Ten things we learned this week: 2 June 2017 edition

We suspect there will be a fair few of these in the coming years, as famous faces get their Ford supercar delivered.

Jay Leno is a bona fide petrolhead and car collector, of course, so we’ll let him off for being boastful about his new car. Especially given the spec. No staid silver or predictable blue’n’white for the king of TV chat.

Instead, he’s gone for black with red stripes and a red interior. We think it looks marvellous, but what say you? If you think you can do better, the Ford GT configurator is here.

Image: Protective Film Solutions

Or a Popel, if you will.

This week has yielded much news of big world figures apparently turning their back on helping out the world's climate (well, one particular world figure), so it's good to know his Popiness is still on board with making the world a cleaner place. Meet his new car, an Opel Ampera-E.

That's it being delivered by Opel CEO Dr Karl-Thomas Newmann, as the head of the Catholic church looks to make his Vatican City home the world's first CO2-free country. An electric hatchback with 300 miles of range is a good start.

And given Vatican City has an area of just 44 hectares - or 0.17 miles - he'll be able to do a lot of laps of his land before needing a charge. Um, 1,764 if we're counting.

And this is it.

Yup, it's hardly news that the new Rolls saloon having a) a Spirit of Ecstasy adorning its bonnet and b) a flipping massive grille. But this is our first glimpse of Phantom Mk8, so it's worth being a little excited.

We'll see the full car on 27 July, or around two months' time. It will line up in London among some of the more special versions of its seven predecessors, the history of which you can find in this gallery.

Excited? Reckon it will remain the most luxurious form of wheeled transport? Or are you more of a G-Wagen Landaulet kind of person?

Audi told TG earlier this week that the new A8 limo, with styling influenced by the gorgeous Prologue concept pictured above, will be a hybrid. As in, all of them.

The range flagship will have electro-boost across the range, intended chiefly to make the car a zero-emission town runner (handy for whisking CEOs and drunk celebs about urban centres) and a real boon in the new fuel efficiency cycles which will put a more realistic bent on the sort of driving cars do in the actual world, not a lab.

Could this mean a hybrid S8 is coming? Of course it could: Porsche already has the Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid bits waiting...

The Renault Trezor's big moment in the limelight was the 2016 Paris motor show. After that, you'd imagine a preposterous clamshell electric two-seater like the Trezor would be confined to a dusty garage under a cloth somewhere in Renault's automotive filing cabinet.

Happily, that hasn't been its fate: instead, it's been touring about car shows and design galas and continuing to be a crowd-puller. Can't imagine why...

This week, Renault's high-performance clown shoe won Villa d'Este's 'Most Beautiful Concept of the Year' award. Renault says "to enter in the prototypes and concept cars category, Trezor had to meet a set of rigorous selection criteria as a working concept car with high-quality and original styling."

Just how much of the claimed 350bhp performance it had to demonstrate to be classed as 'working', you can probably guess, but if it encourages more crazy French car designs with a sustainable heart, we're all for it. Vive la Trezor.

Could your car one day act not only as a mode of transport, but as a crime vigilante and CCTV camera? The boss of Intel, Brain Krzanich, thinks so, believe it or not.

Krzanich told CNBC this week: "I always say that the cars are going to be out there looking, so the next time an Amber alert comes up and they're looking for a license plate, the cars should be able to find that license plate quite rapidly".

He said a form of data encrytion would be needed to stop a total invasion of privacy, but it floats the possiblity that your car could spot a stolen vehicle or wanted getaway car as you mooch around, and even tell the police. Best behaviour please, everyone. 

Your word of the day, should you not use the educational toilet paper, is 'camatte'. It's derived from the Japanese word for 'caring', and has been applied to a Toyota concept car since 2013. It used removable body panels to change its look, which is clever, but the reason behind its nuturing side is its purpose as a teacher. This is supposed to help children learn to drive. 

At the Tokyo toy show, children will get to drive one of these quirky little objects. Toyota says: "The Camatte School is designed to capture the imagination of the next generation of drivers (and their parents) by showing them how much fun driving can be. It's a dream-come-true for the youngsters who would normally have to wait years before climbing behind the wheel of a real vehicle. By participating, children will first learn how to use a car's steering wheel, accelerator and brake on a simulator before using these skills to take control of a real vehicle."

It reminds us of the Legoland driving school - you even get a souvenir driving license afterwards. But can't you build us a grown-up sized one, Toyota?

There’s drunk. There’s blackout. And then there’s getting so wasted you travel for 14 miles while passed out on the back of someone else's car. Well, that’s what happened earlier this week after a raging barbeque festival in Memphis, Tennessee.

A man wearing a colourful short-sleeved shirt (a party shirt if we’ve ever seen one) rolled out of the festival and on the back of a random car for a little nap. When the car’s owner – Carl Webb – and his wife returned, they just got in and drove off with the man perched on the back catching some Zzzs. That's when Carl saw police lights and pulled over.

"The officer came up and he said, 'Mr. are you aware there's a body on your trunk?' That did not register. He said, 'Mr. I'm not messing with you. There's a body on your trunk.' So, I got out. We walked around and sure enough, there he was – still hanging on! Still unconscious, just lying there," Webb said.

Webb had driven 14 miles with the drunk passenger sleeping on his 14-inch-wide trunk. Amazingly, he was fine. And will probably be filling his story to the script writers of The Hangover as we type.

Image via 23 ABC News. Watch the clip here

As last week’s Worthersee show proved, Vee-Dub fans start at a very young age. Well, now you can GTI your kid's life from an even earlier age thanks to this GTI stroller by Knorr Baby.

Finished inside and out in the iconic tartan cloth pattern, the buggy has all the hallmarks of the OG hot hatch. The sides feature the honeycomb design from the front grille, while the red stitching on the handle takes inspiration from the GTI’s steering wheel. Complete with polished suspension (unfortunately not adaptive like the actual car) the look is completed with GTI lookalike wheels.

However, costing £1,800, it might be worth buying a scrappy old GTI and making a petrol powered one out of its bits...

Obviously spurred on by the glowing reaction to Fernando Alonso's debut Indy 500 - and lacking a fast-paced job besides being quite handy at triathlons - Jenson button is getting back into a racing car. Again.

This time, Honda has announced that the British 2009 F1 world champion will compete in an NSX-GT at the Suzuka 1000km on 27 August, as part of the Japanese Super GT championship. Wonder how solid the engine is?

Jenson said: "I am delighted to have the opportunity to race a NSX-GT at the prestigious Suzuka 1000km. Last year in December, I really enjoyed driving the NSX Concept GT at Honda Racing Thanks Day, and since then have been itching to drive it in a championship race. Thankfully when I approached Honda to race in Super GT they thought it was a great idea. I am grateful for this opportunity and am very much looking forward to racing in front of my Japanese fans again."

Go well, Jenson. And remember to bring comfy shoes for the walk back to the pits.