I’ve always liked the Volvo XC90. I admire its Tonka Toy looks, its stance, its practicality, and its indomitable spirit. It is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a Land Rover Defender for middle-class people who actually have a life rather than those who just wish they did. It isn’t an unusual car. After all, throw a stick in a Waitrose car-park and you’ll hit an uber-SUV, a pumped-up estate bloated with…

The MINI Coupe probably generated more controversy than any other car in 2011 thanks to its curious roofline and two-seat layout. Why? we all asked, before making snide baseball cap jokes and giggling. ‘WTF’ was trending on twitter for a few days too yet when we saw it in the flesh we were, if not impressed, less scandalised than we had expected to be. Looks are always, as a colleague…

The Jaguar XF’s indicators sound like the ticking of a grandfather clock, rhythmic and unobtrusive. That is a Good Thing; someone has thought long and hard about what sort of noise they should make and this obsessive attention attention to detail is seen throughout the rest of the car. Other manifestations of this include the rising gearknob, air vents that open when the ignition comes on, a beautiful suede headlining,…

After our features on How To Buy A Car For Under £10k That Will Make You Money, How To Buy A Car At Auction, and How To Choose A Future Classic Car we thought that it was time to share some insider secrets on how to add value. It’s all very well choosing the right classic car and getting it for the right price but if you can’t turn a…

So, you want to be a motoring journalist, do you? Drawn, no doubt, by the lure of a fast buck, lavish foreign launch events, and access to more new cars than you could possibly drive in one lifetime. Ignoring the fact that the life of a motoring journo just isn’t like that, where on earth do you start? Well, you could go back to university as both Cardiff and Coventry…

Following on from the How To Choose A Future Classic Car feature, here are eight cars that are absolutely, totally, one-hundred-percent guaranteed to make you money in the long-term*. Some of them are unbelievably beautiful, some are ground-breakingly innovative, and some are supremely satisfying to drive; and a few, such as the Citroen DS, are all three. What they all have in common is the fact that I think they’re…

The SEAT Leon isn’t a great looking car. Sure, it’s inoffensive enough. Nothing there to scare the kids, but I bet that you’ve never looked at one with lustful eyes, have you? I was the same; I clocked the bulbous front end and bland backside and wrote it off as yet another forgettable hatchback. Which was wrong, because it really is a very, very good car indeed. My first lengthy…

The Bloodhound SSC programme has only one aim: to set a new world Land Speed Record of 1,000mph. Run by Sir Richard Noble, who held the LSR himself from 1983 to 1997, Bloodhound will be designed and built by 2014 at the latest, giving the driver, Andy Green, the chance to reach Mach 1.4 on land, the first time that anyone will have done so. Bloodhound will be run on…

The ASX is Mitsubishi’s answer to the Nissan Qashqai, the urban crossover that has taken the Guardian-reading classes – who like the idea of a four-wheel-drive vehicle but don’t actually need one – by storm. Essentially an estate car on steroids, it gets the obligatory raised suspension, Evoque-esque looks, and a high driving position to match its owners’ lofty pretensions. With the corporate Mitsubishi ‘fighter’ front grille, fat alloy wheels,…