Again though, Miata is not a name that's known worldwide. Say that name in the UK or Europe and they wouldn't have a clue as it's always been the MX-5. Same with Asia, where it's the Eunos Roadster.

Well, I personally thought it had been inherited by all 3 services from the Royal Navy who I know tend to call all of their aircraft types 'cabs'. But a quick Google has brought up this thread which loosely traces it back to Typhoon and Tempest operations around D-Day: http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat…

That's really interesting. In the British military, all helicopters are known by their squadrons as 'cabs'.

No, it's just an extra boy-racer special, er, boy-racer special!

Agreed. My wife and I test drove a Nurburgring Edition Corsa VXR a few months back and found it an overpowered, laggy, stiff and poor handling shit box. This has always been the case with Vauxhall hot hatches, all the power, none of the handling. They have never been the best in the business.

Yep, they still own Triumph (cars) and Riley. It would make a great modern Spitfire but I doubt the Germans would really appreciate the name!

Shorts Seamew. Maybe not the strangest but certainly one of the ugliest. Designed in the 50's as a low cost ASW aircraft for the Royal Naval Reserve but the order was cancelled after the first batch of aircraft had already been manufactured. The remainder went to the scrap yard which was a shame as it would have been…

Oh, it certainly is a naughty word here in the UK, but I don't think it's origins lie here.

Enjoy, and we'll let you know when the calendar is available. It's probably on that metric British time, but I'm sure we can figure it out.

Not exactly a 'rescue rig' per se, but the UK Armed Response X5's are pretty cruise-able....

I'll see your Defender ride and raise you mine in one of these bad boys!

The 9-5 was based on the smaller Opel Vectra platform which was FWD.

Now, not being American I may have this wrong but the Catera was RWD, surely? Because the Vauxhall/Opel Omega it was based on was.....

Am I the only person that thinks this is a bit of a shame? My wife has just bought a brand new Groove Up! and I love it. Fantastic quality, fun to drive, a great sounding 3 cylinder that's easily returning 60mpg. It would have been interesting to see what Audi could do with it.

The A1, especially in 5 door form, is quite a large, practical car really. easily big enough for family duties.

It's good to see an estate running again. There were rumours of a non-works Evoque being run in the BTCC as well this year but apparently Land Rover wouldn't allow the bodyshell to be used. Shame:

Pretty much like any modern raid design though. I mean, VW Touareg?

Make it retro, they said. It'll be fun, they said. It wasn't.

Car and Driver put the Contour on its Ten Best list for 1995, 1996 and 1997. In 2009, they formally apologized for it. Now, I drove the European Ford Mondeo and it was rubbish. I can't imagine the American version being any better.

It's a Sierra RS500. It came a decade before the Escort Cosworth and is much more desirable in my book!