#BrownCarGuy – News, Views & Reviews!
When you buy a Volvo, how much Volvo do you expect to get? It sounds like a ridiculous question, I know. You walk into a Volvo showroom, buy a car with Volvo written on it and naturally assume that the people behind that badge have decided how it should work, how it should drive and how it should protect your family.
The Kia EV2 is the smallest and cheapest electric car the Korean manufacturer sells in Britain. That usually means a worthy little urban runabout built to a price, with the interior ambience of a bare cupboard and unpainted bumpers. But the EV2 has other ideas. It arrives with the upright stance, bold lighting and visual confidence of something at least one size larger – and a couple of grades more expensive.
Someone has just spent $40 million on the world’s most expensive toaster. That is the sensational headline emerging from Monterey Car Week, where the first production chassis of Ferrari’s controversial electric Luce crossed the block at RM Sotheby’s.
Imagine you own a perfectly good petrol car. It works, it is reliable and it might be only a year or two old. According to a startling new scientific study, the environmentally responsible thing could be to scrap it and buy a brand-new electric car. Yes, really. New Scientist summed up the finding with the wonderfully provocative headline: “It’s good for the planet to scrap a new petrol car and buy electric.”
Detroit is rediscovering the immense profits in petrol-powered trucks, Europe is cutting jobs and cherished models while funding a painful transition, and China is building electric cars at a scale and price the old guard cannot match. Who is winning the Car Wars?
Have you seen the news from the car industry lately? There is a very clear trend emerging, and it looks like some have played a solid hand while others are flailing about trying to find a way out of the quagmire. Or is this really a rabbit and tortoise situation?
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.
At a recent event, I was chatting to somebody who works within the legacy car industry. It doesn’t matter which manufacturer, because this relates to the industry as a whole – it’s something bigger, broader and potentially catastrophic for the entire car industry. What this person told me was that, in terms of marketing and PR budgets, their focus now is very much on product rather than brand. And I understand why. These companies have cars to sell, EV targets to hit, emissions legislation to satisfy, ZEV mandates to survive, shareholders to soothe and showroom traffic to somehow summon from the ether. But I also think this strategy could be a fundamental, frightening and potentially fatal mistake.
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.
There was a time when hearing the word “Lotus” instantly conjured up images of lightweight sports cars dancing down B-roads with the delicacy of a hummingbird. Tiny steering wheels writhing in your hands. Barely-there kerb weights. Fibreglass bodies. A driving experience so pure and alive that you could forgive the occasional electrical tantrum, water leak, or trim piece that decided it no longer wished to participate in the journey – because the journey itself was epic (and that’s just to the shops!).
Somewhere between haunted roads, electric cars, and the eternal fight between influencers and journalists, a very honest discussion broke out. In the latest BrownCarGuy Therapy Session Podcast, I was joined by Jeff Bailey – long-time motoring writer, serial car buyer, and author – and Imthishan Giado, my partner-in-crime from our Car Middle East and Motoring Middle East days. We didn’t plan to solve the mysteries of the universe, but somewhere between the nostalgia and the banter, we might just have done that – or something…