Few cars from TV and film are as instantly identifiable as the orange Dodge Charger which starred in the Dukes of Hazzard.

But don’t be mistaken for thinking this is just another tribute to the General Lee. This particular car put in enough screen time that it really deserved a mention in the end credits.

Heading to next month’s Mecum Auctions Indy 2019 event, this is an opportunity to a piece of real movie history.

Admittedly the 2005 Dukes of Hazzard movie, based upon the classic television series, will hardly go down in the annals of silver screen history. It collected seven nominations at the 26th Golden Raspberry Awards, and was named the worst film of 2005 by one movie critic.

In fact, the film is probably best remembered for Burt Reynolds portraying Boss Hogg, and Jessica Simpson’s cover of ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’’.

Oh, and for the stunts performed by the General Lee – the 1969 Dodge Charger, and prize possession of Bo and Luke Duke.

This Charger was one of many used during production of the film, and wears the original ‘stunt car #20’ stickers inside the door and under the hood.

In fact, this particular car is said to have starred in key scenes from the movie, including the final chase scene, and the lengthy drift around Lee Circle.

Unlike the numerous General Lee replicas which are a car show constant, the buyer of this will know it played the part of being a real ‘good ‘ole boy’ on screen.

Stunt car #20 still wears the battle scars from filming, and is supplied in what Mecum describe as ‘screen-used’ condition.

It means the orange paintwork, General Lee lettering, and Confederate flag on the roof are complete with genuine movie dirt and dents. Clearly this was not the car washed by Jessica Simpson in her music video.

If anything, it only adds to the authenticity, as does the signature from actor James Best, who played Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the original TV series.

Power comes from a 383-cubic inch (6.3-l) Magnum V-8 engine. Although there is no mention of performance upgrades, judging by the film there is more than enough torque to spin the rear wheels.

This car is noted as being one of the few used in the film which featured a four-speed manual transmission, with a Hurst T-Handle shifter attached.

There is also the small matter of the uprated handbrake fitted especially to lock the back wheels, allowing for more lurid fish tail action on camera.

Other movie upgrades include an aluminum radiator, a large racing-style tachometer for the interior, and a full roll cage which includes the engine bay.

It means the tan interior is slightly less accommodating than normal, but means you can go leaping ponds and broken bridges with carefree abandon.

And, just for reassurance, there is a ‘Dixie’ horn fitted, along with a front push bar, for full General Lee effect.

The General Lee is one of nine cars heading to Mecum’s Indy 2019 auction from the Joe McMurrey Collection.

McMurrey has become a prolific collector of classic cars, with a real penchant for Shelby Mustangs. That affection began as a school student, and has led to McMurrey owning a string of GT350s and other classic Shelby vehicles.

However, as shown by this Charger, he keeps an open mind to his collection, and admits that when selling cars he is “sad to see them go, but you’re opening up a new chapter in your life”.

Lot F113 will cross the Mecum auction block on Friday May 17th, with an estimated sale price of $50,000 to $70,000 (£39,000 to £54,000).

Mecum’s Indy 2019 sale will see some 2,000 vehicles go across the block during the incredible six-day event, held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Although Indy 2019 will be packed with collector cars, not many will have had the on-screen prowess to rival the General Lee.

If you encounter this new Volkswagen, you’re probably on the wrong side of the law. Meet the Crafter riot response vehicle.

How do you transform a humble Crafter into a police van, then? Well, Volkswagen’s blue-light conversion partner, Coleman Milne, does most of the work – starting with an ‘unbreakable’ windscreen and prison cell in the back.

There’s also seating for seven, plus storage for riot shields, helmets and more crowd suppression gear. New side windows on the exterior complement the new windscreen, which is made of such strong reinforced plastic that an external metal cage is no longer required.

Along with that, there’s the generic police gear: communications equipment up-front and so on.

“We’re delighted to reveal our latest blue-light conversion – a riot van based on the long wheelbase Volkswagen Crafter,” said Steven Cowell of Volkswagen fleet services.

“Following its much anticipated debut at the CV Show 2019, the PSU will be put into service across the country, supporting police forces in their vital roles.”

Under the bonnet is an unmodified 2.0-litre 177hp diesel engine: reasonable power, even for the over-five-tonne Crafter. Besides, a lot of a riot van’s best work is done at either very low speeds, or at a standstill.

The new, riot-ready Crafter will be on display at the 2019 CV Show at the NEC in Birmingham, which runs from April 30 to May 2 2019.

New research reveals what British motorists’ real concerns are about electric cars, and why many are hesitant to make the switch

The survey by Jardine Motors Group covers 2,000 car owners and throws up some interesting stumbling blocks…

Electric cars are too expensive

Around three quarters of respondents said electric cars need to be cheaper before they’d seriously consider buying one.

Even with subsidies, electric cars are, generally speaking, more expensive than their internal-combustion counterparts. Save perhaps for the forthcoming Tesla Model 3, which ought to match or beat similar executive cars on price.

The fear of running out of charge

It’s a combination of a charging network that’s perceived as inadequate, plus cars that don’t go far enough and don’t charge quick enough.

Seven in 10 said they were worried about battery life. And eight in 10 of those who are debating the move said they were apprehensive about running out of charge.

Generally speaking, a minimum range of 260 miles was considered desirable before electric cars would be viable. Two-thirds also worry that many electric cars take too long to charge.

Charging an electric car is too complicated

Seven in 10 respondents said all new-build homes should have charging points built in, while six in 10 said that it should be made law for employers to install electric car charging facilities.

The general feeling is that charging your car isn’t as easy as filling up with fuel, and that significantly reduces appeal. 

Just 15 percent plan to switch

In total, 300 respondents (15 percent) said they were looking to switch to an EV in the coming year.

Cars like the Kia E-Niro and Hyundai Kona Electric are closing in on a 300-mile range, and more like them are to come. Range is a problem that’s getting solved, gradually.

However, manufacturers still need to bring prices and charge-times down – and a cohesive, easy-to-use charging infrastructure needs to ramp up.

The Secret Meet at Donington Park, organised by Supercar Driver, saw more than 350 supercars and hypercars in attendance, as well as a number of historic racers. All of them could take to the track, too. Bugattis, Koenigseggs, Paganis – that’s the standard of cars here. And yes, those are plurals…

Bugatti anniversary

Eight Bugattis were chosen for a celebration of the marque’s 110th anniversary. Chirons, EB110s, Veyrons… It’s a cheeseboard of modern-day Bugatti brilliance, with sometime speed record-holder and Le Mans-winner Andy Wallace accompanying a Chiron for good measure.

One-77, P1 GTR and XJ220 S

There are certain supercar unicorns you simply don’t see unless you’re at an event like this. Where else could you take a shot where an Aston Martin One-77 and McLaren P1 GTR share frame space? It’s like the Avengers, but for cars.

Almost every hypercar

The Secret Meet is a celebration of the supercar and hypercar genre. If you simply want the latest and greatest, get down to the Geneva Motor Show. If you wanted a hoard of XJ220s sharing track-time with Bugatti Chirons, however, nothing else will do. The history of the hypercar lines the pit lane.

King of the hypercars

You can sum up the significance of an event by the attendance (or lack thereof) of a single car. That is the McLaren F1, a red example of which can be seen here at Donington with a Ferrari 812 Superfast tailing. The uppermost hypercar royalty.

The latest and greatest

That’s not to say this is a relic-fest. The prominent supercar, hypercar and racing car collectors making up the 1,000-member Supercar Driver collective own plenty of newer metal, too. Witness a McLaren Senna leading a Pagani Huayra Roadster and a Porsche Carrera GT on track.

A rare Dutch gem

The supercar world is home to the weird, wonderful and lesser-spotted. For every 1,000 Lamborghini Huracans there are in the world, there’s a Spyker C8. Spot one here casually parked amongst some Ferraris and Lambo, which are, by comparison, mass-produced.

Eight cars and over 8,000hp

The cars got out on-track for some laps, including the aforementioned hoard of Bugattis. Just count the horsepower: Chiron, EB110, Veyron, Veyron, Veyron Supersports, Chiron, Veyron, EB110…  That’s well over 8,000hp in one shot, right?

Smokin’ P1 GTR

It’s not all parade laps either. A P1 GTR might be a multi-million-pound piece of track-only McLaren royalty, but would that really stop you ripping a few donuts at Donny?

The great and the good

There’s no particular narrative context to adding this picture here. Then again, need we justify a shot that has an Aston Martin One-77, Porsche Carrera GT and Pagani Huayra Roadster sat side-by-side?

Welcome to the candy shop

There isn’t a dud among this line-up: Koenigsegg, Ferrari F50, multiple XJ220s, P1 GTR, Murcielago SV, Porsche Carrera GT… The more you look, the more you spot!

Generations of Lamborghini Super Veloce

Has anyone seen an Aventador LP750 SV with a new Aventador SVJ yet? Well, if not, you have now. This red example showed up at The Secret Meet, and is pictured along with a matte older-generation SV.

Veyron vs. Chiron – which wins?

This is a perfect shot for comparing the early generations of Bugatti’s two post-millennium hypercars. A black early Veyron follows a black Chiron. While the Chiron was a beautiful piece of sculpture from the off, the Veyron has taken a few years to mature. A subtle spec such as this helps it a lot.

Historic racers: McLaren M8F Can Am

While today we know McLaren for its Formula 1 exploits, Bruce McLaren was equally as passionate about Can Am sports car racing in-period. In fact, it was while testing a Can Am car that Bruce passed away, during an accident at Goodwood. There’s nothing quite like the roar of a Chevy big-banger, trumpets sprouting asunder from an orange wedge of historic McLaren racer.

Historic racers: Jaguar XJR12D

This derivative of Jaguar’s Le Mans-winning monster has claimed victory up the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hill a few times in the shootout. The Bud Light livery is simple but beautiful, and that V12 wail never gets old.

Historic racers: single-seater on-track

As you’ll probably have noted by now, it doesn’t matter how special your cars are, there’s no controlling the weather. The Secret Meet was evidently a greasy one. It takes a braver helmsman than us to get behind the wheel of a powerful fat-tyred single-seater for some laps at Donnington.

Slumbering F40

Back to the supercars and we start off quiet, with a slumbering F40 under dim pit garage lighting. This legend looks resplendent in yellow paint.

Bizzarrini chases McLaren P1 GTR

A good shot for variety at this event. The Bizzarrini is a historic sports racer, the P1 GTR a modern-day track toy. No prizes for guessing which would be quicker.

Stare into the eyes of the Bug

A nice close-up shot of a Chiron, with a dousing of rain. We needn’t justify that.

Huayra leads the pack

More Huayra and CGT loveliess, with a couple of Lamborghini raging bulls bringing up the rear.

After five years in the making, the Zacaria SC will make its long-awaited debut at Top Marques Monaco on 30 May 2019.

It comes with a pretty formidable USP: the Zacaria is a street-legal F1 replica powered by a Ferrari engine.

Zacaria Supercars is based south of Sydney, Australia, and the company has until 12 May to get the ‘F1 car for the road’ on a plane bound for Monaco. If you’ve followed the build progress on Instagram, you’ll know that this one is likely to go down to the wire.

It’s an insane piece of kit: the wizard from Oz uses a 6.3-litre engine from a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta in a car that weighs just 850kg. No performance figures have been announced, but with 700hp in a car that weighs the same as a Lotus Elise Sport 220 or Toyota iQ, the 0-62mph time is likely to be crazy-quick.

The spec sheet includes an Albins six-speed gearbox with a choice of paddles or a race-style sequential shifter, Ohlins adjustable suspension, handmade aluminium body with Chromoly reinforcement, AP racing brakes, a blown exhaust system, Motec programmable computer and LCD dashboard.

Bat crazy

It’s the brainchild of Zac Mihajlovic, who previously built a street-legal Batmobile based on the vehicle used in Tim Burton’s Batman films. “I’ve always wanted to design and build my own supercar,” he said.

“With the help of Scotty Cox and my Grandfather John Greene, my vision of a street-legal F1 hot rod will be unveiled at Top Marques Monaco on the 30 May 2019.”

The social media feed shows the Zacaria in its ‘naked’ form – the company hasn’t revealed the final colour – but we do know why the wheels are covered. “Driving in wet conditions, the water will spray inward without covering tyres,” the company said in a reply to a question on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu5lqxAnh0J/

Mihajlovic could have made a lot of money out of his street-legal Batmobile, but licencing issues meant that he was unable to capitalise on his crazy creation. He told Motor: “What’s the next-most extreme thing I could build to drive on the street?

“No one’s done it with an F1 car, they’ve done things like the BAC Mono or the Ariel Atom, but they’re four-cylinder and look like concept cars.

“If you wanted to drive a real F1 car it’d take a team of people to run it so I thought about a modern V8 or V12 from a Ferrari, there’s probably a market for people who want something no one else has.”

As for the price? Mihajlovic says he’d expect to sell each Zacaria he builds for more than $1 million (£776,000). We expect there will be a few interested parties in Monaco.

New data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) reveals the 15 major EU countries earned £370 billion from vehicle taxes last year.

For context, that’s a 3.5 percent increase compared with the previous year. The figure also represents more than 2.6 times the total EU budget, which was £142 billion for 2019.

Different EU regions tax their car-owning residents in different ways. Common practice is to base taxation on CO2 levels, but some member states remain faithful to engine power, cylinder capacity or a combination of these and other factors.

While the uptake of electric and ultra-low emissions vehicles has been incentivised in some way or another across 24 of the 28 European member states, it’s questionable how much these offers benefit drivers. The increase in revenue suggests they aren’t taking the tax-break bait.

“Tax measures are a crucial tool in shaping consumer demand for zero- and low-emission vehicles,” said ACEA Secretary General, Erik Jonnaert.

“Given that the affordability of electric cars is still a major barrier to their wider market uptake, Europe’s auto manufacturers strongly encourage the 28 national governments to put in place meaningful incentive schemes.”

Calling this the most incredible driving simulator on the planet would be an understatement. The temptation is to draw comparisons with off-the-shelf racing games like Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo.

In truth, both pale in comparison to what Ansible Motion does. It’s like lining up a firework alongside a Saturn 5 rocket.

A simulator that ‘tricks’ you

This setup is a bit more complicated than a Logitec hooked up to an Xbox. It’s also about 5,000-times more expensive, assuming your Xbox and wheel cost you around £500.

So what do you get for £2.5 million? A simulator system comprised of 16 computers, 300 data channels, 11 or more motion axes, an eight-metre wraparound screen and a projection system, plus audio that’s at least five times more powerful than inside a cinema. Add to that a full cockpit (of your choice) mounted in a carbon fibre tub on a stratiform machine with horizontal, longitudinal and rotational movement, while pivoting on three additional axes.

Why doesn’t Ansible Motion use a whole car? Well, it would go to waste on a rig and be extremely heavy. All this operates in a compact space, with much greater efficiency and freedom of movement than a ‘conventional’ hydraulic hexapod simulator.

The result is a near-perfect driver-in-loop (DIL) system that tricks you into thinking you’re driving a real car.

The key is syncing everything up to the driver’s vestibular system. Put simply, that’s what gives you your sense of balance and place in the world. It’s an enormous part of what helps you distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t – and the final hurdle to ultimate immersion. It doesn’t matter how good gaming rigs get, you simply won’t get this level of realism.

Kia Cammaerts, founder and technical director of Ansible Motion, told us how a driver from “the top half of the grid of the fastest race discipline on Earth” was in Hethel to test the machine. He had a go, with the parameters for his car plugged in, and was having difficulty. Something didn’t quite feel right. Upon checking the systems, they found it was calibrated for him sitting 10 centimetres or so further to the right. Once fixed, he immediately gelled, setting world-class laps from the off.

What is the simulator used for?

Incorporate the parameters for your car – a lengthy process, we admit – and it’s possible to actually drive as you would the real thing. By parameters, we mean suspension spring rates, chassis rigidity, tyre tolerances and much more. Plug your relevant information in and, before you know it, you’re driving without driving.

Ansible Motion was understandably secretive about which marques it’s worked with. “Some of the latest supercars” were developed using one of these rigs. Their range of clients goes from mainstream car manufacturers to Formula 1 teams.

A moneyed Middle-Eastern customer also asked them to make him a game. They considered it, but talked him down. Based on how much work it is to develop a single research parameter, such as suspension bump and rebound (for a single car at a single circuit), it would make for one of the most sophisticated but least diverse gaming setups there is. And you’d need a small team to run it.

Aston Martin recently showed off something similar being used for its Valkyrie hypercar. It means a lot of the real-world testing that was previously necessary (some of which could be dangerous), can be offloaded onto sims. Connect a real powertrain to the computers and the rig, and lay down hundreds of testing hours at Spa without any worries of stuffing a multi-million-pound prototype (and yourself) at Raidillon.

Then there’s the other end of the scale. Stick a driver in a simulated autonomous car and you can monitor how that person reacts to stimuli. You can see the effects of challenging traffic situations, or how a driver might get distracted over the course of a long journey. At Millbrook, by the 10th run, the tyres would be dead and it’d be raining.

The possibilities are nearly endless, for driver in-loop, hardware in-loop and software testing. The company is getting “more requests for use cases and testing than we’d ever even imagined”.

Driving the Ansible Motion Delta S2

Initially, I was sceptical. While the rig itself and the scale of the system was impressive, the graphics weren’t as real-looking as I’d hoped. Could I really be put under the spell of this machine if my eyes weren’t fooled?

Yes, absolutely I could. The power of the vestibular system, and the fact that Ansible Motion have cupped it like a tiny delicate bird with their remarkable machine, became immediately apparent.

The rig is so responsive and has such a range of movement that you’re fully immersed. This was the first time I’d ever felt ‘there’ while driving in a virtual system. The sensations of sound, G-forces, acceleration, deceleration, body-roll, turning resistance, – it all felt so realistic.

The weighting of the controls, the feeling of pressure in the brakes, the way the seatbelt tightens as you lean on the brakes – any way you interact with a car as you’re driving it, it’s simulated. I couldn’t help but crack a smile of disbelief.

To get a sense for how successful it’s been, and how highly the industry regard the Ansible Motion system, I wasn’t allowed to drive a ‘real’ car. Or, at least, I wasn’t allowed to know what it was. Closely-guarded dynamic secrets hide within the models and code inside these computers. Instead, I went out in a ‘generic mid-size executive car’, something like a BMW 3 Series.

This experience of simulated driving is one I won’t forget, even though it did feel oddly familiar.

Locating a charging point for your electric car should become less stressful, as Google launches updates to its Maps application.

Whilst Google Maps previously documented the location of EV charging points, the software can now offer live status updates of actual charger availability.

It should hopefully help reduce the risk of planning a journey based upon a specific charger, only to find that all ports are in use – or not working – on arrival.

Launching the updates, Google said not being able to charge your EV at your desired spot could “really put a damper on your day when you have places to go and things to do.”

Covering the UK and United States at present, the updates to Google Maps will document real-time info on charging points from networks including Chargemaster, EVgo, and SemaConnect. The Chargepoint network will also be added to the list of those supported in the near future.

Included in the search function will be details on the type of charging ports, the charging speed, and information about the business it may be connected to.

The updates to Google Maps will be available from 23rd April, and include Android and Apple iOS applications, along with the traditional desktop website version.

Adding extra EV information is just the latest in a line of updates to the Google Maps software. Changes to the company’s Alexa-rivalling Google Assistant, launched earlier this year, allow drivers to reply and compose text messages, or plan route maps through voice commands.

Google is also working with aftermarket suppliers to make accessing the Google Assistant easier through a range of in-car accessories.