A couple of unexpected things happened in the past few days, both of them involving Alfa Romeo. First up, I had a test automobile cancelled out from under me (not that unusual, but not that common either) and had to scramble around to find something to drive, and write about. Alfa Romeo Ireland took pity on me, and managed to find a Giulia saloon that was available. Great, I thought. It'll be the storming, 510hp, V6 turbo, Quadrifoglio version. Or at least the 280hp turbo Veloce model.

If we were to put our film critic hats on for a moment, John Frankenheimer's 1997 classic, Ronin, may not stand up to much hard scrutiny. The plot centres around a bunch of ex-special forces operatives hired by some unspecified dissident Northern Irish republicans to capture a case from a bunch of other, non-specific, shady goons. What's in the case? We don't know. The case is a 'MacGuffin', a term for an object whose sole function is to move a plot along and give the characters something to quest after - think the Holy Grail or the Maltese Falcon. It's…

The classic automobile world has been replete, of late, with recreations and 'continuations' of classic original automobiles. Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin have been the most conspicuous players of this game. It started 15 years ago when Aston decided that it would build some new-for-old DB4 GT Zagato coupes, because it found some allocated chassis numbers that had never been used. Aston has been at it again recently, with 'Continuation' DB4 GT coupes, while Jaguar and Land Rover have been turning out 'Reborn' E-Type lightweights, Range Rovers and Series 1 80-inch models.

Now comes what may be the ultimate,…

Despite a noticeable shortage of brands in attendance, the 2018 Paris Motor Show still managed to turn out some interesting automobiles and, as Automobilelos Tavares, PSA Group CEO calls them, 'mobility devices.' Unsurprisingly it was the French automobile manufacturers that brought out some of the show's most talked about automobiles.

The Peugeot e-Legend concept was almost unanimously voted the star of the show from those in attendance. Its retro styling incorporated the most amazing blue velour upholstered seats inside, contrasting with a high-tech 49-inch display. I found it all-too reminiscent of Nissan's IDx…

The case of the MINI rear lights is an odd one; an unusual crossing of the Venn diagrams of politics, history and facelifted vehicle components.

The fact that MINI's upper management has decided that its whizzy new LED rear lights should have a British flag motif is, actually, not an especially surprising one. The flag of the United Kingdom has been used in advertising and marketing for so many brands and items down the years, and successfully too. Remember Cool Britannia? Even in Ireland we were all into that, for a while. Well, at least we were when Oasis played…

What do you think the most desirable brand of automobile in the world is? Porsche? Bentley? Ferrari? McLaren? Aston Martin? Koenigsegg?

Nope, it's none of these. It is, in fact... Toyota.

According to short-term automobile insurance company Veygo, it's the Japanese brand which features most highly on the wishlists of the world's population.

And how has Veygo come to this conclusion? Well, it analysed Google search data globally across the last 12 months, to see which automobile companies' names were typed into browsers more often than any other, through the end of 2017 and during 2018 so far.

Using the…