Laying ourselves, or at least the Editor, open to cries of bias, it was great to receive news of the latest achievements of the Toyota Hilux. The pick-up has just completed a marathon Antarctic journey of over 5900 miles – without a hitch. This adds to the Hilux’s achievements of reaching both the North and South Poles. The vehicles were used in the double trans-continental crossing as part of the Extreme World Races and were powered by standard 3.0-litre D-4D turbo diesel engines and transmissions. Because of the extreme cold, the engines ran on Jet A-1 fuel and in total there were 10 Hilux pick-ups involved in setting up various fuel depots. You have to wonder what Captain Robert Falcon Scott would have thought about that – his fuel depots contained seal blubber and now people are leaving jet fuel there so they can drive about the place without the need for dogs and sledges, and all this change in only 100 years.

China’s Beijing Motor Show was deemed the place for Porsche to unveil the newest model in the successful Cayenne range. The new GTS model has an uprated 4.8-litre V8 engine, with 420bhp, and is based on the Cayenne S power unit, with the eight-speed Tiptronic S gearbox with integrated auto start/stop function. Designed to deliver particularly sporting levels of responsiveness, with the consequence that the Cayenne GTS sprints from a standing start to 62mph in 5.7 seconds, reaching 100mph in 13.3 seconds. The top speed is 162mph and the combined fuel consumption figure is 26.4mpg. The suspension is stiffer, lowered by 24mm (compared to the Cayenne S) and equipped with Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) as standard. Fitted to every Cayenne GTS is a Porsche Vehicle Tracking System (VTS), a sophisticated vehicle security package approved to Thatcham Category 5 standard, and customers will also be to able enjoy a complimentary course at the Porsche Experience Centre, Silverstone. The Cayenne GTS goes on sale in the UK in July 2012, priced from £67,147.

Bargain Great Wall Steed pick-up arrives, SUV to follow next year

It was a bit of a race and we’ve beaten everyone to it.” So said Paul Hegarty, newly appointed MD of UK importer for Great Wall, the first Chinese manufacturer to import its brand into this country. It was a remark almost made as an aside, but it underlined that being first into the UK mattered. No one remembers who comes second – for the record, that’s likely to be Geely, due later this year. More significant, however, were Hegarty’s comments that Great Wall is ‘highly ambitious’ with its export plans. Last year the Chinese manufacturer produced one million units, the 2015 target is a cool two million and, after Italy, the UK is the second European country into which those exports will start to flow. There won’t be any problem meeting the expected demand either, since Great Wall has just built a new plant in Tianjin. It is six times the size of the previous biggest Great Wall plant, covering an area of 3.6million square metres. For reference, the UK launch was at Leamington Spa – you could fit the whole of that town, and the neighbouring Warwick, into that area.