With all the road car testing that goes on there, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the Nürburgring is still a real – and dangerous – race track. The Nürburgring 24 Hours remains one of the biggest challenges in motorsport, but Audi took victory last weekend. To say the new Audi R8 LMS was box-fresh at its Nürburgring debut was perhaps…
Audi TT clubsport turbo concept – News and photos
Another Wörthersee show car, but this time with crazy turbocharging and orange detailing? Consider our interest piqued! We’ve already mentioned Skoda’s concept efforts in advance of the annual Wörthersee festival which kicks off today, but Audi has gone decidedly all out with this mental TT clubsport turbo concept. However, there’s more than just mental bodywork – much of…
BTCC 2015 – Thruxton | Reviewed and Rated
EngageSportMode’s BTCC Correspondent returns with his take on all the action, or lack of, from Thruxton. A year ago, ESM visited Thruxton for not a particularly enjoyable experience and although ESM weren’t there in person this year, the action hardly set many viewing pulses racing. That’s not to say the racing was bad, it just…
Friday Photo – Skoda’s 2015 Wörthersee Concepts
The annual GTI Meeting at Wörthersee is something the Volkswagen Group takes very seriously, using it to show off some of the wildest creations from the VAG empire. This year, Skoda has not one, but two, special concept vehicles on show. There seems to be something of a trend with pickups as Wörthersee show creations. Two years ago Volkswagen had…
Lessons in conservatism – New BMW 3 Series and New SEAT Ibiza
Today’s title may be a pun on yesterday’s general election, but we don’t want to labour the point too much. Sorry. Yesterday also saw the unveiling of two ‘new’ cars, although you’d be hard pressed to realise it. Being a car-designer must be a fairly easy job these days, especially when it comes to mid-lifecycle ‘refresh’ time…
Friday Video – Audi RS 3 ‘Birth’
Audi has a habit of producing some rather decent adverts. There was the epic sounding R8 V10 plus one from a couple of years ago, and further back there’s the Audi 100 quattro driving up a ski jump. However, this latest one is rather bold, even by Ingolstadt’s usual standards. Take a look for yourself –…
Editorial – Is a Lotus SUV the worst thing in the world?
Possibly the biggest bit of news in the automotive media this week, is the story that Lotus plans to build an SUV model. In China. Some enthusiasts are up in arms about it, but does it really matter? There seems to be two distinctive camps in the Lotus SUV debate. On one hand are the die-hard purists,…
Friday Photo – Senna’s Toleman-Hart TG184-2 for sale
If you’ve got £1million spare, you could be the owner of this rather special piece of Ayrton Senna history. But is there more than meets the eye with this car? Currently on sale with specialist luxury car dealer Prindiville in London, this Toleman-Hart TG184-2 was driven by Senna during his rookie F1 year in 1984….
Another New McLaren – The McLaren 540C Coupé in Shanghai
It doesn’t seem five minutes since McLaren revealed the first member of its entry-level road car family with the 570S. A few weeks later and we’ve got the actual cheapest model in the Sports Series – the 540C – shown off at the Shanghai Auto Show. Unless McLaren decides to wedge an even cheaper model into…
BTCC 2015 – Donington Park | Rated and Reviewed
Although we’ve already discussed ITV’s coverage of the BTCC, our Touring Car Correspondent gives his opinions on whether the races at Donington Park were worth getting so worked up over. After 5 rounds of the BTCC, I still didn’t have that excitement about the championship that I’ve had in previous seasons. However, in one race that…
Editorial – An open letter to ITV Motorsport
Getting a full day’s live motorsport on TV, for free, is something to be celebrated. So what has got ESM’s editor so fired up about ITV’s British Touring Car Championship coverage? Ask yourself this; when was the last time you really wished motorsport coverage would switch to show people stood in the pits, rather than something…
Friday Photo – Audi Prologue Allroad Concept Car
The growing importance of the Chinese market for upmarket brands cannot be ignored. Which is probably why Audi has decided to show off the third “Prologue” concept car at the Shanghai Auto Show this weekend. Make no mistake, this is a seriously big Audi. At 5.13 metres long, this is a car of rather epic proportions,…
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