Opinion

Earthquake events like a Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) chief quitting come as huge shocks at the moment they’re announced, but the departure of CEO Thierry Bolloré “for personal reasons” has reportedly not been a complete surprise.

I think I get it. After years of letters proclaiming bias, of meeting people full of hate and bile, of hearing strange ‘Beetle’ jokes and being absolutely baffled as to how and why people could be so negative about a car that seems to encapsulate everything they proclaim to love about driving, something in me has changed. I’m sick of Porsche.

There are tough jobs in the automotive industry, and then there’s the CEO of McLaren Automotive. The ambition for the Woking firm, still only a decade or so into existence as a car maker, was always as tough as it gets: to take on and beat Ferrari.

Officially they’re Volkswagen Group products. But I think of them as cars from the House of VACSS – VW, Audi, Cupra, SEAT and Skoda – of Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic. These are vehicles I know very well. My first car in the late seventies was a beige Beetle (AGC 829G).

Can Hyundai transfer the magic to electric cars? It’s one thing stealing a bunch of the best people from BMW to let them do essentially what they do best: make smile-a-mile old-school performance cars. It’s another to break into the uncharted territory of the EV driver’s car.

ICE-powered fast wagons are on the way out, and the M3 Touring could be an excellent swansong. We live in a world increasingly well-furnished with...