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Salon Privé have announced a new international luxury car event for 2022 at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The Luxury Car Event will take place from the 21st to the 23rd April 2022 at the iconic Royal Hospital Chelsea. It will occupy the main South Lawn of the Grade I and Grade II listed property. This means that Salon Privé London and Salon Privé Blenheim will now be at the start and end of the British social calendar. Where Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace centres of the Concours d’Elegance, for Salon Privé London will focus on creating an environment where simply everything on display is for sale. Salon Privé is one of the UK’s oldest and most respected automotive events and is now in its 17th year based at Blenheim Palace. It attracts some of the World’s most prolific classic car owners and is known as a key event for private collectors as well as premium automotive brands such as Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche to name just a few. Where as Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace offers a more gentile gardenparty experience, Salon Privé London is an entirely new event which aims to be more energetic and vibrant, high on style and with a party atmosphere.

First Female Ferrari Champion.

Michelle Gatting has become the first female racer to be crowned champion of Ferrari Challenge Europe Trofeo Pirelli. She finished 4th at Mugello in Italy, to claim the title with one race still to go. She is part of the Iron Dames project designed to support women in motorsport, whether as a driver, mechanic, engineer or in management. Michelle will have her name in the history books as the first female to be crowned overall champion of Ferrari Challenge Europe Trofeo Pirelli, by bringing her Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo home in 4th position at Mugello. Commenting on her title she said “I am over the moon at today’s result, we are the champions. I am super pleased with how the car and team have performed throughout the whole season and I am of course humbled to be the first female driver to be champion of the series. I think this is a very important step for women in motorsport.”

Skoda Enyaq named Car of the Year at Parkers New Car Awards 2022. The fully electric SUV was also named Best Large Electric Car.

David Brown Automotive Speedback GT

Showcased at the 2021 Riyadh Car Show, the Speedback GT marks the British manufacturers public debut in Saudi Arabia. The Speedback GT is fully bespoke, allowing customers to personalise their vehicle.

© Motorsport Imagery

BTCC enters new era with Hybrid power

The Silverstone round of this years British Touring Car Championship heralded the dawn of a new era for the UK largest motorsport championship. For the first time the hybrid power technology developed by Cosworth paired with the brand new 2022 TOCA engine developed by MSport, was actively involved in a race weekend. Prior to this, the hybrid test car had undergone exhaustive testing on test days and on simulation runs, but the new car, driven for the weekend by 2013 BTCC Champion Andrew Jordan, ran in a non competitive basis in practice, all qualifying sessions and all three races. It was stressed by TOCA, that the car must start from the pit lane and must not be involved in any dicing with other cars. The car was described as being 75% complete, in the speed traps it did not produce the fastest laps, but was third fastest in race 1, fastest lap overall in race two but unfortunately retired after three laps of there fourth race when an exhaust weld failed. The hybrid power can be deployed for ten seconds on all laps, giving an increase in power of 10% during deployment. The power can only be deployed when the car has full grip and is disabled when the brakes are on. The exhaust manifold weld that had failed in race three had completed the equivalent of two complete seasons of racing and the failure was unrelated to the hybrid systems of the car. The new hybrid system will be run on all BTCC cars from the 2022 season. Currently the system is installed in a Toyota Corolla run by the Speedworks team, a second test car, a rear wheel drive BMW will be fitted with the same hybrid system and testing will be continued with both cars, with the technology being introduced into all BTCC cars for the 2022 season. The Silverstone race weekend test was described as being a critical part of the testing programme, with the car being subjected to the same levels of stress that it will be subjected to during the racing season. Research conducted by Kwik-Fit shows that race fans are significantly influenced by racing technology. The adoption of hybrid systems in the 2022 cars is expected to result in increased interest from race fans in high performance road cars in the future. This has been seen in the past with rally success for Subaru and Mitsubishi resulting in increased sales of road cars, Mercedes in Formula One has generated interest in new generation smaller Mercedes cars. All parties concerned were keen to stress although they are very pleased with the results of the hybrid test so far, there is a long way to go to make the system competitive and reliable before the BTCC season starts in the second quarter of 2022.

Morgan Plus Four makes racing debut.

Two all-new Morgan Plus Four race cars successfully completed the 12-hour Race of Remembrance at Anglesey circuit, the first competitive event for the Morgan Plus Four. Mission Motorsport beneficiaries took the wheel and supported the cars, continuing Morgan’s support of the Forces’ charity. An automatic Plus Four was fitted with hand controls, allowing drivers with disabilities to take the wheel. The cars were developed and supported by the University of Wolverhampton as part of Morgan’s championing of education and training. Data and feedback collected from the race will be used in the development of current and future vehicles. The manual car driven by Shane Kelly/James Taylor/ Tom Richards/Tony Hirst finished 14th and the automatic version finished 40th driven by Lionel O’Connor/Linda Noble/ Steve Binns/John Hogan