Porsche made a special 911 GT3 for Britain only, and the rest of Europe misses out

Honda Racing Corporation is replacing Tetsushi Kakuda with Yoichiro Fukao, head of its software division, as leader of its Formula 1 power unit programme from 1 October 2026. Aston Martin has three points from the season, and Fernando Alonso finished 17th in Madrid complaining about boost control. Honda used one of its two ADUO upgrades, and the 2027 rules shift 50 kW from battery to engine.

Ford revealed the 2027 F-150 with a new 3.0-litre EcoBoost base engine, the 5.0 V8 available on every trim for the first time since 2023, hands-free towing and cheaper Tremor and Raptor packages. Two days earlier, NHTSA published a recall of 223,472 F-150s built between January 2023 and August 2026 for fuel-tank straps that may not be secured. Ford had already filed 71 recall campaigns in 2026.

BMW Maps with Driver Assistance arrives in October 2026 on Operating System X cars, merging navigation, the sensed surroundings and the active assistant into one 3D view built with Mapbox. Highway Assistant 2 already drives hands-off at up to 130 km/h in nine countries. From 2027 BMW extends navigation-guided semi-automated driving to selected cities, Germany first.

Volvo has updated the XC60 with a 37.9 kWh battery, double the outgoing pack, giving the T6 plug-in hybrid 200 km of WLTP electric range and 23 g/km of CO2. The 455 hp T8 does 189 km. The XC90 gets the same hardware for 164 km. European deliveries start in January 2027, weeks after the EU's second utility-factor correction takes effect for newly approved plug-in hybrids.

Toyota confirmed at IAA Transportation in Hannover that the Hilux FCEV enters production in 2028 with more than 400 km of WLTP range and 2,500 kg of towing capacity. The ten hydrogen prototypes built at Burnaston in 2023 carried 7.8 kg of hydrogen for a claimed 600 km. Europe had 179 public hydrogen stations in May 2026, 25 of them in the Netherlands and 8 in Belgium.

Kia's K4 Hybrid pairs a 1.6 GDI with a six-speed dual-clutch for 154 hp, in hatchback and Sportswagon form, with production from 15 October 2026 and no price yet. It fills a gap the Dutch importer opened in April, when re-homologation pushed BPM on the 180 hp 1.6 T-GDI to €13,000-14,000 and Kia dropped it, leaving the K4 with one 115 hp engine.

Bugatti's first Programme Solitaire car, the W16 Brouillard, reached Michel Perridon at Chantilly Arts & Elegance on 13 September, thirteen months after its reveal at The Quail, and won Best of Show for one-offs the same day. Mate Rimac did the handover four days after buying out Porsche. The Bugatti museum Perridon has promised for Rotterdam, Dubai and now Molsheim still has no building.

Hamburg's governing SPD and Greens will vote on 16 September to push a Bundesrat initiative banning synthetic engine sound on electric cars above the 20 km/h AVAS zone. UN Regulation 138 warning tones stay. EU type approval means a German-only ban cannot reach a factory-fitted speaker, so the route runs through Brussels or Geneva, and the next Bundesrat sits on 25 September.

Kia has revealed the production PV7 at IAA Transportation in Hannover: a 5,350 mm electric van on an 800-volt version of the PV5's E-GMP.S platform, with 71.5 or 96.2 kWh batteries, 272 hp, 460 km WLTP for the Cargo Long Range and a 25-minute charge from 10 to 80 percent at 350 kW. Cargo and nine-seat Passenger versions reach Europe in the second half of 2027.

Volkswagen's Mission Efficiency prototype has set three records: a drag coefficient of 0.158, 6.48 kWh/100 km at a constant 68 km/h, and 6.89 kWh/100 km over 1,278 km from Wolfsburg to Vienna with a single charging stop. The drivetrain is the ID. Polo's 135 hp motor and battery. Volkswagen officially calls it a concept, but is studying a production version at around €50,000.

Nio's third-generation ES8 will pass 150,000 deliveries this week, twelve months after going on sale in China at 406,800 yuan, a 26.8 percent cut on the previous 100 kWh ES8. In August the ES8 and ES9 made up 82.5 percent of Nio-brand deliveries, leaving seven other models with 3,696 cars. Nio lost 528 million yuan in Q2 despite record volume, and Europe still sells the second-generation EL8 through distributors.

The 50th Suzuka 1000km went to the AO by Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R shared by Laurin Heinrich, Julien Andlauer and Belgium's Alessio Picariello, who won by 51 seconds and led a Porsche one-three. It is Porsche's first outright win at the historic Intercontinental GT Challenge round since 1994, ending a 32-year drought on AO Racing's series debut. Belgian fans had more to cheer, too, with Frédéric Vervisch second and Maxime Martin fifth.

Kimi Antonelli won the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid's new Madring circuit, leading home Max Verstappen and pole-sitter Lando Norris. It was strategy, not raw pace, that decided it: a Virtual Safety Car on lap 13 and the pit stops it forced handed Antonelli the win, and even he admitted Norris deserved better. His championship lead now stands at a commanding 81 points.

Leapmotor International will not bring the updated B10 that went on sale in China on 16 July to Europe, its Europe commercial head Danilo Annese said at the B03X launch in Spain. The Chinese car has an 800 V system, a 69.7 kWh battery and 16-minute charging. Europe's B10 stays at 400 V and 67.1 kWh from €29,900, and a C10 hardware update follows in early 2027.

Lando Norris tests McLaren's MCL-HY hypercar at Portimão on Monday 14 September, his first full day in the car after two Goodwood hill runs in July. He said in Baku in 2025 and again in May 2026 that he wants to race Le Mans. This year's race ended on the same afternoon as the Barcelona Grand Prix, and the provisional 2027 calendar wedges Le Mans between Monaco and Portimão.

Diesel set records on both sides of the Atlantic in one week: the US average crossed $6 a gallon on 10 September, Belgium's official maximum reached €2.407 on the 12th, Germany passed €2.50 at Sunday noon, France averages €2.31 and Britain is at 190p. Refining, not crude, is the driver: Brent closed at $104.61 while the EIA sees US distillate stocks below their five-year low into 2027.

Daimler Truck Defence and PGZ have agreed to assemble Mercedes-Benz truck diesels in Kalisz, Poland, from 2027, growing to more than 1,000 engines a year from kits of over 700 parts. The 7 to 15 litre six-cylinders, 326 to 625 hp, are the units used in the Unimog and Zetros and will power vehicles PGZ companies build for the Polish armed forces, chiefly Jelcz trucks that currently use Iveco engines. No Mercedes trucks are part of the deal.

The Chery-JLR Freelander 8 holds the Guinness record for the highest altitude reached by a hybrid car: 6,002.33 metres in Tibet on 22 August 2026, 22.28 metres above the BYD Fang Cheng Bao 5 mark from July 2024. Its 1.5-litre generator kept 80 percent of its output on half the oxygen and a two-speed rear axle put up to 8,000 Nm through the wheels. A petrol Porsche 911 reached 6,734 metres in 2023.

Ferrari has revealed the 296 GT Modificata, a track-only special built in very limited numbers for its Club Competizioni GT customer programme. Based on the 296 GT3 Evo but freed from any racing rulebook, its V6 makes 730 hp, 130 more than the GT3 racer, and Ferrari says it laps Fiorano three seconds faster. It even has two seats, so owners can take a coach or a passenger along.

Lexus put an updated LS on sale in Japan on 10 September 2026, priced from ¥14.14 million to ¥18.05 million and offered only as the 359 hp LS500h hybrid. The 422 hp twin-turbo LS500 and the entry-grade are gone, so the cheapest LS now costs ¥3.03 million more. The shell gains a reinforced centre tunnel and resin-damped braces. Europe lost the LS on 1 October 2025; the United States gets 250 final Heritage Edition cars.

Ugo Ugochukwu won the 2026 FIA Formula 3 title at the Madring on 13 September with Campos Racing, 159 points to Freddie Slater's 145, after entering the final round 15 points behind. McLaren had signed the American at 13 and released him in November 2025 after a winless, 16th-place season. Slater is the first driver in Audi's F1 programme. The title is worth 30 super licence points and is Campos' first drivers' crown.

Toyota is recalling 8,521 electric C-HRs in the United States because a battery ECU programming error can let regenerative braking overcharge a nearly full pack and shut down the drive system. The cars were built between 6 February and 10 July 2026 at Takaoka, the plant that also builds Europe's C-HR+, and Toyota says not all of them were sold in America. The fix is a dealer software update, with owner letters due on 18 October.

Ford's Transit City, a 56 kWh electric van built by Jiangling Motors in Nanchang, went into production on 31 August and the first batch of around 1,000 is bound for Europe, priced from €35,990 net in Germany and A$50,000 in Australia. Ford exported 184,000 vehicles from China in 2025 while Changan Ford sold 99,400 there, and Jim Farley pledged deeper Jiangling ties days before Washington's letter objecting to Ford's Chinese partnerships.

China exported 7.153 million vehicles between January and August 2026, up 66.7 percent and already past the 7.1 million it shipped in all of 2025, according to CAAM. August alone saw 1.01 million exports while domestic sales fell 24.2 percent and petrol car sales at home nearly halved. Chery leads passenger car exports with 1.32 million, ahead of BYD, which is reported to have ordered ten more 9,200-car ships for delivery between 2027 and 2029.

Bugatti Brussels has moved from D'Ieteren's historic Rue du Mail workshops to a two-car showroom at Grote Baan 399 in Drogenbos, sharing a site with Bentley, Lamborghini and Rimac. Six Tourbillons are allocated to Belgian buyers, none of them registrable until the car is type-approved, and Belgium holds 15 of the 950 W16 Veyrons and Chirons built. The opening came six days after D'Ieteren announced up to 344 job cuts and on the day its automotive margin was reported at 2.1 percent.