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End of the road for 'Queen's favourite' car

ONE OF the most-loved and long-lived road vehicles, and a favourite with the Queen, is to cease production. The last Land Rover Defender will be produced by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) at Solihull in the West Midlands in December 2015. Featuring in the Angelina Jolie film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and in the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, the Defender name can be traced back to the early 1990s.

Viva La Viva

VAUXHALL is to resurrect the Viva name as it plans to launch an entry-level car to sit alongside its Mini rival the Adam and soon to be launched new Corsa supermini. For now the car maker isn’t giving much away, although it has revealed that the new car will be a five-door model. And while the new Viva will be a significant step up in terms of refinement and sophistication over its 1963 namesake, it’s clear that Vauxhall is keen to tap into the current trend for producing low cost cars that’s proved so successful for the likes of Dacia.

VW Passat: New distance world record

VW Passat World distance Record When you as old as I am (or at least as old as I feel) you can’t help but be astonished at the feats of economy car makers seem able to wring from even quite serious, upmarket cars. Yesterday we reported on the Mercedes S250 CDI which manages to perform like a 1990s V8 S-Class whilst simultaneously doing nearly 50mpg. Which to an old git like me – who thought his 3.0 litre Capri in his teen years was doing well if it got 18mpg – is a bit hard to acccept.