What I learnt… from Autocar, 11 March 2009

Where have all the new cars gone?

VOLKSWAGEN’S Golf MkVI is a delight. Great to drive, obsessively built and more appealingly styled than first appearances reveal, it’s every inch a real Golf. The obvious maturation of the ...

The Maestro of the instruments

ONE major advance of the Austin Maestro is often overlooked. Its fibre-optic instrument needle pointers. Yes, indeedy. See, in the olden days, cars used to have dials lit by a ...

Oil be: it’s back

VOLKSWAGEN’S Golf GTD is an inspired bit of engineering. Take one Golf GTI. Remove petrol engine. Replace with 2.0-litre TDI 170. Job (almost) done. OK, it has 40hp less, but ...

Volkswagen Golf GTD photostream on Flickr

VOLKSWAGEN wowed everyone in the Motoring Research office when it sent the Volkswagen Golf GTD to us. I took it for a weekend, and almost became violent when it was ...

Which totally random used car am I looking at today? 2

9 April 2009 – Volkswagen Golf V5 VOLKSWAGEN’S Golf V5 is a Ferdinand Piech special. The father of the Audi quattro is a mechanical genius, who famously embraces anything that’s ...

Volkswagen Golf looks to history for GTD inspiration

How cool is this? The Golf GTD. Like a GTI. But green and eco, too. Even PR genii are rarely this on message. On the eve of the 211PS Golf ...

Secrets of the new Toyota Prius

I was honoured to speak with the chief engineer of the new Toyota Prius, Akihiko Otsuka, at the Geneva Motor Show recently. Honoured, because the young dude is quite a ...