A2, Defender, Super 3: Prior's bought a Morgan to create dream fleet

After talking about Caterham Sevens for so long, I've gone down a different route...Local legend has it that Henry 'Harry' Frederick Stanley Morgan - just known as HFS these days - built his first motor vehicle because he was tired from cycling over the Malvern Hills.
The facts are, I think, a little less romantic. The eventual founder of Morgan Motor Company had plenty of access to cars from the earliest years of the 20th century, when he ran a garage and hire car business in Malvern Link,

Prior to the highly anticipated relaunch of the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer there were several years of delays. Some of those were the fault of FiatChrysler and Stellantis: It seemed they could not decide the product’s positioning internally, nor upon which base the large SUV was to sit. Other delays to launch were global in nature, as the COVID pandemic occurred at the approximate time Stellantis wanted its new product to debut. But the new Ram-based SUVs finally made it to market in 2022

From a frugal 1.0-litre to a mighty 3.9-litre V8, here’s a list of the overall winners of the International Engine of the Year trophyStart your engines.In 2021, Autocar picked 50 of our favourite road-going engines, including the Ford small-block V8, Lotus twin-cam and Porsche air-cooled flat-six. In truth, we could have selected twice as many, but we had to draw the line somewhere. Here, we’re looking at the best engines of the past two decades, according to the judges of the annual

Next Astra will be built in Germany on new platform; could become a crossover but will keep estateThe Vauxhall Astra will be reinvented for a new generation by the end of the decade, morphing into a less "traditional" shape as it aims to maintain market share in the face of soaring SUV demand.
Vauxhall-Opel has confirmed the new Astra is one of "at least" four new models it will launch by 2030, alongside the next-generation Corsa, a new SUV co-developed with China's Leapmotor, and an as-yet unna

Electric hot hatch – which reprises famous GTi badge – goes from concept to production with very few changesPeugeot has revealed the new e-208 GTi in production form, ahead of its public debut at the Le Mans 24 Hours later this week.
The electric hot hatch was unwrapped in concept form at La Sarthe last year, but this is the finished product - ready for showrooms in the coming months with a design that Peugeot says "is incredibly close" to the original show car.
The first new Pe

About a year ago, I found a U.S.-market 1999 Subaru Legacy wagon with right-hand-drive and 431,702 miles on its odometer in a Denver car graveyard. I thought it would be quite a while before I found another, but then I found this '91 in a junkyard in Carson City, Nevada.You'll find some interesting vehicles in the junkyards of the high desert around Reno and Lake Tahoe. Just at this single walk-through at the Carson City PnP, I photographed one of the first 1,000 Honda CRXs ever built, a 1948 Ca

After years of dismissing synthetic gearshifts as "gimmicks," Porsche has been won over by the Hyundai Ioniq 5 NThis week my brain dredged up Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.
In it the unnamed narrator insists to Sam-I-am that the titular dish disgusts him, only to eventually try it and, sure enough, love it. For green eggs and ham substitute an electric car with synthetic gearchanges, and for our presumptuous unnamed narrator Porsche.
The rise of the virtual gearbox: Why EV sports cars are faking

After years of dismissing synthetic gearshifts as "gimmicks," Porsche has been won over by the Hyundai Ioniq 5 NThis week my brain dredged up Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.
In it the unnamed narrator insists to Sam-I-am that the titular dish disgusts him, only to eventually try it and, sure enough, love it. For green eggs and ham substitute an electric car with synthetic gearchanges, and for our presumptuous unnamed narrator Porsche.
The rise of the virtual gearbox: Why EV sports cars are faking

Everyone loves a fast wagon - and in this story we're rounding up the very best you've ever been able to buyWhat’s the difference between an estate and a shooting brake?
A lot has been lost in the mists of time and marketing, but the latter has to have some sass to its styling. Practicality isn’t the overriding concern of most shooting brakes, but added load space is certainly handy. Here’s our run-down of the best conversions and factory-fitted fast-back wagons:Aston Martin DB

Volkswagen's MQB is among the most prominent platforms, spawning a variety of models
The word is commonly used in automotive circles, yet its meaning isn't widely understood – and is highly variableOne thing the car industry is renowned for is jargon – and the problem with jargon is that terms can be interpreted differently depending on who's using them.
Electric vehicles' traction motors are an example. Are those that avoid the use of permanent magnets separately excited synchronous

Nissan is the latest car maker to dial down its European focus
Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi are among the Japanese firms to look to other global markets for growthNissan’s announcement that Jaecoo owner Chery is ready to take over one of the two production lines at its underutilised Sunderland plant neatly illustrates a wider trend: that Japanese car companies are facing an existential crisis in Europe as their fingertip hold on a difficult market is now starting to crumble in the face of

Buick: the story of America’s oldest auto firm still runningSmall to large.By a small margin, Buick is the oldest North American company still building cars today, was the first to be incorporated into General Motors, and marked its 120th birthday in 2023.
To have survived so long, Buick has clearly been doing something right for the last 120 odd years, which is as good a reason as any for us to delve into its history:The founder
David Dunbar Buick (1854-1929) was born in Arbroath on

Simulated sequential 'boxes, pioneered by Hyundai, are the hottest new trend in high-performance EVsThe sign of any great new technology is how quickly it smoothly slips into your life.
When was the last time you actively thought about making a contactless card payment? The speed at which I defaulted to using the faux gears of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N's N e-Shift system after making first acquaintance with it - even keeping it murmuring away in the background, mimicking a dual-clutch automatic 'box

It's rare to find a Mk1 Range Rover used as intended, but this one is"It's a genuine Chelsea tractor," says Mike Hurst, pointing to the Chelsea & Kensington parking permit on the windscreen of his 1992 J-reg Range Rover 3.5 V8 Vogue SE auto, finished in Ardennes Green.
It's not his permit: it was there when he bought the car 19 years ago, unbelievably from a chap at the roadside.
Mike recalls: "He said it was knocking from somewhere and he wasn't happy. I drove it round the block. It just ne

Stellantis and fast-moving firm Leapmotor joined forces three years ago – what's next?European manufacturers have faced significant disruption and challenges in recent years, but the rapid expansion of Chinese firms into the region presents the biggest existential threat to their survival yet.
How can legacy car firms, already struggling with the cost of electrification and ever-shifting legislation, combat aggressive rivals who are out to rapidly grow market share through being leaner, fa

Cop a load of these...Not all drivers appreciate the sight of a police car behind them, but at least these will get your attention for the right reasons…Imagine how much more interesting it would be if the roads were patrolled by Porsche 911s, or Audi R8s, or Honda NSXs?
Or a hot-hatchback like the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, pictured, which saw service in the UK? Well, the police in one part of the world or other have used all these cars, and a whole lot more, so take a

Originally pitched as a variant of the Fiat Cinqeucento, this cute city car was an unlikely successIt probably wasn’t the outcome that Paolo Cantarella had banked on.
Back in 1991, Fiat Auto’s car enthusiast boss launched a design competition especially for Italian coachbuilders. The idea was that they would produce an assortment of concept cars based on the then new Fiat Cinquecento, the neatly squared-off version released that year.
Cantarella’s aims were multiple. The design

Unreliable, ugly or both, these cars stood out in the worst possible wayEven the most successful car companies miss the mark.We can think of many instances in which car firms (usually cash- or time-strapped) fumbled as they attempted to replace a popular model. Sometimes they got ahead of themselves by trying to fill a niche that didn’t exist yet – and that, in some cases, was never created. The resulting models asked more questions than they answered and they stood out like a puddle

What else to do with an abandoned airfield but make a world-class GP circuit or test track?Why are the British so good at making sports cars?
It's a question put to me in an interview recently, to which a previous interviewee had said that, in times gone by (maybe even now), only the British would be barmy enough to stand in a small, cold shed and decide that a world-class small sports or racing car might roll out of the doorway.
I think there's a bit more to it than that, and that in creating w

We join for the most important day in Renault's calendar, as all the bosses check out what's coming nextWhen François Provost, a distinguished Renault Group director of vast experience but low profile, suddenly succeeded Luca de Meo as CEO in July last year, there was no suggestion that he would be bothered about trying to mirror de Meo's well- chronicled star quality or instinct for headlines.
Whereas de Meo was a kind of troubadour car boss who has specialised in orchestrating car

When it launched in 1975, the AMC Pacer was the company's most successful new product, ever. But the success quickly unraveled, as the Pacer became a costly flop that may have doomed American Motors. 
The Last Independent Automaker is a six-part documentary series, produced by Joe Ligo, Jimm Needle, and Patrick Foster. It details the dramatic rise and fall of American Motors Corporation, told through over 35 exclusive interviews, hundreds of rare photographs, and hours of historical and ne

Ferrari and Zagato have always had a relationship that sits somewhere between inspired collaboration and polite disagreement. 
When it works, you get cars that feel like they’ve been sharpened with a scalpel, they are leaner and more purposeful than their already exotic foundations. When it doesn’t, you get something that looks like a Ferrari that’s been left too close to a radiator and melted into a shape only its designer could love. The 1971 Ferrari 3Z Spider sits squa

Most buyers would steer clear but DVLA data shows cars – including EVs and hybrids – are living longerNew data has revealed that used car buyers are still reluctant to purchase a car that has accrued more than 100,000 miles, despite the average car on UK roads now being older than it has ever been. 
According to a survey by eBay, 72% of drivers would be scared off by six figures on an odometer, while 52% would avoid a car that had surpassed 50,000 miles. 
Yet DVLA data show

Britain’s newest sports car maker goes for a gap in the market with a sub-tonne two-seaterThe demise of the old-school, British-built sports car – easy on the eye, gloriously light on its tread blocks and fizzing with feedback – has been exaggerated, according to Robin Wells, founder of Wells Motor Cars.Wells is the entrepreneur who, in 2021, revealed the Vertige at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, having developed the coupé effectively in secret since 2014, with enginee

R8 stood in the shadow of mad Italian cousins, but wildly bespoke Nuvolari can steal the spotlightEverything we read about the Nuvolari suggests Audi has little intention of perpetuating the hierarchy that saw the R8 play second fiddle first to the Gallardo then the Huracán.
This new supercar is going to have even more power than its Temerario cousin, as well as a full carbon body. Limited production will also make it precisely as exclusive as a LaFerrari. These are not the trappings of a

Believe it or not, the three-wheeler class was quite an important one - meet some of its most notable membersThe first cars sported just three wheels, and since then more than 1200 different models of three-wheeler have been produced.
But how many can you name? Morgan and Messerschmitt are the go-to brands, but after that most car fans will struggle to name many. So read on and prepare to be enlightened on some of the most bizarre vehicles ever created:Morgan (1909)
We might as well start with t

Car makers tend to produce safe, dependable designs that won't scare any horses. These are the exceptionsCustomisers around the world have been creating deliberately wild-looking cars for many decades.For at least as long, manufacturers have also come up with some pretty wild designs without necessarily meaning to. Many of their most apparently crazy cars ended up that way for sound technical reasons, or perhaps because they were simply following a particular fashion. Others can safely be descri

Our roads have become a parade of nondescript crossovers in drab paint jobs. But it wasn’t always like this and there’s evidence that something other than grayscale may soon be back on the menu.
The desaturation of our automobiles is undeniable. One only needs to look at films or television programs made before the early 2000s for proof. The streets were awash with colorful vehicles from the post-war period to roughly the start of the 21st century.
There are still colorful cars avail

The Toyo Tires Ferret is a one-of-one off-road build based on a 1959 British Ferret military scout vehicle, reimagined to showcase the durability of Toyo Open Country M/T tires. 
Originally a Cold War–era armored reconnaissance vehicle, the Ferret was completely rebuilt with a rear-mounted Chevrolet LS V8, race-spec suspension, and six massive off-road tires, including a hydraulically driven center axle for extreme traction. 
Driven by off-road racer BJ Baldwin, the Ferret tears

Ultra-exclusive Lambo Temerario twin gets nearly 1000bhp from hybrid V8 – and introduces new design languageThe new Audi Nuvolari is a limited-run 987bhp V8 hybrid supercar that serves as a new flagship more exclusive than the R8 – and, according to boss Gernot Döllner, serves as “a statement for the future” of the brand.
Powered by a twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre engine aided by three electric motors, the mid-engined Nuvolari is the fastest and mos