Mako Marine 232 Boat Placards on 2040-parts.com

New Range Rover tows Airstream 684 to Africa – and back

Land Rover has hitched the 2013 Range Rover to the luxurious Airstream 648 and towed it to Africa and back – 3,676 miles in 11 days. But nothing rams home the abilities of a car, even a luxury SUV, like a long-term challenge; the novelty wears off and what is left is the inherent abilities to judge. And it seems Land Rover has managed to demonstrate just how able the new Range Rover is with the sort of towing job few Range Rover owners will ever undertake.

Visions of Voisins

It'll be the largest collection of Automobiles Voisin ever assembled since the factory closed in 1937. Peter Mullin, collector extraordinaire of beautiful French cars of the art deco movement, has spent the last decade scouring the planet in search of some of the 200 or so remaining Voisins to feature in an exhibit of the marque opening this fall in his Mullin Automotive Museum. The result is 15 cars, one motorcycle and an airplane.

2013 Nissan LEAF updated

Nissan has updated the LEAF EV in Japan for 2013 with better range, less weight and a new LEAF S entry-level model. Revealed in Japan – but likely to come to the UK from 2013 when the LEAF starts rolling out of Nissan’s Sunderland factory – there are significant upgrades to the powertrain which result in both less weight and better range. Nissan has had a play with the electric powertrain and made it both smaller and lighter with a new motor that uses 40 per cent less dysprosium (a rare earth metal) than before, and comes in 30 per cent smaller and 10 per cent lighter, and a new streamline battery case and a few other tweaks drops the LEAF’s weight by 80kg.