Good oil: Three decades at Mazda

Mazda NZ had a staff of 30 when managing director Peter Aitkenstarted with the company in 1976. That number ballooned to 553 with plants in Otahuhu and Sylvia Park and dropped again when assembly ceased in the late 1990s. Now the company has 22 staff - "and we are selling more cars than ever", said Aitken at the launch of the new MX-5 with the foldaway hardtop roof. Aitken retires at the end of October after 30 years with the Japanese carmaker. Sales and marketing manager Andrew Clearwater takes over as managing director.

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Mazda Motors Corporation in Japan is trialling a dual-fuel rotary engine that switches between petrol and hydrogen. Company CEO and president Hisakazu Imaki, in Auckland mid-week for the MX-5 unveiling, said the engine was being tested in RX-8 sports cars and would be available in the new Mazda5 range in 2008. Smaller examples of the rotary engine were being developed for applications outside the automotive industry. Mazda claims the dual-fuel powerplant is eco-friendly, boasting zero carbon dioxide emissions in petrol mode and near-zero nitrogen oxide emissions using hydrogen. It says the engine can be built with a high degree of reliability at a relatively low cost, using engine parts and production facilities that already exist in Mazda's inventory. BMW is also testing a petrol/hydrogen V12 engine in a 7-Series sedan.

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No sooner had the Audi Q7 off-roader gone on sale in New Zealand than the carmaker's head office in Germany announced another variant, powered by a V12 turbodiesel engine - "a world first in a passenger car". . But the V12 is going only into left-hand-drive models at the moment. Q7 quattro buyers here can choose between a 3-litre V6 turbodiesel and a 4.2-litre petrol V8. The Q7 accounted for 33 per cent of Audi's record 132 sales in August, 45 per cent of which were turbodiesel models.

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Ford in the US is taking the sports car fight to the Europeans with new television advertisements showing off the carmaker's new Shelby GT500. The 30-second ad opens with a German wharfie unloading a GT500 from a freighter as its American owner stands by. "You couldn't find a car you liked in Germany?" asks the German of the American. The screen cuts to a montage of shots showing the high-end Mustang flying down the autobahn, passing the Fatherland's finest. "No," replies the American. "I couldn't find a speed limit I liked in America."

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A British motorist tried to get away with a speeding fine by blowing up the roadside camera which snapped him. Craig Moore used an explosive to destroy the camera but didn't realise it had filmed his van a second time when the big bang jogged it into taking another picture.