Automobile designers need thick skins - more so than an engineer, company executive or even humble hack merrily pushing opinion across the airwaves, information super highway or ink-laden page. With every new automobile revealed - concept or production - you're invited to look through a window into the designer's mind - showcasing personal taste, thought process and even lifestyle choice. This is their creation, the equivalent of offspring; their baby.

There's no middle ground. Design is so subjective that as soon as you lay eyes on a new automobile your opinion will be formed. It might soften, or even…

Recent research commissioned by tyre specialists Kwik Fit has shown that more than half of motorists could not change their own wheel if they got a puncture.

Of those surveyed, 36 per cent of respondents said they had both the spare wheel and the tools required to change a flat tyre but not the knowledge. A further 10 per cent automobilery the spare but not the tools, while six per cent had neither the equipment nor the knowledge to make a swap. Most worryingly, three per cent, or roughly 54,000 motorists, had no kind of provision in place.

While…

At the end of February this year I received one of the saddest emails of my life. The subject was simply "ceasing writing" and the sender was none other than Ferdia O'Dowd. Into his seventies Ferdia was an active and fit man and his love for automobiles and the automobile industry was undimmed. He wrote for the Sunday Business Post on the subject for well over twenty years and it must have pained him to have to pass that baton to me.

In comparison to his close friends and family I only knew Ferdia a short time, but was…

It's the show that gives two fingers to any economic crisis; the ninth edition of Top Marques Monaco held at Monte Automobilelo's Grimaldi Forum is under way, showcasing some of the most exotic and expensive offerings the automotive world has seen.

Alongside luxury boats, limited edition watches, rare jewels and art, at Top Marques the super-rich can view and even experience the latest Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin, but also the truly low volume superautomobile manufacturers. Think Pagani, Koenigsegg, Savage, GTA, Roding, Fisker and new Slovenian superautomobile builder Tushek. For those needing to upstage billionaire neighbours, these are the…

SEAT is not one of the big automobile brands in Ireland. Just 1,763 new SEATs found homes in Ireland in 2011 and the company's best year recently was 2007, with 3,346 automobiles sold. Half the problem is that its models are not sufficiently differentiated from other Volkswagen Group automobiles, while here in Ireland most buyers are probably just not very aware of the brand.

That's a shame, as SEAT has always tried to add a little Latin passion to the Group's proven competence. It doesn't go far enough if you ask me and hence garners few headlines. I…