EV discounts get the green light

It’s a decision that probably won’t register on the radar of most performance car fans, but it should. Yesterday the new Government decided it will stick by the old Government’s plan to offer a £5,000 incentive to everyone who wants to buy an electric vehicle (EV). The current regime of cost-cutting meant Gordon Brown’s plan had to go back to the drawing board to be re-examined, but now it’s been given the green light for the second time. This is good news for everyone, because if we are going to have more vehicles along the lines of the stunning Tesla Roadster EV (pictured), then the UK has to be serious about building an infrastructure in which designing, engineering, testing, assembling, selling, owning and driving EVs is taken seriously. Yesterday, one small step was taken on a very long road to making that happen.

Who's a lucky lad then?

Spent a very warm and enjoyable day at the World Touring Cars at Brands Hatch the weekend before last, as a guest of Chevrolet. The racing was good, though a little too much of a procession for most fans’ liking. We left after the second touring race ended, which I suppose was about 3.30pm… and of course missed the most dramatic moment of the day. If you’ve not seen the crash in the SEAT Leon Eurocup I recommend you take a look. It’s all over YouTube so not hard to find. Go have a look. How lucky is the marshall with the cap on? Half a second later moving away from the Armco barrier and he wouldn’t be alive. Also lucky is driver Francisco Carvalho; what with this cartwheel and Mark Webber going airborne in the F1 recently, and both emerging with nothing more than dented pride, you’ve got to be impressed with motorsport vehicle safety. There’s a time not that many years ago when both of these people would be brown bread. And it’s a good reminder that marshalling isn’t just about getting close to the action without having to buy a ticket. These people genuinely risk their lives.

DIY car-building at its finest

Most of us go through a ‘designing the perfect car’ phase, but generally grow out of it as we discover the opposite sex and alcohol. For others it never goes away. Feast your eyes on stunning roadster, loosely based on the Slovakian K1 Attack kit-car but modified by Oliver Ashley, a 26-year-old technical manager at a Merc garage in Bristol. He’s spent 4,000 hours of spare time over the last three years – not to mention around £70k – creating his own machine. It’s appearing at a number of car shows this summer. “I have actually assembled the car four times since starting the project,” said Oliver. “I had an original concept firmly in mind, and the design and specification evolved as I went along by building the car, checking the fit of every new component, dis-assembling, making modifications and so on, until I was happy with every element.” Interior tech includes state-of-the-art audio and DVD equipment, amplifiers, speakers, hard drive navigation and a reversing camera system. It’s all been provided by Clarion.

* No posting on Monday as I’m on a camping holiday, and outdoor bacon butties with my kids takes priority over blogging. And I doubt there’s wifi. See you Tuesday.

Driven: Abarth 500C

Spent a very enjoyable few hours blatting across the North Yorkshire Moors last week in the newest hot hatch from Abarth. If you’ve not heard of the brand it’s the in-house performance division of Fiat, but is a separate company. If you buy the Fiat 500C Abarth (above), you’re buying an Abarth 500C and that’s what it says on the V5 log book. The car is the hot version of the convertible 500 and features the same 1.4-litre turbocharged powerplant, though the engine management system has been retuned to offer another 5bhp, boosting it to 140bhp. You’re looking at 0-62mph in 8.1 seconds so it’s a proper pocket rocket. The short wheelbase means this car was never going to have the smoothest ride, but the Abarth team have done a good job making it as sporty as possible without being crashy. New on this model is a paddleshift gearchange on the automatic transmission – there’s no manual version yet – and it works really well. I also got the chance to drive the car on a private test track, and it didn’t disappoint there either. At £17,500 the Abarth 500C isn’t cheap, but you’re getting a premium performance product that marks you out from the crowd.

Driven: Skoda Fabia vRS

I wrote on 24 May about the all-new Fabia vRS – Skoda’s hot hatch – and I’ve now had the chance to try it out. The UK’s motoring media met up at a private test track in the Midlands for a shakedown of the car, which is also available as an estate for the first time. I’ve never been 100 per cent happy with the Fabia’s exterior design – the proportions aren’t quite right – but it looks at its best with a bodykit and rear wing. It’s available in a range of colours, which can be specced with a black or white roof and alloys in a variety of tasteful shades and finishes. The vRS isn’t a balls-out hardcore machine, and Skoda’s belief that it’s a match for the Renaultsport Clio 200 is misplaced. But it’s a dynamic and exciting car to drive, with a nice balance of sporty ride, peformance and comfort. The thing that lets it down is the interior; it’s just not special enough. There’s vRS badging on the seats and steering wheel but that’s all. Company insiders say they’re aware of the problem and are looking at what can be done to boost its appeal. Contrasting stitching and chrome dashboard inserts seem the likely choices. The vRS is yours for £15,700, which is very good value.

Bugatti sets a new record top speed

Land speed records don’t come along very often, so when they do it’s worth making a fuss. Earlier this month, a version of the iconic Bugatti Veyron set a new marker for production cars. At the wheel of the orange and black monster (above), was the French firm’s test driver Pierre Henri Raphanel. On the first run he peaked at 266mph, on the second 271mph. The average, witnessed and verified by officials from Guinness World Records, was set at 268mph. The record-breaking runs were carried out at parent company VW’s test track at Ehra-Lessien, near its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. The final figure was a surprise to the Bugatti engineers on site, as they believed only 265mph was possible. The car in question is the Veyron 16.4 Super Sport, and signals the final production models of a car which has done much to push the barriers of automotive technology and luxury in the five years it’s been on sale. Its 16-cylinder engine delivers up to 1,200bhp through a seven-speed transmission. Only a handful of SuperSports will be made and the first five – each badged as World Record Edition – will be finished in black and orange. Not surprisingly, they have already been sold.

CR-Z parts by Mugen now on sale

(Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday. Let's just say Italian wifi isn't all it's cracked up to be.) The worse kept secret in motoring is out of the bag. Legendary Honda tuner Mugen has unveiled a series of performance and styling upgrades for the CR-Z coupé. Called the Hybrid Advanced Sports range, the parts line-up for the 2+2 includes an aerodynamic body kit. Individual components – such as the aggressive front bumper, rear diffuser, side skirts and a massive rear wing – can all be bought separately. And check out those gold rims!Under the skin there’s a range of engine tuning extras, plus suspension and brake improvements. The interior can also be given a makeover. “We’re ready to individualise and improve the dynamics of the CR-Z for the discerning owner across almost every aspect of the car,” said a spokesman for Torque Developments, which is marketing the range. Prices start at £109 for a Mugen number plate surround, while a rear wing is £952.

Camaro set for the UK

In the world of US muscle cars, the Chevrolet brand is kingpin. The Corvette is the daddy, but too hardcore and out of the price range of many fans. Its baby brother, the Camaro, is much more of an everyday workhorse and it’s going to be officially relaunched in the UK next year and sold through main dealers. This is great news; the 6.2-litre 426bhp V8 Camaro is the real deal and more than 200,000 have been sold Stateside since it went on sale last year. It’s a four-seater coupé that draws heavily on the styling of the iconic Camaro of the late Sixties. It will hit 60mph in under five seconds and rocket on to an electronically limited top speed of 155mph. The downside is it won’t be right-hand drive. The costs of retooling the car for relatively few sales in relatively few markets mean that’s always been a non-starter. Chevy bosses say more news on pricing and spec – there’s only likely to be one trim level – will be revealed later this year.

Not suitable for the supermarket car park...

You want to talk about performance? Here’s a car with a 78-litre V18 engine boosted by 12 turborchargers and developing 3,500bhp. That makes for an eye-watering 14,000Nm of torque. Needless to say the original Austin Mini that’s playing host to this monster unit – and which had just 80Nm when it was factory fresh – can’t actually move under its own power. Check out the heavy duty support struts underneath the car. The display model has been built by Cummins to showcase its latest product, the largest diesel engine to be built in the UK. Tipping the scales at more than 11 tonnes, the unit is called the QSK78 and its day job will be to power massive mining industry dumper trucks. A company spokesman said some wag had joked about fitting the engine in his Mini. “We never like to let a challenge go by unanswered so we got to thinking. It proved to be a bit tricky to fit under the bonnet but our engineers came up with a more creative solution.”