Innholdsfortegnelse for October 21, 2020 i Autocar

Skoda will finally bring its ever-popular Fabia supermini back into line with its Volkswagen Group siblings with an all-new version next year, Autocar can confirm. Plans to bring the fourth-generation Fabia to market in 2022 have been revised to reduce the complexity of having older and newer platforms produced at the same time within the group. As such, it will be revealed in the first half of next year, with first examples expected to arrive in UK showrooms well before the end of 2021. The current architecture of the Fabia, a re-engineered version of a platform first used back in 2008, will be junked in favour of purely MQB A0 underpinnings. That’s the same platform used by the Audi A1 Sportback, Seat Ibiza and Volkswagen Polo – as evidenced by…

Hyundai’s long-awaited challenger to the Ford Fiesta ST, the i20 N, has been unveiled ahead of sales beginning in spring 2021. Described as a “race-track-capable hot hatch”, it is said to take inspiration from the brand’s successful i20 World Rally Championship car. At the core of the i20 N’s performance aspirations is a new 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. Tuned for 201bhp and 203lb ft, it is sufficient to achieve a quoted 0-62mph time of 6.7sec and a top speed of 143mph. Hyundai claims one of the best power-to-weight ratios in the class, at 169bhp per tonne, compared with 156bhp per tonne for the 197bhp Fiesta ST. The new engine uses an uprated turbocharger and intercooler, plus a 350 bar fuel injection system and Hyundai’s new Continuously Variable Valve Duration…

FOLLOWING LAST WEEK’S explanation of V8 engines, how could we not follow up with a look at Ford’s new 7.3-litre Godzilla V8? Announced last year to power the next crop of Ford’s Super Duty pick-up trucks, the Godzilla is far from cutting edge; in fact, it’s about as old-school as things get these days. Harking back to the Ford FE big-block V8 of the 1950s, which was also developed for trucks but went on to power the likes of the 1960s Mustang, the Godzilla is a two-valves-per-cylinder pushrod engine with traditional port fuel injection, rather than modern direct fuel injection. It still has a cast-iron block but with alloy cylinder heads and is built using modern materials and components, such as low-friction-coated pistons and a variable-capacity oil pump that consumes…

For a large chunk of the Range Rover’s past half-century of life, fuel consumption and engine efficiency was something you were educated not to worry about. If you can afford that car, sages would say, you can surely afford the petrol. In the very earliest days, 12mpg was almost something to boast about, a measure of the owner’s ability to pay. It’s different nowadays. Creators of large luxury SUVs must deliver efficiency and comparatively low exhaust emissions – and then loudly publicise their achievement – simply to justify the products’ continued existence, and to meet rapidly tightening CO2 fleet standards around the world. Which is why Jaguar Land Rover is taking the trouble to launch mild-hybrid (MHEV in Land Rover language) diesel versions of its flagship SUV only about a…

The compact crossover class is more cut-throat than most, with almost every manufacturer worth its salt trying to get a slice of this crowded sector. Audi’s Q2 has been one of the more successful players, racking up around 17,000 sales a year since its launch in 2016, making it the firm’s best-selling SUV. Crucially, 50% of buyers are new to the brand, making this an important gateway model. To keep those sales ticking over, the Q2 has been under the knife for a nip and tuck. Unsurprisingly, given the jacked-up supermini’s youthful target demographic, the updates revolve around some sharpened looks and enhanced technology, including the new options of adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist. The stylists haven’t exactly been too bold, so you’ll need your ‘Audi Q2 Spotters Guide’…

As fans of the British Touring Car Championship in the mid-1990s will attest, Volvo has a proud tradition of producing practical, spacious and surprisingly stylish estate cars. But times have changed since the 850 used to battle for tin-top glory, and the firm’s current success is built on its range of SUVs. For the future, Volvo is firmly focused on electrification through its Recharge range of plug-in hybrid and electric powertrains. All of which is to say that the firm’s V90 – a large estate for which sales have traditionally been dominated by diesel engines – might feel somewhat outdated, a reminder of past glories that doesn’t quite fit in 2020. But thankfully, Volvo still believes there’s plenty of life left in a classic load-lugger, which it has demonstrated by…

MODEL TESTED POLESTAR 1 Price £139,000 • Power 601bhp • Torque 738lb ft • 0-60mph 4.2sec • 30-70mph in fourth 3.9sec • Fuel economy 67.7mpg • CO2 • emissions 15g/km • 70-0mph 43.0m The bold, alternative and alluring Polestar 1 is a car that feels like it has had a very protracted journey from drawing board to showroom. It was, in some ways, the genesis of a new car company as much as a car. It has taken huge guts for the Volvo Car Group to deliver at all, reaching as it is up into exotic sports car territory for the very first time; doing that with a hybrid-powered grand tourer as challenging and unconventional as any in the world; and just trusting it will find buyers ready to embrace…

VERDICT The Polestar 1 is a fascinating departure point for its maker. So much about it is refreshing, not least the socially responsible, understated positioning, which seems exactly what the luxury car market needs right now. For an owner, the car’s chief asset is likely to be its rounded, adaptable character. It’s also the very car for those who have ever said they would have a plug-in hybrid but for the breed-typical 30-mile electric range. Here you can have twice that and more, if only you can pay for it – which, if you hadn’t noticed, is a pretty big if. Some will expect more conventional driver appeal. The 1’s driving experience certainly leaves room to ponder if it could have been lighter still. Didn’t it need a more exotic…

In April, there was a generational change in company car taxation designed to push drivers towards electric and plug-in hybrid models. Benefit in kind (BIK) on electric cars was reduced all the way down to zero, and to between 2% and 12% on plug-in hybrids, depending on their electric-only range. Electric cars generally remain unsuitable for many a company car driver covering a significant daily mileage typically due to charging speed and network reliability, so plug-in hybrids have quickly become the default choice for company car buyers to swap their diesel mile-eaters for. And none does it better than the BMW 330e. The tax bill for someone running a 330e was cut by close to £1000 a year for a 40% taxpayer as a result of the new rules, moving…

Why is a big car big? Unless you’re into the rarefied atmosphere of Bentley and Rolls-Royce, it’s for a practical purpose: to carry people and stuff. That’s what the Citroën Berlingo does with exceptional brilliance. The fact that it does this with charm and character, while delivering ride comfort virtually as good as that of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class bristling with complex electronic aids, adds to the piquancy of the recipe. You want carrying capacity? Start with a big steel box. Better still, start with a choice of two steel boxes of different lengths depending on whether you want to carry five people or seven. Give said box sliding rear doors for efficient loading in confined spaces. For further convenience, add a huge, overhanging tailgate that gives a low loading height…

It won’t come as a surprise that our award winner here is a hatchback. Fashion may increasingly favour other, bigger, heavier bodystyles, but fashions are temporary. When you look at how versatile hatchbacks are and how much they offer for often so little outlay, it’s hard to argue that an all-rounder gong could go to anything else. Not all hatchbacks are created equal; some offer premium brand refinements and desirability, others added performance and driver appeal. Yet if a small band of designers and engineers hadn’t got together at Volkswagen in 1974 to set out on the unofficial, out-of-hours project that would lead to the first Golf GTI, today’s highly developed hatchback market would probably look very different. No single car has done more, over eight model generations and more…

The Peugeot e-208 wins its category by showing how comparatively simply users of regular cars should be able to adapt to electric motoring in the future. Also for bringing with it the driving and beauty standards from the upper echelon of the fiercely fought supermini market. While other electric car makers are launching oversized, overpriced offerings into the premium market or excusing themselves from providing decent ranges in superminis by insisting “it’s a city car”, Peugeot has made a 4.0m hatchback that’s as well packaged as its piston-driven siblings and offers a decent official range of 217 miles. Peugeot isn’t quite the first to do this; that was Renault a few years ago with the Zoe. But on dynamic, refinement and aesthetic grounds, the new e-208 is certainly the better…

It’s like a tinplate toy made real. It seemed old when it was new, conjuring a 1950s world of Formica kitchen cabinets, Dansette record players and the clumsily miniaturised American cars that Britain, Germany and Japan specialised in during the immediate post-war years. Yet the Figaro was 35 years too late for this era, a fact soon apparent when you stepped inside to discover a CD player – hot stuff in 1990 – combined with a radio and a cassette tape player, electric windows and air conditioning. In fact, it was mainly the 1930s that this curious car drew from, its largely female design team inspired by the 1935 Datsun Roadster and the art deco era – hence electric window switches shaped like miniature chrome lampshades – to produce a…

When Michael Schumacher scored his 91st and final grand prix victory, it was impossible to imagine anyone getting anywhere near his record. Yet just 14 years after he crossed the finish line in China on 1 October 2006, a man who would only make his Formula 1 debut a few months later is now officially the German’s equal on race wins, and surely soon on world titles as well – and there isn’t even a flicker of surprise about that. For some time, it has seemed only a question of when, not if, Lewis Hamilton will statistically become the greatest of them all. The 35-year-old sure has come a long way since Martin Whitmarsh first met a strikingly confident karting prodigy. As McLaren boss Ron Dennis’s loyal and trusted lieutenant,…

I so agree with Andrew Frankel in his feature ‘Something to lighten the mood’ (23 September). I purchased my 1992 Vauxhall-engined HPC in 1996. I had wanted a Seven since my teens in the 1960s, and it was largely Autocar’s road test of an HPC and later articles by Frankel about building and running one that persuaded me it was the model I wanted. I still have it, and it has toppedped 60,000 miles. It’s tweaked with about 190bhp, a close-ratio five-speed gearbox and Weber carbs, so an interesting noise is all part of the fun. I rarely get near the limit, because the major inhibitors to reaching its full potential are visibility and my limited skill. I also own a Mk7.5 Volkswagen Golf GTI Performance, but for enjoyment it’s…

MILEAGE 3777 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if it’s good enough to be a credible fast Ford hatchback flagship Engines in fast hatchbacks are curious things. Today’s turbo technology means we can now prise huge power from their necessarily small capacities and install them in relatively affordable packages, so we tend to forgive them their faults. So what if they have a peaky delivery and sound rubbish? For that much power, and for this much money, what did you expect? Which is just one more somewhat unexpected reason why I’m finding myself getting on with this Focus ST so well. Under its bonnet is anything other than just another hot hatchback meat-and-two-veg lump of high-output, forced-induction mediocrity. In this application it is actually quite brilliant. Context is everything.…

BMW 320 The Baby Shark doesn’t have that many gadgets, but I do quite like the tyre pressure gauge, which beeps reassuringly at me when we go out. It was a bit more persistent last time, indicating that the offside front was just a couple of bars down. I looked at the cool tyre a few hours later and discovered that, yes, it was visibly deflated – although not by much. This served as a reminder that it’s basic observation that ultimately keeps a motor fit and well. Although the Shark doesn’t do as many long journeys as it once did, actual full tyre replacement remains on the agenda as a lot of garage budget-shuffling goes on.…

What you’re looking at could feasibly be seen as a concept car for the future, yet it’s actually a design that’s six years old. The BMW i8, which in fact has already gone out of production, uses a mixture of lightweight materials, extensive aerodynamics and hybrid technology to create a more ethical sports car that can crack 0-60mph in 4.5sec. Rather than a large petrol engine as per rivals like the Porsche 911 and Audi R8, the i8 uses a 228bhp 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbo, which is mounted behind the cabin and drives the rear wheels. It is joined by a 129bhp electric motor that powers the front axle. Extensive use of carbonfibre makes the i8 light, so it can go hard all the way to the 155mph limiter. Throw in…

MERCEDES-BENZ 560 SEC AMG What you’re gawping at here is one of the last cars modified by a little-known independent tuner called AMG before it started selling its wares in Mercedes-Benz dealerships. Based on the already-potent 560 SEC coupé, the Widebody conversion bumps the V8 from 5.6 to 6.0 litres, power from 270bhp to 380bhp and torque from 317lb ft to 410lb ft. So this is a seriously quick car, and its eye-catching split rims, flared arches and aggressive bumpers give it undeniable presence. One of four South African exports, this car needed light recommissioning but was still a snip at £38,500.…

GOT A STORY? Email our news editor lawrence.allan@haymarket.com “The new carbonfibre tub will allow McLaren to offer everything from pure-petrol to fully electric models” McLaren will transition to an electrified era in earnest next year with the first truly all-new series-production car since the 2011 MP4-12C – and it’s a plug-in hybrid. The new model will be launched in the first quarter of next year and go on sale in mid-2021. It will serve as a replacement for the longest-ablished Sports Series range, which includes the 540C, 570S and 600LT. That range will end with the imminent introduction of the GT4-racer-inspired 620R. The Woking-based maker will move instead to what it calls the High Performance Hybrid (HPH) sub-category, positioned between the McLaren GT and current crop of Super Series models.…

VOLKSWAGEN HAS DETAILED its full range of ID 3 trim levels and prices ahead of it starting to accept orders tomorrow. The electric hatchback is priced from £29,990 (after the £3000 government grant). That compares with £26,845 for the 168-mile Nissan Leaf and £40,490 for the 267-mile Tesla Model 3 saloon (see p10). The cheapest trim, Life, gets a 10.0in touchscreen with Discover Pro sat-nav, Car2X technology, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance, heated seats, a heated steering wheel, parking sensors and LED headlights. The basic powertrain uses a 201bhp motor and a 58kWh battery to deliver 0-62mph in 7.3sec and a range of 258-263 miles, depending on spec. Five other trim levels are available with this powertrain, adding numerous items such as LED matrix headlights, an augmented reality head-up display,…

Renault has revealed the Mégane eVision, a bold electric concept that it claims “reinvents the classical hatchback” and closely previews a production car due on sale in late 2021. Despite taking its name from Renault’s long-running Ford Focus rival, the Mégane eVision is a new design built on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance’s CMF-EV electric car platform, like the upcoming Nissan Ariya large SUV. Although the Ariya and Mégane eVision appear to share design cues, the latter is based heavily on the recent Renault Morphoz concept. New company boss Luca de Meo said: “The car looks very futuristic but it is 95% what the production car will look like.” Renault has “fully leveraged the potential of a pure-electric platform to reinvent the classical hatchback in an emotional way”, he said. “The Mégane…

BMW HAS JOINED Ford (p15) in recalling its latest plug-in hybrid models due to the risk of a battery fire. This affects every PHEV BMW 2 Series Active Tourer, 3 Series, 5 Series, 7 Series, X1, X2, X3, X5 and Mini Countryman built between 20 January and 18 September 2020. It also affects every BMW i8 built this year before it was axed in April. Some 26,700 cars are affected globally. BMW said in a statement that its global PHEV recall and halt of deliveries is “a preventative measure” as “internal analysis has shown that, in very rare cases, particles may have entered the battery during the production process”. It explained: “When the battery is fully charged, this could lead to a short circuit within the battery cells, which may…

Ford of Europe intends to join an emissions pool with other car makers to help it reduce its fleet average CO2 levels to avoid European Union fines. The brand was on track to meet its emissions targets before it was hit by the negative impact of a sales halt and recall of its new plug-in hybrid Kuga, due to a battery fire risk. Ford admits that, as a result, it will fail to meet its assigned EU CO2 target level “on our own” and will have to purchase emissions credits from other marques. Sales of the petrol-electric Kuga PHEV remain halted, with affected owners offered goodwill gestures that include £500 of fuel.…

Despite the vast advances in electric car technology in recent years, range anxiety remains an issue for prospective buyers. A survey last year by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), for example, showed that only 50% of consumers would consider an EV as a main car if it offered a range of 200 miles, but that figure rose to 90% if the range reached 300 miles. That’s reflected in the success of cars such as the Hyundai Kona, Jaguar I-Pace, Tesla Model 3 and other models with ranges close to or exceeding 300 miles – and several EVs with even longer ranges are planned. But adding more lithium ion batteries to boost range comes at a price: they increase the cost of EVs for consumers, and the extra weight affects the…

Seat knows not to mess with a good thing, which is why the lightest of light touches has been used to update its best-selling Ateca. More than 300,000 units of the company’s first crossover SUV have been sold across Europe since its introduction four years ago, and although competition within the class has never been stronger, few rivals have managed to best it for handling or driver appeal. A slight shuffling of the line-up for 2020 replaces the top-level Xcellence trim with a new, soft-roader Xperience model, which gets a few lightly ruggedised exterior additions. The black plastic lower trim and body-coloured wheel-arch surrounds are subtle and certainly don’t indicate any increased off-road potential. Largely because there isn’t any. Visible exhaust pipes have also gone, apparently because owners said that…

Even in an age of ultra-rapid yet silent electric performance cars, there’s something surreal about how quiet the Audi S8 is at low speed. Riding on advanced active air suspension, with a camera scanning the road ahead and automatically adjusting the ride height to smooth over bumps, the S8 glides along with such tranquillity that you’d scarcely believe there was a 4.0-litre turbocharged petrol V8 offering 563bhp and 590lb ft in front of you. But flex that muscle and the engine in this Mercedes-AMG S63 rival comes alive with a pleasing – if synthetically aided – roar and a healthy slug of power that a heavyweight boxer would be proud of. It feels as capable as the official 0-62mph time of 3.8sec suggests, especially for a large executive car that…

1 PORSCHE TAYCAN TURBO S The electrified sports car of the future in every way. Incredible response, real driver appeal, but perhaps not as usable as a PHEV. 2 BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 Likely to be a while before there’s an electrified luxury GT with such a complete CV as this old-world Bentley. Mighty. 3 FERRARI ROMA A cut above Polestar on price, but not a big one. Has all the driver appeal the 1 lacks and is gorgeous with it. Yet to be driven in the UK. 4 POLESTAR 1 Alternative style, multi-faceted character and PHEV usability. Missing some mechanical richness and handling smarts. 5 ASTON MARTIN DB11 V8 Polestar money only gets you into the entry-level DB11. Still lovely to drive, but fault can be found with its looks and cabin.…

The affordable end of the performance car market may be dominated by hot hatchbacks, but none comes close to delivering the kind of driver engagement you’ll find behind the wheel of an MX-5. While the hot hatch class continues to grow in size, Mazda’s two-seat sports car retains the compact dimensions of the 1989 original – in fact, it’s slightly shorter – and makes handling purity, rather than outright pace, a priority. So although it lacks the rear seats and luggage capacity that make a hot hatch such a usable everyday proposition, it stays small enough to be enjoyed on even the narrowest of B-roads. Today’s fourth-generation car proves endlessly entertaining without needing enormous amounts of horsepower, rejecting forced induction in favour of a naturally aspirated engine. A recent mechanical…

As follow-ups go, replacing the Land Rover Defender was a Herculean task. The original, on sale in various forms for nearly 70 years, was an off-road institution and a British motoring icon. And yet its 2020 successor manages to blend the go-anywhere capability we’ve come to expect with the kind of interior refinement for which Land Rover has recently become known. It can legitimately claim to rival the Jeep Wrangler, Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Ford Ranger Raptor over the rough stuff, as we’ve discovered both here in the UK and in the deserts of Namibia, while its on-road manners and interior technology can compete with the best SUVs from premium brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Gaydon’s decision to move from a traditional separate-chassis construction to a unitary one and replace…

Ah, the humble Octavia. It’s rather tricky to think of another car that’s more suited to this accolade than Skoda’s consummate box-ticker. We’ve said before that the Octavia has long been a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card for motoring journalists put on the spot by people looking for family car buying advice, and with the new Mk4 model, we feel more justified than ever. However, that recommendation no longer rests quite so heavily on the fact that the Octavia simply gives you more car for your money. With the number of C-segment estates swelling in recent years, it seems rival manufacturers have cottoned on to Skoda’s modus operandi of simply selling what is very nearly a D-segment car at a price point typically associated with smaller hatchbacks. Such an increase in…

For much of the past decade, many manufacturers have considered themselves at the cutting edge of in-car technology simply by having touchscreens. The bigger, the shinier and the more of them there are, the more like Apple we are, seems to be the rationale. But for every iPhone, there’s an unbranded knock-off from the local market that’s little more than a glorified calculator. In the car world, that analogy extends to the best in-car tech enhancing the overall experience, the worst being downright unsafe and distracting. Nobody yet has come along and really convinced us that full digitisation is preferable to a good old-fashioned joystick-style controller and a few sensibly located and sparingly used buttons. The Honda E is winning the argument against us, though. Here’s a car whose interior…

F1 bans reverse engineering Formula 1 bosses have revised the technical rules for 2021 to prevent extensive reverse engineering of other teams’ cars. The new rule is designed to prevent a repeat of the controversy surrounding this year’s Racing Point, which was inspired by last year’s title-winning Mercedes-AMG. Hülk smashes it again Nico Hülkenberg was called into action by Racing Point at the last minute for the second time this season after Lance Stroll withdrew from the Eifel Grand Prix due to illness. The German came eighth at the Nürburgring to add to the seventh he scored at Silverstone in August. Alonso back in action Fernando Alonso had his first test for Renault ahead of rejoining the F1 team (which will be rebranded as Alpine) for 2021. The double champion…

COMPARISON Volkswagen Golf GTI vs Ford Focus ST The all-new Golf GTI takes on its biggest foe. Which is the better affordable hot hatchback? Andrew Frankel decides DRIVEN Mercedes S-Class Does this new limo move the game on as much as the S-Classes before it? ROAD TEST Aston Martin DBX Brand’s first SUV has impressed so far. Now it faces our road testers EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Audi S3 Sportback Audi’s new four-wheel-drive hot hatch on UK roads for the first time LONG-TERM TEST Land Rover Discovery Sport The best-selling Land Rover model joins our fleet in updated form SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p64…

MILEAGE 24,065 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the all-American icon translates over here, especially after the arrival of a new all-British icon… Our time with the Wrangler is nearing its end, which gave it the perfect opportunity to remind me of its usefulness. “When I’m gone,” it might as well have said, “who is going to tow your Land Rover Defender to the garage when its clutch packs up on a rainy Sunday October night?” Sigh. The Jeep, as a proper off-roader should, has snatch points front and rear, so it’s pretty easy to hook up a rigid tow pole. With just under two tonnes of 203,000-mile Defender 90 on the back (at which mileage I think we’ll allow it a clutch issue), you’d hardly know the Land…

I is for Fiat Idea Here’s a little boxy thing you had probably forgotten about: the not-unattractive Fiat Idea, which was on the price lists from 2004 to 2007. It was a Mercedes A-Class wannabe but actually more of an alt-Vauxhall Meriva without the performing seats. Well actually, the back bench reclines and tumbles forward, but that’s about it, and the boot lip is a bit high. There’s an unremarkable 1.4-litre petrol or a livelier, 62mpg 1.3-litre diesel. There are just handfuls around now, but you won’t need more than £1295 for a 2006 Dynamic.…

Subaru Brat £6200 What’s the coolest 1990s Subaru? The original Impreza WRX STi, right? Wrong. This is the lesser-known Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter (Brat for short), and it’s quickly becoming one of the rarest and most sought-after small pick-up trucks on the market. Its 1.8-litre engine is of the flat-four variety so shares that link with the famous rally racer, but with less than 90bhp on tap, you won’t need a roll-cage. Just £6200 nabs this low-mileage 1994 example, and the seller will even throw in a rustier – but still running – Brat for spares.…

You could argue that no Ferrari has ever had it easier than the 599. Arriving in dealerships in 2006, it was a replacement for the soft and stodgy 575M Maranello, which set rather a low bar for any future front-engined V12 grand tourers to come out of Maranello. That’s a big part of the reason 599 prices are doing so well today. Impressive to drive at the time and still competitive against modern equivalents, the predecessor to the thunderous F12 Berlinetta commands, on average, around £120,000 for a well-kept example. Under that mile-long bonnet is a (very slightly) downtuned version of the hallowed naturally aspirated F140 6.0-litre V12 that powered the Enzo hypercar. It sends – even in its most lowly form – a good deal more than 600bhp to…

A NEAR-700BHP PLUG-IN hybrid is one of three new variants announced for Porsche’s updated-for-2020 Panamera range. The Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid becomes the most powerful Porsche model currently on sale, with a peak combined system output of 690bhp from a 563bhp twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 engine and a 134bhp electric motor. That’s a 20bhp boost over the outgoing version and translates to a 0-62mph time of 3.2sec – 0.2sec faster than before. The top speed is 196mph, a 3mph gain. There is also a 30% boost in electric range from a battery upped from 14.1kWh to 17.9kWh thanks to optimised cells and tweaked drive modes. Porsche claims a WLTP city EV range of 31 miles. Porsche has also released details of a revised version of the more affordable Panamera 4 E-Hybrid.…

CUPRA IS DEVELOPING a range-topping five-cylinder version of its new Formentor. A prototype of the crossover spotted at the Nürburgring had an unusual set of stacked quad tailpipes, from which our spy photographers reported a distinctive five-pot engine note. It’s understood the Audi RS Q3’s 394bhp 2.5-litre unit will be adapted to complement the four-cylinder petrols and plug-in hybrids (see below). Cupra responded by saying that it’s “considering a more powerful version of Formentor”.…

PSA-OWNED PEUGEOT and Citroën will end production of the 108 and C1 and withdraw from the traditional city car market, reports suggest. News agency Reuters, citing three sources close to the brand, claims a decision to leave the A-segment combustion-engine car market has been taken ahead of PSA’s planned merger with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Costly development of engines to meet ever-stricter emissions standards means value offerings like city cars are increasingly difficult to justify. PSA has already sold its stake in its joint venture with Toyota, under which the 108 and C1 have been built alongside the Toyota Aygo in the Czech Republic since 2005. The French firm refuses to comment on the reports.…

The past seven years have been kind to the BMW 4 Series. Introduced with a good deal of fanfare in 2013, it has now recorded more than 800,000 sales worldwide, with nearly 150,000 of those in the UK, its second-biggest market behind the US. Its success is spread across three models – Coupé, Cabriolet and four-door Gran Coupé – and a range of four- and six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, which have given it a broad appeal. But the talk surrounding this new, second-generation 4 Series is not of the task it faces in living up to the sales performance of its predecessor or its new engines, which include the 369bhp 3.0-litre turbocharged petrol unit of the range-topping M440i xDrive Coupé driven here, but of – yes, what else? –…

If there’s one thing that the BMW 5 Series has become particularly adept at over the course of its nearly 50-year existence, it’s the ability to make the wider car world collectively sit up and pay attention. Upon its arrival back in early 2017, the seventh-generation, G30 version of Munich’s venerable executive car wasted no time in catapulting itself to the top of the class, with its mixture of driver engagement, luxurious refinement and efficient performance helping it maintain a vice-like grip on that position since. Now, in a bid to grow its advantage and stave off the heightened threat posed by updated offerings from Audi and Mercedes-Benz, the 5 Series has been facelifted. Cosmetically, it has been sharpened up with new light and grille designs, but the crucial changes…

Land Rover’s odd-looking decision, right in the middle of the pandemic lockdown, to unveil plug-in hybrid versions of its Evoque and Discovery Sport suddenly looks like a rare bout of insight. Its marketing chief says that by getting in early, the company now holds around 2000 orders for Evoque and Sport PHEVs and intends to start delivering them before the year-end. The model tested here, the Discovery Sport P300e R-Dynamic AWD, is a much more different Sport than it appears on the outside. With its Evoque plug-in sibling, it is the first model to use the new Jaguar Land Rover 1.5-litre Ingenium turbo petrol three-cylinder engine (a modular relation of the well-known four and recently launched straight six). Its electrification equipment consists of both an integrated starter-generator (ISG) for harvesting…

Ford’s electrification efforts won’t kick into high gear until the Mustang Mach-E arrives next year but, for now, mild-hybrid power continues to bolster the line-up. The Fiesta joins the Puma and Focus with a 48V set-up, using a belt-driven starter motor and small battery charged by regenerative braking to feed in extra torque. The combination makes acceleration that little bit peppier, while minimising turbo lag, letting the stop/start system cut in while coasting below 15mph, and providing modest efficiency gains. Subtle exterior badges aside, there’s little to differentiate the mild hybrid from any other Fiesta. The battery doesn’t affect rear leg room or luggage capacity, and the only clue inside the cabin is a new set of icons on the instrument cluster. They highlight when the motor is recuperating energy…

The 1 may not feel quite as alert and agile as some big, fast GT cars, but it will probably leave you quite taken with its on-limit handling capabilities, in any case. Polestar talks in terms of ‘purity’ about its handling; you could likewise use words like ‘honesty’, ‘simplicity’ and ‘naturalness’ to describe how the car responds to being hurried along. The 1 doesn’t seem to use driveline or suspension trickery to manipulate its mass but still can be driven surprisingly hard and enjoyed at pace. The car handles in very straightforward terms on the margin of grip; it’s predictable to the last and quite well balanced but resolutely non-adjustable with power. You can imagine that asymmetrical torque vectoring may be used to more striking effect by other brands, but…

THE AWARD CATEGORIES Company Car p48 Fun Car p49 Dream Car p50 Large Car p51 SUV p52 Small Car p53 All-Rounder p54 Family Car p55 Hybrid Car p56 Electric Car p57 Car Tech p58 Manufacturer p59 Little more than a decade ago, cars were still rather straightforward to categorise. You had city cars, superminis, hatchbacks, estates, saloons, MPVs, proper 4x4s and a smattering of coupés, cabriolets and sports cars on top. Crossovers didn’t get any better than the Rover Streetwise and new niches were little more exotic than Audi making a family hatchback. Yet in 2020 there has never been more choice, more types of car with more propulsion systems from more car makers not bound by past conventions. We’ve attempted to organise these with our Top 10 lists at…

Very late in 2017, on a snowy hillside in France, we discovered that the Alpine A110 brought lungfuls of fresh air to the sports car market. Three years on, we’re still breathing in the Alpine goodness and a car that revolutionised how we felt about small sports cars has established itself firmly in our affections. Breathing is what the A110 does best. While the majority of sports cars fidget, shuffle and bounce down a bad road, the A110 glides. It does something that no small sports car has allowed itself to do for a generation: move on its suspension, to prove once again that driving enjoyment doesn’t have to mean rock-hard springing. It can do this because it’s light, of course. At just 1103kg, the entry-level A110 sits on a…

A long with the Mazda MX-5, the little Ford Fiesta is one of the oldest cars in this year’s inaugural crop of Best Cars award winners. And even though its 2017 launch now feels like a lifetime ago, age has done nothing to diminish the appeal of the Blue Oval’s ubiquitous supermini. Although a slightly more reserved, mature design language was employed for this seventh-generation Fiesta, Ford made damn sure that it retained the lively, up-and-at-’em sense of dynamic character that has, for a long while now, marked out the Fiesta in a crowded field. Numerous rivals – some of which are considerably newer – have seriously threatened the Fiesta’s position as our standout driver’s supermini over the years, but none has been entirely successful thus far. The fifth-generation Renault…

So much about the Corolla speaks volumes – not just about the current corporate health, design skill and technical accomplishment of its maker but also about how Toyota has changed as a firm and where it’s heading next. If you can remember the car the Corolla replaced two years ago, you probably won’t do so that easily. The Auris was about as ordinary and uninspired as it was possible for a five-door family hatchback to be – memorably referred to as ‘automotive white goods’ by one road tester. It was typical of Toyota’s approach to mainstream car design at the time, when it seemed worried that its earlier hybrids would give it a reputation for making odd cars, so ‘bland and inoffensive’ was about the greatest ambition it had for…

When a company – particularly a multinational industrial giant – claims to be undergoing a radical transformation, the changes often become apparent only after many years, if at all. But Toyota’s transition from a maker of reliable automotive white goods to a brand with a variety of exciting, enthusiast-lauded products and a leading voice in the environmental conversation about a world after the internal combustion engine is a genuine one that is nearly complete. Much of the credit can be attributed to Toyota’s president and CEO (and former Autocar Issigonis Trophy winner) Akio Toyoda. The grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, he took the helm in 2009, not only when many of the brand’s products were uninspiring but also during a corporate meltdown, due to the ‘unintended acceleration’ saga that led…

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Many regard motorsport as hugely expensive and out of the reach of ordinary folk. That’s certainly true of the higher echelons, but it couldn’t be more wrong at grassroots level. For those who want their motorsport to be about speed and the clock, hillclimbing can be as cheap and accessible as many weekend hobbies, and the standard car classes are perfect for newcomers. Hillclimbing pits driver and car against the clock on a narrow ribbon of uphill asphalt. It’s intense and demands total concentration. The headline venues in this country include Prescott and Shelsley Walsh, yet access to events at these courses is firmly within reach of those of ordinary means. The requirements for competing in the standard car classes are remarkably simple. The car needs to be post-2000, two-wheel…

Audi TT RS £16,795 Small sports coupés are an endangered species. The modern economic implications of developing a bespoke two-door body for production on a relatively limited scale means there just isn’t enough money in the game any more. Long rumoured to be next for the chop is the Audi TT, which became an immediate favourite when it arrived in 1998 and is no less adored now, 22 years and two generations later. Each iteration and variation of this curvy coupé has impressed on the road, even including the seemingly out-of-place diesel introduced in 2008, but few more so than the top-rung RS version of the Mk2, pitched as a spiritual successor to the formidable S2 Quattro. Its specially developed 2.5-litre turbo engine pumps 335bhp and 332lb ft to all…

An expert’s view JAMES CABORN, KENT HIGH PERFORMANCE CARS “Make sure it has been serviced by a reputable specialist or main dealer. They tend to have quite high numbers of owners – it’s a Ferrari and they tend to change hands a lot – but just make sure the car is a nice, clean example.” Buyer beware… ▪ BODYWORK The rear quarter panel can corrode slightly but can be fixed with a fresh coat of paint. The 599 is a big car that’s unwieldy to manoeuvre around town, so check every panel – including underneath – for dings, dents and chips. Elsewhere, the wheels aren’t immune to kerb-rash, lug nuts have been known to rust and the Perspex rear light clusters can crack or craze. ▪ GEARBOX More common automated…