Ten things we learned this week

Or he did when he first got it, anyway. That's because everyone's favourite British/Scottish tennis player was victorious at this week's Munich Open.

The reward for his first ever clay court title, after victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber? Why, some leather shorts and a hybrid sports car. Obviously.

If you still need some dots joining: BMW sponsors the tennis tournament in its home city, so shoehorning the winner's six feet and three inches over its high sill was an ideal photo opportunity. And making him do so in some locally produced lederhosen only exacerbated that.

As we write, Murray has made the quarter finals of the Madrid Masters. Whether tournament victory will see him don matador attire before clambering into a Seat Ibiza is unconfirmed.

Image: PA

More sportsmen in cars, as Phil ‘The Power' Taylor - the greatest darts player of all time - has acquired himself a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.

You've got to admire the puntastic potential here, and whoever made it happen. Putting a man with a nickname such as his in a plug-in hybrid SUV has vast potential for comedy. Not much of it is in Mitsubishi's press release, though.

"While darts is all about the 180s," it guffaws, "the magic number for Taylor on this occasion is 148 - that's the number of miles to the gallon he can achieve in his new hybrid SUV."

It also claims Taylor can "drive to tournaments around the UK in comfort and style". But given that he's just been gifted an Outlander, he uses that instead...

Rounding up this week's wealthy trawl of celebs in cars comes Nelson Mandela (or the man who played him, anyhow) breaking an 88-year-old speed record.

Before you get too excited, Idris Elba hasn't gone and gazumped Bloodhound's 1000mph attempt. Rather, he's gone to the wet and windy Pendine Sands in Wales to hit a 180mph flying mile in a Bentley Conti GT, surpassing the 174mph set by Sir Malcolm Campbell back in 1927, in the altogether more record-focused Napier-Campbell Bluebird.

As an audition to be the next James Bond - a role petrolhead Elba is widely tipped for - it's a bloody good audition for the car chase scenes.

If you want to go really flipping fast in your car without the wrath of the local constabulary, a trackday is the best way to do it. Do one at the Nürburgring and you're essentially zooming around on a toll road, but one free from law enforcement.

So what a surprise it must have been for a handful of tourist lap goers to see a Passat wagon on full blues'n'twos slaloming its way around the circuit, in what we must admit is an impressively committed manner.

Watch the video here and assess just how ‘on it' German plod is upon corner entry. Clean lines, too. Little this side of a GT3 would stand a chance in a Green Hell car chase.

We all know Morgans are made of wood. But they're not this made of wood. Meet father and son Mohinder and Amandeep Singh, from India. The former proposed they make an almost entirely wooden car when the latter pondered if it was possible. And unlike most father-and-son DIY projects, though, the result appears to be a success.

It ain't fast, though. Made up of hundreds of planks of wood yet powered by an 800cc engine, its top speed is 75mph, and we'd wager it takes a fair while to get there too.

But what a thing. "We see all the other metal cars running on the road everyday," said Mohinder, "but I wanted to make a wooden car that would be unique."

He's certainly done that. And jubilant with the pair's success, Amandeep is confident more walnut whips will come. "With my father's help I will build a lot more cars out of wood - there is a lot more to come in the future."

What the car needs, though, is a name. The Mini M-oak? The Ford Fir-cus? The Kia Cee'dar? We'll get our coats.

With even its front-engined GT cars having comparable power to an F1 car nowadays, you could argue Ferrari's ‘regular' products are just some well-placed wings away from launching into orbit.

Flavio Manzoni, though, the pen-wielder behind the F12, LaFerrari and FXXK, has gone the whole hog and designed a Prancing Horse spaceship. Oh yes.

Somewhat conversely, it's perhaps more conservatively styled than all of them. The only red paint is a subtle strip, while its aerodynamic work appears far simpler than that of its Earth-based brethren too.

Still, we rather like it. What say a real version so we can see the rendering above morph into the greatest piece of tracking photography of all time?

From a big old Ferrari in space to a pair of them at sea. Sort of. See, the very generous Northants businessman Richard Colton left two immensely valuable 1960s Fezzas - a 250 GT SWB and a 275 GTB/4 - to lifeboat charity RNLI in his will, citing his nervousness of the sea as the reason.

And the RNLI's coffers should swell considerably (see what we did there?), as it's sending the pair to auction, with a combined total well into the millions almost certain. If you've an itchy cheque book and a warm heart, you'll want to be at Duxford's Imperial War Museum on October 14.

And next time you're saved at sea, you've a beautiful old Ferrari to thank.

Urus to the rescue! Faced with a 12.5 per cent unemployment rate, Bloomberg is reporting that the Italian government is set to offer tax breaks in order to ensure an assembly line is built for Lamborghini's will they/won't they SUV, thus ensuring its production to fight in-house rivals from Porsche and Bentley.

Last year Lambo sold just over 2500 cars, while it has predicted 3000 SUVs - be they a production version of the Urus or something else - could be shifted annually, essentially doubling its sales figures.

And production could secure 300 jobs at Lamborghini, Italian PM Matteo Renzi reported to be preparing more than £70million's worth of tax breaks to ensure it happens. We do hope Renzi pulls rank and rolls around in one if it all comes to fruition.

Drop £20,000 on a second-hand car, only for its delivery to be stalled when it's damaged on the forecourt, and you're probably allowed to be a little peeved. And a goodwill gesture by said dealership - a free meal for two, perhaps - would remedy the angst of most of us.

When Watford Audi pranged Siobhan Yap's A3 Convertible they offered just that. So out she went with her mother... to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London, its chef the recipient of 25 Michelin stars across his various restuarants.

After gobbling many pricey tasting dishes and a lot of alcohol, including four glasses of Veuve Clicquot champagne, the pair went back to Watford Audi with a £714.61 bill to pay.

Rattled, the dealer agreed to go halfies, to the chagrin of Yap, who reckons they should have specified an upper limit when they made their goodwill gesture.

We're not quite sure whether this boosts or damages the image of Audi owners, but there's a comment box below for you to help us decide...

It's nearly time for the VW Group's Worthersee festival, an event that churns out all manner of wonderful concept cars with fairly prosaic bases. Highlights from the past include a W12-engine Golf and a kart-wielding super-Amarok.

As well as the utterly adorable Funstar pickup we showed you last week, Skoda will be showing off an R5 rally version of its otherwise humdrum Fabia Estate.

And, well, look at it. While mere sketches for now, this green, white and black cartoon car has utterly captivated us and we need to try one right now. That a 1.6-litre turbo engine drives all four wheels through a sequential gearbox only heightens that want.

Can we have a road-going version please, Skoda?