Try a prestige car from Europcar before you buy. Or you could just go to a dealer.

You can hire a BMW 5-Series (pictured) from Europcar before you buy It’s always good to have a promotion to get punters through the door, but the latest PR promo from Hertz does seem to have a very visible flaw in its logic. According to Europcar – the leading car hire company in Europe, don’t you know – the best route for trying out a new prestige car before you buy is to give them a call and book a day or three in the cars of your choice. Europcar say you can have anything from a 4×4 to a luxury saloon and performance cars, with the suggestion you can pit a Mercedes SLK against an Audi TTS or check out the differences between a new E-Class or new 5-Series.

Infiniti FX Black & White Edition for Europe – but not UK

A limited edition of the Infiniti FX – the FX Black and White Edition – is launched in Europe based on the FX S Premium. But not for the UK. Sales for the whole of 2012 amounted to just 582 cars (Lexus, in the same period, sold 8,404), up by an impressive 38 per cent, but from irrelevant to…still irrelevant.

1980s supercars

By Tim Pollard and Ben Oliver 10 July 2008 16:01 Supercars in the Eighties The Italians continued to innovate in the ’80s, but they also came under pressure like never before from a series of supercar wannabes. The Germans fettled the humble 911 Turbo into the race-spec 959, which showed how computers could sport brains as well as brawn. Meanwhile Honda showed the NSX, which became the first contender from the Orient.