Although it was a closed event and not open to public access, the BBC reports that the Race the Runway event we highlighted recently was a success, with 48 participants each paying £250 for the opportunity to race their supercars along the secondary runway at Edinburgh Airport, with invited guests bringing in a further £50 a head. Cars such as Lamborghinis, Porsches, Ferraris, Aston Martins and others were brought to the event, during which the airport continued to operate as normal.

Proceeds from the day will go to St Columba’s Hospice in Edinburgh and the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow.

Together with the runway activity, the day also provided an opportunity for the drivers to undertake a fire simulation exercise, and visit air traffic control.

It will certainly have made a change from the usual sort of track day that takes place on normal race tracks such as Knockhill, as I’m led to believe (since modern, active, commercial airport runways are one place I haven’t managed to get onto) that by comparison with such tracks, runways can be much smoother. One thing is certain, as anyone who’s been round Knockhill will vouch for, they’re certainly flatter!

The French automaking industry has long had a reputation for turning out vehicles that appear to be built completely from scratch, as though there was not a single other car in the world from which to turn for inspiration.

Renault upholds that tradition with a couple of its prototype electric cars: the Twizy, shown above, and the Zoe, which not only have ridiculous names but are among the ugliest vehicles ever produced anywhere. Renault unveiled the concept cars last week at the Frankfurt Autoshow.

The Twizy, which looks like it has square wheels, is expected to go into production in the second half of 2011 and the Zoe in mid 2012.

As The Coyote Blog puts it: “Combine 40% French design and engineering, 40% political correctness, 10% Hello Kitty and 10% of WTF to get this new electric concept car from Renault with square wheels called the Twizy.”

Indeed, the Twizy looks like it would come out on the short end of a battle with a Big Wheel.

Of course, there’s no accounting for European tastes in general when it comes to vehicles – it’s apparently either all (Mercedes, BMW or high-performance expensive sports cars) or nothing (Yugo, Citroen or pretty much anything built behind the Iron Curtain).

More on: http://southcarolina1670.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/renault-upholds-french-auto-tradition/