At Motoring Weekly, we have written many articles about vehicle production and the rise and fall of the numbers as particular vehicles go in and out of favour with the buying public and fleets. Often those decisions are driven by tax or other Government policy changes. We know that in the US, buyers are heading back to SUVs and trucks as the price of fuel settles down - … [Read more...]
Toyota Century GRMN
Here at Motoring Weekly we like to keep an eye on unusual or one-off vehicles that appear out of the blue. Late last year there was a flurry of reports about the Toyota Century GRMN. The Toyota Century is the ultra limousine built exclusively for the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM). It has had only three generations in over fifty years and is a true low volume vehicle - only … [Read more...]
Toyota Invests $500M in Uber for Autonomous Cars
There is a significant change in the industry taking place at the moment which harks back to the beginning of the market when companies were investing in each other to try and get a lead in their desired sub-market. Recently Motoring Weekly discussed the investment made by Honda in GM’s Cruise Automation division that followed a similar investment by SoftBank - who have a … [Read more...]
Toyota Has Upsized Its Hyper Efficient Engine
What I find interesting is that the larger vehicle manufacturers are still developing the internal combustion engine. Clearly development has been ongoing for decades despite the recent desire of several Governments to ban them - which is something that I feel is shortsighted. I still think that there are a market for this type of power unit with oil or vegetable based … [Read more...]
James Atkinson
The name James Atkinson can be found in science, literary and engineering - actually at least three different people! The engineer (one of many it seems) is the focus of this article. Atkinson was born in 1846 in Lancashire in the north of England into a family of engineers - his grandfather owned the Hope Foundry that made many steam locomotives. As a young man, he went to … [Read more...]