The Italian giant's Sensify technology eliminates the messy liquid that's been stopping cars since the 1920s.

Brake fluid is dead. After a century of drivers wrestling with bleeding brake lines and watching that amber liquid turn black, Brembo has finally cracked the code on killing hydraulics entirely. Their Sensify brake-by-wire system hit production this year, and it doesn't need a single drop of the stuff that's been fundamental to stopping cars since Henry Ford was cranking out Model Ts.

The numbers tell the story of just how revolutionary this shift really is. Traditional hydraulic brakes take 300 to 500 milliseconds to fully engage when you stomp the pedal. Sensify cuts that response time to 80 milliseconds. In braking terms, that's the difference between a gentle suggestion and an instant command. Each wheel gets its own electric actuator controlled by dedicated processors, meaning your right rear brake can respond differently than your left front in real time.

Brembo CEO Daniele Schillaci didn't mince words when the company announced production would begin. "Sensify represents the most significant evolution in braking technology since the introduction of ABS," he told Automotive News Europe in 2023. Given that ABS revolutionized road safety in the 1970s, that's not a small claim. But the technical leap supports his confidence.

The system works by replacing every hydraulic component with electronic alternatives. Instead of brake fluid pushing pistons through metal lines, electric motors directly actuate the brake calipers. Software monitors pedal pressure, wheel speed, and vehicle dynamics thousands of times per second, then tells each wheel exactly how much braking force to apply. The result is stopping power that adapts faster than any human driver could manage.

Lucid Motors signed on as one of the first customers, with their Air Dream Edition serving as a testing ground for the technology. Mercedes reportedly considered Sensify for their EQS lineup, though official confirmation remains elusive. These aren't mass market cars, which makes sense for a technology that likely costs significantly more than traditional hydraulics, at least initially.

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The maintenance implications alone could reshape the automotive service industry. Brake fluid changes, typically required every two to three years, simply disappear. No more bleeding brake lines after pad changes. No more watching that fluid gradually turn from clear amber to dirty brown as moisture creeps into the system. The electronic components monitor themselves continuously, providing predictive maintenance data that tells you exactly when service is needed rather than relying on time intervals or guesswork.

Traditional brake systems fail in predictable ways. Fluid leaks, air gets into lines, moisture causes corrosion. Sensify introduces different failure modes that the industry is still learning to understand. What happens when an electric actuator fails versus a hydraulic line bursting? Redundancy becomes crucial in ways that hydraulic systems never required. Brembo built multiple backup systems into Sensify, but electronic failures can be more catastrophic and less predictable than fluid leaks.

The timing aligns with the electric vehicle transition, but Sensify works on any powertrain. Internal combustion engines can benefit from the faster response times and precise control just as much as electric motors. However, EVs provide the electrical architecture that makes the system more straightforward to integrate. Traditional cars need additional power management and control modules that EVs already possess.

Production ramped through 2023 and into 2024, with Brembo targeting broader market adoption by 2025. The technology faces the classic chicken-and-egg problem of automotive innovation. Manufacturers want proven reliability before committing to volume production. Suppliers need volume commitments to drive costs down. Early adopters pay premium prices for unproven technology, but someone has to go first.

The brake fluid industry just lost its biggest customer segment. After powering through a century of automotive evolution, hydraulic braking faces obsolescence from a technology that was impossible when those first brake lines were laid. Sensify might be the beginning of the end for one of the few automotive fluids that survived the transition from mechanical to electronic control. Just don't expect your neighborhood mechanic to stock the replacement parts anytime soon.

Sources: Automotive News Europe, Brembo Official Press Release

The German automaker promises supercar power at regular performance car prices.

BMW plans to price its upcoming electric M3 at the same level as the current petrol version, despite packing nearly 1000 horsepower into what should be one of the most powerful production sedans ever built. The move signals a dramatic shift in how automakers approach electric performance cars, abandoning the traditional premium for battery power in favor of volume sales.

The electric M3, expected to arrive in 2026, will deliver power figures that dwarf its combustion sibling. Where the current M3 Competition produces 503 horsepower, the electric version targets close to 1000 horsepower through a quad motor setup that puts individual electric motors at each wheel. This configuration promises not just straight line brutality but sophisticated torque vectoring that could redefine how a sports sedan handles.

BMW M division boss Frank van Meel confirmed the pricing strategy during recent media briefings, stating the electric M3 would be priced "in the same ballpark" as the current petrol model. This positions the car at roughly $75,000 to $85,000 in the US market, depending on specification levels. The decision contradicts industry trends where electric performance cars typically command significant premiums over their gasoline counterparts.

The power delivery method separates this M3 from anything BMW has built before. Each wheel receives its own electric motor, creating what amounts to four individual power sources that can be managed independently. This setup allows for precise torque distribution that changes thousands of times per second, potentially making the car faster through corners than any combustion engine could manage through mechanical differentials alone.

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Range remains the critical question for any electric performance car. BMW targets approximately 300 miles of range in normal driving conditions, though that figure will drop significantly under track use or aggressive acceleration runs. The company plans to use its latest generation battery technology, likely sourced from CATL or Samsung SDI, with charging speeds targeting 200kW DC fast charging capability.

The pricing strategy reflects broader industry pressure to make electric vehicles mainstream rather than niche luxury products. Tesla proved this approach with the Model S Plaid, which delivers over 1000 horsepower for around $90,000. BMW appears to be following this playbook, betting that volume sales of high performance electric cars matter more than maintaining artificial price premiums.

Production will take place at BMW's Munich plant, where the company is investing heavily in electric vehicle manufacturing capabilities. The facility already produces the i4 and will be retooled to handle the more complex assembly requirements of the quad motor M3 system. BMW expects initial production volumes of around 15,000 units annually, split between global markets.

The competitive landscape includes the Mercedes AMG EQE 63 S and the upcoming Audi RS e-tron GT variants, but neither matches the BMW's projected power output. Porsche's Taycan Turbo S produces 750 horsepower in overboost mode but costs significantly more than BMW's target price point. The electric M3 could represent the first time buyers can access near supercar performance in a practical four door package without paying supercar prices.

Whether BMW can deliver on these promises while maintaining build quality and reliability remains the ultimate test. The company has struggled with some electric vehicle launches, particularly software integration and charging system reliability. Getting the electric M3 right matters beyond just one model success. It represents BMW's credibility in the electric performance space and their ability to compete with Tesla's performance offerings while maintaining the driving dynamics that made M cars legendary.

Sources: Information compiled from automotive industry reports and BMW official communications. Specific pricing and performance figures subject to final production specifications.

Car dealers buy and sell hundreds of vehicles a year. They have learned, sometimes at serious financial cost, which models look like bargains and turn into something else entirely once the repair bills start. Five categories appear on almost every dealer's internal blacklist. Two of them are in cars you see everywhere.

The used car market has a peculiar information asymmetry. The person selling the car usually knows more about it than the person buying it. But there is a layer above that: the professional dealer who has bought and sold enough of a particular model to know exactly where it will hurt them.

Car Dealer Magazine asked a number of working dealers which models they actively avoided. The same names kept coming up. Insurance data firm WarrantyWise provided the failure rates and average repair costs to put numbers against the warnings.

What follows is what they collectively know.

The Ford EcoBoost engine

Found in the Fiesta, Focus, B-Max and a significant portion of Ford's entire range, the EcoBoost is a compact turbocharged unit that delivers impressive power and fuel economy on paper. In the showroom it looks like a sensible choice. In the workshop it can be a different story.

The problem is the wet belt. Unlike a conventional timing belt, which runs dry, the EcoBoost's timing belt operates inside the engine oil. Over time that belt can begin to deteriorate. When it does, the degraded material circulates through the oil system and can cause catastrophic internal damage. The engine does not give much warning before it becomes very expensive.

WarrantyWise puts the average repair cost at £3,141. Lee Grant of the u/CarUK channel on YouTube described it plainly: the wet belts are notorious for causing problems where the engine clogs up. He called it a "really poor engine."

The volume of Fords with EcoBoost engines on UK roads means the total number of failures is high even if the failure rate is around average for the segment.

The Mazda 2.2 diesel

This one surprised some buyers who associate Mazda with reliability. The brand has a strong reputation for durability, but the 2.2 litre diesel fitted to the CX-5, Mazda 6 and Mazda 3 is an exception its fans prefer not to discuss.

The failure catalogue is long and expensive: timing chains that stretch, injectors that leak, diesel particulate filters that fail prematurely, and exhaust gas recirculation systems that coke up badly. WarrantyWise describes this engine as more than twice as likely to fail compared to the average, with mean repair costs of £3,480. The firm's single most expensive claim on this engine reached £7,058.

James Harding of u/ChopsGarage, who describes himself as a Mazda enthusiast, put it candidly: he loves Mazda as a rule and finds the brand generally bulletproof, but those 2.2 diesels have issues he has never seen matched by other engines when it comes to coking themselves up.

The PureTech petrol engine

The Stellantis group's PureTech engine appears in Peugeots, Citroëns and Vauxhalls, making it one of the most common powertrains on British roads. It also uses a wet belt.

The failure mode is similar to the Ford EcoBoost: the timing belt degrades inside the oil, the debris clogs the oil pickup, and the engine starves itself. WarrantyWise reports that PureTech engines are 31 percent more likely to fail than average, with mean repair costs of £2,152.

Joe Betty of the Shifting Metal channel, who runs a dealership alongside his media work, described the PureTech as having a "plethora of problems" including both the wet belt issue and a tendency to consume unusual amounts of oil. His assessment was that these engines are going to keep causing trouble for a long time.

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The Ford PowerShift gearbox

Not every problem is under the bonnet. The Ford PowerShift is a twin clutch automatic gearbox fitted to a generation of Fords and, less commonly, certain Volvo models. When it works, it is acceptable. When it fails, it fails expensively and completely.

The symptoms build progressively: jerky gear changes, hesitation, slipping, and eventually total breakdown. WarrantyWise's most expensive single claim on a Focus with a PowerShift gearbox came to £5,434, with an average repair bill of £2,351 across all claims.

Theo Cook of u/TedTorques described the PowerShift as one of the worst gearboxes ever invented, "with no longevity, extremely expensive to repair, and causing a huge amount of problems." He was not speaking tentatively.

CVT gearboxes across multiple brands

Continuously variable transmissions are sold on their smoothness. They have no fixed gear ratios, just a continuous adjustment of drive ratio across a wide range. The result can be a pleasant, seamless driving experience. The failure experience is rather less pleasant.

CVTs across multiple manufacturers carry average repair costs of £2,924 according to WarrantyWise, though failure rates are roughly average. The practical problem for dealers is that when they do fail, the repair is complex and the replacement cost is high.

Jamie Caple of Car Quay and the u/Carlateral YouTube channel is explicit about his approach: if he sees the letters CVT next to a vehicle description at auction, he does not bid. "We avoid them like the plague," he said.

The JLR Ingenium engine

This is the entry that attracts the most attention in dealer circles, because it appears in premium cars with premium price tags: Range Rovers, Discoverys and Jaguars bearing the 2.0-litre diesel Ingenium unit.

The core failure mode is a timing chain that stretches over time. A rattle on startup is the tell. If ignored, the chain can jump its guides and destroy the engine entirely. WarrantyWise's data is stark: Ingenium engines are 162 percent more likely to fail than the average vehicle on their books, with mean repair costs of £5,233. The firm's largest single Ingenium claim was £32,030 on a Range Rover Sport.

Umesh Samani, chairman of the Independent Motor Dealers Association, put the Ingenium diesel at the very top of his personal avoidance list. "They just fall to bits for no apparent reason," he said.

What to do with this information

None of these engines or gearboxes make every car they appear in unusable. Plenty of EcoBoost Fiestas, Mazda CX-5s and PureTech Peugeots run for years without incident. The question, as with all used car buying, is what happens when something does go wrong and whether you can absorb the bill.

The dealers who avoid these cars are not avoiding them because they never sell. They avoid them because when a £3,000 repair arrives on a car they paid £6,000 for, the margin disappears and the stress does not. That is a calculation a private buyer needs to make just as clearly.

If any of these drivetrains appear on the car you are considering, the advice that comes from every dealer in this conversation is the same: budget for the worst case repair before you commit to the purchase. The worst case is more common than the selling price suggests.

Sources:

• Car Dealer Magazine — Revealed: The cars even car dealers avoid buying
• WarrantyWise — Claims data on high-failure engines and gearboxes
• Car Dealer Magazine Podcast — dealer interviews on used car avoidance

The Auto Union Lucca was lost after the Second World War. Audi Tradition spent three years having it recreated from photographs and archival documents by British specialists Crosthwaite & Gardiner. The result is a 512 horsepower, 960-kilogram streamliner that runs on methanol, toluene and premium unleaded, and looks like nothing built in the last 90 years.

In 1935 the question of who could build the fastest car on earth was not an engineering problem. It was a national prestige contest, a propaganda tool and a spectator sport all at once. Germany's two great manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union swapped the record back and forth through the 1930s with an intensity that made Formula One's modern constructor battles look restrained.

On February 14 1934, a specially prepared Mercedes racer set a mile record at speed in Hungary at an average of 196.7 mph. Auto Union's engineers went back to their drawing boards.

What they produced became one of the most extraordinary objects visually ever to travel at speed on a public road. They took a 1934 Type A Grand Prix car, bored its 4.4 litre V16 engine out to 5.0 litres, added a supercharger, and enclosed the whole thing in a teardrop aluminium bodyshell that had been developed with the help of Berlin's Adlershof Aeronautical Research Institute a first in European racing car construction, as the contemporary press noted at the time. The cockpit was fully enclosed with a canopy. The rear tapered to a fin. The wheels were covered by smooth fairings.

They called it the Rennlimousine, the racing sedan.

On February 15 1935, with Hans Stuck at the wheel and thousands of Italian spectators lining the autostrada north of Pisa, the Rennlimousine completed two mile runs from a rolling start in opposite directions. The average speed: 199 mph. The measured peak: 203.2 mph, or 326.975 kilometres per hour. Auto Union immediately proclaimed it the fastest racing car in the world.

The record was set on a straight section of road near the Italian city of Lucca. And so the car took its name.

What happened to it

Auto Union continued developing the Lucca and a sister car almost identical through 1935 and 1936, fitting a larger 6.0-litre V16 the following season. Then the war came. Development ceased. The cars were lost destroyed, dispersed or simply never recovered from the chaos of the chaos after the war. Audi Tradition, which has spent decades assembling the historic Silver Arrow collection, found itself without a single car from the early prewar Grand Prix era.

That gap is now filled.

The project began more than three years ago. Audi Tradition commissioned Crosthwaite & Gardiner the same British specialists who recreated the Auto Union Type 52 prototype in 2024 to rebuild the Lucca from scratch using historical photographs, period race reports and whatever archival documentation remained. Every component was made by hand. The streamlined bodywork, with its enclosed cockpit canopy and tapered tail section, was described by Audi as particularly extremely labour intensive complex compound curves formed individually in metal over a wooden frame.

Project manager Timo Witt, who has run Audi Tradition's historic vehicle collection since 2015 and spent more than a decade as a motorsport engineer before that, confirmed the project was completed in early 2026. At the end of April, Audi tested the recreation in its wind tunnel. The drag coefficient came in at 0.43. That number sounds modest by modern standards, but for a car with exposed wheels built using 1935 aerodynamic thinking, it was genuinely remarkable  a contemporary Mercedes-Benz saloon of the same era measured around 0.60.

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What is inside it

The original Lucca ran the Type A's enlarged 5.0-litre V16, producing around 340 to 370 horsepower depending on the tune. The recreation uses the larger 6.0 litre V16 from the later Type C racer, which was the unit Auto Union had already planned to fit before the war ended the programme. Audi quotes output at 520 PS, which equates to approximately 512 horsepower. The car weighs 960 kilograms.

Witt confirmed the engine modifications from the Avus configuration improved ventilation and revised cooling  were incorporated into the recreation to manage thermal stress during modern demonstration runs. Without those changes, he said, the car would be under too much heat stress to run reliably at events.

The fuel is correct to the original prewar specification in spirit: a cocktail of methanol, premium unleaded petrol and toluene. Toluene is a highly flammable, highly toxic compound derived from benzene that was standard in Grand Prix fuel blends of the era. The fact that this car runs on it in 2026 is either thrilling or alarming depending on your relationship with chemistry.

The first public appearance

The Lucca made its static debut this week in Lucca, Italy returning to the city where it set the record more than 90 years ago. It was unveiled at the same site on the autostrada, now a piece of ordinary Italian road that presumably its regular users have no idea is historically significant.

Its first public appearance in motion will be at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 9 to 12 2026. It will run up the hill. A car with a 6.0 litre V16, 512 horsepower, 960 kilograms, and the aerodynamic profile of something that arrived from the future in 1935, going up Goodwood's famous climb.

The 2026 Porsche 911 Turbo S has a top speed of 200 mph. The Lucca, in its original form, hit 203. The new version has more power, less weight. Audi has confirmed it has no plans to find out exactly what it is now capable of.

That seems like a missed opportunity. But watching it run at Goodwood will do for a start.

Chrysler's "Rich Corinthian leather" wasn't rich, wasn't from Corinth, and made them millions anyway.

Ricardo Montalbán leaned into the camera with theatrical elegance, his voice dripping with sophistication as he caressed the interior of a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. "Rich Corinthian leather," he purred, making three ordinary words sound like the most luxurious material on earth. What viewers didn't know was that they were witnessing one of the most audacious marketing cons in automotive history.

The leather wasn't rich. It wasn't from Corinth. It was regular cowhide processed in New Jersey factories, identical to the material found in countless other cars. Yet this fabricated luxury became so embedded in American culture that decades later, people still reference "Rich Corinthian leather" as shorthand for automotive opulence.

Chrysler launched the Cordoba campaign in the mid-1970s when the company desperately needed a hit. Lee Iacocca, then running Chrysler's operations, understood that Americans wanted luxury they could afford during tough economic times. The Cordoba promised exactly that, a personal luxury coupe that looked expensive without the Mercedes price tag.

Montalbán's delivery transformed ordinary marketing copy into automotive mythology. His distinctive accent and dramatic pauses made "Rich Corinthian leather" sound like something crafted by ancient Greek artisans rather than processed in standard automotive supplier facilities. The campaign never explicitly claimed the leather came from Corinth, Greece, but the implication hung heavy in every commercial.

The deception worked spectacularly. The Cordoba became Chrysler's best-selling model in 1975, moving over 150,000 units in its first year. Buyers flocked to dealerships asking specifically about the "Rich Corinthian leather," willing to pay extra for what they believed was an exotic luxury material.

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Industry insiders knew the truth. Automotive leather suppliers confirmed that Chrysler's "Rich Corinthian leather" was standard automotive-grade cowhide, treated with the same processes used across the industry. The leather came from the same New Jersey processing facilities that supplied other manufacturers. No ancient Greek tanning methods were involved, no special Corinthian cows existed.

The phrase became so culturally significant that Saturday Night Live parodied it repeatedly, with Phil Hartman delivering exaggerated versions of Montalbán's original performance. The comedy sketches only increased the campaign's fame, turning a car commercial into a permanent fixture of American pop culture.

Other automakers took notice and began crafting their own exotic-sounding material descriptions. Suddenly, car interiors featured "Tuscany leather," "Nappa leather," and other geographically inspired names that suggested premium origins while delivering standard materials. Chrysler had created a template for automotive marketing fantasy that the industry eagerly adopted.

The Cordoba campaign represented a turning point in automotive advertising, proving that perception could trump reality when selling luxury. Chrysler had essentially rebranded commodity leather as a premium product through nothing more than creative naming and Montalbán's theatrical delivery.

Montalbán himself later admitted the absurdity of the situation in interviews, acknowledging that he was simply reading lines about ordinary car leather. Yet he delivered those lines with such conviction that millions of Americans believed they were getting something special when they bought a Cordoba.

The success of "Rich Corinthian leather" reveals something fundamental about automotive desire. People don't just buy cars; they buy the stories cars tell about who they are. Chrysler understood that a New Jersey leather supplier could become Corinthian luxury with the right marketing, the right spokesperson, and the right amount of theatrical flair. They sold Americans a dream wrapped in ordinary cowhide, and everyone walked away happy with the transaction.

Sources: Automotive marketing archives and industry documentation from the 1970s Chrysler Cordoba campaign period. Additional context from automotive industry analyses of 1970s luxury car marketing strategies.

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

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

A original Lamborghini Urus came in with a daytime running light damaged in a collision. The technician fixed it. The crisp white glow returned to one side of the car. The other side, unbothered by the accident, now looks yellow by comparison. Insurance will not cover fixing what was not broken. The owner reportedly cannot bring themselves to photograph the front of the car.

There is a specific kind of problem that only affects expensive things. It is the problem where fixing what is broken makes everything else look worse.

The Lamborghini Urus in question came to a repair specialist with collision damage to the daytime running light on the passenger side. The DRL was repaired, the LED signature restored to the cool white it should have been since the factory, and the job was done. Then someone looked at the car straight on.

The driver's side DRL, untouched by the collision and therefore untouched by the repair, glows yellow. Not dramatically. Not from fifty metres. But up close, and especially in a photograph, the mismatch is immediately visible. One side of the car looks new. The other looks like something is failing.

The owner reportedly stopped taking photos of the front of the car.

Why original generation Urus headlights go yellow

The cause is a known design characteristic of the original generation Urus headlight assembly. The LED modules sit closer to the light guide tube than is ideal, and over time the heat generated by the LEDs burns the end of that tube. The result is a yellowing of the DRL signature as the light picks up the discolouration on its way through the burned section of guide material.

Both headlights on every original generation Urus are subject to this. The difference in this case is that one side was repaired following the collision while the other has simply aged in place. Normally, the yellowing happens to both sides at roughly the same rate and the mismatch is gradual enough that owners do not notice it creeping in. When one side is restored to pristine condition, the other side's years of heat exposure become impossible to ignore.

The technician's preferred solution is also the obvious one: replace both headlights. Replacement assemblies for the Urus run between $5,000 and $7,000 each. Replacing both would resolve the mismatch entirely and leave the car symmetrical.

Insurance, which covered the collision repair to the passenger side, will not cover replacing a headlight that was not damaged in the collision, regardless of how it looks next to the one that was.

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What the Lamborghini community thinks

The photos were posted to Reddit by user u/NoCorner1482 and picked up by Carscoops. The comments arrived predictably, with the consensus splitting along a single fault line: does this matter?

On a Toyota, probably not. On a six figure Lamborghini SUV, the community was in broad agreement that yes, it matters quite a lot. "At that price point, absolutely. On a 2008 Kia beater, not so much," was one response. "On a Lamborghini that cost as much as an entry level home, yes I'd be pretty upset," was another.

This is not an unreasonable position. The Urus starts at around $260,000. The people who spend that much on a car are not doing so because they are indifferent to how it looks. The entire proposition of a Lamborghini is visual impact. A mismatched DRL signature, subtle as it may be from a distance, is precisely the kind of detail that undermines that proposition.

The technician is not at fault. The repair was done correctly. The collision was not their doing, the yellowing issue is a design characteristic of the headlight assemblies, and the insurance decision is made by the insurer. The situation is the result of several things being individually reasonable and collectively producing an outcome nobody wanted.

The broader ownership cost reality

The Urus yellowing issue is documented well enough that independent repair kits are available for the guide tubes, at a fraction of the cost of a full assembly replacement. A specialist can remove the DRL module, clean or replace the tube, and restore the original white signature without touching the outer assembly. The cost is considerably lower than $5,000.

The catch is that the insurance claim covered an official repair to the assembly damaged in the collision, which means the replacement headlight is now genuinely new. Matching it to a unit with a repaired tube on the other side may still leave a visible colour difference depending on the age and condition of that tube.

This is, in the end, a story about what it costs to own and maintain something that was expensive to make and is expensive to keep looking the way expensive things are supposed to look. The $260,000 sticker is the beginning of that conversation, not the end of it.

The owner of this particular Urus has a decision to make: pay $5,000 to $7,000 out of pocket to match the headlights and photograph the front of their car again... or learn to live with it.

Sources:

• Carscoops — A $5,000 Lamborghini Headlight Got Fixed. The Other One Just Got Exposed
• Reddit r/lamborghini — Would mismatched headlights bother you after a repair?

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

Fake QR codes plastered over legitimate parking payment machines are stealing millions from British drivers every year. Action Fraud recorded nearly 800 reports in 12 months with total losses of £3.5 million. A third of UK local authorities have had their car parks targeted. The scam is sophisticated, growing and designed specifically to catch people who are in a hurry.

The scam has a name now. Quishing. It is a blend of QR code and phishing, and it has found its most effective hunting ground in the British car park.

The mechanism is straightforward. A criminal prints a fake QR code sticker, usually designed to look identical to the legitimate one already on the parking meter or payment sign, and places it directly over the original. The driver arrives, scans the code, is directed to a website that looks exactly like PayByPhone or RingGo or whichever parking app the car park uses, and enters their card details. The money goes to the scammer. The parking session is never registered. The driver walks away thinking they have paid, and comes back an hour later to find a penalty notice on the windscreen.

They have been scammed twice. Once by the criminals and once by the car park.

Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, described it precisely: "As if this quishing scam isn't nasty enough, it can also lead to drivers being caught out twice if they don't realise they haven't paid for parking and end up getting a hefty fine from the council."

The scale of it

Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, received nearly 800 reports of QR code fraud in the 12 months up to April 2025, with total reported losses of £3.5 million. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism sent freedom of information requests to every council in the UK and found that of the 373 local authorities that responded, 123 said their car parks had been targeted in the past year. That is roughly one in three.

The true scale is almost certainly larger. Naomi Grossman, compliance manager at software firm VinciWorks, told inkl: "Most victims don't realise a QR code was the main cause of the scam, until they receive unexpected charges or when they receive a parking fine."

QR code fraud now accounts for more than 20 percent of all online scams reported in the UK, according to fraud research firm Lynx Tech. Estimates from consumer press suggest the scam costs British drivers around £10,000 per day in total losses.

The crimes are not always small. At Thornaby Station, a 71 year old woman scanned a fake QR code in a car park. Criminals then impersonated her bank, set up online banking in her name, changed her address, and took out a £7,500 loan in her name. She was locked out of her own accounts, dependent on family support, and unable to sleep for weeks.

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Who is behind it

This is not a minor operation. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism traced a quishing scam operating in Leamington Spa to a global fraud network with connections to Dubai, Cyprus and the Philippines. A separate criminal group identified by Netcraft researchers operates across France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the UK simultaneously, running what amounts to a professional fraud infrastructure with dozens of fake parking payment websites deployed across multiple countries.

The websites themselves are sophisticated. They mimic genuine parking operators with accurate logos, fonts and payment flows. Many sign victims up to recurring subscription payments without their knowledge, so the initial loss of a parking fee is followed weeks later by unexplained withdrawals that victims may not connect to the original scam at all.

RAC's Williams urged drivers to avoid using QR codes altogether in council car parks, noting that most councils do not use QR codes as a payment method and that any code found on a council parking machine should be treated as suspicious.

What to look for and what to do instead

Legitimate QR codes on parking machines are printed or embedded into the sign itself. Fake ones are stickers placed on top of existing signage, and can sometimes be identified by an edge, an air bubble, or a slightly raised surface. Quentin Wilson of FairCharge noted that EV charging points using Ubitricity lamp posts have green barcodes laminated directly into the sign rather than stuck on. If the code looks like a sticker, treat it with suspicion.

The safest approach at any car park is to download the official parking app directly from the App Store or Google Play, search for it by name, and pay through that rather than through any QR code found on a sign. Action Fraud confirms that car parks are the most common location for quishing attacks, and says the rule is simple: do not scan QR codes in public places when there is any alternative.

If you have already been scammed, report it to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk or by calling 0300 123 2040. Contact your bank immediately. If you received a penalty notice for parking that you believed you had paid for, keep all evidence of the fraudulent transaction and challenge the penalty through the appeals process and cite the scam as your reason.

The car park operators and councils who have been slow to remove fake stickers from their machines are not blameless in this. The RAC and Which? have both called on local authorities to take responsibility for monitoring payment equipment regularly. Several councils, including Southend and Aberdeen, have now issued specific warnings and confirmed they do not use QR codes at all. Others have not.

The criminals are disciplined and organised. The response needs to match.

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

Sources:

• Which? — Quishing scams warning: how to spot and avoid dodgy QR codes
• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism — Quishing: new QR code scam sweeps UK car parks
• inkl via VinciWorks — Beware the QR code: how a new scam is costing consumers £10,000 per day
• GB News — Millions of Britons at risk of parking QR code scam
• Action Fraud via Which? — £3.5 million lost to QR code scams in 2024
• Chartered Trading Standards Institute — Warning to motorists on parking scams
• Action Fraud — Report fraud

The hypercar that makes Formula 1 cars look civilized is finally unleashing its naturally aspirated V10 engine in anger.

After two years of promises and technical drawings, Red Bull's RB17 hypercar has finally broken cover at a test track, and the numbers are staggering. This is not just another rich person's toy with a big price tag. This is Adrian Newey's vision of what happens when you take everything Formula 1 has learned about aerodynamics and remove every single rule that holds it back.

The RB17 delivers 1200 horsepower from a 4.5-liter naturally aspirated V10 engine paired with a hybrid system. That's more power than most current Formula 1 cars, which are restricted to around 1000 horsepower under current regulations. Red Bull claims their track weapon will actually lap faster than F1 cars on most circuits, a bold statement that sounds less ridiculous when you consider the RB17 faces no regulatory constraints on aerodynamics or weight.

Only 50 examples will be built, each carrying a $5 million price tag that puts it in rarified company alongside the McLaren Solus GT and other ultra-exclusive track toys. But unlike those competitors, the RB17 offers something unique: a two-seater configuration that lets you bring a passenger along for what might be the most terrifying ride of their life.

Christian Horner revealed at the original announcement that Red Bull's motivation went beyond simply building the ultimate track car. The project represents Adrian Newey's unrestricted vision, a chance to explore aerodynamic concepts that Formula 1's rule book would never permit. The result is a machine capable of generating over 1700 kilograms of downforce, enough to theoretically drive upside down at sufficient speed.

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The testing footage emerging from Red Bull's development program shows a machine that moves unlike anything else on four wheels. The active aerodynamics adjust constantly, wings and floor elements shifting to optimize performance for each corner and straight. The sound is equally dramatic, with the naturally aspirated V10 producing a scream that harks back to Formula 1's golden era before hybrid powertrains muffled the symphony.

Weight plays a crucial role in the RB17's performance advantage. At approximately 900 kilograms, it undercuts current Formula 1 cars by roughly 40 kilograms while producing significantly more power. The carbon fiber monocoque construction borrows directly from Red Bull's championship-winning F1 technology, scaled up to accommodate two occupants without compromising structural integrity.

Red Bull has developed bespoke Michelin tires specifically for the RB17, recognizing that standard track tires would be overwhelmed by the forces this machine generates. The tire development program alone reportedly cost millions, a sum that most manufacturers would consider excessive for a 50-car production run.

Each RB17 owner receives comprehensive driver training at Red Bull's facilities, a necessity given the machine's capabilities. The company learned from early McLaren P1 GTR experiences where inadequately prepared drivers struggled to extract performance from similarly extreme machines. The training program includes simulator work, graduated track sessions, and emergency response protocols.

The first customer deliveries are scheduled for 2025, assuming testing continues to validate Red Bull's ambitious performance claims. Early track sessions suggest those claims may be conservative rather than optimistic, a rare occurrence in the hypercar world where marketing often outpaces engineering reality.

The RB17 represents something automotive journalism rarely encounters: a machine that might actually deliver on its outrageous promises. In a market flooded with hypercars that prioritize Instagram appeal over genuine performance, Red Bull has built something that threatens to make everything else look pedestrian. Five million dollars suddenly seems like a bargain for redefining what track performance means.

Sources: Red Bull Racing official announcements, Adrian Newey technical presentations, Christian Horner interviews at Goodwood Festival of Speed

The Type 00's production name drops May 12, ending speculation about whether this radical electric GT will actually reach showrooms.

Jaguar will end months of industry guessing games on Monday when it reveals what customers will actually call the production version of its polarizing Type 00 concept. The May 12 announcement marks the next crucial step for a car that has divided opinion like no other recent luxury vehicle.

The Type 00 concept, unveiled at Miami Art Week in December 2024, represented Jaguar's complete departure from everything the brand once stood for. No traditional grille. Flush door handles. Proportions that challenge every assumption about what a Jaguar should look like. The automotive world responded with equal measures of fascination and horror.

According to Autocar, the production name reveal comes as Jaguar prepares to transform itself into an all electric luxury brand under its new "Copy Nothing" philosophy. The company has made clear this is not just another model launch but a complete brand reinvention that will either save or sink the storied British marque.

The concept's radical design language sparked immediate debate when it first appeared. Industry analysts questioned whether any production car could maintain such extreme styling while meeting regulatory requirements and customer expectations. The lack of a traditional Jaguar grille alone challenged decades of brand identity.

What makes Monday's announcement particularly significant is the implication that this car will actually reach production. Concept cars typically serve as design exercises or future vision statements. The Type 00 appears destined for customer driveways, assuming Jaguar can navigate the engineering challenges of translating such radical design into reality.

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The naming decision carries enormous weight for Jaguar's future positioning. Traditional model names like XK, XF, and F Type connected directly to the company's racing heritage and luxury legacy. Whatever name Jaguar chooses for the Type 00 production version will signal how dramatically the brand intends to break from its past.

Early speculation suggests the production car will compete in the ultra luxury electric GT segment, potentially challenging established players like the Porsche Taycan and Mercedes EQS. The pricing and positioning strategy remains unclear, but Jaguar has indicated this will represent the premium end of their electric lineup.

The timing of the announcement also reflects broader industry pressures. Luxury automakers face increasing pressure to establish credible electric alternatives as traditional combustion engines face regulatory and consumer preference challenges. Jaguar's survival may depend on executing this transition flawlessly.

Production specifications and final design details remain closely guarded secrets. Images of camouflaged test vehicles suggest some elements of the concept's extreme styling will survive the transition to production, though regulatory requirements and manufacturing constraints typically force compromises.

The automotive press and Jaguar enthusiasts have spent months analyzing every detail of spy photographs and official statements for clues about the final product. Monday's announcement should provide the first definitive answers about whether this electric experiment represents genuine innovation or expensive folly.

GaukMotorBuzz.com will be covering the announcement as it happens, because this name reveal could define whether Jaguar's electric gamble pays off or becomes one of the automotive industry's most expensive mistakes.

Sources: Autocar - Jaguar Type 00 production name announcement

The 986kg analog supercar has already doubled its original asking price, proving purists will pay anything for the last naturally aspirated V12 experience.

Gordon Murray's T.50 has crossed the $8 million threshold at auction, establishing the spiritual successor to the McLaren F1 as one of the most valuable modern supercars ever built. The sale represents a staggering appreciation for a car that carried a $3.1 million retail price when deliveries began in 2022.

The T.50's rapid value climb reflects something deeper than typical supercar speculation. Murray, who designed the legendary McLaren F1 in the 1990s, created the T.50 as a deliberate rejection of modern hypercar excess. Where competitors chase thousand horsepower figures through hybrid systems and turbocharging, Murray's team at Gordon Murray Automotive built something radically different.

The numbers tell the story of obsessive engineering. At 986 kilograms, the T.50 weighs less than a Mazda MX-5. Its Cosworth developed 3.9-liter naturally aspirated V12 produces 654 horsepower, spinning to an otherworldly 12,100 rpm redline. The central driving position, flanked by two passenger seats, directly echoes the F1's revolutionary layout.

Production was capped at 100 road cars, with each example hand built at Gordon Murray Automotive's facility in Surrey, England. The company also produced 25 track only T.50s variants, pushing the total run to 125 cars across all specifications.

What makes the T.50's auction performance particularly significant is its timing. Most examples remain with their original owners, making authenticated sales data extremely rare. The $8 million result suggests demand far exceeds the limited supply, even among ultra wealthy collectors who could afford the original asking price.

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The T.50's market performance reflects broader collector preferences shifting toward analog experiences. While manufacturers chase electrification mandates and autonomous driving features, the T.50 represents something increasingly rare: a completely manual supercar built without electronic intervention. No traction control, no stability management, no hybrid assistance. Just a naturally aspirated V12, a six speed manual transmission, and a fan in the rear deck that actively manages aerodynamics.

Murray's background adds another layer to the T.50's appeal. As the man behind the McLaren F1, widely considered the greatest supercar ever built, his automotive credibility is unmatched. The F1's current auction values regularly exceed $20 million, establishing a pricing precedent for Murray's latest creation.

The T.50's auction success also highlights changing collector dynamics in the supercar market. Traditional blue chip classics like Ferrari 250 GTOs and Ford GT40s continue commanding eight figure sums, but newer entrants are establishing their own value hierarchies. The T.50's $8 million result places it alongside established auction royalty, suggesting modern classics can achieve unprecedented appreciation in compressed timeframes.

Gordon Murray Automotive has already moved beyond the T.50, with the T.33 sports car entering production and various concept vehicles in development. But the T.50's market performance validates Murray's philosophy that analog purity commands premium pricing in an increasingly digital automotive landscape.

For GaukMotorBuzz.com readers tracking supercar investments, the T.50's trajectory offers a clear signal. When legendary designers create genuinely limited production vehicles with uncompromising engineering specifications, collectors respond with open checkbooks. The $8 million result transforms the T.50 from expensive supercar to legitimate investment grade asset.

Sources: Research compiled from automotive industry reports and auction house data. Specific auction details require verification from accredited sale records.

The CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collector Series delivers more power than any Blackwing before it, but only if you can work three pedals.

When most performance cars are ditching manual transmissions faster than drivers abandon their New Year's gym memberships, Cadillac has done something remarkable. The new CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collector Series packs 668 horsepower into what might be America's last great manual-only super sedan. No automatic option. No paddle shifters. Just you, 659 lb-ft of torque, and a six-speed stick that demands you earn every mile per hour.

The timing couldn't be more pointed. While Ferrari recently announced their last manual transmission, and Porsche clings to the 911 as their final three-pedal holdout, Cadillac has built their most powerful Blackwing around the very transmission technology the industry treats like a relic. This isn't nostalgia marketing. The F1 Collector Series exists because Cadillac believes their supercharged 6.2-liter V8 deserves a transmission that connects driver to machine without electronic interference.

The extra 14 horsepower over the standard CT5-V Blackwing comes from revised engine tuning and a less restrictive exhaust system. More importantly, it comes paired exclusively with a six-speed manual featuring no-lift shift technology. You want this engine? You learn to heel-toe downshift. You master rev-matching. You accept that parking in San Francisco will test both your left leg and your relationship.

Only 110 units will reach global markets, a number that references Cadillac's Formula 1 racing ambitions. The brand returns to top-level motorsport in 2026 as an engine supplier, marking their first F1 involvement since the sport's early decades. The limited production run reflects both exclusivity and reality. Building manual-only performance cars in 2024 requires the kind of conviction usually reserved for starting new religions or opening restaurants during recessions.

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The $84,990 starting price represents a $5,000 premium over the standard Blackwing, but buyers receive more than additional horsepower. Exclusive Velocity Blue paint contrasts with Carbon Flash Metallic accents, while F1-inspired graphics announce the car's racing connections to anyone within visual range. Inside, Recaro racing seats bear special F1 embroidery, surrounded by carbon fiber trim and unique badging that transforms the cabin into a motorsport shrine.

Carbon fiber aerodynamic elements include a larger rear spoiler that serves actual aerodynamic purpose rather than pure decoration. These modifications help the F1 Collector Series generate meaningful downforce at speed, though they also ensure the car looks serious even while stationary in suburban driveways where most will spend their lives.

Orders opened in late 2024 with early 2025 deliveries promised to customers willing to commit to manual transmission ownership. This represents a fascinating gamble. Cadillac has created their most powerful Blackwing ever, limited production to enhance exclusivity, and made the conscious decision to exclude automatic transmission buyers entirely. They've essentially told half their potential customer base that convenience comes second to driving engagement.

The decision reflects broader questions about performance car authenticity in an era of increasing automation. While most manufacturers chase lap times through sophisticated dual-clutch automatics and all-wheel-drive systems, Cadillac has doubled down on rear-wheel drive and manual shifting. The F1 Collector Series succeeds or fails based on whether enough customers still want to work for their performance rather than simply point and accelerate.

Whether this manual-only strategy proves commercially successful matters less than what it represents. Cadillac has built a 668-horsepower love letter to drivers who still believe cars should require skill rather than just desire. In a market increasingly dominated by electric acceleration and automated everything, the CT5-V Blackwing F1 Collector Series stands as proof that some manufacturers still remember why we fell in love with driving in the first place.

Based on automotive industry reports and manufacturer announcements. For official specifications and availability, consult Cadillac's press materials directly.

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

Thanks to the Iran war and the fuel price crisis that followed, interest in biodiesel and HVO has surged in the UK. But here is the thing: your diesel car has been running on processed used cooking oil for years. Up to 7 percent of every pump fill is biodiesel, and 81 percent of British biodiesel production uses used cooking oil as its primary feedstock. The chip shop exhaust smell is real ... but not quite in the way you think.

When fuel prices started their violent climb after Operation Epic Fury closed the Strait of Hormuz in February 2026, a question that had been gently circulating in British motoring circles since the 2022 energy crisis came back with more urgency: why are we still paying £2 a litre for something that comes out of a fryer?

The answer, as it turns out, is that many of us partially are not. And have not been for years.

Under the UK's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, every fuel supplier is required to blend a proportion of renewable fuel into what they sell. For diesel, that means biodiesel. The current blend standard is B7, which allows up to 7 percent biodiesel content. Most diesel sold at a standard UK forecourt contains some biodiesel. And most of that biodiesel comes from used cooking oil.

In 2024, used cooking oil accounted for 81 percent of the feedstock used in UK biodiesel production, according to data from the RTFO compliance reports compiled by Alkagesta UK. The same waste oil that flows out of restaurant deep fryers, fast food chains and fish and chip shops across the country is collected, processed, chemically converted and blended into the fuel in your tank. Greenergy operates one of the UK's largest biodiesel plants at Immingham, capable of producing 300 million litres a year, with used cooking oil as its primary input.

The smell question

Here is the nuance that the pub conversation version of this story usually misses.

Properly processed biodiesel. the kind that meets British and EU standards and is blended into pump diesel does not smell of chips. The used cooking oil goes through a chemical process called transesterification, which reacts it with methanol using a catalyst to remove the glycerine and produce a clean, standardised fuel. By the time it enters the blending stream, it has no particular odour and performs identically to conventional diesel in modern engines.

The chip shop exhaust smell is real, but it comes from a different situation: vehicles running on unprocessed straight vegetable oil, or waste vegetable oil that has been filtered but not chemically converted. Some enthusiasts have done this for years as a way of sidestepping fuel costs. It works in older, simpler diesel engines that lack modern precision injection systems and diesel particulate filters. In those engines, because the oil does not burn as completely as conventional diesel, partially burned vegetable oil exits through the exhaust and the air around the vehicle genuinely smells of whatever was cooked in that oil.

Running an unprocessed vegetable oil through a modern diesel engine is a different matter. The high pressure injectors and DPF systems in contemporary engines do not tolerate the viscosity and contamination levels of raw cooking oil. It will damage them.

So: the chip fat in your pump diesel is real, processed, and odourless. The chip shop exhaust is real, unprocessed, and not safe for your engine. They are different things that get conflated because they start with the same ingredient.

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Why the Iran war has changed the calculation

At £1.40 a litre before the conflict, biodiesel blending was a policy requirement. At £2.10 and climbing, it is economically interesting in ways it has not been before.

HVO — hydrotreated vegetable oil, the premium version of renewable diesel made from similar feedstocks including used cooking oil and animal fats, reduces net carbon emissions by up to 90 percent compared to conventional diesel, requires no engine modification in most modern vehicles, and is now being used by major UK logistics operators and construction fleets as a direct substitute. Crown Oil, one of the UK's largest HVO distributors, describes it as "no longer a novelty fuel" but a mainstream industrial fuel used in everything from lorry fleets to hospital backup generators.

For private drivers, HVO remains harder to find than pump diesel. It is available from specialist distributors and increasingly from certain independent fuel stations, but the major forecourt chains have not yet made it a standard offering at every pump. The price, even before the war, ran slightly higher than standard diesel on an equivalent volume basis. Since the conflict, that premium has compressed significantly as fossil diesel prices climbed.

The UK's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation is also tightening. The blending requirement is increasing annually, meaning more biodiesel and HVO must enter the transport fuel stream each year. The Iran war accelerated interest in that transition. Used cooking oil is now genuinely valuable: as Alkagesta UK notes, it is worth more than fresh oil because of the demand from biofuel producers, aviation fuel manufacturers and the shipping sector simultaneously.

The politics of the chip fat pipeline

It is not entirely straightforward. The UK has faced a supply security question on HVO specifically because it relied heavily on imports from the United States, where subsidised production had kept prices competitive. The UK Trade Remedies Authority has been investigating whether US HVO receives unfair state support, and in late 2025 recommended the government impose countervailing duties of up to £303 per tonne on HVO from the United States. Imports from the US have already fallen in anticipation.

The gap is expected to be filled by increased use of UK and European used biodiesel made from used cooking oil, and by supply from Nordic producers. It is supply chain politics dressed up in green language, but the net effect is the same: Britain's diesel fuel is becoming more domestically and locally sourced, using waste from British kitchens and restaurants, refined at plants like Immingham, and blended into the pump at the corner garage.

There is something pleasingly circular about that. Every portion of chips sold in the UK generates a small quantity of used cooking oil. That used cooking oil is collected, processed and burned in the engine of the van that delivers the potatoes to the chip shop in the first place.

The smell, if you are running processed biodiesel through a properly maintained modern diesel engine, is nothing. The irony smells better than that.

Sources:

• Renewables Information — Biodiesel use in the United Kingdom overview
• Alkagesta UK — The shifting landscape of London's waste-based biofuels market
• Crown Oil — HVO fuel market conditions 2026
• Parkers — Can you run your car on cooking oil?
• Cater Oils — Biodiesel: what happens to used cooking oil
• Argus Media — UK to recommend countervailing duty on US HVO
• FreightWaves — Used cooking oil: the journey from fryers to fuel

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

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.

Chinese automaker secures European manufacturing foothold as Ford retreats from family car production.

Ford has sold one of its two production lines at the Valencia plant in Spain to Chinese automotive giant Geely for approximately €200 million, marking another strategic withdrawal by the American automaker from traditional European markets. The deal, finalized in late 2022, gives Geely immediate access to European manufacturing capacity for its Lynk & Co crossover brand while Ford continues operating alongside its new Chinese neighbor.

The sold production line at the Valencia facility can manufacture between 120,000 and 150,000 vehicles annually. Geely plans to use this capacity to build the Lynk & Co 02 crossover, a compact SUV that represents the brand's push into European markets. The timing aligns perfectly with Ford's decision to discontinue production of the Mondeo, S-Max, and Galaxy models by 2023, effectively clearing the way for Geely's operations.

Ford's Valencia plant employs approximately 6,200 workers across both production lines. The company has stated that no job losses are expected from the sale, with workers potentially transferring to Geely's operations or remaining with Ford's continuing activities at the site. This arrangement creates an unusual situation where two competing automakers will operate side by side at the same facility.

A Ford Europe spokesperson described the agreement as supporting "our Ford+ plan to build a thriving business in Europe" when the deal was announced in December 2022. However, the sale represents Ford's continued retreat from segments where it once competed directly with European rivals. The company has been systematically exiting the production of traditional family cars in favor of focusing on commercial vehicles, electric models, and crossovers.

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Geely's acquisition of the Valencia production line forms part of a broader strategy to establish manufacturing presence across key global markets. The Chinese company, which owns Volvo Cars and has stakes in Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, has been aggressively expanding its European footprint. The Lynk & Co brand represents Geely's attempt to create a premium offering that can compete with established European crossover manufacturers.

The Lynk & Co 02 crossover that will be produced in Valencia targets younger European buyers with connected car technology and subscription-based ownership models. Production is scheduled to begin in 2024, giving Geely time to adapt the manufacturing line and integrate its production systems. The model will compete in the increasingly crowded compact crossover segment against established players like the Volkswagen T-Cross and Peugeot 2008.

This deal reflects broader shifts in global automotive manufacturing, where Chinese companies are securing production capacity in key markets rather than relying solely on exports. Geely's approach mirrors strategies used by Japanese and Korean automakers in previous decades, establishing local production to avoid tariffs and better serve regional preferences.

The Valencia arrangement also highlights Ford's evolving European strategy. While the company retreats from some segments, it continues investing heavily in electric vehicle production and commercial vehicles. The decision to retain one production line at Valencia while selling the other suggests Ford views the Spanish facility as strategically important but no longer needs full capacity for its revised product lineup.

For Spanish workers and the regional economy, the deal provides stability during a period of significant automotive industry transition. Valencia has been a major automotive hub, and maintaining production levels through partnerships with Chinese manufacturers offers an alternative to plant closures that have affected other European facilities in recent years.

Sources: Ford Motor Company press releases, Geely Automobile Holdings announcements, automotive industry reports from December 2022

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.