Pete Clifton, Executive Producer, MSN UK, writes...

This was an odd feeling. Sitting in the early Monday morning traffic jam into London, and quietly hoping it would get worse. Why be in a hurry for the office when you’re the king of the road in a Touareg V6 TDI?

Ford is debuting its MyKey system on the updated Fiesta range – a feature that allows certain parameters of the vehicle to be governed by the chosen one. OK, the person with the master key.

It’s aimed at parents (concerned or controlling, you decide) who want to ‘fix’ certain aspects of the car, such as the stereo’s maximum volume and the car’s top speed, as well as the option to disable stability systems. The problem is, I just can't see it working how they want it to. 

The car launch in question was the new Audi R8 V10 plus, so everything inside the cabin felt appropriate, just so, like you will one day need to press that button on the dash, even if you don’t have a clue what it does.

But pare it back to anything from family hatchbacks and saloons to superminis and city cars – what the majority of us drive day-in day-out – and what constitutes a must-have option is completely different.

This is a Smeg designer fridge. It apparently weighs about 50kg, and although not exactly the largest food quality maintenance device known to man, it’s big enough to make you wonder if it would even fit in the back of a Jaguar XF Sportbrake. Let alone ponder what it would be like to then drive round a racing circuit with said domestic appliance comfortably ensconced inside.

Wait. What?

Final drive from Brazil – and perhaps the most regionally appropriate one. Get a load of the Volkswagen Saveiro Cross pick-up truck. This, according to VW man Dr Egon Feichter, is Brazil’s sports car. Let me explain.

Following on from the Gol, time for something a little more familiar. This is a Volkswagen CrossFox, the urban warrior in the Brazilian Fox city car range, regular versions of which were offered in the UK between the Lupo and the Up! It never sold particularly well on our side of the Atlantic – the spaciousness of the cabin defeated by dull styling and . But judging by my brief experience here, it is a shame we didn’t get this version.

Audi wheeled out a special treat for us at the recent launch of its new flagship R8 model, the V10 plus.

It had shipped in the winning race car from this year’s Nürburgring 24 hours along with the pilot that helped secure victories in all four serious endurance races it entered this year, including two gruelling twice round the clock efforts at the Nürburgring and Spa.

So with an R8 LMS and Markus Winklehock calmly sitting in the drivers seat waiting to go, I donned my Audi-branded fireproof suit and helmet and jumped in next to him for a few passenger laps.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such genuine excitement amongst my esteemed international press colleagues as the moment when, following the factory tour, Volkswagen do Brazil (VWB) finally let us loose in a selection of its most popular products. As you can see, there were quite a few to choose from, but a compadre from What Car? and I went straight for the main event – the 2013 version of the Volkswagen Gol.