Innholdsfortegnelse for 31/01/2018 i Autocar

The new BMW Z4 convertible will be revealed this autumn before going on sale in 2019. Currently undergoing winter testing, the production model is a toned-down version of the Concept Z4 revealed last year. The Audi TT-rivalling Z4 will be powered by 2.0-litre four-cylinder and 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbocharged units with outputs from 187bhp to 355bhp. A hybrid version is likely, while a decision has yet to be made on an M performance model. The Toyota Supra, with which the Z4 has been co-developed, has also been spotted testing but has yet to be shown officially. While the Z4 will be a convertible, Toyota’s equivalent will be a hard-top.…

Whatever happened to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)? In the post-Dieselgate era, when many cities are pondering banning dies el-engined vehicles and air quality is becoming a top-line political issue, surely a low-CO2 fuel that is inexpensive and extremely low in tailpipe pollution should be enjoying a revival? Yet that’s not proving to be the case for a fuel that, despite many advantages, has long been an oddball choice and failed to gain traction in the UK. With this in mind, Autocar recently ran a ‘bi-fuel’, left-hand-drive Dacia Sandero Stepway equipped with a factory-fitted LPG system to see if it was feasible to live with here (see story, opposite). LPG specialists say the UK market has never recovered from a government’s U-turn in the early 2000s, which, after initially supporting a…

TESTER’S NOTE It’s high time Renault took a clean-sheet approach to its cabin ergonomics. Seeing something as important as a gearchange paddle effectively displaced by something as unimportant as a stereo remote in an otherwise great driver’s car is a real turn-off for me. MS Few performance cars have been lavished with a more consistent tide of praise by hot hatchback aficionados than the Renault Mégane RS. This car has bossed the fast front-drive niche for most of its life, having appeared with that memorable ‘bustle-back’ styling in 2004 and promptly set new class benchmarks for driver involvement and handling poise. But it’ll take something to reclaim that familiar old perch now, with the new Honda Civic Type R having become a brilliant driver’s car in its own right, and…

Honda’s 10th-generation Civic has already impressed us with its comfortable ride and well roundedness as a family hatchback but, until now, we’ve had the option of only two petrol-powered engines to choose from – ballistic Type R aside. The car you see here, then, is the first – and only – diesel variant to be offered to UK buyers. It features a revised 1.6-litre four-cylinder i-DTEC engine, which, Honda claims, is good for 80.7mpg on the combined cycle and CO2 emissions of 93g/km. It’s a refined if not particularly athletic engine that will take to the task of long-distance touring without batting an eyelid. At motorway speeds, it’s barely audible and the revised chassis that Honda spent so much time and effort perfecting for the new model soaks up imperfections…

Since the 1976 original Volkswagen Polo reached these shores as a rebadged Audi 50, VW has conferred more than 1.4 million examples of the car to us Brits. For context, that’s some way short of the 4.5m or so Ford Fiestas sold since that model was introduced in the very same year, but it’s a fantastically large figure nonetheless. And with it comes to the pressure to err on the side of conservatism. So here’s the sixth-generation Polo although, at a glance, you may have mistaken it for the fifth-generation Polo, introduced in 2009. That momentary confusion is one of the hallmarks of an extraordinarily successful model, because the manufacturers of such vehicles know that they alter a successful recipe at their extreme peril. The new car thus springs few…

The Polo has never been an easy car about which to enthuse and it remains resolutely that way. Even so, its sheer completeness, distinguishing practicality and abundant rational appeal are all impossible to deny. This is a more grown-up, spacious, well-mannered Polo than VW has made before, with a breadth of ability that most supermini makers wouldn’t even aim for, never mind achieve. It comes at a price premium but justifies that in so many ways: with its technological sophistication; with its reassuring on-road handling manners; with its rounded blend of performance, drivability, economy and refinement and with its perceived quality. If you prefer your small cars with a youthful, spring-heeled sense of dynamic vivacity or a keen sense of style – and both tend to mark out an appealing…

Peugeot 309 GTi STEVE CROPLEY There have been a couple of 205 GTis over the years (a sweet 1.6 and a gruntier 1.9), but the hot hatch that stands out in my memory is a 1989 Peugeot 309 GTi, originally bought via eBay for £250 for an Autocar project that didn’t really work. It turned out to be a bit of a nail – someone had attacked one of the load-bearing body box-sections with an angle-grinder – but I inherited it and with initial help from Peugeot’s in-house apprentices, and then a Builth Wells rally car preparation specialist called Christian Prynne, I finished up with a credible road-registered hillclimber, which I campaigned for a few years. It was the perfect size, and quick, especially with a Quaife low-ratio slippery diff.…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To determine whether the most ferocious front-wheel-drive hot hatch on sale today is usable on a daily basis It’s less than two years since the previous-gen Civic Type R left our long-term fleet. That’s precious little time in the grand scheme of a manufacturer’s model development plans, but Honda had good reason to quickly usher its latest banzai-hatch to market. Not only was it conceived as a way to mark the 25th anniversary of the Type R sub-brand, which fell in 2017, but it was also produced in parallel with the cooking Civic. This made it easier for Honda’s go-faster wizards to instil the foundations of hot-hatch nuttiness from the outset, whereas this Type R’s forebear was developed long after the base model. As…

MG ZT 2.0 CDTi Dimitri Urbain has just bought a new banger for £1700: a 53-reg MG ZT 2.0 CDTi, two owners from new, 86,000 miles, full service history and a fresh MOT. “I used to own another 03-reg ZT from 2006 to 2009 and always regretted selling it,” Dimitri says. “I found this one at a dealer in Northampton. I was surprised to notice that ageing ZTs tend to migrate ever further north in the UK. It’s hard to locate one in the home counties whereas there are plenty of them in Lanarkshire and other remote Scottish places.”…

An expert’s view MARC WALE, FOUNDER, MW PERFORMANCE “We’re an independent Vauxhall VXR centre, so we see Monaros in all conditions. Rarity, ageless looks and that charismatic V8 are what the model has going for it. The all-aluminium pushrod engine is durable, reliable and easy to maintain. Bad points are the clunky transmission, increasing scarcity of new parts and the rising price of used bits. What rustproofing there is doesn’t protect it from our wet and salty winters, either. And, let’s be honest, the handling isn’t the most sophisticated. It can be very tail-happy, so check for accident damage. All that said, find a good one at a reasonable price, look after it and watch its value climb.” Buyer beware… • ENGINE Generally trouble-free. Throttle bodies on some 6.0-litre cars…

BMW 520d SE Price new £34,165. Price now £19,757 The last of the F10-generation 5 Series have shed a heap of their value now that their replacement models are well into their stride, and consequently they’re looking like great buys. They were always terrific when new and there’ll be little to detract from that secondhand. This tidy-looking two-year-old 520d automatic has done just 13,000 recorded miles and is in SE spec with small wheels and soft suspension to make it ride beautifully. It’s yours for less than £20,000.…

Mercedes-Benz’s upmarket Maybach sub-brand is preparing to extend its line-up beyond the S-Class with a plush range-topping version of the upcoming third-generation GLS (formerly GL). Maybach is considered an important brand for Mercedes to develop given the rising demand for luxury models, particularly in the SUV sector, with rivals such as Bentley and Land Rover having notable success with their respective Bentayga and Range Rover. Mercedes has also seen strong growth from its AMG performance arm, which achieved 131,970 sales in 2017, and it would like to emulate this success with Maybach on a smaller but profitable scale. The SUV, which was reported to be on the cards by Autocar in 2016, is set to make its debut as a lightly veiled concept car at the Beijing motor show in…

Land Rover will launch an SVR-badged performance version of its Range Rover Velar later this year to take on the BMW X6 M and Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 Coupé. The Velar SVR is part of a growing stable of models from Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division that are seen as important for both boosting profitability and expanding brand reach. The upcoming model is due to go on sale in the UK in October and will supplant the 375bhp P380 as the flagship Velar. It will use a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine, also used in the Range Rover Sport SVR. As such, the V8 motor is expected to channel 542bhp and 502lb ft of torque to the Velar’s wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox. That output would leave it…

Nissan Design Europe boss Mamoru Aoki revealed more about the decision-making process at Nissan London that led to the launch of the groundbreaking Qashqai. Back in 2002, Nissan had finalised a conventional replacement for the Almera hatchback. Nissan supremo Carlos Ghosn declared the proposal a good fit for the European market. But at the same time, the Nissan Murano had just been launched in the US to a resounding response. It was Nissan’s first proper crossover and based on an upmarket car platform. The impact made by the Murano led directly to Nissan’s London studio starting work on a C-segment crossover concept for Europe. As Aoki pointed out, Nissan had a very strong reputation for 4x4s and the European C-segment hatchback market was – and is – extremely competitive. It…

A CITROEN C3 hot hatch, inspired by the firm’s participation in the World Rally Championship, is still a possibility but a long way down its “to-do” list, according to company boss Linda Jackson. Jackson outlined that Citroën’s current three-year involvement in the WRC, which began in 2017, was justified by the associated marketing benefits, and particularly the high level of press and social media coverage of the sport. She revealed that making a production car to link Citroën’s sport and road products was therefore appealing, but not necessary for the brand. “It’s a dilemma I’ve faced for a while now, and I’ve not yet reached a conclusion,” said Jackson, when asked about the possibility of a WRC-inspired hot hatch. “If we did it, the car would have to be valid,…

Volkswagen is ramping up its bid to improve emissions by introducing gasoline particulate filters (GPFs) to its petrol cars. The new Up GTI, due in the UK in February, is the second VW to be fitted with GPF technology, which can reduce exhaust particulate emissions by up to 95%. The device is already used on the manual-transmission variant of the Tiguan 1.4 TSI in Germany. The measures follow a commitment made by VW in 2016 to fit particulate filters to petrol engines, as the company sought to bounce back from 2015’s Dieselgate scandal. Other manufacturers are equipping their own petrol cars with GPF systems. Mercedes-Benz, for example, fits it to some S-Class derivatives and, like VW, plans to roll it out more widely across its fleet. Ford has the system…

Autocar’s six-month stint with a Netherlands-registered LPG-fuelled Dacia Sandero Stepway (because there are no factory-fitted LPG car models on sale in the UK) proved that LPG is a credible and cheap motoring option, despite the poor refuelling infrastructure. Now we’ve returned the Sandero, editor Mark Tisshaw says what he misses most is that the cost of filling up a tank with LPG is low enough to be paid with a contactless credit card (usually a £30 limit). Our main struggle was the sometimes cumbersome filling-up process, which isn’t as easy as with a conventional petrol or diesel pump. That aside, if there were LPG-powered cars to buy here, the low running costs make for a very compelling argument.…

“As a thing to just get in and drive, the Mégane is the most special car here” If we were honest with ourselves, I think most would concede that happiness is usually a retrospective sensation. You are more likely to be aware of a time when you were happy than you are to realise it in the moment. And if you do realise that, right here, right now, you are enjoying a period of true and unqualified happiness, that is a rare and special thing. The same is true with golden eras. We may look back at the 1970s and declare it to have been a golden era for Formula 1, but I don’t remember anyone saying so at the time. And, yes, I am old enough to remember. So…

“The target is to produce 1000 GTs by 2020” Ask a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool Ford enthusiasts where the Blue Oval’s mighty Le Mans class-winning GT is made and it’s odds on none of them would suggest an anonymous-looking collection of factories in the city of Markham, Ontario, about half an hour north of Toronto in Canada. They’d probably be similarly surprised to learn that this same place has already served as the crucible for the key chassis, suspension and body parts of numerous other famous concepts and low-volume production cars, the Aston Martin One-77 and Vulcan among them. Right now, it is playing the same role in the lives of the forthcoming Red Bull-Aston Valkyrie and the Mercedes-AMG Project One, to name just two. We’re visiting the engineering division of…

In this age of digital cameras, mobile phone photography and Instagram, what role the humble artist with his paints and brushes? Study Martin Tomlinson’s motorsport paintings and the answer stares right back at you. No Photoshop trickery here – just skill and talent laid bare in paint. Take his picture of Mike Hawthorn pitting his Ferrari Squalo 555. The overhead perspective places you right on top of the action. You can feel the heat of the engine. “If my house burned down, that’s the one painting I’d save,” says Tomlinson. “Actually, no – I’d let the whole lot go up and claim on the insurance.” Tomlinson’s sense of humour is never far away, deployed the instant he detects a whiff of hubris, which isn’t often. It’s probably borne of those…

The article by Rachel Burgess on company executives’ agendas on fuel cell technology (News, 17 January) was both interesting and disturbing in equal measure. It would seem their priority is to bombard us with largely pointless high technology, whether we want it or not. Fuel cells will only happen if forced by legislation, not by demand. Should the listed topics that executives think most important become reality, the concept of car ownership will decline to such an extent that ordinary customers will lose interest and the industry will collapse just like the horse-and-cart industry collapsed a century ago. Stuart Underwood Weston-super-Mare WIN Letter of the week wins this ValetPRO exterior protection and maintenance kit worth £58.95…

MILEAGE 13,730 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if Alfa has regained its mojo with this BMW-M3-bashing super-saloon My plan to switch the Giulia to winter tyres after our annual Britain’s Best Driver’s Car bash (in which the Italian super-saloon was cruelly robbed of victory, in my opinion) has failed to get past the stage of talking about it in a previous update. It seemed like a prudent idea, given that the Giulia was beginning to feel rather wooden in cold conditions on its standard Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres and had the potential to be a bit of a handful if and when the roads got properly slippery, but I was unable to source an appropriate set of winter tyres before Christmas, so I persevered with the existing…

QUESTION Besides eliminating the need for hub caps, what is the point of alloy wheels? David Walls ANSWER These days, alloy wheels are fitted to enhance the appearance of the wheel and the car. Originally, though, alloy wheels were fitted to sports and racing cars to allow wider-section tyres to be fitted and, as a bonus, the light alloy reduced the unsprung weight of the suspension and meant better handling. QUESTION I tried to buy a touch-in paint stick but my dealer said the paint water-based so no repair pack is available. Is this true? Pete Clarke ANSWER Not strictly true. Touch-in sticks are available, but there is limited availability for some colours. However, the dealer’s bodyshop should be able to mix a minimum quantity of half a litre in…

Alfa Romeo 156 GTA Sportwagon £7495 Swiss Toni might contend that buying a used Alfa Romeo was a lot like making love to a beautiful woman. He’d be over-egging the pudding somewhat – but one can’t deny there is a certain parallel to be drawn between the rollercoaster of a typical Alfa Romeo ownership experience and the highs and lows of a tumultuous affair. And of all Alfas within recent memory, it’s arguably the 156 GTA that represents the zenith (or nadir, if you prefer) of that love/hate character. You’ll love it because… well, do you need us to explain? Just look at the thing: all sinewy curves, angry eyes and pert glutes. And this Sportwagon version is arguably even more appealing to look at than the saloon model. Then…

Seat has confirmed that it will turn its Cupra performance line into a stand-alone brand – and it has revealed the final version of the new logo. The first Cuprabadged models, including a hot version of the Ateca SUV, will be unveiled next month. The move was first reported by Autocar last year when a draft of the new logo was shown in trademark filings. According to a short press release presenting the new copper-coloured logo, Cupra will be the “ultimate expression of sportiness, combined with sophistication, functionality, comfort, technology and reliability”. It is understood that Seat branding won’t appear on Cupra models. Talking to Autocar at the Frankfurt motor show in September last year, Seat boss Luca de Meo said turning Cupra into a stand-alone brand would give the…

UP TO HALF A MILLION London motorists face having to change their seven-year-old or older cars because of the extra cost of the £12 daily Toxicity Charge spreading to the suburbs in 2021. Obtaining exact numbers of cars affected is not easy, but Autocar’s estimates suggest the total UK number of older petrol and diesel cars could be as high as six million. Since London makes up 8.4% of the UK fleet, that’s equivalent to 500,000 cars. Hard hit will be owners of relatively new EU5 diesels – models most closely associated with Dieselgate – which today might be only three-and-a-half years old. By 2021, the last of the EU5s will be just seven years old, coincidentally also the average age of the British car fleet. Drivers using a petrol…

The need to offer four-wheel drive is behind Mercedes-AMG’s decision to base its upcoming four-door GT4 model on the floorpan of the latest C-Class and E-Class, rather than its own aluminium structure. The production model, to be revealed at the Geneva motor show in March, is visually based on the concept GT4 shown at the same event last year. After the SLS AMG and current GT, according to Marc Buttstädt, AMG’s product manager, it is the third AMG to be “100% developed by AMG” and he promised “it will be a lot of fun”. Although the aluminium monocoque of the existing two-door GT might outwardly seem suitable for development into a four-door model (in the way that the Aston Martin’s VH architecture spawned the five-door Rapide hatchback), it isn’t suited…

THE REDUCTION IN the size and prominence of the Airbumps on the facelifted Citroën C4 Cactus that rolls out later this year is likely to instruct the design of all future Citroëns, according to Linda Jackson. However, the company’s chief executive has denied that Citroën has any intention of backing off from its commitment to breaking established design norms, saying instead that the company is merely fine-tuning its offerings according to customer requirements. “The C4 Cactus has done amazing things for us, both in terms of sales volumes and awareness,” said Jackson. “I love that car to bits and it has inspired us from the first concept to the first production car, which had already moved the original ideas on a fair way. Now we are fine-tuning the balance, but…

TESTER’S NOTE BMW says it has adapted its various stability and traction-keeping devices (DSC and DTC) to suit the responses of electric drive across all speed ranges. The two systems, working together, improve the i3s’s agility and “enable controlled drifts”. SC The idea of building sporty electric cars is only just bobbing up on most car makers’ to-do lists, but BMW already has one in its showrooms. It’s a lower, wider-tracked and slightly more powerful version of its i3, predictably called i3s. New in the UK, the i3s has a starting price of £36,975 for the battery-only model, or £40,125 as the 120kg-heavier Range Extender, which is kitted out with a 650cc twin-cylinder petrol power generator and a fuel tank with a get-you-home range of 80-90 miles. The i3s isn’t…

The Polo’s handling around the Millbrook hill route won’t linger long in the memory and that’s both a compliment and a criticism. You won’t find a more viceless small car to drive quickly. Its grip level is ample, even on the standard 15in wheels and in damp, chilly conditions, and its handling is as near to unflappable as superminis get. Take a tight corner hard and the car rolls, but in contained fashion on both lean angle and roll rate. It responds fairly keenly on turn-in and keeps gripping hard at the front wheels even when the body’s settled on the outside wheels, allowing you to tighten your line if you need to. Although the stability control system has a Sport mode, you’ll rarely need it: the system is far…

6 RENAULT CLIO RENAULTSPORT 182 TROPHY A simply incredible level of chassis sophistication from what started life as a cheap and cheerful shopping car. Rev-happy 2.0-litre motor is cast in a purely supporting role to beautifully judged suspension settings and some extremely expensive (not just to buy but to maintain, too) competition-spec Sachs dampers complete with remote oil reservoirs. Startlingly rapid point to point even by the standards of today, largely because you very rarely have to slow down for anything. Even if you think you’ve overcooked it, few cars ever responded better to the ‘chuck it in and sort it out’ approach. A little noisy and quite stiff, it nevertheless missed the top-five shootout by nanometers. 7 LANCIA DELTA INTEGRALE EVOLUTION 2 Really, this could have been any Integrale,…

COMPARISON Audi RS vs Mercedes-AMG: fast estates battle RS4 or C63? RS6 or E63? The world’s most usable performance cars fight it out and Dan Prosser referees FEATURE Meet McLaren’s Senna Why McLaren used racing icon’s name on its new supercar NEWS Mercedes-Benz A-Class revealed Promise of more luxury, improved handling and two AMG versions EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE BMW X2 BMW has made its smallest SUV yet – and it’s front-wheel drive ROAD TEST Volvo XC40 Is Volvo the first car maker to crack the all-rounder formula for a small SUV? USED BUYING GUIDE Alfa Romeo Spider What to look for in this wonderfully styled Italian 1990s drop-top SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22 CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

MILEAGE 5246 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Can the decades-long go-to executive saloon for those who enjoy driving also be a great family car? “We’re going to France!” I exclaimed, grinning. “Oh, wow. Lovely,” returned my wife, lying. We were on the M20 at this point, at some god-awful time in the morning, nearing the beautiful port town of Dover. I’d managed to keep this surprise trip for my wife’s 30th birthday exactly that until now but, given the ferries from Dover go to only a handful of destinations, and most of them are in France, I thought now was a good time to spill the beans. At least our eight-hour journey on the other side (I’d forgotten to inform her about that bit) would be carried out in what I…

MILEAGE 79,895 BMW X5 About a million instalments ago, I cleaned the BMW X5’s lights with toothpaste. That went averagely well but I did get it through the MOT test without an advisory. Because of the fairly shocking weather and lots of fog, I thought I would brighten up the lights before it did quite a lot of miles over the festive period. So instead of toothpaste, I went for another abrasive in the form of metal polish. Short term, it seems to work really well, but give it a few weeks and it starts to fade away. The X5 is due for the chop, but because it is worth £1000 as a trade-in, I am tempted to keep it.…

“Assuming you can keep the back wheels under control, a VXR does 0-62mph in 5.4sec” The closure of the Holden plant in Australia last year is a blow for not only the workers but also fans of the bonkers muscle cars that, via Holden Special Vehicles, emerged from it. In recent weeks, the last of the UK’s allocation of the Vauxhall VXR8 GTS-R saloon and VXR8 Maloo pick-up have been sold. So where now is a lover of HSV’s brand of back-to-basics, rear-drive brawn to get their kicks? A spankers 2009-reg VXR8 will set you back around £33,000 but you don’t have to spend that. For just £6500, you could be in its forebear, a 2005-reg Monaro 5.7i V8 coupé (also called the CV8). Admittedly, it has done almost 145k…

HUSTLER 6 Hustlers come up for sale about as often as the England football team wins something these days, so it’s amazing just to see one go under the hammer. Under the skin, it uses Mini bits, and this one has a 1275 GT engine for extra poke, all of which should be plenty enough to row it along at a decent rate. Of course, the William Towns (who else?) styling is an acquired taste, so values aren’t high, which means it’s possible to get arguably the quirkiest car to emerge from Britain relatively cheaply. This one hammered at £6825 – not bad value given a guide of £7000-£9000.…

BMW 540i Touring £3750 The boot might be small, but the 4.4-litre 286bhp V8 is fast enough for you to do a trip to the dump in half the time. The E39-generation 5 Series still looks good and this one has leather, air-con and a smooth auto ’box for when you need to waft home. Or you can floor it and see off 62mph in 6.4sec. MAX ADAMS Mitsubishi Legnum VR-4 £3995 The trouble with the otherwise admirable BMW is that it’s just too common, whereas this imported Legnum is rarer than hen’s teeth. It also has a 260bhp 2.5-litre twin-turbo V6 and, most important, four-wheel drive, so if it snows or turns muddy on that trip to the tip, there’s only one car that’ll get you safely back home.…