Ten things we learned this week: 24 June 2016 edition

“Is that the electrical one?” asks former ball-kicker Owen as he’s presented with the i8 hybrid sports car, in this video by Alexanders Prestige.

“It’s mad, innit” is one of the choice phrases from his road test, as he also reveals how likely it is to take a spot in his three-car garage. Though we imagine he’s probably able to own four.

Is an electric sports car like this the future, wee Micky is asked? “You’d have to say so,” is his sage observation. “The world’s supplies aren’t going to last forever.”

Please, celebrity car endorsements, never stop amusing us.

Oh yes. After one former Liverpool striker pledges his support for a car, here’s a car pledging its support to the Reds.

Confused? That’s an understandable reaction. While our understanding of Chinese isn’t even pidgin at best, what we gather sits before us is a Liverpool-branded MG 3, one which is jacked-up and recalling the old Rover Streetwise, at that.

Look, it even has ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the name of the club’s anthem, down the side of it. Buy a car as unsubtle as this, though, and you may just drive alone…

Yep. A week after it was confirmed Dame Helen Mirren would be in the cast of the latest Fast and Furious film, Fast 8, another star has been confirmed.

Unlike Mirren, this one has wheels, and is, um, a car. It is the sweet little Nissan IDx, the little rear-drive sports car concept that could have been a fine Toyota GT86 rival had Nissan not vetoed its production.

Some solace, though, can come in the form of its big screen appearance. If you’re willing to watch the rest of Fast 8 to see it…

Oh yes. The new F-Type SVR – which you can see on TG TV this weekend - is now available for potentially vomit-inducing laps of the Nordschleife.

For the princely sum of 295 euros you’ll get half an hour in the passenger seat of the new 200mph Jag as a professional driver does his best to discover what you ate for breakfast. One, slightly odd proviso is that you must be 18 to have a bash.

The F-Type SVR will be available every weekend between now and October. Pick a wet one and we can all but guarantee lairiness…

We have seen much about the impact of 3D printing on the car world. And it’s certainly coming. The latest step arrived this week, in the form of official Daihatsu parts for Copen owners who wish to modifiy their absurdly sweet little roadster.

The Copen already comes with the option of swappable panels for owners bored of their car’s appearance, or the need to differentiate it from their mates’. Working with Stratasys, the options 3D printing allows are some very weird little patterns and textures, which you can see in more detail here.

Think of it as Q by Aston Martin or McLaren Special Operations for the masses.

The world, you have noticed, can be a sad, scary place. Not least in Orlando recently.

Hope always comes, though, in the response of the good people of our planet. People like the NYPD, showing support for the victims of that attack in Florida by applying a colourful lick of paint to their Ford Explorer patrol car ahead of this weekend’s New York pride event.

Nice.

Picture: @CommissBratton

BMW has an illustrious and wonderful past of art-daubed racing cars. Wanting to get in on the action, Volvo has now had a go, too.

The whole WTCC series is having an art car competition, in fact, and there are no prizes for guessing the inspiration behind Volvo’s entry. Why it’s the Swedish flag, of course, looking more convincing here than the football team representing it did in the Euros.

The man behind the design isn’t some professional paint arranger, though; he is Swedish royal and racing driver Prince Carl Philip. Talk about a busy CV.

Staying on Swedish soil, the Scandinavian country is moving electrification of our transport one step closer by making EV trucks. To combat the inevitable issue of haulage only making it as far as one, long-winded charge will allow, it is charging them on the go via the road. Yikes.

It’s not through the asphalt just yet, though, rather via tram-like overhead rails. The trucks themselves are also stuck in the present day, hybrid Scanias that still have 13-litre engines in them.

But the opening of a 2km strip of Swedish motorway to test the tech out as seen as a stepping stone in achieving a fossil-free fleet of Swedish artics by 2030. And that’s got to be, um, positive. Sorry.

Picture: Scania

No matter how many times you watch this video, it doesn’t cease to be impressive. It’s footage from last weekend’s Baku Grand Prix, more specifically, one of the Williams team’s pit stops during the race.

Blink and you really might miss it: Felipe Massa’s car comes in and has all four wheels swapped in an official 1.92 seconds, matching Red Bull’s pit-stop record.

But data from Williams itself appears to suggest that the whole thing lasted just 1.89 seconds. A miniscule difference in the grand scheme of things, but if true, enough to hand them - albeit unofficially - the record. Well done that pit crew.

Or at least the back of it will, if this very odd teaser video is anything to go by. It’s becoming increasingly common for carmakers to make much of their range resemble a star model – Fiat and its 500 and Mini and its, um, Mini are examples – and so it would seem now the C4 Cactus has attracted so many plaudits.

This is a very sneaky glimpse of the C3, a car which we’ve also seen heavily disguised while cutting some shapes on a rally course. In a thronging market of wee hatchbacks, can it make a difference? We’ll get a better idea next week…