Spaniard Carlos Sainz and his French co-driver Michel Perin clinched three stage victories for Volkswagen in a shakedown rally for January’s Lisbon to Dakar endurance event.

The rally in the dune-covered regions around Dubai and Abu Dhabi offered the Race Touareg II team the final chance to test their car in conditions resembling those of the Dakar Rally in Mauritania.

The event covered 1518km and concludes Volkswagen’s rally and testing programme for the 2007 Dakar.

Jeremy Clarkson takes a Toyota Prius for a drive, and I think the review speaks for itself.

A Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI diesel has succeeded in towing a Boeing 747 weighing approximately 155 tonnes. Watched by engineers, Volkswagen personnel and bemused passers-by, the Touareg V10 TDI completed seven complete runs on the auxiliary runway at Dunsfold Aerodrome, 40 miles south west of London.

The vehicle was a standard production Touareg fitted with a special towing adaptor to connect it with the aircraft towing link and loaded with 4.3 tonnes of metal ballast to bring its total weight to just over seven tonnes (7,030 kg) including the driver, an engineer from the technical department at the company’s headquarters in Germany.