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THE beautifully manicured greens and fairways of the Pebble Beach golf course are a world away from the hustle and bustle of the UK’s roads and streets – and yet there was much to take note of at the American classic car event at the end of last week. BMW gave us the all-new Z4 in production form, while Audi and Mercedes looked further ahead with all-electric concept cars. Jaguar joined in, too, revealing that its electric E-Type (above, used in May’s Royal wedding) will be offered to customers from next year, at a price conservatively estimated to be north of £300,000. However, as our Top Story overleaf reveals, the British firm isn’t about to stop there. Its engineers are working on a mid-engined replacement for the modern-day F-Type sports…

● Mid-engine layout will mean sleeker profile for halo Jaguar ● V6 could be joined by two electric motors for AWD ability Jonathan_Burn@dennis.co.uk @Jonathan_burn EXCLUSIVE IMAGES THE successor to the Jaguar F-Type will embrace hybrid technology and go mid-engined when it launches around 2022, Auto Express can exclusively reveal. And further down the line, Jag could launch a fully-electric version to rival the forthcoming Porsche Taycan. Development work on the F-Type’s successor is under way, with engineers devising a plan that will transform the model into the brand’s halo product to compete with McLaren and Audi Sport. Central to the plan and favoured by engineers is the shift from a front to mid-engined layout for the performance car. According to high-ranking technicians working on the project, the Honda NSX is…

John_McIlroy@dennis.co.uk @johnmcilroy THIS is the all-new BMWZ4, and the sixth iteration of BMWZ car, which has been unveiled at the Pebble Beach Concours event in the United States ahead of sales starting in spring 2019. Codenamed G29, the new roadster has been developed in a joint project with Toyota. However, the two models to emerge from the shared process – the Z4 and the Japanese firm’s Supra – will be substantially different. BMW’s offering will be a convertible only; the Toyota will be sold as a coupé. Both will be built in the same factory in Austria; it was BMW that initially proposed the idea to Toyota to co-develop the two cars. The Z4’s looks and proportions stick pretty closely to those previewed on a concept that was revealed at…

WE’VE already sampled the Z4 M40i in prototype form – and it shows promise. You can tell that BMW has the Boxster in its sights, in fact, because this Z4 really has become a proper sports car, with a stiffer chassis and much sweeter steering than before. Small wonder that BMW has a candid way of describing the difference between the old car and the new one. The outgoing Z4, it says, was a car you’d drive on a Sunday afternoon, because it wasn’t really a true-blue sports car. The new one is a car you’ll drive early on a Sunday morning, before the sun has come up and when there’s no one else around. And based on our experience with the prototype, on road and on track, and with…

Hugo_Griffiths@dennis.co.uk @hugo_griffiths SPEEDING drivers could soon be given less leeway by police after an official review of ‘buffer zones’ was announced. Current guidelines advise police to allow a speeding buffer of 10 per cent plus 2mph, meaning 70mph limits are typically enforced by prosecution above 79mph, and motorists travelling below 35mph in 30mph zones are unlikely to be targeted by officers. But senior police officers are considering whether “the implicit acceptance of excess speed within a threshold above the statutory speed limit” is “acceptable”. As a result, chief constables are to review official police guidelines on speed enforcement limits. The review into buffer zones follows comments by Chief Constable Anthony Bangham, the National Police Chief Council’s lead on road policing, that drivers should have a “genuine fear of being caught”…

FORD has revealed details of its self-driving car programme in the lead-up to unveiling its first fully autonomous vehicle in 2021. The company aims to develop a “common language” for self-driving cars, and has devised a light bar that displays a “white light [that] passes back and forth slowly” when the car is giving way, and a rapidly blinking light when a stationary car is about to move off. Ford’s “production-intent” self-driving cars have a “pull over request button” so passengers can make unplanned stops, and a secondary set of brakes in case the primary system fails. Bosses say a replacement self-driving car could also be sent out to customers in the event of an incident. Manned self-driving Fords operate in various cities across America, including Miami in Florida and…