Innholdsfortegnelse for 14/03/2018 i Autocar

THE CUTTING-EDGE DESIGN and technology of the Jaguar I-Pace is so radical and futuristic that it all of a sudden leaves the rest of the model range looking a bit old. Yet the I-Pace is a bold, necessary step on the road to the reinvention of Jaguar - and the British car industry - not just as a leader in design, but in technology too. When technology and design marry, as they have with the I-Pace, then the look is a revolutionary one, with very few conventions recognisable to notoriously conservative car buyers. Do that to Jaguar’s entire range overnight and it would risk scaring o. customers. Design boss Ian Callum has always talked of the need to create a consistent family look in rebuilding the brand. If the next…

Toyota has again turned its back on diesel engines with the launch of the new Auris. As with the C-HR crossover, Toyota’s new Volkswagen Golf rival will not be offered with a diesel option, a trend that will spread across all of the firm’s passenger cars. The Auris, which is still a year away from showrooms, will offer two different hybrid drivetrains. One is the 1.8-litre, 121bhp motor from the C-HR and Prius, the other a new 2.0-litre performance version with 178bhp. A 1.2-litre petrol will also be available. The all-new model switches to the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform. It will again be built in Britain after a £240 million investment in the Burnaston plant – a vote of confidence in UK car manufacturing despite the uncertainty around…

Range Rover’s new SV Coupé flagship – the £240,000 three-door limited-edition hand-built model – “takes Range Rover to its rightful place”, according to its creator, Land Rover design director Gerry McGovern. Until recently, it had seemed that Bentley’s Bentayga and the forthcoming Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV, to be revealed within weeks, would be positioned well above Range Rover, the most basic models of which cost around £80,000. But the SV Coupé, more luxurious than any previous Range Rover and likely to be rarer, takes the Solihull model’s pricing well beyond the Bentley’s base price and into the teeth of the Rolls-Royce. At recent events in London and Paris, where early buyers specified their SV Coupés in a series of two-hour sessions, some customers ordered cars costing as much as £340,000, with…

HILTON HOLLOWAY’S SHOW DIARY 7.30am En route to Geneva for this year’s show with Subaru, I chat to new UK managing director Chris Graham. For Subaru, Geneva is about the striking Viziv Tourer concept, which shows the brand’s new design language (wide tracks and big arches emphasising Subaru’s permanent 4x4 transmission) and hints at a future sporting estate, which will step in for both the Levorg and the old WRX wagon. Graham says sales in 2017 bottomed out at just 2500 units. So 2018 has to be the year that the company and its raft of new models – including a new Forester in the near future – turn things around. Graham says the new XV is off to a very strong start and the cars being traded in against…

Ferrari’s first series-production hybrid will be launched next year, company boss Sergio Marchionne has confirmed. The Italian firm already has test mules running with a V8 petrol-electric hybrid powertrain, said Marchionne. The system will need to be a “traditional hybrid to fulfil its role” of providing fuel efficiency gains. This is in contrast to Maranello’s only hybrid to date, the limited-edition LaFerrari hypercar, which used a kinetic energy recovery set-up as “an add-on”, to boost performance. It’s not yet clear which model will receive the hybrid powertrain first, although the timing suggests that it could be Ferrari’s much hyped SUV, which is also rumoured to be arriving next year. Marchionne said Ferrari’s hybrid will ensure the firm can adhere to EU-stipulated CO2 emissions targets for the year 2021. He said:…

A PLAN TO help Fiat survive in Europe will be built around the 500 and its 500X and 500L derivatives, as the brand looks to maintain sales without the prospect of significant investment from its owner, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). More details of the plan are expected to be revealed on 1 June, when FCA outlines its 2018-2022 plan to investors, but in Geneva, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne revealed: “We can’t be emotional. I know Fiat has 100 years of heritage and so on, but the truth is that its relevance has shrunk. “We’ve had to make space for other brands in our portfolio to grow, from building Jeep in Europe to investing in Alfa and Maserati. These things take time, resources and focus. Now, as those plans start to…

The Jaguar I-Pace, the UK manufacturer’s revolutionary battery-powered ‘performance SUV’, first appeared as a concept at the Los Angeles motor show in 2016, but, in the 15 months since, the two most important questions about the car have not yet been answered. First, is it a real Jaguar? Second, does it drive like one? On the outcome of these twin examinations rests the success of a huge investment in design and engineering, not to mention much of the company’s bold future strategy – namely, to excite and inspire buyers with the finest modern technology, just as it did 70 years ago in the extraordinary post-war period that produced the XK120 sports car and a string of fabulous saloons that led to the seminal XJ6 of 1968. We were given the…

MODEL TESTED FIRST EDITION 1.5 PETROL 2WD MANUAL Price £26,825 • Power 161bhp • Torque 184lb ft • 0-60mph 9.0sec • 30-70mph in fourth 15.5sec • Fuel economy 34.1mpg • CO2 emissions 151g/km • 70-0mph 50.8m Mitsubishi Motors must feel like an entirely different company today than it did just six years ago. When the plug-in hybrid version of its Outlander SUV arrived in 2014, the vehicle almost doubled the firm’s UK sales volume in its first full calendar year on sale. Although that car has had a less transformative effect on Mitsubishi’s business in a global sense, increasing success for other models – notably in Asian markets – has pushed the company’s worldwide sales through the million-unit threshold. And that growing success was no doubt one of Nissan’s key…

Leo Roeks, European director of Ford’s performance car division, is standing underneath the new Ford Fiesta ST, pointing at things. They are all new and interesting things: suspension things, chassis things, drivetrain things, steering things and other things too. And he’s been pointing at them for about ten minutes now without waving his index finger anywhere near the three-cylinder engine that’s moved in under the car’s bonnet. That engine has, up until now, been pretty much the only significant mechanical item that we were expecting to be really ‘new’ about this car. But Ford’s cards have been kept very close to its chest, as it turns out, because its PR department plainly understands how best to string out a dramatic narrative when it comes to its most copy-worthy new model…

What is it the politicians like to call it – the ‘special relationship’? That shared set of values that supposedly bonds Great Britain and the US. They would have you believe our two nations are really one and the same. Same political ideologies, same cultural tendencies, same social make-up. Separated by the Atlantic Ocean and precisely nothing else. And yet, if you ever saw the US’s best-selling car, the Ford F-150, parked in a movie set-picturesque Cotswold village – vast knobbly tyres pressing heavily into ancient cobbles, vibrant paintwork and bright orange running lights positioned as abruptly against sandstone brickwork as graffiti on marble – you’d think we had nothing at all in common but the planet on which we live. For all that they seem completely absurd in an…

Nick Rogers’ office is like Piccadilly Circus. We’re supposed to be having a serious talk about his high-powered job as Jaguar Land Rover’s group director of engineering – a proper ‘sit downer’ in interviewer’s parlance – but the place is crowded. There are a couple of JLR’s young engineers, Thomas and Azam, who are learning by shadowing the boss. There’s Harriet, an in-house journalist, on hand to tell us about her weekly internal news-sheet on engineering subjects. There’s a bustling PA organising coffee, Stan the photographer, plus Rogers and me. It’s already obvious this is how Rogers, who recently turned 50 and is relentlessly youthful in everything he does and says, likes to run things. He sees a key part of the job as personal contact: greetings, smiles, encouragement and…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To get fully familiar with the dynamic successes and foibles of an alluring driver’s car. And to see if the UK public can ‘get’ the idea of a truly desirable Kia You’ll have perhaps seen those large, glass-walled, ritzy-looking showrooms just off London’s Great West Road. Imagine being dropped off outside one of them on your way to collect your new three-hundred-and-something-horsepower, luxury sports saloon. It’s a good day, obviously – but an otherwise ordinary Monday morning on the likes of which three-hundred-and-something-horsepower sports saloons are quite commonly handed over to their new owners in the dealerships around these parts. Funny thing is, you’ve already driven past the nearby Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar and BMW showrooms to get to where you’re going – and you’ve…

“Do you agree with requiring kit cars submitted for individual vehicle approval (IVA) to meet the latest MOT standards, thereby removing the rule that kit cars are IVA tested to MOT standards according to engine age?” Obviously not. Just in case the Department for Transport’s recently published consultation, entitled Road Vehicles: Improving Air Quality and Safety, passed you by, this document suggests that all vehicles going through IVA from July 2018 conform to new car emissions regulations. So if this becomes law, the current IVA standard, which uses the age of the engine to determine emissions levels, will be no more. The reality is that no rebuilt classic or kit car could ever be constructed by you or me. If I messed up and made my car dangerous, then the…

QUESTION Is a used electric car a sensible buy? Mike Holdsworth, Nuneaton ANSWER Generally speaking, yes. They’re proving reliable and many are good value; battery-lease Renault Zoes can be had for as little as £5000 now. QUESTION I want to replace our elderly Volvo XC70 with something similar for £20,000. What would you recommend? Andrew Smilie, Northampton ANSWER A nearly new Skoda Octavia Scout falls within your budget. Or if you want something bigger, try a two-year-old Volkswagen Passat Alltrack. Both are practical, classy, comfortable and decent value. QUESTION A friend’s offered me his Fiesta ST: 2014, 30k miles, full service history, £8k. Good deal? Ed Clough, Stevenage ANSWER We’d say so, yes. That sort of price gets you an early car with average to high miles on the open…

Plymouth Prowler £29,850 Is there a car that looks more wild when you see one in the street than the Plymouth Prowler? Part ode to the hot rod culture of the 1930s and 1940s, part two-seat sports concept car made flesh, it courted controversy in its home country, the USA, where pundits and buyers alike were disappointed that it didn’t house a thumping great V8, instead taking on the 214bhp 3.5-litre EGE V6 engine from the Chrysler Concorde and Dodge Intrepid. It wasn’t the only part of the Prowler that failed to live up to the concept, which was unveiled in 1993 at the New York motor show. Inside, the use of switchgear from other Chrysler models contributed to the interior’s cheap and uninspiring feel. The driving experience was hampered…

Jaguar is working at top speed on an all-new £80,000-plus J-Pace SUV for 2021, designed to beat the Porsche Cayenne at its own game. The model will have a brand-new shape inspired by Jaguar design director Ian Callum and an obvious on-road bias, but it will draw on the Range Rover for much of its running gear. It will be the brand’s fourth eye-grabbing entry into the gigantic global SUV market in just five years. Jaguar stands on the edge of a highly profitable, much higher-volume future, based on rapidly rising sales of an SUV family that started with the F-Pace just two years ago and will probably account for two-thirds of its total sales in the early 2020s. Also prominent in this progress will be a quick increase in…

The Toyota Supra will make a comeback in January 2019 as a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive sports car inspired by this Geneva motor show concept. The two-seat GR Supra Racing Concept is said to closely preview next year’s production car, which has been co-developed alongside the new BMW Z4. The road-going version will launch as a coupé, with different versions expected to follow. Power is set to come from a BMW-sourced turbocharged straight six engine with in excess of 335bhp. BMW will build the Supra. Understood to weigh just under 1500kg and have a 0-62mph time of 3.8sec, the new Supra is already in the final stages of development. The car’s chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada, confirmed that Toyota is already gearing up for the pre-production phase. Tada said: “It’s really fun to…

A SPORTY-LOOKING ‘dynamic crossover’ based on the new Kia Ceed will be one of two models to add spice to the Korean car maker’s bread-and-butter hatchback range. “There is plenty of room between the Stonic and the Sportage for a new crossover,” said European design chief Gregory Guillaume. Kia UK has started paving the way for the new crossover by streamlining its Sportage range by eliminating slow-selling trim levels. In the longer term, the next-generation Sportage, due to be launched around 2021/22, will grow in size to make room for the new crossover. Sharing its 2.6-metre-long wheelbase with the new Ceed hatch and station wagon, the crossover is also tipped to feature some styling cues from the Proceed concept shown at Frankfurt last year. The Proceed concept will itself spawn…

Porsche sprung one of the biggest surprises at the Geneva motor show with the unveiling of a four-wheel-drive electric crossover concept based on the upcoming Mission E. The Mission E Cross Turismo is described by the German car maker’s chairman, Oliver Blume, as a feasibility study created to examine if a market exists for such an “outwardly sporting zero emissions cross utility vehicle”. Despite being billed as a study, Porsche sources hint that approval for production for the new model has already been granted as part of a socalled ‘Zuffenhausen 2020’ plan that involves the build of the “Mission E and various derivatives thereof”. The basis for the five-door Mission E Cross Turismo is Porsche’s J1 electric car platform, as used by the Mission E saloon. It adopts a variable…

Tobias Moers, the boss of Mercedes-AMG, has hinted that another standalone AMG model is already being considered to sit alongside the existing GT Coupé and new GT 4dr Coupé. The two GT models are the first from the performance division not to be based upon standard Mercedes derivatives, but Moers said they are by no means the last. However, he was swift to rule out a unique AMG SUV, which might be the most obvious choice for Affalterbach’s next project. “There was a clear space in the market for the four-door GT,” he said, “but we already have many excellent AMG SUV derivatives and it makes no sense to steal from them just so we can make our own car.” Quite what the new car would be is therefore not…

THE BUGATTI CHIRON Sport, an even faster, more focused variant of the French firm’s sports car, was unveiled at the Geneva motor show, following the pattern of sales-enhancing derivatives established by its predecessor, the Veyron. The new version has lost weight and received chassis tweaks to enhance its agility and make it a more driver-focused offering. Bugatti has claimed the car is five seconds per lap faster than the standard Chiron around the handling circuit at the Nardò test facility. A total of 18kg has been saved through the fitment of several lighter components, including new wheels, a carbonfibre intercooler cover and a carbonfibre windscreen wiper mechanism. The new wiper, a world first on a production car, is 77% lighter than a standard component, reducing weight by 1.4kg. The Chiron’s…

McLaren has confirmed its forthcoming three-seat hypercar, codenamed BP23, will be the fastest McLaren yet by achieving at least 243mph, at which point “it will still be accelerating”. In 1998, the previous three-seat McLaren, the F1, became the world’s fastest production car when Le Mans winner (and now Bugatti test driver) Andy Wallace took it along Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien test track in Germany at 242mph, exceeding the 231mph the F1 managed in 1993 at the Nardò high-speed bowl in Italy. The BP23’s power will far exceed the F1’s 627bhp and McLaren Ultimate Series chief Andy Palmer said the BP23’s advanced aerodynamics will “really move things on from an acceleration perspective too”. “It’s very powerful – more powerful than the [986bhp] P1 GTR,” McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt told Autocar. He also confirmed…

ROLLS-ROYCE IS developing a second ultra-low-volume model with bespoke bodywork. The car is expected to arrive in the “near future”, according to design chief Giles Taylor, and follows the widely admired one-off Sweptail model shown at the Villa D’Este concours event in Italy last year. Taylor implied there could be more than one example of this next model, although the number made will be in the low single figures. The firm is exploring models with hand-beaten bodywork as part of its fast-growing bespoke business, said Rolls-Royce boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös. “It’s the future of luxury,” he said. “People don’t want something others can get. They want something very unique. We’ve invested quite a lot in this. Bespoke is very important. Without it, we wouldn’t sell as many cars.” One of the…

THE VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE will go out of production after its current generation and not be replaced, the firm’s R&D boss, Frank Welsch, has said. The future of the retro-styled Beetle has been in doubt for some time. Welsch said the production version of the VW ID Buzz electric concept – which takes cues from the Type 2 Microbus – will take the place of the Beetle as a retro-inspired model in the VW range. Welsch said “two or three generations is enough now” for the Beetle. He also said the car was “made with history in mind but you can’t do it five times and have a new-new-new Beetle.” The Beetle is sold as a coupé and a convertible and Welsch said the recently confirmed T-Roc convertible was a replacement…

The news that Porsche has, at the very least, put all its diesel programmes on hold makes this new Cayenne Hybrid a more than usually important car. If you want a Cayenne but care about taxation and running costs, this is the one you’re going to have to buy. Porsche denies that diesels have been ruled out of all future Porsches but does say the entire strategy is ‘under review’. So don’t hold your breath. You’d have thought Porsche would just transfer the powertrain from the Panamera hybrid straight over: it fits and comes with four-wheel drive as standard. But no, the hybrid powertrains in a Panamera and this Cayenne are related but by no means the same. As we shall see, this brings news both good and bad. For…

The hill route at Millbrook is a dark, unwelcoming place for the Eclipse Cross. Perhaps a four-wheel-drive version of the car might have negotiated the severe cambers of this tortuous course with greater poise but, allowing for the car’s highly questionable body control, you’d say it’d be unlikely. The 1.5-litre turbocharged engine was at all times a willing accomplice, generating good forward momentum even on the steep climbs that show up many cars in this class as a touch stagnant. However, the excessive body roll gave tyres that are traction-limited at the best of times scant chance to excel, and so the chassis crashed heavily into its electronic safety net with dismaying regularity.…

The dainty, pocket-size Ford Fiesta is the best-selling car in Britain. Last year, 94,533 new Fiestas found homes in the UK. Parked alongside the US’s best-selling car, the F-150, the little hatchback barely looks big enough to sit inside. If every one of those 94,533 Fiestas parked nose to tail, they would stretch from London to Newcastle; if every one of the F-150s sold in the US did the same, they would reach from London to New York. Like the size of the universe, the number of F-150 trucks Ford sells each year is almost impossible to get your head around. This mid-range Fiesta Titanium, with its 1.0-litre Ecoboost engine, sells for a little under £18,000 in the UK. Incredibly, that’s more or less half what Ford charges for the…

Don’t look back in anger The Ferrari 488 Pista (News, 21 February) is undoubtedly a stunning car, but does the design have to be ruined by unsightly door mirrors? With your computerised wizardry, can you produce an image of the 488 with the door mirrors removed and replaced with a small ‘pod’ housing a rear-facing camera at the top of each A-pillar? These could relay their images to two screens, either side of the interior rear view mirror, allowing the driver to have, at a glance, a panoramic view. In the event that the view from the mirror was compromised, reversing cameras could also be brought into play. Surely by removing the door mirrors, both the aesthetics and the aerodynamics would be improved. Camera pods would be far less prone…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 8125 WHY WE RAN IT To find out how the C3 plays its trump cards – charm, usability and simplicity We had high hopes for our Citroën C3. Following the arrival of the first-generation C4 Cactus in 2014, the third-generation C3 was the next car to shape a new Citroën era, one focused on comfort and unconventional design. The supermini segment is a tricky one to compete in, with the latest Seat Ibiza setting the standard, the Ford Fiesta the clear leader in terms of sales and other safe bets such as the VW Polo to consider. We’ve spent the past seven months seeing if the C3 deserves a place at the table. It’s been a bumpy ride. My first impressions weren’t great: the gear changes between…

MI LEAGE 128,316 LAND ROVER SERIES 3 You may not remember but I saved the original 30-year-old mudflaps from being scrapped as they were still attached to the rotten chassis. I hated the sight of the new, bland rubber mats at the back that didn’t say ‘Land Rover’ on them. Travesty. So armed with a handful of spare nuts and bolts previously used in an old boiler, a drill and some solvent, I had the opportunity to right this terrible wrong on a bright, dry Sunday. There was no way to reattach the flaps via the old fastenings without them looking stunted. Instead, I simply drilled through them, and added glue and a locking washer.…

Given how buyers are fleeing diesels, it might seem perverse to be championing an old EU4-emissions oil-burner worth thousands of pounds in scrappage allowance. Of course, most of the buyers doing the fleeing are of the new car variety. Their poorer (or more sensible) used car cousins are less squeamish. To them, a Chrysler 300C CRD, a sort of Vauxhall Senator for the noughties, makes total sense. Yes, it costs £305 to tax but it has a 215bhp 3.0-litre V6 diesel producing a stump-pulling 376lb ft under the bonnet, driving the rear wheels through a five-speed automatic gearbox. It does 35mpg on a good day too. All this and prices start from just £2500. The 300C was one of Daimler-Chrysler’s few success stories. Based to a large extent on quality…

SKODA HOPES TO have its new four-wheel-drive compressed natural gas (CNG) hybrid technology in production in three to four years, according to R&D boss Christian Strube. The system, previewed on the Vision X concept (right), uses a CNG-powered engine and small electric motor to drive the front wheels. A second motor, offering 27bhp and 52lb ft, will drive the rear wheels under acceleration and when extra traction is needed. It also enables a small electric-only range. The technology can be adapted to any MQB-based Volkswagen Group car, as well as petrol and diesel engines. The Vision X concept itself previews a new VW T-Roc-based crossover that will make production next year, ushering in a new design language for Skoda in the process. Strube said it would be the firm’s smallest…

JAGUAR’S LOWEST-SPEC electric I-Pace is expected to be the range’s bestseller, according to Jaguar Land Rover’s UK managing director, Jeremy Hicks. The £63,495 I-Pace S (before £4500 government incentive) will account for around two-thirds of UK sales, Hicks believes, contradicting the usual behaviour of most UK buyers, who tend to go for top-end versions. Hicks attributes the interest to keen pricing (especially against Tesla) and to the S’s impressive equipment level. Jaguar is cautious about revealing its planned production volumes but says the car is “pretty much sold out” for the first year. The I-Pace is likely to initially outsell the F-Type at more than 10,000 a year.…

ASTON MARTIN’S LAGONDA Vision Concept tested the company’s design capabilities to new levels because the team was only experienced at creating sports cars, according to CEO Andy Palmer. The Vision Concept also defies classic design conventions because it is packaged specifically around an electric powertrain. The car is said to be about 80% representative of the look of the relaunched brand’s new saloon, due in 2021, and give clues as to the look of its SUV, which will follow in 2022. “I asked the design team to do something completely different to what they knew,” said Palmer. “The defining point was the electrification. At that moment, all concepts of a ‘me-too’ three-box saloon went out of the window.” Palmer also said that to have gone up against Rolls-Royce and Bentley…

One of the perennial joys of Geneva is touring the small stands, where, every year and without fail, tiny companies strut their stuff, sometimes in the hope that people might actually buy the cars on show, sometimes to showcase consultancy services and sometimes, it seems, just because they can. This is neither the time nor the place to be shy: you’ve paid a stack of money for your allocated few square metres of Palexpo, the world’s press is here and soon so will be some very wealthy locals. This is the time to be brave and bold and wheel out stuff guaranteed to catch the attention of even the most weary show-going hack. This year, as ever, they did not disappoint. TECHRULES REN RS You don’t get much more bonkers…

McLAREN WILL ANNOUNCE an LT version of its 570S supercar before the end of the year, possibly as early as the Paris show in September. The new car is already signed off and just awaiting an appropriate slot in McLaren’s busy launch schedule. It is tipped to have more than 600bhp but, as with the 675LT, the focus has been on weight reduction and aerodynamic optimisation. Because it belongs to McLaren’s entry-level Sports Series, the new car is unlikely to receive quite the same level of obsessive detailing as the 675LT. That model added more than £65,000 to the price of the £195,250 650S upon which it was based and included 110 component changes or deletions just to save weight. It is feasible the new model could push the £149,000…

MONDAY Finest prelude to a Geneva show I can remember: a chance to drive the show star, the revolutionary Jaguar I-Pace, the day before its official debut. Conditions weren’t entirely ideal: they let us loose on a tarmac apron at the end of the main Geneva runway. And Jaguar’s people introduced a somewhat ill-advised competitive element by getting hacks to do timed runs around a course of cones (mine were rubbish) that diverted minds from assessing important subtleties like I-Pace’s one-pedal acceleration and braking capability. Despite its 2.2 tonnes, the I-Pace has terrific torque and traction off the mark and turns with rare agility. Assessing ride quality was barely possible (annoying when the car’s a Jaguar), but I think I detected signs of a velvety ride and well-contained road noise.…

Incongruity: with silent cars from Jaguar, £240,000 coupés from Range Rover and sports utility vehicles from Ferrari, in 2018 we’re immersed in it. But none of those things are perhaps quite so improbable as a Toyota supermini not only packing 209bhp but putting it to the tarmac through a Torsen differential with the help of (passive) dampers from Sachs. The car, now in the UK, is garrulously known as the Toyota Yaris Gazoo Racing Meisters of Nürburgring – Gazoo Racing being the in-house division that helped to develop the rally winning Yaris WRC. It’s likely the first of several Europe-bound GRMN specials and, despite a narrow appeal owing to its £26,295 asking price, very nearly all 80 UK examples are spoken for. We’ve driven it abroad already, so know this…

The Eclipse Cross hits some notable highs. It is very much its own car in terms of design. There’s also its petrol powertrain, which demonstrates a likeable blend of frugality and firepower. Useful improvements are to be found within the cabin – material quality, in particular, is better than we’re using to seeing from the brand. Reasonable residuals and an aggressive pricing strategy mean that, for a certain sort of buyer – likely those valuing its capability as much as anything – four-wheel-drive variants of the Eclipse Cross will prove tempting. But for all its alternative appeal, in front-wheel-drive form it falls too far wide of the mark on handling and drivability to be considered a top contender. We don’t expect driver appeal from a car like this, but we…

FRONT SUSPENSION Wider track, new front hubs and selective double-valved dampers fitted as standard, which allow for a better combination of body control, handling response and ride comfort than the last ST had STEERING Ratio is up to 12:1, and there are just two turns between locks. It’s consistently geared, though, not a variable-ratio system FRONT DIFFERENTIAL It’s a Quaife limited slipper that’s likely to be fitted as standard to upper-trim-level cars and optional on others. Electronic brake-based torque vectoring is in play too REAR SUSPENSION There’s a stiffer torsion beam here, as well as ‘force vectoring’ suspension springs that better control the lateral location of the rear wheels. That, in turn, allows softer rear bushings and a quieter, more supple ride DRIVE MODES This is the first Fiesta ST…

“The public can help by reporting their suspicions to the police” There are around 19,000 unregulated car wash sites in the UK, some involved in modern-day slavery where undocumented migrants work 12-hour days for as little as £25. In response, an independent not-for-profit organisation has been launched with the aim of bringing together government agencies, car wash companies, workers, charities and the public to, in its words, “shape a car wash industry that will be fair and safe for all”. Called the Sandu Foundation, it has been created in memory of Sandu Laurentiu-Sava, a Romanian car wash worker who, in 2015, was electrocuted while taking a shower at his home in Bethnal Green, east London. The electrical supply for his makeshift lodgings, attached to the car wash site, was wired…

MILEAGE 2448 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover if Vauxhall’s flagship offers an unbeatable mix of practicality, value and executive comfort in estate form February was freezing, wasn’t it? Well, it certainly felt it, standing on an Oxfordshire verge, filming m’colleague Matt Prior buzz up and down in a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso T, with his heated seats and his throaty V8 to keep him warm. Luckily, my load-lugger of choice, our Insignia Sports Tourer, is well equipped to deal with the ‘Beast from the East’, ‘Polar Vortex’ or any other tabloid-headline-weather-front nature could chuck at it. That’s largely down to the new ‘intelligent’ all-wheel-drive system. The GKN-developed system comprises a pair of clutch packs on the rear axle electronically delivering torque vectoring – the first time such a system has…

Renault 25 GTX I’d like to thank reader Michael Cunningham for this magnificent period pic. He wrote: “I got a two-year-old Renault 25 GTX with 58k miles in 1989 to replace my 1972 Victor 2300SL that had covered 280k miles. “The 25 lasted till 1995, having covered a further 139k miles when it got away from my wife on a greasy corner at low speed and ended up leaning on its side against a farm gatepost. “It was one of the best cars I’ve had. It never let me down, was comfortable and needed no major repairs.”…

An expert’s view ROGER BUDDEN, ROGER BUDDEN AUTOMOBILES “Great value, comfortable and reliable: that’s how I’d describe the 300C. The diesel estate is the best version. It’s popular with sole traders, who’d rather have one than a van, and caravanners, who like its 2000kg braked towing capacity. Dog lovers like it, too, because of the removable load floor cover. It’s a tri-fold thing and, if you lift it away, there’s a useful additional space in which you can stand a large dog. Check it has the removable waterproof liner. Even with the low roof, load space is 1602 litres, more than the equivalent Audi A6 Avant and Saab 9-5 estate.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE Early diesels can suffer swirl port motor problems, resulting in a loss of power. Custom300cshop.co.uk has…

BMW 325i If there’s one auction result that illustrates the rise in value of the E30-generation BMW 3 Series, it’s this one. It went for £6678. Make no mistake: this is a lovely old car in great condition with an immaculate interior, low mileage and a solid history. But the spec is ordinary, the wheels aren’t the best and it lacks the classic charm of an earlier chrome-bumper model. The price seems high, then, especially as a car like this would have sold for £2k just a few years ago, but this is the going rate for E30s these days. Were it a Sport, you’d have to stick a one in front of that price, at least. GET IT WHILE YOU CAN Porsche Cayenne Price new £52,744, price now £49,989…

Lots of talk about ‘mobility’ at the Geneva motor show. Well, around the car business in general, really. I think this is the automotive equivalent of human resources or calling someone a waste collection operative: it sounds more poncy than personnel or binman/woman/person, and eventually it slips into conventional usage. I’m not even surprised any more. Mobility – and more pertinent at the moment – shared mobility is the new, oh, I dunno, whatever the last big buzzword was. Green, perhaps? There are so many clichés that follow the car industry around that it would rather didn’t: gas guzzler, Chelsea tractor, dirty diesel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wants to shuffle away from them. “They’re smiling. They’re relaxed. Of course, they are. They’re shared mobility users!” Mobility, as I understand it, means…