Car industry news

Toyota, and its luxury arm Lexus, have notched up more than a million hybrid sales for the first time. First launched in Japan in 1997, the Prius has racked-up 758,000 sales internationally, 13,826 of...

Vauxhall is using World Environment Day to launch its latest green initiative - a hefty £1000 discount off your new car if you agree to scrap your old one. The incentive applies to all makes of...

A track-honed version of Lexus' GS450h hybrid saloon has completed a 24 hour Japanese endurance race. The racer ran the production car's powertrain: a 292bhp V6 petrol engine supplemented by 197bhp...

Lexus claims its new LS600h hybrid will return 29.7mpg – despite having 444bhp on tap. The company has announced new details of its flagship hybrid, which gets a European premiere at September's Paris...

Gordon Brown’s budget didn’t throw up too many surprises; after all, we expected him to take more money out of the motorist’s pocket. Below are the changes due over the next three years. Fuel Duty An...

Reborn MG opens its doors at Longbridge Yesterday marked the latest chapter in one of the genuine rollercoaster stories of our times: the rise and fall – and now yet another recovery – of car...

Mazda yesterday celebrated 40 years of making rotary engines. It remains the only mainstream manufacturer persisting with this type of motor and has built 1.97 million of them since 1967. Rotary...

Volkswagen has unveiled its next-generation seven-speed DSG transmission - and as you’d expect, it’s lighter, smaller and more efficient. The new paddle-shift gearbox, codenamed DQ200, uses a pair of...

Chrysler has been sold. In one of the biggest private equity deals seen in the automotive industry, Cerberus Capital Management has purchased 80.1% of Chrysler in a £3.76billion deal, leaving...

CAR Magazine's design team has won the top accolade at the UK industry's oscars - the Periodical Publishers Association's Designer of the Year gong. Andy Thomas, who led last year's redesign of CAR...

Euro NCAP has panned UK car manufacturers after a dismal performance in its Electronic Stability Control survey. Figures released today by the automotive safety organisation put the cars sold in the...

BMW’s twin turbo 3.0-litre engine – the mighty 306bhp straight six from the 335i - has taken top honours at the 2007 International Engine of the Year Awards, the engineering equivalent of the Oscars.

Four showrooms not enough to serve the needs of all those impoverished rice pickers? Apparently not. This is Rolls' fifth Chinese dealership and its eightieth worldwide. Rolls Royce announced the...

The new M3 will cost £50,625, BMW announced today. That's a hefty £8k more than before and brings the new coupe closer than ever to a basic Porsche 911 Carrera which is just under £60k. Deliveries in...

Thirty-three years after the first Golf, Volkswagen has just passed the 25 million milestone. As one of the pioneers of the modern hatchback genre, the Golf was a hit right from launch in 1974, and...

Today is an historic day for Nanjing Automotive as the first MG built outside Longbridge will leave the production line at Nanjing’s factory in China. Around 1000 visitors are gathering at the plant...

BMW has revealed detailed specs on the all-new 4.0-litre V8 that’s soon to be slotted into the all-new M3. Power is confirmed at 420bhp with 295lb ft peak torque available from 3000 to 7000rpm. The...

It’s only just over a week since Aston Martin was sold, but today it confirmed plans to race at Le Mans. The DBR9 will return to the famous La Sarthe circuit in June. Perhaps this was inevitable,...

Christie’s has pulled the ultra-rare 1939 Auto Union Type D grand prix car from auction this month. It had been expected to hit a new record of nearly £8 million. As reported previously, the Auto...

Aston Martin is today under new owners, following the sale of Britain’s premier sports car company to an investment consortium. After 20 years of ownership, Ford divested itself of the brand, its...

A lighter, faster, more hardcore F430 is due this year, Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo hinted at the Geneva show. In 2005, Maranello unveiled the F430 Challenge, a racing version which competes in...

The TVR saga has taken another twist. Young Russian millionaire Nikolai Smolenski has bought back the collapsed sports car maker and gone into business with two Americans. We've interviewed them...

The trouble with Chrysler: the background In 1996 when Chrysler opened its $1.1bn headquarters in Auburn Hills, 30 miles north of Detroit, executives joked that if things didn’t work out, they could...

Euro NCAP releases results on five new models Should Euro NCAP recalibrate its results? We suspect it should, as virtually every new car launched these days scores a high four- or five-star overall...

Automatic transmissions will finally overtake manuals as the top-selling gearbox choice in 2007. Autos have been long established as the more popular option Stateside and in Japan, but it seems that...

Russian businessman Nikolai Smolenski is back in charge of the failed TVR business - and looks set to move production abroad. The deal was announced on Thursday evening, after the administrators PKF...

Ferraris on the silver screen Ferrari has issued previously unseen photos of its cars alongside Hollywood stars for a new exhibition celebrating the marque's role on the silver screen. There is new...

A Ferrari theme park? This sounds rather naff... We've already seen Ferrari's licensing skills produce a range of merchandise from sunglasses to laptops - and now it's taking on Disneyland with the...

More than 30 parties have expressed an interest in buying the remnants of TVR, the sports car maker which crashed into administration over Christmas - and the factory could move to Asia. Administrator...

A rare 1939 Auto Union Type D grand prix car is tipped to tear up the record books this month when it goes under the hammer – for an estimated price of up to £7.8 million. Auto Union developed the...

Rare sketches from John Delorean's personal notes have ended up on Ebay - revealing plans for a 1970s 'luxury sedan'. If the notes are genuine, they include 24 pages of writing and sketches made...

Slinky XK too boring for you? Jaguar has launched a new exterior styling pack for its coupe and convertible. The XK is given a butch makeover with a new front spoiler, rear valance and chunkier side...

North American customers were delighted when BMW bowed to their demands for a full three-pedal manual version of the current V10 M5 super saloon, but aren’t quiet so enamoured with the finished...

Isn’t the Dodge Hornet just another look-at-me concept car? The waspishly named – and styled – Hornet concept was shown at last year’s Geneva Motor Show, but it’s edging closer to a showroom near you.

We spoke to Mercedes design boss Peter Pfeiffer at the recent Detroit Motor Show – and asked him about the future strategy at the Stuttgart company. What’s the point of the Ocean Drive concept? We...

Volkswagen boss Wolfgang Bernhard has quit the company as part of a shake-up at Europe's biggest car maker. The news comes as little surprise after months of uncertainty and change at the top of VW.