The short answer is yes, sometimes. The longer answer depends entirely on where in the engine you are planning to put one.

If you have ever gone looking for a gasket on a discontinued model or an obscure import and come up empty, the idea of simply printing a replacement is appealing. A 3D printer, a roll of the right filament, and a CAD file of the original part sounds like it should solve the problem. In some situations, it does. In others, it will make the situation considerably worse.

The material that makes 3D printed gaskets viable for automotive use is TPU, thermoplastic polyurethane. It is a flexible elastomer that can be melted and extruded through a standard FDM printer, which natural rubber cannot. TPU is resistant to abrasion, oil and petrol exposure, and weather, and it compresses and rebounds in a way that allows it to form a genuine seal against a mating surface. It is not rubber, but it behaves like rubber in many conditions that matter.

The conditions that matter are temperature and pressure. TPU has limits on both, and those limits determine which gaskets are candidates for printing and which are not.

A valve cover gasket sits above the engine, contains oil splash at relatively low pressure, and operates in temperatures that rarely exceed 120 degrees Celsius during normal running. A water pump gasket deals with coolant at modest pressure and similar temperatures. An oil pan gasket is exposed to hot oil but again at low pressure. These are reasonable candidates. Plenty of mechanics and restorers have printed TPU replacements for exactly these applications and reported good results, particularly for older vehicles where factory gaskets are simply no longer available.

A head gasket is not a candidate. It sits between the block and the head, seals combustion gases at pressures that can exceed 100 bar during firing, and faces temperatures well above what TPU can sustain without deforming. The same logic applies to exhaust manifold gaskets, which operate in direct proximity to exhaust gas temperatures that would destroy any thermoplastic filament currently available for desktop printers. Printing either of those and expecting them to hold is optimistic to the point of being dangerous.

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There is a secondary consideration beyond the material itself, which is the surface finish that FDM printing produces. Standard FDM printers lay filament in layers, and that layered surface is inherently rougher than a moulded rubber gasket. On a lightly loaded, smooth mating surface, that roughness may not matter much. On a precision machined surface under high clamping force, the layered texture of a printed gasket can create leak paths. Industrial printers using SLS (selective laser sintering) processes produce a smoother, more consistent surface and are used commercially to produce TPU seals for pump and automotive applications, but that process is well beyond what most people have at home.

For the DIY mechanic, the practical rule is straightforward. If the original gasket was made of rubber and the application involves modest temperature, modest pressure, and oil or coolant rather than combustion gas, a TPU print is worth attempting. Print slowly, around 10 to 20 millimetres per second, use a direct drive extruder if available, and test fit before installation. If the original gasket was a multi layer steel type, graphite composite, or any kind of fire ring, do not print a replacement. Source a correct part, wait for one, or fabricate one from sheet gasket material using the old gasket as a template.

3D printing is a genuine tool for keeping old cars on the road when factory parts are gone. It is not a universal substitute for knowing what a gasket is actually doing.

Sources:

• Jalopnik — Can You 3D Print Gaskets That Actually Work?
• 3D Print Utopia — Can You Make 3D Printed Gaskets?
• Hackaday — Gaskets, Can They Be 3D Printed?
• RapidMade — Custom 3D Printed Rubber and Elastomer Parts
• PROTIQ — 3D Printed Seals

The company that makes diggers is back on the salt flats. This time it is burning hydrogen.

Twenty years ago, a Staffordshire construction equipment manufacturer did something nobody expected. JCB built a land speed car, took it to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, and set a diesel land speed record of 350.092mph that has never been beaten. The driver was RAF Wing Commander Andy Green, the only person in history to break the sound barrier on land, having piloted the jet powered Thrust SSC to 763.035mph in 1997. Now JCB is going back, Green is going back, and this time the fuel is hydrogen.

The car is called the Hydromax. It is 32 feet long and was built over five years at a cost of £100 million, developed with Prodrive, the Oxfordshire engineering firm behind some of the most capable rally and motorsport machinery on earth. Two hydrogen combustion engines sit at its core, each producing around 800hp in record trim, combining for a total output of 1,579bhp. Those engines are mechanically close to units that now power production JCB diggers, with chief engineer Lee Harper telling Autocar the internals are "very similar." The same engines produce around 80bhp each in standard form. Getting from 80 to 800 is a matter of getting fuel and air to mix properly at extreme pressure, according to Harper, and the Hydromax achieves that with bespoke intercoolers, radiators and racing specification turbochargers.

Power goes to all four wheels through a twin transmission and clutch system. The body has been refined for aerodynamic stability at speeds the previous car was not designed to exceed. Every suspension component, traction control setting and camera placement has been stress and simulation tested before a wheel turns on salt.

The record the Hydromax is primarily chasing is its own predecessor's. Lord Bamford, JCB's chairman, has stated the aim plainly: beat 350mph. Beyond that sits the existing hydrogen land speed record of 302.877mph, set by the Buckeye Bullet 2 fuel cell vehicle in 2009, and the hydrogen combustion record of 185.5mph set by BMW's H2R prototype in 2004. The Hydromax is not competing in the fuel cell category. It burns hydrogen in a combustion chamber, which is a different and more directly relevant technology for the construction industry JCB serves.

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UK testing begins next month. The team then heads to Bonneville Speedweek, running from 1 to 7 August, where competitors from around the world gather to chase records on the salt. Official FIA record runs will follow immediately after. The available track at Bonneville is now nine miles long, two miles shorter than in 2006. JCB says the Hydromax's superior power to weight ratio over the Dieselmax will compensate.

Green, who will be 64 when the car makes its attempt, said:

>

Lord Bamford put the broader point this way:

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JCB has been running hydrogen diggers on commercial construction sites since 2025, making it the first company to deploy hydrogen combustion machinery outside a test environment anywhere in the world. The Hydromax is not separate from that programme. It is the sharp end of it.

A digger maker going 350mph on a salt flat to prove a point about heavy equipment emissions is, objectively, one of the better things happening in the automotive world right now.

Sources:

• Autocar — JCB targets new speed record with 32 foot-long, 1579bhp Hydromax
• JCB official — Introducing the JCB Hydromax
• Auto Express — Insane JCB Hydromax targets 350mph
• Top Gear — JCB is back with the Hydromax: can it hit 400mph?

A generation of mechanics learned their trade with instruments that would mystify today's technicians.

Walk into any modern auto shop and you'll find diagnostic computers worth more than entire tool collections from decades past. But buried in the back corners of old garages, wrapped in oil-stained cloth and gathering dust, lie the instruments that once defined automotive mastery. These aren't just tools. They're archaeological evidence of an era when fixing cars required intimate knowledge of mechanical systems that no longer exist.

The carburetor synchronization tool might be the most foreign concept to contemporary mechanics. Before fuel injection conquered the automotive world, performance engines often ran multiple carburettors that had to work in perfect harmony. Motorcycle mechanics and sports car specialists wielded these devices like tuning forks, using mercury columns or vacuum gauges to ensure each carburetor delivered precisely the same fuel mixture. The tool itself resembled a medical instrument more than automotive equipment, with delicate glass tubes and rubber hoses connecting to individual carburetor throats.

Even more specialized were float level gauges, precision instruments that measured carburetor float height to within thousandths of an inch. Set the float too high and the engine would flood. Too low and it would starve for fuel. The gauge required removing the carburetor top and carefully positioning a graduated rod against the float mechanism. Modern mechanics dealing with electronic fuel injection have never encountered anything remotely similar.

Ignition timing in the points and condenser era demanded its own arsenal of now obsolete tools. The dwell meter measured the electrical angle during which ignition points remained closed, typically reading 28 to 32 degrees for V8 engines. Point gap feeler gauges, razor thin metal strips usually set to 0.016 inches for most American cars, determined the physical separation between contact points. Get either measurement wrong and the engine would misfire, backfire, or refuse to start entirely.

The timing light with advance capability represents perhaps the most sophisticated of these vanished instruments. Unlike basic strobe timing lights, these units could display not just initial timing but the complete advance curve as engine RPM increased. Mechanics could verify that centrifugal weights and vacuum diaphragms were functioning correctly, adjustments that modern computer controlled ignition systems handle automatically.

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Before 12 volt electrical systems became standard in the late 1950s, mechanics carried 6 volt test lights and specialized equipment for the lower voltage systems. Battery maintenance involved hydrometers, glass tubes with weighted floats that tested the specific gravity of battery acid to determine charge levels. These instruments required handling corrosive electrolyte that could blind or burn, a far cry from today's sealed maintenance free batteries.

Valve adjustment demanded its own category of tools when solid lifter engines ruled the roads. Mechanics used feeler gauges and specialized wrenches to set valve lash, typically to specifications like 0.012 inches intake and 0.018 inches exhaust for small block Chevrolet engines. Miss these adjustments and valves would burn or the engine would develop a distinctive ticking noise that marked sloppy workmanship.

Cooling system diagnosis required radiator pressure testers, hand pump devices that could pressurize the entire cooling system to locate leaks. Antifreeze protection levels were measured with hydrometers calibrated to show freeze protection temperatures. Thermostat testing involved specialized containers with built in thermometers where mechanics could verify that thermostats opened at their rated temperatures, usually 160 to 195 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the application.

The brake system tools of yesteryear would seem particularly archaic to modern technicians accustomed to disc brakes and ABS systems. Brake shoe arc grinders contoured replacement linings to match drum curvature exactly. Wheel cylinder hones, essentially flexible shaft mounted stones, restored cylinder bore surfaces that had developed ridges from corrosion or wear. Brake drum micrometers measured internal drum diameter to determine if drums could be safely turned on a lathe or needed replacement.

These tools didn't disappear because they were inadequate. They vanished because the automotive systems they served evolved beyond recognition. Fuel injection eliminated carburettors. Electronic ignition made points and condensers obsolete. Hydraulic valve lifters ended the need for valve adjustments. Sealed cooling systems reduced maintenance requirements.

Yet something was lost in this technological progression. The old tools demanded understanding of underlying mechanical principles. A mechanic who could properly synchronize multiple carburettors understood fuel metering in ways that scanning trouble codes cannot teach. The intimate knowledge required to set ignition timing by ear and feel created craftsmen who could diagnose problems that sophisticated computers might miss.

Today's automotive technicians are undoubtedly more efficient and their diagnostic capabilities far exceed what any timing light or dwell meter could provide. But those oil stained tool rolls gathering dust in forgotten corners of old garages tell the story of an era when fixing cars was as much art as science, and when mechanical sympathy meant the difference between a running engine and an expensive pile of metal.

Research sources: Classic automotive repair manuals, vintage tool catalogs, and technical documentation from the Society of Automotive Engineers archives.

The electric Golf you've been waiting for just got pushed back to 2030, crushing hopes of an EV hot hatch revival.

Volkswagen has delivered a crushing blow to hot hatch enthusiasts worldwide, with CEO confirmation that the long-awaited electric Golf won't arrive until the end of this decade. The announcement represents a massive shift in strategy for a company that once dominated the affordable performance segment.

The delay puts Volkswagen years behind competitors who are already delivering electric performance cars. While rivals race ahead with compelling EV offerings, Golf fans must now wait until 2030 for their beloved nameplate to join the electric revolution. The current Golf lineup remains stuck with conventional engines and hybrid variants, looking increasingly dated against the backdrop of rapid industry electrification.

Volkswagen's CEO stated the company is "set" with its current portfolio, a comment that will sting for anyone hoping the German giant would prioritize one of its most iconic models. The Golf has been a cornerstone of VW's lineup for decades, spawning legendary variants like the GTI and R that defined entire generations of driving enthusiasts. Now those same fans face an agonizing wait while the brand focuses elsewhere.

The decision exposes fundamental tensions within Volkswagen's electric strategy. The company has poured resources into the ID series, built on the dedicated MEB platform, while traditional models like the Golf remain tethered to older architectures. This split approach has created an awkward situation where VW's most beloved nameplate gets sidelined in favor of newer, less emotionally resonant brands.

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Industry insiders suggest the delay stems from VW's reluctance to cannibalize ID.3 sales with a more desirable electric Golf. The ID.3 has struggled to capture hearts and minds the way the Golf once did, lacking the emotional connection that made its predecessor a cultural phenomenon. By keeping the Golf electric at bay, Volkswagen protects its newer model from inevitable comparisons it might lose.

The timing couldn't be worse for VW's reputation. Mini is preparing major facelifts for its electric Cooper range, while BYD prepares European-specific models that could fill the affordable EV performance gap Volkswagen is leaving wide open. These brands recognize what VW seems to have forgotten: enthusiasts want familiar names attached to cutting-edge technology, not wholesale replacement with sterile alternatives.

Financial markets have noticed too. Volkswagen's stock has underperformed compared to rivals who've successfully electrified their most popular models without abandoning beloved nameplates. BMW kept the 3 Series, Mercedes preserved the C-Class, yet Volkswagen chose to effectively retire one of Europe's most successful car names from the electric future.

For thousands of potential customers already planning their next vehicle purchase, this delay forces an uncomfortable choice. They can either wait six years for an electric Golf that may never live up to expectations, or defect to brands that take their loyalty more seriously. Many won't wait.

Sources: Based on industry reports and Volkswagen corporate communications. Specific CEO statements referenced from automotive industry publications covering VW's EV strategy announcements.

Jaguar has confirmed the name of its new electric GT. It is called the Type 01. It is also, in my opinion, deeply ugly. And that matters more than you might think.

Enzo Ferrari once stood at the Jaguar stand at the Geneva Motor Show and reportedly said of the E-Type: "Congratulations! What a truly beautiful car... it must be the most beautiful car in the world!"

The man who built Ferraris for a living said that about a British car. Let that settle for a moment.

That is the company that just confirmed its new flagship will be called the Type 01, a boxy, geometric, 5.2 metre electric slab that looks like it was designed by someone who has only ever seen other cars described in words. For the record, I was hoping the whole rebrand was a threat they would eventually walk back. It was not a threat. It is a production car. It will be built. It will go on sale. And it will carry the Jaguar badge.

The name, at least, has a logic to it. Jaguar says "Type" references its historic nomenclature, which started with the C-Type Le Mans racer in 1951 and ran through the E-Type and two generations of F-Type. The zero stands for zero emissions. The one marks the first model of a new era. Fine. The name is fine. The car behind the name is another matter entirely.

Now, I want to be fair here. Jaguar has wobbled before. The Ford years gave us the X-Type, which TIME Magazine included in its list of the 50 worst cars of all time, describing it as the English version of the Cadillac Cimarron, a tarted up insult to a marque that once stood for something. The S-Type was widely considered one of the least attractive cars Jaguar ever produced, wearing a pastiche retro face that embarrassed itself next to the genuine article. The XJ40 had an identity crisis that took years to recover from. These were stumbles, but they were stumbles within the bounds of the Jaguar design language. You could still see what they were trying to be.

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The Type 01 is not a stumble. It is a full departure. The "Copy Nothing" campaign that launched this era told us to forget what came before. Jaguar boss Rawdon Glover said the car "looks and drives like no other electric car, yet reflects a unique provenance." The provenance he is referring to built the E-Type. The car he is describing looks nothing like it was made by the same civilisation.

Yes, the numbers are impressive. three motors producing more than 1,000 horsepower, 958 lb ft of torque, a 120 kWh battery with 850V architecture and a 350 kW charge rate, over 400 miles of claimed range. It will be enormous, expensive somewhere between £100,000 and £150,000 and, by early test drive accounts from journalists who have ridden in prototypes, genuinely quick and capable. None of that is the point.

The point is that beauty matters at Jaguar. It has always mattered at Jaguar. The E-Type was designed not by a traditional car designer but by an aerospace engineer named Malcolm Sayer, who applied aircraft aerodynamic principles to a road car and produced something so correct that the Museum of Modern Art in New York put one in its permanent collection. It was so clearly and undeniably beautiful that Enzo Ferrari, whose ego operated on a geological timescale, apparently felt compelled to say so out loud.

Jaguar has decided that car, that legacy, that standing, is something to be left behind in pursuit of a buyer who wants a bold, provocative, futuristic luxury EV with no rear window and the general proportions of a modernist airport terminal. Maybe those buyers exist. Maybe the car drives brilliantly. Maybe in ten years the Type 01 aesthetic looks prescient and everyone arguing today looks like they were wrong.

But right now, looking at what this company used to make, and looking at what it is about to sell, I can tell you that Enzo Ferrari would not be stopping at this stand in Geneva.

Welcome To The Wild West, Where Texas Loses Nearly A Billion Dollars Of Oil A Year To Thieves

Crude oil is vanishing from the Permian Basin at industrial scale. Thieves are operating in broad daylight, and law enforcement cannot keep up.

The Permian Basin sits in the flat, sunbaked west of Texas and stretches into New Mexico. It is the most productive oil patch on earth, pumping more crude than most OPEC members. It is also, increasingly, a crime scene.

Martin County Sheriff Randy Cozart told Bloomberg Businessweek that his office gets at least one call a week from an operator whose field has been robbed. By his estimate, around 500 barrels go missing from Martin County alone every single week. At last year's average oil price of $65 a barrel, that is $1.7 million in annual losses from one county in a region that spans dozens. Scale that across the basin and the numbers climb fast. The Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association has reported that one of its larger members alone lost $1.1 million in crude and equipment between 2023 and 2024.

The theft is not opportunistic. It is organised, professional and brazen.

According to Bloomberg's investigation, today's Permian thieves hook vacuum trucks directly into storage tank lines and siphon crude in broad daylight, timing their hits to coincide with the field's busiest hours so the operation blends in. Some swap or cover their licence plates to avoid identification. The most sophisticated operators pose as waste haulers, companies that legitimate operators pay to remove toxic water from storage tanks. They pull up, run the same lines, take the oil and drive away. It looks like a regular shift. The theft often goes undetected until someone checks the inventory.

The remoteness that makes the Permian Basin so productive is exactly what makes it so vulnerable. Oil wells outnumber people across most of this terrain, and law enforcement is stretched thin. The Winkler County Sheriff told the Texas Tribune his ten deputies cover 841 square miles. He does not have the manpower or the budget to post someone at an oil field full time.

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The FBI recognised the scale of the problem back in 2008 and stood up a task force to address equipment theft across the basin. In recent years that task force pivoted to focus specifically on crude oil. According to FBI data, reported crude theft actually dipped in 2025, a trend the bureau partly attributed to lower barrel prices. But the bureau also acknowledged its data relies heavily on voluntary reporting from operators, which means the true scale is almost certainly larger than the numbers suggest.

Texas responded legislatively last summer. Governor Greg Abbott signed three bills in Midland directing the Department of Public Safety and the Railroad Commission of Texas to stand up their own petroleum theft task forces, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $5 million. The Railroad Commission, which is the state's oil and gas regulator despite the name suggesting otherwise, is conducting its own study with findings due in December.

At the federal level, Representative Tony Gonzales reintroduced the Protect the Permian Act in 2026, targeting the criminal networks behind the thefts rather than just the individuals at the end of the supply chain. Gonzales has described the situation as a national security issue: West Texas produces roughly 15% of the world's energy resources, and the stolen crude is being laundered into local supply chains or driven across the border into Mexico.

Michael Lozano of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association put it plainly to Bloomberg: "The old joke in the oil field used to be that if it wasn't bolted down, it would get stolen."

The joke stopped being funny a billion dollars ago.

Sources:

• Bloomberg Businessweek — Oil Theft Is Burning a Billion-Dollar Hole in the West Texas Economy
• The Texas Tribune — Texas creating task forces to target Permian Basin oil field thefts
• Permian Basin Petroleum Association
• NewsNation — Crude oil theft costs Texas billions as prices rise
• Jalopnik — Welcome To The Wild West, Where Texas Loses Nearly A Billion Dollars Of Oil A Year To Thieves

The Jetour G700 Ark Edition does not merely float. It drives on water using electrically powered propellers.

Two years ago, BYD's YangWang division broke the internet when it demonstrated its U8 SUV floating in a controlled pool, spinning slowly on the spot using nothing but wheel torque. Impressive, sure. But the U8 was essentially a very expensive rubber duck. It could stay afloat for 30 minutes and crawl along at 3 km/h. That was the ceiling.

Chery's Jetour brand has now crossed that ceiling and kept going. Literally.

Last week, the Jetour G700 Ark Edition completed a public crossing of Yanqi Lake north of Beijing. Not floating. Not drifting. Sailing, under power, using a dedicated propeller system that activates the moment the wheels leave the ground.

The Ark Edition runs the same core hardware as the standard G700: a 2.0 litre turbocharged four cylinder working alongside twin electric motors for a combined 892 hp and 837 lb ft of torque on land. That powertrain delivers a 0 to 100 km/h time of 4.6 seconds and a total range of up to 1,400 km on a full tank and a full charge from the 31.4 kWh CATL battery pack. Three locking differentials come standard. It is, in short, a Land Cruiser 300 Series competitor that has decided the road is only a starting point.

On water, the system works differently. The engine and motors stop driving the wheels entirely and redirect power to the propellers. A gyroscopic stabilisation system with six axes keeps the body level. The hull is IP68 sealed, the engine has additional water intrusion protection, and an active air circulation system runs throughout. Jetour describes the capability as an emergency feature, designed for flash flood situations and extreme terrain crossings rather than recreational lake tours.

That said, it crossed the Yangtze River in October 2025 before anyone was watching. Yanqi Lake was just the repeat performance.

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The G700 is sized alongside the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 and is confirmed for global export markets. Chinese market pricing sits between 329,900 and 424,900 yuan, which is roughly USD 45,000 to USD 58,500 at current exchange rates. The amphibious Ark Edition sits at the top of that range, and its availability outside China has not been confirmed.

What Chery has confirmed, through footage and a public lake crossing, is something nobody else has managed: a production SUV that transitions from road to open water under active propulsion. BYD floated a vehicle. Jetour sailed one.

The gap between those two sentences is about two years and a very long swim.

Sources:

• Carscoops: https://www.carscoops.com/2026/05/jetour-g700-amphibious-suv/
• InsideEVs: https://insideevs.com/news/794790/china-phev-suv-amphibious-chery-jetour-g700/
• Carsales.com.au: https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/jetour-g700-ark-edition-the-swimming-suv-151919/
• Autoblog: https://www.autoblog.com/news/this-chinese-suv-can-swim-in-deep-water-and-it-has-an-892-hp-engine
• CarNewsChina (YangWang U8 launch): https://carnewschina.com/2023/09/20/byds-yangwang-u8-launched-can-float-on-water-for-30-minutes-and-sail-3km-h/
• Carscoops (YangWang U8): https://www.carscoops.com/2023/09/byds-yangwang-u8-floats-and-wades-through-water-at-speeds-of-1-8-mph-by-turning-its-wheels/

Factual note: Battery capacity figures conflict across sources. Carscoops, Autoblog and the brief cite 31.4 kWh; InsideEVs reports 34.1 kWh. The 31.4 kWh figure appears in the majority of sources and has been used here. The USD price conversion is approximate and based on current exchange rates at time of writing.

The Fenomeno Roadster was revealed at the second Lamborghini Arena event in Imola on May 9 2026. It produces 1,080 CV from a 6.5 litre V12 and three electric motors, hits 100 km/h in 2.4 seconds, runs to over 340 km/h, costs well in excess of €3 million, and exists in a production run of 15 cars. All 15 were sold before anyone outside the company had seen it.

Every few years, Lamborghini does something to remind the rest of the supercar world that it is operating by different rules entirely. The Veneno. The Centenario. The Sian. Cars that arrive already spoken for, that exist in numbers smaller than most people's contact lists, that combine engineering that is genuinely at the edge of what is possible with design that looks like it was conceived by someone who had never seen the word "restrained" written down.

The Fenomeno Roadster is the latest entry in that lineage, and it is the most powerful one yet.

Lamborghini calls these models its "Few Off" programme. The tradition started with the Reventón in 2007, extended to an open top Reventón Roadster in 2009, and has since produced open versions of the Veneno, Centenario and Sian. Each one arrived in numbers small enough to be sold out before the public reveal. The Fenomeno Roadster caps production at 15 examples, making it less than half as numerous as the Fenomeno Coupe unveiled at Monterey Car Week in 2025, which was limited to 29 units.

The powertrain

The engine is a 6.5 litre naturally aspirated V12, which produces 835 CV at 9,250 rpm and 725 Nm of torque at 6,750 rpm on its own. Three electric motors supplement it: two sitting on the front axle providing torque vectoring and regenerative braking, and a third positioned above the eight speed twin clutch gearbox. Combined system output is 1,080 CV. The specific output of the V12 alone exceeds 128 CV per litre, a record for any Lamborghini V12 programme.

Performance figures are: 0 to 100 km/h in 2.4 seconds. 0 to 200 km/h in 6.8 seconds. Top speed above 340 km/h, which is 211 miles per hour.

The 7 kWh lithium ion battery also enables a fully electric driving mode, though Lamborghini is wisely quiet about how far that takes you. The standard Revuelto, which underpins the Fenomeno, is rated by the EPA for approximately eight kilometres of emissions free driving. Pure electric range is not why you buy this car.

What makes it a Roadster and not just a Coupe with the roof cut off

Removing the roof from any performance car creates aerodynamic problems that need to be solved, not ignored. The Fenomeno Coupe uses a air scoop mounted on the roof to feed cooling air to the V12 at high speed. Without a roof, that scoop disappears. Lamborghini redesigned the entire upper aerodynamic package.

A carbon spoiler integrated into the windshield header now channels air over the open cockpit and directly into a redesigned engine bay, replacing the Coupe's air scoop. The rear clamshell was reshaped. The active rear wing was reprofiled for the open configuration. A revised diffuser was added. According to Lamborghini, the Roadster matches the Coupe for downforce, stability and brake cooling despite the open structure.

The rollover protection required by safety regulations sits behind the seats, integrated into what Lamborghini calls Speedster humps. These are not decorative. The structures are structural, aerodynamically shaped to reduce turbulence at high speed, and cover the rollover arches without the aesthetic compromise that solutions in less considered cars produce.

The monocoque is a carbon fibre monofuselage, the same inspired by aerospace structure used in the Revuelto. The front structure uses Lamborghini's Forged Composite, integrating crash structures, windshield frame, rear bulkhead and side sills into a single bonded carbon assembly. Adding the open top structure required only a few kilograms of additional weight over the Coupe. Lamborghini attributes this to a patented combination of long and short carbon fibres bonded with a fluid mixture, used here for the first time in a hybrid configuration on any production Lamborghini.

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The design

The reveal car wears Blu Cepheus over Rosso Mars, chosen as a tribute to the city of Bologna and a visual reference to the 1968 Miura Roadster. The hexagonal motif that runs through Lamborghini's current design language appears everywhere: in the side skirts, wheel arches, air intakes, LED light signatures and the tall hexagonal exhaust outlet at the rear.

The side windows drop low in the middle, a shape that Autoblog compared to the Veneno Roadster. The effect is part fighter jet, part architecture firm's concept sketch. Design director Mitja Borkert described the objective as placing the powertrain at the centre of visual attention, with the driver placed inside rather than on top of the car.

Tyres are Bridgestone Potenza Sport, developed specifically for this model in 265/30 ZRF21 at the front and 355/25 ZRF22 at the rear. A semi slick next generation Potenza on smaller wheels is available as the track alternative, homologated for public roads.

The interior is built around carbon fibre, Corsatex fabric based on Dinamica, and Lamborghini's patented Carbon Skin material. Three digital displays with hexagonal graphics combine with haptic controls and aviation style switches in what Lamborghini calls its Pilot Interaction layout.

Price and availability

Lamborghini has not disclosed a price. The Fenomeno Coupe started at approximately €3.5 million. Independent estimates from HotHardware and GTSpirit place the Roadster in a range of €3 million to more than €5 million per car. All 15 examples are understood to have been sold ahead of the public reveal. If you have not already been offered one, you were not on the list.

CEO Stephan Winkelmann described the car in the terms Lamborghini reserves for occasions like this: "Fenomeno Roadster represents the purest expression of our brand values: visionary design, uncompromising performance, and absolute exclusivity. Each example is conceived as a collectible masterpiece, where engineering excellence meets true bespoke craftsmanship."

That sentence has been said before, about the Veneno and the Centenario and the Sian. It will be said again about whatever comes after the Fenomeno Roadster. It keeps being true.

Sources:

• Lamborghini official press release — Fenomeno Roadster: Lamborghini's most powerful open-top
• Motor1 — Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster Revealed: Details, Specs, Photos
• Autoblog — Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster Revealed with 1,065-HP V12 and Weird Side Windows
• GTSpirit — Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster: Wilder Than Ever
• The EV Report — Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster: 1,080 CV V12 Hybrid Limited to 15 Units
• DriveSpark — Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster: 1,065bhp Hybrid V12, 15 Units Only

A viral shop photo reveals the dark humor mechanics use to cope with genuinely dangerous vehicles that have earned legendary status for all the wrong reasons.

The photo making rounds on social media shows a handwritten "last will and testament" taped to a garage wall, complete with crude drawings and a mechanic's signature. The joke document, spotted at an independent shop in Ohio, lists the mechanic's final wishes before working on what the note calls "another damn Fiero." While the gallows humor gets laughs, it points to a sobering reality about certain vehicles that mechanics genuinely dread seeing roll into their bays.

The Pontiac Fiero earned its fearsome reputation through a perfect storm of engineering compromises and cost cutting. Built from 1984 to 1988, General Motors designed the mid-engine sports car with a revolutionary space frame but undermined its safety with a fatally flawed powerplant. The Iron Duke four-cylinder engine, borrowed from other GM vehicles, was never designed for the Fiero's cramped engine bay where heat had nowhere to escape.

Tony Sestito, who documented Fiero fire incidents for Hemmings Motor News, found that connecting rod failures were common due to inadequate oil delivery to the bearings. When the rods broke, they punctured the oil pan, spraying oil directly onto the catalytic converter and exhaust manifold. The result was predictable and terrifying. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received 260 reports of Fiero engine fires between 1984 and 1987, leading to recalls affecting over 125,000 vehicles.

"We had three Fieros catch fire in our lot over two summers," says Mike Rodriguez, a veteran mechanic at a restoration shop in Phoenix. "One was just sitting there after we'd done a routine oil change. Owner came back the next morning to a pile of melted plastic and twisted metal."

The Fiero's dangers extend beyond spontaneous combustion. The car's mid-engine layout places the powerplant directly behind the driver, separated only by a thin firewall. When fires start, they spread rapidly through the passenger compartment, often trapping occupants. Emergency responders reported difficulty accessing victims because the Fiero's doors could jam when the frame heated and warped.

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But the Fiero isn't alone in earning mechanics' fearful respect. The Ford Pinto, produced from 1971 to 1980, became synonymous with automotive safety failures after Mother Jones magazine revealed internal Ford documents showing the company calculated that paying wrongful death settlements would cost less than redesigning the fuel system. When struck from behind, the Pinto's fuel tank could rupture and spray gasoline into the passenger compartment, turning minor collisions into fatal fires.

Ford knew about the problem early in development. Internal crash tests showed the fuel tank failed at impacts as low as 25 mph, but the company proceeded with production anyway. The decision ultimately cost Ford over $200 million in recalls and legal settlements, not counting the immeasurable damage to human lives and the company's reputation.

Modern mechanics face different but equally serious hazards with certain luxury vehicles. Tesla Model S cars manufactured between 2012 and 2015 have developed a reputation for door handle failures that can trap occupants during emergencies. The flush-mounted handles are designed to extend automatically when approached, but multiple reports describe handles failing to deploy during accidents or fires, requiring emergency responders to break windows to extract victims.

The Audi 5000, sold from 1978 to 1987, terrorized mechanics and owners alike with sudden acceleration incidents that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initially blamed on mechanical defects. While later investigation revealed most cases involved pedal misapplication, the car's reputation was cemented by dramatic footage of vehicles lurching forward unexpectedly during CBS's "60 Minutes" investigation.

These vehicles share common threads that make mechanics nervous. They combine inherent design flaws with high consequences for failure, creating scenarios where routine maintenance can become life threatening. The Fiero's engine fires, the Pinto's explosive collisions, and Tesla's emergency access problems all represent situations where mechanical failure transitions rapidly from inconvenience to catastrophe.

Rodriguez keeps fire extinguishers within arm's reach when working on certain models, a practice that would have seemed paranoid before he witnessed his first Fiero fire. "You learn to respect the machines that don't respect you back," he says. "Some cars are just waiting for their moment to bite you."

Sources: Hemmings Motor News Fiero fire documentation | NHTSA recall database and safety reports | Mother Jones Ford Pinto investigation

Traffic engineers reveal why certain intersections become magnetic hotspots for the worst driving decisions imaginable.

A dashcam compilation from a single intersection in Phoenix has racked up 12 million views, and every comment asks the same question: what makes this particular corner turn reasonable people into lunatics behind the wheel? The answer involves psychology, engineering failures, and a perfect storm of design flaws that traffic experts call "behavioral convergence zones."

The intersection of 35th Avenue and Thomas Road has generated more viral content than most influencers. Red light runners, last second lane changes, pedestrians playing real life Frogger, and drivers who apparently learned to navigate from a Magic 8 Ball. Local Phoenix resident Marcus Chen has been recording his daily commute through this intersection for three years, posting the most egregious violations to his YouTube channel "Phoenix Traffic Chaos."

"I started filming because my insurance company didn't believe how many near misses I was having," Chen told local news station ABC15. "Now I've got footage of someone backing up on Thomas Road because they missed their turn. In rush hour traffic. People lose their minds here."

Dr. Sarah Komanoff, a traffic psychologist at Arizona State University, studies what she terms "magnet intersections." Her research identifies specific design elements that create cognitive overload in drivers, leading to poor decision making at predictable locations.

"Certain intersections create a perfect storm of conflicting information," Komanoff explains in her 2023 study published in Transportation Research Part F. "Too many choices presented simultaneously, combined with time pressure and unclear sight lines, can overwhelm even experienced drivers."

The 35th and Thomas intersection checks every box on Komanoff's danger list. Seven lanes converge from four directions. A light rail line cuts diagonally through the intersection. Two shopping centers create constant pedestrian traffic. The traffic light timing follows a 47 second cycle that never quite matches traffic flow patterns.

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Phoenix Department of Transportation data shows this intersection recorded 127 crashes in 2023, making it the third most dangerous in the city. The crash types reveal the psychological breakdown: 34% involve drivers running red lights, 28% are improper lane changes, and 19% are rear end collisions from sudden stops.

"Drivers approach this intersection already stressed because they know it's complicated," says traffic engineer David Restrepo, who consulted on a failed redesign proposal in 2021. "That stress creates exactly the conditions that lead to poor judgment. They're overthinking simple decisions and underthinking dangerous ones."

The phenomenon extends beyond Phoenix. Similar intersections in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Miami show identical patterns. The Spaghetti Junction area in Atlanta generates constant social media content. The intersection of La Cienega and Olympic in Los Angeles has its own Instagram account dedicated to documenting disasters.

What makes these locations special isn't bad drivers. It's bad design meeting human psychology at the worst possible moment. The Federal Highway Administration's 2022 intersection safety analysis identifies "decision overload zones" as a primary factor in urban crash clusters.

Chen continues documenting the chaos at 35th and Thomas, though he's noticed something interesting in his three years of footage. The same intersection that creates viral content also reveals occasional moments of extraordinary courtesy. Drivers helping stranded motorists. People stopping to check on accident victims. Brief glimpses of humanity between the honking and gesturing.

"Maybe that's the real story," Chen reflected in his latest video description. "This place brings out the worst in people, but sometimes it brings out the best too. Usually right after someone almost dies making a left turn, but still."

Sources: ABC15 Arizona, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour journal, Phoenix Department of Transportation crash data, Federal Highway Administration intersection safety analysis

California hits General Motors with the largest automotive data privacy fine in state history after the company sold 1.5 million customers' real-time driving behavior to data brokers without consent.

Your Chevrolet Silverado has been snitching on you. Every time you accelerated too hard pulling out of a parking lot, every late night drive, every quick stop at the gas station. General Motors collected it all and sold the data to third party brokers for seven years without asking permission.

California's Department of Motor Vehicles announced this week that GM will pay a record setting $12.75 million penalty for violating state privacy laws by selling detailed driving behavior data from over 1.5 million vehicle owners between 2015 and 2022. The fine represents the largest automotive data privacy penalty in California history.

The data GM sold wasn't just basic information. The company transmitted real time location data, speed readings, acceleration patterns, and braking behavior to data brokers including LexisNexis and Verisk Analytics. These companies then packaged and resold the information to insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, and other buyers willing to pay for intimate details about how people drive.

California DMV Director Steve Gordon said the settlement "sends a clear message that we will hold automakers accountable for protecting consumer privacy." The violation centered on GM's failure to obtain explicit customer consent before selling their data, as required under the California Consumer Privacy Act.

GM drivers had no idea their vehicles were broadcasting their every move. The data collection happened automatically through OnStar and other connected vehicle services that customers thought were there for roadside assistance and navigation help. Instead, these systems functioned as sophisticated surveillance networks feeding information to corporate buyers.

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The scope of surveillance extended far beyond what most car buyers could imagine. GM tracked not just where people drove, but how they drove. Hard braking events, rapid acceleration, speed over posted limits, and time spent driving were all recorded and monetized. Insurance companies used this data to adjust premiums and coverage decisions without customers knowing their own cars provided the evidence.

LexisNexis, one of the primary data buyers, operates what it calls a "telematics exchange" where driving behavior scores are calculated and sold to insurance companies. Verisk Analytics runs similar operations, turning real world driving into risk assessment products. Both companies profited from GM's data harvesting while drivers remained unaware their privacy was being sold.

A GM spokesperson said the company "is committed to protecting our customers' privacy and has already made changes to our data practices." The automaker ended its partnerships with data brokers in March 2024, months before the California settlement was announced. However, the company provided no details about what data might still be collected or how it could be used internally.

The settlement requires GM to implement new consent mechanisms and data protection measures for California customers. The company must now explicitly ask permission before sharing driving data and provide clear explanations about how the information will be used. Customers must also be given options to opt out of data collection entirely.

Other automakers likely face similar scrutiny as regulators examine how connected vehicles harvest and monetize customer data. Modern cars collect vastly more information than most owners realize, from cabin conversations picked up by voice activation systems to detailed maps of daily travel patterns. The GM settlement establishes that selling this data without clear consent violates state privacy laws.

The $12.75 million penalty represents roughly what GM might earn from data sales in a few months, raising questions about whether the fine creates sufficient deterrent effect. For a company with annual revenues exceeding $170 billion, the settlement may feel more like a cost of doing business than a punishment for betraying customer trust.

Sources: California Department of Motor Vehicles settlement announcement; GM corporate statement; California Consumer Privacy Act compliance requirements

At around 3pm on Saturday May 10, a collision between a motorcycle and a silver sedan at Scott Road in Delta, British Columbia, launched the motorcycle into the air. The front wheel caught the overhead traffic signal pole. The bike hung there, suspended above the intersection by its forks, while emergency crews spent the afternoon figuring out how to get it down. The rider survived.

There is a category of crash outcome so improbable that the first question anyone asks is whether it was staged. This is not that category. The Delta Police Department issued a statement confirming it. The Delta Fire Department sent a crew and later removed the bike. Multiple bystanders filmed it from different angles. The motorcycle was genuinely, actually, hanging from a traffic light.

The collision happened at the intersection of Scott Road and 71st Avenue, near the Surrey-Delta border in Metro Vancouver, at around 3pm on Saturday. A motorcycle and a silver sedan collided. The force of the impact launched the motorcycle. Its front wheel, still attached to the fork, caught the horizontal arm of the overhead traffic signal standard. The bike hung there, suspended above the road, while the intersection below was closed and emergency crews established scene control.

Delta Police confirmed the motorcycle rider sustained serious but injuries that were not life threatening and was taken to hospital. The sedan driver was uninjured. Speed is believed to have been a contributing factor.

What bystanders saw

William Chan was heading to a nearby Krispy Kreme when he came across the scene. He told CBC News he spotted a damaged car in the middle of the intersection and began looking for the other vehicle involved.

"I was looking down and then I looked up and the motorbike was above... kind of crazy."

Chan said he planned to stay and watch the removal. "Just to see how people are getting it down... going to be quite interesting."

Jevon Ryan, another bystander, said he could not begin to understand the physics of what had happened.

"You'd think it would launch to the sidewalks, to the businesses but to perfectly get up there and wrap itself around... It's wow."

"Never seen anything like this, like seeing a movie," said another Surrey resident who had come across the scene.

The crowd that gathered to watch the motorcycle dangle from the traffic signal was substantial. Phones were out. Delta Firefighters IAFF Local 1763 confirmed on Facebook that members had responded to the scene, assisted with patient care and scene safety, and eventually retrieved the motorcycle from the light.

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The physics of how it happened

Motorcycle crashes are violent, chaotic events. The machine has no crumple zones, no cage around the rider, and no mechanism to absorb and redirect energy in a controlled way. When a motorcycle hits a car, particularly at speed and at an angle, the outcome for both the rider and the machine can be completely unpredictable.

What happened here appears to be a combination of impact angle, speed, and the geometry of the intersection. Scott Road carries significant traffic volumes. The overhead traffic signal standard sits at an intersection approach at a specific height. When the motorcycle launched, it followed a trajectory that intersected with the horizontal arm of that standard at the exact point where the front forks could catch and hold. A slightly different angle, a slightly different speed, a slightly different direction of impact and the motorcycle lands on the road, or a parked car, or a shop front.

Instead it wrapped itself around a traffic light arm and hung there.

The probability of this specific outcome is genuinely very low. The outcome is real. The intersection of Scott Road was closed for the remainder of the afternoon while crews worked to investigate and clear the scene.

Speed as a factor

Delta Police were specific in their statement that speed is believed to have been a contributing factor. That does not tell us which vehicle was speeding, or by how much, or whether the speed was the proximate cause of the collision itself. But it places this incident in the category of crashes where the severity of impact goes well beyond what an ordinary urban intersection collision would produce.

The motorcycle rider is alive. That, given what the machine did after the collision, is genuinely remarkable.

The intersection of Scott Road and 71st Avenue in Delta is now clear. The traffic light presumably needs some attention. The motorcycle is somewhere else.

Sources:

• CBC News — Motorcyclist seriously injured after crash leaves bike dangling from traffic light near Surrey-Delta border
• CP24 — Motorcycle left dangling from traffic light pole after BC crash
• Global News — Collision leaves motorcycle hanging from traffic light in Delta, BC
• Delta Police Department statement via CP24
• Delta Firefighters IAFF Local 1763 via Facebook

On May 3 2026, Macon Missouri Police received multiple calls from concerned drivers reporting a man standing in the back of a moving articulated truck for a dangerously long period of time. Officers responded. The man in question was a decal on the rear door of a Kohl's Wholesale truck. He appeared to be fine.

The man was smiling. He was holding a trolley. He was standing among boxes in what appeared to be the open rear of a moving truck, not wearing a harness, seemingly unaware of the road disappearing behind him at highway speed. Concerned drivers called police.

Macon Police Department posted their response on social media on May 3. The statement read: "We received calls to check the wellbeing of a man standing in the back of a truck trailer for a long period of time today. Officers checked on the wellbeing of this individual and can confirm that this is not an actual person, but a decal on the rear door of a Kohl's Wholesale trailer."

The graphic is genuinely good. It is designed to look as if you are peering through an open rear door into the interior of the trailer, with the man and his trolley standing just inside. The decal includes the underside of the door itself, the Kohl Wholesale website address and a small printed sticker that reads "CAUTION — THIS VEHICLE MAKES WIDE TURNS." That last detail, a safety warning embedded in a graphic that had already dispatched police officers, is the kind of layered irony that writes itself.

How it works and why it works

Graphics on truck rear doors of this kind are a form of advertising called a "see-through" vehicle wrap, designed to draw the eye of following drivers. They work because the human brain is exceptionally good at pattern recognition for faces and bodies, and exceptionally bad at interrogating whether what it recognises is physically real in the moment of recognition at 60 miles per hour.

Kohl's Wholesale has been running variations of this truck wrap for some time. It is not new. But the combination of a realistic figure, a realistically framed door opening and the kind of situation that genuinely does happen in real life... people falling from vehicles, getting trapped in cargo areas, being transported without their knowledge... activated exactly the public response it was presumably not designed to activate.

The Macon PD was gracious about it. "If you see something, say something," the department noted. The people who called 911 were being conscientious. They saw what appeared to be a person in potential danger, and they reported it. That is the correct behaviour regardless of whether the man turns out to be a smiling graphic printed on the back of a wholesale food distributor's delivery truck.

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This is not the first time

Vehicle wrap graphics have been generating emergency calls and genuine public confusion for years. A Belgian bakery truck with a graphic of bread loaves stacked to the ceiling generated several reports of an overloaded vehicle. A Dutch freight company with a wrap depicting a trailer with open curtain sides full of neatly stacked pallets caused a minor traffic incident when a following driver slowed to investigate. In Texas, a food logistics company using a transparent wrap showing a kitchen scene inside the trailer received calls from people who thought the interior of the truck was genuinely on fire because the graphic included a gas burner.

The common thread is the same cognitive shortcut. Driving requires most of your conscious attention. Pattern recognition runs in the background, flags anomalies, and dispatches an alert. By the time the conscious mind has a chance to interrogate whether a smiling warehouse worker standing in the open back of a truck doing 65 miles per hour is actually there, the subconscious has already decided something is wrong.

The only thing more reassuring than the fact that multiple strangers independently concluded a man needed help and called it in is the fact that officers responded and confirmed he was doing fine. Smiling, in fact. Holding his trolley. Completely unbothered by the road behind him.

He has never had a better day.

Sources:

• Jalopnik — Drivers Call Cops After Being Fooled By A Sticker On The Back Of A Semi-Truck Trailer
• CDL Life — Concerned citizens call Missouri cops about commercial truck's decal
• 979 Kick FM — Alarming Semi-Truck Calls in Missouri End in Hilarious Twist
• Macon Police Department via Facebook — May 3 2026 statement

Kevin Pringle spent years watching drivers mount his grass verge, leave muddy trenches, and drive away. Aged 64, the former prison officer bought a knackered Hyundai Getz to test his solution. It works. He has a patent. Milton Keynes council has a problem with it. He does not particularly care.

Kevin Pringle's front garden in Milton Keynes is four feet wide. It is, or was, lawn. For years he watched drivers treat it as an extension of the road, mounting the verge to park, cut a corner, or simply because they were not paying attention. He relaid the grass repeatedly. The cars came back. He called it "muddy trenches." He decided something had to be done.

What he came up with looks, from the street, like an ordinary garden fence. Low, wooden, unremarkable. The kind of thing you walk past without registering. But hidden inside the fence posts are small metal spikes on a mechanism activated by pressure. When a vehicle rolls over the fence, the spikes engage and penetrate the tyre. Not instantly. Slowly. Enough to deflate it over time in the way a police stinger operates, without the catastrophic blowout that would cause a crash.

He called it the Smart Fence. He patented it. He bought a Hyundai Getz on its last legs specifically to test whether it worked.

It worked.

The legal question he went and asked first

Pringle is a former prison officer. He thought about liability before he started drilling. He consulted legal advisors about whether a homeowner who installs a fence designed to deflate tyres could be held responsible for damage to a vehicle that hits it.

The answer he came back with was framed around the logic of criminal damage. His garden is his property. Driving onto it and tearing up the ground is criminal damage. If you are committing criminal damage and you damage your vehicle in the process, that is on you.

He put it this way: "If I try and jimmy your backdoor with a screwdriver and it breaks, you don't have to pay me for damages. Tearing up a garden is criminal damage. If you're committing criminal damage and you damage your tools such as a car, it is your responsibility."

It is a reasonable argument. Whether a court would agree is untested, which is also a reasonable summary of where this technology currently sits.

What Milton Keynes council thinks

The local highways authority was asked for a comment. Its view: "Under the law, items can't be placed on public highway land without the proper authorisation. Items may only be placed on the highway with the proper licence."

That is the council noting, correctly, that if the fence sits on or overhangs the public highway rather than on private property, a licence is required. Whether Pringle's fence sits entirely on his own land or encroaches on the highway is the specific question the council's statement does not answer directly.

Pringle's front garden measuring four feet sits between his house and the road. The precise position of the boundary between his private land and the public highway is the kind of question that occupies planning solicitors and boundary disputes for years. Whether his fence sits on the right side of that line is a matter he appears confident about.

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Where he thinks it goes next

Pringle is not building this just for his own garden. He sees commercial applications: councils using the fence to prevent vehicles accessing grassland that has planning protection, schools protecting their grounds, estates and hotel grounds keeping drivers off verges. He specifically mentioned its potential use in preventing unauthorised encampments on council grassland, which is a recurring problem that councils currently address through bollards, bunds and legal injunctions, all of which are slower and more expensive than a fence that deflates your tyres before you have got fully onto the grass.

The product is at prototype stage. He has his patent. The next step is manufacturing and distribution at a price point that makes it attractive: £40 for half a metre is comparable to quality garden fencing without the hidden engineering.

The deeper issue underneath the garden

Grass verge parking costs the UK an estimated £50 million a year in repairs, according to the RAC Foundation, which has been pressing for clearer enforcement powers for local authorities on verge protection. Councils in England generally lack the power to issue fines for verge parking unless the road is specifically designated, and police do not prioritise it. The result is that the cost of repairing damaged verges falls on councils, and through them on taxpayers, while the drivers who caused the damage carry no consequences.

What Kevin Pringle built in his front garden in Milton Keynes is a private enforcement mechanism for a problem that public enforcement has consistently failed to address. The spikes do not issue a fine. They do not take a photograph. They do not require a warden to be present. They just slowly let the air out of the tyre of the vehicle that drove over the man's grass.

Whether it is strictly legal depends on exactly where his boundary is. Whether it is satisfying depends on how many times you have relaid your own lawn.

We cover enforcement and accountability stories at GaukMotorBuzz.com/drivers-revenge.

Sources:

• Surrey Live / North Wales Live — Retiree sick of cars driving over his lawn invents stinger fence with hidden spikes
• The Mirror — Retiree sick of cars ruining his lawn invents fence that can puncture tyres
• RAC Foundation — Parking on verges

The last roadster rolled off the Austrian production line in August, ending nearly three decades of open-top BMW heritage.

The final BMW Z4 has left the Magna Steyr factory in Graz, Austria, marking the end of a roadster line that began with the radical Z1 in 1989. The last car, a Z4 M40i finished in Frozen Pure Grey metallic, represents more than just another discontinued model. It closes a chapter that started when BMW decided luxury buyers wanted wind in their hair, not just leather on their seats.

BMW produced approximately 190,000 Z4s across three generations between 2003 and 2024. The numbers tell the story of a market that peaked in the mid-2000s with annual sales exceeding 30,000 units globally, then gradually declined to just 14,000 cars sold worldwide in 2023. The Z4's death follows the natural progression of automotive economics. When a sports car sells fewer units than some manufacturers move in a single month, the spreadsheet wins.

The Z4's demise leaves BMW without a two-seat roadster for the first time since 1991. The company built its convertible reputation on the Z3, which found 297,088 buyers between 1995 and 2002, largely thanks to its starring role in GoldenEye and the subsequent marketing campaign that made James Bond's car accessible to mere mortals with financing. The Z3 proved BMW could sell lifestyle as effectively as engineering, turning a relatively simple roadster into a cultural phenomenon.

Each Z4 generation reflected BMW's changing priorities. The first generation E85 and E86 models from 2003 to 2008 offered both roadster and coupe variants, with the M Coupe earning particular devotion from enthusiasts who appreciated its uncompromising approach to handling. The second generation E89, produced from 2009 to 2016, featured a retractable hardtop that appealed to buyers wanting year-round usability. The final G29 generation, launched in 2018, shared its platform with the Toyota Supra through a partnership that split development costs but couldn't save either car from market realities.

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BMW's decision reflects broader industry trends that favor SUVs and electric vehicles over traditional sports cars. The company has not announced plans for a Z4 replacement, instead focusing resources on expanding its electric SUV lineup and preparing for stricter emissions regulations. This strategic shift mirrors moves by other luxury manufacturers who have discovered that buyers prefer the elevated seating position and practicality of crossovers over the compromised ergonomics of low-slung sports cars.

The Austrian production facility that built every Z4 will continue manufacturing other vehicles for various brands under the Magna Steyr contract manufacturing model. This arrangement allowed BMW to produce the Z4 without dedicating its own factory space to a relatively low-volume model, but it also meant the roadster lacked the internal political protection that comes with occupying a dedicated production line.

Industry analysts point to changing consumer preferences and regulatory pressures as primary factors in the Z4's cancellation. Younger buyers increasingly view cars as transportation tools rather than emotional purchases, while older buyers who appreciate roadsters often prioritize comfort and practicality over pure driving experience. The regulatory environment adds another layer of complexity, as automakers must balance fleet emissions averages that make low-volume sports cars expensive compliance burdens.

BMW's roadster heritage began with the Z1, a limited-production model that featured doors that retracted into the body rather than swinging open. Only 8,000 Z1s were built between 1989 and 1991, but the car established BMW's willingness to experiment with unconventional design solutions in pursuit of open-air driving pleasure. The Z1's technological innovation and exclusivity created a foundation that the more accessible Z3 and Z4 models built upon for three decades.

The end of Z4 production leaves BMW's sports car lineup concentrated on the 2 Series and higher-performance M models, none of which offer the pure roadster experience that defined the Z cars. Whether BMW will return to the roadster segment depends largely on market conditions and regulatory requirements that currently favor electrification and utility over wind-in-the-hair motoring. For now, the 190,000 Z4 owners can take comfort in knowing they own the final chapter of a story that began with retractable doors and ended with a frozen grey farewell.

Sources: BMW production data and automotive industry reports. Specific production figures and timeline details compiled from manufacturer records and industry analysis.

Tatra's eight-axle engineering nightmare is so bizarre it makes normal trucks look like toys.

Some vehicles are built to blend in. Others are built to haul 50 tons of cargo across a Siberian wasteland while looking like they escaped from a post-apocalyptic fever dream. The Tatra T815-7 8x8 falls squarely into the latter category, and its 16-wheel configuration makes it one of the most disturbing sights on any road.

Standing next to this Czech monster feels like confronting a mechanical centipede that decided to grow wheels instead of legs. The vehicle stretches endlessly forward, each pair of wheels adding to an impression that this thing shouldn't exist in nature. At 35 to 50 tons of payload capacity, the T815-7 doesn't just carry heavy loads. It carries them while looking like it could crawl up walls if physics allowed it.

Tatra Trucks has been perfecting this particular brand of mechanical madness since 1898, operating from their 1.2 million square meter facility in Kopřivnice, Czech Republic. What started as Ignác Šustala's company in 1850 has evolved into something that produces vehicles so specialized they seem alien to anyone accustomed to normal transportation.

The T815-7's central tube chassis system represents the backbone of this engineering oddity. Tatra has used this signature design since 1923, creating a framework that allows each of the eight axles to operate independently. The result is a vehicle that can navigate terrain that would destroy conventional trucks while maintaining traction through all 16 contact points with the ground.

Under the hood sits a Tatra T3D-928-70 air-cooled V12 diesel engine producing between 325 and 440 horsepower. Air cooling eliminates the need for traditional radiator systems, another design choice that adds to the vehicle's otherworldly appearance. No grille, no cooling vents, just a flat face that looks more like industrial equipment than automotive engineering.

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The applications for such a mechanical centipede reveal why someone would build something this disturbing. Military logistics operations require vehicles that can traverse terrain where roads don't exist. Construction and mining sites need equipment that can haul massive loads across ground that would swallow conventional trucks. Oil and gas operations in remote locations depend on vehicles that treat impassable terrain as a mild inconvenience.

Current CEO Petr Rusek oversees production of vehicles that most people will never see outside of specialized industrial contexts. Emergency services use these trucks to reach locations where normal vehicles simply cannot go. The 400mm ground clearance and independent suspension on all wheels mean obstacles that would stop other vehicles become minor bumps for the T815-7.

The central differential system distributes power to all eight axles, ensuring that losing traction on a few wheels doesn't strand the vehicle. Each wheel can react independently to terrain changes, creating a walking motion that explains why the vehicle resembles a mechanical insect more than traditional transportation.

Spotting one of these machines on public roads creates an immediate sense that something fundamental has shifted in the natural order. Normal trucks have four wheels, maybe six. This thing has 16 wheels arranged in a pattern that suggests it evolved in some parallel universe where mechanical efficiency trumped aesthetic considerations.

The T815-7 represents what happens when engineers prioritize function over form to such an extreme degree that the result becomes genuinely disturbing. Most vehicles try to look approachable, even friendly. This truck looks like it would consume smaller vehicles for fuel if given the opportunity.

Sources: Tatra Trucks Official Website

A new legal action filed with the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal accuses Google of monopolising the display advertising market and overcharging UK advertisers. The claim, representing businesses rather than publishers, seeks up to £3 billion in damages. It joins a separate £13.6 billion action already proceeding through the same tribunal on behalf of publishers. Google is contesting both.

If you have ever paid to put a banner advertisement on a website, a video platform or a mobile app, there is a chance you paid more than you should have. That, at least, is the argument that a growing number of legal actions in the UK are making against Google.

The latest was filed this week by AGC Collective Actions Limited, represented by law firm KP Law, with the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal. The claim seeks damages of up to £3 billion and alleges that Google abused its dominant position in the online display advertising market by favouring its own services while shutting out competitors. The result, the claim argues, was that advertisers paid inflated prices for advertising that was less effective than it should have been.

Display advertising is the category of online promotion that appears as banner graphics, video placements and promotional panels while users browse websites, watch streaming content or use mobile apps. It is distinct from search advertising, which appears when users look something up in Google's search engine. The two markets operate differently and are regulated separately, though Google holds dominant positions in both.

A spokesperson for KP Law described the scale of Google's alleged conduct as well documented: "Google has a well-documented track record of anti-competitive behaviour in the online digital advertising space, in particular in relation to ad tech, as recognised by courts and regulators across the US and Europe. It is only right that UK advertisers have their day in court and that Google now answers for its entrenched and longstanding anti-competitive behaviour. We look forward to working on behalf of advertisers to secure compensation for them from Google."

Google has not yet responded publicly to this specific filing. In the parallel publisher claim, Google described the allegations as speculative.

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The other case already in progress

The new £3 billion claim is separate from a larger action already proceeding through the Competition Appeal Tribunal. That case, brought by Ad Tech Collective Action LLP on behalf of UK publishers rather than advertisers, seeks £13.6 billion in damages and alleges that Google abused its dominant position in a way that caused significant financial losses to websites and apps that rely on display advertising revenue.

The publisher claim received a collective proceedings order from the tribunal in March 2025, clearing it to proceed as a formal collective action. It is expected to go to trial in 2026. Publishers covered by that claim include those who received display advertising revenue through Google's systems between January 2014 and November 2022, and are automatically included unless they opted out before the deadline in May 2025.

The two claims represent different sides of the same market. Publishers are the websites and apps that carry advertising. Advertisers are the businesses that buy it. Both groups are arguing they were harmed by Google's control of the technology infrastructure connecting the two.

The broader regulatory picture

The UK legal actions do not exist in isolation. France's competition authority fined Google €220 million over similar conduct. The European Commission has pursued its own investigation. In the United States, the Department of Justice took Google to court over its advertising technology practices, and a federal judge in Virginia found in April 2025 that Google had illegally monopolised the online advertising technology market.

Google appealed the US ruling. It also filed an appeal against the EU's related findings. The company's consistent position across all of these proceedings is that the allegations misrepresent how the advertising market functions and that its practices benefit publishers, advertisers and users.

What neither Google nor anyone else disputes is the underlying market structure. Google owns the dominant publisher ad server, which controls how publishers manage and sell their advertising inventory. It owns the dominant advertiser platform, through which most large advertisers buy display ads. And it operates the dominant advertising exchange, which sits in between the two and facilitates transactions. Owning all three positions in a single market is what regulators in multiple jurisdictions are examining.

The UK advertiser claim is at an earlier stage than the publisher action. The Competition Appeal Tribunal must now decide whether to grant a collective proceedings order, which would allow it to proceed as a class action covering all affected UK advertisers. If granted, the path to trial is long, expensive and uncertain. Legal proceedings of this kind against large technology companies routinely last years.

What is no longer uncertain is the direction of travel. Google is being pursued for billions of pounds in the UK alone, by two different groups, for two different sides of the same alleged market abuse. The trials, if and when they conclude, will either confirm what regulators across three continents have been arguing or produce the most significant legal vindication of a major technology company since the last time this was tried.

Sources:

• LBC News — Google facing £3bn legal claim accusing it of monopolising display ads market
• Irish News — Google facing £3bn legal claim accusing it of monopolising display ads market
• Globe Newswire — Google Ad Tech Claim gets green light from UK Competition Appeal Tribunal
• Press Gazette — £13.6bn publisher adtech claim versus Google takes step forward
• UK Competition Appeal Tribunal

A Land Rover Discovery worth around £80,000 was spotted on Abersoch Main Beach at 7.30am on Sunday morning, already half under water with a tow rope floating behind it. By 10am it had completely disappeared beneath the incoming tide. Crowds gathered. A fake Jaguar Land Rover Facebook page appeared. The owner has not come forward.

Abersoch is a small coastal village on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. It has a beach with expensive huts, views across Tremadog Bay, a large population of second home owners from Cheshire, and now an internationally shared video of a luxury SUV performing an unplanned submarine impression in front of a Bank Holiday crowd.

The Land Rover Discovery had been on the beach since at least the early hours of Sunday May 3. The previous low tide was at around 4.30am. It is thought the driver had been using the vehicle to retrieve a boat trailer or jet ski, drove onto the beach during the low water, and somehow failed to get back out. Whether the car broke down, got stuck in sand, or was simply abandoned and forgotten is not known. What is known is that nobody came back for it before the tide came in.

A woman out paddleboarding spotted it at around 7.30am, more than two hours before high tide. Her husband, who was walking their dog on the beach, launched the drone he had brought hoping to spot dolphins and began filming instead. There was a tow rope floating from the back of the car. Frantic efforts to pull it clear before the tide arrived came to nothing.

By 8.55am, the paddleboarder was gliding directly over the Discovery's roof. The car's double panoramic moonroof was still visible through the water from above. By 10am the tide had finished the job and the vehicle was completely submerged.

"People are paddleboarding over its roof," confirmed a RIB owner who was watching from the water.

The internet's response

The internet, as it reliably does with this category of event, found this absolutely hilarious.

The car was christened the Sea Rover. Then Deepfender. Then Seaburu. A comparison to Wet Nellie, 007's amphibious Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me, was made within minutes. "Not quite the James Bond experience I was looking for," one commenter offered. "Another day in Didsbury-sur-Mer," sighed another.

The paddleboarder, who has not been named, described the village's reaction: "It's gone mental in this tiny little Welsh village. Everyone thinks it's hilarious, wonderful."

A spoof Jaguar Land Rover Facebook page appeared, announcing the manufacturer had "quietly chose Abersoch for testing its latest innovation: Amphibious Mode." The fake account detailed the car's features: seamless transition from road to sea, perfect for avoiding parking tickets, and an optional "tide assist" feature currently in beta. Phase Two of the trials, it later reported, had "unfortunately not gone to plan."

A genuine comment from a local mechanic suggested the car "will be rotten very soon afterwards," while noting that the Discovery's £80,000-plus value made it "a very expensive weekend."

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What actually happens to an £80,000 car that sits under seawater

The short answer is: nothing good.

Saltwater and electronics are a particularly destructive combination. A modern Land Rover Discovery is laden with control units, sensors, modules and wiring looms that begin corroding the moment saline water reaches them. Insurance total loss territory is reached quickly. The engine may survive if it was not running at the moment of submersion and if the cylinders can be cleared, but the electrical systems, carpets, insulation, and any bearing surfaces exposed to seawater will require replacement or specialist treatment. A vehicle that has been fully submerged in the sea for several hours is not a repair job by any normal definition.

Recovery had to wait for the 4.47pm low tide, when a beach tractor was deployed to drag the Discovery clear. Large crowds had gathered to watch. The recovery itself became Bank Holiday entertainment.

Abersoch and the specific comedy of very expensive things getting wet

Abersoch's nickname, "Cheshire-on-Sea" or "Cheshire by the Sea," references the demographic of its wealthier visitors: second home owners and holidaymakers from the affluent commuter belt around Manchester. Land Rover Discoverys and Defenders are not uncommon in the beach car park. One local commentator noted this particular outcome was not entirely surprising given the vehicle's reputation: the 4x4 credentials "probably gave him a sense of security that it can go anywhere. We all know it can't."

This is not the first time a vehicle has been swallowed by the tide at Abersoch. North Wales Live reports that Land Rovers and boat recovery tractors have previously come to grief on the same beach, and that the previous year a luxury boat managed the reverse achievement of getting stuck on the sand at low tide.

The beach at Abersoch is tidal. The tide comes in every day. It has been doing so reliably for longer than Land Rovers have existed. Nobody knows who owns this one.

Sources:

• North Wales Live via Daily Post — £80k luxury car drowned by sea at Abersoch
• North Wales Live via Daily Post — Video shows Land Rover submerged as paddleboarder rows over it
• North Wales Live via Daily Post — Huge crowds gather on Abersoch beach to watch Land Rover recovery
• Cambrian News — Land Rover Discovery submerged by sea at Abersoch beach
• Wales Updates — Land Rover swallowed by sea at Abersoch beach

VW Group CFO Arno Antlitz confirmed in the company's first quarter 2026 earnings call that the group expects to pay between €400 million and €500 million per year in EU CO2 fines for missing fleet emissions targets across 2025, 2026 and 2027. That is close to €1.5 billion across the three year period. He described it as a deliberate choice. Paying the fine, Volkswagen has concluded, costs less than fixing the problem.

There is a sentence buried in the Volkswagen Group's first quarter earnings call that deserves to be read slowly.

"We make a balance between money we lose due to the CO2 fine and money we lose to the margin loss of the EVs."

That is Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen's chief financial officer and chief operating officer, explaining the company's strategy toward European Union emissions regulations. Not denying the fine is coming. Not claiming the company will meet its targets. Acknowledging that it has done the maths and chosen to pay.

The fine structure is precise and mechanical. The EU requires each manufacturer to achieve a fleet average CO2 output below a set target, calculated per vehicle sold and weighted by the weight of those vehicles. For 2025 the threshold drops to approximately 93.6 grams of CO2 per kilometre. For every gram above that limit, the manufacturer pays €95. Per car sold. Across an entire year's worth of European sales, one gram above the threshold costs Volkswagen tens of millions of euros. Antlitz's estimate of €400 million to €500 million per year reflects a calculated shortfall the company has looked at directly and decided to absorb.

Why Volkswagen is making this choice

The maths that drives the decision is specific to the current moment in the EV transition.

Volkswagen's existing generation of electric vehicles generates approximately 30 percent less profit per car than an equivalent combustion model of the same size. The ID.4, the ID.3, the Audi Q4 e-tron: each one sold puts less money on the table than the combustion cars VW would otherwise prefer to sell in that segment.

To close the gap between its current fleet CO2 average and the EU target, Volkswagen calculates it would need to raise its EV share in Europe from around 13 percent of sales to approximately 25 percent, according to analysis by UBS cited in Motor1. Doing that requires either selling EVs at prices that attract buyers who would not otherwise choose them, which means accepting margin reductions, or building demand through aggressive pricing, which amounts to the same thing. Either path costs money.

Antlitz put the balance plainly: the company has to decide between the money lost to CO2 fines and the money lost through the reduced margin on each EV sold above what the market would naturally absorb. For the 2025 to 2027 cycle, the calculation has come out in favour of paying the fine.

Some good news does exist on the EV side. VW Group demand for electric cars in Europe rose 11.5 percent in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period last year, reaching 176,400 units. In Western Europe, approximately one in five of the vehicles the group sells now has no combustion engine. The direction of travel is right. The speed is not.

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The wider financial context

€1.5 billion is a large number. In the context of VW Group's total financial position, it is also worth calibrating.

The group generated €322 billion in revenue in 2024 with a total profit of €8.9 billion. Those margins, as Car Buzz noted, are not large enough to comfortably sustain development of the next generation of vehicles. The emissions fine does not exist in isolation. Antlitz also confirmed that US tariffs are costing VW approximately €4 billion per year at current rates. For a company managing thin margins across an enormous portfolio, €1.5 billion in regulatory fines added to €4 billion in tariff exposure in a single cycle represents a serious structural pressure.

The comparison to Dieselgate, which cost VW more than €31 billion by 2020, is not entirely unfair to make. It is also not entirely fair. The current situation is not concealment or fraud. It is a manufacturer publicly acknowledging in an earnings call that it will miss a regulatory target, explaining why, and quantifying what it will cost. That is a different kind of corporate disclosure.

The resolution in the medium term is the Scalable Systems Platform, VW's next generation EV architecture, which the company says will close the profitability gap between electric and combustion vehicles. That platform does not arrive until later this decade. For the 2025 to 2027 window, €1.5 billion is the bridge.

What changes in the meantime

For the US market, Antlitz confirmed that production of the ID.4 at VW's Chattanooga, Tennessee plant has ended. The model will remain available in America but will be built overseas and imported in small volumes. The decision reflects a broader retrenchment from VW's American EV ambitions following tariff pressures and softer demand.

In Europe, VW is hoping the upcoming ID.2 and ID.1 models at lower price points will shift the fleet average meaningfully before the 2027 deadline. Both sit in segments where EV demand is growing fastest and where the transition away from combustion engines is most advanced. Whether they arrive quickly enough to reduce the total fine below the current €1.5 billion estimate is the question Antlitz cannot yet answer.

The €95 per gram per car structure means every additional EV sold materially improves the calculation. It also means the EU's penalty mechanism is functioning precisely as designed: creating a financial incentive so substantial that even a company with €322 billion in revenue treats it as a strategic variable rather than a rounding error.

Volkswagen has concluded it is cheaper to pay. The EU designed the system so that conclusion would eventually stop being true. The race is whether the cars arrive before the company's patience runs out.

Sources:

• Motor1 — VW Group Risks $1.7 Billion Fine For Missing Emissions Target
• Car Buzz — Volkswagen Is Facing Major Emissions Fines, Again
• Autoblog — Volkswagen Could Pay $1.75 Billion in Fines as EV Sales Fall Short of Targets
• Motor1 — VW, Mercedes etc: High fines threatened due to CO2 limits
• Volkswagen Group first quarter 2026 earnings call — Arno Antlitz quoted directly

The Adamastor Furia is Portugal's first supercar, built in Porto, powered by a 650 horsepower Ford Performance engine and limited to 60 examples. Prototype testing at the Portimão circuit has gone without incident. The company wants to race it at Le Mans. It costs €1.6 million before tax and looks like something the Aston Martin Valkyrie would recognise.

Portugal is not the first country you would think of when someone says European supercar. Italy, Germany, Britain, Sweden... the shortlist writes itself. Porto, where Adamastor is based, does not traditionally appear on it.

That changes now, and the Furia is making a credible case for its inclusion.

Adamastor was founded in 2010 and spent its early years in composite manufacturing and motorsport engineering before pivoting to road cars in 2018. Five years of development followed. What emerged is a genuine, testable, machine that has been proven in prototype testing that has recently completed an intensive round of track sessions at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimão without a single reliability issue. Test driver Diogo Matos has been putting Prototype 001 through its paces, and Autoblog reports the feedback has been consistently positive.

This is not a digital render with a press release attached. The Furia exists, it has been driven hard, and Adamastor is now moving toward production.

What it is built from

The Furia is a carbon fibre monocoque with a centrally mounted engine driving the rear wheels, and a layout designed from the ground up around aerodynamic performance. The body is entirely carbon fibre. The underbody uses two Venturi channels to generate a significant proportion of the downforce without relying heavily on wing elements above the body. Adamastor quotes over 1,000 kilograms of downforce at 155 miles per hour. The circuit focused version they have also developed pushes that figure to approximately 1,800 kilograms at the same speed.

Fully adjustable double wishbone suspension at both ends allows the car to be configured for either road or circuit use. The braking system is AP Racing with six piston aluminium calipers at the front and four piston units at the rear. ABS and traction control are fitted.

The gearbox is a Hewland sequential unit operated via paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Hewland is the same company whose gearboxes appear in a large proportion of serious single seater racing cars. Fitting it to a road car is an emphatic statement about what the Furia is designed to do.

Dry weight is approximately 1,100 kilograms. By comparison, a Porsche 911 GT3 RS weighs 1,450 kilograms. The Furia is 350 kilograms lighter than that.

The engine

The power unit is the 3.5 litre twin turbo V6 developed by Ford Performance for the Ford GT. It produces more than 650 horsepower and 421 pound feet of torque available from low in the rev range. This is not a modified road car engine with a new exhaust note. It is the same bespoke racing unit that powered the Ford GT to its Le Mans class victory in 2016 in a car that beat Ferrari at the most famous endurance race in the world.

The claimed figures are 0 to 62 miles per hour in around 3.5 seconds and a top speed exceeding 186 miles per hour in the road legal configuration. Top Gear described those as respectable but not groundbreaking by modern standards. What the numbers do not fully capture is the significance of 650 horsepower in a car weighing 1,100 kilograms: that is a power to weight ratio of 590 horsepower per tonne, comparable to the McLaren Senna and significantly above the Porsche GT3 RS.

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The price and the ambition

Sixty examples will be built. Each costs €1.6 million before Portuguese VAT at 23 percent, which takes the figure to just under €2 million. In US dollars at current exchange rates, that is approximately $2.3 million. In context: an Aston Martin Valkyrie starts at around $3 million. A Pagani Utopia opens at $2.6 million. A Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut was listed at $3 million before production sold out. The Furia is expensive by any standard except the one it has chosen to compete in.

The company name comes from Adamastor, the sea monster in Luis de Camões' epic poem Os Lusíadas, the defining work of Portuguese literature, written to celebrate Vasco da Gama's voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. The car's name, Furia, means rage. The naming decisions are deliberate: this is a project built around Portuguese identity in a way that few startup supercar companies attempt.

Adamastor has stated its broader ambition publicly. The Furia platform is intended as the foundation for a racing programme aimed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The engine that powers the road car already has a Le Mans class win on its record. The aerodynamics were developed to generate circuit level downforce. The gearbox is a racing unit. The path to Le Mans is not a marketing fantasy built on a road car that happens to look sporty. It is a logical engineering progression from what Adamastor has already built.

The honest question

Every startup supercar company carries the same risk. Koenigsegg made it. Pagani made it. Czinger is making it. For every one that reaches production, a dozen announce ambitions and disappear. The question for Adamastor is whether 60 buyers at €1.6 million each will materialise for a brand nobody has heard of.

The answer depends partly on the car and partly on the people. The car is evidently real, technically credible, and impressive in its specifics. Adamastor has been working with carbon composites since 2014, which means the manufacturing expertise exists. Prototype 001 has completed serious circuit testing without breaking. The Le Mans aspiration gives the project a narrative that pure road car startups often lack.

The honest question the Carscoops review posed still stands: is €1.6 million a rational price for a first car from an unknown Portuguese brand? The answer depends entirely on whether you are buying performance per euro or buying rarity, story and national pride alongside it. Sixty people in the world will decide Adamastor's answer to that question.

Sources:

• Motor1 — This New Supercar Packs A Powerful Ford Engine
• Autoblog — Adamastor Furia Hypercar Moves Closer to Production as 60 Units Planned
• Carscoops — Portugal's Furia Borrows The Valkyrie's Look And Detroit's V6 For $1.9M
• Top Gear — Portugal's first supercar is the Ford V6-engined Adamastor Furia
• The Supercar Blog — Adamastor Furia: This Portuguese supercar is quietly getting very serious
• The News Wheel — Adamastor Unveils a 650-HP Machine Powered by a Ford GT Engine