Innholdsfortegnelse for October 26, 2022 i Autocar

When Lotus founder Colin Chapman launched the Seven in 1957, it was considered to be the embodiment of his rare design skills in the way it took components from ordinary cars and combined them – cheaply – in a way that delivered five times the performance and 10 times the excitement. The car soon won a high reputation for affordability and surprising performance on the track, and it was built (both by home-builders and in the factory) with a huge variety of engines. The Seven stayed successfully in production as a Lotus until 1972 but Chapman’s other dominant characteristic was an insatiable desire for progress: for him, the Seven came to be old hat. He willingly sold the rights to the car to a canny Caterham garage owner and dealer,…

THERE WILL NOT be a manual or convertible version of the current A110, Alpine’s product performance boss, Sovany Ang, told Autocar, and the stripped-out A110 R will be the final update before the car goes electric in 2025. Ang said: “Most of the market wants an automatic gearbox. It’s a very, very small mix of manual so we are not focusing on this here.” She also ended any debate on whether a convertible version of the A110 would arrive, but didn’t write it off for future Alpine models. Talking about the current car, she said: “Maybe there will be some nice surprises, evolutions of this life cycle but nothing major.” ELECTRIC A110 TO RETAIN RETRO DESIGN The next-generation, electric Alpine A110 will continue the retro design approach of today’s car,…

PEUGEOT WILL FOCUS firmly on mass-market models that have significant volume potential, rather than launching low-volume halo products, as it electrifies its line-up over the coming years. Boss Linda Jackson said that taking advantage of Stellantis’s new modular EV architectures does not necessarily mean the French firm will expand into new segments or return to old ones. Instead, it will focus on maintaining an offering in the segments it performs best in. “We very much are identifying exactly where what we call the profit and volume pools are,” she told Autocar. “Our strategy is to be very, very focused, and really concentrate on where we are: our core segments, our core successes.” But this doesn’t mean the brand will spurn creativity, because future Peugeot models will take the lead from…

IN THE WORLD of hi-fi, electrostatic speakers have been a thing for decades and are sought after for their clarity and low distortion compared with conventional cone speakers. Now Warwick Acoustics has incorporated the technology into car interior panels, thereby saving space, weight and energy consumption. Its Electroacoustic panels are made, it says, entirely from upcycled or recyclable materials and are free of rare-earth metals (in the form of, say, neodymium magnets). The basic technology of the electrostatic speaker lends itself to being incorporated into panels and surfaces because instead of being based on bulky cones backed by magnets, they take the form of flat sheets. A conventional speaker consists of a cone attached to a transducer, a device that converts energy from one form to another – in this…

Lotus managing director Matt Windle has told Autocar that “it feels like Lotus is alive again” as the British brand gears up to finally start delivering its long-delayed Evija electric hypercar, having overcome a series of setbacks. Meeting Autocar at company headquarters in Hethel, Windle also spoke of quality improvements on the Emira production line, Lotus’s enduring passion for sports cars and potentially transformative partnership opportunities that could one day become reality. Has the Evija (revealed in 2019 and priced at £2.04m) been a financial success for Lotus, or will it be? “It will be. We’ve said we will build a maximum of 130 and sales are good. We’ve got enough sales for next year. It had two purposes for us. It had to break even; we weren’t looking at…

FIRST DRIVES TESTED 18.10.22, SNOWDONIA ON SALE NOW Restomods are pretty big business these days. Numerous firms are turning their hand to spicing up a classic recipe with some modern ingredients, many using the evergreen Porsche 911 as their canvas. Yet there are some that take this process even further, such as RML with its Short Wheelbase. More a homage than an update of an old-timer, this eye-catcher is basically a bespoke creation that happens to bear a resemblance to something from the 1960s – specifically the Ferrari 250 SWB, not that the Italian company will endorse such a thing. We’ve already driven a prototype, but now we’ve got the chance to try a near showroom-ready version of the £1.62 million creation. Yes, you read that right. That’s clearly a lot…

The original Genesis G90, which made its debut late in 2015, never came to Europe, and despite the subsequent arrival of no fewer than six smaller Genesis models, the all-new G90 won’t be sold here either. Which – spoiler alert – is regrettable. The Mk2 clothes the G90’s established strengths of cosseting luxury and cutting-edge technology in a decidedly more attractive body. Power comes from two versions of a twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre petrol V6. The higher-powered one, tested here, is further enhanced by a 48V electric supercharger, taking it from 375bhp to 409bhp. However, the real benefit of e-supercharging is peak torque arriving at a lowly 1300rpm. The G90’s greatest asset is its cabin, a clear step up over even the impressive G80’s. The quilted nappaleather seats are soft yet supportive.…

What you are about to read is almost certainly the most superfluous drive verdict that Autocar will publish this year. The sports car-buying public of Great Britain has long since made its mind up about the Toyota GR86. In 2022, as it turns out, a new rear-drive coupé with a particular reputation for driver appeal sells out faster than the town’s best artisanal bakery on Saturday morning. We can point to the frenzied enthusiasm of early first drive reports on the GR86 to at least partly explain why two years’ worth of allocation for this car sold out in just 90 minutes. But the pervading narrative that has surrounded all discussion of the GR86 since even before those first drive reports landed (that, in a context in which fewer and…

Jaguars that never were EVERY CAR FIRM has a wealth of unrealised projects in its archives. Most will never see the light of day, but occasionally we get tantalising glimpses into alternative histories. One such instance came in 1975, when we met Phil Weaver, who had retired from Jaguar having worked in its Special Projects and Competitions department. Back in the early days, Jaguar had two development channels, one official and one for founder William Lyons’ private projects. One was the Brontosaurus, an intended sports racing prototype – a flimsy, soap bar-like thing that predictably went to the scrapheap. One creation of that era that did survive was a little roadster with a 1.8 Standard motor, used by Lyons’ son, albeit inexplicably in the US. Jaguar also fancied a Formula…

MILEAGE 9449 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the hot version of Volkswagen’s electric SUV lives up to its GT ambitions Looks like that time of year has crept up on us. One evening this week, I got into the ID 4 for a quick drive home from the gym only to notice that the car’s in-built thermostat read a positively glacial 4deg C. That can mean only one thing: its range is about to plummet. At least that’s the expectation. A big winter range test conducted by our neighbours at What Car? earlier this year fully charged 10 cars and then drove them in cold conditions at speeds of 50mph and 70mph. The conclusion: drivers should expect around 15-20% fewer miles from an EV in the winter. The…

“It will have all the characteristics today’s Caterham customers know well: lightness, simplicity, agility and performance” Caterham Cars is working on an ambitious, three-pronged plan for the post-2030 electrification era. This involves building the muchloved petrol Seven for at least another decade, while using that time to develop a sameshape Seven EV and launch an all-new aerodynamic electric roadster that will draw on the traditional Caterham values of lightness, performance, simplicity and agility. Outlining the plan exclusively to Autocar, Caterham CEO Bob Laishley drew a picture of business that’s currently booming: the firm last year built 500 cars and sold 670, the ‘extras’ adding to a waiting list that now runs to about a year. In the short term, he wants to expand the company’s traditional annual output of 500…

The final design of the new Renault 4 is weeks away from being signed off, following the reveal of the outlandish 4ever Trophy concept on which it will be based. Renault design boss Gilles Vidal said the final touches are now being completed, but the overall shape is already agreed. The upper half of the concept, excusing the more out-there elements such as the sparewheel roof rack and bonnet grab handles, will be closely reflected in the production model when it arrives in 2025. Meanwhile, the lower half will receive bigger changes, given that this concept was created to celebrate Renault’s off-road rallying history. “The trick now is how to make a recognisable form and project it into the future,” said Vidal. “The front light signature and the tail-lights are…

DACIA CEO DENIS Le Vot has doubled down on a commitment to only go allelectric at the last possible moment, revealing that the firm will continue to develop combustion engines and strongly hinting that the next-generation Dacia Sandero will continue to offer an ICE powertrain – although an EV is highly likely as well. Le Vot said the company won’t pursue an all-electric line-up by 2030, in Europe or globally, because that would threaten the brand’s position as one of the most affordable on the market. But when Dacia does launch its first mass-market electric car (its Spring EV is only available in parts of Europe), it is most likely to be based on the Sandero, confirmed Renault Group engineering boss Gilles Le Borgne. “Sooner or later, we know we…

ALFA ROMEO IS “safe” and its future secured for at least the next 10 years. That’s according to Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares, who said Alfa is already profitable under the parent brand’s ownership and it is set to post record financial figures this year. “The business has been turned around and it is profitable,” he said. “It is now in a position to fund its own future. It’s safe.” After the launch of the Tonale, Alfa is understood to be readying an electric SUV for launch in 2024 and a saloon larger than the Giulia aimed at the US market after that. A sports car is also set to return. Alfa is one of three premium brands in the Stellantis stable, alongside DS and Lancia.…

Swapping a depleted car battery for a freshly charged one, in a process that takes minutes, is one avenue being explored to ramp up the number of electric cars on UK roads ahead of the government’s ban on the sale of new ICE cars from 2030. The battery-as-a-service (BaaS) model is touted as a potential solution for range anxiety and could give those without a home charging point a place to quickly gain range, energy research group Cornwall Insight has told Autocar. CI also said the BaaS model would put less pressure on the charging network – which it could complement rather than replace – with depleted batteries being recharged at off-peak times. In a new paper created in partnership with law firm Shoosmiths, CI claimed the model would reduce…

The automotive world has changed a huge amount in the past two decades, especially when it comes to affordable sports cars. It’s a shock to realise that it’s now 20 years since the Nissan 350Z was introduced, especially for those of us old enough to have attended the original media presentation in California. Yet the new Nissan Z, which we’ve also met in the US, is only two generations removed from that car and much more similar than it is different. Back in 2002, the 350Z felt like a renaissance car for Nissan, an affordable two-seat sports coupé that combined punchy V6 power with rear-wheel drive and a handsome exterior, this styled by a young designer from Leicester called Ajay Panchal. The driving experience lacked high levels of finesse, but…

Oh, it’s another Porsche restomod – only, wait a minute, this isn’t a six-cylinder one like all the others. Instead of starting with a 911, Budapest tuner Miklós Kázmér has taken the four-cylinder rearengined Porsche, the 912, as the basis for his Kamm 912c. The original 912 was created as a replacement for the 356 and built from 1965 to 1969 as an entry-level alternative to the then new 911. It was also lighter than contemporary 911s, with less rearward weight bias. Porsche made nearly 30,000 of them. This is the first Kamm 912c and is a prototype, with the final specification intended to be locked down very late this year or early next year and customer cars starting to arrive up to 12 months after that. Taking even more…

MODEL TESTED 87KWH EVOLVE Price£55,890 Power239bhp Torque221lb ft 0-60mph8.2sec 30-70mph in fourthna Fuel economy 3.2mpkWh CO2 emissions0g/km 70-0mph49.3m The market for mid-sized family EVs is already impressively diverse, but while several players within it are positioned for a premium price, few have used what you might think of as traditional luxury car values to justify that price. Tesla’s Models Y and 3 are fast and rangy. Audi’s Q4 twins are edgy-looking and tech-laden. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E offers range, handling dynamism and design cachet – as, each somewhat differently, do the Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Genesis GV60. Is there an opening, then, for a premium family EV that puts comfort, refinement, cabin appeal and on-board space uppermost among its reasons for being? Nissan is banking that there is with this…

Just how much joy is it possible to squeeze into one Welsh lay-by? I’m not talking about acute, concentrated joy, because if that were the case, you would simply park a Caterham Seven in there, dust off your hands and say “this much”. I’m talking about gross joy – joy cumulatively experienced by as many people as possible as frequently as possible. Looking down from the vantage point of Luc Lacey’s camera lens, I think we might have the answer. Our annual contest to identify the finest sub-£40,000 performance car has taken an unexpected turn this year, mainly because the car to beat couldn’t make it. Rather than host an event hollowed by the Toyota GR86’s absence, we decided to put on a past masters showdown – the best of…

I liked Jim Holder’s comments on EV weights (Inside Information, 28 September), prompted by another near-3000kg electric SUV on the horizon. Although big diesel 4x4s are also heavy, they at least have full off-road and 3500kg-towing abilities to show for it. All current EVs seem to be mere copies of existing ICE designs, partly for customer acceptance, partly for cost and mainly due to politically motivated deadlines. Despite new platforms, they’re fundamentally conversions. Adding batteries to an existing large (predominantly) steel shell with a gearbox of sorts, differentials and halfshafts isn’t a revolution. We’ve only lost the propshaft by virtue of placing the motor at the driven wheels; pre-war designs did as much. Once individual-wheel motors are more suitable, packaging will be easier. And with regenerative systems and one-pedal driving,…

MILEAGE 5608 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see whether the Cupra is a new EV contender or just a gussied-up VW ID 3 It was no surprise for me to see the Cupra doing so well in our electric driver’s cars super-test (28 September). Finishing fourth, it beat some pretty serious opposition and was only bettered by a trio of significantly pricier machines. That tallies perfectly with my experience: even in everyday use, it’s rewarding enough to raise a smile, and that’s despite me rarely troubling the Drive Profile Selection and generally sticking to Comfort mode. While running late for a friend’s wedding recently, however, my wife was persuaded to give me rare permission to really go for it, and I was surprised at how much of a difference it…

Sometimes, greatness can’t be rushed. Lancia’s humble Delta family hatchback had been around since 1979, but it wasn’t until 1987 that the now-famous Integrale badge was applied to the road car. And for the next seven years, it signified the pinnacle of the hot hatch, with supercar-embarrassing performance on the road and worldbeating pace on the rally stage. The Delta had already shown itself to be a competent performer, with HF variants in 1983 and the turbocharged HF 4WD in 1986. When Lancia decided to take the Delta rallying in the new 1987 Group A class, the wick was turned up once again for the road-going models. As per the rules, 5000 homologated road cars had to be built each year to comply with regulations, but by 1993 demand had…

Bob Laishley, an engineer by training, joined Caterham after a 25-year career at Nissan just as the 2020 Covid outbreak began. His first job was to be the company’s parttime chief strategy officer, tasked with finding ways to boost production because it was plain that the company could sell more cars than its usual 500 a year. In the first months of 2021, the company was bought by VT Holdings, a large Japanese trading group that was, among other things, the Seven’s Japanese importer. Within a couple of months, Caterham’s CEO of 10 years, Graham Macdonald, decided to retire and Laishley, who had been enjoying part-time working but was known through his Nissan connections to VT Holdings CEO Kazuho Takahashi, was persuaded to take on the CEO’s role. Laishley says…

The European Union is poised to dramatically water down planned Euro 7 emission regulations in an attempt to minimise the cost of developing new cars. The revelation comes just days after Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares told reporters at the Paris motor show that the regulations should be scrapped because they were likely to go ‘beyond the laws of physics’. He argued that engineering resources should be focused on electrification, rather than cleaning up petrol engines – especially given that many European countries will ban combustion-engined cars from around 2030 onwards. However, it has subsequently emerged that the long-delayed draft regulations, to be published on 9 November, will keep the emissions regulations for cars and vans similar to those currently set for petrolpowered cars, according to a report from Politico, which…

Jeep is having a miserable time in the UK. Sales were down a huge 69% in the first nine months of the year to just 2036 cars, according to figures from the SMMT, as buyers are seemingly falling out of love with the Renegade and Compass, the SUV specialist’s core models. “Jeep sales in the UK are deeply disappointing,” admitted an executive within the Stellantis-owned company on condition of anonymity. In fact, nowhere in Europe is the iconic American brand doing really well apart from Italy, which manufactures both models and accounts for half of all Jeep’s sales in the region. Its sales are down by 25% to the end of August, figures from the ACEA, the European industry body, show. “We had a lot of issues with powertrains not…

LIKE THE BRITISH Touring Car Championship, the UK’s top tier of endurance competition has a knack of putting on thrilling title deciders, and the 2022 British GT Championship finale didn’t disappoint. At 59, Ian Loggie is now an overall GT3 champion after a couple of Pro-Am titles, despite a difficult start in the final two-hour contest at Donington Park. Loggie’s RAM Racing Mercedes-AMG was forced off into the Redgate gravel after the start to avoid the spinning McLaren of Morgan Tillbrook, then a spin of his own delayed the pre-weekend points leader. But paired with GT World Challenge Endurance Cup champion Jules Gounon, his day only got better from there, with the aid of safety car interludes. The black-and-pink GT rose up the order to finish second and bag Loggie…

Languid. Not an adjective that you tend to associate with supercars, but there’s something about this Maserati’s character that brings it to mind, even when you’re cracking on. Why? Not because it’s lazy, but because its deep well of ability allows you to feel unexpectedly relaxed. The MC20 Cielo is a car that you can lean on, even over demanding roads. It has tremendous pace, what with 621bhp and, still more handily, a 538lb ft slug of easy-access torque. It has massive carbonfibre brakes that don’t wilt. Its structural core is made of carbonfibre and, even after decapitation, is exceptionally stiff. Its wheels hang from coil-sprung double wishbones, damping control effected both adaptively and adjustably. And it has four dynamic modes – Wet, GT, Sport and Corsa – that reveal…

The updated Citroën C5 Aircross, especially in PHEV guise, looks to be the sort of car you wouldn’t normally think twice about but might find yourself warming to with time spent in it. It’s quite attractively styled and its cabin is pleasingly lowrise, with crisp screens. Its dynamics are staunchly comfort-oriented and 30 miles or so of electric-only running should suit its suburban remit well. It’s not even oppressively slow: with a 1.6-litre turbo four and an electric motor sending 221bhp to the front axle, put your foot down and it will do 0-62mph in 8.7sec. And in reality, the C5 Aircross PHEV mostly makes good on all this promise. It’s a wafty, laid-back soul that makes virtually no concessions to being in any way athletic, focusing instead on sofa-like…

“Amalgam’s client list includes Ralph Lauren, Sylvester Stallone and George Lucas” Everyone loves a good car collection, even one that’s a fraction of the size of the real thing. And by that we don’t mean in terms of number but in scale. Whether they’re Dinky Toys, Hot Wheels or carefully assembled Lego Technic kits, many are as precious to their owners as the real deal. When they’re worth more than £50,000, probably even more so. That’s the cost of some of the scale models made by Amalgam Collection, a company hidden away in a Bristol industrial estate that makes probably the most exquisite and expensive model cars you’ve ever (well, more likely never) seen. These include a 1:4 replica of the Mercedes-AMG W11 EQ Performance from the 2020 Portuguese Grand…

GROUP TEST Best of British We take the Aston Martin DBS, Nissan Qashqai and other home-made heroes to the wilds of Wales FEATURE The innovators How UK technology firms are shaping the future of the car industry ROAD TEST Range Rover Sport We getourhandson the new Range Rover Sportonhomesoil forthefirsttime EVERY WEEK LONG-TERM TEST BMWiX Our xDrive50 car or the hot M60 variant? We discuss USED BUYING GUIDE Aston Martin DB11 Compared with a Conti GT, this nearly new Aston is a steal SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 16,387 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if an electric SUV is worthy of the Mustang name and, more importantly, if it augurs well for Ford’s future Hard times don’t just mean hardships: there’s usually a few positive lessons to be found in among the debris of shattered expectations. So I found as I was preparing for the letter announcing the tripling of my expiring gas and electricity direct debit to land (later downgraded to a mere doubling after much protest). How so? Well, it’s fair to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine back in February had given me and my family a kick up the bum. Factually accurate or not, the thought of funding Vladimir Putin’s terrorism because we couldn’t be bothered to put a jumper on or…

You can count on a Kia Sorento as roomy, capable and practical family transport – but never more so than in its current, fourth-generation guise. To quote our 2021 road test: “It is a spacious, well-made, well-equipped and impressively versatile seven-seat SUV that’s handsomely formed and strategically priced.” But before we talk about pricing – and it’s cheaper in nearly new form, of course – you should know that there are two hybrid versions on offer, one you can’t plug in and one you can. The first, the HEV, uses a 1.6-litre petrol engine and an electric motor for a total of 226bhp, meaning it has good performance to go with its 40.9mpg official economy. The PHEV has the same engine but a more powerful motor for 261bhp overall. Its…

Even the most successful car makers can miss the mark sometimes. They can fumble when attempting to replace a popular car or get ahead of themselves by trying to fill a niche that doesn’t yet exist – or never will. The resulting models ask more questions than they answer, and while some will remain unloved forever, others get more intriguing as they age. Here are our favourites. Volkswagen K70 1970 Thirsting for its production capacity rather than the thirsty rotary-engined Ro80, Volkswagen purchased NSU in 1969. It also inherited and then axed a mid-range four-door named the K70 that was months away from launch. VW back-pedalled and green-lit the K70, but only with a VW badge. It was the company’s first front-engined, water-cooled model and one of the more forward-thinking…