Innholdsfortegnelse for June 10, 2020 i Autocar

WHAT IS UNDERSTOOD to be a test mule for the upcoming Range Rover-badged EV has been spotted on the road for the first time. Wearing a stretched Evoque shell, the machine is a very early engineering prototype. Expected to be the third JLR model based on the new MLA platform (after the new electric-only Jaguar XJ and the sixth-generation Range Rover), the EV is referred to internally as the Road Rover. Little is known about the model so far, but we expect it to have a sister in the Jaguar J-Pace and that both these cars will be built at JLR’s updated Castle Bromwich factory near Birmingham. The test mule gives a clue about the height and width of the new car, which clearly has a more substantial track than…

The coronavirus pandemic has presented major challenges to the whole car industry. And while the luxury end of the market has been somewhat insulated from the biggest difficulties caused by factory and showroom closures, companies operating in that sphere have still had to reinvent how they work – and it’s set to change the design focus of ultra-luxury cars. Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke division is considered, according to chief designer Alex Innes, to be “the apex of the pinnacle”. The most prominent example of its work is the one-off Sweptail of 2017, but the division also produces highly customised versions of the Phantom, Ghost, Wraith and Dawn. Innes and the design team work directly with ultra-wealthy customers to produce one-off designs to exacting standards. Much of that work is done face to…

HISTORICALLY, THE ONLY link between a car and the humble household refrigerator has been the air-conditioning system. Now, though, that link is becoming stronger, because the same technology can play a significant role in extending the range of EVs and reducing their charging times. The car’s relationship with heat is of the love-hate kind, and just because we’re steadily moving from burning fuels to drawing power from a battery, that isn’t going to change much. Heat is an inevitable consequence of burning fuel, but once the fire is set inside a combustion engine and liquid is converted into expanding gas to drive pistons or turbines, the heat that’s left is the uninvited guest that nobody wants. Its creation squanders more than half the energy contained in the fuel that’s sucked…

So much in life has changed over the past few months, but one thing that hasn’t is the Honda Jazz – even if during that time the old third-generation car has gone out of production to be replaced by this new, fourth-generation model. Jazz owners will be pleased to know that this all-new car is still very much a Jazz. You can tell as much by looking at it; there’s no mistaking it for anything other than the spacious, safe and sturdy supermini-cum-mini-MPV it always has been. We don’t like change and all that. What change there has been all comes under the ‘added value’ mantra used to describe the ethos behind the new car. So in Jazz land, the new, comfier seat design and improved visibility is as big…

1 BMW 420i CONVERTIBLE M SPORT AUTO Fave four-seat cabrio, in run-out, has £6.5k deposit contribution deals, making it almost T-Roc money. Old but good to drive. 2 MERCEDES-BENZ C200 CABRIOLET AMG LINE AUTO You can get even more off Merc’s entry-level C-Class cab through dealer stock; up to £8k. Slick, rounded and desirable. 3 AUDI TT ROADSTER 40 TFSI SPORT S TRONIC Only a two-seater, with a smaller boot than the VW, but a lot more special – to look at and to drive – and no more expensive. 4 AUDI A3 CABRIOLET 35 TFSI S TRONIC S LINE Closest thing to a direct rival shares the T-Roc’s engine but uses it better. Marginally less practical, but still preferable. 5 BMW 218i CONVERTIBLE M SPORT AUTO Another long-in-the-tooth BMW,…

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When Pierre Leclercq joined Citroën as head of design 18 months ago, it seemed to him like a homecoming – even though in more than 20 years of car design he had never worked at the company. In fact, he wasn’t even born in France, but in the Ardennes region of Belgium. In Leclercq’s case, there was a lot of early family influence. Most of the miles he covered as a child were in Citroëns owned by his parents or grandparents, and although his family weren’t die-hard car enthusiasts, they certainly had a strong Citroën allegiance that rubbed off on young Pierre. “We car designers dream of cars and draw them from our earliest days,” he says. “They represent the major experiences of our lives. The cars I’ve chosen here…

Pen tool To draw detailed paths around objects for specific selections. Brush Can be anything from a sharpened pencil to a soft airbrush. Dodge and Burn To highlight or darken specific tones, using the desired Brush. Blending Layers Photoshop allows you to stack objects in layers for easy editing and choose how these layers interact with each other. Masks Virtual masks can be created to control layers of transparency, giving you unlimited freedom to edit non-destructively.…

It’s often said there’s nothing new under the sun, and that’s as true in the automotive world as anywhere else. We’re constantly being dazzled with the latest tech, but it only takes a quick flick through the history books to discover that much of what’s ‘new’ has actually been seen before – often decades ago. Here we look at 10 relatively recent innovations and find out just how fresh they really are. Plus we note five engineering inventions that promised to transform the way we drive, before pretty much disappearing without a trace. So dig in for a little motoring déjà vu. Hybrids The Toyota Prius was arguably the car that kick-started this revolution in 1997, although Alfa Romeo and Audi were experimenting with hybrids in the 1980s. Yet this…

Everywhere you look in West Surrey Racing’s Sunbury-on-Thames base, there are trophies. While many are nicely displayed surrounding a 1981 Formula 3 car in a welcome room, there are some in reception. In a cabinet on the staircase. In meeting rooms. In corridors. Balanced along the wall supports of the main workshop. Yes, there are a lot of trophies. Dick Bennetts, the engineering ace who founded WSR in 1981, is proud of his team’s trophy collection – although he quips, semi-jokingly, that he’d rather the British Touring Car Championship hand out prize money instead. Still, all this silverware represents his team’s remarkable 39-year history, as a dominant force in British F3 and now as the multi-title-winning standard-bearer in the BTCC. Arriving in Britain from New Zealand in 1972 to spanner…

I must be one of only a few readers with a clear recollection of this magazine in the war years. I had read The Motor since I was five, so I was a seasoned reader aged eight when the war began. I think that quite a few of the articles from that period would reprint well today, perhapsps with some commentary. Three examples: ‘Engine amidships, forward control’ by Peter Clark, a well-known sports car racer (especially for HRG) of the period. He essentially foresaw the Porsche Boxster all those years ago. ‘How slowly they went’ by Douglas Tubbs, which contrasted Le Mans’ Bentley years with the speeds of the smaller-capacity cars 10 years later. And a forecast that a saloon car of only about 900cc could achieve 90mph in the…

QUESTION I’m after a nearly new hybrid all-wheel-drive car for around £30,000. I’m 6ft 4in tall and have a bad back, so I’m after something that won’t be difficult to get in and out of. Any ideas?Jerry Brown, Norwich ANSWER The two obvious choices are the Honda CR-V 2.0 i-MMD Hybrid and Toyota RAV4 2.5 VVT-i Hybrid. Your budget will get you a tidy example of either. Go for the CR-V if you’re more concerned about comfort, or pick the RAV4 if it’s the best fuel economy you’re after. DR QUESTION I’m after a spacious hatch or estate for regular five-mile trips. It needs to be reliable, with a decent boot. I’ve got a diesel Ford Focus from 2009 presently and I’m looking to spend about £4000.Susan Richards, Bromley ANSWER…

Alfa Romeo Spider V6 £8500 We rain-cursed Brits, ironic bunch that we are, love convertibles. But with the summer seemingly here to stay (now I’ve done it), it’s time for a drop-top dive into the classifieds. You can keep your Mazda MX-5s and Porsche Boxsters – this is a pick of left-field options, starting with the lesser-spotted Alfa Romeo Spider V6. While the 2.0 Twin Spark versions are much more common, the V6 feels significantly more special, thanks to its powerful, raspy exhaust note. The front-driven Spider is a fun steer, too, but it’s a pretty stunning specimen even as an ornament; that Pininfarina-penned two-seat wedge just has an effortless glamour to it. This particular 3.0-litre 24-valve V6 is an early example of a variant that was around for only…

TOYOTA HAS GIVEN the Hilux a makeover after four years on sale, overhauling its design, revising the chassis and adding a new, more powerful engine. The refreshed Ford Ranger-rivalling pick-up truck will go on sale in November, with prices yet to be announced. Chief among the styling updates is a revised front end, while LED lights front and rear are now fitted to higher-end models as standard. Inside, there’s an improved infotainment system with an 8.0in touchscreen, standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and updated software. Toyota has introduced the 2.8-litre diesel engine offered in other markets to complement the 2.4-litre unit. This makes 201bhp and 369lb ft of torque for a 0-62mph time of 10.0sec. WLTP efficiency figures have yet to be released. Finally, the suspension of the Hilux…

NISSAN’S SUNDERLAND plant “will not be sustainable” in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal, the manufacturer’s global chief operating officer has said. Speaking to the BBC last week, Ashwani Gupta said: “You know we are the number one car maker in the UK and we want to continue. We are committed. Having said that, if we aren’t getting the current tariffs, it’s not our intention but the business will not be sustainable. That’s what everybody has to understand.” Gupta’s statement came after Nissan confirmed its commitment to making the British factory the hub of its European operations. Sunderland employs 7000 workers and made 350,000 cars last year, but 70% of that output is exported and sold to EU markets. If the UK doesn’t secure…

The push to expand online car sales services due to the Covid-19 lockdown will change the way new vehicles are sold forever, according to Volvo’s UK boss. Registrations of new cars were virtually halted after the UK government’s lockdown rules forced dealerships to close in mid-March. Showrooms were finally allowed to reopen in England on 1 June and Northern Ireland on 8 June, but there’s still no firm date for when showrooms in Wales and Scotland will be allowed to open. With dealerships closed, car firms and dealers attempted to maintain some level of service for customers by expanding their online operations. Volvo UK, for example, accelerated enhancements to its online sales service, launched a click-and-collect service (allowed from 13 May) and brought forward the full launch of Volvo Valet,…

This new version of the Corsa is surely Britain’s best-selling electric car elect. As keenly priced and with a real-world electric range as good as a whole host of other recently arrived zero-emission rivals, the Corsa-e is not lacking in showroom appeal nor in the number of Vauxhall showrooms across the country that will sell it. Just as the Corsa supermini has been the first car of so many people over the years, the Corsa-e is likely to be the first electric car of many more. We were impressed with the Corsa-e on first acquaintance, in the early spring in Germany, when one could cross a border freely before you know what. And now, a touch later than advertised, the Corsa-e is with Vauxhall dealers ready to try to convert…

MODEL TESTED 1.0 SZ4 For such a small car, the Celerio has already had a disproportionately large amount of coverage in this magazine. The car might well have justified it all by virtue of being new, interesting, practical and well priced – and we’ve come to expect nothing less from Suzuki. And yet the car also had a UK launch marked by controversy because six weeks ago during our own initial road test performance benchmarking session, it failed a routine emergency braking test after the pedal collapsed. In fact, two cars did so in fairly quick succession. Suzuki has now recommissioned the part at fault and retrofitted it to affected cars. It’s a clear example of a safety-critical defect being flushed out by what we believe to be the most…

To category is where tin-top sports racing cars me at least, the GT4 are at. Ten years ago it would have been GT3 but, not only are GT4s as quick today as were GT3s back then, you can also drop a million quid into GT3 racing with frightening ease and still find your best efforts come to nought when some snake-hipped, gimlet-eyed, no-prisoners professional pedaller barely out of short trousers decides that rather than lose a couple of tenths going around you, he’ll just stick you in the barrier instead. A modern GT3 car is a formidable weapon capable of lapping Spa at the same sort of pace as Group C prototypes from the early 1980s. GT4s are still bloody rapid – I raced a McLaren 570S GT4 at Spa…

AUDI R8 MK2 Spy pictures of heavily clad prototypes made it difficult to work out how the car’s nose would look and whether Audi would keep the famous side blade. Unfortunately it didn’t, and this R8 hasn’t aged nearly as well as the original. CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8 There was even more cladding on the test mules for the latest Corvette, but the previous generation’s progressive styling approach made it pretty easy to predict, which is boring but good for me. FORD MUSTANG MACH-E There were no spy pictures to study here but lots of great information from our journalists about bodystyle and size. I thought Ford’s forgotten EVOS concept from 2011 would be a great start to evolve with the latest Mustang’s styling.…

THE WILLIAMS GRAND Prix team is up for sale, which could potentially lead to the end of one of F1’s most successful teams. Since Sir Frank Williams launched his eponymous constructor in 1977, it has claimed 311 podiums, 114 wins, seven drivers’ championships and nine constructors’ crowns. While results have been lean in recent years, let’s celebrate five of the team’s best F1 cars. 5 Williams-BMW FW25 (2003) The FW25 was arguably a better car than its results – four wins and second place in the constructors’ championship – suggest. It was mightily fast, with superb aerodynamics, the most powerful engine on the grid and two fine drivers in Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher. But a series of mishaps and technical issues blunted Montoya’s title charge. 4 Williams-Renault FW18…

TWIN TEST Volkswagen Golf vs Ford Focus The family hatchback battle of the ages enters its latest phase as the eighth-generation Golf arrives INTERVIEW Lambo’s archivist Meet the man who looks after the coolest back office in the world FEATURE Cropley’s heroes The people our man has respected the most, past and present EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Audi A8 TFSIe Plug-in hybrid variant of luxurious range-topper meets our testers USED BUYING GUIDE Chevrolet Corvette C3 America’s sports car can be yours for as little as £12,000 SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p32 CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE…

MILEAGE 84,502 BMW 320 While the Baby Shark was in for its MOT, my local garage didn’t have a great deal on, so I thought it would be an opportune moment to ask them to straighten out the piece of trim that twisted itself into a knot last year. I’d threatened to do it myself, but I’ve been busy and that isn’t something you should rush. Anyway, they charged me £40. That’s cheaper than a replacement from Germany I saw for around €90 (£80-ish) plus postage. And it stays original. There’s the merest hint of a bump but then I know where to feel. It’s the least vital of a heap of cosmetic jobs on the list, mind – a good clean being one of them.…

Until pretty recently, an SUV from Alfa Romeo would have seemed as likely as Raymond Blanc donning the head chef apron at McDonald’s. But here we are. And the truth is that the Stelvio offers the same characteristics of engaging handling and charismatic styling that made so many of Alfa Romeo’s cars popular in its long, romantic (and chequered) history. Built on the same platform as the Giulia saloon, its remarkably light aluminium body fat-shames all of its rivals. And while one of its main drawbacks from new was its poor residual values, that in turn makes it worthy of focus in these used pages. For power, you have the choice of a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine with 197bhp or 276bhp or a 2.2-litre turbodiesel with 188bhp or 207bhp. As…

The CX GTi Turbo is so fiercely rare that it’s surprising to see one at all, let alone one sold for a reasonable £6254. Its immaculate condition in the pictures seems backed up by plenty of paperwork and a trouble-free recent MOT. And what a car to cruise around in, with its angular snout and part-covered rear wheels creating a sublime profile. The interior looks particularly peachy, with its single-spoke wheel a striking centrepiece. The 2.5-litre intercooled turbo engine makes 166bhp and, after just 93k miles, should still have plenty left to offer.…

For a long while, the Reliant Scimitar GTE was a maligned oddity to be avoided at all costs, but this distinctive-looking shooting brake has finally come of age and now is the time to buy. Penned by Tom Karen – whose designs for the Bond Bug three-wheeler and iconic Raleigh Chopper bicycle have become emblematic of 1970s Britain – the Scimitar GTE’s glassfibre bodyshell is, by its nature, immune to rusting, but it can scare buyers off because any damage repairs or paintwork will be costlier to carry out. That’s why neglected cars and unfinished projects can still be found for around £1000. Numbers dropped steadily throughout the 1990s as the distinctive four-seater fell victim to astronomical insurance premiums and a dubious – some say undeserved – reputation for unreliability,…

GOT A STORY? Email our news editor lawrence.allan@haymarket.com “We need a global product that appeals to younger buyers and more females” Jaguar is weighing up a number of options for replacing its slow-selling XE and XF saloons, including a radical electrified saloon and a smaller, hatchback-style model. The next 12 months will be crucial for Jaguar Land Rover as it attempts to recover from the huge financial disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also a period in which the Jaguar brand will come under intense scrutiny as it searches for a formula that will deliver at least one more big-volume new vehicle to boost profits. Jaguar hasn’t ruled out directly replacing the two saloons but, with the market shifting away from such models, Autocar understands the firm is considering…

ASTON MARTIN PLANS to cut up to 500 jobs from its 2600-stong workforce as part of a further £10 million cost-cutting programme in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. The planned cuts are aimed at bringing the ailing firm’s cost base in line with reduced production of its sports cars. In a statement, Aston Martin said the strategic plan requires a “fundamental reset” to “rebalance supply and demand”. Aston Martin will consult employees and trade unions as part of wider cost savings in manufacturing and capital expenditure. It recorded a pre-tax loss of £118.9 million in the first three months of 2020. Meanwhile, Aston Martin’s second biggest shareholder, Investment Industrial Advisors Limited, has reduced its stake by a quarter to 14.99%.…

Last month’s UK new car registration figures were the lowest for May since 1952, the SMMT has revealed. A total of 20,247 cars were registered, down 80% from May 2019. Two-thirds were private sales. However, that’s a near-fivefold increase over this April, after click-and-collect services were given the green light on 13 May. Electric cars was the only segment to increase, up 21.5% year on year. The Tesla Model 3 topped the overall sales chart again, with 852 delivered, as orders taken pre-lockdown were fulfilled. The market was down by more than half, year on year, in the first five months of 2020.…

Not every car manufacturer believes that there is demand for a switch to online sales in the immediate future. Seat’s UK boss, Richard Harrison, said that although the firm has launched some digital services, there has been limited take-up of online sales. Seat UK launched online sales capacity at stores located in the Lakeside and Westfield White City shopping centres, in Essex and West London respectively, but Harrison said demand had been “remarkably low – less than 1%”. He added: “Buyers really value the human interaction, much more than being able to buy online.” Harrison said Seat UK has developed a Live Showcase ‘virtual showroom’, where customers can be shown around a vehicle to help inform their decisions before they head to dealerships.…

The eighth generation of Volkswagen’s market-leading, class-defining family hatchback is perhaps more usefully thought of not so much as a new Golf as a different Golf. This car may use an updated version of the same platform and chassis as the seventh-generation car, be pretty much the same size and use reworked versions of many of the same engines and gearboxes, but don’t be fooled by that stuff. The Golf has been changed, subtly but noticeably. It’s a car that suggests Wolfsburg has realised, underneath the familiar media messaging, that ‘progressive’ understated design and product positioning will no longer allow this Golf to sit at the epicentre of the European car market, and to top the Continent’s annual sales volume statistics, in quite the way it has for decades. In…

MODEL TESTED 1.5 TSI EVO R-LINE DSG We like • Decent four-seater usability • Agreeable convenience and ease of use • Low-speed refinement and agility We don’t like • Weight dulls performance and penalises ride and handling • Not much more spacious than other compact cabriolets • Size and bulk limit the car’s stylishness This week’s test subject, the T-Roc Cabriolet, provides a new kind of motoring experience, according to Volkswagen: one that mixes “the rugged appeal of an SUV with the feel-good factor of the wind-in-the-hair open-top”. And anyone still puzzled as to why it might exist need only direct their attention to the sales figures of its manufacturer to find an explanation. Having been available in only one bodystyle since its launch in 2017, the T-Roc has become…

VERDICT If the T-Roc Cabriolet were an experiment in a researcher’s laboratory or a chef’s kitchen, it wouldn’t avoid the dustbin for very long. It is, however, a car – and it’d appear to be the kind of car to strike a chord with a certain type of customer; one who, it’s probably fair to say, might not have particularly high expectations of it. Run through a list of the compromises it represents in contrast to a more conventional lower-slung compact cabrio (its awkward looks, tepid performance, clunky ride, flawed dynamic composure at speed), then compare that list with what the car actually brings to its market segment (slightly improved four-seater practicality, convenience, ease of use and urban drivability), and it’s very hard to make a convincing, rational case for…

Designing a new car ready for production takes years. There’s all sorts of legislation to adhere to, as well as ensuring all the oily bits underneath fit where they should and all those sharp lines can actually be produced. But the pure design work of a new car need only take a few minutes, or even seconds. We’ve all done a sketch on a piece of scrap paper during a meeting (even if they always end up looking something like The Simpsons’ Homermobile). To take that further, computer design software has democratised car design. Anyone who knows their way around Adobe Photoshop can now create a realistic-looking (well, depending on how good they are) new car. We do this at Autocar to help illustrate our scoop stories on upcoming new…

DYSON EV With absolutely no clue on what kind of car Dyson would make, other than it would be electric, I had to go bold and futuristic, hoping the company might be the first to break away from the ICE-derived box shapes that we’re used to. This was before we knew Dyson had hired an ex-Land Rover designer – a fact that would have had a big impact on my thought process. LOTUS EVIJA I knew Lotus would need a new direction and that I had to completely ignore the Dany Bahar-era concepts everybody else looked to. As some of our forum users pointed out, I actually took influence from an old Lotus Hot Wheels car. I just loved its Coke-bottle shape. But Russell Carr’s design is much better. NISSAN…

Whether it was while squeezing into your garage at home, navigating the tight multi-storey car park at work or risking your alloywheels on one of those narrow-lane Channel Tunnel train crossings recently, you will almost certainly have noticed how much larger modern cars are than their older equivalents. Size has become a pressing concern of many keen drivers and Autocar readers, with few topics inspiring such regular correspondence. “How much longer can it go on,” we’re asked, “before the cars we drive are patently too large for the roads we drive on and the spaces we park in?” It’s reasonable enough to wonder. Today’s Range Rover is more than 200mm wider and 550mm longer, in standard-wheelbase form, than the 1970 original. Today’s Volkswagen Polo is considerably larger than the original…

I first met six-time World Rally Champion and current points leader Sébastien Ogier wearing a sombrero. For once, the grammatical ambiguity of that sentence is irrelevant, because we were both wearing sombreros. And guess what? In the course of a lockdown clear-out (which I guess a few people have been doing recently), I actually found my sombrero: crumpled at the bottom of an old suitcase along with a vicar’s cassock (don’t ask). I was given this headwear at the 2008 Rally Mexico – the first round of what turned out to be Ogier’s title year in the Junior WRC – when his Citroën team was hosting a pre-rally shindig that ticked every Mexican cliché in the book. The 24-year-old Frenchman was introduced, looking slightly geeky with a pudding-bowl haircut and…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 6445 WHY WE RAN IT To find out if Toyota can cut it with the best in the cut-throat family car class To mark the end of the Toyota Corolla’s time on our fleet, it seemed fitting to take it back to where it came from. While it may have the shiny badge of a Japanese car giant on the front, our Corolla was, like many a Bakewell tart, proudly made in Derbyshire. I recently visited Toyota’s Burnaston plant for a feature on this Anglo-Japanese success story (29 April) and made the trip in a car that rolled off the production line there not long before. The trip wasn’t all about looking back: my Excel-spec hatchback also ‘met’ the two newest members of the Corolla family: the…

Bentley Continental GTC Hugely grateful to Peter for sharing this image of his beautiful Bentley, which is a wonderful way to travel. “At only 31,000 miles, this future classic is now just run in,” Peter says. “Apart from an annual service at a Bentley main agent, the only additional expenditure in the past six years has been a new battery. Such reliability does not come cheap but, at £40,000, it is available for only one-fifth of the current new price. The deep exhaust note of the twin-turbo W12 conveys a great sense of well-being to the discerning driver.”…

Ford Focus RS Price £21,500 Alas, the Mk3 Ford Focus RS won’t have a successor, and so ends a chapter of cherished automotive history from a little corner of Essex. Nobody does a hot hatch like the Blue Oval. This precise thinking, you can bet, will make ST and RS versions of the Focus become ever-hotter property as the years go by and countless other rivals are culled in the name of CO2 emissions legislation. At £21,500, this Focus RS is at the bottom end of the Mk3 price range, which, as a measure of fast Ford popularity, is where prices for the Mk2 Focus RS top out.…

An expert’s view WILL SPARROW, EX-RELIANT DEALER AND RESTORER “The people who have them now look after them. These cars needed sorting out – and I did that as a dealer and then I moved on to restoring them for people. The engines are Ford, so nothing was too difficult. The early ones had chassis problems and the axles used to whine – you could rebuild them and they’d still whine, so that was something you had to live with quite often – but you never had body rust.” Buyer beware… ▪ BODY Glassfibre bodywork means that panel rust isn’t a concern, but damage repair is a specialist job. Focus your attention underneath – especially on non-galvanised pre-1981 cars – where corrosion is known to eat away at the bumper…