5 Things That Happened This Week in Motoring

Toyota and BMW to continue on the FT-1, price or engine - still unknown.

"Toyota and BMW are in the concept stage and all is going according to plan" - said an official BMW source and then suddenly lost his voice. That is about the whole amount of factual information we have about the FT-1. Nothing is said about what engine it will use or whether it will have an engine at all. My thoughts are that it will be a high revving 4 litre BMW V8 with intake fiddling by Yamaha but I am secretly hoping they make a 2JZ ver. 2.0 and rewrite history again. At least we have some pretty pictures of it and we know it does sexy things like this:

Prices for Mercedes AMG GT in UK announced

GTS Edition 1

base GT

At £97,195 the base GT model will have around 460 bhp and will be available in the UK late 2015. Until then we have the £110,495 510 bhp GTS Edition 1 which is available right now and when you're thinking of buying a £100,000 sports car, waiting 1 year for a slower version is not really something you'd want.  

At that price the GTS Edition 1 is a bit cheaper than a Porsche Panamera Turbo S and a little dearer than a Panamera Turbo. Both of these Porsches are ferociously fast and
wonderful grand tourers, so the Mercedes AMG GT faces tough competition in the comfort and speed department. In the smoke making department,however, the AMG GT is still unsurpassed.

BMW M4 gets even more aggression

This is the M performance package for the already very M performance BMW M4. The added splitter makes the front really aggressive and what looks like a potential cutting hazard. Sharp angles and edges are what M performance have been aiming for with this M4, but I believe the beauty of the car is in it's flowing forms and swooping lines. To fully appreciate the sexiness of the M4, here it is, doing it's thing at the same slow-mo skidpan as the AMG GT above:

Clarkson being Clarkson

Top Gear's resident orangutan and the world's most practical man has done it again. During a rehearsal for the upcoming Top Gear Live show, Jeremy suggested the brilliant idea to accelerate to 60 and then stop all inside a not very large stadium and on a not very grippy surface. The results are... predictable.

2002 Opel Zafira Covers 500,000 kilometers

As the last news item for the week we have this Zafira that has covered 500,000 kilometer without any major issues. Very interesting news.  I can almost hear all the w123 300d Mercedes owners laughing in their retirement homes.