Dave Smart Gorge Du Verdon I packed up early, preparing to do battle with the gorge, I was almost chased off the camp site by a French guy who wanted the spot I had had with the spectacular view. Looking at my GPS map it was difficult to work out where the Top Gear challenge [...]

Clive Goldthorp AROnline reckons that some of Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR’s) PR people may well have been watching Episode 1 of Five’s new American science fiction drama series FlashForward last Monday evening because Autocar.co.uk has today published two articles by Julian Rendell giving FlashForward-like glimpses of Jaguar’s Future Product Programme. JLR’s take on FlashForward has, though, [...]

Dave Smart The hills around Monte Carlo Before leaving, I researched the Gorge Du Verdon, an area where Top Gear filmed a race between the RS4 and the speed climber and after the obligatory signing of the Mini by people I’d met in the hostel, I headed for the mountains North of Monte Carlo, knowing [...]

Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post, 29th September, 2009 Warwickshire-based luxury car firm Aston Martin is at the centre of new fears as the Kuwaiti wealth fund that owns half of the company admitted it was struggling to refinance its debt. Reports said Kuwait’s Investment Dar had confirmed it had signed an agreement with creditors and investors [...]

Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post, 28th September, 2009 Union leaders have accused Jaguar Land Rover bosses of “taking another trip to Fantasy Island” over promises that there would be no job losses when a West Midlands plant is closed. Dave Osborne, National Secretary for the UK car industry for Unite the union, launched a ferocious attack [...]

George Gao, Gasgoo.com, 28th September, 2009 Jaguar Land Rover, the British luxury carmaker owned by India’s Tata Motors, will set up a sales company in China early next year to meet the growing demand for luxury cars in the Chinese market, the Economic Observer said today. Jaguar and Land Rover cars are currently imported to China [...]

Dave Smart A day round Cannes and Antibes I had no plans for the day but, after chatting with a girl that I shared the room with, I decided to stay in Nice for another night so we headed to Cannes for a look. The coast road was very busy and slow. but the views [...]

Dave Smart More hijinks in Turin then onto Nice, which was nice… I was up nice and early and out of the hostel by 8am as I wanted to get up to a few hijinks in town. I made a sprint into town, which on this occasion was easy as there was little traffic about, [...]

Sam Skelton “A new vehicle concept” and the SD1: not dissimilar ideas… I’d like to talk about Audis and BMWs in this blog. There, I’ve said it. Those who may be outraged by such talk on this site, please feel free to keep quiet. However, I have a very good reason for doing so, and it [...]

George Gao, Gasgoo.com, 23rd September, 2009 Volkswagen AG is planning to acquire the cash-strapped South Korean automaker SsangYong Motor, with the help of its Chinese partner, SAIC Motor, SinoCast reported today. SAIC Motor, the former majority shareholder of SsangYong Motor, has cooperated with Volkswagen for more than 20 years through the joint venture Shanghai VW, [...]

Ash Sutcliffe, China Car Times, 24th September, 2009 The MG6 is essentially the sports version of the Roewe 550 sedan and will probably be one of the first Chinese cars to go ’supersonic’ and see sales all around Europe in the coming months. An eventual launch date for China has not yet been announced although [...]

Dave Smart Capers around Turin I planned a trip round Turin to visit a few places from the original Italian Job and tried to discuss this with the owner of the hostel, who spoke very little English. He knew nothing of the movie, as many Turinians, and was amazed to see scenes from the city in [...]

Keith Adams Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m fortunate enough to get out and about in a number of cool cars and cool places. However, it’s usually for work and that means that, wherever I’m going, the itinery tends to be rushed and I don’t really get time to really appreciate where [...]

Jonathan Guthrie, Financial Times, 25th September, 2009 Dr. Qu Li says she is being “stoned to death” twice over. First, a report on MG Rover revealed that the car company paid her £1.7m under a contract authorised by a Director who was also briefly her lover. Second, the tabloid media seized on the story, its [...]

David Bailey, Birmingham Post, 24th September, 2009 The news that JLR will close a plant in the West Midlands came as no surprise. Auto analysts have been predicting this for several years as there is simply no way that it can keep open 3 plants on current volumes or even if output gets back to [...]

Jonathan Walker, Birmingham Post, 24th September, 2009 Peter Mandelson is determined to look on the bright side after Jaguar Land Rover announced it was shutting one of its two West Midlands plants. I had the chance to question him at a small press conference, where he was trumpeting the Government’s work supporting the economy in [...]

Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post, 25th September, 2009 The boss of Jaguar Land Rover last night pledged that no jobs would be lost by the closure of one of its Midland plants as the wheels were set in motion to potentially end a century of volume car production in Birmingham. The car giant announced yesterday that [...]

Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post, 25th September, 2009 The region’s business community last night broadly welcomed Jaguar Land Rover’s pledge to safeguard Midlands jobs when it closes a local plant in the next five years. Jerry Blackett, Chief Executive of Birmingham and Solihull Chamber of Commerce (BCI), said he was heartened by the statement that there [...]

Birmingham Post, 25th September, 2009 Yesterday Jaguar Land Rover announced that one of its Midland plants will close in the next five years. Will Oliphant, Gregg Evans and Paul Suart spoke to workers at Castle Bromwich and Lode Lane, as well as local businesses, to get their reaction. Plans for Jaguar Land Rover to axe [...]

Birmingham Post, 25th September, 2009 Industrial Editor John Cranage looks back at the proud history of the Castle Bromwich site. Spitfire and Jaguar – two of the most evocative names in British engineering history – and the common factor is that the World War Two fighter and the current generation of Jaguar cars have been [...]