Autoesque

A jury of more than eighty international motoring journalists has decided the 2018 World Car Awards finalists.

Ram’s all-new 2019 1500 pick-up range is going to include the upmarket Laramie Longhorn Edition. Its interior boasts a distinctly luxury ambience courtesy of full-grain leather, real wood accents, satin chrome trim pieces and mood lighting.

Taking its inspiration from the McLaren 570S GT4 racer, the MSO X is a street-legal car that should be equally suited to hard track use. The project, which was commissioned by USA dealer McLaren Newport Beach, resulted in ten examples being built by McLaren Special Operations.

Another Kia model will soon be available in GT-Line guise. The latest candidate is the five-door Rio supermini, which is due to arrive at dealers after appearing at March’s Geneva Motor Show.

This year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship begins at the weekend with the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The event will see the début of the BMW M8 GTE, run by BMW Team RLL.

Revised styling, more comfort and a better driving experience denote the 2018 Land Cruiser, according to Toyota.

After a seven-year absence, the Ford Ranger is set to return to North America. The new mid-size pick-up might look familiar, because it’s based on the Ranger T6 that was originally launched in Asia, Europe and other markets in 2011.

This year’s North American Car of the Year, Truck of the Year and Utility Vehicle of the Year have been named at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

131,335 new cars were registered in Ireland during 2017, according to statistics released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry. That total represented a reduction of just over ten percent compared to 2016.

Ahead of its second season competing in the FIA World Rally Championship, the Yaris WRC has been slightly modified by Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Electric cars equipped with hydrogen fuel cells will only become popular when an adequate refuelling infrastructure exists. In the UK, for example, there are currently just twelve hydrogen stations (and five of them are clustered around London).

2017 saw 2,540,617 new cars registered in the UK, a 5.7% reduction compared to 2016. However, as in previous years, some manufacturers bucked the overall market trend, while others most definitely contributed to it.

In absolute terms, 2017 wasn’t a bad year for new car registrations in the UK. Sure, the overall total was down compared to 2015 and 2016, but that was almost bound to happen.

For this month’s CMT show in Stuttgart, Mercedes-Benz has created a couple of concepts based on its new X-Class pick-up .

Following a merger of the FIA World Touring Car Championship and the TCR International Series, 2018 will see the inaugural staging of the FIA World Touring Car Cup. This promising series, which has adopted TCR technical regulations, is intended to attract more manufacturers to top-flight saloon car racing.

Ahead of customer deliveries beginning next month, Nissan has published prices for its new second-generation pure-electric Leaf .