Car Throttle

When you think about it, it’s pretty incredible that something as complex and carefully engineered as a car is such an integral part of our lives. So many different systems all coming together to create a harmonious whole is one of the miracles of modern engineering. It’s perhaps even more remarkable, though, that much of the lifeblood of the car comes from a simple 12-volt battery, and that without that, you’re essentially looking at an oversized, overengineered paperweight.

Cars are big, complicated things, full of dark corners, deep crevices and hidden areas, all of which you’re going to want to get a good look at if you’re working on them. Any good home mechanic, then, needs a good portable work light for shedding some light on those tricky to access areas, and we don’t think you can go wrong with Clarke’s PL5R Slim Pocket LED Work Light/Torch, especially for just £20.99.

Buying a 520hp Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio is not a decision anyone makes after carefully comparing boot capacities and annual road-tax. You buy one because it has a Ferrari-derived twin-turbo V6 and a four-leaf-clover badge. But the problem is that, once you have bought one, there are very few places in Britain where you can meaningfully explore what all that power is capable of.

James May has weighed in on the debate around dangerous-driving videos following the devastating A66 crash which claimed seven lives, including those of two police officers. Speaking to LBC’s James O’Brien, the former Top Gear presenter said that while social media platforms have a responsibility to remove content glorifying reckless driving, it would be too simple to suggest that TikTok and similar apps are solely to blame for people making dangerous decisions behind the wheel.

Toyota has made some brilliant enthusiast cars in recent years. The GR Yaris is a modern classic, while the Supra and GR86 have proved the company still understands the appeal of a fun, relatively simple performance car. But there’s another new Toyota that might be even more exciting - the Land Cruiser FJ. It is essentially a baby Land Cruiser; smaller, cheaper and more manageable than the full-sized model, but still built to do proper 4x4 things.

If your idea of a good weekend is spent getting your hands dirty working on your pride and joy, then you’ll already understand the importance of a good jack. After all, pretty much any mechanical job you can that you can’t carry out by going in under the bonnet, you’ll need to get underneath the car to do instead.

The ongoing modernisation of cars has brought with it many benefits: comfort, refinement, reliability, efficiency… the list goes on. What it’s also led to, though, is ever-greater complexity, and as a result, it can be harder than ever to pin down the exact source of a problem or the cause of a warning light. That’s where on-board diagnostics come in.

Rivian is still a largely unknown entity in Britain. The American EV maker doesn’t officially sell cars here yet - but that’s finally set to change. The company recently confirmed that the UK forms part of its European expansion plans. So, why should you care about yet another electric SUV brand heading our way?

The whole point of a hot hatch was that you didn’t need loads of money to have loads of fun. You’d simply take an ordinary family hatchback, give it a punchier engine, tighten up the suspension, throw in some bigger wheels and even a spoiler, and you'd have a performance car that normal people could actually afford. That formula worked brilliantly for decades, but the hot hatch market in 2026 is now quite different.

There are plenty of performance cars we miss, but some departures sting more than others. It’s one thing for an ageing model to disappear before being replaced by something faster and better, but it’s quite another when a manufacturer kills off an entire kind of car and leaves nothing in its place. That’s what happened to these seven cars below. Some fell victim to tightening emissions rules, others to changing tastes or manufacturers deciding there simply wasn’t enough money in them anymore.