Mazda MX-5 old v new: 1990 Limited Edition v 2019 30th Anniversary Edition

Bookmakers may well have offered odds of a million-to-one that a 20-year-old budding American motoring writer could single-handedly convince a Japanese car maker to build a new sports car. Especially when the manufacturer already had one. Yet Bob Hall’s brainchild for a lightweight roadster that revived the spirit of 1960s British MGs, Triumphs and Austin-Healeys not only made it into production but has gone on to surpass more than a million sales.

Pagani to continue with V12s until 2026, electric car in the works

Pagani has confirmed it will continue producing V12-powered hypercars until at least 2026, and it is also working on an electric vehicle. In an interview with Autocar, Horatio Pagani, the car maker's founder and CEO, confirmed the company's next-generation sports car will again be powered by a twin-turbo V12 engine from Mercedes-Benz. According to Pagani this the next-generation engine will be "homologated until 2026".

Former Uber engineer charged for stealing autonomous driving secrets

Anthony Levandowski, the former head of the self-driving car research program at Uber, has been indicted on 33 charges related to stealing secrets from his former employer Waymo, the autonomous driving arm of Google. Federal prosecutors allege Levandowski downloaded 14,000 files, including circuit board layouts and LIDAR designs, from Google's self-driving vehicle division and stored them on a personal laptop.

2019 Mazda 3 G20 Evolve hatch

Mazda Australia expects the G20 Evolve variant will be the most popular within the six-trim-strong new Mazda 3 range, accounting for about 30 per cent of volume. This 2019 Mazda 3 G20 Evolve hatch priced at $27,690 before on-road costs (plus an extra $495 for our car's grey paint) sits between the entry $25,990 G20 Pure and mid-range $29,990 G20 Touring, rivalling fellow top-sellers such as the Toyota Corolla SX and Hyundai i30 Elite. A comparison of this trio can be found here.

The week's top news stories: September 2, 2019

The automotive news wheel is always turning. If you’re not constantly checking CarAdvice – which you should be doing, by the way – it can be easy for some headlines to slip through the cracks. To make sure you haven’t missed anything important, we’ve gathered what we reckon are the hottest news stories from this week, right here. Check them out, and let us know what caught your eye. GT-spec sedan and wagon arrive in Australia priced from $53,990 before on-road costs. This, or a Volvo S60?

2020 Smart ForTwo facelift sketched out

A sketch previewing the updated electric-only Smart ForTwo has been unveiled ahead of the car's debut at 2019 Frankfurt motor show, which kicks off in the middle of September. To mark the transition to an all-electric lineup the Smart ForTwo and ForFour models will be given a facelift. While the sketch indicates the updated ForTwo will have a wider body and more aggressive stance, spy photos show the car's body panels will be untouched.

Exclusive: 2020 Ford Focus ST priced from $44,690 and in showrooms early 2020

The new Ford Focus ST hot hatch will start from $44,690 plus on-road costs when it arrives in January 2020 – and a six-speed manual or a seven-speed automatic transmission will be a no-cost option. The first ever automatic Ford Focus ST is expected to more than double sales of the blue oval’s high-performance hatchback, given the broader customer appeal of self-shifting gearboxes. Indeed, the iconic Volkswagen Golf GTI is now exclusively automatic.