Innholdsfortegnelse for November 11, 2020 i Autocar

Bentley will launch its first fully electric model in 2025 and will offer only EVs from 2030 as part of a new strategy with the goal of becoming a “global leader in sustainable luxury mobility”. The British firm, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has committed to phasing out production of combustion-engined vehicles within the decade as a key element of its new Beyond100 plan. As part of the plan, Bentley will ramp up its push to electrification and has committed to reducing the environmental impact of its Crewe factory by 75% from 2010 levels within five years. Boss Adrian Hallmark said the goal is for Bentley to be “the world’s benchmark luxury car business”. The electrification drive will begin with two new plug-in hybrids in 2021, one of them a…

THE HYUNDAI KONA Electric SUV has followed its petrol-engined sibling in receiving refreshed styling and a raft of technology upgrades for 2021. The most dramatic of the changes is the removal of the grille panel, with the EV adopting a smooth front that sets it apart more obviously from the regular Kona. That car’s new narrow LED daytime-running lights and redesigned headlights are carried over, however, as are the wraparound body crease and aerodynamics-enhancing lower air inlets. The rear end has largely been left untouched, but subtly reshaped lights help to distinguish it from the old car. The Kona Electric now has a 10.25in digital dial display as standard, while a recent update ushered in an optional same-sized touchscreen, up from the standard 8.0in one. In addition, rear passengers now…

A British company with roots in motor racing simulation video games is a vital contributor to the launch of California’s newest electric car start-up, Lucid Motors, whose £130,000 Air saloon is scheduled for UK launch next year. ZeroLight, a Newcastle-based 3D modelling company better known for its part in the latest Nascar racing game, is providing Lucid’s online configurator with cloud-processed video-game quality graphics that are a world first for an automotive website. “The quality of these graphics are unparalleled and give Lucid a significant edge in winning sales from increasingly sophisticated buyers, who are more comfortable than ever with the online purchase of a luxury car,” said Derek Jenkins, Lucid’s design vice-president. As a further indication of how important online presence and usability of infotainment functions are to automotive…

IN A DECADE or two, we’ll all probably look back and laugh at the angst over EV battery size, weight and capacity, but for now, making improvements to all three is what everybody is hoping for. It’s beginning to look increasingly likely that those improvements won’t come from some massive breakthrough, such as a completely new type of so-far-undiscovered battery chemistry, but from an evolution of the lithium ion battery, which has taken more than 20 years to get from convincing prototypes to the stage it’s at now. One aspect of lithium ion battery technology that arguably stands head and shoulders above the rest is weight. Reduce a vehicle’s weight and it needs less energy to take it a certain distance, whether it’s powered by electricity or conventional fuel. Make…

The Leon family hatchback has long been Seat’s biggest seller, and now that the El-Born electric car is set to wear Cupra colours instead, it is the new plug-in hybrid Leon that Seat will task with bringing battery power to the masses. It shares its 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine with the Cupra Leon eHybrid that we sampled a fortnight ago, albeit in a lower state of tune, paired to the same electric motor and 12.8kWh battery. A 201bhp combined output makes this the most powerful Seat-badged version of the Leon, although there’s little to indicate that fact: just a small bootlid badge and a charging port on the front wing. On electricity alone, it’s good for up to 40 miles – likely closer to 30 with less cautious driving and…

MODEL TESTED T6 RECHARGE AWD R-DESIGN Price £55,305 • Power 335bhp • Torque 435lb ft • 0-60mph 5.6sec • 30-70mph in fourth 8.4sec • Fuel economy 40.0mpg • CO2 emissions 50g/km • 70-0mph 45.7m The maturation of Volvo’s electrification strategy since its first forays into plug-in technology back in the late 2000s has been impressive to say the least. Those with longer memories will recall the C30-based ReCharge Concept from 2007: a ‘series hybrid’ that could travel as far as 62 miles in electric-only mode and which used a 1.6-litre petrol engine to charge the batteries that powered its four electric motors. Then there were the two diesel-electric V70s that Volvo ran as part of a joint research trial with energy supplier Vattenfall. These plug-in estates offered an electric range of…

We do write valedictory pieces at Autocar, but not many. Broadly speaking, our remit is to look forward, rather than back; but just occasionally, a car so important or beloved gets pensioned off that we would not be doing our job as the industry’s journal of record were we to fail to acknowledge the fact in some way. Now you may already be questioning whether or not the Ferrari GTC4 Lusso T falls into that category, and I’d not blame you at all. But the truth is, it’s not the car per se that we’re saying goodbye to but the full-sized family Ferrari coupé. It’s a line that stretches back essentially unbroken through most of Ferrari’s history, fully 60 years. But now it’s over. For although the new Roma does…

Mercedes’ commitment to its history doesn’t quite reach the start; the sole surviving Patent-Motorwagen is in Munich’s Deutsches Museum. But to celebrate the centenary of the world’s first car in 1986, it built a small run of near-exact replicas (in effect inventing the continuation car), and I got to drive one of these. Getting it started is the hard part, swinging the single-cylinder engine into life and risking a crushed finger when it eventually fires up. The Patent-Motorwagen obviously predates most automotive innovations, including the cooling circuit and the steering wheel. Cooling is done by a water-filled sleeve that needs emptying frequently, lubrication by gravity-fed drippers that leave a trail wherever it goes. Engine speed is set using a rotary restrictor valve over the air intake; it runs at around…

Millbrook Proving Ground, one of the UK’s premier car testing sites, very nearly wasn’t in Millbrook. In the 1960s, Vauxhall’s owner, General Motors, wanted a vehicle testing facility in the UK, inspired by its historic Milford proving ground in America, right down to a similar mix of flat tracks and hills: 600 flat acres, 200 hilly ones. Vauxhall searched long and hard and found only three really suitable locations, two of which were in Wales and one in Scotland. Air-freighting cars to Scotland was thought too much of a faff, so one of the Welsh sites was selected. Until, that is, during detail planning, two farms came up for sale next to each other about five miles south of Bedford, between the villages of Millbrook and Marston Moretaine. It was…

Super seven for Mercedes-AMG Mercedes-AMG secured a record seventh consecutive Formula 1 Constructors’ World Championship with victory for Lewis Hamilton in the recent Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. That broke the record of six straight titles set by Ferrari from 1999 to 2004. Mercedes has won 100 of the 134 F1 races held since 2014, the year in which it claimed its first title. Hamilton puts his future into question Lewis Hamilton has hinted that he might not stay in F1 for 2021. Asked after his victory at Imola about rumours that Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff will leave, the six-time champion said: “I don’t even know if I’m going to be here next year, so it’s not really a concern for me at the moment. I would like to…

20-PAGE SPECIAL Britain’s Best Driver’s Car 2020 Think this has been a quiet year for great cars? Not at all. We head to Castle Combe with nine handling heroes to find the best NEWS BMW iNext revealed Why this new SUV is the start of a whole new era for Munich ROAD TEST Audi S3 Sportback New four-wheel-drive hot hatch is given the full eight-page treatment EVERY WEEK USED BUYING GUIDE Morris Minor Get on the classic car ladder with this British favourite for £2000 FIRST DRIVE Ford Puma ST Puma is the best-handling crossover, so can it beat hot hatches in ST form? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p62…

MILEAGE 1261 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT The EQC won our EV SUV mega-test 12 months ago, but is it an Audi, Jaguar and Tesla beater in everyday life? Stomp. Honk. Thump. In less than 10 metres, from mundane school run to full-blown disaster. The young lad, who moments earlier had emerged from a driveway at pace on his bike, popping out onto the road from behind a parked car, was now flat out, just ahead of the EQC’s front-right wheel. It had been quite an impact, him having turned out looking only for traffic behind him, me filling all the road space as I negotiated my way down a residential street with parked cars on either side. Thankfully, I’d just passed a refuse truck so had slowed as workers wandered…

E is for Chevrolet Epica The Epica was a reconstituted Daewoo saloon and obviously not remotely epic. Chevrolet kept it simple with a 2.0-litre petrol and a 2.0-litre diesel. There was a shedload of equipment for the lucky buyers who went for the LS or LT. Unfortunately, the air conditioning, suspension and sundries can fail due to mileage and neglect. It does at least have a decent 480-litre boot. There’s a handful on sale and it’s virtually impossible to pay more than £2000; £1000 gets you a 2008 diesel with 90,000 miles and a full service history.…

“ Aside from the Range Rover models, much of JLR’s operation is under a stem-to-stern review ” Jaguar Land Rover is entering the final few months of preparation for a new engineering era, but it’s looking likely that next winter’s fifth-generation Range Rover will be leading a slimmed-down company into the rest of the decade. The combination of JLR’s ambitious new model plans and the ramifications of the global pandemic inherited by new chief executive Thierry Bolloré means that the future of a number of unprofitable models – and even the proposed expansion of the company’s product line-up – currently hangs in the balance. However, Bolloré has indicated a desire to introduce a fully electric Range Rover for the first time, with such a model believed to stand a good…

England’s second national lockdown has wide-ranging implications for motorists and the car retail sector. But does it mean that you can’t drive, buy a new or used car, or service your current one? As the vast majority of the UK population settles into another pandemic-induced lockdown order that could last beyond its planned end date of 2 December, we round up what it means for motorists, car buyers and dealers alike. It must be noted, however, that many of the rules differ in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where regional or tier-based restrictions are in place. Can I still go for a drive? The rules regarding driving are less strict than they were when the first, UK-wide lockdown was implemented back in March. The overriding message is still to stay…

“The UK new car market is so oversupplied and overinvested that it’s extremely difficult to make decent money. Just how profitable it can become will be almost totally dependent on right-sizing – by which I mean somewhere south of two million registrations a year.” Those are thunderous words, given the registrations peak of 2.69 million new cars recorded in 2016, prophetically spoken not over the tumultuous past few months but more than a year ago by the ever-straight-talking Vauxhall boss Stephen Norman when he was asked to assess the state of the market. Now, of course, it has been reset, albeit via a cliff-edge global pandemic rather than sound economic planning, with registrations of around 1.5 million predicted for 2020. Tellingly, though, even with the prospect of massive unemployment and…

“ This is a wonderfully exciting, amazingly capable and strangely evocative driver’s car ” The new Toyota GR Yaris has actually been coming for even longer than most of us may realise. Although this car has had an extensively previewed gestation, it’s the first ground-up performance car that Toyota has developed all on its own in some 20 years. By which is meant without the help of another dedicated car maker, of course. Because, believe me, to have made a hot hatchback this good, Toyota must have had quite a lot of help from some very clever people who have been spending many weekends with Messrs Mäkinen, Meeke, Tänak and Latvala. So, now that we’ve driven it – extensively, on a mix of UK roads and on track, and in…

There hasn’t always been a Golf Estate. In fact, it wasn’t until the third-generation Golf that Volkswagen decided buyers might warm to the added versatility of such a model. Since 1993, though, it has been a mainstay of Volkswagen’s line-up, growing ever larger and offering greater load space in each iteration. This latest one continues that theme, being 71mm longer than its predecessor, at 4633mm. The wheelbase gets 67mm of that extra stretch, the rear overhang the rest. It’s a moderate increase but rectifies one of this model’s weaknesses over the years: rear leg room, which has increased by 38mm. Load space has risen, too, if only by six litres to 611 litres under the cargo blind. Overall, the Golf has 1642 litres, 22 more than before, when the split…

DIMENSIONS PARKING WHEEL AND PEDAL ALIGNMENT There’s nothing especially notable about the positioning of the V90’s pedals – which is a good thing. They allow you to sit comfortably, with no awkward contortion, and are good over distance. HEADLIGHTS The V90 T6 Recharge comes with Volvo’s automatic LED headlights as standard. These provide exceptional beam strength on both dipped and full beam, and the lights themselves will swivel in time with steering inputs to improve visibility.…

Milford Proving Ground opened in 1924 and in the mid-1960s GM wanted a UK facility built to a very similar standard. Vauxhall engineer John Wathew, tasked with leading the layout, eventually found two farms for sale near Millbrook. “The acreage was in excess of what we required, it had the adjacent hills and there was enough flat land,” he says. “There were a few issues that had to be scheduled into the building programme but otherwise it seemed perfect. We originally decided to call it Lidlington Proving Ground, rather than Millbrook, to avoid confusion with Milford.” “It was basically farmland with a winding road going through it. Even now, there are parts of the tracks that are still on that old road,” he adds. “All the surfaces that I created…

Even more than racing and speed events, special-stage rallying in the UK has been decimated by the pandemic, and there are precious few signs of a return to normal until well into 2021. Forest rallying has been out of the question since March, and the best guess is that restarting before next spring is unlikely. Given that Wales is the heart of UK forest rallying, the immediate outlook is bleak. A whole industry of preparers and mechanics is on hold. Some of the other venues used for rallying have become unavailable, and the need for two unrelated people in a car has been another hurdle. However, a small number of events have run in recent weeks to give this branch of the sport a glimmer of hope. For almost 40…

QUESTION I’ve got rid of my daily driver so am faced with using my rust-prone weekend classic over winter. Should I worry? Brian Davies, Pembrokeshire ANSWER A dilemma indeed: you could spice up your daily commute no end but face a hefty welding bill down the line, courtesy of the UK’s wet and salty winter roads. If you really have no choice, it’s best to get the car up on a ramp, give it a thorough clean, apply a fresh coat of underseal and then invest in a waterproof cover for the office car park and allow an extra five minutes in the morning for demisting. Have you considered a temporary bargain banger, though? Just £600 gets you into a 2003 Ford Fiesta that you can shift in the spring.…

Renault Mégane R26R £27,995 “Without a single hint of doubt, the most hardcore hot hatchback the world has seen.” That’s what we called the stripped-out, most track-focused version of Renault’s big-bum hatchback when it launched, and it’s not far off making that claim even now, 12 years later. You see, this was no mere styling package for the fearsome Mégane RS 230 F1 Team R26. The highly strung 227bhp 2.0-litre turbo four-pot was carried over unaltered, as were the Cup Chassis package’s Brembo brakes, stiffer steering and sports wheels, but it’s what wasn’t carried over that made the R26R special: the rear seats, climate control, stereo, front foglights and all but one airbag. All that missing kit may have hurt usability, but it contributed to a weight loss of 123kg…

BMW 650i Coupé £4995 Say what you will about the new BMW 4 Series’ grille, but the ire directed at that snout is nothing compared with the public uproar that accompanied the launch of the E63-generation 6 Series. The muscular, creased design language that designer Chris Bangle called “flame surfacing” went down like a lead balloon, and today the two words most associated with this coupé’s curves are, sadly, ‘Bangle butt’. If you ask us, though, the E63 has aged remarkably well, and less than £5000 for a fully loaded example with the top-rung 4.8-litre V8? Bargain.…

“Behold: a £900 Rolls-Royce!” might have been our headline here if were we feeling slightly sensationalist. In reality, while there are some sub-£1000 Citroën XMs languishing in the classifieds, you will want to pay a bit more than that for true peace of mind, and even the most luxurious examples don’t pack as much chrome and cowhide as a big-grilled Brit. Not that you won’t feel every bit as stately as your Phantom-owning neighbour. So wafty and relaxing was Citroën’s hydropneumatic suspension that Crewe used it under licence for the Silver Shadow, and the evolved version that cushioned the XM – dubbed Hydractive Ω was so competent that we christened it “the best-riding car in the world” in 1989. The XM’s class-leading ride quality is at once a gift and…

LAND ROVER HOPES to rejuvenate slumping sales of what was formerly one of its best-selling models by facelifting the Discovery. The Volvo XC90 rival benefits from a number of exterior revisions, an overhaul of its cabin technology and new mild-hybrid engine options. It is available to order now, priced from £53,090, with deliveries due to start early next year. Although numerous, the changes to the large SUV’s styling are subtle. New LED headlight clusters with a jewel-like design set the daytime-running lights lower, while sweeping indicators are introduced. A refreshed front bumper brings new side strakes, while an altered front grille aligns the car closer to the latest Discovery Sport. There are new wing vents on the sides, too, plus fresh wheel designs ranging from 19in to 22in. At the…

The Slavia is the seventh concept car to emerge from Skoda’s ‘Azubi’ in-house apprenticeship programme, which in previous years has given us the Mountiaq pick-up, the Sunroq convertible and the beach-buggy-style Element, each based on a contemporary production model. While previous Azubi concepts have looked to a hypothetical future or taken existing models into radically disparate niches, the new Scala-based Slavia is inspired by both the 125-year-old story of the brand’s birth and a prototype racer from the middle of last century. Skoda’s annual unveiling of a radical student-built concept is a tradition that dates back to the 1970s, and has included a number of historic one-offs of which few details remain. The Slavia takes its name from the first bicycle produced by Skoda founders Václav Laurin and Václav Klement…

If it weren’t for history, there might not be a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet any more. Back in 1975, fitting a turbocharger to an open 911 was an exciting thing to do, but that was when ordinary 911s had only 200-and-a-bit horsepower. Nowadays, the most basic 911 has 385bhp and the mighty 911 Turbo S has 641bhp – which gives it 0-62mph acceleration in 2.8sec and a 205mph top speed. For a car with a removable roof (and the cruising mien that goes with it), such performance looks downright excessive. Which raises our point about tradition: it’s the time-honoured existence of an overpowered open 911 that keeps demand rolling. So what about the convertible part of the equation? Fabric tops are sometimes speed-limited and often noisier than tin-tops, too. Well,…

VOLVO V90 T6 RECHARGE AWD R-DESIGN Plush, handsome, impressively refined and exceptionally comfortable. Lacks some driver appeal but is superb to live with. MERCEDES-BENZ E300DE AMG LINE ESTATE Diesel-electric Merc offers the best of both worlds for regular long-distance drivers. Bland but supremely relaxing to drive. SKODA SUPERB ESTATE iV SE L Hard to knock the Skoda when it comes to value for money. Slightly spongy in its comfiness, but the hybrid powertrain is very good and the boot massive. VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT GTE ADVANCE ESTATE Same powertrain as the Skoda but at a slightly higher price point. Posher but not as convincing as a value option. BMW 530E M SPORT TOURING An updated version of the 530e is due imminently and in Touring guise for the first time. Likely to…

Car makers love to play on their history and former glories, but none has made an investment to preserve its past quite like Mercedes-Benz. The company’s vast Classic collection now has more than 1300 vehicles and grows every year. Mercedes has saved at least one example of everything it has produced throughout most of its long history, plus numerous racers, one-offs and prototypes. Only a small percentage of these are displayed in the museum at Stuttgart at any time, and although others are lent to other institutions and dispatched to historic events, most live in the careful stasis of long-term storage. Occasionally, though, Mercedes lets some of them out to play. At the recent opening of the company’s vast new proving ground at Immendingen, 80 miles from Stuttgart, journalists were…

Two years ago, Ian Ferguson was the regional manager of a major dealer group responsible for four it all in and became an agony aunt. Well, not an agony aunt exactly, but a consumer advocate, and one with teeth in the shape of a legal team primed to go into battle should any dealer try playing hardball with one of his clients. “I’d been in the motor trade for years, working my way to regional level,” he says. “However, once there I realised 90% of my time was spent sorting out problems with customers’ cars. I thought: ‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’” He says the reason behind the problem is that many departmental managers in the motor trade are promoted on length rather than quality of service. To…

It’s not yet autumn As a driver coming to the end of a three-year, 30,000-mile lease on a Nissan Leaf 40kWh N-Connecta, I was awaiting its comparison against the new Volkswagen ID 3 with keen interest (‘Turning over a new Leaf’, 14 October). Although I feel the 60kWh Leaf e+ model is competing out of its depth at £36,000 (surely the Tesla Model 3 would trounce both it and the ID 3?), the regular Leaf, with its sub-£30,000 price and £300-per-month lease deals, still has a lot to offer. We’ve found it a superb vehicle for those high-frequency, 100-miles-per-day family outings. It’s large enough to accommodate teenagers, dogs, bikes and even sailing kit. It has plenty of range in hand (140-155 miles) for anxiety not to be a concern. It…

VOLKSWAGEN GOLF My daughter called me to say that the nearside front wheel of her Golf was intermittently making a graunching noise. I imagined it could be related to the wheel bearing – or one of the local pheasants had got trapped in there. She arrived and it was indeed a weird noise. There was a downpour but it couldn’t wait, so I jacked up the front and took off the wheel. I noticed that the sill cover was bent, which related to a story a couple of years ago when a stray trailer wheel got embedded in there. It has been temporarily repaired.…

The Mini has expanded – literally and figuratively it grown in size but you’ll also find everything from convertibles and baseball cap-inspired coupés to SUVs, estates and even plug-in hybrids and electric models. But the humble hatch remains the backbone of the range, and the big news for the third-generation Mini that arrived in 2014 was you could have it with five doors. Grown-up stuff. All this new-found versatility didn’t stop the Mini from being incredibly popular, not least because of the charming retro touches that help it to stand out among rivals. The One uses an underpowered 101bhp 1.2-litre petrol unit, while the One D has an equally lethargic 94bhp 1.5-litre diesel. The Cooper gets a zingy 136bhp 1.5-litre petrol or a 115bhp 1.5-litre three-pot diesel, while the Cooper…

MITSUBISHI LANCER EVOLUTION IX FQ-360 The all-guns-blazing run-out version of the penultimate Lancer Evo is the kind of Mitsubishi that we will all remember if the brand does indeed exit Europe next year. And what a legacy to leave. The turbocharged 2.0-litre engine in this comfortably sized saloon sends a frankly astonishing 366bhp to all four wheels, shooting you, the kids and all your shopping from 0-62mph in less than 4.0sec. A bespoke tuning package for this UK-only model offered improved everyday drivability, too, so whoever just bought this 27,000-miler for £21,840 certainly hasn’t got themselves a one-trick pony.…

An owner’s view PAUL BREEZE-ROBERTS “The XM got a reputation for electrical unreliability because Citroën trialled plug-in earths, even in the engine bay, which corroded so lost decent earth. The fix? Cut off the plugs, fit good ring earths and bolt them in place of the plug in the inner wings. It’s a common misconception that the XM wasn’t galvanised; it was double-zinc-coated, and a weakness in that process lets water in past the zinc coats. You only need a pinhole… I’ve had an XM whose underseal was still shaped perfectly, but there was no metal behind it all.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE The 2.1-litre diesel is by far the most readily available option. It’s a hardy lump, but you will be frustrated by the lethargy of the naturally aspirated…