Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Britain hasn’t had a Bluebird since 1990, when the Primera arrived. But it’s a car that many of us will remember as the ubiquitous ‘90s minicab: for about five years it felt that every private hire trip I took was in the back of a blue-smoking 2.0D version.

Anyway, I digress – but not by as much as you might suspect. Because somehow during the last 18 years and however many subsequent iterations, the Japanese-spec Bluebird still shares some recognisable characteristics with the ones I remember: this must be the last car in the world to feature velour panels on the insides of its doors.

So what exactly is this rotationally-monikered event? Pretty much the ultimate toy box, to be honest. Nissan has got together every vehicle it makes, anywhere in the world - from the GTR down to tiny Japan-spec city cars, for journos to have a go in. There's even a Cedric taxi in full-on Tokyo spec, including lace doilies on the rear seat and a set of white gloves to wear while you drive it.

Fledgling Keating decided that no journalists would actually drive its SKR. But from this evidence, it seems to be another under-engineered British sports car with a big American V8, no heritage and an optimistic asking price.

The Merseyside likely lads behind Keating want £90,000-125,000 for the SKR. But that cost is “arbitrary” I was told, so it might be more, depending on ‘what the customer wants’.

So far Keating has built just one, and it’s a machine whose build quality is akin to a hobbyist’s kit car, not a £100 grand supercar. Despite the Ford Sierra switchgear, the interior’s not nearly finished, which makes me wonder if the Keating dream has run out of money and now needs customers, who’ll essentially pay to complete the car’s development. Which would explain the ‘arbitrary’ price.

This experimental Trifuel Exige 270E can run on any mix of petrol, ethanol or methanol, its engine management system able to detect the mix currently occupying the Lotus’s tank and adjust accordingly.

The point of this exercise is not so much to demonstrate that an engine and its fuel systems can be modified relatively easily to deal with a mixed diet, as to make the case for methanol. Which can be part-made from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – see our news story for more.

But I’ve just driven the Skoda Octavia 1.9 Tdi through London and back round the M25, and I’m sad to report that it’s not quite the dream-come-true package I was expecting.

On the motorway the transmission works superbly, but the pumpe-duse engine is too vocal and sounds all too like the the previous-generation diesel technology that it is. But to give Skoda credit where it’s due, it achieved 49.6mpg over 50 miles, 15 of which were in town traffic – and I wasn’t trying to drive economically.

Sections of the centre console and the interior door handles are finished in either matt metallic blue or orange, although the same bits are an unimaginative silver in the pricier Titanium.

It’s novel and neatly done - and I earnestly wish I liked the effect, because car interiors are generally so conservative. But it doesn’t quite work for me, and not half as well as the orange detailing in the Ford SAV concept interior that previewed the S-Max.

At least Ford is experimenting with interiors and colour, which is more than most manufacturers are managing.