1997 Land Rover Defender on 2040-cars

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Watch feds crush classic Mini caught in importation dragnet

Fair warning for any classic car fans that suffer from high blood pressure: this story might not be good for your health. US Customs and Border Protection is teaming up with British law enforcement to keep unsafe, imported vehicles off the road here – like this Mini. In the government's view, the only way to make things right is to crush the cars, apparently. The destruction is part of Operation Atlantic, a crackdown on Minis and Land Rover Defenders that are being illegally imported. According to Yahoo Autos, this is just one of about 100 vehicles from the dragnet. This specific car came into the US in June, and its VIN indicated a model from 1988. However, the vehicle had a different engine than it should have, and the steering wheel was on the wrong side. It was likely actually from around 2000. To emphasize the crackdown, government officials and press gathered at a New Jersey junkyard to destroy the car. Check out the video below to watch the carnage and listen to the horrible crunching noises, and read the sad press release below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Trans-Atlantic Partnership Seeks to Crush Illegal Trade of Unsafe Vehicles NEWARK, New Jersey-U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) destroyed an illegally imported and unsafe Mini Cooper Thursday at a salvage yard in New Jersey following a recent seizure at the Newark Seaport. CBP captured photos, b-roll and principal sound bites for use by news media. This Mini is just one of dozens of vehicles intercepted at ports of entry across the U.S, including ports in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, Jacksonville, Florida, Houston and Tacoma, Washington. Over the past year, CBP has increased targeting and inspections of suspect imported vehicles, specifically Minis and Land Rover Defenders, as part of Operation Atlantic, a new trans-Atlantic partnership between U.S. and U.K. regulatory and law enforcement officials. "Intercepting illegal and unsafe imports is a top priority for CBP," said Brenda Smith, CBP's assistant commissioner for International Trade. "Through Operation Atlantic, we are stopping illegally imported, unsafe vehicles from driving on our roadways, and at the same time, partnering with our colleagues in the UK to stop this criminal activity at its source." Launched in March 2014 by CBP's Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center (CTAC), U.S.

Jaguar Land Rover reportedly developing Road Rover car

Reports are circulating in the automotive media that Jaguar Land Rover is developing a vehicle that's not an SUV. Called the Road Rover, it would be an all-electric luxury car with "some" all-terrain capability, hinting at all wheel drive. Initially, the EV would launch in late 2019, then spawn more models to complete the lineup. There is also talk about JLR's interest in an outright purchase of an existing luxury car brand to join its portfolio, and that parent company Tata has already given this strategic move the green light. Tata has also reportedly made moves to protect its JLR ownership via acquiring more of its own stock. All this excitement brings to mind the fact that there once existed an actual Road Rover — the Rover brand. Having evolved into MG Rover before going into administration in 2005 and subsequently reborn in China under SAIC Motor ownership, Rover was a moderately posh British carmaker just beneath the level of prestige that Jaguar offered. For some years, both were part of the same corporation. The last Rover saloons were designed and built with BMW input, and at that point Land Rover had already become part of Ford, almost a decade after Jaguar did. Ford's tenure with Land Rover lasted from 2000 to 2008, when Tata bought the British brand — along with the Rover name. Would it just make sense to badge the road car Rover, with no Road or Land affixed to it? Rover's slovenly demise is more than a decade old now, but there's plenty of valuable history still embedded in the long-shelved Viking ship logo. Cast aside memories of Sterling-badged Honda Legend platform siblings and unattractively Federalized SD1 series cars, and take whatever good the 1999-2005 Rover 75 brought to the table — maybe it's time for Rover to be reborn in the current Jaguar Land Rover family. According to Autocar, the first Road Rover would be developed in tandem with the next-generation Jaguar XJ, so they would share an aluminum architecture suitable for both internal combustion engines and battery electric technology, depending of the model. If anything, there is delicious irony to this: The 1980s XJ generation that Jaguar spent decades developing was claimed to be engineered in such a way that the occasional stablemate Rover's Buick-derived 3,5-liter V8 wouldn't have fit in its engine bay — to preserve the Jaguar bloodline. To have the new XJ and a Rover cross paths again would only be fitting. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party.

Brabus takes on Range Rover Sport with Startech widebody kit

Of all the tuners this side of AMG, none are as close to Mercedes-Benz as Brabus. After all, when Daimler needed a tuner to spruce up the Smart car, it was Brabus that it turned to. But Brabus tunes vehicles other than Mercedes - it just uses, let's call it, a pen name. It brands them Startech, like the widebody kit it's developed for the new Range Rover Sport and will present at the Geneva Motor Show next week.
The modifications center around the carbon fiber body panels Brabus (excuse us, Startech) has developed for the British sport-ute that give it over two inches of added width. The wider fender flares encompass 23-inch wheels that are forged, ceramic-coated, skinned with low-profile rubber and fitted to a lowered suspension. The front and rear bumpers have been redone in plastic and can be fitted with or without the wider fenders, and there's a three-piece roof spoiler at the back.
Startech is also offering an upgrade for the 3.0-liter twin-turbo-diesel V6 that squeezes out an extra 31 horsepower and 59 pound-feet of torque for a total of 323 hp and 501 lb-ft, dropping the 0-62 time from 7.2 seconds to 6.9. The German tuner also has a wide array of interior modifications on offer, details of which you can read about in the press release below and scope out in the high-resolution image gallery above.