The new Mercedes-Maybach GLS has a calf massage, champagne fridge and 612 hp

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.

Volkswagen's supervisory board unanimously approved Future Plan 2030 on 3 September, covering around 50,000 job cuts group-wide and a model range cut in half by 2035. The four German plants named in last week's leaked report were not closed. The board acknowledged it cannot currently secure work for them, and gave itself until the end of June 2027 to decide.

Lamborghini has handed a Temerario to the Italian State Police, the sixth car in a partnership that began with a Gallardo in 2004. The 920 hp hybrid will be used for emergency organ and medical transport alongside the Huracán and Urus Performante already in service. Across more than twenty years the fleet has run over 200 organ missions and appeared at more than 1,500 road safety events.

Pierre Gasly has lost his Monaco Grand Prix podium for the second time, 89 days after the race. The FIA's International Court of Appeal reinstated the pitlane speeding penalties that stewards had rescinded in June, all of it stemming from a 77-centimetre error in the pitlane timing loops. Isack Hadjar inherits third, and Alpine loses nine championship points.

American carmakers have asked Congress for a permanent ban on Chinese connected vehicles before the session ends on 3 January. Waymo meanwhile runs its newest robotaxi cities on a Zeekr built in Ningbo, imported as a bodyshell and fitted with its electronics in Arizona. More than 3,200 chassis have already landed.

Jensen International has revived the Jensen Interceptor as the track-only GTX, 60 years after the 1966 original. It uses a supercharged 6.8-litre V8 built by Late Model Engines, making 960 hp as standard and up to 1,200 hp with more than 1,491 Nm, paired to a Samsonas six-speed sequential manual that can be shifted by lever or paddles. With a hand-formed aluminium body, an FIA cage and full motorsport hardware, the GTX is a proof of concept for road-going Jensens to come, though price, weight and production numbers are not yet confirmed.

American luxury EV maker Lucid is entering the French market through an operational partnership with Emil Frey France, one of the country's largest automotive groups. Lucid keeps control of its brand and commercial strategy through its own import organisation, while Emil Frey provides operational support, and the Lucid Air and Gravity will be shown to French buyers for the first time at the Paris Motor Show in October. It is a smart, low-risk way for a newcomer to enter a crowded premium market.

Formula 1 has agreed to cut the maximum grand prix distance from 305 km to 290 km in 2027, a change Motorsport.com reports went to the teams by email and still needs World Motorsport Council ratification. The reason is fuel: the power split moves to 58:42 in favour of the combustion engine, and the tank cannot grow to match. It would be the sport's first shortening since 1958.

WirtschaftsWoche reports that Volkswagen's management board has already approved a plan to phase out Seat by the end of 2029, with the proposal due before the supervisory board on Friday. Cupra, created out of Seat's performance badge in 2018, sold 328,800 cars last year against Seat's 257,400. Volkswagen declines to comment, and Seat says no decision has been taken.

Formula 1 celebrated the 20th anniversary of Pixar's Cars at the Italian Grand Prix, with a physical Lightning McQueen car turning a lap of Monza and the Mercedes-AMG safety car running a special Cars-inspired livery for the weekend. It is part of an expanded F1 and Disney “Fuel the Magic” partnership, now extended through the end of 2028, and it delighted fans, not least Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson, a well-known Lightning McQueen superfan.

A rare rotary-powered Mazda 767B, a class winner at Le Mans and a relative of the famous 787B, was caught in a paddock fire at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca. It escaped with only minor damage because it had been wrapped in paint protection film, which took the brunt of the heat. Owner Tony McIntosh says the car got lucky, and with only one to two months of repairs needed, it is expected back on track within weeks.

Horse Powertrain has revealed the 3DHT200, a hybrid drive unit that packs 13 components into one housing and, the company says, delivers up to 4,920 Nm at the wheels. Horse is 45 percent Renault, 45 percent Geely and 10 percent Aramco. Its new unit debuts on the Geely Galaxy Cruiser 700, a 1,128 PS off-roader that Geely has confirmed for Britain.

Belgian sportscar star Laurens Vanthoor has joined McLaren's new Hypercar programme for its 2027 FIA WEC debut, ending a decade with Porsche. He says the switch from a German manufacturer to a British race team has been “very refreshing,” and is chasing the outright Le Mans win that tempted him away. Vanthoor and Mikkel Jensen form McLaren's 2027 line-up, though Vanthoor will race the Porsche 963 in IMSA into 2027 before moving to McLaren full time in 2028.

Rivals including Red Bull and McLaren are copying Ferrari's Formula 1 aero designs, from an exhaust winglet the FIA is banning for 2027 to a rotating rear wing, proof that the SF-26 is widely seen as the best chassis on the grid. Yet Ferrari sits second because of a power unit weakness the rules make hard to fix, with the ADUO engine catch-up mechanism proving too costly to be a game-changer. Team boss Fred Vasseur says Ferrari will keep pushing upgrades to the end of the season.

Apple's new chief executive John Ternus took over from Tim Cook on 1 September 2026. He is an amateur racer who, according to the Wall Street Journal, laps Laguna Seca in under 1 minute 40 seconds and owns one of the 77 Porsche 935s built in 2019. That car has 700 PS, is not road legal, and was unveiled at the very circuit he drives it on.

Australians registered 108,760 new vehicles in August 2026 and 24.9% of them were electric, the first month in which EVs outsold petrol, diesel, hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars. The growth came almost entirely from Chinese brands and Tesla, with Geely up 1,023% and Zeekr up 2,309% while Volkswagen fell 38%. Chinese-built cars enter Australia duty-free, which Europe cannot say.

Lando Norris has co-founded LN4 Fusion, a junior single-seater team racing in Italian F4, Formula Regional European and Formula 3 from 2027, with a Formula 2 application pending. René Rosin, who left Prema in January after four decades of family ownership, is team principal.

Ford's Heritage Fleet has recommissioned the one-off Mustang Boss 351, a 1999 Mustang GT carrying a naturally aspirated 5.8-litre V10. On the dyno it recorded more than 517 PS at the wheels, close to 20% up on the figure it made when it was new.

Euro NCAP published four results under its 2026 protocol on 2 September. The AION UT, Geely E2 and Leapmotor B05 all scored five stars on standard equipment. The Cupra Raval managed four, rising to five only with an optional Safety Pack that adds predictive adaptive cruise control and front cross traffic alert. Its crash protection and post-crash scores were among the best in the group.

Five autonomous single-seaters race at Imola on Saturday 5 September, the first time A2RL's cars have raced each other outside Abu Dhabi. At Yas Marina last November the quickest of them lapped 1.58 seconds behind former F1 driver Daniil Kvyat.

Michael Jordan's 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello, the car Tinker Hatfield drew the Air Jordan XIV from, has resurfaced in California after 24 years out of sight. Joopiter, the auction platform founded by Pharrell Williams, opens online bidding on 15 September with an estimate of $700,000 to $1.3 million. The public record for a road-going 550 Maranello is $648,500.

Volkswagen's management board has settled on ending production at four German plants, according to an internal report prepared for the supervisory board meeting on 3 and 4 September. Emden and Zwickau would stop in 2031, Hannover in 2032 and Audi's Neckarsulm in 2034, together some 40,000 jobs and 750,000 units of annual capacity. Zwickau was converted to electric-only production for €1.2 billion just six years ago.

Aviloo's EV Battery Report pools more than 500,000 tests taken between 2022 and 2026 on 20 electric models. The median battery still holds 94.74 percent after 50,000 km and around 91 percent after 150,000 km, with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 top at 93.37 percent and the air-cooled Nissan Leaf last at 85 percent. Sister models score almost identically, which says more about cells than about badges.

Polestar has given the Polestar 4 a rear window, an upright tailgate and 1,665 litres of luggage space with the seats folded, and calls the result an SUV. It undercuts the coupé it is based on in every market announced so far, and adds range on top: 630 km WLTP for the Rear motor, 600 km for the 544 PS Dual motor.

The Range Rover Electric is finally on sale: two 354 PS motors quoted together as 550 PS, 850 Nm, a 118.5 kWh battery on 800 volts, 599 km of WLTP range and £154,070 in Britain or €163,500 in Germany. JLR opened the waiting list in December 2023. An induction front motor that overheated during Dubai desert testing forced a switch to permanent magnets, and the redesign cost 18 months.