#BrownCarGuy – News, Views & Reviews!
The British car industry has just issued one of its strongest warnings in years. Not about Chinese competition. Not about Donald Trump’s tariffs. Not even about electric cars themselves. This is about Government policy.
Remember when fixing your car was… well, fixing your car? Let’s say you clipped a wall and cracked a headlight. The dealer quoted you £500 for a replacement. You laughed politely, wandered down to your local scrapyard, picked up a perfectly good used one for fifty quid, fitted it yourself in an hour, and everyone lived happily ever after. Those days are disappearing. On many modern cars, fitting a second-hand headlight, ECU, instrument cluster, infotainment screen or other electronic component can trigger warning messages, disable functions or simply refuse to work altogether.
The car industry has always been cyclical. Sales rise and fall. Models flop. Companies merge, split, collapse and occasionally rise from the ashes. Automotive history is littered with famous names that simply disappeared, particularly here in Britain where once-proud marques have become little more than museum exhibits or nostalgic memories. What’s different in 2026 is that we’re witnessing something arguably more alarming.
A relentless chase. A deadly secret. No way out. That’s the promise at the heart of Silent Ruin, my brand-new international spy thriller and the first in a new series featuring Jamshed Khan. This is a character I originally created over three decades ago, now reborn into a far more grown-up, high-stakes world of espionage, danger, and consequence.
The Ferrari Luce may prove to be one of the most important car designs of recent years, not because it is revolutionary, not because it is beautiful, and certainly not because it has been universally admired. Quite the opposite. The reaction to Ferrari’s first electric car has been so overwhelmingly negative that it may have inadvertently transformed how enthusiasts view every major design reveal that has followed it. That sounds absurd, but bear with me.
Every now and then a story emerges from the corridors of Westminster that makes you stop, put down your tea, rub your eyes and double-check that you haven’t accidentally wandered onto a parody website. This was one of those moments. According to evidence submitted to the House of Commons Transport Committee by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, better known as PACTS, one argument for introducing more blanket 20mph speed limits is that doing so could reduce the need for additional signs, consultations, traffic orders and all the associated administrative clutter that accompanies modern transport policy. In other words, if I’ve understood this correctly, one of the reasons millions of motorists could find themselves travelling more slowly is because road signs are apparently becoming a bit expensive.
A funny thing has happened on the road to electrification. Along the way, someone assumed that the future of luxury motoring would be silent, seamless and battery powered, that the world’s wealthiest buyers would lead the charge into a brave new era of zero-emissions indulgence, and that once the millionaires and billionaires embraced electric cars, the rest of us would naturally follow faithfully in their tyre tracks. It sounded plausible enough. After all, if anyone could afford the latest technology, it would be the people who think nothing of dropping the price of a semi-detached house on a weekend toy.
The new Aion V has landed in the UK, and I got an early first drive at SMMT Test Day at Millbrook, where some of the latest cars are laid out like an automotive buffet and you try not to come away with indigestion, or an existential crisis about how quickly the car industry is changing. This is Aion’s new electric family SUV, and while the badge may still be unfamiliar to most British buyers, the proposition is anything but vague: 317 miles of WLTP range, £36,450 OTR, around 204PS, lots of equipment, loads of space and one of the most interesting ownership packages currently being offered on any new car in Britain.
Ferrari has officially revealed its first fully electric production car, the all-new Ferrari Luce EV, and honestly, I bewildered and apoplectic with rage. This is the company that gave us the Ferrari F40, Testarossa, 288 GTO, Dino, Daytona, 308 and 458 Italia. Cars that looked like rolling works of art. Cars that made grown adults weak at the knees and children plaster posters across bedroom walls. And now… this.
The 2026 Enfield Pageant of Motoring turned out to be an absolute treasure trove of weird, wonderful and wildly creative machinery, reminding us why grassroots car culture remains far more entertaining than yet another identikit crossover launch with mood lighting and an app subscription for heated seats. This year’s event was packed with everything from beautifully preserved classics to utterly unhinged custom creations, including a chopped and Audi-powered Vauxhall Victor FB, stunning American cruisers, rat-look survivors proudly wearing decades of scars, and hot rods that looked ready to drag race Satan himself.