Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/8/2017 i Autocar

THE CURRENT AUDI Q5 range will add a hybrid model next year when the Q5 e-tron quattro arrives. The car, recently spotted testing in the USA, will use Audi’s familiar EA888 turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with 188bhp and 236lb ft. Connected to the car’s seven-speed automatic gearbox will be an electric motor that can inject a further 108bhp and 221lb ft. Power for the motor will come from a floor-mounted lithium-ion battery pack. It will give the Q5 e-tron an electric-only driving range of about 31 miles. This is the distance mandated by Chinese regulations related to ‘new energy’ vehicles. The range is a significant improvement over the car’s predecessor, the Q5 Hybrid, which could only manage 1.9 miles on electric. The new Q5 e-tron is expected to be…

“The feisty young brother” is how Jaguar describes this, the new F-Type 2.0-litre. Which is both encouraging and slightly worrying. Have you ever spent any time around a younger brother who could broadly be defined as ‘feisty’? Annoying, isn’t he? But, yes, it sounds encouraging, too. The F-Type 2.0-litre marks the arrival of Jaguar’s four-cylinder Ingenium engine in 296bhp petrol form, so here it gets plonked into Jaguar’s sports-GT car. You could think of it as downsizing – which usually turns out okay, as with Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG, for example – but sometimes doesn’t. There’s the reassurance here that, if you don’t like it, the bigger engines, V6s and V8s, stay on sale, too. You might remember the ‘four-cylinder engine in a six-cylinder car’ idea from such projects as ‘the…

MODEL TESTED 1.5 TSI EVO R-LINE 5DR Price £25,095 Power 148bhp Torque 184lb ft 0-60mph 8.8sec 30-70mph in fourth 12.0sec Fuel economy 40.3mpg CO2 emissions 116g/km 70-0mph 47.8m When a car as important as the Volkswagen Golf gets updated, renewed and generally smartened up, we all simply need to sit up and take notice. Because half a million Europeans a year, among them some 70,000 Brits, can’t all be wrong. The Golf remains Europe’s biggest-selling new car and was the UK’s most popular family hatchback last year (assuming that you combine sales of the hatchback, estate and SV bodystyles). That’s not a bad result from a firm supposedly still racked by a Dieselgate-related crisis. With its timeless progressive design and clever ‘semi-premium’ positioning, the Golf continues to dominate the heartland…

Amazing cars deserve amazing destinations. As statements go, that one might be short, sweet and obvious, but it’s all the justification we recently needed to accept an out-of-the-blue offer to collect a £300,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith Black Badge coupé from Munich – where all Rolls bodies start their lives – and drive it to a destination every bit as remarkable as the car itself. What destination? Well, ever since 2009, when a trio of ageing TV reprobates touted it as Europe’s greatest driving road, we’d been searching for an excuse to take a true performance car to the famed Transfagarasan pass in central Romania. At long last, this looked like the opportunity. The Rolls looked the car, too: the first model in the company’s BMW history to be wholeheartedly steered towards…

BMW’s commitment to Rolls-Royce’s plant at Goodwood is as strong as ever, according to chief engineer Philip Koehn. It’s true that the heavy engineering is centred at the marque’s dedicated base in Dingolfing, near Munich, but this is because such work was never part of the company’s deal with its landlord, Lord March. Attempts were made to shift body-in-white manufacture to Goodwood (that was frustrated by a lack of appropriate e-coating facilities). And more recently there have been whispers that assembly of the Rolls V12 could be handled by suppliers in the UK, much as McLaren sources its V8 engines from Ricardo. Still, the Sussex Rolls factory, which handles all interior developments and the marque’s all-important final assembly, has been expanded twice since it opened 15 years ago. It has…

Richard Tipper has cleaned more than 26,000 cars, so he knows a thing or two about making your motor shine. Step 1 Spray the dirtiest areas first — sills, wheels, wheelarches, door shuts and fuel filler area — with a multipurpose cleaner and leave to soak. Step 2 Remove each wheel in turn. Spray and clean the reverse side as well as the hubs. Step 3 Fill a bucket with soapy water and, wearing a pair of wash mits, wash the car, rinse it and blow dry it until every last drop of water has been removed. Step 4 Using a clay bar, rub the entire surface, removing any stubborn contaminants, including tar spots. Clean off the residue and then, using a fine cutting compound, gently machine polish the car,…

SPECIAL FEATURE Top 100 used cars Ten of our star writers come together to suggest the used cars you should be buying. Better warn your bank manager… ROAD TEST New Ford Fiesta We run a fine-tooth comb over our supermini mega-test runner-up FEATURE Arthur Daley, RIP? What future for the stereotypical used car salesman in a PCP age? EVERY WEEK USED BUYING GUIDE Volkswagen Corrado Fancy a sporty coupé from the 1990s? Learn how to bag a good one FIRST DRIVE Caterham Seven 420R The 420R has spawned a new track special. We put it through its paces LONG-TERM TEST Volvo V90 Our new Swedish wagon, specced by Volvo’s chief designer himself SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p30…

“The gas industry is trying to get LPG on the agenda as a solution to air-quality problems” It’s something we’ve all cast an envious eye at before: the third entry at the bottom of an illuminated fuel prices sign. The one at Cobham Services near junction 10 of the M25 read ‘58.9 pence per litre’ when I went to pick up this Dacia Sandero Stepway with a difference for our long-term test fleet. That’s the price of a litre of Autogas, the brand name for the most common form of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) you’ll find in the UK. That makes it about half the price of a litre of petrol or diesel or, in other words, rather appealing financially. Despite a push at the turn of the century, however,…

WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT that an Aston Martin Vanquish S was the perfect music festival car? I certainly didn’t, but I did have to bring some stuff back from one. In that boot, pictured, is a six-man tent and two folding chairs, with space left over. On the Vanquish’s back seats is a big rucksack, a sleeping bag and a couple of pillows. I guess a set of golf clubs is a more typical Vanquish accoutrement. Aston reckons the 358-litre boot will take two sets. I haven’t tried that but I do believe it. And it’s basically a fine example of why your grand tourer ought to have the engine in the front. Sure, there are loads of sound dynamic reasons that you might put it in the middle (or the…

John Hart needed a car for his son to get to his local station to catch trains into London. The stipulations were an automatic gearbox and a low price. “For £1000 I found a 2005 Daihatsu Sirion for sale,” says John. “It came with airbags all round, electric windows front and rear and air-con. Most of the lower panels have dents but, as it spends most of its life in a car park, you wouldn’t notice an extra one. “Finally, it is pink, so even if my son forgot to lock it, no one would pinch it. It had no advisories when we bought it and has just sailed through its first MOT, and my son loves it.” SEND YOUR USED CAR TALES TO james@bangernomics.com ,…

Embarrassing a Mk4 Volkswagen Golf GTI dynamically isn’t exactly a tall order, but there’s something sweet in the idea of this upstart – the Seat that showed its supposedly more desirable VW sibling the way home. It’s one reason the Leon Cupra R has always had something of a cult following, but those jutting, square-jawed looks certainly helped, too. Not to mention the power figure – one that gave the Cupra R a somewhat rowdy reputation. On first acquaintance it is, in fact, anything but rowdy. The engine starts and idles to a quiet thrum, and although the interior is shot through with red highlights, it’s nevertheless clear that the underlying architecture is stock VW Group and utterly conventional. At slow speeds, the Leon is immensely easy-going. You won’t find…

BMW X4 | SUMMER 2018 BMW’s divisive smaller coupé SUV is being renewed. It will share its underpinnings with the X3. Engines will likely be diesels only, ranging from a 2.0-litre four-cylinder up to a 3.0-litre straight six. Inside, the X4 will get the latest iDrive infotainment system with a 10.3in touchscreen. Price from £42,000 (est) AUGUST Audi RS3 Saloon, RS3 Sportback, Hyundai i30 Tourer, Kia Niro plug-in hybrid, Lexus LC, Volvo S90 T8, V90 T8 SEPTEMBER Alpina B5 and D5 Touring, BMW M4 CS, Citroën E-Berlingo Multispace, Fiat 500L update, Ford Ecosport update, Fiesta, Fiesta Active, Honda Civic Type R, Jaguar E-Pace (right), Maserati Levante S, Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet, X-Class, Peugeot 308, 308 GTi, 308 SW update, Renault Trafic Spaceclass, Skoda Kodiaq Scout, Smart Fortwo ED, Fortwo Cabrio ED,…

“The Phantom is the ultimate expression of the Rolls-Royce brand and the top of the range” The all-new Rolls-Royce Phantom arrives next year promising ride comfort and interior luxury of an unprecedented quality, as well as a greatly improved driving experience. Unveiled in London, the eighth-generation Phantom is the second to be built under BMW ownership and has been completely redesigned and re-engineered from the ground up. It has been in development for six years and is the first in a series of all-new Rolls-Royces built on a bespoke aluminium spaceframe architecture. In 2019 the Phantom will be followed by the luxury car maker’s first SUV, codenamed Project Cullinan, while replacements for the rest of the range will be built on the same underpinnings as part of the ever greater…

Rolls-Royce is “searching to broaden the brand” beyond its existing models, according to company boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös. However, he has confirmed there is “no pressure to grow” the brand, and that such a move would actually “be detrimental” to luxury. “[Sales] volumes are nonsense. Customers don’t want to see other Rolls-Royces,” he said. The company sold just over 4000 cars last year, with sales likely to head towards 5000 after the 2019 launch of the Cullinan SUV, which, Müller-Ötvös said, “will bring new buyers to the brand”. He is now looking at how best to offer customers a broader model range within existing volumes. To that end, there will be no Phantom coupé or convertible models, their roles instead taken by the smaller Dawn and Wraith. There have also been…

“Clusters of recharging EVs could cause voltage drops locally” If the evangelists are to be believed, the automotive world is on the cusp of an electric vehicle (EV) revolution. Indeed, the government has just announced plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans in the UK from 2040 (see p14). In a recent report, UBS predicted that, by 2023, a car such as the battery-powered Chevrolet Volt would cost the same to make as a conventional fossil-fuel-powered Volkswagen Golf. However, the UBS report also suggested the first of the new-generation EVs due towards the end of this decade from big European companies are likely to be loss-making. With onerous EU CO2 fleet targets to be met by 2020 and 2021, though, these new battery-powered models…

The X-Trail is the biggest-selling SUV in the world, according to Nissan. A remarkable 750,000 examples of the X-Trail (badged as the ‘Rogue’ in some overseas markets) found owners in 2016. This family crossover also finds itself right in the UK new-car market sweet spot. According to the car industry number crunchers at JATO Dynamics, in the first half of this year the SUV segment accounted for 31% of new car sales in the UK. That’s a meaty 435,971 sales and way ahead of the supermini sector (20.2% and 282,500 sales) or the hatchback sector (20% and 280,995 sales). This third-generation X-Trail was launched in 2014 and now is clearly a good time for it to be refreshed. On the outside, the nose has been remodelled – it’s more aggressive,…

“While you have to work for it, there’s no doubting the Cayenne delivers the goods” Porsche is nervous about this. In the past, it has invited the odd journalist to sit alongside a test driver while a car was being signed off, but never actually to drive. Or at least to be able to admit as much in print. I once spent consecutive nights on the same aircraft to have a few minutes in the passenger seat of a new 911 as it was signed off by Porsche’s top brass near Cape Town. This trip was rather more fruitful: I only had to go to Barcelona, I spent hours not minutes in the car and, most importantly, most of those hours were behind the wheel of the new, yet to…

If you’re anything like us, you’ll find the idea of a bargain-basement luxury barge endlessly enthralling. It isn’t hard to see why. They’re cars that were once available only to the select few but are now within the grasp of mere mortals like us. They are sometimes little more than a few years old, often still equipped with the latest technology and, crucially, usually available for a fraction of their original price. So what if they cost a bit more than your usual hatchback to run? The fact they are near the bottom of their depreciation curve and about to bounce back again should more than make up for that. These top luxury picks will let you live the champagne lifestyle – even if you only have beer money to…

The Mini Clubman Cooper D is about to return to its maker. It’s an unusual car. We gave it three-and-a-half stars on our first road test – a respectable, if not outstanding, score – but were intrigued enough to consider it worth running one. “It’s a bit of an imposter, a likeable rogue,” we concluded, I think pretty fairly. After all, in a class of similarly profiled cars with five doors, straight looks and conventional hatchback tailgates, it’s right and proper that a Mini – a car originally defined by doing things its own way – should treat things differently. But, well, things have evolved the way they have for a reason, haven’t they? After all, nobody these days thinks: “I know, I’ll try making a wheel but chamfer a…

“The Ka+ rides really well around town but it’s also good when you want to have fun” When I first skimmed through the spec sheet of our new Ford Ka+ at the start of its time with us, one question was uppermost in my mind: “Is this car really going to be up to the cut and thrust of daily British motoring?”. After all, it was equipped with a naturally aspirated 1.2-litre engine that emits a modest 83bhp – and our car was the more powerful of the two outputs on offer. What I have since learnt is not to judge a book by its cover. Almost immediately, the Ka+ destroyed the idea that it wouldn’t be up to the task of dealing with my daily commute, shopping trips and…

A funky member of the Adam family Vauxhall Adam is silly name for a car that gets sillier when you add the Jam trim level name, but it is essentially a £5350 Corsa with more character and packed with kit. The infotainment system is pretty good, the remote-control security is useful and the ‘splat’ graphics on the rear-view mirror surround are inexplicable. There are also vivid red colour inserts in the cabin. Hip hatchback is well worth a look Tiny, pocket-sized GTIs are only just coming back into fashion. Here’s a silver Volkswagen Lupo 1.6 that has had eight owners since 2004 but there is a full service history to back it all up. The £3489 price sounds like strong money to me, although this Lupo does have electric windows,…

1 Ariel Nomad From £36,000 The Nomad is one of our top ten favourite new cars on sale. It is a revelation and a riot and takes the all-terrain car to another level. 2 Morgan 3 Wheeler From £31,000 The eccentric, characterful and deftly brilliant Morgan is a three-wheeled testament to English creativity. 3 Caterham Seven 360 From £31,000 The sweet spot in the revised range, its remapped 2.0 Duratec provides just the right level of performance. 4 Ariel Atom From £30,600 Superbike-fast lightweight mentalist is as exhilarating as they come. Less usable than some, but no less marvellous. 5 Zenos E10 From £24,995 The latest in a line of British mid-engined marvels. Earns its stripes immediately. Expect a dedicated following.…

The government will increase taxes on new diesel cars to fund its air quality plans, it announced last week. These funds will be dished out to local authorities to implement more local air quality measures, such as the proposed abolishment of speed humps and other traffic-calming measures that are detrimental to air quality. The report stated: “Measures to improve air quality will be funded through changes to the tax treatment for new diesel vehicles, or through reprioritisation within existing departmental budgets.” The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could not tell Autocar what changes will be implemented but confirmed there will be more details later this year, likely in the autumn budget statement. The AA told Autocar the move shows that “cars are always blamed, without a grand strategy…

PREDICTIONS OF RECORD-breaking levels of car production in the UK by 2020 are unlikely to be realised because of falling investment in car plants and lower consumer confidence in the wake of Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has said. A report commissioned by the SMMT had predicted two million cars would be made in the UK in 2020, based on historic growth data and forward predictions. The current record for cars produced in a single year was set in 1972 and stands at 1.92 million. The 2020 prediction has now been revised to 1.8-1.9m cars. Last year, 1,722,698 cars were made in the UK and, at the halfway point of 2017, that figure was down 2.9%. SMMT chief Mike Hawes highlighted that 2017’s figure to date…

These are the first pictures of the new Aston Martin Vantage, which will officially be revealed by the end of the year. The images are understood to closely resemble the final production car and show clear differences to the DB11: previously spotted Vantage mules have run underneath the body of a cut-up DB11. The baby Aston Martin is instead influenced by the DB10 – designed for the James Bond movie Spectre – and the Vulcan hypercar. The new Vantage uses a new generation of aluminium architecture that is a shortened version of the DB11’s. It is expected to be lighter and more torsionally rigid than its predecessor, improving agility. The entry-level Aston will first arrive as a V8, adopting the Mercedes-AMG engine recently launched in the DB11. The 4.0-litre twin…

SUZUKI WILL REVEAL the third-generation model of its hot hatch, the Swift Sport, at the Frankfurt motor show in September. For the first time, the Swift Sport will have a turbocharged engine. It will be a more potent version of the 138bhp 1.4-litre Boosterjet used in the Vitara crossover. This will replace the current naturally aspirated 1.6-litre 136bhp engine. The engaging handling, impressive body control, slick manual gearbox and subtle bodykit of the preceding two Swift Sports are expected to carry over to the new car. The kerb weight could even drop from 1045kg to less than 1000kg. The Swift Sport is expected to go on sale next summer, rivalling cars including the Abarth 595 and upcoming Ford Fiesta ST. It will cost more than the current model, which is…

Renault axed the first-generation Koleos in the UK in 2010, and if you’ve seen one recently, you might understand why. Renault says it was built in Korea for a Korean market and its introduction here was a knee-jerk reaction to the success of the Nissan Qashqai. This new Koleos, however, has been built with European car buyers in mind, and with the smaller Captur and Kadjar siblings already well established, it’s the final car in the car maker’s three-strong SUV line-up. It won’t sell in such big volumes as its siblings but it’s an important car, says Renault, for brand image and to showcase the best of what the company offers. That is certainly reflected in the interior quality and systems in our top-spec Signature Nav test car, which has…

“We’re designing cars for both the mass market and adult collectors” Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the location for the cult television series Breaking Bad and the home of the Indy-winning Unser family. For fans of Matchbox toy cars, it’s also a place of annual pilgrimage for the Gathering, a collectors’ convention that takes place each July. Hundreds come from around the world to buy, sell and trade their models, meet the Matchbox car designers and generally geek-out on all things toy car. Abe Lugo, Matchbox’s 38-year-old lead project designer, was on hand in Albuquerque last month to reveal new models coming in 2018. Lugo says that creating a new Matchbox model begins at least 18 months before its eventual release (the 2019 range is currently being planned). Each 125-model range…

The Rolls-Royce Phantom carries the car world’s oldest nameplate and has been a constant presence since 1925, yet even in this a 90-year parade of Best Cars In The World the latest Phantom, the eighth, looks the most significant of the lot. Why? Because it introduces an new method of construction that will change the way every future Rolls-Royce is built, not just for the next generation, but for generations beyond. In a nutshell, the Phantom Mk8 introduces an all-aluminium ‘family’ spaceframe that is flexible enough to be used for every size of future Rolls-Royce. It also employs so many common unseen components that the 4000-cars-per-year Goodwood company can forward-order its stocks of parts in batches up to 60,000 units, for use as long as 15 years hence. The system,…

“Tipper has cleaned more than 26,000 cars, among them Mansell’s Lotus 91” “We’ve all got OCD. It’s how we channel it that counts,” says Richard Tipper. Mine is checking the fridge door’s closed. Tipper’s is polishing cars for hours on end until they resemble mirrors – very fast and expensive ones. He’s a car detailer, probably the best in Britain. For those who don’t know, detailing is a few rungs up the ladder from valeting, which is a wash and a vac. Detailing is all that times ten, plus taking the wheels off and cleaning inside them, Brillo-padding parts of the engine until they gleam, removing contaminants from the bodywork with a piece of soft clay – and measuring the thickness of the paint. Tipper takes two professional-looking attaché cases…

I very much enjoyed your article comparing the members of the Volkswagen Golf GTI family (A round of Golfs, 12 July). It was good to read the word ‘Simca’ being mentioned again in reference to the first hot hatch ever, but I should point out that the 1100 Ti was not the first. That honour belongs to the Simca 1204 Special, launched in 1971 [and road tested by Autocar in 1970, above]. The 1100 Ti didn’t come out until 1974 and was never sold in the UK anyway. If anyone wants to see a 1204 Special, we will be showing one at the NEC Classic Car Show this November, as we celebrate 50 years since the launch of the Simca 1100 range. Most people have forgotten that this was the…

This being an Alfa Romeo, the odd foible was probably to be expected, and the Giulia hasn’t disappointed in that respect so far. However, I’m already so charmed by Alfa’s new super-saloon that it’s going to take something major to make me think any less of it. The alarm sometimes goes off for no apparent reason and gives ‘break-in attempt detected’ warning messages after the car has been sitting outside overnight (six times in a month). The brakes aren’t easy to modulate at low speeds, making the simple act of coming to a smooth stop surprisingly challenging. And the engine went into limp-home mode in the 50mph average speed zone on the M3 motorway one Sunday, fortunately coming right after being I switched it off and waited on the hard…

I rarely, if ever, give names to my cars. ‘Shed 7’ stuck on my BMW 7 Series and so has ‘The Lorry’ for my Land Rover Defender. Now I present ‘Baby Shark’. I’ve no idea whether it will catch on, but it reflects the fact that this generation of Bimmers in the 1970s were referred to as sharknoses, because of their aggressive front-end designs. Anyway, what we have had on Baby Shark is a minor emergency as a rear brake light needed replacing. What a joy, though: two knobs, lens cover off, bulb in. Simple. Oh, and the replacement bulb was found in an old Mini light cluster.…

Colours Don’t like silver? Early Cupras had bold hues based on the German and Spanish flags The quickest Leon on sale today, the Cupra 300, doles out 296bhp and covers 0-62mph in 5.9sec. Rewind 14 years and its hot-shot grandad, the Leon Cupra R, could manage only 221bhp but, being slightly lighter, was only around half a second slower. It gets better: in five-door form, the new car costs £30,455, whereas a last-of-the-line 2005-reg Cupra R with 107,000 miles (and also five doors) will cost you just £3000 (see ‘One we found’, p79). Whatever their differences, hot Leons have always been interesting, especially the way some of them have embarrassed their posher Volkswagen Golf GTI housemates. Such was the case with the standard Leon Cupra (or Leon 20VT as it…

1 Rolls-Royce Phantom From £310,200 BMW built a phenomenal Rolls-Royce when it took over in 1998. Wonderfully made and knowingly aristocratic. 2 Bentley Bentayga  From £160,200 Bentley’s irst attempt at making an SUV is very good indeed. In addition to the W12, there is also a V8 diesel and that is just as capable. 3 Bentley Mulsanne From £229,400 If the Phantom is best experienced from the back seat, the Mulsanne is a lagship best lown from the front. 4 Mercedes-Maybach S600 From £165,700 Doesn’t have the badge allure to rule its class like the regular S-Class, but equally superior in terms of function. 5 Range Rover SVAutobiography From £166,000 JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations division has turned its hand at making the Range Rover more exclusive – and a good…