Ever wondered why Google has invested so much time and money in its Street View technologies? Amazingly, the California-based company did not send a fleet of camera automobiles around the world so you could spy on your neighbour or search for those elusive oddities like alfresco fornication on a college campus. Instead, the technology forms the backbone of Google's driverless automobile software.

Unless you have been living under a stone recently the Google Automobiles (as they have become known) are big news and even bigger over the last day or two with the announcement that the state of Nevada…

It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold and after a twenty five year wait it couldn't really be any colder.

In 1986, Auto, Mund und Sport (the German equivalent of Autoautomobile) tested the technological tour-de-force that was the Porsche 959 and achieved a top speed of 197mph, making the 959 the fastest street-legal production automobile in the world. Posters were plastered all over bedroom walls and a young Boris Becker rushed out to purchase one of the 200 road-going versions of the automobile that was primarily built for Group B racing.

Then the Ferrari F40…

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…