Autoblog UK

Nissan has confirmed that the GT-R SpecV will be coming to the UK. There will be just 40 examples of the GT-R SpecV available in Europe costing £124,000 each.

The SpecV is powered by the same 3.8-litre V6 as found in the standard GT-R, producing 478bhp, while torque has been increased to 448lb ft. It's a much more hardcore variant of the GT-R and strictly a two-seater with carbon fibre racing seats in the front and Bose speakers occupying the rear.

Carbon fibre can be found throughout the cabin as well as making up the rear spoiler, grille and brake ducts. Coupled with lightweight forged aluminium wheels, the SpecV weighs 60k less than the standard car.

The SpecV is available to order now from just one centre in the UK, Middlehurst Motorsport GT-R Merseyside with first deliveries beginning in April

Infiniti has released details of a new model which will be heading for Europe in September 2010.

The new Infiniti M is in fact the third-generation of the firm's luxury performance saloon and will be available with a choice of a V6 petrol or V6 diesel powerplants, with a hybrid version due in 2011.

It comes equipped with a raft of high tech features, the highlights of which include Blind Spot Intervention (BSI), Active Noise Control – which eliminates unwanted noise in the cabin using opposing sound waves – Forest Air advanced climate control system, and Infiniti Drive with different throttle map setting for performance or economy.

The Infiniti M will join the range just above the G37 model with prices and specifications to be announced at a later date.

For years Chevrolet's city car was the rebadged Daewoo Matiz, a car that frankly didn't do the brand any favours. But now a Chevrolet-designed car, the Spark, has taken the Matiz's place as the cheapest and smallest car the brand has to offer. Thankfully, it's also an improvement.

With prices starting at £6,945, the Spark retains the budget nature of an entry-level Chevy – and even the range-topping model is available at less than £10,000. Unfortunately, it's not going on sale until March 2010 at the earliest, so it's unlikely to benefit from the £2,000 government-backed scrappage scheme.

Unsurprisingly, given its low price, it does feel as if it's built to a price, but it would be harsh to damn the Spark for the feel of its interior plastics, for example: most of it feels durable but there is a slight element of give to some of them, especially the door panels.

While the entry-level trim is basic, the higher specifications offer much more in the way of kit: Spark+ gets air conditioning and a USB-compatible stereo, while higher trim levels get toys such as 15" alloy wheels, a stereo with aux and USB inputs, steering wheel-mounted controls and climate control.

Diminutive dimensions are not the only reason why the Spark is better suited to the urban environment. Its light steering, for instance, makes for easy manoeuvring around town, but out on the open road, it feels a bit vague at higher speeds. That said, high speeds are not something the Spark will be able to achieve on a regular basis. The entry-level 67bhp 1.0-litre engine is very slow to 62mph, taking 15.5 seconds. The 80bhp 1.2-litre engine is little better, but it does at least mean 12.1 seconds for the benchmark. It certainly feels nippy enough around town, but overtaking can be a fairly time-consuming process.

But practicality and the ability to seat two adults in the rear is more important to the Spark than performance. Split folding back seats add to its usefulness, but it is tricky to get them totally flat and the folding mechanism is slightly flimsy.

However, the Spark's striking good looks and high level of equipment mean it is a good option for urban drivers on a budget.

People do snigger at the idea of a Skoda called Superb (the name actually harks back to a pre-war model never sold in Anglo-Saxon markets), but Skoda is very bullish about this car. While the proposition of the Superb may look simple – an executive-sized car being sold for less than a Mondeo or Insignia, the truth is a bit more complex. As the Koreans and Japanese have proved, there is no point selling an executive-sized car if it looks and feels like an overgrown Toyota Corolla, no matter how cheap the price. Kia once offered the Magentis at £9999 and a fat lot of good it did them. The Superb is different: from the outside it looks as convincing as an Audi or BMW and the quality of the interior is absolutely first class. We jumped out of a BMW Z4 and into the Superb and the latter had noticeably better fit and finish. Indeed, only Audis have better finished interiors than this car, and then only fractionally.

So it looks the part and it feels the part, but does it deliver on the road? The chassis and engines come from the collective parts bin of VW and Audi, and Skoda is normally pretty adept at combining them into a convincing whole. We tried the full range of engines, starting with the 1.4 TSI. Now, the idea of a 1400 cc engine in a car almost the size of an Audi A6 Avant may seem absurd, but this one confounds expectations. With its turbocharged and supercharged engine, it has the power (125 bhp) and torque of a 2.0 litre petrol without the thirst.

One of the perks of buying a car like a Porsche is the access it provides to the manufacturer's "Experience Days" – driving the car on the track while getting some instruction from professional racing drivers. Now Porsche has democratized the process – you can bring any car and Porsche's team will teach you to drive it better. Being Porsche, it is not any any old track, but one the company has built specially to simulate a tight A road. As well as the track, the Porsche Experience Centre includes a small lecture theatre where the theory of driving is discussed and a gym where racing drivers can test their fitness. Lest you think the gym is a bit of a token effort, it is regularly used by F1 ace Mark Webber and features equipment you are never going to see down your local Virgin Active. One of the most remarkable items is a wall of flashing lights with buttons underneath each light. The lights come on at random and you have to hit the appropriate button, at which point the next light comes on. Most people score about 60 hits in a minute, but F1 drivers get 120. That is the difference in reaction time from average to world-class.

On our visit, Vicky Butler-Henderson of Fifth Gear fame was giving part of the talk about driving technique (not a regular speaker, I regret to say). One of the most memorable things she said was that, in ten years of giving racetrack instruction, she had never met a pupil who was as good as they thought they were. With that warning ringing in my ears, we went to the track. The instructor gave clear, straightforward advice – my main area for improvement was to look further ahead so my cornering could become smoother. Interestingly, the mildly squealing tyres I thought were a good sign on one corner were nothing of the sort. They meant I was staying too long with the steering lock on and I was overheating one of the tyres.

As you read this, 20 people in Oxfordshire and Hampshire are preparing to take delivery of what BMW hopes is the future of the car. The electric Mini is part of a field trial to get real-world experience of how everyday drivers get on with electric cars. That is real electric cars, not the quadricylces being presented as cars by the likes of G-Wiz, as demonstrated by the Mini E having a Cooper S-beating 201 hp. Unfortunately, it does suffer one deficiency associated with traditional electric runabouts, however: it is only a two seater as the lithium-ion battery pack takes up the space once occupied by the rear seats (and indeed most of the boot). That is a consequence of using an existing car as a base – future electric models under development by BMW, Renault, Nissan and others will be designed around their battery packs, so passenger space will not be compromised.

From the outside, the Mini looks normal apart from a few electric stickers – in a nice touch, the socket for the recharger is positioned where the fuel cap normally goes, so owners can easily guess where to put the plug. The statistics of the Mini E are impressive: 0-62 mph in 8.2 seconds an electronically limited top speed of 95 mph , a maximum range of 156 miles and a normal range of 100-120 miles. Of course, we have been hearing impressive-sounding claims for electric cars for at least 40 years, so we wanted to know how the Mini E really drives.

It would be easy to cynically dismiss this latest Focus Econetic Stop-Start as a diesel family hatchback with an on-off button, but there are two reasons why you shouldn't.

First, the Ford Focus is Britain's biggest selling car and this Econetic version returns 74mpg, so it's the cheapest model to run. Secondly - and more importantly - it still drives, rides, feels and is equipped as well as an ordinary Focus Zetec. So you might actually want to own one.

Ford has brought in a heap of powertrain changes, chief among them a stop-start system which automatically kills the engine when its idling and switches it back on as the driver reengages the clutch. This technology is nothing new but it makes a big impact on a car whose 107bhp 1.6-litre Duratorq diesel engine is already one of the most fuel-efficient on the market.

The claimed fuel economy figure - 74.2 mpg to be precise - is impressive, but the Econetic's CO2 emissions are incredible, breaking below the 100g/km barrier for the first time in the Focus' history.

It also means the Econetic is a genuinely green proposition, with emissions to rival hybrids like Toyota's latest Prius and engineering solutions that make the Focus more likely to achieve its claimed fuel consumption than higher-tech Japanese counterparts.

In every other respect, the Econetic is a lot like an ordinary Focus with the Zetec trim, which provides a high specification, fine driving manners and a reasonably smooth, willing engine. Of course a 107bhp diesel isn't going to win traffic light sprints, but if you're after a blend of economy and fuss-free progress, it's hard to fault.

Danica Patrick may not be a household name in the UK but she came to the fledgling Autoblog website's attention for the first time a few months ago when she was revealed as one of the celebrity faces in the 'Body by Milk' campaign in the United States.

Since then - and purely because of our love for all things motorsport - we've kept a close eye on the fortunes of the IndyCar Series driver and even had hopes she might be one of the drivers lined up for the USF1 team that will take its place on the 2010 grid.

Sarah Henderson, the daughter of axed GM CEO Fritz Henderson, has gone nuclear on Facebook after her Dad resigned. An expletive-packed post from Miss Henderson's Facebook account was posted on the official GM corporate page.

Highlights included:

"He f****** got asked to step down... I'm Fritz's f****** daughter, and he did not f****** resign. Whitacre is a selfish piece of s*** who cares about himself not the company."

It's not possible to verify whether the post is genuine but it and all posts referring to it were later deleted. Happily, Jalopnik has a screen grab...

The General Motors board has sensationally axed the company's CEO Fritz Henderson.

The man favoured to run GM by the Obama administration, Ed Whitacre, has now taken over as boss of GM until a new president is found.

In a statement, Whitacre explained the board was keen to speed up change, claiming this will "mean a return to profitability and repaying the American and Canadian taxpayers as soon as possible." The coup comes despite the fact that Henderson successfully steered GM out of bankruptcy in June.

The US government deemed it necessary to issue a statement confirming it had no part in the change of leadership at GM: "This decision was made by the board of directors alone. The Administration was not involved."