Mini E at 10 Downing Street with Gordon Brown

MINI E at 10 Downing Street with Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson


As Copenhagen week(s) is still in full swing, car manufacturers are sprinkling a whole load of electric PR across the press. Inevitably some of it rubs off on us. Having just published our electric car timeline feature, we thought we’d hoover up this one as electric Minis sound like a tempting prospect. Of course you need more than a cute car and a few batteries to get some headlines, so how about this: Gordon Brown gets one on his ministerial fleet. Strangely, this gets announced on the same day as our Boris (Mayor of London, Boris Johnson) chooses Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV to swan around the COP15 environmental summit in Copenhagen. Cast the net wider and you’ll find a whole host of car companies claiming to be THE green vehicle supplier of choice across in Denmark.
Denmark’s Crown Prince HRH Frederik and Fisker Karma

Denmark’s Crown Prince HRH Frederik and Fisker Karma

Clearly Fisker think a Prime minister is a bit lowly, and enlisted Crown Prince HRH Frederik of Denmark to fly the flag. Norwegian manufacturer THINK claims to have the largest EV fleet there. 60 Citroen EVs piled in from the UK. But maybe this is all a smokescreen to hide the disappointment that there’s only room for two in a MINI E ?! The back seat area, normally reserved for your offspring, is primed with 5088 lithium-ion cells to fuel you for a theoretical 150 miles. But whatever the advantages, when an Electric Smart can squeeze motive power into its diminutive body, you have to wonder what’s up?
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Glorious weather ruined only by strange going-ons on 4th Plinth

Glorious weather ruined only by strange going-ons on 4th Plinth


Episode 3 of 3 of our bizarre Trafalgar Square saga.

See Episode 1 , Episode 2
Intro and recap:
What do you get if you mix a JCB, a monk, and a vampire? Answer: an hour’s worth of 4th Plinth material. We think an explanation is in order…

Location: Trafalgar Square London, UK
Date: 21st August 2009, 9am
Problem: Three of four plinths in Trafalgar Square have large statues devoted to the great and good of Britain’s past. The fourth has always been empty.
Solution: Artist Anthony Gormely dreams up the idea of letting anyone fill the vacant spot for an hour. One hundred days long, this experiment in free expression, means 2400 people get to expose their talents (and some exposed more than the organisers bargained for!), and they can do almost anything.

Click on thumbnails to get the full glorious story!


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Megane Renaultsport 250

Megane Renaultsport 250

Renault just spouted out full specs for their forthcoming über-hot-hatch-coupé the Megane Renaultsport 250. This beast threatens to unleash it’s 250 horses with big torque across the powerband. How it hooves the tarmac is up to you, the buyer, as you can choose the Sport chassis, or the more track orientated Cup chassis. When the going is good, 340Nm of torque will muscle the Megane to 60mph from rest in 6.1 seconds. The Cup chassis promises an LSD (Limited Slip Differential) to help you get there without troweling too much turf. Your efforts are more than fleeting though, as the onboard “Renaultsport Monitor” records and displays all sorts of parameters such as g-force, engine power and delivery; even giving you the option to record laptimes. Order yours from November 1st here in the UK from 21,995 UKPounds upwards, with deliveries kicking off in January.

Megane Renaultsport with Trophy racer behind

Megane Renaultsport with Trophy racer behind

There’s been a growing gulf between the 5 door hatches and their 3 door coupe brothers of late. This example taking the breed further: just compare the 250 to a boggo 5 door Megane – They could almost be separate models, with only passing styling addenda to keep the model link. Take this further still and you have the Megane Trophy racer: a spaceframe silhouette mid-engined racecar with barely a Megane standard part.

Megane Trophy racer

Megane Trophy racer

Come back shortly as we will be featuring a fly-on-the-wall docudrool of a Megane Trophy racecar. We followed a “Gentleman” driver strutting his stuff on his raceday at the Nürburgring circuit in Germany. How does a mild-mannered, middle-aged privateer get on in the mad environment of testosterone-adrenaline-motorsport?


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Mini Coupe and Roadster Concept

Mini Coupe and Roadster Concept

Concept is probably a misnomer as these Minis are slated for production at BMW’s mini plant in Oxford. Revealed at the Frankfurt Show, the coupe had been leaked to the press ahead of the show, but the convertible was the promised second surprise. Both are likely to be fitted with the 1.6 litre turbo Cooper engine, adding to the 1.5 million Minis that have already rolled off the Oxford production line, in this, Mini’s 50th anniversary year. A small caveat; production versions are likely to include less radical screen and roofline profile’s, and as always, more realistic rubber and wheel clearance.


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SEAT Leon Cupra R pocket rocket

SEAT can always be counted on to spring a hot pocket rocket on us. Here are their first images of the new Cupra R, destined for the Frankfurt show this 17-27th September, and it’s…..yellow!

SEAT Leon Cupra R

SEAT Leon Cupra R


Packing SEAT’s most powerful engine at 265 hp it should shift handsomely. SEAT claim a 6.2 sec sprint to 100km/h.
full details on next page
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