Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut rewrites the production car record books

Six companies of the Siegen-based Wahl group have filed for insolvency in self-administration, putting 31 sites and around 1,000 jobs into a restructuring. It comes eight days after Berlin's Autohaus König, the largest Renault retailer in Germany, filed with 82 locations and 1,200 employees. Wahl had gone from five brands to sixteen in two years, adding MG, Xpeng, Leapmotor and Maxus on the way.

Audi has settled the outline of a restructuring that ends its double four-ring operation in China. FAW-Audi takes the design, production and sales of every four-ring model, while SAIC Audi is left with the letters-only AUDI brand. It is a reversal for a joint venture set up in 2021 specifically to build four-ring Audis, and it lands as Audi's Chinese profit collapses.

Polestar has released a single image of the Formula 2030, the first concept drawn from scratch under design chief Philipp Römers. The full car arrives in October, but the styling only reaches buyers with the next Polestar 2 in 2027 and the Polestar 7, the brand's first Europe-built car, in 2028.

Valentino Rossi will not complete his Nordschleife permit this year. BMW M Motorsport confirmed the calendar could not be made to work, and the September NLS double-header lands on exactly the same three days as the San Marino Grand Prix at Misano, where Rossi runs a MotoGP team. The October finale collides with Indonesia. His Nürburgring 24 Hours debut now hangs on a tight 2027 run-up.

Skoda chief executive Klaus Zellmer has put the Superb's future in doubt, saying saloons and estates are not growing and that the brand is examining whether one model could cover both the Octavia and Superb segments. It comes as the Volkswagen Group prepares to halve its model range by 2035, and as Skoda posts its strongest half-year on record with an 8.5 percent return on sales.

Volkswagen has agreed to sell Volkswagen Osnabrück GmbH to the investment firm Aurelius and the State of Lower Saxony, with car production ending in summer 2027. The buyers plan an air-defence project with Israel's Rafael, covering launchers, generators and military vehicles. It is the second attempt: Qatar, holder of 17 percent of Volkswagen's voting rights, blocked a direct Volkswagen deal in July.

Audi has revealed the production A2 e-tron with three battery sizes, four power outputs from 170 to 326 hp and rear-wheel drive throughout. The 646 km WLTP headline comes from the 231 hp car with an 84 kWh NMC pack, while the record 12.8 kWh per 100 km belongs to the 190 hp version on a 61 kWh LFP battery, rated at 515 km. Deliveries start in December 2026.

Ferrari took its first FIA WEC win of the season at the 6 Hours of COTA, with the No. 50 AF Corse 499P inheriting the lead when the race-leading No. 7 Toyota suffered a hydraulic failure with around 12 minutes to go. Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen won ahead of the JOTA Cadillac and the Alpine A424. Both points co-leaders, the No. 7 Toyota and the No. 20 WRT BMW, scored nothing, blowing the title race wide open, while Heart of Racing's Aston Martin won LMGT3.

Lotus has launched the Emeya 900 Gold in China at 918,000 yuan, about €117,700, with the same 918 hp, 985 Nm and 2.78 seconds to 100 km/h as the Emeya 900 sold in Europe. The carbon-bodied European equivalent starts at €160,990 in Germany. The Eletre 900 Gold does the same at 928,000 yuan.

Audi has notified the FIA that it intends to appeal against the decision not to penalise Yuki Tsunoda at Monza, where an extra formation lap on lap 6 was ordered because race director Rui Marques did not like the angle of the Racing Bulls car. The stewards took no further action, reasoning that nobody had told the team it was the cause. The point at stake is Tsunoda's only one of the season.

Geely UK managing director Michael Yang told Autocar the group is developing a charging facility in China rated at 1,800 kW, with completely solid-state cells a few months away. European law asks 400 kW of an entire motorway charging pool today, and 600 kW from the end of 2027.

JLR told staff and unions on 5 September that it is opening a voluntary redundancy programme for salaried and management roles, without naming a figure. The Times and the Financial Times both put it at up to 4,000 posts over two years, around 12% of a 34,000-strong UK workforce. The company wants 1.7 billion pounds of savings and a break-even point of 300,000 vehicles a year.

BMW M chief Frank van Meel says half of all M2s sold in the United States leave with a six-speed manual, and that figure is why the M3 CS Handschalter exists. It is rear-wheel drive, manual-only, and built for North America alone, starting at $108,450. The gearbox behind all of it stops at 480 hp and 550 Nm, and that ceiling decides how long the manual M car lasts.

Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza from 19th on the grid, leading a Mercedes one-two over George Russell with Max Verstappen third, and became the first Italian to win at Monza since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966. After a red flag for Charles Leclerc's crash and a run of battery-driven lead changes, a well-timed virtual safety car helped Antonelli to victory by 3.857 seconds. It extends his championship lead to 66 points ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid.

Hyundai has opened order books for the Staria Electric, and the nine-seat Trend starts the range at 57,450 euros in Germany with 430 km of WLTP range and an 800-volt system that charges from 10 to 80 percent in 20 minutes. Belgian orders open this month.

F1 Academy champion Doriane Pin, 22, will drive the top-class Peugeot 9X8 for the first time in a private test at Paul Ricard on 2 December, as Peugeot assesses whether the development driver could step up to a reserve role. Pin set the fastest LMP2 qualifying time at Le Mans this year and led the class for three hours before a brake failure. Team boss Emmanuel Esnault says it will be a proper assessment with realistic ballast, and it is not a bid for a full-time 2027 seat.

Project Rally One has run a World Rally Car built without a manufacturer, covering roughly 300 kilometres across three days. The Belgian team is the first constructor registered under the FIA's WRC27 rules, which cap a tarmac car at 345,000 euros and keep its homologation alive for 10 years. Two cars are targeted for the Monte Carlo Rally, with the decision due on 1 November.

BMW Welt closed the only exhibition that has ever gathered all 20 BMW Art Cars, drawing more than 120,000 visitors in 34 days. It ended an 18-month world tour that ran to 60 stops and over two million visitors. Five of the cars now live on as selectable widgets on BMW's Panoramic Vision display, and they all come from the same six-year stretch of the collection.

Ollie Millroy's Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo caught fire after being hit side-on in Saturday's opening China GT race at Shanghai. Loek Hartog stopped his Porsche, ran over, took a fire extinguisher from a marshal and pulled the Briton out before the fire crew arrived. Millroy escaped with five broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a bruised lung. His team has quit the championship in protest.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca has renamed Turns 8 and 8A the Zanardi Corkscrew, honouring the two-time CART champion who died on 1 May at 59. The dedication came 30 years after Alex Zanardi's final-lap pass on Bryan Herta at that corner, a move that put his inside wheels in the dirt and that today's track-limits rules would punish. The permanent monument exists so far only as a rendering.

Design house Venuum has revealed the 812 Titan X, an all-new widebody reinterpretation of Ferrari's front-engine V12 812 grand tourer, limited to just 35 examples worldwide. Every surface is reimagined for a wider, lower, more aggressive look, with a redesigned aero package and more sculptural bodywork, while the naturally aspirated V12 is left untouched. Venuum has not disclosed price or full specifications, but it is a genuinely rare, design-led take on one of Ferrari's most beautiful modern cars.

Jaguar Land Rover revealed the Defender Wolf Series II and confirmed a bid for the British Army's Light Mobility Vehicle contract. It is competing against a militarised Ford Ranger, a Toyota Land Cruiser 70, an Ineos Grenadier and a Chevrolet Colorado. The first tranche is 3,000 vehicles, and the minister wants them off the shelf.

Tesla began paid Cybercab rides in Austin with a two-seater that has no steering wheel, no pedals and no brake fluid, and it got there by certifying its own compliance rather than applying for the exemption Zoox needed eleven months to obtain. The NHTSA opened an audit the next day. Europe has no self-certification at all, and its legal route caps a driverless car at 1,500 per type per year.

Bugatti has closed the acoustic development of the Tourbillon's naturally aspirated 8.3-litre V16 and confirmed that nothing reaching the cabin is synthesised. The car had to pass a homologation test with a 72 decibel ceiling, the highest bracket in European noise law, measured across the whole vehicle including its active rear wing. Bugatti's own press release notes that type approval has not been granted yet.

Meyer Shank Racing has signed Mick Schumacher to drive its number 66 Honda in the 2027 IndyCar season, alongside Marcus Armstrong. The move follows Rahal Letterman Lanigan selling one of its charters to Dreyer & Reinbold in July, which cut the team to three cars and left Schumacher without a seat. He replaces Felix Rosenqvist, who won this year's Indianapolis 500 for MSR and leaves for Arrow McLaren.