International Vt365 Engine Block 1838170c2 on 2040-parts.com

Ford Mondeo Vignale revealed – it’s back to the days of Ford Ghia

The Ford Mondeo Vignale (picture) has been revealed as Ford’s new range-topper Mainstream car makers have always tried to add some glitz and gloss to their models by tagging on a badge they thought made their cars more exclusive. Like Ford with endless ‘Ghia’ models sitting at the top of the Ford range after they bought Ghia of Turin in 1970. Ford continued to use the Ghia badge to mark out its best-equipped models until very recently (you could still buy a Fiesta Ghia as recently as 2008) but they finally dropped the badge and moved their top of the tree badge over to the ‘Titanium’ moniker.

Jaguar XK 5.0 Portfolio Convertible Review – Richard Madeley

Richard Madeley spends a week with Jaguar's XK Convertible I’ve always held a torch for Jaguars; forgave them their trespasses even back in the bad old 1970s; loved them as things of beauty even when they weren’t. Whatever the model, whatever the year, they were Jaguars, and that was that. A bit like the Beatles’ White Album – a classic, for all the obvious flaws that only a crashing bore would draw attention to.

Spy Shots: Could this be the 2014 Porsche GT3 RS?

Brenda Priddy & Co. sent us the above photos in an e-mail with the subject line “BREAKING: 2014 911 GT3 UNCAMOUFLAGED!” So, we opened it and found a few shots of Porsche's new rear-engine, mini Panamera in “all black everything” but sporting very little camouflage. If this is indeed the 2014 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the bodywork is either quite a bit more restrained than that of the outgoing 997.5 GT3 RS, or it's wearing bodywork that won't appear on the 2014 GT3 RS when it debuts at the Paris motor show in September.