Social spotlight 📱

Commissioned by its current owner and completed in 2018, this Alfa Romeo Disco Volante by Touring is a one-off creation based on the 8C Competizione. Finished in Rosso with vintage 1952 Alfa emblems, Quadrifoglio logos, matte carbon accents, and a custom black rear cover, it pays tribute to the original C52 Disco Volante. It’s posted by RM Sotheby’s because it is (or was?) up for sale. It’s likely to divide opinion.

Car of the week 💰

The Isetta bubble car, made by BMW from 1955 was a tiny, egg-shaped microcar with a single front door. It had a 250cc engine and managed an incredible 78 mpg…a top speed of 53 mph would usually be underwhelming, but in this instance it sounds terrifying. Fun fact, they didn’t come with a reverse gear and because the only door opens forwards, if you parked too close to a wall you would be in a bit of a fix. Brave enough to take this on as a city runaround?

Small screen scene 📺

I’ve just discovered the Gordon Murray Automotive channel, which has some incredible access to what goes on behind the scenes of creating their cars. The below image shows the T.33 jumping over a ramp to see how it holds up, this is before they drove it directly over a curb stone and into an 80kg duffle bag. Very impressive.

Hot off the press 📰

Here’s an article I can get well behind - Top Gear have found 10 performance estates for under £5k. Who doesn’t love practicality and performance. The pick of the bunch for me has to be the Skoda with over 600 litres of bootspace and a 0-60 of 6.6 seconds.

Seen in the wild 👀

I spotted this at the Smith and Sniff podcast a visited a few weeks back. I haven’t seen under-car neons in years, fitting for this car. This Mazda RX-7, the legendary rotary-engined sports car was heavily modified and left in a flurry of turbo noises. They’re quite rare, probably on account of the upkeep of that engine, so there are only a handful on Auto Trader, covering a range of prices and levels of modification.