Motoring features

‘Driving in the US becomes a luxury’, says an article in the FT, complete with doleful quotes from a Houston-based woman who can no longer afford to refuel her monstrous Ford Expedition (a giant 4x4...

As soon as Lewis saw the rain on race morning, he had a good feeling about the Monaco grand prix. Rain raises the bar through these tortuous streets: the visibility is terrible and the road markings...

At 2pm on Sunday, Monaco will become a ludicrous place to stage a grand prix. The race will be a 78-lap procession: no-one will be able to overtake and the Safety Car will be deployed following the...

Plans to reduce the speed limit on small residential roads to 20mph, to be championed by road safety minister Jim Fitzpatrick, are welcome. The current 30 ‘built-up area’ limit – just under half the...

I write from the island state of Richmond-upon-Thames. For weeks we’ve been cut off from the outside world, the Burma-of-Britain, our only source of exterior communication the internet or phone. Road...

Is the new Ferrari California a worthy successor to the original of the 1950s and ’60s? The 250 California is one of the most sought-after models ever to wear the Prancing Horse badge, especially in...

Tyre wear dominated the pre-race paddock chat in Istanbul, but in the end the Turkish Grand Prix will be remembered for two fantastic human performances. Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton were a class...

Of the new generation tracks, and by that I mean the eight tracks on this year’s calendar that have been designed and built since 1999 by Hermann Tilke, Istanbul Park is the most demanding, both...

I read the news that William Riley was resuscitating the MG SV with alarm (click here to remind yourself of the story). I had the misfortune to drive an SV when it was launched back in 2003. And it...

Gavin Green blogs on why Gordon Brown's carbon tax system is wrong, and offers a simple, honest solution that is probably far too straightforward to ever be adopted. If Gordon Brown really is the...

Why do eccentric Brits insist on launching ever-more powerful supercars? Those Freds in sheds, bashing away at another 200mph thriller - ignoring the fact that the economy’s going belly-up and the...

I’ve had four memorable Porsche drives. Well, three because the first involved me sitting still in the 996-generation 911 as a schoolboy. I was in the showroom at Porsche Centre Hatfield and going...

While chatting to Arash Farboud, the man behind both the original Farboud GT and the new Arash supercar (with a naming policy as imaginative as that he's going to be stuck if he ever builds a third),...

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 ...

A big job for a small car: we cross the second largest city in the world in a Smart

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...