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Ford Cortina: 50 years ago today…

Ford are celebrating 50 years since the first Ford Cortina was launched and changed the car landscape forever. The Ford Cortina went on to sell an impressive 4.3 million during its twenty year life, eventually turning in to the Ford Sierra and then in to the Ford family car of today – the 2013 Ford Mondeo (which, interestingly, can be had with the 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine – smaller even than the 1200cc of that first Cortina). That first Cortina was the start of Ford’s dominance of the UK car market, leading to an unbroken run of 35 years as the best selling car brand with most of the Cortinas, almost 3 million of them, built at Dagenham – in the days Ford actually built cars here.

2013 Belgian Grand Prix: Hamilton pole for Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton (pictured) takes pole for Mercedes in the 2013 Belgian Grand Prix The F1 circus returns this week after its summer holidays, but it’s business as usual for Lewis Hamilton after a cracking lap in final qualifying saw him take pole position for tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. For a while it looked like Force India’s Paul di Resta would score his first ever pole as he took to final qualifying with his car on intermediate tyres whilst all the rest started on dry tyres. As the rain started to fall, di Resta put in a time that looked unbeatable as the rest of the final qualifiers struggled to put their power down.

Nissan X-Trail stars at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show

Nissan has revealed its much-needed new X-Trail here at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show – a genuinely global car that will now be sold in 190 countries around the world from 2014. The new Nissan X-Trail has evolved to become more of a crossover model than the traditional 4x4-look old version: Nissan reckons it is the ‘ultimate all-weather highly capable modern family vehicle’.