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The reputation of motorway services has never been too good, that was until M&S and Waitrose were introduced and food quality was seen to improve. But leading the way was Westmorland who actually won awards for its Tebay site in Cumbria. It was the first service station to source its produce locally for its shops and café (70%) and its green picnic area. The services even won awards from Egon Ronay. It has now Read more »

Just as all our attention is being given to the new electric car initiative, now backed by the Coalition Government it seems that biofuels may be back on the agenda. For those that are unsure biofuels are a mixture of petrol and sustainable ethanol. The standard was known as E85 which means the mixture is 85% ethanol and 15% petrol. When it was being introduced it was at a time when we had massive grain mountains Read more »

Auto Express have announced their New Car awards for 2010. Over 47 pages they have listed all their major award winners. The overall car was a bit of a shock as it was the Skoda Yeti.  Some of the more interesting best cars were as follows:  Read more »

I’m confused! It happens when you get older I’m told. Why am I confused? Well just as I started to get used to cars getting bigger, and not as a result of changing my glasses, manufacturers have started bringing out cars as big as a large shoe! Look at a new Clio – it’s about the same size as an old Megane. The VW Polo is easily as big as an early Golf and a Corsa has the size these days of an old Astra. As for Mini if, as I saw Read more »

Driving is becoming a more ‘comfy’ experience as more cars are fitted with increasing numbers of creature comforts, including ambient lighting, air conditioning, lumbar seat adjustment and so on. In some cases it’s a little like driving around in your lounge often with a better quality music system than you have at home as well as an onboard DVD player. But Nissan are about to surpass them all with its new ‘health Read more »

It seems that every week I have something to say about tyres – and this week isn’t going to be any different. It would seem that there has been a growing trend towards the removal of a spare wheels from new cars, first of all replacing a full spare with a skinny emergency wheel and more recently with a puncture repair kit consisting of either a can of foam that you squirt into the tyre inflating it and sealing the Read more »

Before I explain how UK roads are the safest in Europe I read a piece by Graham Hope, deputy editor of Auto Express, referring to the same report, in which he referred to a famous joke making the point that the further south you go the worse the driving: ‘What do traffic lights mean in Italy? In Milan they’re instructions. In Rome they’re suggestions. And in Naples? They’re Christmas decorations!’ Hilarious or what? Read more »

You can forget going green with your next car in order to save fuel and kick out fewer CO2’s according to the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM – is it me or does that sound like a cat food?). They suggest that drivers and businesses could save much more by simply using better, more efficient driving techniques, such as advanced anticipation, intelligent route planning and speed control which if used together could Read more »

If you read my detailed review of the new Aston Martin city car you’ll know how dopey I found the whole idea of an Aston Martin badge on the front of a silly small car. So I was shocked to see Ferrari follow suit with their new Fiat 500 based 695 Tributo Ferrari. Surely there won’t be buyers willing to pay £30,000 for a Fiat 500 with a Ferrari badge on the front? Would there? The car will have 183 bhp giving a 0-62 Read more »

If you have a fairly recent BMW you will need to keep an eye out for low flying birds using your car as a toilet! There has been a lot of publicity recently about lime damage caused to BMW paintwork because of lime in the pooh, according to BMW. They go on to say that they will not pay for any re-sprays as a result of damage caused by bird’s mess as the damage is caused ‘as a result of outside influence’. Not good Read more »