New and Used Car Reviews and Car Specifications Blog

Readers who have been diligently following this blog will recall that quite some time back I was bemoaning the gradual demise of my beloved manual transmission gearboxes. Unsurprisingly, in the months that followed that entry, the manual gearbox has been under a further and renewed onslaught by the much fancier double clutch gearbox variants. Led by VW and their pioneering developments in this field, the manual gearbox is being hunted to extinction. I fear that in the next decade, manual gearboxes will head the way of the Dodo bird. But I am pretty sure that the manual gearbox won’t be the only feature in the conventional motor-vehicle that our great grandchildren will only read about in history books. Digging deep into my not so trusty crystal ball, here are my other picks for vehicle technologies headed towards endangered species or extinct status.

Readers who have been diligently following this blog will recall that quite some time back I was bemoaning the gradual demise of my beloved manual transmission gearboxes. Unsurprisingly, in the months that followed that entry, the manual gearbox has been under a further and renewed onslaught by the much fancier double clutch gearbox variants. Led by VW and their pioneering developments in this field, the manual gearbox is being hunted to extinction. I fear that in the next decade, manual gearboxes will head the way of the Dodo bird. But I am pretty sure that the manual gearbox won’t be the only feature in the conventional motor-vehicle that our great grandchildren will only read about in history books. Digging deep into my not so trusty crystal ball, here are my other picks for vehicle technologies headed towards endangered species or extinct status.

Mercedes has released the first teaser image of the 2012 SLK – showing its roof.

Honda has introduced the Japan domestic market version of its new Fit (Jazz in Singapore) Hybrid alongside wth the regular Fit model, which benefits from a minor cosmetic update with equipment upgrades for the 2011 model year.

It isn’t very often that I write about a Fiat. This is because in this region no one seems to be willing to spend their hard earned salary on one. Maybe it is the reliability issues or bad resale value. But if you ever get a chance to sit in one, you’d find that they are not as fragile as they once were and the materials used for the interior is pretty good. The Fiat Punto Evo is one of them and it is good to hear that this car isn’t neglected by performance tuners like NOVITEC, who have unveiled their tuning upgrades for this good looking Italian hatchback.

Want to own and run an Aston Martin One-77? You would wouldn’t you if it isn’t for the approximately £1.2m price. But then again, if you got one for free you would feel secure in the thought that the fastest, most expensive Aston Martin is also the one with the world’s most powerful normally aspirated road car/production engine at 750bhp from its 7.3liter V12. A marvel in modern technology….