Innholdsfortegnelse for April 8, 2020 i Autocar

It may feel strange to be worrying about business at a time when people are worrying about their lives because of a global pandemic, but the harsh reality is that there are more than 1.5 million people employed in the UK automotive industry, covering everything from suppliers to manufacturers to retailers. While there’s no rulebook on how the coronavirus will spread or for how long it will disrupt, there are insights to be gleaned from other nations’ experiences. At this early stage, China is the obvious one to look to, with Wuhan the epicentre of the pandemic but now, 8-12 weeks later, seemingly over the worst of it. The bald facts of the sales slump in China make alarming, if now familiar, reading. After the outbreak, large parts of the…

It’s hard to find a new car with a dashboard that isn’t dominated by a large infotainment touchscreen – increasingly at the expense of physical buttons and dials. Tesla may still be the most extreme proponent, but the trend is reflected across the whole industry. The growing size of touchscreens is linked directly to their increasing use in all aspects of society. Melanie Limmer, the electronics boss for the new Audi A3, said the decision to remove some physical buttons from that car was because “more and more people are getting into touch functions with smartphones”. Although many car infotainment screens retain physical controls as well, an increasing number don’t – and the rise of touchscreen-only interfaces has led to questions about how safe they are. There are concerns that…

This is the car with which Audi is aiming to challenge the Jaguar I-Pace for zero-emissions SUV driving honours. The E-tron Sportback 55 quattro, as its name suggests, is a more sporting version of the E-tron 55 quattro that has been on sale here since mid-2019. Outwardly, it’s distinguished from its sibling by a more heavily curved, coupé-like roofline and liftback-style tailgate, among other subtle changes, including more aggressively styled bumpers and headlights using Audi’s new digital matrix LED technology. Together, these alterations provide the E-tron Sportback with a shapely profile similar in style and detailing to the Elaine concept that Audi unveiled three years ago. Sharing certain exterior design elements with conventionally powered Audi models, it’s perhaps not as distinctive as the I-Pace. But with a drag coefficient of…

VERDICT It isn’t difficult to understand why BMW elected to build the 2 Series Gran Coupé. A substantial portion of the buying public prioritises aesthetics above dynamics, so a premium-badged four-door coupé that can be built relatively inexpensively on a front-wheel-drive platform ought to sell well. And, in fairness, this 2 Series does deserve credit in some important respects. It is unusually refined at a cruise, comfortable over long distances and economical with fuel. This new model is also pleasurable enough to steer at sedate speeds, with well-positioned controls, and BMW’s current cabin architecture continues to lead the way for usability. Why, then, only three stars? Because we expect so much more from BMW in certain areas. Whether or not you find the 2 Series Gran Coupé visually attractive is…

ON 11 APRIL 1993, Donington Park hosted the European Grand Prix. While the Leicestershire venue had hosted pre-war grands prix, this was the only time a Formula 1 World Championship event would be held there. It was pretty memorable, too. Here’s our pick of the five best one-off F1 venues. 5 Le Mans, France Sadly, the 1967 French Grand Prix didn’t take place on the full course used for the 24 Hours of Le Mans but the dull, 2.753-mile permanent Bugatti Circuit. Jack Brabham led home his Brabham team-mate, Denny Hulme. 4 Avus, Germany This bonkers 5.157-mile circuit consisted of a long stretch of autobahn near Berlin with a hairpin at one end and banked turn at the other. Uniquely, the 1959 German Grand Prix at the venue comprised two…

Enjoying a spirited drive in the countryside, I’ve often reflected on and felt deeply grateful for the enormous sacrifices made by our forebears to secure the freedoms we’ve taken for granted. I was therefore surprised and a little saddened to note the horn-blaring hostility displayed by a small number of motorists during my brief journey to refuel today. Perhaps the sight of a topless roadster not being conducted at the pace of a funeral cortège was understandably hard to stomach during such dreadful times. Had I been at the wheel of my wife’s SUV, I’m convinced that nobody would have passed comment. Due to age and infirmity, I’m likely to fall within a high-risk category, and I’ve banked the memory of empty roads and glorious spring sunshine in case I’m…

MILEAGE 5102 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Plug-in 330e will overtake 320d as the biggest-selling 3 Series, but can it match the diesel’s all-round appeal? While SUVs may seem to be taking over the world, when you look at the sales charts and the traffic on our roads, the BMW 3 Series is still showing just how important and relevant saloon cars are. As I’m discovering after recent extended stints in many an SUV, driving a saloon makes you feel so much more involved in the drive. There’s something about sitting low with your bum on the floor and having your legs near-horizontal that allows you to become really immersed in the experience. Things just come easily and with an air of familiarity. And no saloon does it better than the…

QUESTION I’ve seen a 2004-reg London taxi on sale for just £1250. It would seem to be a great family car, but are there any laws against private owners driving a black cab? Ken Jones, via email ANSWER Be in no doubt: an old taxi is slow, noisy and, aside from its tight turning circle, not much fun to drive. But there is a lot of room for passengers and luggage – and if the kids get too noisy, you can always slide the glass partition closed. Anyone can buy and run a black cab, but you should remove any operating signage. If it gets hit, spares and repairs are cheap. Insurance is reasonable through a specialist such as Adrian Flux. JE QUESTION I’d like to see the new Skoda…

Mini Cooper S £3250 Go used car shopping and sooner or later you’ll stumble across a Mini Cooper S. We’re talking the R53-era model of 2002-06, with a supercharged 161bhp 1.6-litre engine. Prices range from £1000 for a runner with some history and multiple previous keepers, through average cars for around £2500, to £4500 and upwards for the best. Our find is somewhere in between, a one-owner 2005-reg with 72,000 miles for £3250. It has the desirable Chili pack (alarm, manual air-con and xenon lights), a part-leather interior and a panoramic sunroof. The wag selling it said it had War and Peace history, which had us looking for Tolstoy in the logbook until someone pointed out that he meant there’s lots of it. The last fettle was at 71,000 miles…

“It remains to be seen if Ford will also offer a non-hybrid V8 option and a turbo four-cylinder engine” Ford’s muscle car icon, the Mustang, will enter its next generation in 2022 – and Autocar understands it will be brought into a new era with its first hybrid powertrain. An electrified variant of the Mustang will join the electric Mustang Mach-E, which is due to be delivered to customers from this autumn, as Ford’s electrification roll-out gathers momentum. Ford plans to launch 18 mild-hybrid and full-hybrid models by 2022, and the next Mustang is thought to be one of those. The firm is hoping for the new model to build on the success of the current, S550-generation car, which has been on sale since 2015 and was the first Mustang…

ASTON MARTIN MAY still not have enough working capital to sustain it for the next year, despite the recent £536 million fundraising round and rights issue led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll’s consortium. Stroll, who will take over as executive chairman of the car maker on 20 April, will rebrand his Racing Point F1 team Aston Martin F1 for the 2021 season. The injection will allow DBX production to start as soon as the St Athan factory returns to normality. First deliveries are set for the summer if the supply chain functions as anticipated. More than 2000 DBX orders have been taken already, plus there’s strong early demand for the new Vantage Roadster. However, the pandemic has still had a big impact on Aston, with its share price hitting a new…

Among Porsche enthusiasts – well, any car enthusiasts, really – the combination of the number 911 and the word Turbo has long enjoyed cult status. Back in 1974, Porsche redefined road car performance with the original 911 Turbo, fitting a turbocharged engine and an oversized rear wing to its signature model to create the legend that exists today. Ever since, the company has striven to refine the fundamental formula, even if there has been the odd change in philosophy along the way. Almost half a century later, we now have the seventh-generation 911 Turbo: the 992. It replaces the facelifted version of the 991-series 911 Turbo that was launched in 2016 and comes at a time when Porsche, with a record number of new petrol-engined and electric models in the…

Verdicts on every new car, p72 1 AUDI A3 35 TFSI S LINE S TRONIC SALOON It is starting to show its age now, but remains a slick operator. The car’s a little flat on character, though. 2 HYUNDAI i30 FASTBACK 1.4 T-GDI 140 PS PREMIUM SE DCT It lacks genuine badge appeal in this company but looks the part and drives well. Engine isn’t the last word in refinement, though. 3 HONDA CIVIC 1.0T EX SPORT LINE CVT It doesn’t quite fit the four-door coupé mould but drives sweetly and is hugely practical. Not as pricey as German rivals, either. 4 BMW 218i GRAN COUPE M SPORT Underwhelming engine and challenging looks let this 2 Series Gran Coupé down. Handling is not as sweet as we’d hoped. 5 MERCEDES-BENZ CLA 180 AMG…

Until a few weeks ago, buying a car online appeared to offer one major advantage over physically buying it from a dealer: convenience. Now you can add one more: safeguarding your health. If you must buy a car at this time, doing so remotely has much to commend it. Buying online has been around for years but is given extra prominence when, from time to time, a car maker or new player in the market launches its own platform, as Hyundai did in 2017 with Click to Buy. John Freel, one of its first customers, is full of praise for the new service. “I can’t be bothered going into showrooms and I don’t like being pressurised,” he says. “I did it at work when things were quieter and then thought:…

Formula 1 recently announced that it was going to withhold its new regulations, scheduled for next year, until 2022, but the timetable for technical revolution in the World Rally Championship won’t change. The new WRC rules weren’t scheduled to come in until 2022 anyway, and with only three manufacturers left at the sharp end (or two, with M-Sport Ford technically being a privateer), there’s no option to delay. Here’s the solution: the cars will become cheaper and less complex but still just as fast, and their powertrains will have a mandatory hybrid element. The basis of the current World Rally Car rules were introduced for the start of the 1997 season, allowing manufacturers that didn’t make a turbocharged four-wheel-drive car to compete with the big boys. The 2022 regulations take…

It has always been clear that Silverstone, the UK’s only official Formula 1 venue, has an extremely proud history. You can’t claim to be the ‘home of British motorsport’ without an attention-grabbing backstory. A few racing enthusiasts can just about recall seeing, in the very back of their motorsport memories, a few hazy black and white photos from Silverstone’s first race meeting of 1948, showing legendary drivers like Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina, Louis Chiron and Duncan Hamilton racing battered but beautiful pre-war single-seaters on a wide open airfield, its rudimentary circuit marked out in hay bales, dented oil drums and black lines of rubber. Until recently, Silverstone had no one to tell its wonderful story. The modern circuit’s management was justifiably preoccupied with staging race meetings, rally schools, track days and…

COMPARISON What’s the best small EV? The new Mini Electric fights the Peugeot e-208 and Renault Zoe as we name the best zero-emissions supermini on sale FEATURE Tom Hartley Colin Goodwin meets the most famous supercar dealer in Britain FEATURE Autocar during crises We’ve kept printing since 1895, even in world wars. What did we write about then? EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Hyundai i10 City cars are a dying breed – or are they? Hyundai shows how it’s done FIRST DRIVE Mercedes-Benz GLA The A-Class morphs into a family crossover. We rate it SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p34…

MILEAGE 6290 Interesting spot while poring through February’s UK new car sales data: while overall year-on-year sales were down 2.9%, the 3470 cars Toyota sold during the month was a whopping 47.71% up on February 2018 (2532). What changed? Well, there’s a silver clue in the picture below: the revived Corolla went on sale in March last year and sales of it largely accounted for that increase. It’s nice to see Toyota’s strong development work on the British-built car rewarded. JA TEST DATA TOYOTA COROLLA EXCEL 2.0 HYBRID Price £29,075 Price as tested £29,870 Faults None Expenses None Economy 46.8mpg Last seen 25.3.20…

MILEAGE 7235 INNOCENTI MINI I still have the adorable Italian car but haven’t been using it much due to… commitments. Well, insurance specifically: I hadn’t bothered to upgrade the cover to ‘agreed value’. I went through all the hoops and took photos, but sometimes I wonder about valuation departments. I know it’s a difficult one, but we agreed on what I paid for the car in euros plus what I’ve spent to fix it. Anyway, I got sent the fantastic badge pictured above by Steve Bennett. He had it lying around and posted it on. That wonderful fellow car enthusiast gesture is more important to me than what this stylish little Mini may be worth.…

Now she’s old enough to drive, at least in the UK, would Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg be seen behind the wheel of a Volvo? Perhaps if it was an S90 T8 Twin Engine. The plug-in hybrid can travel for up to 35 miles on electric power alone. It’s the quickest S90 in the range, being able to dispatch 0-62mph in 5.1sec yet, with a lighter foot and sufficient charging, can return 108mpg, although around 40mpg is more realistic. New, it costs £58,405 but it’s possible to find used ones from £34,000. The example we have in mind is a 2018-reg with 10,000 miles. However, that’s still £6000 more than a BMW 530e iPerformance M Sport Nav of the same age and mileage. The BMW is much less powerful (249bhp…

BMW 635 CSI AUTO A 635 still looks the business. This example, a 1987-reg with 107,000 miles, passed under the hammer recently, when it made £5512. It looks bright but it was no spring chicken and, at its advanced age, rust can be a problem. The four-speed auto ’box may be planning its retirement, too. This car had just had new discs all round but we’d have wanted to check that the ABS system worked and also that the engine was quiet from cold. Not that you can power cars up at most auctions. Which is why it’s wise to be around when they’re firing them up for the entry parade.…

Autocar called the Grand Cherokee 6.1 SRT-8 the performance 4x4 bargain of the year when it was launched in 2006. For £41,000, buyers were served a 6.1-litre V8 producing 420bhp and 420lb ft, going to all four wheels to give 0-62mph in 5.0sec. That kind of performance earned it a place at the table occupied by Porsche, BMW and Mercedes, for a fraction of what they cost. And it wasn’t just about straight-line speed. Bilstein dampers, anti-roll bars as thick as your wrist, stiffened suspension and massive 20in Goodyear Eagle tyres meant it could go around corners without sending your Big Mac flying. Today, 10 years after production ceased, prices for used SRT-8s start at around £12,500 for a 2007-reg with 82,000 miles and a full service history. The model…

The next generation of Peugeot models will kick off with the all-new 308 in 2022 – and the range is set to include a hybrid hot hatch under the brand’s new PSE performance arm. When it was launched in 2014, the current 308 kick-started the transformation of the entire Peugeot range with a more confident design approach. The successful, more daringly styled 3008 followed, along with the 5008, 208 and 2008. The next 308 is set to play that role again by laying the groundwork for a new era of Peugeots when it goes on sale in just under two years’ time, most likely after a public debut towards the end of 2021. It will be built on an updated version of the EMP2 platform that underpins more than a…

Ferrari plans to reveal two new models this year, and its commercial chief has hinted they will continue the push into new markets. The firm launched five new models in 2019, including the F8 Tributo, SF90 Stradale and Roma, as part of a major range expansion that’s set to include 15 cars in a five-year window. At the unveiling of the Roma, Enrico Galliera said 2020 would be “a year of consolidation” to support those launches. But when asked more recently if that meant Ferrari won’t unveil any new cars this year, he told Autocar: “We’re always planning to do something more, and we intend to make some news. We will launch two new models by the end of the year.” Galliera was speaking before the Covid-19 pandemic forced Ferrari…

THE PARIS MOTOR Show will not run “in its current form” this year, with organisers citing the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and its economic impact. The biennial event was due to begin on 29 September at the French capital’s Porte de Versailles exhibition centre. Alternating each year with Frankfurt in Germany, Paris is one of the biggest motor shows on the calendar, with more than a million people attending in 2018. In a statement, the organisers said that the decision was taken due to the “unprecedented health crisis” and the “economic shock wave” it had caused in the automotive industry. However, while Paris won’t be run as a traditional motor show, elements of the wider event, including a business-focused sustainability summit and a Smartcity festival, are said to be “not…

ASTON MARTIN’S NEW ‘hot vee’, dry-sump ‘TM01’ V6 engine, so named because the turbos lie in the vee of the engine, looks as exciting on paper as it probably will be in the flesh. Although Aston isn’t disclosing a huge amount of detail at this stage, the picture of it shown above reveals a lot. Starting at the bottom, there’s that sump. ‘Dry’ sump is a bit of a contradiction in terms, because sumps on engines store oil and dry sumps are designed to do the opposite. Instead of a large, deep sump full of engine oil, the dry sump is reduced to a shallow pan and gives two advantages. The main one is that oil is pumped around the engine from a separate tank, so there’s no chance of…

MODEL TESTED 218i GRAN COUPE M SPORT Price £27,240 • Power 138bhp • Torque 162lb ft • 0-60mph 8.8sec • 30-70mph in fourth 12.1sec • Fuel economy 42.0mpg • CO2 emissions 114g/km • 70-0mph 45.7m There’s an air of inevitability that seems to surround the new 2 Series Gran Coupé’s arrival into the BMW family. And curiously, if not totally unsurprisingly, this stems from the existence of a car of vastly greater proportions than this week’s road test subject, too. The launch of the original X6 in 2008 was an interesting moment in BMW history. To say it was a curiously styled beast would be to put things very kindly indeed, but for those brand traditionalists still struggling with the idea of BMW making any SUVs at all, Munich’s third X…

Limit handling is something the average 218i Gran Coupé owner is unlikely to explore too often and perhaps that’s just as well, because although the car didn’t disgrace itself on the Hill Route at Millbrook, neither did it impress or entertain as we’d have hoped. It’s true that this weak engine gives the driver few options to alter the attitude of the car, but the impression is that even more power wouldn’t help matters much. The suspension simply doesn’t have the precision to respond to subtle inputs and its softness allows the weight distribution of the car all too often to entirely dictate the handling characteristics. True, the Gran Coupé rarely descends into terminal understeer, but it is certainly inclined to push on whenever the opportunity presents itself. • Gran…

Great design is always a victim of its own success. Familiarity might not always lead to contempt, but it certainly breeds indifference. The original Audi TT has long since become an automotive background artist, a near-invisible part of any streetscape that rarely gets a second glance. Yet when it was new, it drew attention better than most supercars. I’m serious. Back in 1999, I got to drive an early TT coupé through central London months before UK sales started, and it was as if I were in a low-flying spacecraft or handing out £50 notes. On a gridlocked Euston Road, a bus driver heading in the opposite direction abandoned his double-decker and crossed several lanes of traffic to demand to know what this vision from the future was. Another bloke…

This might seem a bold thing to say, but here goes: there’s not a single attribute more important to the enjoyment of a car than the feel for the road derived through its steering. I’ll go further: there’s no single reason for the erosion of driving pleasure in recent years greater than the continued and continual loss of that feel. But what exactly is this feel whose passing I so lament? When I teach younger writers about the business of road testing, it’s the subject most likely to be raised, perhaps alongside determining the difference between primary and secondary ride. And for them it’s a real problem, because it’s hard to explain and harder still to understand. But for you who aren’t charged with reaching opinions and justifying conclusions about…

MILEAGE 4151 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To get to know Vauxhall’s new supermini and to test the combination of 1.2-litre petrol turbo triple and eight-speed auto The Corsa seems to have accumulated a lot of miles this past month or so without trying. You just jump in and go. I’m still getting used to how well the eight-speed automatic gearbox works with the refined but none-too-powerful (99bhp) petrol turbo triple. That’s probably because it produces a much more respectable 151lb ft at just 1750rpm, which in turn is why it can easily sustain high gears and low revs when cruising on a motorway. In the Normal driving mode, it usually stays in seventh; you’ve got to be doing 80-plus before it’ll select and stay in its top ratio. Two things…

Rover 200 Vi Rover enthusiast John recently acquired this wonderful 1997 200 Vi with only 52,000 miles. One family had owned it from new, looked after it very well and kept it garaged. When the son took on the car from his father in 2008, he added some of the then-available MG ZR parts, such as 17in wheels, half-leather seats and larger front brakes, as well as a BRM mesh grille. The plan has been to restore the car to its original condition, using all the parts removed and carefully stored. The Vi is rare now, with only 30 on UK roads.…

Abarth 695 Biposto Price £18,950 Biposto or preposterous? The longer you stare at one, the madder it seems. So what’s the fuss about? Well, it has just two seats, which always hints at some serious tweakery. Accordingly, the reworked 1.4-litre T-Jet engine produces 187bhp, or 45bhp more than the regular 695, and 184lb ft of torque. If you can find one with the optional five-speed dog-ring gearbox, that’ll have 199lb ft. Kerb weight is just 997kg, helping the little Abarth crack 0-62mph in 5.9sec. Akrapovic exhaust, brakes from the Tributo Ferrari… what’s not to like?…

An expert’s view NICK PEACE, RING ROAD JEEP “I’ve owned a few Grand Cherokees, including a 5.7 Hemi, but for the past 12 months I’ve been at the wheel of a seven-seat Commander 3.0 CRDi. Based on the Grand Cherokee, it’s practical, spacious and reliable. It’s well-equipped, too: there’s air-con in the rear, for example. It does 35mpg on a cruise and 20mpg around town. The build quality is good. Even though it’s done over 100,000 miles and is 13 years old, it still feels reasonably tight. And there’s not a speck of rust, either.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE Petrol engines thrive on 5W-20 or even 0W-20 oil, so check this has been a V8’s regular diet. On post-2009 CRD engines, look for oil cooler leaks caused by worn seals.…