Summer finally appears to have arrived in Britain, so hopefully PH has been swapped for the pub in these lovely evenings. Fortunately, you haven't missed out, as all our news is here in the PH Motoring Week.
The ultimate driving machine
PH Hero
celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, so we had to join in the celebrations. The
BMW M3 CSL
has been to Germany for an
anniversary tour
met withits 3.0 CSL
antecedent and visited the
AC Schnitzer factory
. Quite a week for Sean Carson then, but it is quite a car.
Moreover, Dale's E36 328i continues as a reliable 'ring tool, even when faced with a rogue deer. He's also blogged on the lifting of an on-boardcamera ban at the Nordschleife, questioning the original wisdom of the legislation.
Alpina's work on stock BMW products have made it a successful manufacturer in its own right. Amongst a plethora of desirable cars in the PH Classifieds, a B12 6.0 seemed like a great Alpina with which to illustrate the point for a Spotted on Tuesday. Just in case that wasn't enough Bayerische Motoren Werke for one week, a fantastic shot of both CSLs is POTW.
One 'ring to rule them all
The Nurburgring has featured elsewhere in PH news this week too. Chris Harris battled it with a
Formula Ford Ecoboost
, following in the footsteps of Nick Tandy's amazing
7:22lap
. Mercedes has also claimed the
Nordschleife
production EV record
, an SLS ED setting a 7:56 lap.
Back in Britain, and it's been a significant seven days for the police. Not only has it been given the power to
fine middle-lane ditherers
Skoda
Octavia vRS
, that perennial patrol favourite, has been revealed in its third generation.
Events on the Isle of Man TT have been dominating PH2, including a great video of John McGuinness and a fascinating insight from John Urry about the event. And if that's whetted your appetite for two-wheeled fun our man Jon Urry's been out indulging his love of Ducati on the outrageous Panigale R, a bike he describes as "like riding an argument" and did a good job of frying his leg on the exhaust. See the full review here.
Eurovision hot hatch contest
We've had two of Peugeot's greatest hot hatches feature on PH since Monday too. Chris Harris spotted this as-new
106 Rallye
on Thursday, which followed a
205 GTI/CTICarpool
duo on Monday. The FWD frolics were completed by a Blood Brothers comparison between the
Citroen
DS3 Racing and Mini JCW
. But hot hatches can of course be RWD too, as Renault has proved so terrifyingly over the years, and which was marked with Monday's
PH Heroes
Volvo waved goodbye to its quirky C30 this week, and we may have seen the back of the Pagani Zonda following the unveiling of the track-only Revolucion. Perhaps.
A busy week with a lot going on but we still had time to clamber onto our soapboxes on occasion. Chris Harris mused about whether the base 2.7-litre Cayman is, as many suspect, the
pick of the
bunch
while Dan got very excited about the TT - deservedly so given the action that's unfolded. Dan also kicked off a new series on PH called
MyDream Drive
- we want to hear yours so have a look and if you feel inspired drop us a line. There are BTCC tickets in it for anyone whose route we publish.
We'll save the biggest story in the PH sphere until last. Yes, bigger even than those middle lane hoggers.
Beacuse it seems TVR might be back from the dead. On Thursday we investigated a mysterious update to the TVR website saying 'never say never' and spoke with a business associate of Nikolai Smolensky who dropped some pretty big hints that a new Ferrari beating TVR was coming. What he neglected to mention - and only did so after Autocar got the full story from Smolensky himself - was that the Russian businessman has actually sold TVR, job lot, to a British concern. Details remain murky but it seems the days of Russian ownership are over and TVR is back in British hands. What happens next is anyone's guess...
- Nissan 370Z NISMO driven
- Harris goes spending
- Revised Porsche Panamera first drive
- And much more!