Car industry news

Ford’s new Ka is going to be a film star. Continuing Ford’s relationship with the James Bond film series, the Ka will appear in the latest spy thriller Quantum of Solace, driven by Ukranian actress...

At the launch of the revised Lamborghini Gallardo, the LP560-4, journalists were treated to a fashion show of scantily clad girls parading up and down on the dinner table. The reason why has now...

Mercedes-Benz researchers call it the ‘one-second nap’ – that instant when fatigue overcomes you at the wheel on a long trip and you wake up in hospital. To counter dozing off while driving, which...

With spiralling fuel prices, luxury off-roaders may be seen as the devil on wheels in the UK’s current cash-strapped economic climate – which would explain why last month saw a sharp drop in SUV sales...

Finally Fiat is launching the Panda Cross in the UK. It's essentially a plastic addenda-clad version of the existing Panda 4x4, but the Cross has so far only been available in mainland Europe. Like...

More than 100 potential IFR Aspid customers have signed up for a two-day test drive following the new two-seater sports car's unveiling at the London motor show last month. Now the Spanish...

The latest figures from the Department for Transport show the number of people killed in drink-driving accidents in the UK fell in 2007. According to the data the number of fatal accidents dropped by...

Andrea Pininfarina – the chief executive of the fabled Italian coachbuilder bearing his name – died today in a road accident. He was the grandson of founder Battista Farina and son of Sergio...

Aston Martin and Mercedes are plotting a wide-ranging tie-up that could see the two famous brands collaborate on engines, hybrids, transmission and even entire platforms, CAR can reveal. The...

Nissan has unveiled a brace of new technologies to make driving in the 21st century cleaner and greener – but they also signal a further erosion of driver independence, ceding more control from man to...

Ferrari likes to win, and so, not content with having to fight McLaren for the Formula 1 championship, it is venturing into the A1GP series. From the start of the 2008/09 season all A1GP cars will be...

CAR Online is two years old today! We launched on 1 August 2006 as the official website of CAR Magazine, and since CAR Online has grown its community of users twenty-fold to become one of the UK's...

Volkswagen's budget brand Skoda will gain a raft of new models in the next few years, CAR Online can reveal.  Leading the product expansion is an estate version of the new Superb which will cost less...

With a supercharged 6.2-litre V8 pumping out 620bhp and 607lb ft and only needing to push 1519kg, the Corvette ZR1 was never being to be slow. But few people outside of General Motors could have...

The next Audi RS4 will be supercharged, the R8’s V10 will be naturally aspirated and we won’t be seeing an Audi that’s smaller than the A1 supermini any time soon. That’s all according to a...

CAR covers TVR's latest news

BMW will launch a hybrid petrol version of the newly unveiled 7-series in 2009, but admits it’s more for green-leaning V8 addicts than seriously eco-aware bosses. Even with the latest lithium-ion...

It’s finally happened. The new car market has succumbed to the economic slowdown and punters are staying away from showrooms in droves. Latest figures from industry trade body the SMMT showed an 11.9...

Greens hate their CO2 emissions, campaigners may question their safety record and owners might be feeling the pinch at the pump. But 4x4s can claim at least one advantage over smaller cars; they are...

Britain makes twice as many engines each year as cars. Latest industry figures reveal more than 3.1 million petrol and diesel engines were produced at domestic plants in 2007, compared to just over...

Schumacher is back! The battle to decide the world’s fastest motorsport star returns again to Wembley Stadium on the 14th December – and the seven-time F1 champ has already signed up. Covered in...

It was an odd place for an inside line into what future Volkswagens will look like, but when head of VW Group design Walter de Silva invited CAR to the old Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin - now a...

VW Group’s Design Director Walter De Silva shed light on the future direction of Volkswagen design during a lecture earlier this week at the old Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin. Where are they going...

Direct injection and a clever new PDK dual-clutch gearbox have cemented the new 911’s reputation as the greenest performance car around, but Porsche engineers are being hampered from making the iconic...

Seat's new Mondeo rival – due for a 2009 debut – will be called Exeo. Pronounced ‘ex-ay-oh’ (derived from the Latin exire, meaning ‘to go beyond’ and breaking away from Seat’s city-based nomenclature)...

Renault has pulled the UK launch of its budget brand, Dacia. It had planned to launch the cheap 'n' cheerful badge in the UK in February 2009, but that's now gone back a year, the company announced...

From February 2009 the cleanest conventional-engined car you can buy will be a diesel Smart Fortwo. That’s the date set for the launch of a right-hand drive version of the city car brand’s oil-burning...

Chrysler could work with Nissan to produce its long-awaited, super-butch supermini the Dodge Hornet, CAR Online has learned. The concept car was first shown back in 2006 and is being readied for a...

Specialist manufacturer Lightning Car Company is set to build a 700bhp electric sports car. The Lightning GT will be powered by batteries and capable of delivering a range of 250 miles on a single...

Trevor Wilkinson, the founder of TVR, has died in hospital aged 85. He was the driving force behind the Blackpool performance car brand, which bore his name and went on to become famous for producing...

Seat will launch its sexy Ibiza SportCoupe at the July 2008 London motor show, but CAR was granted a sneak preview yesterday. Unlike many three-door variants, the SportCoupe is no 5-minus-2-door,...

UPDATED! Audi will unveil its hot S4 saloon in autumn 2008 - and it's losing the V8 engine of old in favour of a new supercharged V6 petrol engine producing around 350bhp. Powering Audi's latest...

Max Mosley will continue as FIA president after member clubs today voted overwhelmingly in his favour. At the meeting in Paris, Mosley received 103 votes supporting a ‘motion of confidence in the FIA...

Jaguar and Land Rover are now officially Indian-owned. The sale of the two iconic British brands was completed today, and ownership has now passed from Ford to Tata in exchange for $2.3bn in cash...