Car News

Mini's upcoming performance flagship has been outed during testing at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, wearing essentially no camouflage over its wild new aerodynamics package. The new JCW GP will be built in very limited numbers – just 3000 will be offered – and is designed to represent the pinnacle of performance for the current-generation Mini three-door hatch.

Performax has revealed a special version of its Ford F-150 co-developed with tuning firm Tickford. Headlining the upgrades are suspension, torque, and performance tweaks, including a new ECU tune that takes the 3.5-litre 'EcoBoost' turbocharged V6 to a beefy 354kW and 780Nm, up from the 'standard' 279kW/637Nm tune.

With EU emissions regulations tightening up in the next few years, some automakers have begun to embrace partial or full electrification as a way of avoid hefty fines. Although Fiat Chrysler (FCA) has announced plans to launch make Maserati a largely electric brand, add plug-in hybrids to its Jeep range, and make the next-generation Fiat 500 fully electric, none of these moves will help much in the short term.

Audi Australia has quietly made some running changes to the 2019 Q2 line-up, headlined by the culling of the 2.0 TDI diesel model and extra equipment across the range. Kicking off the range as before is the 'design', which has been rebadged from 1.4 TFSI to 35 TFSI, as per Audi's new (odd) powertrain naming structure.

New vehicle sales in Australia over the first quarter of 2019 fell 7.9% relative to the same period in 2018, to 265,538 units. This is the lowest Q1 tally since 2014, and marks 12 consecutive months of negative growth. You can read this reporter’s Q1 market breakdown here, discussing sales by segment, brand, region, fuel type and origin, as well as specific monthly reports for 2019 for January, February and March.