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VW Golf GTI Excessive (2010): the maximum GTI

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 16 May 2010 07:07 The Volkswagen Group has fallen in love with the Austrian hot hatchfest that is Wörthersee. Barely a year goes by when an outrageous Audi or VW isn't being wheeled out to Europe's GTi fans – and 2010 is no different. The new VW Golf GTI Excessive is not as extreme as its name suggests, but rather it's a gently tweaked-up version of one of the most rounded hot hatches on sale today.

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid (2011) first official pictures

Porsche has released details of its updated 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the 2010 original nearly won last year's Nurburgring 24hr race before (ironically) it retired with petrol engine failure.  The 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid – the lowdown Before this report disappears in a chorus of ‘it looks the same as last year’s one’, let's outline where Porsche’s engineers have been busy. At the unfashionable end of the car remains a 4.0-litre flat-six engine producing approximately 470bhp. Up front are twin electric motors, now producing 75kW of power each (up from 60kW) and combined these give the GT3 R Hybrid a 197bhp electric boost, which can be programmed to activate automatically via the throttle pedal, or manually selected during overtaking. F1-derived hybrid tech for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid Power for the two electric motors doesn't come from batteries, but flywheel accumulator technology from Williams Hybrid Power, an offshoot of the Williams Formula 1 team. The flywheel, encased in a carbonfibre safety cell in the space where the passenger seat would be, spins at up to 40,000rpm and acts as a mechanical energy store for the electric motors. Regenerative braking feeds energy back into the flywheel system – no surprises there, as the technology is derived from Williams' exeprience with Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) in F1.

Top Gear: TomTom SatNavs voiced by Jeremy Clarkson pulled

Clarkson's voiceover for TomTom SatNav cancelled It seemed like a cracking plan for all concerned to get Jeremy Clarkson to add a voiceover for a TomTom SatNav, particularly with the Top Gear live show rapidly approaching and a million children starting to wonder what on earth they can get dad for Christmas. But it looks like someone has dropped a big clanger as it’s been revealed that getting Jezza to attach his voice – and name – to a TomTom SatNav breaches the BBC’s editorial guidelines. As a non-commercial organisation (although that’s extremely debatable when it comes to BBC Worldwide) the Beeb has to make sure it’s not seen to be promoting any particular products and, more importantly, that its on-air talent aren’t entering in to commercial agreements for products they are associated with.