The Young and the Restless: Noah Newman’s Life Hangs in the Balance After Tragic Crash — While Phyllis Summers and Cane Ashby’s Secret Alliance Threatens to Destroy Genoa City’s Balance of Power
A week of emotional turmoil and corporate intrigue has rocked The Young and the Restless, as the Newman family faces one of its most devastating crises yet. While Nick Newman races to Los Angeles after his son Noah’s catastrophic car accident, a dangerous new alliance between Phyllis Summers and Cane Ashby threatens to destabilize Genoa City’s business and personal relationships alike.
Noah Newman’s Devastating Car Accident
The Newman family’s world has been turned upside down after Sharon placed a panicked call to Nick Newman, revealing that their son Noah has been involved in a horrific car crash in Los Angeles. According to reports, Noah lost control of his vehicle late at night on the Pacific Coast Highway, resulting in a near-fatal collision that left him in critical condition.
The news could not have come at a worse time. Nick had been preparing to stay in Genoa City to help Victor Newman counter a string of corporate attacks orchestrated by Cane Ashby. But when Sharon’s trembling voice broke through the phone line, all business fell away. “He’s alive, but it’s bad,” she whispered — a sentence that changed everything.
In a rare show of emotion, Victor immediately urged his son to go. The patriarch, known for his unyielding focus on business, made a surprising concession — allowing Nick to take the Newman private jet to Los Angeles. “Family comes first,” Victor said, promising that Newman Enterprises would hold steady until the crisis passed.
Yet as Nick boards the plane, his heart is divided. He knows that Cane’s revenge campaign against the Newmans is already in motion — and that his absence may leave the company vulnerable. Torn between duty and fatherhood, Nick’s anguish sets the stage for one of his most difficult moral tests.
Back in Los Angeles, doctors fight to stabilize Noah, who remains unconscious with internal injuries. Sharon refuses to leave his bedside, praying for a miracle while Nick grapples with guilt — knowing that had he left sooner, things might have been different.
Phyllis Summers and Cane Ashby’s Dangerous Alliance
While tragedy engulfs the Newmans, another storm brews in Genoa City. Phyllis Summers has been seen holding secret meetings with Cane Ashby, raising alarm among those who know both are capable of ruthless manipulation when their ambitions align.
Nick’s instincts tell him something is off. Acting on his suspicions, he quietly hires a private investigator — and the findings are troubling. The investigator uncovers that Cane has been developing a cutting-edge artificial intelligence program, a technology capable of reshaping corporate power and public perception alike.
Cane’s plan is deeply personal. He believes the AI could restore his reputation and repair his relationship with Lily Winters and their children by positioning him as a visionary entrepreneur. But Phyllis, ever the strategist, sees an opportunity. She offers to help him gain investors — on one condition: complete control of the program’s code and deployment.
Her motives remain unclear, but those who know Phyllis suspect she may be planning to weaponize Cane’s creation to strengthen her own influence — perhaps even to manipulate Newman Enterprises itself.
Cane hesitates. He knows Phyllis’s history of betrayal and her uncanny ability to turn allies into steppingstones. Yet his desperation blinds him to the danger. Their alliance is fragile — built on mistrust and ambition — and it could implode the moment one of them makes a move.
As Nick learns more about their covert partnership, he begins to connect the dots: Cane’s AI project, Phyllis’s manipulations, and the timing of Newman’s corporate sabotage. Could Phyllis be helping Cane take down Newman Enterprises while Nick is distracted by Noah’s tragedy?
With Noah fighting for his life and a shadow war brewing in Genoa City, The Young and the Restless has set the stage for a collision of grief, power, and betrayal.
Will Nick lose both his son and his family empire in the same week — or will Phyllis’s plan collapse before it consumes them all?
10 Best Fast Fords Ever
by Dan Prosser
Ford is a brand as famous for its fast, fun cars as it is for big-selling family favourites, having produced some legendary high-performance models over the years. Some are affordable hot hatches, others are rally-inspired specials and a few are entirely more exotic. That’s the wonder of Ford – perhaps the only car brand that can turn its hand to budget-priced city cars and carbon-fibre supercars alike.
Study a list of Fords sportiest cars and it’s the variety that leaps out: three-cylinder hatchbacks, rear-driven V8 muscle cars, 200mph+ road-going race cars. And that only covers the past few years…
Here then, in no particular order, are what we think are the best fast Fords ever.
10 Best Fast Fords Ever
- Ford GT (2005-2006)
- Ford Fiesta ST (2018-2023)
- Ford Focus RS Mk1 (2002-2003)
- Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth (1987-1988)
- Ford Racing Puma (1999-2001)
- Ford GT (2017-present)
- Ford Escort RS2000 (1975-1980)
- Ford Focus RS Mk3 (2016-2018)
- Ford RS200 (1984-1986)
- Ford Mustang Bullitt (2019-2023)
Ford GT (2005-2006)
The Ford GT has retro styling and a throwback driving experience to match. With a rumbling V8 that’s supercharged to 550bhp and a manual gearbox, it’s much more sledgehammer than scalpel, and therefore closer in character to the original Sixties GT40 than a modern-day supercar.
It began life as a concept to mark Ford’s 100th year. Paying tribute to the legendary GT40 that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times between 1966 and 1969, the 205mph brute faithfully recreated the GT40’s low-slung shape, with its sharply pointed nose and dramatically sliced-away rear. Around 4000 were built, every one of them greedily snapped up by well-heeled enthusiasts.
The GT demonstrates the unusual elasticity of the Ford brand. There aren’t many car makers better known for building affordable family hatchbacks that can also successfully market a Ferrari-baiting supercar. A string of magazine awards proved the GT was not only a whimsical evocation of Ford’s glory days, but also a brilliant performance car in its own right.
Ford Fiesta ST (2018-2023)
Whether you have £20,000 or £2m to spend on a performance car, the Ford Fiesta ST should be right at the top of your wish-list. If you enjoy driving, you will get a kick out of this feisty little hot hatch, no matter how much time you might have spent in far more exotic machinery. Its dinky three-cylinder turbo engine is eager and rev-hungry, begging to be thrashed gear after gear. The manual transmission is a delight, too, although it’s the ST’s exquisite handling that makes it such fun to drive. There’s sharp, incisive steering, perhaps the most adjustable front-wheel-drive chassis of the modern day, and a feeling of flow that courses through every contact point.
The ST has faced staunch hot-hatch competition from European rivals such as Renault, Peugeot and Vauxhall over the years. Most offered more power, but none have the dynamic chops of the Fiesta. The best of the lot is the Edition model, limited to just 300 examples. It comes with a limited slip differential and manually adjustable coilovers as standard, lending the ST an extra degree of dynamism. It’s more entertaining to drive than most sports cars costing many times the price.
Ford Focus RS Mk1 (2002-2003)
The original Ford Focus RS was far from perfect, but it did elevate the hot hatch category to an entirely new level. For one thing, it challenged all preconceived ideas of how much power a front-wheel drive chassis could handle (most reckoned a front axle would never be able to both deploy 212bhp and steer at the same time) and it proved that motorsport-grade engineering needn’t be overkill on a seemingly humble hot hatch. Brembo brakes, Sachs dampers, a Quaife limited-slip differential and a Garrett turbocharger made the Focus RS the most over-specified car of its type when it arrived in 2002: no other high performance hatchback had gone to such great lengths.
The RS was spectacularly fast (for the time) and great to look at, but that tightly-wound differential and an enormous wedge of turbocharged torque meant the car had a tendency to drag itself across the width of an uneven British road. It paid to be wide awake when driving this car spiritedly.
Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth (1987-1988)
For a period in the late Eighties and very early Nineties, the Sierra RS500 Cosworth dominated touring car racing. It won countless races and championships around the world, and its road-going counterpart became one of the most sought-after performance cars of its day.
Exactly 500 were built, all for the UK market. Unlike later Sierra Cosworths the RS500 was rear-wheel drive only, its two rear tyres tasked with delivering almost 230bhp to the road. Over and above the stock Sierra RS Cosworth it was based upon, the RS500 was uprated with a bigger turbocharger, improved cooling, a second set of fuel injectors (which weren’t connected on road cars but were put to very good use by racing teams) and a freer-breathing induction system. While the four-door, four-wheel-drive Sierra RS Cosworth that arrived in 1990 was far easier to drive quickly, it’s the limited-edition RS500 Cossie that fast Ford fanatics get misty-eyed about today.
Ford Racing Puma (1999-2001)
Like the Sierra RS500 Cosworth, the Racing Puma was limited to 500 cars, all for the UK market, and it was built by independent vehicle engineering firm Tickford. There the similarities end, because the Racing Puma was front- rather than rear-wheel drive and powered by a revvy naturally-aspirated engine, not a punchy turbo unit. But there was one other important likeness, because the fastest Puma of the lot was informed by Ford’s motorsport activities just as the RS500 was. Alcon brakes, much wider tracks front and rear (clothed by swollen arches), Sparco seats and a thoroughly reworked 1.7-litre engine turned the pretty Ford coupe into an uncompromising road racer.
Ford was busy forging its reputation for building the best-handling cars of their type when the Racing Puma arrived on the scene. Just like the (somewhat less exciting) Mondeo and Focus, the 153bhp Puma steered beautifully and handled exquisitely. To this day it’s regarded as one of the best front-wheel-drive performance cars of all time.
Ford GT (2017-present)
Come the 50th anniversary of the start of Ford’s period of dominance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the brand couldn’t resist reviving the GT nameplate once more. The 2017 GT was a very different sort of beast to the 2005 model, however, trading that car’s retro styling and Stars and Stripes swagger for ultra-modern design and motorsport-derived engineering. In fact, the most recent Ford GT was originally conceived for racing (it poetically won its class at Le Mans 50 years after the GT40 first won the race in 1966), with the road-going version adapted from it in a complete reversal of the usual process.
A twin-turbo V6 replaced the thundering V8 that all previous GTs had been powered by, while a paddle-shift gearbox, active aerodynamics and extensive weight-reduction measures made it one of the most sophisticated cars on the road. Several years later it remains exactly that. Although it lacks the searing straight-line pace of some newer supercars it is no slouch, while pin-sharp steering and live-wire handling responses mean it’s about as thrilling to drive as cars entitled to wear number plates get.
Ford Escort RS2000 (1975-1980)
Early Ford Escorts forged their reputations on the world’s rally stages. That culminated in 1979 when the RS1800 (based upon the Mk2 Escort) won the World Rally Championship Constructors’ title. Even now the Escort badge is indivisible from the image of some heroic rally driver sliding the car at great speed through a bend, mud sent flying in its wake.
While the RS1800 conquered rallying, the Ford Escort RS2000 was the model that performance car enthusiasts would actually go out and buy (only a small number of RS1800s were ever built for the road). Recognisable by its slatted ‘droopsnoot’ nose, the RS2000 was shunted along by a snorty 110bhp Pinto engine whose power was sent, famously, to the rear axle. Many was the RS2000 owner who came a cropper on the road pretending to be the great Ari Vatanen. Talkative steering, one of the best manual gearshifts in the business and that rear-wheel drive balance makes the hot Escort rewarding to drive even now.
Ford Focus RS Mk3 (2016-2018)
If you’re not sure of the difference between a Ford Focus ST and a Focus RS, just know this: the ST is a fast Focus, while the RS is so much more than that. While an ST gets a punchy turbocharged engine and lowered suspension, in true hot-hatch tradition, Ford piles a whole heap more performance car engineering know-how into the RS.
For instance, the Mk3 was the first four-wheel drive Focus RS, but the fiendishly clever four-wheel drive system favoured the rear- rather than the front axle, and it also delivered a Drift Mode that allowed you to perform lairy tail slides with consummate ease. Combine that tech with the in-built agility that’s typical of Ford’s hot hatches, and the RS flows along a winding B-road with scarcely believable accuracy and composure, making it spectacularly exciting to drive.
Its astonishingly fast cross-country thanks to almost 350bhp, plus the stability that comes from deploying it through all four wheels. In truth, more modern hot hatches such as the latest Honda Civic Type R have since surpassed its abilities, but the RS was untouchable in its day, and still hugely enjoyable now.
Ford RS200 (1984-1986)
The RS200 was Ford’s Group B World Rally Championship contender, and leaving the road-going version off a list of the greatest fast Fords would have been unthinkable. This was rallying’s most explosive era, the cars frighteningly powerful and more sophisticated than ever, although also more dangerous. Following the untimely deaths of Lancia duo Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto in 1986, Group B’s perils were deemed intolerable and the category was scrapped.
Despite Group B’s ultimate demise, Ford was obliged to build 200 civilian RS200s to homologate the model for rallying. The pugnacious mid-engined machine featured four-wheel drive and a turbocharged four-cylinder engine that developed 250bhp (around half what the rally cars had), which between them gave the RS200 supercar-baiting performance. But the RS200, like most Group B homologation models, was built purely to satisfy the sport’s regulators. As a result, its on-road manners weren’t a priority and its awkward seating position, heavy steering and laggy throttle response make it something of an acquired taste.
Ford Mustang Bullitt (2019-2023)
Modern cars come no more characterful than the Ford Mustang GT, thanks to its enormous naturally-aspirated V8 engine that’s paired, almost uniquely in this day and age, to a manual transmission. But the GT is muscle car through and through, all tyre smoke, roaring exhaust note, sloppy body control and imprecise steering. The Bullitt, however, is another matter altogether.
Built to celebrate 50 years of the Steve McQueen film of the same name, it comes with completely reworked suspension, an even more powerful yet much more responsive engine, and uprated brakes, making it almost as rewarding to drive as the best sports cars. Gone are the Mustang GT’s lazy body control and unnerving sense of mass, in their place an agility that’s rare in an American pony car. Best of all, the Bullitt is no less characterful than other models for being so much sharper to drive. Along with a power boost to more than 450bhp, the Bullitt also gets unique wheels and a white cueball gearknob, just like Frank Bullitt’s.
