Category: Automotive

Are Speed Cameras Making Us Worse Drivers? & How to Avoid Speeding Fines in the UK

Are Speed Cameras Making Us Worse Drivers? & How to Avoid Speeding Fines in the UK
After 40 years behind the wheel, I’ve never felt more anxious driving in the UK—here’s why, and how to stay legal without losing your focus

Speed Cameras. Sheesh. So listen, I’ve been driving for around forty years now. Across continents, cultures, and conditions that would make some sat-nav systems simply give up and blue screen. I’ve driven in the UK, across Europe, through the Middle East, around the United States, and in places where traffic laws are more of a philosophical suggestion than a legal requirement. I’ve navigated cities where lane discipline is an abstract concept, deserts where the horizon never seems to get any closer, and mountain roads that appear to have been designed by someone with a grudge against gravity.

And yet, despite all of that, I have never felt more anxious behind the wheel than I do today – right here in the UK.

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Kia PV5 Passenger Review: The Cool Electric Van That Thinks Beyond Cars

Kia PV5 Passenger Review
The Kia PV5 Passenger is futuristic, spacious and deeply practical, but the five-seat launch version feels like the story has started before the best chapter has arrived

This is the Kia PV5 Passenger, and no, I don’t normally review commercial vehicles, but this one sits in that interesting space between van, MPV, taxi, family bus and rolling sci-fi appliance. Kia calls it a Platform Beyond Vehicle, or PBV, which sounds like marketing nonsense until you understand the idea. Because electric vehicles use a flat skateboard-style platform, Kia can build different bodies on top of it: a proper van, a passenger version like this, a chassis cab for conversions, and potentially all sorts of specialist versions in future. You know, I’ve been taking about this flexibility for years – looks like manufacturers are finally starting to exploit it.

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Cycle Lanes Are Causing Chaos – Who Actually Has Priority on UK High Streets?

Pedestrians and cyclists are being forced into the same space – and the result is confusion, conflict, and a design problem nobody wants to admit

Spend five minutes on a busy London high street – Kingsbury, for example – and you’ll see it play out in real time. A cyclist glides along what looks like a pavement. A pedestrian steps sideways without thinking. A sudden brake. A raised voice. Maybe worse. Fisticuffs at tea time. It’s not rare. It’s not isolated. It’s not even surprising. Because what we’re seeing isn’t bad behaviour. It’s bad design.

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The Truth About Why Nobody Is Buying New Cars Anymore (The 17-Year Legend)

The UK’s average car is now kept for 17 years—and the numbers reveal why sticking with your “old faithful” might be the smartest move you can make

Something strange is happening in the car market, and it’s not what the glossy adverts or showroom smiles would have you believe. People aren’t rushing out to buy new cars anymore. In fact, many are doing the exact opposite. They’re holding on to what they’ve already got. Tight. The average age of a car being scrapped in the UK has now climbed to 17 years. Let that sink in. Seventeen years. That’s not just a stat – it’s a seismic shift in how we think about cars, money, and even the environment. So what’s going on? Are we broke? Disillusioned? Or… are we just being logical?

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BrownCarGuy Books!

Four books. One journey. From high-octane thrillers to real-world automotive insight – explore the full BrownCarGuy collection on Amazon.

From a political thriller that eerily predicted the introduction of Pay-Per-Mile in the UK’s “War on Motorists” (The ULEZ Files), to a bold new international spy series launching with Silent Ruin, a collection of thought-provoking short stories spanning two decades (Quantum Races), and a semi-autobiographical no-nonsense insider guide to breaking into the automotive media world (How to Be an Automotive Content Creator)…

This is the complete BrownCarGuy library. Whether you’re here for action, ideas, or real-world experience, there’s something here for you. Available now on Amazon or Read free with Kindle Unlimited.

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Are Toyota and Honda Really in Trouble? How China Changed the Car Industry Forever

Japan once rewrote the rules of the car industry — now China has changed the game again, and even giants like Toyota and Honda are feeling the pressure

There was a time when if someone asked you what car to buy, the answer was almost automatic – get a Toyota, get a Honda, and sleep easy at night. These were the brands that built their reputations not on hype or gimmicks, but on something far more powerful: trust. Cars that started every morning, ran forever, and asked very little in return. They weren’t just manufacturers, they were institutions. Which is why hearing senior figures from these companies openly express concern about their future feels less like industry chatter and more like a tremor beneath the foundations of the automotive world itself.

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The Ultimate Lotus Esprit? Inside the Encor Series 1 – A Modern Reimagining of a Legend

The Lotus Esprit reborn: inside the £430k Encor Series 1 V8 re-engineering of a true British icon

There are certain cars that don’t just sit in your memory… they take up permanent residence in your soul. For me, the Lotus Esprit is one of them. That razor-edged wedge, the Bond connection, the sheer audacity of its design… it wasn’t just a car, it was a spaceship.

So when I first heard about the Encor Series 1, a modern reinterpretation of the original Lotus Esprit S1, I started wondering if aliens had probed my mind, and stumbled upon my dream car – the purity of the original shape Esprit combined with a V8 drivetrain and all mod-cons. I’ve been salivating since the first moment they started releasing teaser images, lost my mind when they revealed the car and details, and could barely contain my excitment to finally see the car in person yesterday.

Here’s my video of the car, including a full walkaround, interior details, and an in-depth discussion about the “Esprit Remastered” with one of the founders, Simon Lane.

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£100 Million of Supercars on One Street – Salon Privé Sloane Street London

Salon Prive at Sloane Street, London
£100 million worth of hypercars and classics take over Sloane Street in a spectacular Salon Privé London preview

You don’t expect to stumble across £100 million worth of machinery on an ordinary London street… but then again, Sloane Street isn’t exactly ordinary, and Salon Privé doesn’t do things by halves. Ahead of the main concours event, Salon Privé Sloane Street London delivered a spectacular preview, transforming one of the capital’s most exclusive shopping destinations into a rolling showcase of hypercars, rare classics, and cutting-edge automotive art. For a few fleeting hours, Central London felt less like SW1 and more like a curated slice of Monaco during Grand Prix 

weekend.

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Kia EV5 Full Review

Kia’s EV5 aims to replace the family SUV with electric practicality, strong range and serious tech — but as I discovered, it’s not always keen to show off its clever features when you need it to

The EV5 is Kia taking its best-selling formula – the Sportage – and rethinking it for the electric era, not just swapping out the engine for a battery, but genuinely reworking the whole idea of what a family SUV should be when you start with a clean sheet, and if they’ve got this right then this could end up being one of the most important EVs on sale right now, because it slots along the combustion-engined powered Sportage as the electric equivalent. And the Sportage is a best-seller for Kia.

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