MAGAZINE: Road Magazine No.36 Live Now!

Sorry for the wait! Summer break has been a biggie! 

Anywayz, Road Magazine is back – with an SUV special.

Despite their obscene weight/inertia levels, punishing fuel prices and painful VED road tax hits from government, the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) 4x4 market is still booming – so manufacturers are busy trying to out-do each other to claim their slice of the ‘soft-roader’ SUV pie, in all its glorious forms.
So, with Winter approaching, we’ve gathered an eclectic trio together of 4x4s for you – starting with something truly bonkers, Infiniti’s FX Vettel Edition: A super-rare, £100,800 beast of a genuinely sporty utility vehicle (in SUV terms), bestowed with Vettel-designed, unbelievably expensive carbonfibre kit, huge 21-inch rims and a 420bhp V8, capable of 155mph and 5.6s to 62mph. Is it the maddest SUV ever?
We also have two newly-re-worked SUV brands… Jeep’s long serving (now 21) Grand Cherokee in its fresh-look 2014 specification. The Jeep has just gone on sale across Europe and now and comes with a brand new eight-speed trick transmission, devastating off-road capability, monstrous 6.4-litre V8 SRT range-topper and a lavish luxury interior for its good value price tag. And we also have Mitsubishi’s new-look Outlander on test – the most sensible choice of the three featured here, as it’s “Intelligent Motion” diesel engine, lightweight and aerodynamic body enable it to knock out over 50mpg, which is a different take on the SUV cult: Not sporty, but certainly utilitarian.
Do enjoy our SUV special and share our FREE Road Magazine with your mates across your own social media platforms. Thanks! Phil Royle, Editor

NEWS: 2012: 25 Years of the Fabulous "Race Of Champions"

You know it's Christmas coming when the most fun motorsport event of the annual calendar – the Race of Champions – is here, with just three days before it all kicks off in Bangkok, Thailand, December 14-16th. And this year sees the epic event – pitting the world's greatest drivers from all motorsport disciplines against each other in a range of different cool vehicles, head to head, against the clock, becoming a knock-out competition – celebrate 25 years. Bravo! 

It all looks set to be a classic too, with 2011 King, Sebastian Ogier back to defend his title, and both Sebastian Vettel (also showing off the new Red Bull RB7 F1 car) and seven-times F1 champ, Michael Schumacher coming back to try and prove F1 drivers are quicker than rally boys (good luck with that!) and fight to the death, like they did last year. Classic! 

ROC cars this year include the Toyota GT86 (which should be sideways fun), VW Scirocco, Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo, Euro race car, ROC buggy, KTM X-Bow and also this year, the 500bhp Audi R8 LMS. All the pieces are in place for a gem. Well done ROC for 25 great years! Here's to a fabulous 2012 event and the next 25! 

Find out more on the ace ROC Facebook page and website, including where you can catch all the action on TV, buy last year's DVD as a Christmas present (hint, hint!), see all the previous winners, watch great videos, get all the news, get the freshest tweets and images and much more. Get involved...

NEWS: Alain Prost Exhibition @ Goodwood FOS 2012

Goodwood's fabulous Festival of Speed, June 28th-July 1st, is drawing ever nearer – and top news this week is official time keepers, TAG Heuer (celebrating 80 years at the FOS also) will be staging "a unique and remarkable photographic exhibition" at the event dedicated to the legendary French racing driver, Alain Prost. Sounds great! Prost, whose outstanding career in Formula 1 resulted in 51 victories, 33 pole positions and 106 podium finishes between 1980 and 1993, became closely associated with TAG Heuer early in his F1 days driving for the TAG-sponsored McLaren team - with which he secured three of his four World Championship victories. Last year he returned to the fold of TAG Heuer ambassadors and one of his first, major roles has been to assist The Earl of March in curating the brand's inaugural Festival of Speed photographic exhibition, which tracks every milestone of Prost's path from schoolboy kart racer to the second most prolific Formula One winner in the sport's history. There will be over 100 great images on display. And speaking of fab images, our snapper pal, Richard Seymour will be covering the event for us with his unique, gifted style. Check out his work at: http://www.richardseymour.co.uk and his last ace FOS album in Road: http://issuu.com/roadonlinemagazine/docs/road_5-shows
The 2012 Festival of Speed – with its theme of 'Young Guns – Born to Win' – will see a vast array of F1 cars and stars, offering its unique up-close-and-personal view on 2012 teams like McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams, Caterham, plus reigning Constructers World Champions Red Bull Racing, and faces including Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Bruno Senna, Sir Jackie Stewart, Martin Brundle, Murray Walker, Sir Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Patrick Head, Ross Brawn, Christian Horner and Adrian Newey. Mega! 

Tickets and further information for the 2012 Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival can be found on the Goodwood website (www.goodwood.com/motor sport), or via the Ticket Hotline: +44 (0)1243 755055.
Follow Goodwood on Facebook:
Festival of Speed: http://www.facebook.com/festivalofspeed
Revival: http://www.facebook.com/goodwoodrevival
Or follow Goodwood on Twitter:
Festival of Speed: http://twitter.com/fosgoodwood
Revival: http://twitter.com/goodwoodrevival

Looks like another mega year for the UK's best car event. Look out for our report by Richard Seymour here on the blog, in the magazine (http://www.roadmagazine.co.uk) and our social media...

VIDEO: Neil Cole's The Grid Episode VI

Here's our Road Mazagine columnist, Neil Cole in action on his Sports Tonight Live TV Show, The Grid, Episode VI. On this weeks show, Tancredi Palmeri talks about what Alonso's win in Malaysia means to Ferrari and Vettel's stroppy rebellion in the Malaysian GP, plus rally news and more ace irreverence from the world of motorsport. Check it out... it's fabulous stuff for petrol heads. We love it!

VIDEO: Neil Cole's 'The Grid' Motorsport Show, Episode VI

The wonderfully funny, chatty, relaxed, original and informative Sports Tonight show, The Grid, with our Road Magazine columnist, Neil Cole, episode VI here – 45 minutes of pure motorsport banter. Ace! This week, Neil and Kevin Shepherd chat to none other than Petter Solberg, on the eve of Rally Portugal, with the return of night stages and the new-for-2012 qualifying to decide road position for the 'sweepers' or gravel 'cleaning.' Petter also chats to his pal Neil about disco dancing, facial furniture, shaving all your body hair off and more, brilliant! It is pure class, as is the new segment at the end of the show, Neil's motorsport weather forecast. Hilarious, and very well informed and presented (of course... it's 'our' Neil Cole!). Also on the show is lots of F1 news, including Sebastian Vettel's strop in Malaysia, NASCAR news from the states and lots more, from Skype contributors. Big thanks also for bigging up humble Road Magazine and blog. Cheers Neil. More... more... more!!!

VIDEO: Neil Cole's "The Grid" – Episode II

Our new Road Magazine columnist, rallyist, comedian, writer and all-round top guy, Neil Cole – http://www.neilcole.org – has a new show on Sports Tonight Live... "The Grid." It's a motorsport fan's dream, with all the latest news, gossip and more, chatted about in a very relaxed, happy format, with Skype chats from various contributors. This is the second episode with Neil and Kevin Shepherd talking Sebastian Vettel and F1 testing, Juan Montoya and his spectacular crash in NASCAR at the Daytona 500, as well as IRC and BRC with Andrew Coley. You can follow them on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/#!/STL_TheGrid
And you can read all three of Neil's latest columns for Road Magazine here:
http://issuu.com/roadonlinemagazine/docs/road_22_small/1
http://issuu.com/roadonlinemagazine/docs/road_23_subaruspecial/1
http://issuu.com/roadonlinemagazine/docs/road_24s/1