Your friendly neighborhood BMW just wrapped itself in Spider-Man

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.

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.

Hyundai has started production of the Ioniq 3, an affordable compact electric hatchback for Europe, and it built it in Turkey. Series production began on 14 August at the Izmit plant, converted at a cost of around 250 million euros, with the car on sale from September. The choice of Turkey is the real story: low costs plus tariff-free EU access via the customs union give near-Chinese economics inside Europe's trade wall. The affordable European EV is here, just not built where Europe expected.

Range Rover has revealed the SV Pearl Luster at Pebble Beach, a one-of-one commission finished in a bespoke White Pearl Gloss inspired by the endangered White Abalone shell, with Orchid leather and Mother of Pearl inlays. Engine and price are undisclosed; guests at Range Rover House get first refusal, and a donation benefits the Monterey Bay sanctuary. It is less a car launch than a hospitality one: at this level, the car is the trophy and access is the real product.

Max Verstappen has unveiled a Delftware-inspired blue-and-white helmet for the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix on 21-23 August, the last one at Zandvoort after the promoter declined a long-term deal. He calls it a homage to the Netherlands, but the race was really built on him: it returned in 2021 to ride Verstappen-mania. It is leaving just as his dominance fades, sixth in the standings and 110 points behind the leader. The success was rented from one man, and the lease is up.

Fiat has given the Topolino a summer refresh: a Dolcevita version with a roll-up canvas roof and side doors from €10,490, and a Vilebrequin Collectors Edition from €13,490 tied to the French swimwear brand. The base electric quadricycle stays at €9,990. That price is the real story: the affordable EV everyone claims does not exist has been on sale all along. Fiat's trick is selling radically less car as radically more lifestyle, making small feel aspirational rather than a sacrifice.

LEGO revealed the 43024 Ayrton Senna Helmet, a 931-piece set celebrating Senna's 1988 championship helmet, the first historical driver to join its Formula 1 Helmet Collection, releasing 1 September.

The Kia PV5, the first van Kia has ever built, took 37% of Europe's small electric van market in the first half of 2026, selling 13,116 units and finishing first in twelve countries. It beat Ford, Mercedes and Renault, makers with a century of van experience, for one reason: theirs are electric conversions of diesel vans, while the PV5 was built from scratch as an EV, with a flat floor and up to 416 km of range. It also proves EV demand is not dead, just discriminating.

The UK is putting nearly £130 million, about 150 million euros, into electric vehicles, and the framing calls it stimulating electric driving. But the announced breakdown contains no charging money and no purchase grants; it is all supply-side, from domestic lithium and rare-earth-free motors to battery recycling and university research. The real theme is reducing dependence on China to build EVs, not getting Britons to buy them. It is industrial rescue mislabelled as consumer stimulus, and at this scale, only a down payment.

Gerry McGovern broke his silence on leaving JLR after 24 years, and defended Jaguar's divisive “Copy Nothing” rebrand campaign, in his first interview since his abrupt, unexplained exit.

Karma unveiled the Gyesera Grand Coupe, a 574 hp Hybrid EREV grand tourer replacing the Revero, at Pebble Beach, the first of three new-generation models the brand is showing at Monterey Car Week.

The Land Rover Defender Dakar is a road-legal evolution of the D7X-R that won the 2026 Dakar Rally on its debut, finishing first, second and fourth in the Stock class. Unusually, it is more powerful than the winner: rally rules restrict engine output, so the road car's unrestricted 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, at 635 hp, makes more than the racer ever could. It is also a rebuke to the fast-SUV playbook, quick in the desert rather than on a circuit. Reservations open in early 2027.

Gunther Werks unveiled the GXR-Evo, a 455 hp, 1,082 kg 993-generation Porsche 911 rebuilt as a street-legal race car, with just 15 examples built and each paired with a bespoke matching sim-racing rig.