Your friendly neighborhood BMW just wrapped itself in Spider-Man

Ford's new Le Mans Hypercar has left the workshop for the first time. Six weeks after its naturally aspirated V8 first fired up, the ORECA-built prototype completed its maiden track test at Circuit Paul Ricard, with Porsche factory driver Matt Campbell and Ford's own Logan Sargeant sharing driving duties. Tom Blomqvist and Mike Rockenfeller are next in the seat, ahead of Ford's planned return to the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027.

From 1 September 2026, Flanders moves its car inspection from once a year to once every two years, aligning Belgium with most of Europe. Paperwork is cut, the insurance certificate is no longer needed at the test, and the window to repair a serious defect grows from 15 days to two months. A planned reform would also scrap the mandatory second-hand inspection for domestic sales.

Under France's 1991 Lalonde law, any car advertising showing a vehicle off public roads, on grass, sand, rocks, in a forest or a river, is illegal, and that includes Instagram and TikTok posts. It even applies to images shot abroad if they are visible in France. In January 2025 Jeep and 42 dealers were ordered to pay 250,000 euros, with fines reaching 7,500 euros per image.

Hiroshi Okuda, who led Toyota as president and then chairman from 1995 to 2006, has died at the age of 93. The first person outside the founding Toyoda family to run the company in a generation, he modernised its culture, expanded it worldwide and championed the hybrid Prius. His influence on the modern car industry is hard to overstate.

LeBron James has curated a bespoke Mercedes-Maybach S 680 through the brand's MANUFAKTUR Made to Measure programme, unveiled at Pebble Beach. Two identical cars were built, one for his own collection and one to be auctioned for the LeBron James Family Foundation in Akron, Ohio. It swaps the V12 badge for his crown logo, a first for Maybach.

Kugelwerks, a Los Angeles coachbuilder, has revealed the One Eleven, a restomod of the 1960s Mercedes-Benz W111 coupe. It uses the running gear of the previous Mercedes-AMG C63 S, including its twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 with 510 hp and 700 Nm, driving the rear wheels through a seven-speed automatic. Production is limited, deliveries start in September 2026, and prices open at 480,000 dollars.

Stellantis has told the union Unifor it is seriously considering closing or selling its Brampton assembly plant in Ontario, which has been idle since late 2023. Around 2,200 workers have been on layoff since it was retooled for the Jeep Compass, before that production was moved to the United States. The union calls it a gut punch and points to US auto tariffs as a key factor.

The buyer who paid 40 million dollars for the first Ferrari Luce at Monterey has been named as Dr Herbert Wertheim, a self-made billionaire, inventor and philanthropist who created the first UV-absorbing dye for plastic eyeglass lenses. A keen Ferrari collector, he bought a Tailor Made Daytona SP3 for 26 million at the same event a year earlier. All proceeds went to The Ferrari Foundation.

Totem Automobili, known for its restomodded Alfa Romeo Giulia GT coupes, has revealed its first in-house platform, the Tiziano, at Monterey Car Week. It uses a carbon monocoque and a naturally aspirated V12 from Italtecnica paired with a six-speed manual, and will spawn three T12 body styles. A running chassis is promised for 2027.

Mercedes-Benz has given the C-Class Saloon and Estate their most comprehensive update yet, with sharper styling, an AI assistant built on ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing and Google Gemini, and Euro 7-ready engines. Orders open on 18 August 2026, with German prices starting at €48,844 including VAT.

Hot Wheels has revealed a Red Line Club exclusive 1:64 Ferrari F40, finished in Spectraflame red over a silver plate with Real Riders wheels, an opening clamshell and a replica engine. It goes on sale on 18 August 2026 for 60 euros, members only, with a limit of two per customer. Expect it to disappear fast.

Pascal Wehrlein has won the 2025-26 Formula E world title with Porsche, his second, after a nervy London finale on 16 August where he finished 14th but held on by five points over Jake Dennis. Porsche retained the manufacturers' championship but lost the teams' title to Jaguar. Wehrlein becomes only the second two-time champion in Formula E history.

Kith and BMW have unveiled their fourth collaboration, an apparel and accessories collection built around BMW's own heritage colours and a restored 1972 BMW 3.0 CSi in Inka Orange, commissioned by Kith founder Ronnie Fieg. It drops globally on 17 August 2026 and is paired with two custom cars, a V10-swapped E53 X5 and a one-of-one 2027 X5.

MINI has entered Pakistan for the first time with an all-electric line-up, offering the Cooper E/SE, Aceman E/SE and Countryman E/SE through importer Dewan Motors and a new showroom in Karachi. On 12 August it also relaunched in Jordan with partner Abu Khader Automotive, more than a decade after first arriving there. Both moves lean hard on electrification.

Bentley has appointed T'jon Mayer as its new Head of Exterior Design and Design Operations, effective immediately. He spent 13 years at Volvo, where he directed exterior design on models including the EX60 and shaped the brand's Thor's Hammer lights, and joined Bentley in 2024. He now leads the 45-strong exterior team and will shape Bentley's electric future, starting with the Torcal.

Spain is set to approve a 200 million euro plant in Galicia for state-owned Chinese carmaker SAIC, the parent of MG, despite intelligence warnings about its location around five kilometres from the Ferrol naval base. The factory will build up to 120,000 MG electric and hybrid cars a year from 2028 and create roughly 1,000 jobs. It would be SAIC's first European plant.

The FIA has removed all restrictions on Russian and Belarusian drivers, teams, competitors and officials in international motorsport, reversing measures in place since March 2022. Ratified by the World Motor Sport Council on 3 August 2026 and confirmed on 13 August, the change also drops the neutral-flag requirement and allows national symbols and anthems. Competitions still cannot be held on Russian or Belarusian soil.

Rolls-Royce has revealed the Ghost Savile Row, a one-of-one Ghost Extended inspired by London's bespoke tailoring tradition. It pairs a two-tone Midnight Sapphire over English White finish with the brand's first pinstripe stitch and a hidden embroidery of 250.000 stitches behind the rear armrest.

Tesla plans to demonstrate a driverless Roadster hovering off the ground this month at SpaceX's rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, using SpaceX-developed cold gas thrusters. The stunt comes nearly a decade after the Roadster was first promised, following at least eight missed deadlines and several high-profile cancelled reservations.

Uber and the Chinese autonomous-driving firm Pony.ai are expanding their partnership to deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across five European cities. It grows from the existing Zagreb service to four more cities, with Pony.ai providing the Level 4 self-driving technology and Uber handling bookings in its app. It is the continent's largest robotaxi commitment so far.

Some cars are built to make sense. This one is built to make you grin. Our AutoNext Car of the Week is a 2023 Land Rover Defender 90 5.0 V8 P525 Carpathian Edition, finished in black and available at Land Rover Waimes with 37,900 km. Its supercharged 525 hp V8 fires the short Defender 90 to 100 km/h in about 5.2 seconds, it rides on air suspension and, registered as a two-seat light commercial, it is VAT deductible at €102,500.

Chassis number 0, the first Ferrari Luce ever built, sold at RM Sotheby's during Monterey Car Week for 40 million dollars, with every cent going to The Ferrari Foundation. The price blew past the pre-sale estimate and lands the polarizing electric Ferrari among the most expensive cars ever sold at auction.

RM Sotheby's sold a 2023 Ferrari Daytona SP3 for $17,825,000 at its Monterey sale, nearly $6 million over estimate and enough to make it the most expensive non-charity Ferrari ever auctioned.

Voyah, Dongfeng's premium EV brand, recreated the famous 2010 Mercedes SLS AMG Schumacher tunnel-loop stunt with its new Passion S, driving a full 360-degree loop at about 130 km/h. It claims the first unmodified production car to do it, with the full battery kept and no visual effects. The twist: the original ad was itself long doubted as fake, and Voyah got accused of the same, so it released uncut footage to prove it. In the deepfake era, the proof is the real product.

Airion Automotive, a new Berlin brand, has unveiled a Porsche 993 restomod that refuses the two things the genre is built on: nostalgia and a power arms race. Developed with design studio BorromeodeSilva and race engineers HWA, it keeps the air-cooled flat-six, now a 400+ hp 4.3-litre, the most powerful naturally aspirated 993 yet, but its design looks forward, imagining how the air-cooled 911 might have evolved after 1998. Fifty will be built from 895,000 euros. It is a restomod pointed at the future, not the past.