What the Future Holds, Nobody Knows

It's a testament to the talent, charisma and relative celebrity of Ian Callum, Derek Jenkins and Franz von Holzhausen - heads of Jaguar, Mazda and Tesla design, respectively - that they managed to captivate a crowd of industry insiders at the tail end of the Los Angeles Auto Show's second press-preview day. This despite being given a nebulous topic to discuss with a moderator who knew little about the subject. Dan Lyons, a technology columnist at Newsweek, oversaw the panel discussion that was to focus on "Tomorrow's Cars...Practical Transportation or Groundbreaking Design?" He asked only one question on that topic before digressing into a more general discourse on the design strategies of Jaguar, Mazda and Tesla.

Mercedes fued fuels F1 interest

IT REMAINS far from being Senna/Prost, Mansell/Piquet, Hunt/Lauda, but Formula One again has a rivalry to stir the senses and excite the masses. If Bernie Ecclestone was starting to grow anxious about the decline in global television audience figures, the feud between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton is manna from heaven for the sport's supremo. Prior to Sunday's controversial collision in the Belgian Grand Prix, and the explosive remarks from Hamilton that followed, the head-to-head had resembled nothing more than a playground squabble.

Hyundai i20 WRC starts testing

Hyundai has been busy plotting its return to WRC Rallying for 2014, but so far it’s all been about behind the scenes work on building an i20 capable of taking on the rally world and gathering a team that can make it a success. But with the first official outing for the i20 due in January 2014 in Monte Carlo, Hyundai has finally taken their i20 WRC out in the world to give it some proper testing outside the workshop, Hyundai have been playing on a private testing ground to check out the i20′s systems, followed by a comprehensive testing session to work on different setups and gather data, with a major focus on the i20′s 1.6 litre turbo which, until now, hadn’t been run in the car outside Hyundai’s R&D. Hyundai say all went well over the 55okm of testing across three days, a prelude to a full programme of testing in the coming months as Hyundai get closer to their official debut.