1968 Christophorus Porsche Anniversary Magazine on 2040-parts.com

Range Rover Sport desert-bashing exploits now on video

The new Range Rover Sport demolished the Empty Quarter Last month we reported on an adventure for the Range Rover Sport (to add to its recent Pikes Peak jaunt), with Land Rover taking the new Sport off to the Empty Quarter Desert in Saudi Arabia (which also runs through  Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen) to see if they could cross it in a day. The Empty Quarter – the largest sand desert in the world – has endless miles (well, 500 miles) of hostile sand and dunes and temperatures as high as 50C – so it was quite a task. Land Rover enlisted Dakar Rally man Moi Torrallardona to take the driver’s seat and he managed to take the RRS through the Empty quarter in just 10 hours 22 minutes at an average speed of 51.7 mph.

MINI Paceman Adventure Concept – it’s a Countryman Pickup

It’s a MINI Pickup – the MINI Paceman Adventure It’s always hard to decide if a MINI concept – and they’re not exactly as rare as hens teeth – is a real one-off or a pointer to a future production MINI. A good example of that is MINI’s April Fool in 2012 for ‘Camping MINIs’ which turned in to a fully-blown official concept in 2013 as the MINI Clubvan Camper, Countryman All4 Camp & Cowley Caravan. Now we get the MINI Paceman Adventure Concept, a pickup based on the Pacemena (itself based on the Countryman) put together by BMW students and instructors at plants in Munich and Dingolfing and built as an exercise to show the skills and talent of the apprentice programme.

Volvo to shake up S, V, C and XC badges

Volvo will overhaul its naming system in the coming years - removing some of the uncertainty over odd numbers in the same range, such as the S40 and V50.Chief executive Stephen Odell today admitted he found Volvo's badges confusing when he first joined Volvo two years ago. 'When I arrived at Volvo I struggled to understand the nomenclature,' he admitted. 'Yes, we will be changing it.'Under the new naming system, the S40 and V50 would carry the same number.