Ten things we learned this week: 29 July 2016 edition

What’s the best way to wake up in the morning? Some might say ‘with breakfast in bed’ or ‘with a steaming hot shower’, but we reckon finding out you’ve been offered a new Ford GT tops the list.

That’s exactly what happened to musician and avid petrolhead Amy Macdonald, who awoke to an email from the American carmaker at 5.54am yesterday confirming that she was among the lucky individuals selected from a shortlist of 6,506 applications to be offered one of the 500 planned GTs.

“Congratulations!” read the message. “You’ve been selected for the opportunity to purchase a new Ford GT!

“Your passion for performance and for the Ford GT qualifies you to be among a small number of drivers selected for the opportunity to own a new Ford GT. We are thrilled to extend you this opportunity!”

All that’s left to do now is cobble together the rumoured £400k+ asking price...

If an unmarked police car tells you to pull over, you comply immediately right? Um, not according to Essex Police.

The force is advising motorists in the area to call 999 before stopping to verify that any unmarked vehicles attempting to flag people down really are conducting police business.

It comes after fake officers stole two vans from unsuspecting drivers using police uniforms and blue flashing lights to convince the victims that they were genuine cops.

“Anyone who is signalled at to stop by someone in a car which may appear to be an unmarked police is asked not to stop but to call 999 immediately to verify whether the vehicle and its occupants are genuine,” says Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Smith.

Another week, another unusual intervention by law enforcement officers in the UK.

A man driving what looks to be a Toyota Corolla Verso was stopped by police in Luton after they noticed that the suspension was carrying a particularly heavy load.

They were surprised to discover that the driver had stacked the vehicle with 800kg of basmati rice, having capitalised on a bargain deal at a nearby cash and carry.

Oddly, the man in question ignored his first warning and eventually had to be stopped a second time, where he was fined £300 for driving a car that police said was “dangerously overweight”.

Talk about going against the grain...

Image credit: @roadpoliceBCH

When it comes to driving across water, the world has seen all kinds of solutions: bridges, tunnels... well, just bridges and tunnels really. You can only go over it or under it after all.

Or perhaps you can go through it. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) is currently assessing plans for a series of floating underwater tunnels as a way of cutting journey times across its fjords.

Deep bodies of water are tricky to cross from an engineering point of view, because they can’t realistically be bridged above the surface or undercut beneath the ground.

But a floating tunnel could be submerged to a workable depth and held in place by floating pontoons.

A $25 billion fund has been put forward by the government, and it is hoped that the work will be completed by 2035. Make it happen, Norway.

Image credit: NPRA

Nearly a year has passed since racing driver Justin Wilson tragically lost his life after striking debris in an IndyCar race at the Pocono Raceway in the US, and his old stomping ground at Snetterton in the UK has decided to remember him by naming a corner in his honour.

Turn 2 on the Snetterton 300 circuit – a hairpin previously called ‘Montreal’ – will now be known as Wilson, joining other sections named after Lewis Hamilton, Martin Brundle and Ayrton Senna.

Wilson was the inaugural winner of the Formula Palmer Audi championship as a junior in 1998, and received guidance from former F1 driver Jonathan Palmer, whose company MSV owns the track.

Wilson’s brother Keith, who raced with Justin many times at Snetterton, said his sibling “would be very honoured” to know that he had a corner named after him at the Norfolk circuit.

“This is such an incredible gesture,” he added.

Motivation is not something Olympic athletes are lacking in, is it? They’ve trained for years, often decades and sometimes their whole lives for a shot at a medal, but Nissan clearly thinks they could do with more of an incentive to win than just, say, a place in the history books, a nation’s adoration, and a hefty chunk of actual gold. See, it’s announced that every Nissan-backed athlete who wins gold at next week’s Olympic Games will be awarded a gold-wrapped Nissan Leaf. 

We’d prefer a GT-R ourselves, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Oh, and what of the athletes who win more than one gold medal? They’ll still only get one Leaf. Makes sense. Imagine how many friend-of-TG Chris Hoy would have in his garage by now..

Have a spare £7.5million sitting around? Yes? Neat, because Wappenbury Hall, the Warwickshire estate where Jaguar-founder Sir William Lyons lived, has just come up for sale, and the price is just that: £7.5m. Expensive, yes, but for your money you not only get oodles of history, but 330 acres of land, six reception rooms, a games room, tennis courts, a swimming pool and a whole other three-bedroom cottage. Bargain. 

Also up for sale – this time by Silverstone Auctions – is Lyons’ personal Jaguar MK X. Built to his exacting specs, with a 6cyl 3.8-litre engine and walnut everywhere, it’s estimated to sell for between £75,000 and £100,000 when it crosses the auction block this September. That’s it up top, outside Wappenbury Hall. Buy both, a smoking jacket and a healthy supply of cigars and you’re halfway there.

All carmakers buy up opposition models to test-drive and eventually take apart their closest rivals' creations. The story goes Lexus went so far as to buy and entirely dismantle a £300k Porsche Carrera GT during the gestation of its own V10 modern classic, the LF-A.

News has emerged this week of Germany getting its own back on Japan, during Honda’s development of the new NSX. Supposedly, Porsche technicians noticed, upon recalling the 991 GT3 for its infamous fiery engine fault, that a particular GT3 had been bought and subjected to hard use by the Honda motor company, trying to unlock the secrets of its excellent electric power steering.

The cheeky Germans scrawled a message inside the 911’s bootlid, so upon its return, the NSX team were greeted with graffiti reading: “Good luck Honda from Porsche. See you on the other side.” Busted.

Here we go again. Keating, the Manchester-based wannabe-rival to Ferrari, McLaren and Pagani, is back. Last time we heard from Keating, it unveiled a crude prototype called ‘The Bolt’ that would apparently offer 2500bhp and 340mph for, ahem, £750,000. Yeah. The company's newest project though, is slightly less ambitious.

Meet the Berus. Named after a snake. It only exists as a PlayStation 2-spec rendering right now. Yes, those Lotus-like headlights and floating A-pillars are supposed to look like snake fangs. Keating says it’ll be ready for next year’s Top Marques supercar show in Monaco. Keating claims, um, a 650bhp output and LaFerrari-busting 230mph top speed.

We like supercars. We like British start-up carmakers, on the whole. But forgive us if we don’t hold a space on the front page of TG.com for our first drive in Keating’s latest, definitely-going-to-happen supercar.