Innholdsfortegnelse for January 22, 2020 i Autocar

THE RISE OF electric vehicles hasn’t been as rapid as some had hoped, stalled by high prices, limited choice and off-putting practicality issues. And despite the growing number of EVs available (and with many more to come in 2020), last year they still made up only 1.6% of UK new car sales. Major change is afoot, with the imminent arrival of transformative benefit-in-kind tax changes (p16). From April, those choosing an EV as a company car will pay no tax at all. Such an appealing incentive will have a significant effect on EV uptake when you consider that company cars accounted for more than half of last year’s UK car sales. EVs won’t be suitable for every mile-munching exec, but the appeal of more money in the bank will no…

“It might not look like it, but it’s one of the most comprehensive facelifts we’ve ever undertaken,” says Michael Kelz, laying his hand on the bonnet of the lightly disguised E-Class. We’re stood in a lay-by not far from the pulsing neon heart of Las Vegas in the US, where the project leader for the facelifted E-Class is taking a break from final validation testing to run through the changes made ahead of its Geneva debut this March. The disguise hides subtle tweaks, including a wider grille, reprofiled bumpers and a reshaped bootlid – but also what Kelz describes as literally hundreds of detailed modifications. “We’ve gone through every individual component and asked ourselves if it can be improved,” he says. “The biggest individual change is the upgrade to the…

TOYOTA WILL LAUNCH a Yaris-based small SUV for Europe, with a close-to-production concept set to be displayed at the Geneva motor show. The as-yet-unnamed model was announced at a Toyota showcase event, where it was revealed that it will use the same TNGA-B platform as the all-new, fourth-generation Yaris supermini that was revealed late last year. However, the company’s European vice-president, Matthew Harrison, promised that it won’t be “just a Yaris with body cladding and raised suspension”. Instead, it will be “an entirely new and distinctive B-SUV model” with a “compact, dynamic design and a personality of its own”. Toyota said the name of the model, volume plans and the timing of its introduction will be announced at a later date. The new SUV will sit directly below the C-HR…

Jaguar will unveil a new-generation, electric-only XJ later this year, and images of the first disguised prototype have emerged. The test mule features a number of revealing details, including a new body shape with a swooping roofline, a long bonnet and a high waistline. The wheelbase is much longer than that of Jaguar’s existing saloons and the track is wider. A ‘battery wedge’ (space beneath the floor for an EV’s battery pack) is also visible, resulting in the high waistline. It’s expected that the new XJ will be revealed in the second half of this year before it goes on sale in 2021.…

Toyota has confirmed that the next-generation Aygo will be designed, developed and built in Europe. No date has been put on the new model, which bucks the trend of firms pulling out of the city car segment due to falling profitability. However, Toyota Europe boss Johan van Zyl said the Aygo will continue to be built in Kolín, the Czech Republic, after being designed and engineered in Brussels, Belgium. The current Aygo is a sibling of the Citroën C1 and Peugeot 108, but no successors are planned for the PSA pair. Toyota will take control of Kolín in 2021 by buying its partner out of the joint venture, but production of the trio is likely to continue for some time after. A Toyota executive previously told Autocar that the third-generation…

The electric car revolution is poised to hit the UK this year, but not because of purchase grants, green-shaming or European Union regulations. Instead, the expected sales boom is set to be driven largely by a change to company car tax regulations. After the upcoming changes were announced in July 2019, sales of EVs doubled in the second half of the year compared with the first half, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Business lease firm Alphabet reported a 165% rise in orders for plug-in vehicles. The UK’s company car market is big business. Up to the end of November last year, 53% of cars sold went to fleets, SMMT figures show. Company cars aren’t free; they are a heavily taxed perk and, since…

The Great Carlos Ghosn Saga looks set to run throughout 2020. His dramatic undercover escape from Japan while awaiting trial for multiple charges of financial misconduct was like something from a Hollywood film, and his subsequent explosive press conference from Beirut (see News, 15 January) was bizarre and revealing in equal measure. In many ways, the gripping events reflect the explosive career of Ghosn himself, who worked his way up to become one of the most powerful, colourful and charismatic figures in the global car industry, heading an empire employing 470,000 people and building more than 10 million cars per year at 122 factories. As with many of the most driven individuals in this industry, Ghosn had humble beginnings. He enjoyed his first business success working for French tyre maker…

Ask Bentley’s people what this car represents and they’d probably tell you it is the entry point to the Continental GT range, a way of immersing yourself in the deep waters of Bentley design without getting entirely carried away and going for the full-fat W12 version. Because 12 cylinders are clearly better than eight and, by the same reasoning, six litres must best four. Surely? Well, we’ll get to the rights and wrongs of that in a moment. In the meantime, what you’re really looking at is Bentley’s purest take on the GT theme. It’s about as abused an initialism as exists in the automotive canon, especially if you allow it to be extended to ‘GTI’, but this is Bentley’s take on the original concept: an expensive and exclusive luxury…

MODEL TESTED 1.2T 100 ULTIMATE NAV AUTO Price £25,990 • Power 99bhp • Torque 151lb ft • 0-60mph 11.2sec • 30-70mph in fourth 12.7sec • Fuel economy 41.6mpg • CO2 emissions 99g/km • 70-0mph 60.7m If you’ve ever toiled for nothing, you’ll understand the predicament in which Vauxhall and sibling Opel found themselves in November 2017. By then, a heavily refreshed Corsa was three years in the making and ready to go in engineering terms and, despite a prognosis for slowly declining commercial success, it was expected to make a decent splash. Then the PSA Group – French manufacturing giant and owner of Peugeot, Citroën and the reborn DS – bought Opel-Vauxhall from GM for £1.2 billion and the decision was made to ditch the Astra-platformed model, which had already been…

In the words of Rolls-Royce’s CEO, the Dawn ragtop is “the most social of super-luxury drophead motor cars for those who wish to bathe in the sunlight of the world’s most exclusive social hotspots”. It’s an evocative notion that I’m struggling to channel from our lonely, weather-beaten, peninsular midnight perch on Orkney as the Atlantic swills either side of us. A boulevardier meant for La Croisette, not Kirkwall, this car is alien to these latitudes. But we’ve brought it here with a purpose: to search for the aurora borealis, which literally – and aptly, here – translates as ‘northern dawn’. Our journey has been shaped by Dr Nathan Case, senior research associate of Space and Planetary Physics at Lancaster University and part of the team behind AuroraWatch UK. Days earlier,…

Thermal doesn’t seem to be an obvious location for one of the world’s most exclusive member’s clubs. The desertscape of the Coachella Valley is as harsh as it gets in this part of California. Surrounding mountain ranges hold back the clouds, turning this one-time settlement for railroad workers into an unforgiving oven, with temperatures known to exceed 50deg C. The locals say it becomes so overbearing that during the summer people seek work for two or three months in more hospitable towns and cities around the US. Driving from Palm Springs to Thermal, the mood changes. The immaculately presented properties and grand, gated private estates give way to nondescript, modest homes that look poorly maintained. A resident of the region tells me that Thermal is known for having a methamphetamine…

A new year, new opportunities. In fact, 2020 promises to be packed with great car-buying opportunities, and as always, it’s about knowing what to buy and when to buy it. To help you, we’ve ruminated on this year’s likely trends and the events that will shape them, and scoured the classifieds for bargains today that may be too expensive for you come tomorrow. The new Bond film, the growth in popularity of used EVs, the continuing appeal of diesel, the emergence of some great cars at prices more of us can afford… it’s all to play for in 2020. Happy hunting! VW e-Golf FROM 2014 Our pick VW e-Golf 35.8kWh, 2017/67, 9000 miles, £19,500 Although an underachiever, Volkswagen’s electric Golf has held the fort while the company prepared this year’s…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the magic touch Volvo has with its premium SUVs translates to this compact executive saloon Volvo’s recent renaissance is no longer news – we’re now as well versed in this Swedish success story as the decades-old musical export from the same country. Yet much of the firm’s good fortune since being taken over by Chinese giant Geely can be attributed to its ever-expanding, and ever-popular, XC SUV line-up. Until now, the more traditional saloons and estates have taken a back seat. Which is where our S60 comes in. The compact executive class might not be as fashionable as it once was but it’s still a lucrative place to be, and as recently as December last year the BMW 3 Series…

Audi TT 1.8 T 240 Sport quattro £7200 Tough, timeless and great to drive, the Mk1 TT is a terrific used buy. There are many variants but one of the most interesting is the 1.8 T Sport quattro, launched in 2005. Its four-cylinder engine made 237bhp and 236lb ft, which is impressive by any standards, but a weight-loss regime stripped out the rear seats, climate control, parcel shelf and spare tyre to save 50kg, taking the weight to 1390kg. Not quite feather-light but enough for 0-62mph in 5.9sec. Audi didn’t stop there. It relocated the battery to the back of the car to improve weight distribution, fitted stiffened and lowered suspension and a rear strut brace and installed a couple of hard-shell Recaros. As a final aesthetic flourish, the roof…

“The new EQ electric models form part of an £8.6 billion development programme” Mercedes-Benz has finalised development plans for more than 30 new models – all scheduled to arrive by the end of 2022. The headliners in the wide-ranging new-model programme, confirmed to Autocar by high-ranking Mercedes officials, include replacements for the existing C-Class, S-Class and SL. Under the plans, the new SL will return to its roots by featuring a traditional fabric hood for the first time in more than two decades when it is unveiled in early 2021 as a reborn 2+2 sports car. A raft of new AMG performance models are also under development as part of Mercedes’ ongoing efforts to retain its global luxury car sales crown. The upcoming Mercedes-AMG newcomers include a rapid GT 4-Door…

Porsche has brought back six-cylinder power to the standard 718 Cayman and 718 Boxster line-up in the form of new GTS 4.0 variants. Priced from £64,088 for the Cayman GTS 4.0 and £65,949 for the Boxster version, they’re available to order now, with first deliveries due in March. Replacing the outgoing 718 GTS models, which used a 361bhp 2.5-litre flat-four engine, the new GTS 4.0 has – as the name suggests – the 4.0-litre flat-six engine first introduced on the Cayman GT4 and Boxster Spyder last year. Unlike those track-focused cars, the new GTS models “place particular emphasis on everyday driving pleasure”, Porsche says. For the GTS 4.0, the engine is detuned from the 414bhp of the GT4 and Spyder to 395bhp, which is produced at slightly lower revs than…

HYUNDAI AND KIA have invested €100 million (£85.4m) in London-based electric vehicle manufacturer Arrival, making it one of the UK’s most valuable start-ups. The Korean car makers plan to build “competitively priced small and medium-sized electric vans and other products for logistics and on-demand ride-hailing and shuttle service companies” on Arrival’s scalable EV platform. This can underpin a range of bespoke EVs across different categories. Its suitability for commercial applications will allow Hyundai and Kia to expand their EV ranges beyond cars, such as the e-Niro and Kona Electric, and reduce the average CO2 outputs of their fleets ahead of tighter EU emissions regulations in 2021. Founded in 2015, Arrival has 800 employees working at innovative ‘micro factories’ in five countries, building vehicles to order to serve communities in the…

VOLKSWAGEN’S FIRST HOT electric car will arrive later this year, it has confirmed. The inaugural use of GTX – the electric equivalent of the GTI sub-brand – is most likely to come on the range-topping version of the first electric Volkswagen SUV, which was previewed by the ID Crozz concept of 2017. There will be two versions of the ID SUV: a standard model and a coupé, which are expected to be named the ID 4 and the ID 5. While both models will receive the GTX badge, it’s most likely to appear on the ID 4 first. While the ID 3 hatchback is an obvious contender for the GTX treatment, given Volkswagen’s hot hatch heritage, it’s thought that a fast ID 4 is more appealing to key markets, including…

BOSCH BLAMES THE delayed roll-out of autonomous vehicles on a jungle of red tape and a wave of consumer scepticism rather than the limitations of the systems. The German supplier’s senior vice-president of automated driving, Kay Stepper, told Autocar that its engineers have already cleared the technological hurdles. “We need to differentiate between technical and non-technical problems,” he explained at CES. “At the moment we can honestly say from the technological, hardware and software sides that we have what we need to roll out [autonomous technology] tomorrow. It’s here. Yes, we have much more testing and validation to do and more refinement to do, but we’re there.” Despite this, no self-driving cars are available commercially in 2020. “The major obstacles are the non-technical ones, like the regulatory framework in different…

This is the plug-in hybrid version of the Peugeot 508, which we’ve driven before in prototype form. Since then, the final touches have been made in time to reach UK driveways, near enough coinciding with the revised company car tax bands that are set to benefit new plug-in hybrid drivers from April. The car has a 1.6-litre petrol engine producing 178bhp and a 108bhp electric motor on the front axle, with a total system output of 222bhp. It’s part of Peugeot’s plan to offer electrified variants of every model by 2025, and you can get the same hybrid treatment in the 508 SW estate version. As with other plug-in hybrids, the claimed economy figures sound ridiculous even on the more ‘realistic’ WLTP test cycle. Officially, it’s said to achieve between…

VERDICT The fifth-generation Corsa certainly represents a smarter, more refined, superficially classier and more desirable prospect than the car it replaces. Its new platform has brought more appealing styling and paved the way for a stronger range of powertrains and an impressive suite of active safety systems. However, while the Corsa is undoubtedly a ‘nicer’ and more aspiring car, it hasn’t been made better in every respect. Its slightly remote if assured handling, at times restless ride, questionable four-seat practicality and more ambitious pricing may all be obstacles to its success. And although it’s competent, secure and broadly inoffensive to drive, it lacks dynamic character and fails to make up for that shortage by reproducing ‘big car’ motive qualities in the manner of the best of its competitors. The majority…

ICELAND Iceland is ideally located under the auroral oval and offers excellent overhead viewing. The Hotel Rangá in Hella provides aurora wake-up calls; it’s 90 minutes from Reykjavík on the island’s anti-clockwise ring road – or 15 hours clockwise. FINLAND It’s an eight-hour drive from Helsinki to Tornio in Lapland, from where the 384-mile ‘Northern Lights Route’ runs to Tromsø on the Norwegian coast. A favourite among connoisseurs. CANADA Five hours from Calgary is Jasper National Park, the world’s second-largest dark sky preserve. Take the Trans-Canada Highway to Lake Louise, then the glacier-studded Icefields Parkway to the favoured viewing spot at Medicine Lake.…

If you drive in São Paulo, things may be about to get easier – or perhaps, depending on your point of view, more difficult. A delegation from the city’s transport department is visiting Transport for London’s network management control centre (NMCC) to see for themselves how the organisation, considered to be one of the best transport operators in the world, manages the capital’s 360 miles of roads. Huddled behind a viewing window, the visitors peer at the centre’s huge wall-mounted screens that relay live traffic situations in high definition and watch as staff operating joystick controllers zoom onto incidents like a scene from The Capture, the BBC surveillance thriller. “They’re especially interested in seeing how we’ve integrated all our previously separate control departments into one so we have a more…

The future of Formula 1 can be found not only on a race track but hidden deep inside an imposing concrete bunker on the outskirts of Oxford. This small corner of the Renault F1 team’s operations base is where a new generation of drivers trains for competition on virtual circuits rather than real ones. Instead of full-blown simulators that cost millions, they use PlayStations, and anyone with a copy of the latest official F1 game can get involved. Welcome to the burgeoning F1 e-sports scene, part of a push by the sport’s owners Liberty Media to attract younger fans. Renault Sport’s commercial director, Antoine Magnan, gives some context: “The average F1 viewer is 39 years old. Eighty percent of e-sports viewers are younger. It brings our sport and motorsport in…

I would love to buy a car that has less of a negative impact on our planet than traditional fossil-fuelled cars. However, the final report on your long-term Honda CR-V Hybrid (Our Cars, 2 January) is yet another example of the quandary I recently found myself in. I drive 15,000 miles a year, about a third of which are to Italy and back on holiday. So I thought about what I can buy that is efficient, comfortable, quiet and spacious and would get me there and back in a reasonable time. This, along with the extraordinary purchase price, eliminated battery-electric cars straight away. So I researched alternative choices online – and eventually gave up frustrated with the lack of options available and bought a Mercedes-Benz GLC 220d. It was less…

MILEAGE 8349 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To assess the ownership implications of a car that finds huge favour with existing owners yet those who don’t know it increasingly love to hate The Touareg didn’t do many miles over the Christmas/New Year break, even though it’s the kind of car that might have done, what with the usual twin priorities at this time of the year: toting lots of people and stuff, and coping at times with snow and ice. However, neither need came to pass in our household: we led a pretty sedentary life for 10 days, and when there were miles to do, we did them in smaller cars that better fitted the crowded marketplace car park. This didn’t stop the big VW from occupying our thoughts, though. It…

MILEAGE 106,043 PORSCHE CAYENNE As I mentioned a fortnight ago, there was a crisis with the Flying Pig involving tyres and, in order to cope with a busy Christmas period, I had to get a set of tyres to keep the show on the road. One garage said they would not replace just the one damaged tyre but would have to replace the entire set. Their quote was £600, so I went off on a ‘who would do the best deal?’ quest. It turned out to be Kwik Fit, which quoted comfortably below £500 for some tyre I’d never heard of. Even so, I went for them. So far, we haven’t fallen off the road so they must be pretty good.…

These are uncertain times for Volkswagen’s mini marvel. Complex emissions rules threaten to consign the Up and other city cars to the dustbin of history, with only electric versions of group siblings, the Seat Mii and Skoda Citigo, clinging on and, hopefully, prospering. For now at least, there are still both petrol and electric versions of the Up. Launched in 2014 and updated in 2017, the e-Up EV has a range of 99 miles. It’s a rare bird on the used market but an example of VW’s ambitions for its little city car. Putting the e-Up to one side, at the lower end of the Up model range is the 1.0 60 Take Up 3dr and at the other the daft-as-a-brush Up 1.0 115 GTI. The Up was launched in…

MERCEDES-BENZ ML55 AMG Of course you shouldn’t touch a £3000 AMG, especially when it’s a first-gen ML, but, like peering over the edge of a cliff, we can’t help ourselves. This one, a 2001-reg with 122,000 miles, sold at auction for £3074. Someone had faith. Perhaps it was the service history (there are 14 stamps in the book from 2002 to 2017) plus additional workshop receipts. Assuming it’s in rude health, the 5.4-litre V8 should still be making 342bhp – enough to launch the 2300kg SUV from 0-62mph in 6.8sec. Add four-wheel drive and stacks of creature comforts and someone may just have bagged a bargain. Or not.…

AN UPGRADED VOLKSWAGEN ID R electric prototype is under development, with the focus on honing the record-breaking machine’s aerodynamics and drivetrain, Autocar has learned. Based on a sports prototype, the 671bhp ID R was originally developed for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in 2018, where it broke the outright course record. VW’s motorsport arm then developed a low-downforce aerodynamic package, which the car used to set an electric lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife and outright hill record at Goodwood last year. The Nürburgring developments were largely focused on the aerodynamics of the car, and Autocar understands the top speed – and therefore ultimate lap time – on the Nordschleife was restricted by the energy management required to optimise battery life for the full lap. The ID R lapped…

The chairman of TVR has disclosed via a newsletter to prospective owners new developments in the project to build an all-new, 500bhp Griffith. The newsletter, written by Les Edgar and seen by Autocar, was first sent to depositors last month and comes more than two years after the Griffith project was first revealed. Since then, bar promises that work will soon start at TVR’s Ebbw Vale factory, all has gone quiet, so the new details will be intended to reassure depositors of the project’s progress. Edgar’s newsletter reveals that TVR has now road-registered the original 2017 show car, which is believed to be the only Griffith built so far. The car will hit the road in the coming months for testing and event participation. The company has also negotiated a…

Ford will launch an all-new Mondeo in early 2021, a parts tooling catalogue published on its European website appears to confirm. The document, which dictates the specialist tools that dealers will need to work on upcoming models in Ford’s product plan, lists a tool for the rear axle assembly of the “2022 model year Mondeo CD542”. The CD542 model code was originally assigned to the replacement for the Fusion – the North American version of the Mondeo – before Ford decided to not replace that model directly. The document appears to reveal that the Mondeo name will live on, while the release date of the tool itself indicates the new model will be launched in the second half of next year. Perhaps the most interesting revelation in the catalogue is…

LAMBORGHINI’S COLLABORATION with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop totally new supercapacitor technology for its hybrid supercar powertrains could lead to a major breakthrough in energy storage for battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). If the technology continues to evolve as hoped, it could be an alternative to battery technology and dramatically reduce BEV charging times. Traditional capacitors are common in electronics and have a variety of uses. One is to act as a kind of electrical reservoir that can accept a charge very quickly and discharge it equally quickly. Typical uses are storing energy for amplifiers to draw on or to smooth out an electrical supply. One application is in a camera flash. The capacitor charges then releases its energy in one go to fire the flash, but it’s all…

WHY NOT TRY OUR OTHER GREAT TITLES? View all of our offers on themagazineshop.com TERMS AND CONDITIONS This is a UK-only offer; for overseas offers, please visit themagazineshop.com or call +44 (0) 1604 251 461. All savings are based on the UK cover price and are correct as of January 2020. Please allow 35 days for delivery of your gift and first issue. The gift will be sent under separate cover from the magazine and won’t be dispatched until your first payment has cleared. Should we run out of gifts, you will be offered an alternative gift; there is no cash alternative. Direct Debit rates are valid for one year, after which they are subject to change; should prices change, we will inform you in writing. Should you wish to…

You might imagine the only question that really needs answering is whether the new Alpine A110 S is better to drive than the basic A110 of five-star road test fame. Initially, it seems that this is very much Alpine’s intention. The S moniker, the 40bhp power bump, the firmer, shorter springs and stronger anti-roll bars, the larger brake discs and wider tyres are all exactly the sort of things that manufacturers do when they want to make a model quicker and, as they always tell us, even better to drive. However, the official line is that this A110 S, driven here in the UK for the first time, is simply another version of the A110 and one better suited to track days. Nothing more, nothing less: there is no hierarchy.…

1 SEAT IBIZA 1.0 TSI 115PS XCELLENCE LUX DSG Engaging handling coupled with a slick engine and impressive refinement. A strong class favourite. 2 VOLKSWAGEN POLO 1.0 TSI 115PS R-LINE DSG Not the most engaging supermini but an impressively pragmatic contender. Upmarket finish is welcome, too. 3 RENAULT CLIO TCE 130 RS LINE AUTO Not quite as inherently ‘French’ as its predecessors but a brilliantly well-rounded supermini nonetheless. 4 FORD FIESTA 1.0 100PS ST-LINE X EDITION AUTO The best-handling supermini here but perhaps not the easiest to live with ride-wise. Engine is a bit outgunned, too. 5 MINI COOPER EXCLUSIVE 3DR AUTO Style appeal combines with snappy handling to make for an attractive upmarket proposition. Ride is a bit firm, mind.…

So here’s what you should know about the Jannarelly Design-1. It’s quite cramped; it’s hard to get into and even harder to get out of; the instruments are difficult to read; if you drive it on flooded roads, you’re likely to get wet feet; and the steering lock is terrible. And one more thing: none of this matters. Of which more in a minute. The Jannarelly Design-1 is named after Dubai-based Anthony Jannarelly, a French designer whose work for W-Motors includes the strikingly attractive Fenyr SuperSport and Lykan Hypersport. He started work on the Design-1 around five years ago with no plan to put it into production – it was something he’d created for himself – but once a few customers had expressed an interest, he teamed up with boat…

COMPARISON Hybrid SUVs: which is best? This new breed of SUVs from the likes of Honda, Lexus, Subaru and Toyota aims to offer a true all-round package. We pick the best DRIVEN Mini Electric The third coming of the small car icon sees it turn electric. We rate it FIRST DRIVE Honda E City car impressed as a prototype and now it’s production ready EVERY WEEK LONG-TERM TEST Skoda Superb Estate Is Skoda’s big estate as appealing as ever? We’re about to find out ROAD TEST Nissan Juke Small SUV simply must be a success to stop Nissan’s dwindling sales USED BUYING GUIDE Porsche 924 It was the first front-engined, rear-drive Porsche. Here’s how to buy one SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 10,222 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Because a plug-in hybrid diesel seems like the best of both worlds. But can reality live up to the theory? I want this week to talk about handling, which might seem an odd topic of conversation when the subject is a two-tonne estate car, but I beg to differ. The heavier a car becomes, the harder it is to make it handle well, and therefore the more important it is that such efforts are made. And by ‘handle’, I don’t mean a car’s ability to go sideways and lay rubber across three different postcodes, or at least that’s not what I mean today, but rather the perhaps more important ability to always feel pleasant to drive. In this regard, the 300de does better than…

Rover 75 2.5 V6 Contemporary SE David Robertshaw decided to buy a car he’d admired but never driven, a Rover 75: “It had a bulging history file full of invoices. The first owner had spent a fortune on it. It also had a full MOT. I spent a weekend fixing various minor issues before putting it into daily service. “I’ve now covered around 3000 fault-free miles in the six months since buying it. I love the sound of that KV6 engine and the traditionally styled interior, although it is pretty heavy on fuel. My best is 37mpg on a run. However, it does drop below 20mpg on my commute!”…

BMW M2 Competition £37,990 There are M cars and then there are M cars. The M2 Competition of 2018 falls into the latter camp thanks to its tweaked suspension, front strut brace and 3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six engine from the M3 and M4 (it’s detuned slightly to 404bhp but still makes 406lb ft). Our find, an approved used 2018-reg with 12,000 miles, has the rare manual gearbox, too. Seven-speed DCT versions are plentiful but in years to come it’ll be the manual that enthusiasts will pay top dollar to own. Reserve yours now.…

One well-respected TVR dealer advises its customers to imagine they’re a brain surgeon. As someone who might be required to perform life-saving surgery at any time of the day or night, they must have a car they can depend on to get them to the hospital. A TVR Tuscan, says the dealer, is not that car. Instead, it’s a second or third motor for weekends when the sun is shining and when a roadside breakdown isn’t a matter of life or death. Not the most encouraging way to begin a buying guide but it’s best you know now that, like all TVRs, the Tuscan is a model that demands regular care and attention from its owner, and not a little tolerance. It wasn’t meant to be like this. With a…

An expert’s view JAMES AGGER, JAMES AGGER AUTOSPORT “For a long time the buying advice was the later the better, but now forget age, colour and engine – how it’s been maintained and who has done what are all you should care about. All parts are available and everything is repairable. The Tuscan S and the convertible are the most sought after. You can get a reasonable Tuscan for £25,000 but most are around £30,000. The best are between £38,000 and £52,000.” Buyer beware ■ ENGINE Avoid engines with oil and coolant leaks, mechanical noises and misfires – repairs can cost thousands. High underbonnet temperatures cook rubber hoses, electrics and ancillaries, which all sit alongside the engine block. Check annual servicing has run to more than just an oil and…