Moments and memories from an unforgettable year in cars: our 2025 highlights
2025 was a busy year for Auto Express, these were the moments that stood out most
The automotive world never stands still, and neither does the Auto Express team. We’re always striving to bring you the very latest news, reviews and feature, and amongst the hard graft and toil, there’s often plenty of ‘pinch me’ moments.
From cruising the highways with motorway cops, towing caravans with the latest EVs or getting an inside scoop on the health of the car industry; 2025 has had plenty of unforgettable moments. As the final days of the year tick down, these are our highlights from the past 12 months.
Sliding standards of BMW’s EV
- By Ellis Hyde
Truth be told, I spent less than 20 minutes in the presence of the bonkers BMW Vision Driving Experience, but this gloriously maniacal creation only needed a couple of seconds to crush any inklings that the forthcoming electric BMW M3 could be in any way dull or uninspiring.
The electric sports saloon of my dreams and/or nightmares featured exquisite flared wheelarches, a vicious expression and four electric motors spitting out more than 1,000bhp, plus an earthquake-inducing 18,000Nm of torque. Meanwhile, five impellers sucked the car into the asphalt and produced a deafening racket in the process. Range? No idea. Efficiency? Who cares.
I should explain this wasn’t the next M3 in disguise. The VDX is a rolling laboratory, designed to prove that BMW’s new ‘Heart of Joy’ control unit, and the other electronic wizardry that will feature in the company’s next-generation Neue Klasse road cars, can handle anything. Including hypercar power.
With great power comes great responsibility, so unsurprisingly, despite a lot of pleading on my part, I wasn’t allowed to drive the VDX. Thankfully, BMW M Motorsport works driver Jens Klingmann was on hand to take me for a spin. Quite literally, because it didn’t take long for him to activate the Drift mode, crack the throttle and start sliding around corners like he was popping out for a pint of milk.
The only thing that made him and me happier was the biblical four-wheel burnouts the VDX could do on his command, which did cause the cabin to fill with tyre smoke once, because I may or may not have bumped the window switch. That probably shortened my life expectancy a bit, but honestly it was worth it!
When an ID gets an all-new ID
I could have picked any number of exotic car launches or fancy features as my highlight of 2025. But instead I’ve chosen one of the many moments where I’ve felt truly proud to work for Auto Express.
We beaver away tirelessly to bring you the latest new-car news and reviews, covering every event possible to ensure we’re in the right rooms, speaking to the right people. And nowhere was that more evident than at September’s Munich Motor Show. Four of us travelled to Germany to chat with industry executives, designers, engineers and CEOs, to deliver the inside line on all the important debuts – plus plenty that’s still to come.
I unearthed a flurry of articles while chatting to Volkswagen’s top brass. The biggest of which came by piecing together quotes from passenger-car boss Thomas Schafer and head of design Andreas Mindt. One interview informed the other, and a scoop was born.
The result was a chunky four-page lead in Issue 1,900 showcasing the next VW ID.4, which in 2026 will get a significant enough facelift to warrant a completely new name: ID. Tiguan. There is no better feeling than seeing your work in print – either on the news-stand in the local supermarket, or front and centre in an airport departure lounge. So thank you, dear readers, for your continued support.
Focusing on past glories with Ford
Not long ago, if I had admitted that my highlight of the year was driving a Ford Focus, my colleagues would have put me in a padded cell.
Times change. The news earlier this year that Ford was axing the famous nameplate swept me away on a wave of nostalgia.
Back in the mid-nineties I was a very junior member of the Auto Express team. At that time we had a burgundy ‘office’ Ford Escort Mk5. Indeed, I have some fond memories of using it for the 1995 Glastonbury festival, but in truth that was only because literally nobody else wanted to drive it. Then, three years later everything changed. The Mk1 Focus’s revolutionary curves and brilliant driving experience set the family-car benchmark for years to come.
Another fast forward to our previous issue (1,911) and a celebration of the cars that have reached the end of the line. For me it was one last spin out in a Focus. It was lots of fun and I will miss the Ford.
On covert operations with cheshire’s cops
- By Tom Jervis
There are some of us who believe they can easily pick out an unmarked police car on a busy motorway. But my ride-along with Cheshire Constabulary highlighted how easy it is to fly under the radar, and how driving around incognito opens your eyes to a surprising number of people breaking the rules of the road.
Within minutes we witnessed people speeding and overtaking dangerously (Alderley Edge is notorious for reckless drivers blasting around in exotic and high-performance cars) but almost instantly we came across cars that hadn’t been taxed or insured, had been involved in crime and even potentially driven by wanted criminals. All of this was down to the ANPR camera linked to our patrol MINI Countryman JCW’s windscreen, which scanned and ran checks on the number plate of every car we drove past.
Yet perhaps the greatest issue facing the nation’s highway cops aren’t street racers or car theft gangs, but underfunding. While the MINI JCW we cruised around in was more than up to the task of keeping up with hot BMWs, Golfs and even a Ferrari, officers complained that since the police has ended its contract with BMWs, the Volvo SUVs most forces have been lumped with aren’t quite up to pursuit needs, even if they do offer superior comfort.
This shortage of funds extends beyond the equipment the police uses, too; with fewer so-called ‘civilian’ administrative staff than in decades gone by, highly paid officers nowadays spend much of their shift filing paperwork instead of patrolling the streets. This is a particularly sore point with many of the officers we spoke to, with many feeling that more time on the beat could be the key to helping reduce the plight of anti-social driving and car theft.
Morgan Supersport is a real Spanish flier
My highlight of 2024 was testing the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N around the mountain roads north of Barcelona. This year I’ve picked the same place, but a different car.
Getting to Spain to drive Morgan’s new Supersport before lunch required me to get up at 3am, something I had no issue with because I’d seen the car at the firm’s Malvern base a few months before. I thought if it drove as well as it looked then I’d be in for a treat.
I can’t stress enough how much I adore the styling of the new Supersport; I lost count of the amount of times I pulled over to try and capture its best angles. Having driven the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra before with the same engine and gearbox, the experience of the Morgan stood out. The 335bhp BMW-derived 3.0-litre straight-six engine is an approachable one that complemented the car’s retro looks. The optional sports exhaust didn’t spend much time out of Sports Plus mode, where it’s at its most tuneful.
Morgan’s tuned chassis and steering made it a proper sports car, and I appreciated the added comforts such as a slot for my phone to easily display sat-nav, and extra boot space.
Yes, at more than £100,000, the Supersport is expensive, but parked alongside any supercar it’ll still demand attention.
Horsing around in Portugal
- By Alex Ingram
For all of the amazing drives I had this year, my highlight boiled down to a choice between two. Although I’m unlikely to ever drive something as expensive or as powerful as the £2million, 2,000bhp Lotus Evija again, there’s something about a V12 Ferrari that’s impossible to overlook. That’s especially true if it’s being driven, roof-off and, unlike the Evija, not near Norwich, but along the stunning Atlantic roads of Portugal.
The 12Cilindri Spider is simply a divine performance car, because of its incredible looks, unbelievable Grand Tourer credentials (its ride comfort is spookily good considering the roadholding), but most of all, that engine.
It’s hard to know what is more special: the performance offered up by the 6.5-litre V12, or the spine-tingling noise it makes when using all of its 819bhp and 9,500rpm. I’m unlikely to ever be lucky enough to spend £366,000 (or nearer half a million if I got a bit tick-happy on the option sheet) on a car, but if I did, I’d struggle to think of many ways I’d rather use it than this.
Getting the story on Japan’s plans
Every now and then, there’s an automotive event that feels like a game changer – and the Japan Mobility Show in October was one of them. Sometimes, swathes of concept cars show up, other times you’re given unbelievable access to the industry’s most important people – and sometimes you get all of that rolled into one.
These manufacturers can sometimes feel like they’re from another world, developing the world’s biggest-selling models without any insights from over here in Europe. We’re often given incredible access to our European favourites, sometimes seeing new models and design mock-ups three, four or even five years ahead of their market launches. But this is rarely the case with the Japanese makers.
So when I got the chance to go over to Tokyo and speak to some of the most important people in the business about their plans for electrification, new battery EVs, new high- performance sports cars and even reboots of Japanese icons, I leapt at the chance.
We’ve got a few special features to come from the trip, one of which is a look into a class of car that might help save the European car industry. The European Union is in the process of developing a new low-cost class of electric car, and the Japanese Kei Car class could be used as a starting point for this new EU regulation. Our trip allowed me to get up close to an electric Kei Car, the Nissan Sakura, to get an early sense of what might become of this new segment.
Our Awards are truly rewarding
- By Steve Walker
Every year the New Car Awards is the top event in the Auto Express calendar (with the possible exception of the editor’s birthday). So much of what we do boils down to helping people buy the right car, and the Awards are the annual forum where we set our top car recommendations in stone. Well, Perspex.
The event is more than just a prize-giving. Top executives from across the car industry joined the whole Auto Express team at the Institute of Directors in London to find out how their latest products fared under our in-depth review microscope.
A huge amount of work goes into the Awards. It all begins months before with the judging process, followed by the photos and videos. Then the images are put to use as the special magazine designs, digital pages and the social-media promotion kick off.
In the end, the Skoda Elroq drove off with the all-important Car of the Year trophy in its glovebox. More than 500,000 people saw the awards content online, the magazine was the best-selling issue of the year and our minds turned to all the possible winners in 2026.
Enjoying a blast from the past
- By Pete Gibson
A late-November shoot near Ipswich does not sound like a photographer’s highlight. After all, I get to travel to some great locations and snap some great cars. However, sometimes the Essex boy in me comes to the surface. In my youth, Ford produced some crazy cars, and I wished I could own one.
Thirty years later, I’m yet to take the plunge, so the next best thing is shooting one. The Ford Escort Cosworth shot with the Audi Quattro as the sun set behind them like an eighties ad was a real highlight, and a quick blast in the Focus RS down the runway made me feel young again.
Why the UK car industry is still in a good place
Europe’s car industry faces a torrent of Chinese rivals and a thicket of regulations. So it was uplifting to tour key British manufacturing sites – Nissan Sunderland, Bentley Crewe and Land Rover Halewood – to witness the fightback.
All are preparing new electric production. The most ground-breaking facility is Plant 2, a sprawling gigafactory erected beside Nissan’s hi-tech facility. Owned by Japanese battery maker AESC, Plant 2 will boost the site’s battery output from 1.8GWh to a colossal 15.8GWh, sufficient for around 150,000 Nissans per year. The first beneficiary will be the all-new Leaf crossover, then the electric Juke.
A £2.6billion investment has made Bentley’s Pyms Lane site unrecognisable from when I visited pre-Covid. A hi-tech paint shop dominates the perimeter and a new design studio cooks up tomorrow’s Bentleys. One such car is 2026’s Luxury Urban SUV, the first all-electric Bentley. Auto Express was the first outsider to step inside Block A1, a 300m-long assembly hall, which began a pilot build of the electric SUV a few days later.
Jaguar Land Rover has suffered this year, with Trump’s tariffs and the cyber-attack. When hackers closed down car production, JLR’s Merseyside plant stepped up the already intense project to finalise the new body assembly hall for a forthcoming mid-size electric Range Rover.
British car production may be down, but it’s far from out: the seeds of recovery are planted.
Overwhelming CES show is great for car makers
- By Paul Barker
January was my first visit to CES, and a first experience of the ludicrous assault on the senses that is Las Vegas. The Consumer Electronics Show is exciting, partially because it’s so much more than a car show, and the manufacturers that attend are battling for attention with the biggest tech companies in the world.
At the likes of the Munich, Paris or even New York motor shows, the cars are the stars, but in Vegas, they vie for attention with everything from entertainment and gaming to space tech and investment firms.
Although this year’s Munich show had a buzz about it not seen since before Covid, motor shows have been in the doldrums for years, especially in Europe and America, where manufacturers could no longer justify the huge investment. But a show where cars are just one element seems to work.
At CES 2025 there was so much news to be had when you go hunting. We broke the story of Honda’s new baby electric car from chats with the company’s execs at the show, but we also dug out stories on everything from the XPeng flying car that packs away into the back of what looks like an overgrown six-wheeled Tesla Cybertruck-alike mothership, to a Suzuki Jimny-based driverless delivery van, Hyundai’s holographic windscreen and a 300-mile range solar car. Indeed, I nearly got a passenger ride in that one, but one of the solar panels fell off while it was driving.
The fundamental flaw with EV towing
- By Dean Gibson
Highlight might be a bit too strong a word for my pick, but one day in particular certainly stood out. Fresh from judging at the 2026 Towcar of the Year test with the Caravan and Motorhome Club, and being impressed by the towing ability of the EVs that we had lined up, we decided to see exactly how a caravan affects electric range.
So we hitched a Bailey Unicorn to a Kia EV9 and attempted to drive 198 miles from Bailey’s Bristol HQ to the tip of Cornwall and Land’s End. But as soon as we hitched the caravan, the EV9’s range halved, so grand plans of doing the run in one go quickly went out of the window, and a marathon test of endurance ensued. There was rain, wind, sun, unhitching, charging, rehitching and plenty of energy saving.
The final conclusion? If you’re looking at an EV to tow, then they offer brilliant, fuss-free capability. But you’ve got to be prepared for the charging experience. Most chargepoints will be too small to fit a car and caravan combo, so we’d invest in a sturdy hitch lock so you can leave your trailer unattended. Or, as we found out on the return trip, maybe an overnight drive will offer you a late-night rendezvous with a DC charger with space to spare.
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