Polestar 1, £15k dog cars and the best engine

What do a Panamera and a British Rail ATV have in common? Find out this week's episode of The Gassing Station

By Cam Tait / Tuesday, 30 September 2025 / Loading comments

You know it's going to be a good podcast when one of the hosts remembers the car they’ve been driving of late. Having forgotten everything about the Ford Ranger MS-RT he’d been driving for last week’s episode, John mercifully remembered the Porsche Panamera (though not the trim, mind) he recently had on test to open the latest instalment of The Gassing Station podcast.

Regular listeners to the podcast won’t be surprised to hear John wasn’t all that keen on the new Panamera (4 Hybrid, he assumes), likening its active ride to that of the tilting, motion-sickness-inducing British Rail APT trains of the '80s. So we swiftly moved on to the incredibly rare Polestar 1 that’s currently for sale here on PH. It’s understood to be the only one currently registered in the UK, and is almost certainly the former press car I’d have driven back when it was new in 2020. It didn’t bowl me over at the time, admittedly, but I do remember enjoying the plug-in hybrid, twin-charged powertrain and, of course, the way it looked. John, meanwhile, was less keen on it, putting forward a surprisingly balanced argument for why it’s perhaps a tad overrated.

Agreeing to disagree, it was then time for a buying challenge, and it’s a real corker this week. And it’s all thanks to crowsout, who’s looking for a £15,000 dog carrier that’s petrol with a bit of “poke”, ideally an estate and can comfortably fit a dog that’s 94cm “head to butt”. A proud Skoda enthusiast, John put forward this Superb 280 which, I’m ashamed to admit, is really rather good. And he came in £500 under budget. I, however, landed on this Volvo V90 Cross Country. It may not be as quick as the Skoda, but it’s far more rugged and will serve as a trusty dog cart for many years to come. Let us know which you prefer below, or put forward your own picks in crowsout’s topic.

To finish things off, we decided to gush over our favourite engine configuration. Inspired by cerb4.5lee’s post of a similar name, John and I surprisingly agreed that the straight six is the best engine for a road car and that there’s something special about a race-bred flat-plane crank V8. As for race cars, nothing beats a Formula 1 V10 for noise and emotion, but Porsche’s old 911 RSR Le Mans racer gets mighty close. All that and much more on this week’s episode of The Gassing Station.

Listen here