Maserati built a one-off MCPura that tells the story of its first 100 years

Porsche has delivered its one millionth new car in mainland China, a 911 GT3 Touring handed over in Shanghai on 13 September, 25 years after the brand's first Beijing dealership. The milestone comes as China deliveries fall for a fifth year: 41,938 in 2025 and 14,501 in the first half of 2026, fewer than Germany, while the dealer network shrinks to about 80 outlets.

McLaren will retire the GTS, Artura and 750S by the end of 2028, according to Autocar. The GTS goes first in 2027 and the Artura follows in 2028, while the 750S is in its final stages behind the 200-car 788HS. McLaren has confirmed a front-engined SUV and two in-house hybrid engines, but has not announced a single replacement for the three cars it sells today.

Volvo Cars has appointed Škoda CEO Klaus Zellmer as its next president and chief executive, to start no later than 1 October 2027. He succeeds Håkan Samuelsson, whose two-year contract runs out in April 2027. Zellmer, 59, spent two decades at Porsche and has run Škoda since July 2022, where 2025 brought 1,043,900 deliveries and an 8.3 percent operating margin.

BMW has put its Debrecen plant on three shifts to build the iX3 around the clock, after 100,000 European orders in under a year and more than 50,000 cars built. A second Neue Klasse model starts there this autumn. The plant assembles its own battery packs, but the cells still arrive from Asia while CATL's Debrecen cell lines stay halted.

Xpeng takes the G9L global at the Paris Motor Show on 12 October, with European cars assembled at Magna Steyr in Graz, its fourth model there. The 5,120 mm five-seater comes as an 800-volt EV with up to 755 km CLTC or as a 1,602 km range-extender. Chinese prices start at 231,800 yuan, 10.8% below the August pre-sale price.

Volkswagen's ID. Buzz holds a Guinness World Record for the most countries visited on one continuous electric journey: 92, across 99,767 km and 445 days, with Rainer Zietlow driving. TÜV Nord certified the 86 kWh battery at 95.75 percent state of health on its return to Hanover, after more than 300 charging stops. The same MEB platform had 94,031 cars recalled over battery modules in March.

Volkswagen now expects an operating margin of at most 1 percent for 2026 after a €6 billion goodwill impairment on Porsche. The group had already earned €5.93 billion in the first half, so the new ceiling implies an operating loss of at least €2.8 billion between July and December. It is the third guidance cut in the last fortnight of September in a row.

Jeremy Clarkson is selling the three cars he kept from The Grand Tour: the Lancia Montecarlo Spider from the final special, the Alfa Romeo GTV6 from the 2019 Scotland trip and the Lincoln Continental Mark V from Lochdown. Iconic Auctioneers offers them without reserve in Birmingham on 14 November. Clarkson says he rarely drives them; the auction house says the reason will be told in the next Clarkson's Farm.

Audi's electric A4 e-tron will not enter production before March 2029, nine months later than planned, because Volkswagen's SSP platform is running three years behind its 2026 promise. A late switch to a 48-volt electrical system is the technical cause. The electric Golf and T-Roc slip with it, and Audi sits out the electric mid-size segment while Mercedes and BMW sell into it.

Leapmotor used its Tech Day in Huzhou to unveil the CTC 3.0 High-Low Fusion battery, which supplies the 12-volt network from the traction cells and removes the lead-acid battery, the cause of nearly half of ADAC's 3.7 million callouts last year. It sits inside the new LEAP 5.0 architecture with 48-volt distribution. First cars arrive in 2027, in China. Europe's current Leapmotors keep their lead battery.

Ford has started installing recall 25SC4 on the Kuga PHEV, the software fix for battery cells that can short-circuit and burn. It caps usable capacity instead of replacing the pack, and Ford's own letter puts the range loss at about 12 percent. Owners measuring their charging sessions report 20 to 30 percent. Around 167,000 cars built between August 2019 and November 2023 are affected.

A day after reports that the FIA might replace the ACO as WEC promoter and cost the 24 Hours of Le Mans its championship status, both organisations have pushed back, confirming their agreement runs through the end of 2027 and calling the reporting inaccurate. But the reassurance is narrower than it sounds: the deal is safe only to 2027, and the terms for what comes after are exactly what the two sides are still negotiating.

Ferrari has confirmed multi-year contract extensions for two of its 499P Hypercar drivers, Nicklas Nielsen and Yifei Ye. Coming after a similar deal for Phil Hanson, the renewals show Ferrari intends to keep its Le Mans-winning WEC line-up together rather than break up a winning team. Since returning to the top class in 2023, Ferrari has won every 24 Hours of Le Mans it has entered, and continuity is clearly part of the plan.

Fernando Alonso has been filmed driving a polished-aluminium Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse through Monaco. The one-off, listed by Mechatronik since June 2024 with 750 km on the clock, has body panels milled from solid aluminium that cost more than the car. It is his second one-off from the same dealer in four months, after the Pagani Zonda Diamante Verde.

General Motors has revealed two sixth-generation small-block V8s for the 2027 Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500: a 5.7-litre with 402 hp and a 6.6-litre with 481 hp, both without a dipstick. The 6.2-litre L87 they replace was recalled on 597,630 vehicles in April 2025, and since 20 August NHTSA has been analysing 997,743 of them after 499 engines failed post-repair.

The Asian Le Mans Series new Hypercar class, part of a rebranded “Winter Le Mans Series” opening in November at Paul Ricard, is reportedly in jeopardy with only two cars entered. The organisers deny there is a problem, but the field is a long way short of the three to six Hypercars the ACO expected, and even some LMP2 teams would rather the class did not run. A Europe-only calendar and a rules quirk that removes any Le Mans invitation are to blame.

California has signed Senate Bill 1392, known as Jay Leno's Law, exempting collector cars from model years 1976 to 1985 from the state smog check. Pre-1981 cars qualify from 1 January 2028, one model year follows each year, and 1985 arrives in 2033. Owners need collector insurance or fewer than 1,000 miles a year. California repealed a rolling 30-year exemption in 2005; this restores ten years of it.

The FIA is reportedly examining whether to replace the ACO as promoter of the World Endurance Championship, after the contracts underpinning the arrangement expired in June and renewal talks stalled. According to Auto Motor und Sport, the standoff could ultimately strip the 24 Hours of Le Mans of its world championship status, even though the race itself would continue under ACO ownership. Nothing is confirmed, but the stakes for endurance racing are huge.

Toyota Gazoo Racing shows the DKR GR FC Hilux, a fuel cell version of its Dakar truck, and signs Jameel Motorsport, Denso, Toyo Tires and IAV as partners for the rally on 1 to 15 January 2027. Developed near Brussels and assembled at Toyota's European headquarters, it enters the 1,000 km Mission 1000 class, not the 5,320 km main event. No output, range or tank capacity has been published.

Opel shows the Astra GSE Line at the Paris Motor Show and sells it from spring 2027 as a styling trim for every engine, replacing GS. A 206 kW (280 hp) top version follows later in 2027, which would make it the most powerful Astra ever. Until then the range peaks at the 195 hp plug-in hybrid.

The FIA has cancelled the November WRC round of Rally Saudi Arabia after Toyota and Hyundai told it their staff cannot travel to the Middle East. The season now ends at Rally Italia Sardegna on 1 to 4 October, where Elfyn Evans leads by 17 points with 35 available. Formula 1's Qatar and Abu Dhabi rounds and the 1 January Dakar remain undecided.

Dodge starts European deliveries of the Charger this month, in petrol Sixpack and electric Daytona form, from €66,187 in Belgium, €65,093 in Germany and £62,688 in the UK. Neither Dodge nor its importer has published a WLTP range for the Daytona; the 418 and 510 km figures in circulation are EPA numbers. In the US, the electric Charger sold 534 cars in the first half of 2026.

Lando Norris has been filmed driving his Ferrari F40 in London, the car a friend crashed near Monaco in January 2025 while he was away. He took delivery in late 2024 and said in May 2025 the repair was not finished. The sighting comes weeks after Lewis Hamilton bought an F40 of his own, and a month after a 72-mile F40 sold for $8.4 million.

Alfa Romeo will unveil a concept car at the Paris Motor Show on 12 October at 10:55 CEST and calls it a manifesto for its future. The release names Italy, sportiness and the colour red, and nothing else. It lands in a plan that keeps Giulia and Stelvio only through 2027, premieres a C-SUV in late 2027 and lists one few-off, after a 2025 of just over 73,000 sales.

Maserati is the celebrated marque of the Goodwood Revival from 18 to 20 September, a century after the Tipo 26's class win at the 1926 Targa Florio. More than 50 pre-1966 Maseratis race, the Lavant Cup returns as a Ferrari-versus-Maserati 'Battle of Modena', and Maserati's display is three cars from the Panini Collection. Off the track, Stellantis' accounts show Maserati shipped 7,900 cars in 2025 at a €198 million loss.