All New Volkswagen Bora

The very first photos of the all-new Volkswagen Bora sedan for China. It stands on the same MQB platform, and is almost exactly the same size, as the new Volkswagen Lavida Plus. The bora is made in China by the FAW-Volkswagen joint venture. New Bora: 4663/1815/1473 mm, and wheelbase is 2688 mm. Lavida Plus: 4670/1806/1474 mm, and wheelbase is 2688 mm. Current Bora: 4562/1739/1468 mm, and wheelbase is 2614 mm. Design is a huge improvement over the current car, which had been facelifted so many times it had become faceless. The new Bora looks modern, clean, and even a bit sporty. Volkswagen will not put any new engines under the bonnet. The 1.5 gets six horses more for 116, and the 1.4 turbo remains at 150. This non-TSI turbo engine has been used by Volkswagen in China for almost ten years now. Gearboxes are unchanged as well: a 6-speed manual and a 7-speed DCT, but the old 5-speed manual has been deleted. Even more strangely; the 5-speed has not been deleted for the Lavida Plus. The new Volkswagen Bora will hit the Chinese car market in September. Price will start around 115.000 yuan. The current Bora will continue until then, and probably a little bit longer.

This freed up its engineers to work on future road car engines for Jaguar. In March 1965 Motor Sport correspondent Denis Jenkinson took deliver of a Carmen red FHC, FPL 660C, a 4.2-litre E-type. Having test driven the new improved 4.2-litre E-type, and been impressed by the revised car, Denis Jenkinson took the plunge and ordered one. He related: 鈥楢s soon as I had the car I had gone over it with a set of spanners, tweaking everything up just that little bit tighter than it had been done in the factory. While all this was going on, Denis Jenkinson was acquainting himself with his new E-type. This was of course in the era before speed limits were imposed on motorists and before the 1973 oil crisis. Jenkinson continued, 鈥楾he next trip was a bit more serious, for it was straight down to Sicily, putting in an easy 500-600 miles a day. The ride and comfort of the E-type was first class, the seats came up to all the claims made by Jaguar when they were introduced. Back in the UK the government had decided to crack down on this type of high speed motoring.

On 24th November 1965, the British government imposed a 70mph speed limit, initially for four months, but now in force for over 40 years. Still this did not affect 鈥楯enks鈥?on the continent. 鈥楢 pretty regular trip was down the Autostrada from Milan to Modena, the home of Maserati and Ferrari among lots of other things. 2 E-type was announced. Right from the E-type鈥檚 earliest days, Sir William Lyons had demanded more room inside, and after a five-year gestation period, the finished article appeared. 2 also featured a taller windscreen, longer doors and room in the back for two children. It was also available with a three speed Borg-Warner model 8 automatic transmission. The style was penned by Bob Blake. 2 was the first alteration to the E-type鈥檚 form, and although stylistically it was less of a success, from a business point of view it made perfect sense. 2 proving to be the most popular model.

2 FHC automatic. Top speed was 136.2mph and its 0-60mph time was 8.9seconds. Autocar, meanwhile, tested a manual version and reached a terminal velocity of 139mph and and completed the 0-60mph dash in 7.4 seconds. On 11 July 1966, Jaguar and the British Motor Corporation announced they were merging to form British Motor Holdings. Effectively a takeover of Jaguar, but allowing Sir William Lyons to maintain control of his company. With two brilliant engineering teams headed by William Heynes and Sir Alec Issigonis, how could they fail? 2 E-type seemed to point the way to the future for the Jaguar sports car. Behind the scenes, Jaguar worked on its 60-degree modular V8 and V12 engines with communized parts. These were intended for a new generation of cars including the XJ21 project, which was the planned E-type replacement. 2. Jaguar was also looking at developing a smaller sports car using the 2.5-litre Daimler V8, a 3-litre XK engine, or the in-development 3.5-litre V8. The company was certainly ambitious, but its financial resources made such goals unobtainable.