Ferrari opens its London flagship store on Bond Street

The relationship between Alfa Romeo and the Carabinieri is one of them. At the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, the Italian brand has presented a new book titled Carabinieri and Alfa Romeo – for Italy, celebrating 75 years of collaboration between the Biscione and the Carabinieri Corps. It is not just a book about official vehicles. It is a story about post-war Italy, public service, national identity and the role certain cars played in the daily life of a country.

McLaren’s return to top-tier endurance racing is starting to look very serious. Just days after revealing the name and test livery of its new MCL-HY Hypercar, McLaren Racing has confirmed Laurens Vanthoor as the second driver for its 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship programme. He joins Mikkel Jensen, who recently completed the car’s first track running at Varano’s Autodromo Riccardo Paletti in Italy.

Volkswagen has confirmed that the Golf GTI Edition 50 is now the fastest front-wheel-drive production car around the Nürburgring Nordschleife. With racing driver and Volkswagen test and development driver Benjamin Leuchter behind the wheel, the anniversary model completed the full 20.832-kilometre lap in 7:44.523 minutes. That makes it faster than the previous front-wheel-drive production benchmark and also faster than any previous Volkswagen production model on the Nordschleife.

Switzerland has just changed one of the most unusual rules in motorsport. After 71 years, the country is lifting its ban on circuit racing, a restriction introduced after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, the deadliest tragedy in motorsport history. From 1 July 2026, closed-circuit racing will once again be legally possible in Switzerland. But that does not mean a Swiss Grand Prix is suddenly around the corner.

What does a Formula 1 driver buy when modern supercars start feeling a little too normal? In Fernando Alonso’s case, the answer appears to be a Pagani Zonda Roadster Diamante Verde. Not just any Zonda. Not just another limited-edition hypercar. A true factory one-off, built to 760 specification, finished in green-tinted exposed carbon fibre and powered by one of the greatest naturally aspirated V12 engines ever fitted to a road car.

Stellantis and Leapmotor are preparing to take their partnership to the next level. It is a clear sign of where the European EV market is heading: lower costs, faster development, Chinese battery-electric technology, European production and a much stronger focus on affordability. Stellantis already became Leapmotor’s largest shareholder in 2023 with an approximately 21% stake, while the two companies created Leapmotor International, a joint venture controlled 51% by Stellantis and 49% by Leapmotor.

Maserati has been spotted testing camouflaged prototypes of the Grecale, GranTurismo and GranCabrio near its historic plant on Viale Ciro Menotti in Modena. That alone would normally sound like a standard facelift story. A little camouflage, a few revised bumpers, some new lighting details and maybe a refreshed infotainment system. But for Maserati, this moment matters more than that.

In March, more than 500,000 plug-in vehicles were registered across Europe, including around 349,000 fully electric cars. Battery-electric vehicles reached a record 22% market share, while plug-in hybrids added another 10%. Add conventional hybrids to the picture, and around 70% of all new cars registered in Europe had some form of electrification.

For the first time, Porsche is introducing a Manthey Kit for an electric sports car, and the result is already proven where it matters most: the Nürburgring-Nordschleife. With Porsche development driver Lars Kern behind the wheel, the Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package and Manthey Kit lapped the 20.832 km Nordschleife in 6:55.533 minutes, setting a new record for electric executive cars.

In 2000, BMW built a one-off M3 Touring prototype and invited automotive journalists to Munich to drive it. The idea was serious enough to evaluate, but not serious enough to make it into production. So the E46 M3 remained a coupé and convertible. And for more than two decades, the M3 Touring became one of BMW’s greatest “what if?” stories. Now, Petroyle is changing that.

Lamborghini is not just celebrating another birthday. On 7 May 2026, Automobili Lamborghini turns 63, marking more than six decades since Ferruccio Lamborghini founded the company in Sant’Agata Bolognese on 7 May 1963. But with Lamborghini, the number 63 is not simply a date in the archive. It has become part of the brand’s visual language, its collector culture and its way of connecting past, present and future.

Do you remember the Alfa Romeo Diva Concept? Most people don’t, and that is exactly what makes it so interesting. Presented at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show, the Diva was one of those rare Alfa Romeo concepts that felt less like a design exercise and more like a glimpse into an alternative future. It was compact, lightweight, mid-engined and deeply emotional, with styling that clearly looked back to the legendary Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale while trying to imagine what a modern Alfa sports car could become.

The first-generation TT is one of the most important automotive designs of the last 30 years. Simple, geometric, almost architectural in its purity, it turned the production sports car into something closer to industrial design. Autoforma, the bespoke design studio linked to Niels van Roij Design, seems to understand that. Its new one-off Audi TTS Roadster Restomod does not try to reinvent the TT. Instead, it tries to bring the production car closer to the purity of the original 1995 TT Roadster concept.

Audi Tradition has recreated the Auto Union Lucca, a spectacular 1930s record car from the Silver Arrow era that once reached 326.975 km/h on a closed public-road section near Lucca in Italy. The original car disappeared into history, but its story has now been brought back to life through a three-year reconstruction project completed in early 2026. And in a world obsessed with the future of performance, this machine feels like a reminder of how extreme the past already was.

At Top Marques Monaco, Giamaro Automobili presents the Krafla GC, a new evolution of its extreme V12 hypercar, shown in an elegant but aggressive combination of Azzurro Giamaro, Bianco Infinito and Grigio Cenere, with large exposed carbon-fibre surfaces to underline the car’s aerodynamic shape. For a brand that most people had never heard of until recently, Giamaro is entering the conversation with the kind of confidence usually reserved for companies with decades of myth behind them.

Some cars never really leave the conversation. The Audi Sport quattro is one of them. Now, Munich-based HSR Manufaktur wants to bring that spirit back with the Type 859, a modern restomod inspired by the legendary Audi Sport quattro, limited to 84 units and priced from around €500,000 excluding taxes, including the donor car.

Omoda Jaecoo is moving fast in Europe, and the new Omoda 4 shows exactly where the brand wants to go next. After entering the market with larger and more lifestyle-focused models, Omoda is now aiming lower in the range with a compact crossover that sits somewhere between the B- and C-segment. At 4.42 metres long, the Omoda 4 is positioned in one of Europe’s most competitive areas, where buyers want SUV styling, usable space, modern technology and, most importantly, a price that makes sense.

Mercedes has quietly opened the configurator for the new C 400 4MATIC Electric, giving us one of the clearest looks yet at where the fully electric C-Class will sit in Europe. And the answer is simple: right in the territory where BMW, Audi and Tesla will have to pay attention. In Belgium, the C 400 4MATIC Electric starts from €67,034, while the German configurator shows a starting price of €67,711.

Low Emission Zones were introduced with a clear promise: cleaner air, healthier cities and less pollution from older cars. But in Belgium, that promise is now being questioned more loudly than ever. A new independent study based on 2.9 million air quality measurements claims that Low Emission Zones in Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels have had little to no measurable impact on air quality. At the same time, Flanders has confirmed it will not tighten LEZ rules in 2026, giving Euro 5 diesel owners and older petrol drivers a temporary but significant breathing space.

A few days ago, Volkswagen R teased something with slick tyres, big brakes and a serious rear wing. We wondered whether it could be a Golf R built for the Nürburgring. Now we know. Volkswagen R has officially confirmed the Golf R 24H, a racing version of the current Golf R that will compete in the 2027 Nürburgring 24 Hours. And for anyone who still wondered whether the R badge had enough motorsport credibility left, this is exactly the kind of project that answers the question properly.

Formula 1 may be heading back to a sound many fans thought was gone for good. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has made a major claim about the sport’s next engine direction, saying that a return to V8 engines is “coming” and that he wants the switch to happen as early as 2030, one year before the current regulatory cycle is expected to end.

McLaren is going back to where one of its greatest legends was born. With the new MCL-HY FIA Hypercar, the British brand has officially revealed the machine that will bring it back to the top class of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2027. For McLaren, it is the missing piece in a story that connects Formula 1, IndyCar and endurance racing into one of the most powerful ambitions in motorsport: winning the Triple Crown again.

There have been countless attempts to reinvent the Mercedes G-Class, and if we are honest, most of them feel unnecessary. Another widebody kit, another louder exhaust, another luxury off-roader turned into a status object. We have seen this story before, and not always in a good way. And then there's the OQTA Super GYR.

In 2001, Porsche Australia staged one of the most unusual durability demonstrations in modern sports car history. The idea was simple, slightly mad, and very Porsche: take a brand-new 996-generation 911 Turbo, finished in Speed Yellow, and drive it from southern Queensland to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula over more than 600 kilometres of mostly unpaved terrain.

This is no longer just nostalgia with better materials. This is Kimera stepping back into the world of racing. On 15 May 2026, at Hotel Villa Flori on Lake Como, Kimera will unveil both the K39 Pikes Peak race car and its road-legal customer version. And if the first images are anything to go by, this might be the brand’s most serious project yet.