The Road As A Canvas

1. Where’s Foreman? - If you spotted Tuesday’s little tweak to TopGear.com you might be wondering where Foreman and Cupholder have gone. Following our big relaunch back in October last year, we’re planning some further revisions to TopGear.com, based on your feedback and research we’ve carried out into the way people use the site. One of the things we’ve [...]
2. Vauxhall: is it MG-Rover all over again? - It’s depressing to be reminded all over again today of the sad and shabby history of MG-Rover. Much more sad is that it looks dangerously likely that history might repeat itself with Vauxhall-Opel. BMW unloaded MG-Rover in early 2000. It was looking at bids from venture capital firms including Apax and Alchemy. Both planned a [...]
3. City car, by Lotus - Instilling in all of us a momentary sense of panic, Lotus has just revealed its take on the city car. But it is only that. A rough idea, rather than anything they actually plan to do. Cue a collective sigh of relief. Lotus Head of Design Russell Car was asked to improve on the Toyota [...]
4. BMW CS lives! Kind of… - The lovely BMW CS four-door coupe isn’t dead yet. Or at least, its spirit lives on even though an actual production-car version of the CS concept was canned a few months back. Foreman has been talking to senior BMW 7-Series engineers. They say that, just as all the other BMWs come in more than one [...]
5. VW tucks into Porsche - Porsche is, after a titanic batttle, about to become a member of the VW Group. Last year Porsche tried to take over VW. VW struck back. This has been one of the great soap operas of industrial history. The fight has encompassed money, power, glamour and a rift in one of Planet Automobile’s most high-profile families, [...]
6. Red-lining the green Bentley - Just been out for an ‘engineering drive’ in a late prototype of the Bentley Supersports. The one Derek Bell drove at Goodwood. The development chief says it’s a Ferrari 599 rival. Well yes, it was a wet day on difficult Cheshire roads, and I don’t think a 599 would have kept up. The Supersports is [...]
7. Mackems lead the electric charge - There’s something far more important behind the news that Nissan’s Sunderland plant is to lead the charge (ha ha) in battery manufacturing. In 18 months time, you’ll be able to buy a proper full-sized Nissan hatchback powered entirely by batteries. The car itself will be unveiled in just a couple of weeks. It isn’t just a re-powered [...]
8. Driven: new Merc SLS - Damn that disguise. AMG doesn’t want us to see its new 573bhp supercar in all its glory just yet, so its still wearing spy photographer-foiling black tape and cladding. Long nose, short rump, gullwing doors: the SLS clearly draws on its famous mid-’50s forebear the 300SL for inspiration. But the detail stuff is what’ll really [...]
9. Vauxhall’s Astratrix driven - In among all the jiggery-pokery about Vauxhall’s new owners (Russian? Chinese? Italian? Belgian?) the company is still busy churning out new cars. Foreman has driven a prototype of this autumn’s Astra, and it’s a seriously good rival for the Focus or Golf. Compare the design with the Insignia, and you can see the new-Vauxhall tune [...]
10. Driven: Porsche Panamera - ‘Jay, you look at the dials,’ I said to my passenger, ‘I’ve got other things to concentrate on.’ We were doing about 270km/h and rising fast. ‘OK, 300,’ came the calm reply a few seconds later as the digital speedo rolled over the magic number. That’s 186mph in our money, and I was happy to [...]

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