Motoring opinion

Two great drives in Porsche 911s really stand out in my memory. One was a 50-mile blast around the outskirts of Geneva in a fabulously original 1973 911 Carrera RS 2.7. You know the one: trick little...

An old-age pensioner gave me the biggest adrenaline rush of my life the other day. No, not some myopic relative with a Metro stuck in ‘R’ and their foot stuck to the floor. I’m talking about multiple...

Now that Porsche owns Volkswagen and Audi, perhaps they will finally kill off that anti-Porsche, the Cayenne? The Volkswagen Group already produces two vast 4x4s – Touareg and Q7 – and Dr Wolfgang...

After the race, no-one at McLaren could give me the stats surrounding Heikki Kovalainen’s accident on lap 22. The impact speed, the G-forces and even the cause of the left front wheel failure were all...

Big weekend for Lewis Hamilton, this. His world championship challenge requires him to see off Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in the Spanish Grand Prix, as does his confidence. By his own admission, Lewis...

Porsche Blog Special Kill the Cayenne – now! By Gavin Green How Derek Bell made me physically

Hooray for that old warhorse Bob Lutz, a car boss prepared to speak his mind. Just before the Geneva motor show, Lutz – General Motors’ head of product and the most entertaining figure in the car...

Not so long ago, the head turners were invariably the hot rods. Expressive meant express; fast equalled fun. A Ferrari glowed with character; most Fords and Fiats had as much character as grumpy...

As predicted, the Prancing Horse galloped into the distance in Bahrain. Felipe Massa controlled the race from the front and Kimi Raikkonen demonstrated the superiority of the F2008 by driving around...

They haven’t had any rain in Bahrain this year. Not one drop. As a result, the rocky wilderness that surrounds the Bahrain International Circuit is more of a dust bowl than normal. The slightest of...

Motorsport stars David Leslie and Richard Lloyd died in this week's Kent plane crash. Ben Oliver pays tribute. Each man enjoyed four decades at the heroic end of British motorsport. Leslie (pictured...

It’s not hybrids that are the problem per se, says Ben Pulman, but the humans who regulate their use. I hate a lot of things (models, people who turn their noses up a Skodas, the usual) but I don’t...

When news first came out that Ford was selling Land Rover, some takeover virgins were wandering the Gaydon headquarters shell-shocked. One wise old hand urged optimism. ‘It’s my fourth sale since I’ve...

We’ve yet to see a genuine fight between Formula 1’s two heavyweight teams in 2008. McLaren dominated in Melbourne, where Ferrari faltered, and in Malaysia the opposite was true. However, we’re...

There are contrasting moods in the Sepang paddock. The ITV-F1 crew look bewildered to have lost Formula 1 to the Beeb in 2009, while the BBC Radio 5 Live gang are understandably elated, and it’s a...

How can Ferrari, with all their millions of dollars and technical expertise, make such a balls of it? They had the quickest car in Melbourne (hard to believe, I know) and sheer incompetence resulted...

Strewth it's hot down here. Today’s 37-degree heat might have been good news for the bikini-clad pit babes, but it was tough for the drivers (and the journalists). The class of 2008 wasn’t worried...

Talk about a tale of two cities! At the not-so-long-ago Detroit Show, Ford’s stand looked more like a used car lot than the pointer to an exciting future. The one-time king of Motown was in a meek and...

I was really sad to hear that Paul Frere died over the weekend, aged 91. Frere was an amazing man, with an incredible career that puts the rest of us car journalists firmly in our place. I met him a...

Pulling onto the Heathrow slip road, a deliciously ironic sign confronted me and my BMW 335i (emissions: 238g/km CO2): ‘You are entering a low emissions zone (LEZ)’. Beneath the world’s most ...

It was a squalid scene at the Barcelona test session last weekend.  Jingoistic Alonso fans hurled such obscene verbal abuse (and the odd beer can) at Lewis Hamilton that McLaren were forced to shut...

Has Delhi overtaken Detroit? Ben Oliver ponders the changing importance of global motor shows. For the second year, General Motors opened the Detroit Motor Show with its ‘Style’ event, in which...

The Detroit show is usually a loud car carnival of chutzpah, chrome and courageous concepts. This year it was apologetic (‘we’ve been destroying the planet but now we’re doing something about it’)...

Am I the only one left stone cold by the utter irrelevance of a 300bhp Focus RS? I mean 300bhp – that’s just a ludicrous amount of power and torque to put through the front wheels of any car, no...

The Bologna Motor Show isn’t the best show in the world. Even within Europe it has little of the prestige of Geneva, the flare of Paris, or the sheer size of Frankfurt. But we go because it’s a...

Chasing sales by plugging smaller niches may ruin Audi's health, says Ben Whitworth Last week I wrote the best part of a thousand words outlining Audi’s never-ending barrage of key new models up to...

A car's name is crucial to its success - so when and why do manufacturers change it? Despite the best and moneyed efforts of Nissan’s marketing majors, the fabulous new GT-R will always be a Skyline.

Longevity is no bad thing, says our art editor, even in the elevated world of car design The recent spate of automotive remakes, re-inventions and resuscitations has polarised design opinion. Since...

Tim Pollard's just moved house. And carted half a tonne of car magazines in the process Four hundred and something kilogrammes. That's half a Lotus Elise, or my life's collection of car magazines. I...

Gavin Green says it's about time we all get along, for the greater good For too long it’s been cyclists versus drivers versus motorcyclists and honestly chaps (and girls) it’s getting us nowhere. We...

Driving an old 911 back to back with a Caparo T1 throws Chris Chilton's perspective I haven’t managed many long trips in my 'new' old 911, so when I had to get over to Bruntingthorpe airfield to drive...

Intrigue, espionage, topsy-turvy to the end... Andy Franklin is in love with F1 again The 2007 F1 season shows no sign of dying down - even a couple of weeks after Lewis Hamilton spectacularly failed...

Is the Congestion Charge fixing all London's problems? Far from it, says Gavin Green The focus of the original 2003 London Congestion Charge was sharp, never mind that it bludgeoned millions of...

They tried to make the Impreza normal, but failed. Glen Waddington is intrigued I first saw the new Subaru Impreza out of the corner of my eye in the office car park, and I couldn’t place it. Kia Rio?...

Ben Pulman lusts after an M3 - but can't afford one. Here's his cunning plan... There are two types of motoring journalists; those who own their own cars, and those who don’t. I currently fall into...

Can the home-grown, sports-car-in-a-shed industry survive? Ben Whitworth hopes so So Marcos is dead. Last week the Kenilworth-based car maker called in the receivers. Another small-volume British...