Land Rover has launched the powerful Defender V8 as part of a range of enhancements to its unstoppable and award-winning 4x4 family. The new 525HP Defender V8 and flagship Defender V8 Carpathian Edition use engines made at the Ford Bridgend Plant before it shut down last autumn to provide a unique combination of performance and capability, with bespoke chassis settings delivering new levels of … [Read more...]
Staggering 75% stolen cars never recovered
More than 200 cars are stolen every day and the trend is rising. The data has been revealed following a Freedom of Information request Rivervale Leasing submitted to the Swansea-based DVLA. The Government's records made pretty grim reading because around 75,000 vehicles were nicked last year, that’s nearly 20,000 more than in 2019. So we’re talking about more than 200 stolen vehicles … [Read more...]
Handrakes are slipping says survey
Traditional mechanical parking brakes are slackening their appeal and dying out as car manufacturers ditch them in favour of electronic parking brakes, according to CarGurus. It found that just 24% of new cars on sale in the UK today come with a manually operated handbrake, falling even further from 30% recorded last year. Some popular models, including the BMW 1 series and 3 … [Read more...]
Newslines 1 July
The British Motor Museum will reopen on Saturday 4 July. As part of a phased reopening plan the Gaydon Museum will be open from Saturday 4 July to Monday 6 July, and then from Friday to Monday in subsequent weeks, but anyone planning to visit, including annual pass holders, will need to book in advance via the website and chose a timed arrival slot. The Land Rover Defender Hardtop will return … [Read more...]
Sunday drive: On the road and in the news
With the motoring media world in lockdown, the supply of new models and new model test driving events are all cancelled so instead of road test reviews we are keeping the wheels turning by covering some news items you might just have missed, says David Miles. Adversity is driving innovation at Skoda Virtual showrooms in the car sales industry is not a new thing, its click and view, tick a few … [Read more...]
Newslines 15 November
The new Mazda CX30 from £22,895 is the safest family car you can buy, according to the latest Euro NCAP crash tests. It produced a near perfect 99% score for adult occupant protection, slightly better than the MB GLB and Ford Explorer and a star above the new Vauxhall Corsa. Land Rover puts fans inside the New Defender on the set of No Time To Die, the 25th official James Bond film, in a … [Read more...]
4x4xfar better with Land Rover Schools project
Tomorrow’s engineers are today learning to code self-driving vehicles of the future thanks to the unique Land Rover 4x4 in Schools programme. Self-driving cars will require an estimated one billion lines of computer code – almost 1,000 times more than the 145,000 lines required by NASA to land Apollo 11 on the moon. To meet the growing need for more coders to deliver these future autonomous and … [Read more...]
Weekend roadtest: Land Rover Discovery Sport Landmark
The Land Rover Discovery Sport Landmark is the 4x4xfamilies. Created to mark 30 years of the Discovery, Landmark editions come with a host of features as standard which are options on others in the extremely extensive range of pure 4x4s. It’s not a cheaper alternative to the rest of the range, but it’s a very good package embodying some of the most popular and useful features into a single … [Read more...]
Newslines 25 February
The latest Mazda3 coming to the UK from May will begin at £20,595. The 18-strong range of petrol and diesel hatchbacks has five trims running up to £27,735. Ford will conduct an investigation after concerns raised by its own employees over the 'analytical modelling' standards that it employs as part of its US fuel economy and emissions compliance process, says Just-Auto.com . In the wake … [Read more...]
Used diesels dropping in price, petrols rise
The average price of a used diesel car fell by 10.3% between Q1 2017 and Q4 2018. Diesel car values dropped 5% through 2017, on the back of consistent negative news about the fuel, and new data shows that slump continued through 2018 at a near-identical rate. The analysis from car buying comparison website Motorway.co.uk also shows equivalent used petrol prices increasing 10% between Q1 … [Read more...]