Just as the news of the sale of Jaguar to Indian private equity company Tata comes through, we hear news that the fastest ever Jaguar is being launched.

Supercar Jaguar XK, billed as the fastest ever Jag

Yahoo News comments : “Jaguar has unveiled its fastest ever production car since the XJ220 supercar. The XKR-S is based on the standard Jaguar XKR, but a series of enhancements boost its performance and improve its focus as a drivers’ car.

“The supercharged engine produces 420bhp, the ECU recalibrated to allow the XKR-S to reach a maximum of 174mph and sprint to 62mph in just 5.2 seconds.

“Although there’s no boost in power, Jaguar promises that the 200 limited series run of XKR-S models will provide their drivers with greater thrills behind the wheel. ”

It looks a dream, but with American, now Indian, ownership it scarcely qualifies as an English classic any more.

What would Inspector Morse make of it all?

A professor at Purdue University, Jerry Woodall, has found a method of producing hydrogen from aluminum alloy pellets and water. This is very important for the motor industry as it promises to solve many of the problems that confront the introduction of engines running on hydrogen as a fuel.

Although hydrogen is the perfect alternative fuel, its exhaust containing nothing more harmful than water vapor, its use has been dogged by a bad press, with memories of old airship disasters like the Hindenburg, the problem that generating it by electrolysis uses more power than it produces, and the difficulties involved in storing it in quantity. The Purdue solution offers a way around all of these, suggesting that cars of the future need only fill up with the alloy pellets.

Hydrogen is generated spontaneously when water is added to pellets of the alloy, which is made of aluminum and a metal called gallium. The researchers have shown how hydrogen is produced when water is added to a small tank containing the pellets. Hydrogen produced in such a system could be fed directly to an engine.

Gallium is an important ingredient since it stops a skin of aluminum oxide forming and protecting the metal from further reaction with the water. And the by product of the reaction is hydrogen…

The Purdue Foundation has applied for the patent to the process and plans are in process for its commercial use.

One of the four Pontiac Trans Ams modified to play the part of KITT in the seventies television series, Knight Rider, is up for sale. If you’re into collecting specials, this could be for you, provided you have a spare $150,000 floating around, of course. It is not street legal and is most likely to go to a collection, therefore.

It does have the fancy red scanning light at the front but the rest of the gear is mostly for show only. And David Hasselhoff isn’t part of the deal, although I’m not sure whether that’s a plus or a minus.

There are only 400 Enzos in the world - oops, make that 399. It seems comedian Eddie Griffin has managed to wreck one of them while practising for a race to promote the film Redline. He was unhurt but the Enzo is a write off - that’s $1.5 million worth of motor car.

Daniel Sadek, whose car it was, has “mixed feelings” about the incident, apparently. Well, I guess he would.

Never mind, at least there’s one thing we can all learn from this: never let a joker borrow your car…