Last-minute Mothers' Day prezzie...?

If you know anything about precision driving, you will know the surname Swift. Russ Swift is a legend when it comes to making cars dance in ways that the manufacturers never envisaged. His Austin Montego advert, where the car slides sideways into a parking bay, remains an iconic Eighties commercial and became his trademark stunt. Son Paul was barely out of nappies when he started in the family business; the story goes he used to put the family’s ride-on lawn mower up on two wheels – copying what his dad did in full-sized cars – at the age of seven! Now all grown up and in his thirties, Paul Swift is recognised as one of the best in the business, and his skills have featured in numerous stunt shows, TV programmes and adverts. So if you’re looking for a last-minute present for Mothers' Day – and your mum is the adventurous sort! – why not book her a day with Paul Swift Precision Driving (hmmm… maybe not. Just drop hints to your other half in time for your birthday or Christmas). Experience days start at around £200 and you can learn J-turns, donuts and even have a go at that high-speed parallel parking. Visit www.paulswift.com for more.

Peageant powers forward

Despite having a comedy name that sounds like something from a Harry Enfield sketch, the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power (it’s pronounced Chumley) is a motoring event growing in status. Launched in 2008 as a Goodwood Festival of Speed for the north, it’s staged at Cholmondeley Castle in Malpas, Cheshire and – after pulling in 50,000 people last year – was awarded Best Tourist Event in Cheshire 2010. That’s perhaps not the most prestigious honour in the world, but it’s still an impressive achievement for a three-year-old idea. It’s sponsored by Bentley – based just down the road in Crewe – and the car maker has signed on the line until 2013. This year it will be bringing along the Continental Supersports Convertible ice speed record car. With the four-time world champion rally driver Juha Kankkunen at the wheel, last month it set a Guinness-approved top speed of 205.48mph on the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea. Masses of other automotive exotica will also be display at Cholmondeley, plus displays of motorcycles, helicopters, powerboats and hovercrafts. It’s all taking place on 15-17 July, and is another great example of why there will never be another British Motor Show. Visit www.cpop.co.uk for details.

The smart cookies at Porsche

You’ve got to take your hat off to Porsche, it knows a thing or two about marketing a car. On the day dealers open the order book for the 918 Spyder (pictured), they also announce they offering every customer putting down a deposit on that car the chance to buy a limited edition version of the 911. This latter car is actually badged the 911 ‘Edition 918 Spyder’. Production is limited to 918 units – exactly the same number as there will be examples of the 918 – and it gets a few unique features and detailing over the 911 Turbo S on which it’s based. The cynic in me sees this as Porsche just trying to squeeze another £125,000 out of the people who are ordering the 918 Spyder because they think they should have both cars, rather than just the one they want. I wonder what the percentage take-up will be, and what will happen to the rest? Customer deliveries of the Spyder will start in November 2013 – as a LHD model only – once each has paid £670,000. The rear wheels are driven by a plug-in hybrid drivetrain with combines a 500+bhp V8 petrol engine with two electric motors delivering another 218bhp. The result is a car that will hit 62mph in 3.2 secs, but return 94mpg fuel economy and only 70g/km of CO₂ emissions.

Mugen-tuned CR-Z on the way this year

Got to love this picture. It’s concrete proof that Honda’s long-term approved tuning partner Mugen is working on a hot version of the CR-Z. The standard car received decent enough reviews when it was launched, with the general consensus being that if you ignored it being a hybrid and drove it hard like a sports car it offered plenty of grin-inducing thrills. The Mugen variant will have more power and torque, thanks to enhancements to both the 1.5-litre i-VTEC petrol engine and the Honda IMA hybrid system. Bespoke brakes and suspension will be fitted to improve the chassis dynamics.
Honda says it will deliver Type R-like performance, and in some driving conditions the changes made to the exhaust and induction system may even result in greater mpg and lower CO₂ emissions. What’s going to mark it out from the crowd, though, is the bodykit. Check out the ground-hugging front bumper and the tidy rear spoiler. It’s also going to have a carbon fibre bonnet and new Mugen alloys to keep the weight down. Want to be first to see it? The CR-Z Mugen will make its world debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.



Driven: Vauxhall VXR8

Driving a large yellow saloon with two-tone alloys and a rear wing is enough to attract pedestrian attention during ‘walk to school’ time in most villages. Doing it with a 6.2-litre V8 growling away as I threaded my way slowly through the parked cars was enough to have me reaching for the brown paper bag and scissors. The revised Vauxhall VXR8 is not everyone’s cup of tea. But at up to £29,000 less than is rivals – cars like the Audi RS6, Jaguar XFR and Mercedes E63 AMG – it’s worthy of consideration if you’re in the market for something loud and lary. It’s still developed from the HSV model from GM’s Australian division Holden. But for this generation it’s based on the higher spec E3 GTS model, rather than the ClubSport R8. The latter is still available as an entry level model costing £45,000 from selected Vauxhall dealers, while the newcomer is priced at £49,500. With a new look inside and out, styling and quality feel much improved. The 431bhp V8 makes a fantastic noise on start-up and pushes the car to 60mph in 4.9 seconds. There’s a choice of manual or automatic transmissions, both with six speeds and both with mechanical limited slip differential. I drove the auto, which has a swift kickdown for when you want a burst of speed. But performance figures of 320g/km of CO₂ and 20.6mpg mean eco-motoring awards won’t be forthcoming.

CPP: the car company you'll be hearing more of

You will have heard of Spyker, the Dutch boutique car maker that surprised the industry just over a year ago by buying troubled Saab from General Motors. You may possibly have heard of Bowler, the specialist 4x4 company which turns Land Rovers into high performance off-roaders such as the Wildcat and Nemesis (pictured, above). But I doubt very much you’ve heard of CPP Global Holdings Ltd, the Coventry coachbuilding firm which now owns both the Spyker and Bowler brands. I chatted with Brendan O’Toole, managing director of CPP, at the recent Geneva Motor Show. We talked about the Spyker deal, which is great news for the skilled West Midlands workforce that had already been building the C8 Aileron for Spyker under contract before the sale went through. News of the Bowler deal wasn’t public knowledge at that point, but clearly negotiations were ongoing. O’Toole seems like a switched-on bloke who has got the interests of the British car industry at heart. He says CPP’s strategy is to grow as a collection of complementary specialist automotive businesses. He’s got Russian money behind him and there’s plenty of that around. So what brand is next to join CPP, I wonder?

Autocar's 5,000th road test special edition

My postman is a bit of a car enthusiast and knows what I do for a living. He put two and two together pretty soon after we moved in, what with the ever-changing range of brand new metal that litters my drive and the extensive array of motoring magazines he has to force through my letterbox. But I think even he was amazed when the latest issue of Autocar turned up. Weekly car mags are normally around 100 pages, but this particular one looks like a monthly. It’s four times as thick, and has been put together to commemorate Autocar’s 5,000^th road test. Autocar is the longest running car magazine in the world, and while its staff test-drive half a dozen cars every issue, they only do one full road test, the carefully measured assessment of every aspect of a new vehicle that runs over several pages. It’s something rival magazine Auto Express doesn’t do and marks Autocar out as unique. Fittingly, number 5,000 is the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport – “the fastest we’ve ever tested”, according to the front cover – but the magazine has also reprinted 50 other road tests from down the years. It’s a fascinating read and I’d urge all petrolheads to take a look.

Golf Cabrio reborn

The VW Golf Cabrio has a special place in my heart. Christmas 1998 was my first as a motoring journalist, and me and my girlfriend – she’s now my wife – were heading to her parents on the morning of 25 December. It obviously wasn’t warm, but it was a bright and sunny enough day for us to get the fabric roof down, wrap up in fleece jackets and woolly hats, and blast the cobwebs away down some twisty Cambridgeshire back roads. It was one of those great drives I will always remember. After a gap of 10 years the Golf Cabrio is back, unveiled at last week’s Geneva Motor Show. Sitting below the hard-topped Eos as VW’s entry level convertible – it’s about 20cm shorter – the two-door four-seater will go on sale this summer. Interestingly, the two siblings have an identical wheelbase, which means the newcomer should be pretty roomy inside. The Golf boasts an electrically-powered fabric hood which can be lowered in 9.5 seconds, including on the move at speeds up to around 18 mph. From a sentimental point of view, for me it was one of the highlights of this year’s Geneva exhibition. I can’t wait to go on the launch, and might try to sort out borrowing one for over Christmas. Knowing my luck and recent winters, it will probably snow...

Bertone's take on a new 'Baby Jag'

For me, this week’s Geneva Motor Show will go down as the one where I got lucky and managed to interview chatty people who were in a good mood and responded positively to my probing questions. Based on at least 10 previous experiences of visiting the event – I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been – that’s not always the case. Perhaps most open of all was an American car designer called Michael Robinson, who stood proudly next to his creation on the stand of Italian styling house Bertone. The stunning purple saloon was his take on what a new small Jaguar – a replacement for the X-Type – should look like. The concept car was created with the blessing of Jaguar designers, who were probably as eager as anyone else to know what they should do with that particular hole in their range. Robinson explained that what happens to the car next is completely out of his hands. Jaguar people have seen it and profess to like it, but moving from that to giving it the green light for production is a massive step. In modern times, Jaguar has never out-sourced design and production of a car, and in all honesty is probably not likely to with something as important as a new entry level saloon. At least Michael Robinson was honest enough to admit that. Nice guy. Will try to find him again at another show.