Roll on, 1989

As the New Year approaches we can anticipate a highly interesting season of varied motoring sport. Formula One racing should be less confined to one winning make, a situation the incredible domination of McLaren-Honda produced last year. It will be exciting to see if Jaguar can maintain its new-found return to success at Le Mans and what the once-invincible Mercedes team will make of its reappearance on the circuits.

Over and above the competitive side of the automotive scene, customers in the market for new road-cars should be well-satisfied with what the world’s motor industry has to offer them. Family saloons not only possess very good performance and economy but come as standard with comprehensive equipment which formerly figured only on costly models.

Moreover, technical advances apply to quite ordinary cars and multiple-valve heads, fuel-injection and five-speed gearboxes are not confined to expensive top-performance models. Back in 1924 four-wheel brakes had become almost universal except on the cheapest cars and then were often available as an option. The same is now happening with 4WD and anti-lock brakes, a significant contribution to road safety.

If there is a gloomy aspect to all this it is the difficulty of deciding which quantity-produced car to invest in, especially as they all now look so similar! It is here that the enthusiast has less of a problem. It is, however, droll but pleasing that the two economy twins, Citroen 2CV and Fiat 126, continue in production, with two-cylinder engines.

The future, then, looks very promising and Motor Sport intends to go on reporting impartially the important races and rallies, sorting out the faster production cars for you and, as ever, covering the veteran to classic car scene.