011/2011 season. This agreement will see Jaguar Land Rover further extend strong community ties with the city, where it employs 2000 people and has a dedicated Education Partnership Centre, which annually supports over 7,000 children.

Les Ratcliffe, Jaguar Land Rover Community Relations Manager said,”Today Jaguar Land Rover, two of the world’s most iconic automotive brands, work side by side in the development of strong and lasting community partnerships which positively impact upon the local communities in which we operate. Jaguar has a very rich and well documented link to Coventry and has produced some of its most beautiful sports cars in the City.This new and exciting partnership with Coventry Rugby Club will provide a platform for us to further extend the work we are doing with local schools, sports and community groups”.

McLaren MP4-12C

McLaren has launched a new sports car company called McLaren Automotive and is set to put into production a new range of high performance sports cars. McLaren has obviously built its credentials in Formula 1 and now has an aspiration to manufacture, then sell and service their new vehicles worldwide.

The first sports car will be the MP4-12C and the aspiration is to build bespoke, innovative and unique sports cars to take on the likes of Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini.

Carbon Black

Aston Martin is releasing two top-of the-range special editions for their DBS and V12 Vantage sports cars. They both feature Carbon Black metallic paint with each car undergoing 50-man hours of hand painting.

The V12 Vantage side strake gets a real carbon fibre finish backed by a black mesh to compliment the gloss black 10-spoke diamond turned alloy wheels, plus a bright finished grille and front parking sensors to complete the exterior package. Inside the theme of carbon continues with Piano Black facia trim, centre stack and centre console, anodised black tread plates and unique sill plaques.

Final pricing is expected in the New Year with cars available from March 2010.