MG has further bolstered its value credentials with the launch of a new MG3 Exclusive Nav model that includes standard sat nav for a £12,995 on-the-road price.
The new variant adds MG iGo satellite navigation to the 8.0-inch colour touchscreen infotainment system – which also features standard Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay.
93-year-old man trades in skateboard for MG3
A rear parking camera is standard, too.
MG’s head of sales and marketing Dan Gregarious said the introduction of the new variant follows analysis of customer needs and requirements.
“The introduction of the MG3 Exclusive Nav brings our smallest model in line with the rest of the MG line-up and further solidifies our promise to offer affordability without compromising on specification or quality.”
MG is also offering the new MG3 Exclusive Nav on a special PCP deal, which includes a £1,500 finance deposit contribution from the company.
And if that isn’t tempting, the alternative MG3 Excite variant can be bought on a four-year, zero-percent APR PCP deal.
MG’s £2,000 scrappage-style ‘Swappage’ deal continues too, giving an incentive to those looking to trade in cars older than seven years.
Ford tuning experts Roush Performance have announced details of their upgraded Phase 2 supercharger kit for V-8 Mustangs.
Designed to fit 2018 to 2020 ‘Stangs powered by the 5.0-liter V-8 ‘Coyote’ engine, Roush promises this is “the most powerful retail supercharger” made by the Michigan-based company.
With a claimed output of 750 horsepower, along with 670 lb-ft of torque, the new Phase 2 kit certainly has impressive numbers on its side.
Closing in on the GT500
The impressive new figures bring the can bring the output of a Roush-equipped Mustang close to the 760 horsepower found in the 2020 Ford Shelby GT500. Roush’s new ‘charger notably delivers more torque than the 625 lb-ft in the new $72,990 Shelby.
Previous Roush superchargers had seen a peak power of 727 horsepower, but new modifications have unlocked the extra output. Calibration settings for 93-octane fuel have made the biggest difference, along with a new low-temperature radiator to keep everything chilled.
According to Roush Performance, hundreds of hours of design and testing went into the new supercharger kit, which meets U.S. emissions regulations in all 50 states. Roush also states the kit can be combined with Mustangs using either the ten-speed automatic transmission, or the six-speed manual unit.
No fun for European Ford fans
However, those with latest European-specification ‘Stangs are out of luck. Due to the particulate filters fitted to comply with Euro 6.2 emission standards, the Roush Phase 2 kit cannot be used on those cars.
When fitted by a Ford dealership, or a certified technician, the supercharger comes with a 3-year / 36,000-mile limited powertrain warranty. The $7,999.00 kit comes with all the necessary hardware of the conversion, which Roush estimates requires eight hours to perform.
Ford fans with an existing Phase 1 Roush-supercharged Mustang have the option of buying an upgrade kit for $649. This includes the new low-temperature radiator, and the updated ECU software for 93-octane fuel.
The MkII Escort RS2000 is established as a firm favourite with British Ford fans, but this Australian version could prove to be a surprise at auction.
As one of the lots listed for the forthcoming Race Retro sale, organised by Silverstone Auctions, this will be a rare opportunity to buy a four-door RS2000.
For the RS fan who already has everything, or something different to take to the next Ford meet, this special 1979 Escort could have appeal.
Wonder from Down Under
The story of the Australian MkII Escort RS2000 began in 1976, when Ford imported 25 European-specification cars for homologation purposes. At that time the Australian Touring Car Championship operated different classes based upon engine size, with the MkII RS2000 fitting neatly into the 2.0-litre division.
Being so few in number, the 25 German-built cars used by race teams developed a cult status overnight. Despite this, Ford Australia took a further three years to reach the point of producing a local version of the slant-nosed RS2000.
Whilst Ford procrastinated, the racing RS2000 performed well on track. Rod Stevens took third-place in the overall standings for the 1978 Australian Touring Car Championship, driving an RS.
Finally, in 1979, Ford Australia began building their very own MkII Escort RS2000. However, it was not a straight copy of the European model, with the car from Down Under featuring a number of distinct differences.
That the Oz-spec car came in both two- and four-door saloon bodies was the biggest alteration. From a total production of around 2,400 examples, an estimated 880 of the cars that left the Homebush factory in Sydney were four-door RS2000s.
The droop snoot front grille stayed the same, as did the rear spoiler, four-spoke alloy wheels, and RS exterior graphics for the four-door version.
More doors, less power
Where things became different was under the bonnet. Instead of the ‘Pinto’ engine used in European RS2000s, the Australian cars used the same 2.0-litre ‘Cortina’ unit as found in regular Escorts.
Compared to the 110 hp (82 kW) European cars, it meant the Oz-spec RS2000 had only 94 hp (70 kW). The low weight of the Escort meant this had a negligible effect in reality, shaving only 4 mph from the top speed.
Australian cars also came without the upgraded suspension of the Old World RS2000, but did offer the option to have an automatic transmission fitted.
The 1979 car for sale at the Race Retro auction is one of around twelve Australian-built RS2000s believed to be in the United Kingdom. Having spent life Down Under means no major bodywork repairs have been needed to fight rust, with the Signal Yellow paint still looking vibrant.
A refurb of the interior has taken place, with ‘Fishnet’ Recaro seats added in place of the standard Scheel items fitted when new. The RS alloy wheels have also been refurbished, and wear new Pirelli rubber.
A conversion to run on unleaded petrol has also been undertaken, and the RS was noted to have passed its most recent MOT inspection without any advisories.
Being built for only two years means Australian RS2000s are naturally rare, and even more so on the other side of the world. Finding another will not be easy, and the final sale price will likely reflect that.
In 2017, Silverstone Auctions saw a very low-mileage MkII RS2000 achieve nearly £100,000 ($189,000) when sold.
Whether this car can achieve such a huge sale figure remains to be seen, when the car crosses the auction block at the event to be held from the 21st to 23rd February.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has approved a new road sign, but not everyone is happy.
Devon County Council applied for authorisation to use a brown sign ‘for the purpose of informing road users of the location of cliff railways’. The application was approved before Christmas.
It means that visitors to Devon should see the new cliff railway (funicular) sign when they return to the county this summer. There are two funicular railways in Devon: one in Babbacombe and the other one connecting Lynton with Lynmouth.
There’s no word on whether other local authorities will seek to use the new brown sign. Other funicular railways can be found in the likes of Saltburn, Bournemouth and Southend.
The approved design hasn’t been met with universal acclaim. Alex Ingram, a ‘researcher focused on transport’ tweeted: “Concerns have (naturally) been raised that funicular railways have the door at the end of the carriage and not on the side. Thus the sign needs amendment.”
Mr Ingram retweeted a suggested redesign presented by Funimag – an online magazine devoted to funicular railways. The subtle tweaks sees the removal of the door, with the magazine tweeting: “There are plenty of Cliff Lifts like this in Britain except none have their doors on the long sides but on the short sides.”
Fun in the sun
According to Devon County Council, brown tourist signs are designed to safely guide visitors to an attraction along the most appropriate route. They’re also used to indicate attractions or facilities that a tourist would not reasonably expect to find in that location.
Concerns have (naturally) been raised that funicular railways have the door at the end of the carriage and not on the side. Thus the sign needs amendment. Personally I’m worried about the Owl having no mouth.https://t.co/GdFAofzIsahttps://t.co/Su4uMnYVFP
In response, a spokesperson for the DfT said: “The purpose of a traffic sign is not to raise public appreciation and awareness of geometry, which is better dealt with in other ways.”
As this brown sign enthusiast website shows, some of the designs provide a more accurate representation of the attraction or facility. We suspect the funicular railway sign is here to stay.
A trip to Toyota’s forward-planning Kenshiki Forum was our first chance to get up close with the GR Yaris: the company’s exotic new hot hatch. With an all-new body and four-wheel drive, you’d be forgiven for worrying about how expensive the Yaris will be.
Thankfully, those in the know at Toyota reassured us otherwise.
At its reveal, it was anyone’s guess what the GR Yaris would cost. Predictions started at £40,000 and climbed from there – and for good reason. You could likely fit the body parts the GR shares with the normal Yaris in the boot of a Supra. The lights and badges are pretty much the only bits that carry over unchanged.
Everything else is bespoke – the three-door shell, bumpers, wheelarches, lower roofline and carbon roof. Underneath, the front is familiar Yaris, but at the back, to accommodate both the double-wishbone suspension and the rear driveshafts, it’s effectively a Corolla.
The GR Yaris won’t be assembled in France alongside its standard siblings. Instead, it’ll be built, largely by hand, at the new GR Production Centre in Motomachi, Japan. A true modern JDM performance hero, and likely to cost plenty as a result?
Doesn’t really need a caption. *Aggressively adds PCP deals on GR Yaris to Google Alerts*. pic.twitter.com/LuZDq6eSAM
Before being shuffled out of the room with a GR Yaris on display alongside a body-less chassis, we cornered Robert Tickner, general manager of communications at Toyota Motor Europe, to see if we could get a hint.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, is there any indication of how much the GR Yaris is going to cost?”
Tickner smiles, but remains coy: “We’re still developing the price point at the moment.”
I press him, citing some of the wild guesses circulating online. He laughs: “I don’t think it’ll be quite that much. If you look at the price in Japan, which was revealed to be around four million yen, that converts to roughly £27,000. It won’t be a million miles away from that.”
Truthfully, we were surprised. To look at the Yaris GR, you can’t help but wonder what astronomical costs went into its development – and indeed will go into its manufacture.
“I assume the profit margins will be tight, then?” I follow. “Assuming there is a profit,” Tickner quips.
It seems Toyota doesn’t want to price enthusiasts out of the car. When you consider that it will have 24,000 of them to sell worldwide, that seems sensible. Production isn’t limited, either: 24,000 is just how many they have to produce to homologate the rally car. If they all sell and there’s demand, production will continue.
It’s not unknown for boss Akio Toyoda to let his company take a hit for the sake of a passion project. Indeed, the Yaris GR is another one of his pet projects – not unlike the Lexus LFA supercar, also a loss-leader.
It’s a product of his love of rallying, a crack at a competitive edge for the 2021 WRC season, plus a true homologation special.
The Yaris GR could be a lot of excitement for your money, then, once prices are announced. Our revised estimate starts with a three…
So when can we expect the actual price to be revealed? Toyota is on a clock with this. “We need to get pricing out and orders in, in time to deliver before the 2021 season,” Tickner says. “We’re looking at no later than May, really.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced it will review a request to investigate half a million Tesla vehicles. This comes after numerous reports of unintended acceleration.
It seems that Teslas cars of all ages are affected, with 2012 to 2019 Model S examples (the life of the model), 2016-2019 Model X and 2018-2019 Model 3 included. The petition, which requests this review, references 127 complaints from consumers to the NHTSA regarding 123 individual cars, 110 crashes and 52 injuries.
This follows a recent incident with a Model 3 in Indiana, where a car collided with a parked fire engine, killing a passenger. It’s the 14th road incident involving a Tesla that has invoked the NHTSA’s special crash investigation program because the ‘Autopilot’ system was suspected to be in use.
A similar issue affected the Toyota Prius a few years ago with a sticking pedal mechanism causing unintended acceleration.
There has been a great deal of debate around whether Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system ‘Autopilot’ is inappropriately named. Numerous videos have surfaced online of drivers taking the ‘Autopilot’ name quite literally, and not paying adequate attention to the road. In the case of drivers that were filmed sleeping, that’s not paying any attention.
Aside from the autopilot and acceleration issues, Tesla also had some unwanted attention from the NHTSA over fires. In October, it was announced the company would be reviewed over whether 2,000 of its cars should have been recalled over a fire risk, instead of rolling out a software update.
Top Gear returns to TV on Sunday January 26, and there’s a new trailer to whet the appetites of the viewers. As you might expect, it’s riddled with some of the very latest, coolest metal (and carbon fibre).
So, what cars can you expect to see in series 28? We’ve combed through the 76-second trailer, through every split-second jump cut, to dig them out.
They start with a record-setting all-electric racer: the Volkswagen ID-R. Then there are teaser shots of a Porsche Taycan and Ford Mustang. Flashes of McLaren Speedtail, Porsche Taycan and BMW M8 go by, before we cut to the Volkswagen going hell-for-leather around the Portimao circuit.
Would it be a Top Gear trailer featuring Chris Harris if there weren’t skid shots? The Porsche Taycan, BMW M8 and Ariel Atom 4 all get out of shape. Then we see the new Porsche 911 put up against the Aston Martin Vantage on-track, with the help of Damon Hill.
Back to Dunsfold, the M8 is being pursued by a sliding Aston Martin DB11 and a Bentley Continental.
Blink and you’ll miss a flash of a sliding Renault Sport Megane Trophy R. And there we have it, (some of) the cars of Top Gear season 28.
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Green energy company and electric car charger proprietor Ecotricity has encountered a very Victorian problem: rats have been vandalising its electric car chargers, chewing through wiring.
The company is now embarking on a rat-proofing project to protect its hardware from resident rodents. It’s suspected that heavy rainfall has pushed the rats above ground, which has led to them being in proximity to car chargers.
In their search for a reliable supply of food, the rats may also have found the car charging points in close proximity to fast food restaurants.
“For all the predictions of the changes the climate crisis will bring – here’s an unexpected one,” Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said in a Facebook post.
“Recent heavy rains, which seem to be the new normal now – are driving Britain’s rat population (estimated by some at 120 million) above ground, seeking warmer and drier places to live.
“We’ve seen an impact of this – somewhere surprising – on the electric highway.”
Some chargers had stopped working, and the issue was unidentifiable via remote monitoring, he explained.
Nesting rats and severely-chewed wiring were found on investigation. Some of the pumps had their components chewed to the point that they’re uneconomical to repair and need replacing.
Existing chargers are being ‘rat-proofed’, as are new pumps yet to be rolled out.
The A127 to the north of Basildon in Essex will have its speed limit reduced from 70mph to 50mph in a bid to reduce nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions from traffic. Essex Highways and Basildon Council say that, as a result, ambient air quality and NOx levels should reach safe levels by 2021.
The move comes after the local authorities were issued a ministerial directive by the government to improve air quality on the section of road as quickly as possible.
It’s claimed that at 50mph, NOx emissions from a car’s engine are reduced by up to 20 percent, compared with at 70mph. The majority of engines are most efficient at around 50mph, too.
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Work starts on 27 January to begin implementing the limit, with signs and average speed cameras being installed. It will be on both carriageways between the Fortune of War roundabout and around 470m east of the Pound Lane (west) and Cranfield Park Road (east) junctions.
The A127 has been identified as a problem area for emissions, but it’s not just higher speed that’s the issue. The new limit is also predicted to reduce congestion, keeping the movement of cars smooth and steady.
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“Engines work most efficiently at around 50mph; vehicles driving below 50mph and above 55mph produce more emissions from their exhausts,” says the Essex Highways website.
“While traffic is often slower than 50mph at peak times, having a consistently lower speed limit helps to improve journey time reliability by smoothing the traffic flow, because it reduces the number of times vehicles have to stop and start again.
“This in turn reduces the time traffic is stationary or moving slowly in queues, and has an air quality benefit as vehicles’ engines emit the most NOx emissions when they are switched on but not moving, or moving slowly.”
A new fixed-price insurance scheme is available to drivers of passenger-carrying Volkswagen commercial vehicles.
Research shows that 40 percent of owners switch insurance provider every year because loyalty isn’t rewarded. This costs the nation an estimated £4.1bn in excess premiums, says the Financial Conduct Authority and Competitions and Market Authority.
Volkswagen’s fixed-price insurance offer is available on new and used passenger-carrying vehicles. This includes the Caddy Life, Caddy Maxi Life, Shuttle, Caravelle, California and Grand California.
The fixed-price scheme secures the renewal price for two cycles, meaning it remains the same for the duration of the contract. The price will only go up or down if your circumstances change.
Not that the customer is locked into a three-year deal. Customers are free to cancel or switch, as they would with any other insurance policy. Any repairs as part of a claim are carried out using Volkswagen genuine parts.
‘Hassle, worry and stress-free’
Tom Macintyre, brand manager for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicle Financial Services, said: “We are responding directly to customer feedback with this insurance offer, which rewards loyalty. We believe owning a vehicle – whether it’s a Caravelle, Caddy Life or California – should be hassle, worry, and stress-free and allowing our customers to secure a fixed price on their annual insurance for three years offers exactly that.”
Audi launched a similar scheme in December. Policies are available for new and used cars, with Audi making similar claims about saving customers from shopping around for renewal deals.
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