Autocar - First for car news and reviews

If so, weren’t you totally knocked sideways by how comfortable, refined, well-equipped, well-mannered, easy-to-drive and actually-remarkably-fast it was?

A couple of house moves recently gave me cause to become acquainted with the rarefied delights of the modern commercial vehicle market. In the space of two months, I had weekends in the latest Renault Master and Mercedes Sprinter panel vans. I did more than 400 miles in both, to-ing and fro-ing from old gaff to new. And not once did I consider myself unlucky to be doing so: it was great fun.

I drove our long-term Subaru Impreza STi home yesterday evening and was impressed by how much smoother and less twitchy it was than its predecessor. What didn't impress me, however, was the central locking. I left my house this morning with two bags...

I've just been hearing about the hardest working Porsche 911 Turbo in the world: the one that Nissan has been using to benchmark the new GT-R against.

Apparently the Turbo (a current generation model) has covered over 30,000 miles shadowing various GT-R prototypes at testing sessions around the globe, including hundreds of laps at the Nordschlieffe. It's even got its own dedicated mechanics to keep it in tip-top condition - Nissan doesn't want Porsche to be able to send a 'fresher' Turbo out at the Nurburgring to retake the GT-R's hard won lap record.

While at the ‘Ring the other day blasting around in the new GT-R, I saw a heartwarming sight in the paddock. 

In among the Porsches, M3s and other assorted hot motors were a British registered Ford Orion and what I first thought was a Clio Williams but was actually a 1.2RN.

The Renault was driven by a young lad and the Orion by a couple of teenage girls (or perhaps early twenties). I tell you, my faith in British youth has been restored.

Here’s a good one for anoraks. Japan is an island that drives on left, just like the UK. So why is it that some cars, even some British ones, get to be shipped to Japan and sold as left-hookers?

The new Jaguar XF can be ordered in Japan in both left-hand drive and right-hand drive. An interesting option, you might think – but what’s the point?

I've just spent a very memorable morning travelling from central London to Silverstone.

It’s the sort of journey that would normally cause serious stress on the south east's traffic clogged road network, but today it was rather wonderful.

In part this was due to  my wheels for the occasion, an Aston Martin DBS, but in la rger measure it was thanks to Sergeant Paul Mostyn of the Metropolitan Police's Tactical  Motorbike Unit and six of his colleagues, who worked together to give the Aston - and the 35 other supercars in our procession - the sort of experience more normally enjoyed by senior government ministers and visiting heads of state.