Subaru WRX STI beats Tony Pond’s Isle of Man lap record

Mark Higgins beats the TT course in to submission Tony Pond was a rally driver in the 1970s and ’80s, and he was rather good. Good enough to give the likes of Jimmy McRae a spanking from time to time and to drive in umpteen works cars, from Ford to Rover via Datsun. But Tony Pond is probably best remembered for piloting a Rover 827 Vitesse round the Isle of Man TT Circuit in 1990 at an average speed of over 100mph, the first time that had been done.

VW Taigun: It’s an Up! SUV

Volkswagen has revealed the VW Taigun at the Sao Paulo Motor Show in Brazil, a very compact SUV based on the VW Up! The Taigun is 3859mm long and 1728mm wide, making it a chunk smaller than the next VW SUV up (the Tiguan) and smaller even than Nissan’s Juke, but it gets an extra 50mm in the wheelbase compared to the Up so interior room looks decent. Vw say the Taigun is purposely designed to look just like a mini-me Tiguan or Touareg (and sound like one too) with its very similar styling, high ride height, skid plates and roof rails with an interior that offers room for four and enough spce for 280 litre of stuff in the boot (a plentiful 987 litres with the back seats folded).

Camaro poised to claim pony-car sales title over the Mustang for first time since ’85

With just weeks left in the year, Chevrolet’s hot-selling Camaro looks like a lock to win the pony-car sales title in 2010, topping the Ford Mustang for the first time in 25 years. So far this year--Camaro’s first full sales year since production ended after the 2002 model year--Chevy has sold 75,685 Camaro coupes. Mustang sales totaled 68,264 through the first 11 months of the year.