Highlights

Aston Martin drivers Flick Haigh and Jonny Adam clinched the 2018 British GT Championship title at Donington Park in a historic day for the sport. Haigh became the first woman to be crowned outright British GT champion in a stellar year racing the Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 alongside Optimum Motorsport team-mate Adam. Her debut season in the series included the first pole position and victory for a woman in the season-opener at Oulton Park in April, followed by another at Brands Hatch last month.

The all-new Bentley Continental GT has won Gold in two key categories of the prestigious German Design Awards – one of the most highly respected design competitions in the world. The luxury Grand Tourer was named winner by a jury of independent experts in the categories for best ‘Exterior Premium Brand’ and best ‘Interior’. Designed, engineered and handcrafted in Great Britain, the third generation Continental GT has been launched to global acclaim. Blending the highest level of attention to detail and artistry with refinement and performance, it represents the very essence of the Bentley brand. 

His Royal Highness, The Earl of Wessex, joined employees at Jaguar Land Rover North America Friday at the official building dedication ceremony of its new state-of-the-art North American Headquarters in Mahwah, New Jersey. The Earl joined employees to unveil a special plaque and commemorate the official opening of the new headquarters. Prior to the dedication ceremony, HRH met with various employees who had served time in the United States Armed Forces, as well as employees who spearhead charity efforts within the community. The Earl also took a brief tour of the new 30,000 sq. ft. product research, training, and development center.

Dr. Andy Palmer, President and Group Chief Executive of Aston Martin Lagonda, today announced plans to create the Palmer Foundation, a privately-funded programme to create industrial apprenticeship opportunities for young people in the UK. Andy Palmer, who began his own automotive career as an apprentice, has undertaken to fund the scheme, which will also be supported by existing shareholders, members of the senior management team at Aston Martin Lagonda and Hitomi Palmer, wife of the CEO.

With this being the height of show season, we decided that this week we should take a moment to look at the judging process in a concours d’elegance. Now, different shows do judging differently. There are, of course, the popular choice car shows, but even within the concours shows the judging can be varied.  Our video is The Judging Process at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Some shows that I have attended have cared more about the presentation and condition of a car than its originality. Other shows have stressed original equipment and options even if that meant that condition may suffer a bit. Still, other shows want every part of the car to be of an original type and quality or be period correct, but the part itself does not need to have been original. Again, there are many variations and it […]

To celebrate the golden half-century of one of the world’s favorite films Beaulieu is to launch its Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 50 years exhibition which can be seen in the National Motor Museum from October 20th. The exhibition will tell the story of Chitty as the star of the fantasmagorical family adventure and feature an original screen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Humber 8hp driven by Truly Scrumptious in the much-loved musical film.

Aston Martin’s next step into the mid-engined hypercar market has been confirmed with the release of the first official details of Project ‘003’. Project ‘003’ is the third hypercar to be developed by Aston Martin following the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro (formerly ‘001’ and ‘002’), 003 has its DNA deeply rooted in concepts and technology currently being developed for those revolutionary road and track-only machines.

Once again Abingdon Spares participated in and helped to sponsor the British Reliability Run, this time the Connecticut version, over the weekend of September 14, 15, and 16. We completed over 650 trouble free miles from Newtown, CT all the way up to Lake Placid, NY and back in two and a half days. A total of 8 teams participated in this inaugural event, two Spitfires, two TR6s, two MGBs, one MGA, and an NG, some of you may know this British Kit Car, designed like a classic roadster and based on MGB mechanicals, a very clever idea.

First Jaguar, now MINI. Brexit is already playing havoc with the business of making cars in the United Kingdom and striking fear into global automakers. BMW said Tuesday that it would shut its MINI factory in England for one month of maintenance immediately after Brexit because it can’t be sure of getting the parts it needs if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without a trade deal. Brexit will take effect on March 29. The MINI shutdown will begin on April 1. “While we believe this worst-case scenario is an unlikely outcome, we have to plan for it,” said BMW, which employs 4,200 workers at its MINI plant in Oxford.

In 2019, legendary Italian design house Zagato celebrates its centenary. For 58 of those hundred years, Aston Martin and Zagato have enjoyed a remarkable creative partnership. One in which these two iconic brands have created some of the world’s most desirable and stimulating cars, from the first DB4 GT Zagato to the latest Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake. To commemorate this landmark year, Aston Martin and Zagato are continuing their historic partnership with a truly unique collaboration. One that will come to fruition in Zagato’s centenary year with the remarkable DBZ Centenary Collection – a unique project that pays tribute to an icon of the past and creates a classic of the future. 

Jaguar North America today announced the national marketing launch plans for the brand’s first-ever, all-electric performance SUV, the I-PACE, led by the Jaguar Electrifies Experience, a multi-city national tour that will kick off in San Francisco and travel to key U.S. EV markets: Los Angeles, South Florida and the New York City metro areas. The Jaguar Electrifies Experience is designed to engage, entertain, and educate consumers on the full Jaguar vehicle lineup as well as the benefits of owning an electric vehicle. In addition to the Experience, retailers will host launch events throughout the fall to introduce the Jaguar I-PACE to consumers across the country.

The Atlanta Concours d’Elegance organizers have created The Visionary Award to honor Don Panoz, an early and enthusiastic Atlanta Concours supporter who envisioned how the premier event would benefit Braselton, Ga. and Metro Atlanta area. Panoz passed away on Sept. 11, 2018. He was 83. According to Bill Wallet, CEO of the Atlanta Concours, The Visionary Award will be presented to an entrant, sponsor or vendor that best exemplifies the futurist spirit that so defined Don Panoz. The award will be presented during Sunday’s Atlanta Concours awards ceremony. In 1961 Panoz, along with army buddy Milan “Mike” Puskar, founded Milan Pharmaceuticals in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. Milan Pharmaceuticals evolved into Mylan, a company that now sells an estimated 1,300 products to more than 140 countries and territories worldwide. In the 1970s Panoz founded Élan Corp. in Ireland and led a research […]

Buyers who have secured a 600LT Coupé are now exploring the wide range of colors and options available using an advanced real-time configurator to complete their order in retailers – but anybody with internet access can build their own perfect ‘Longtail’ using McLaren’s online 2D configurator. The pioneering specification system allows you to view the 600LT in any of the 28 different body colors offered, three of which are newly introduced with the launch of the 600LT: Myan Orange, Chicane Effect (grey); and Luminaire (green). 14 of the paint colors are in an MSO Defined palette developed by McLaren Special Operations for the new ‘Longtail’.

Britain’s biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover said it will go down to a three-day production week at its Castle Bromwich plant in central England just days after Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover, warned about the impact of Brexit and diesel policy on manufacturing. Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover on Monday confirmed a cut in its production schedule at the Castle Bromwich plant which manufactures Jaguar cars due to “continuing headwinds” impacting the British car industry. 

Classic Car Auctions (CCA) achieved a sales rate of 75 percent at its September Sale held at the Warwickshire Event Centre on 15th September, where 107 quality ‘everyman’ classics were sold to bidders around the world with total sales exceeding £1.8 million. British classics proved particularly popular at the sale with a beautiful, restored 1968 Jensen Interceptor Mk 1 manual at the center of the longest bidding war of the day. As one of just eight surviving examples of the 22 made and finished in striking Anthracite with a Black leather interior, the super rare manual sold for a huge £85,800, more than double its lower estimate.

The Jaguar I-PACE has demonstrated its real-world usability by driving 229 miles (369km) from London to Brussels through the Channel Tunnel on a single charge. The all-electric performance SUV began its intercity trip on London’s South Bank, with its 90kWh battery fully charged, before heading to the Channel Tunnel terminal at Folkestone. But unlike the 80 million vehicles that have made the crossing by train since the Channel Tunnel opened, the I-PACE traveled the 50km through the world’s longest undersea tunnel using its own power.

The new British electric hypercar maker Dendrobium Automotive Limited recently made its UK public debut to huge acclaim within the stunning surroundings of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England. The unique, all-electric Dendrobium D-1 wowed the guests at the ultra-exclusive 2018 Salon Privé garden party event, the model attracting enormous interest and many admiring glances, including the attention of His Grace The Duke of Marlborough of Blenheim Palace, who was very keen to discuss the unique and highly-advanced zero-emission D-1 hypercar.

Jaguar’s supercar-rivalling XE SV Project 8 has confirmed its status as the world’s fastest four-door car by setting a new track record. The 600PS, 200mph four-door road-legal sedan lapped the 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in 1min 37.54sec – almost a second faster than the previous production sedan record – with racing driver Randy Pobst at the wheel. The most extreme Jaguar yet produced, XE SV Project 8 is a sedan with genuine supercar performance. Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations engineers fine-tuned the car on some of the world’s most thrilling test tracks, including Germany’s famed Nürburgring Nordschleife. Late last year XE SV Project 8 lapped the 12.9-mile circuit in a record 7min 21.23sec. This Laguna Seca lap record is another powerful demonstration of the Jaguar XE SV Project 8’s performance credentials. “Designed, engineered and hand-assembled by Special Vehicle […]