Motoring features

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...

Ben Pulman wonders if tuned cars break mass-produced monotony or just ruin your car Before the new Mercedes C-class was launched, more than 15 million miles were covered by prototypes in one of Merc's...

It took having a few children for Ben Whitworth to finally understand Volvo's appeal I never really got Volvo. Sure, I’ve driven all the models in its transition from cumbersome and quirky to sleek...

He's set to achieve our wildest dreams, so what's with the cheap digs, asks Ben Barry The British always like to cut people down to size. That’s why, even as a UK driver is set to clinch the Formula 1...

Car makers are leading us on a merry dance with burgeoning eco brands, says Tim Pollard Don't know about you, but I'm bamboozled by the manufacturers' attempts to save the planet. Watching their...

To paraphrase Fernando Alonso, winning the constructor’s championship isn’t anywhere near as big a deal as winning the drivers’ championship. And that’s why, despite the unprecedented £50m fine (minus...

CAR's resident M3 expert Ben Barry enters a drift competition at the Nurburgring The choice was easy: stay at home and take the weekend easy; or leave work on Friday for a 1000-mile round trip to the...

Tim Pollard is fed up with wildly excessive speedo readings. Here's why It was a few miles into my drive of Audi's slinky new A5 3.0 TDI when I noticed it. The oh-so-cool, Germanically precise...

Happiness is watching a load of old 60s and 70s muscle cars pounding the quarter mile You either get muscle cars or you don't. Dynamically they're mostly rubbish, but what you lose in steering feel,...

Serenity or sportiness - what should the key characteristic of today's executive saloon be, asks Gavin Green What a joy to drive an ‘executive’ car that puts comfort first! Most of the big selling...

From his first Mercedes to his long-term Seat, Ben Whitworth's memories all centre around cars... My wife uses songs. My brother (Lieutenant Commander, RN) uses ships. My best mate uses rugby matches.

When Glen Waddington is not ensuring our magazine gets to the printers on time, our production editor can normally be found caressing car cabins... I’m a trim-feeler. It’s what I do every time I get...

US car makers now control less than half the domestic market. Tim Pollard isn't surprised While Britain was deluged with the wettest July on record, the American car industry was inundated with...

Ben Pulman wonders how sincere some car makers' eco efforts are... I recently sat down to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. While I fell asleep by the end of it – due to tiredness, not boredom I...

Do premium badges guarantee slick design? Not if you squint at a Proton, says Ben Whitworth Snarled up in traffic trying to get into Chichester last Saturday morning, I spotted the rear of a...

Ben Pulman stumbles across the new Jag XF on his first day in a new job A first day on the job is usually a letdown; all mind-numbing admin and IT problems. Not at CAR. My first (and second) day found...

Are Land Rovers and their ilk really killing the planet? Think again, argues Gavin Green I have been driving a Land Rover Discovery 3 diesel these past few weeks. It comfortably took my family of five...

Tim Pollard mulls over the speculation surrounding the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover These are exciting times in the car industry. The building blocks of the mega-mergers of the late twentieth and...

Ben Oliver sits through Al Gore's Live Earth concerts and bemoans the gas-guzzling celebs Watch the footage of last Saturday’s Live Earth concert at Wembley and I’ll be easy to spot. Row 10, seat 264,...

Ever wondered what F1 stars do the night before a big race? Ben Barry joins Honda's F1 team Last Saturday evening I had the most surreal experience of my career on CAR. Invited to Silverstone for an...

Bigger isn't better. Why the new M3 has lost its forebears' purity, by Ben Whitworth I hope I'm not alone in feeling a little luke-warm about the Whole BMW M3 Thing. Yes, it's a formidable steer and...

Many blame Ford for Jag's problems. Gavin Green says problems run deeper than that As the one-time greatest name in British motoring limps like a mortally wounded wildcat to its new home (private...

Do we prefer comfort and luxury or the simple pleasures of a car with character? Asks Ben Oliver Of all the cars on sale in the UK, I don’t think you could identify two more different than the Land...