Is nothing sacred from the unstoppable rise of the SUV? Now after a century of producing grand tourers and saloons, not even Maserati is immune from the lure of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Although not due to make an official debut until the Geneva Motor Show next week, Maserati released a limited number of photos showing…
Category: Opinion
Five ways the Hyundai i30 Turbo beats the new Ford Focus RS
We’re not kidding when we say we’ve found a quintet of things that places the i30 Turbo ahead of the Focus RS. If you’re thinking of placing an order for Ford’s newest hero you might want to read these first. We apologise that it may all seem a little BuzzFeed-esque, but it’s hard not to get swept up…
Editorial – A blog about car blogging.
Are unpaid bloggers killing motoring journalism? Do we even know what a ‘hobbyist’ is? Is the real threat to the industry from within? Our editor explores. Neil Briscoe of Complete Car caused something of a social media sensation over the weekend, declaring that motoring journalism was under threat, and that the written word was facing Armageddon. Strong…
Editorial | What road for Top Gear now?
Clarkson and Top Gear have dominated the news this week. EngageSportMode’s editor gives his opinion on what this latest controversy means for the future of the world’s most popular motoring media brand. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or in an area without 02 signal, for the past week you’ve probably heard a little story about…
Review – Top Gear Live 2015 at Metro Radio Arena
Turning an immensely popular global television success story into an arena show – how hard can it be? The short answer is not particularly difficult. The longer answer is whether or not such relative ease truly adds anything to the Top Gear brand, other than around 90 minutes of fireworks, flames and digs at the Argentinians. It’s…
Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupé – Answering a question nobody asked?
We’ll cut to the chase. Here at EngageSportMode we’re not huge fans of SUV based ‘coupé’ creations like the BMW X6, so a new offering from Mercedes-Benz is not really the early Christmas present we were wanting. We fully respect the right of people to drive what they want, and manufacturers to create what they see the…
Editorial – Have you got fuel economy OCD?
Motorway cruising has got our editor thinking about just how far do you need to go in the pursuit of fuel economy, especially when it’s probably an impossible task. Driving down the A1(M) in the Polo R-Line the other day, sulking whippet in the boot, something struck me about the traffic that was being generated. Usually on the A1(M)…
BTCC 2014 at Thruxton – Editor’s View
Last weekend EngageSportMode made its first trip all the way from the North East to Thruxton in the South. After several hundred miles of driving, lots of energy drinks and the requisite sunburn quota, was it all worth it? 302 miles is the distance from EngageSportMode.com headquarters to Thruxton race circuit in Hampshire. Local to us…
A Girl Writes – It’s a Boy/Girl Thing Part II
Tonight, ESM’s opionated Other Half returns with a second article discussing the touchy subject of “girl’s cars” and shows us some notable, yet respectable, examples. It’s a Boy/Girl Thing – Part II When I wrote my last post I felt it important to establish the criteria of a “girl’s car” and why certain models were branded as…
An ESM Public Safety Announcement
At EngageSportMode.com we like our motoring to be that little bit more exciting. It’s possibly why we’ve struggled to understand a recent press release by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, advising on how to drive in windy conditions. The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) aims to improve the skills of British drivers. These are a few of our favourite…
Two Spoke Steering Wheels – The resurgence
Over the past week EngageSportMode has noticed a revival in something quite old-fashioned, that we thought we’d previously seen the last of. No, it’s not the announcement of another new MG model, but two spoke steering wheels in modern cars. BMW’s brand new electric i3 features a duo-spoker in its futuristic eco-friendly interior. To be…
Why the Volkswagen XL1 is better than a Le Mans racer
Volkswagen is currently making a lot of noise about this: If you didn’t already know, that’s the Volkswagen XL1, currently the world’s most fuel-efficient hybrid car in regular production. EngageSportMode isn’t usually a fan of eco-cars, but the design details of the XL1 mean that it feels less hair shirt and more Nomex overalls than…
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