Hi, it’s Alistair!

This week on the channel we have Mark’s assessment of the BMW 530E Touring – a hybrid estate that neatly bridges the gap between family-carrying practicality and executive luxury, while also being fun to drive and, potentially, frugal too. Mark even suggests at £70,000 it’s good value. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

You can watch Mark’s full video here!

It’s been a busy few weeks on my driveway, and no doubt a confusing time for my neighbours too. Press cars on test have included a very sensible Volvo XC60, the very fast Porsche 911 Turbo S I wrote about last week (review coming soon), and a very French DS No8. Today, a Morgan Supersport is being delivered, and next week it’s the turn of the recently facelifted Polestar 3.

So this got me thinking. At a time when so many new cars are criticised for all looking the same. Where every car park is a sea of drab, grey, mid-size SUVs, and every TV advert puts the monthly finance cost front-and-centre, you’d be forgiven for thinking the car industry has lost its lustre. Not so from where I’m sitting.

Arguably, we’ve never had it so good. Despite all sharing a common goal of transporting occupants from A to B, my recent press cars couldn’t be more different. And, tellingly, I was equally excited every time I got behind the wheel. Granted, a 700-horsepower Porsche is going to excite more than a maroon Volvo, and the DS attracted more curiosity than desire. But in a world where our phones, laptops, headphones and so many other possessions all look the same, I love how varied cars can be.

So much activity on my drive – and curtain-twitching from the neighbours – of course means I’ve a lot of content to shoot, edit and share with you all. It’ll be a busy few weeks for The Next Drive but, as I hope you’ll agree, it’s going to be packed to bursting point with pick-and-mix variety.

Singers don’t come up for sale very often, so it’s a real treat to see ‘The Sussex Commission’ hit the market this week. Commissioned and owned by a prominent UK car collector – you might be familiar with his Instagram account – this could be the perfect Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer. Just 4,300 miles since being rebuilt, it’s a 1990 car with a carbon body, 4.0-litre engine producing almost 400hp, a titanium exhaust and an upgraded leather interior.

Beautifully understated by Singer standards, and all the better for it. Singer doesn’t make these ‘classic’ variants anymore, so it’s not even a case of jumping the queue – this is an opportunity to buy something simply unavailable elsewhere. Yours for £899,995 at Premier GT.

At last, we now all know the big new electric Jaguar is called the Type 01. The name was rumoured months ago, so this perhaps isn’t the biggest news to hit your inbox. But it’s a timely reminder that Jaguar’s make-or-break moment is almost upon us.

It should have been easy. Take the hugely popular Range Rover, squash it into the shape of a long-bonneted saloon, sprinkle in some extra performance, draw on Jaguar’s illustrious backstory, and watch the money come pouring in.

And yet, it’s been a difficult rebirth for Jaguar. I’m glad to see there’s a name – even if it sounds like a pre-production test car and reminded me of diabetes – and I can’t wait to see the final product later this year.

That should be “rewatching,” since I’ll be tucking into Ben Betucci’s beguiling One of One this weekend for a second time.

Available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, One of One is an 80-minute documentary that follows Naito Auto Engineering, a family-run car workshop in Tokyo known for working on some of the world’s greatest cars. Instead of operating out of an immaculate showroom that could double as a Sci-Fi movie set, Naito works on customer rides outdoors, often in a side-street parking spot.

You might be familiar with their Ferrari 250 LM, which stars on the documentary’s poster – and which, naturally, I have on my office wall. It’s a lovely bit of slow television that perfectly captures the Japanese attitude to careful, and caring, craftsmanship.

Thanks for reading The Next Drive. Catch you here next week!

Until then,

Alistair