Innholdsfortegnelse for 16/03/2016 i Autocar

LAND ROVER BUILDS and sells 400,000 cars a year, and while many are made in the UK, the company is rapidly expanding its overseas production. The UK still builds the majority — Halewood the ‘D8’ steel-platform Evoque/ Discovery Sport and Solihull the alloy-bodied ‘D7u’ Range Rover/Range Rover Sport and steel-bodied ‘T5’ platform Discovery. Solihull will shortly close down the T5 line and switch production of the new alloy-bodied Discovery to the ‘D7u’ line where the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport are built. It is very likely that the Sport Coupé will be made at Solihull too, on the plant’s second line, which currently assembles the Jaguar XE, XF and F-Pace. However, the UK’s grip on Land Rover production is reducing rapidly, with three new overseas plants adding more than…

‘Volumes will be limited in a move that will push the price of the GT R well above the £110,500 of the GT S’ Mercedes-Benz’s AMG performance car division is preparing to throw down the gauntlet to Stuttgart neighbour Porsche and its highly rated 911 GT3 RS with an exciting new track-inspired version of its range-topping GT. The powered-up coupé will take the GT R name into production. This new two-seater is due to be built on the same assembly line as the GT and GT S at Mercedes-Benz’s Sindelfingen factory in Germany, following its planned debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June. The GT R is the third in a planned five-model line-up and is the most aggressive incarnation of the GT yet. Together with an upgraded…

Bentley is considering a bigger, more expensive SUV than the Bentayga. “We have not found the limit and we are looking where the limit is,” Bentley engineering chief Rolf Frech confirmed. “When we find it, we will push it. The Bentayga is the first [SUV] model we are introducing, but you can be sure we are looking for space [in the market]. If there is demand, we want to fulfill it.” More powerful Bentayga variants are a strong possibility, alongside plug-in hybrid and diesel versions. Company boss Wolfgang Dürheimer has also revealed plans for a coupé version. That model could even be built before a production version of the Speed 6 sports car concept, the sign-off of which is imminent. Explaining the decision-making process, Dürheimer said: “First we must make…

It can get a little blustery roof down but refinement underneath it impresses QUICK FACTS PRICE £51,700 ON SALE NOW So it’s come to this. A convertible Range Rover. With it appearing less than a fortnight before the launch of the first Jaguar SUV, you couldn’t be blamed for blowing out your cheeks and silently wondering if the brain trust at Jaguar Land Rover has come down with Apocalypse Now syndrome. (“We had access to too much money, too much equipment and, little by little, we went insane,” as Francis Ford Coppola famously remarked of his Vietnam war epic.) Of course, it’s not the fevered jungle itch of 1970s film making that’s sweeping through JLR, but the blood-rush of supreme self-belief: the original Evoque’s success wrote plenty of cheques at…

Given that Pat Symonds has spent the past 35 years in the ultimate frenetic environment, Formula 1, and with the sport currently deemed to be failing in a variety of important ways, it is a pleasure and rather a surprise to walk out of an hour’s interview with the Williams technical director feeling good about 2016. But that’s Symonds for you. He’s never been one to panic or follow the herd. Measured decisions are his stock in trade, made on evidence overlaid with a well-honed intuition. And right now, he’s optimistic about the future of his sport – both for the 2016 season, whose stable regulations mean success will depend on careful development of a known package, and 2017, whose new rules involve major aerodynamic changes, aimed at making cars…

A GRIM DISCOVERY I did laugh (or was it cry?) when you referred to your Land Rover Discovery Sport’s HSE trim as “mid-range”, with extras bringing it up to a “relatively modest” £42,222 (Our Cars, 2 March). My previous mid-range Freelander 2 cost me £22,000 new. Perhaps that is why I’ve ordered a Ford Kuga.› Nigel Craig Via email THE FUTURE’S ALREADY HERE Each week, Autocar publishes stories about future cars and their technological advances. However, since the arrival of my Tesla three weeks ago, I have been driving the future of motoring right now. The Model S is breathtaking. I chose the low-power version with a ‘measly’ 430bhp. It is virtually just a one-pedal car, as the regenerative braking slows you when you need to decrease speed. Then there…

These past few months I’ve suddenly become very popular. Can’t think why. It may or may not be related to the fact I’ve been running a McLaren 650S Spider. It’s the kind of car people wave at or take pictures of when you’re driving it, or that causes people to befriend you at petrol stations, or ask for a ride in. It’s the kind of car that makes everyone feel good. Of course, this was not just an exercise in making me feel good about myself and being a goodwill ambassador spreading joy to the streets of southern England. We wanted to find out just how easy it is to live with a supercar in 2016. Very, as it turns out, and all with no loss of excitement, either. We…

I’ve mentioned in previous reports that despite putting my best, greenest shoes on, I’ve not been able to match the combined 67.3mpg which Jaguar says our long-term XE should manage. No surprise there, you might say, because everyone knows that most cars fail to live up to the advertised figures in the long run. I’ve been thinking, though: by how much does the XE miss its claimed figures by in the real world? To find out, I lent our car to sister magazine What Car?’s in-house team of True MPG testers, who assess the economy of cars over a variety of real-world conditions. Jaguar says our test car — a 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel with 178bhp — should return 55.4mpg in the city and more than 76mpg on the motorway, but…

READER’S CAR: FORD SCORPIO Guy Maylam has a 1995 Ford Scorpio 24v V6 Ultima. It’s an ex-demonstrator car plus one previous owner, with just 62,000 miles and a full service history. “I took it in part-ex around 10 years ago, but my boss didn’t want it,” Guy says. “So I got it for my favourite price: buckshee. I’ve been waiting for it to pass its 20th birthday to put it on classic insurance, so we dragged her out of the barn last year. Everything still worked. What a lovely drive. With the 200bhp Cosworth V6, it’s a very underrated car.” WHAT CAUGHT MY EYE THIS WEEK: EXPENSIVE ART Don’ ever paint your bonnet.When I sold Shed 7 to some scrappers, they all hated the fact that it had a personality…

Lavish 1 Rolls-Royce Phantom From £310,000 BMW built a phenomenal Rolls-Royce when it took over in 1998. Wonderfully made and knowingly aristocratic. 2 Rolls-Royce Wraith From £230,000 An intimate and involving Rolls-Royce; less grand, perhaps, but only in the measures that serve to make it great. 3 Aston Martin Rapide From £147,000 There may not be room in the back for top hats, but the Rapide is the most elegant four-door sports car in the world. 4 Bentley Mulsanne From £229,000 If the Phantom is best experienced from the back seat, the Mulsanne is a flagship best flown from the front. 5 Rolls-Royce Ghost From £227,000 The ‘affordable’ Rolls rounds out the silly-money list, narrowly trumping the Flying Spur with its superior cabin. Visit autocar.co.uk for all of our Top…

The next-generation Land Rover Discovery is likely to be given extreme off-road capabilities by the JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations arm next year, in order for it to act as a halo product for the all-terrain capability of the company’s product range. The all-new Discovery 5 is expected to be revealed later this year, with SVO’s so-called Land Rover Discovery SVX version going on sale 12-18 months later. SVO has a three-pronged brief to deliver cars that showcase the best of Jaguar Land Rover’s capabilities in the ‘luxury’, ‘performance’ and ‘capability’ markets. The ‘luxury’ end has been covered by the Range Rover Sport SVR and the ‘performance’ side by the Jaguar F-Type SVR revealed at the recent Geneva motor show. While it is believed that an even more luxurious version of…

A rear-drive NSX will even be racing at this year’s Pikes Peak hillclimb Honda is considering making a lighter, track-focused Type R version of its new NSX sports car. A Type R variant could even become rear-wheel drive if Honda were to abandon parts of the NSX’s hybrid powertrain. The NSX currently has a 500bhp 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 engine in its middle, with a 47bhp electric motor attached to the crank driving the rear wheels and a pair of electric motors at the front. A Type R model could ditch the front electric motors and their batteries in the first wave of a weight-loss regime that, in total, would leave the NSX Type R hundreds of kilograms lighter than the 1725kg donor car. Nick Robinson, dynamic development leader on the…

Nissan has yet to firm up a replacement for its 370Z coupé, according to global design boss Shiro Nakamura. “The Z is not signed off,” he said, “but we have not stopped work.” Nissan has been working on several different concepts for the seven-year-old 370Z’s replacement. One was hinted at by the hybrid crossover Gripz concept shown at Frankfurt last year. Another line of thinking centres around a simpler, more practical turbocharged four-cylinder sports coupé that would reprise some of the styling of the original 240Z. Nissan’s key challenge is that the global market for sports cars and coupés is shrinking, making it harder to devise a profitable business plan for such models. However, Nakamura said the company is also studying the possibility of a new sports car. IMPREZA DUE…

QUICK FACTS PRICE £54,500 (EST) ON SALE NOVEMBER Maserati first displayed an intent to build its long-promised SUV in 2003 with the Kubang concept, a shapely V8-powered crossover designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. That car never made it, but Maserati unveiled another Kubang in 2011, this time based on Jeep mechanicals and promised for early 2014. In the event, it has taken five years rather than three to realise this car, and it’s (wisely) based on Maserati rather than Jeep hardware. It’s also produced in Italy rather than the US. It arrives in time for a flurry of SUVs from unlikely brands, including the Bentley Bentayga, Jaguar F-Pace and the budget MG GS. It’s aimed at the Porsche Cayenne (the grandaddy of SUVs from unlikely sources), both as a sales and…

I have driven the new Mazda MX-5 models and sadly endorse the words that you used in your First Drive (Autocar, 24 February): “Plenty of road and wind noise” and “firm, if not uncomfortable”. However, I cannot agree that we sports car drivers care little about ride and refinement. I think there is no excuse for the lack of refinement. Mazda has always allegedly taken the original Lotus Elan as a starting point for the MX-5 but this suggests that its engineers need to go and drive one. I have: what a revelation! Why don’t you carry out a comparison of the two? I think you’ll then agree that the late Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus, could still teach Mazda how to provide good steering and handling with really compliant…

A friend has just got a new Audi TT and what she appears to love about it most is the fact that she no longer has to divert her eyes from the road to look at the satellite navigation screen. It’s there, right in front of her, between the dials on the TFT instrument panel and, at the press of a button, she can shrink said clocks until almost the entire display is taken up by one enormous map. For me, it is the complete reverse. I hate having a colourful map right in my line of sight and just wish it would shove off somewhere else where I can look at it only when I choose and without having to press any buttons. And because I drive an A4,…

£5k MG Rover TF (2002-2005) and Ford Mondeo (2000-2007) MG’s TF went into battle against the Mazda MX-5 to give buyers an alternative low-cost way into roadster ownership. Mid-engined and rear-wheel-drive, the MG also attracts buyers with its smart looks, good driving manners and relative comfort. Before you buy, make sure the cloth roof is in prime condition and look out for head gasket and electrical issues. The yin to the MG’s yang, here, is an extremely practical Ford Mondeo estate. Not only is the Ford spacious and cheap to maintain, but it also handles well, has great steering and rides decently. Mondeos have a respectable reliability record, too. We found a 56-plate TF 1.8-litre 136 with 62,000 miles and a 2007 Mondeo 2.5-litre Ghia X with similar mileage within…

Mega-hatches 1 Volkswagen Golf R From £30,000 Blends the formerly unblendable: VW sophistication with frenzied driver appeal. Fantastic value for money. 2 Audi RS3 From £40,000 Too closely related to the VW to justify its price, but the five-pot makes it mind-meltingly fast. Comfy now, too. 3 Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG From £38,000 The new RS3 may make it sound a little tame, but that doesn’t mean its appeal is lost on us. Far from it. 4 BMW M135i From £31,000 Puts the old-school heft of a six-cylinder engine front and centre. Doesn’t quite have the handling to match 5 Subaru WRX STI From £29,000 Not a hatch and not brilliant, but the WRX is the last outpost of the once mighty Japanese presence in this class. Visit autocar.co.uk for all…

Sport coupés 1 Porsche Cayman From £40,000 Starter Cayman is as good as it gets. Scalpel-blade incisiveness folded into supreme usability. Prettier now, too. 2 Toyota GT86 From £25,000 Who knew Toyota had another masterpiece in it after the Lexus LFA? Fun doesn’t cover it. A life companion. 3 BMW M235i From £34,000 Towers over most obvious rivals. Only by comparing it with BMW’s best ever do the marginal demerits appear. 4 Audi TT S From £38,000 Costliest version gets the deftest chassis ever to underpin a TT. The best reason yet to buy into Audi’s coupé. 5 Peugeot RCZ R From £32,000 The hot RCZ finally delivers the vivid driving experience its appearance always deserved. A serious prospect. Visit autocar.co.uk for all of our Top Fives…

The target market will be an ‘urban cool’ group, and the palette will reflect that Range Rover’s next new model will break fresh ground by moving the brand into sportier and more-road biased territory with a luxury £60k model pitched at the BMW X6. The new model, codenamed L560, could be named Range Rover Sport Coupé. It has been known for some time that a Range Rover was being developed that shared its alloy chassis with the Jaguar F-Pace, but the make-up of the model has been kept secret. Three years ago, when Autocar revealed Land Rover’s ‘three-pillar’ brand strategy — Defender, Discovery and Range Rover — the Sport Coupé was referred to as ‘Evoque XL’ and positioned between the Evoque and Range Rover Sport. Today, insiders continue to refer…

THE JAGUAR F-PACE SVR is reported to be under development as the next car to be launched by the Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) arm of Jaguar Land Rover, although boss John Edwards says the firm is still evaluating an F-Pace SVR, XF SVR and XE SVR. Although the F-Pace, which goes on sale this spring, is the last of the three Jaguars to be launched, it is said by insiders to have by far the most compelling business case behind it for development as a high-performance model. In addition, the F-Pace is Jaguar’s first SUV, and the car maker is said to be anxious to prove it can produce the sportiest SUV yet built, in order to anchor the car in to the firm’s sporty values. As such, it must…

Skoda will launch its first electric car in 2020-2021 as a variant of the all-new Volkswagen Group MEB battery electric platform in a major push to offer electric variants of several models. Skoda engineers are part of the planning team working on new VW Group battery electric technology. The team’s target is to produce a car with a range of more than 300 miles, a 15-minute charging time and a cost below a comparative combustion-engined vehicle. “The group is working on a modular, new electric platform and we are in the team,” new Skoda chairman Bernhard Maier told Autocar. The MEB architecture is being developed specifically for electric cars. It was first revealed in the VW Budd-e MPV concept at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The…

HONDA-FORMED BRITISH racing team Synchro Motorsport has built an estate-bodied version of the latest Civic Type R. Using a standard 2013 Civic Tourer, the team transplanted the running gear of from a Civic Type R to create a 306bhp estate. The six-speed gearbox, wheels, brakes and suspension of the Civic Type R have been carried over. Synchro Motorsport has also fitted the Type R’s front bodykit and adapted the rear bodywork of the Tourer. A quad-exhaust set-up fits into a rear diffuser that appears to have been adapted from the hatch’s. Inside, there are Type R seats and red badging. The finished car looks remarkably production ready but fans of fast estates shouldn’t get their hopes up. The latest from Honda is that there are no plans to bring such…

BENTLEY’S DESIGN TEAM has drawn an all-electric car for the brand, but there is no certainty that it will make production. New design director Stefan Sielaff has revealed that his team had been charged with provoking debate within the company and that an all-electric Bentley was among the projects he had presented to the board in order to spark a discussion. Bentley’s board has mixed views on full electrification. Head of sales and marketing Kevin Rose acknowledged the range and charging shortcomings of current electric tech, but said: “I’d like to go to an electric car. It’s far from certain, but customer demand is growing and it is on our agenda.” Bentley boss Wolfgang Dürheimer was more cautious, however. “Plug-in hybrids will be available on all our models in time,…

The NSX is capable of pulling huge speeds in a straight line and big cornering forces It is a magnificent handlebar moustache. I sit and wonder what Nick Robinson (not that one) would look like without it. Whether he’d still look like a Boy’s Own hero, a fighter pilot or astronaut perhaps, or whether he’d just morph back into a regular bloke. Just another regular bloke who has made the Honda NSX ride and handle like it does. Which is how, exactly? We’ll see. Ah, the Honda NSX. What kept you, old friend? It has been a while but it has not, apparently, been so long in gestation as we thought. Yes, in 2007 there was the front-engined V10 Advanced Sports Car concept whose engine, although nothing else, eventually went…

King Canute may have had trouble stopping the tide, but not Tony. The Highways England traffic officer (TO) has simply to flick a couple of switches and the tide of cars pounding along the M26 in Kent slows to a crawl and, eventually, to a stop. Minutes earlier, as we were travelling in the opposite direction, he’d spied the bonnet of a car – the remains of a recent accident – in the central reservation, just inches from the outside lane. There’s a strong wind and Tony reckons that it could blow the bonnet into the road. So he’s going to move it, and to do that, he must stop the traffic. At the flick of the switch on the Land Rover Discovery’s ‘rolling road’ control panel, the LED message…

The new Prius handles and performs as well as a great many European hatchbacks generally considered to be more mainstream, and that’s a major achievement for Toyota. For as well as returning a real 62mpg so matter of factly, this car now does an uncanny impression of ‘normal’. To drive, it’s complete and competitive; to own, it’s little short of exceptional. It’s still a very singular car, though: something of an anti-hero for interested drivers, for its total disdain for our engagement. Entering its third decade, the Prius still refuses to acknowledge our childish daydreams of idyllic roads and perfect cars in which to tackle them, addressing instead jammed, pollution-choked reality – and doing so very effectively. However rounded, refined and clever it has become, the Prius still makes you…

Mileage 2900 A Skoda Superb arrived on test the other day and, because the long-term car I’m running was hitherto the only Superb I’d driven, I thought I should have a go. The fact that it was the 276bhp fast version, with four-wheel drive, I should add, was irrelevant. I’d expected this TSI 280 (above, on the right) to feel quite a lot firmer than the SE L Executive wagon I’m running, but there was precious little in it. Both are pretty softly sprung in the suspension’s ‘normal’ setting. Equally, the steering felt much the same, too. So I think that tells you the Superb, whichever way you cut it, is a comfortable executive cruiser. Obviously, it has much more poke than ‘my’ variant, but the lower-output diesel I’m running…

The most viewed vehicle on AA Cars’ website was a black £500 2001 Golf GTI I’m a sucker for a survey, especially when it seeks to explain how the used car market works. As we all know, there are no rules, but there are certainly some patterns that start to emerge and help to explain the state of the forecourt around us. We have AA Cars to thank for this one. To save you the bother of ploughing through it, let’s forensically examine the main claims. Firstly, the Ford Focus is the most popular car for two years in a row. That’s not terribly surprising considering how many are in circulation. The thing is, though, that it deserves to be at the top of the used car tree because it…

Autocar’s star ratings explained Inherently dangerous/unsafe. Tragically, irredeemably flawed. Appalling. Massively significant failings. Very poor. Fails to meet any accepted class boundaries. Poor. Within acceptable class boundaries in a few areas. Still not recommendable. Off the pace. Below average in nearly all areas. Acceptable. About average in key areas, but disappoints. Competent. Above average in some areas, average in others. Outstanding in none. Good. Competitive in key areas. Very good. Very competitive in key areas, competitive in secondary respects. Excellent. Near class leading in key areas, and in some ways outstanding. Brilliant, unsurpassed. All but flawless. Any car that has had a full Autocar road test is highlighted in yellow. FOR FULL RESULTS see page 83…