Social spotlight 📱

Sound on 🔊 Just a pair of Ford GT40s topping up at a petrol station in Belgium, nothing to see here. Ok, not just any petrol station, it’s the Total at Spa-Francorchamps. Begs the question, who’s turning up here needing a tank of diesel?

Car of the week 💰

Sticking with the British Leyland theme, this week’s car of the week is an Austin Healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite. This particular example looks particularly well looked after and was subject to a full restoration in 2015. In my opinion, the colour suits it fantastically well, it looks like great summer fun. I don’t imagine the 0.9 litre engine will deliver dazzling performance, but amazingly it only weighs 630kgs, by comparison a modern Mini weighs almost exactly double that, so it’s all relative.

Hot off the press 📰

OK it’s hardly hot off the press, there’s been quite a bit of chatter about the weight of the new BMW M5, but I liked this visual from Motor1 showing the increase since its inception. The latest M5 weighs more than a Mercedes Sprinter van, can it still be considered a proper M-car when it weighs nearly 2.5 tons?

Small screen scene 📺

Another one bites the dust. Two of Donut’s talismen have left in favour of setting up their own channel, in what has become quite the theme recently. In this video they launch their new channel ‘BIGTIME’, talk about why they left Donut and what to expect. Spoiler alert, they’ve already bought a ‘semi-truck’ (lorry) which isn’t what I was expecting!

Seen in the wild 👀

Not a car I’m familiar with but after a bit of Googling, this car is known as the Hillman Hunter in the UK but was called different things in different geographies, with an umbrella name of Rootes Arrow. Originally released in 1966, unbelievably it remained on sale in Iran until 2005 as an Iran Khodro. I can’t find any for sale here in the UK, but this one is very commonly parked in Deansgate in Manchester if you want to get a closer look.