Updates announced for the BMW 1-Series

BMW has treated its baby model to more powerful LED headlights as part of a gentle facelift for the model.

Along with the brighter new lights, the 1-Series has been given a few subtle styling tweaks to keep the hatchback looking fresh, including larger air intakes and a reshaped radiator grille.

It goes on sale on March 28, with the cheapest model being the three-door 118i SE at £20,245.

 

Fiat's new lease deal for the 500 is young at heart

FIAT is pitching a new lease deal on its 500 to teenage motorists who would otherwise struggle with the cost of insuring their first car.

The company’s i-DEAL scheme, agreed jointly between the Italian manufacturer and Carrot, an insurance firm, allows drivers as young as 18 to drive a brand new 500 fitted with a telematics system which encourages them to drive more safely.

The three year deal costs £239 a month to take part in. While it’s not the cheapest way to get motoring at the age of 18 – there are of course, telematic monitoring systems which can already be fitted to secondhand cars – it’s ideal for parents who want their offspring to start their motoring career in a safe, hassle-free way.

Karl Howkins, Commercial Director for FIAT Chrysler UK, said: “This all-inclusive insurance package deal will make the dream of driving a brand new FIAT 500 a reality for many young drivers who would otherwise be forced to drive an older and potentially less reliable and safe vehicle.”

To find out more go to the new website covering the Fiat 500 insurance deal.

Why I've signed the motorsport noise petition

BLIPPING the throttle on a Jaguar F-type, hearing the scream of that supercharged V8 and the lovely crackle from the exhaust overrun is one of those things I reckon I’d never get tired of doing. 

It’s a truly beautiful bit of automotive acoustics, but I reckon if I moved next door to your house and did it repeatedly, day after day, you’d start to find even the F-type’s sonorous song a bit annoying after a while. It’s the same story with anyone who thinks they can get away with playing with the Black Eyed Peas in the next room – noise, when you’re not expecting it, is utterly annoying and thoroughly deserving of a strongly-worded Post-It Note.

But what if you move somewhere where a bit of racket is to be expected – in fact, where a bit of racket is actually encouraged? I reckon that’s a different story. Luckily, about 36,000 of you happen to agree with me, which is why an ongoing petition to protect motor racing circuits from people who move in next door and then complain about the noise is well on its way to getting debated at Westminster.

I completely get where the likes of Mallory Park, brought to its knees two years ago by a noise-related complaint, and Mildenhall Stadium, which is currently fighting its next door neighbours in the Supreme Court, are coming from. You can’t just move in across the street from a motor racing circuit that’s been there for years, find it a bit annoying and then take the operators to the cleaners.

I grew up in a house less than a mile from RAF Woodvale, which has been there since Spitfires were taking off and predates the nearby homes by at least 30 years.  Equally, the place I put my head down for the night during the working week is less than 50 yards from the A1, and I’m not exactly in a position to moan about what’s been the road from London to Edinburgh since the Romans set up shop here. If I didn’t like either, I’d just move somewhere else.

If you value going to somewhere like Oulton Park or Donington and you enjoy watching racing, then go online and sign the petition. Britain is the de facto motorsport capital of the world – just ask all the F1 teams based within an hour of Silverstone – and it needs protecting from the numpties next door.

Honda's clever cruise control is computing witchcraft

THE OTHER week my smartphone – having worked out I was on a train chugging its way through Sandhills station – decided to give me an update on how Brendan Rogers’ boys were getting on against Arsenal.

Somewhere deep within the phone’s brain, a complicated algorithm had worked out that, as I was vaguely close to Anfield at the time of a Liverpool game, I must have been interested in the results. All it proved was that my phone probably knows less about me than you do. It knew where I was, but couldn’t figure out why.

If you’ve ever bought someone a gift on Amazon – say, Michael Bublé’s latest album – and then been hounded with emails suggesting you buy all his other albums despite the fact you hate his records, you’ll know what I mean when I say I don't really trust computerised technology. It makes even less sense when you apply it to real world driving – a colleague and I were circumnavigating London’s North Circular the other day, and even though I’ve never driven the capital’s roads before I could still work when to change lanes long before Lady Satnav did.

That’s why I’m genuinely going to have to take a leap of faith with Honda’s latest invention. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they’ve managed to come up with an automatic cruise control system that can predict if someone’s about to cut you up. Not only that, but it then applies the brakes to prevent them causing a pile-up.

Surely that’s just witchcraft? Predicting who is going to cut you up on the M58 is something best done with common sense rather than computers. Even a really good computer, developed by Honda’s brainiest boffins, cannot scan every car on the motorway, work out which one is the BMW X5 on personalised plates and take pre-emptive action to prevent them from ruining your drive into work.

However, it’s not something nicked from a science fiction movie. It’s called Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control – or i-ACC, as Honda’s insisting we nickname it – and it’ll be available on range-topping versions of the CR-V off-roader later this year.

I can’t wait to give it a go and see if it actually works. Perhaps more worrying it’s that it’s being hailed as a step towards a whole new generation of clever gadgets that can predict what other people are about to do and take pre-emptive decisions to improve the situation.

Maybe such a technical marvel shouldn’t just be limited to motoring. Have Liverpool thought about bringing in i-ACC to replace Brendan Rogers?

Nissan LEAF leads electric car sales charge

SALES of electric cars more than doubled in 2014 compared to the previous year, new figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reveal.

Among the biggest sellers are Nissan’s LEAF and Vauxhall’s Ampera, but even at current rates the electric vehicles still only account for one in every 220 new cars sold in the UK.

SEAT joins the fast estate club

SEAT is following Ford, VW and Skoda into the world of practically-minded performance cars by launching its first ever fast estate model.

The SEAT Leon ST Cupra has the same 280bhp engine and six-speed gearbox as its hatchback sibling, but despite all the extra luggage room it’s only two tenths of a second slower in the dash from 0 to 60mph.

It goes on sale here in March, with prices due to be announced in the next few weeks.

New classic car show in Preston today

CLASSIC CAR owners in Lancashire might want to head to this new event, which takes place near Preston today.

The 10am-4pm event takes place at the Smiths Arms in Lea Town, and is open to all classic vehicles, and if it's a success more gatherings are on the cards at the pub later this summer.

For more information call John Deuce on 01772 760555.