Fancy riding a two-wheeled Bentley? Well now you can, except that it’s not really a Bentley at all but a Ducati Diavel. Based on the 168bhp Diavel V4, it’s been repainted in a Bentley-esque British Racing Green (though Ducati call it ‘Scarab Green’), tweaked bodywork to make it look slightly less aggressive and a revised silencer in two banks of two outlets. The idea is to suggest a resemblance between the V4 Duke and the £1.7 million Bentley Batur, the most powerful production car offered with the flying ‘B’ badge. Price? Well, at £58,000 the Bentleyised Diavel is quite a pricey accessory to sit next to the Batur in your garage. If that’s not exclusive or expensive enough Ducati is also offering

What’s in a name? Well if you’re Vespa, it’s worth over Euro 1 billion. And that’s not the value of factories, machinery and work in progress owned by the world’s best known scooter manufacturer, just the name. Piaggio commissioned branding experts Interbrand to take a long hard look at the Vespa name – one of the most recognisable in the world – and work out how much it was worth. “Interbrand employed proven, proprietary brand valuation techniques,” went a statement from Piaggio, “incorporating financial analysis with primary and quantitative data collected through a global market research, conducted across Vespa’s 10 key markets (Italy, France, Germany, Spain, USA, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China and India)...The study confirms that Vespa is globally perceived (as)

2024’s Goodwood Revival is ditching fossil fuels in favour what it terms sustainable fuel. The move is in line with the FIA’s current stipulation for racing, which is that all racing vehicles (cars or bikes) must use a fuel containing a minimum of 70% “advanced sustainable components.” At Goodwood, which runs 6th-9th September 2024, the fuels will be used in the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy races, which see classic racers from Manx Nortons to MV triples competing, ridden by current and former world champions. The organisers say that no modifications are needed to use the fuels, and point out that a 1925 Bentley Speed Model used sustainable fuel to win the Rudge-Whitworth Cup in 2023. “Goodwood has an illustrious motorsport history and

A former Tesla employee has told the BBC that the company’s self-driving technology is still not ready for public roads. Lukasz Krupski, who has turned whistleblower, said that the part-autonomous technology, which takes over some driving functions such as emergency braking but still requires the driver to be ready to take over, is really still in the development phase. He stated: “It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments in public roads. So even if you don’t have a Tesla, your children still walk on the footpath.” Mr Krupski, a former service technician at Tesla, leaked 100GB of internal company data to the German newspaper Handlesblatt, which first publicised the allegations. In an interview with the BBC Krupski added:

Bristol Biking Girls, a motorcycle group based in the city, is raising money for Air Ambulances UK by creating its own 2024 calendar. Twenty-four women are pictured with their bikes, the images taken by professional photographer (and Bristol Biking Girls member) Sophie April – the members paid Sophie out of their own pockets for the sessions, so all proceeds from the calendar go direct to Air Ambulances UK. The calendar pays tribute to the late Steph Robertson, who founded the group in 2016 when looking for riding buddies. It grew fast, with over 300 members by 2020, when it ran a calendar in favour of ovarian cancer support group Ovacome – that too was in memory of a BBG member, Chilie