Phill Tromans

Lewis Hamilton has not had the best of luck thus far in 2016. So what might have happened if both Mercedes cars had excellent reliability throughout the season?

Phill Tromans joins Land Rover for the posh and peculiar unveiling of the new Discovery.

Last month, I drove to the ­Geneva motor show. The focus of the journey was on the quirky Morgan 3 Wheeler – a deliciously impractical vehicle in which to drive from the United Kingdom to Switzerland, but that’s what made it an appealing exercise. But never mind that now. With minimal storage in the 3 Wheeler, we needed a practical load-lugger as the support car – something that would carry clothes, camera equipment and the like, and be frugal on fuel.

For more than 50 years, Porsche’s 911 has been the epitome of great sports cars. But no more. With the arrival of the Cayman GT4 at the start of this year, Porsche has signalled the beginning of the end of an icon. Well, that’s not what the press release says, obviously. But the introduction of a super-focused Cayman will, I suspect, show up the 911 for what it is – a relic of a bygone age, albeit one that’s been evolved and improved ­superbly over the decades.

In October, Bentley opened its first dealership in ­Vietnam. The communist country follows an increasing number of new markets being exposed to the highest levels of automotive luxury. What’s interesting is not just which markets are finding themselves in this position, but how they’re influencing the global meaning of “luxury”. These are regions that, in many cases, have had little or no experience of what the established markets would call luxury motoring, so they bring their own, local ideas

Rolls-Royce has a dilemma on its hands. The British car company is literally the byword for luxury – “the Rolls-Royce of cars”, as one executive quipped at a recent event – which is an enviable title to boast. But Rolls is in a precarious position. When you stand tall, there’s farther to fall – and, in the world of ultra-luxury goods, you can’t afford to slip. The demand for such goods is expanding at a rapid rate, driven largely by emerging markets like Russia, China and the Middle East. Rolls

For the majority of us, car maintenance tends to be the job of the local garage or dealer. But for some, a run-of-the-mill mechanic isn’t good enough. They want someone that will know their pride and joy inside out. They want a specialist. Virtually every notable car has a community built around it, a network of owners that obsess over their vehicles, and industries spring up to serve them – very often from within. Ben Lewis runs Evil Ben’s, a Cornwall-based mechanic and restoration service sp

Recently, I moved to Britain after six years living in the UAE. To say that the cost of fuel has been a shock would be an understatement. In Dubai, filling my Volkswagen Golf GTI cost... well, I don’t know, as I never really looked. I’d hazard a guess at about Dh100. In Britain, my Renaultsport Clio 172 Cup drinks up the equivalent of Dh325 every time. And it’s a pretty frugal car. The expenditure mounts up. When it comes to cost, the UAE is a great place in which to drive, not just because of

Even though I’ve been a motoring journalist for almost a decade, I’m not a mechanic. And never was that fact underlined more than when I bought a used car last week.

The self-driving car. What, if anything, in recent memory, has caused so much gnashing of teeth among petrolheads, so much furious tapping away at keyboards? Those who enjoy the rush of a perfectly judged apex and the joy of a lively throttle fear that autonomous vehicles will turn driving into a mere method of getting from A to B, rather than something to savour. I can understand their fears. I love driving too, and don’t want to give it up. But at the same time, I’m all in favour of the drive

My advice to anyone producing a manual gearbox for a sports car – save the cows. Put in a metal gate. Your public will thank you.