Innholdsfortegnelse for April 09, 2025 i Autocar

TEN MINUTES AND 26 seconds into our conversation, the bombshell drops: “What I can say now is that we will merge Forseven and McLaren. It will all exist under a McLaren umbrella.” We had speculated as much in our reporting of Forseven previously, but to hear the words come out of the mouth of Forseven CEO Nick Collins made for quite a jaw-dropping moment. Wow, this is big! Collins had been one of the faces of JLR over the past decade but he had joined the previously almost mythical Forseven 15 months ago and disappeared from public view. He has made quite the return. Forseven had been operating differently from most start-ups in being almost entirely secretive. Its only visible presence has been a holding webpage and the LinkedIn profiles…

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 has been redesigned less than three years after it was revealed, losing its prominent ducktail rear wing and gaining a new sporty N-Line variant. The makeover largely takes influence from 2022’s race-inspired RN22e concept car, which itself previewed the hot Ioniq 6 N that the South Korean car maker has now confirmed will be revealed in July – possibly meaning a Goodwood Festival of Speed unveiling is on the cards. Revealed at the Seoul motor show in Korea, the new Ioniq 6 is said by its maker to feature “more refined curves and enhanced proportions for a sleek and beautifully balanced silhouette”. In keeping with its billing as what Hyundai calls an “electric streamliner”, its swooping, wind-cheating proportions are broadly unchanged, but the bonnet’s profile has…

AUTONOMOUS AND SEMI-autonomous cars bring with them new methods of safety testing. What happens, for example, if a tyre deflates suddenly when the car is doing the driving rather than the human and how well will it cope? US firm Koala Technologies has developed a new piece of equipment that enables a road tester to deflate a tyre by remote control from within the car. The kit meets the requirements of existing regulations, including the FMVSS 110 US federal standard. Specifically, this US regulation is intended to ensure tyres have sufficient load-carrying capacity and are appropriate for the kind of use the vehicle gets. It also verifies that a tyre remains on the rim when it deflates at speed. Koala Technologies’ new kit also meets the emerging standards for EV…

JIM ROWAN IS no longer the CEO of Volvo – and Autocar understands that he was pushed out of the Swedish car company. The Briton, who joined from tech firm Dyson in 2022, has been replaced by his predecessor Håkan Samuelsson on a two-year basis while a permanent successor is sought. While no explanation was given by either Rowan or Volvo, two separate sources have confirmed to Autocar that he was forced out. “It was quick and a surprise,” one said. His departure in favour of the company’s 74-year-old former boss provoked the most puzzled response among industry watchers. “It’s the biggest surprise of all the [recent industry] changes,” said former Nissan and Aston Martin senior executive Andy Palmer. “In my mind, he was doing great.” The case for replacing…

TECH ARROGANCE [Now-departed] CEO Jim Rowan’s vision depresses me, as a newish Volvo owner (19 March). The XC40 is a good car severely let down by very, very poor software. The safety features are particularly bad: my car is wrong almost as often as it is right about the speed limit (including such ridiculous errors as claiming a 130kph limit in central Rotterdam); the emergency braking system activates whenever a pedestrian in a narrow street moves towards the car, even when there is little risk of that person stepping in front of the car; and the lane assistance makes driving with it activated virtually impossible on narrow B-roads. Having to operate key functions via a touchscreen is a safety hazard. The entertainment system only works well if you stream music;…

The future of estate cars may be in doubt at Volvo, but they still have a firm place in the range of that other known purveyor of them. Avant is an institution at Audi, to the extent that it’s launching its latest A6 (that’s the ICE one, not the unrelated electric one) as an estate first, with the saloon to follow later on. Globally, just over half of A6s are specified as a saloon, but the estate dominates in Europe. Even so, its role has changed over the past five decades of A6 and 100 production. Today, buyers after a large, practical family car are more likely to pick an SUV. That leaves the A6 free to become more of a lifestyle product, one that puts more emphasis on style…

“It can be exceptionally absorbent, wafting very comfortably on motorways” The updated Enyaq is proof that some car makers are sticking with their core focuses even in the age of the rebrand. Kia and Hyundai have taken the ‘reinvention’ baton and run a country mile, and Jaguar’s new look needs no introduction, but Skoda and its cars have stayed true to their intentions: they’re easy on the eye, easy to use and easy to live with. The firm’s first bespoke EV, the Enyaq, has this inherent Skoda-ness in droves. It’s an efficient, cleverly thought-out, affordable SUV that was one of Europe’s best-selling cars last year and Skoda’s third-best-seller in the UK. Now the Czechs are looking to enhance its appeal even further with a mid-life update. The most obvious area…

In the final reckoning the ‘L460’ will go down as one of the more radical generations of Range Rover. The monolithic exterior still turns heads four years on, with an almost pebble-smooth look that combines to striking effect with simply enormous body panels, while the L460 is the model that has taken electrification mainstream for the world’s best-known luxury off-roader. Mild hybridisation is now table stakes for both petrol and diesel Range Rovers, and the former is also available in PHEV guise. Its pioneering role isn’t over yet, either. Later this year JLR will launch the first pure-electric Range Rover, which has been seen hot-weather testing on 250ft sand dunes in the UAE’s Al Badayer desert in Sharjah. Resilience in high temperatures is a key challenge of the project, as…

Matt Prior The 1990s was my formative motoring decade: from my first car magazine purchase to my first drive, my first crash and my car-based degree. Throughout, there was one car I loved above all others: the Caterham Seven, whose brochure (including Autocar extracts) I thumbed relentlessly. A couple of months out of the ’90s (sorry), I finally bought one. Steve Cropley I still think of September 1995 as the date modern, practical sports cars began. That was when we revealed the first official pictures of the Lotus Elise, whose brilliance as a driver’s car and an ownership proposition was made instantly obvious by the images. At the time, design boss Julian Thomson was amazingly modest about what he and his little team had achieved, and he remains so today.…

The British motorsport landscape had never seen anything like the boom time of the British Touring Car Championship through the 1990s. International drivers and manufacturer-backed programmes flocked to the UK to battle it out for what had become the most prestigious tin-top series on the planet. The domestic series had seen the writing on the wall for saloon car racing before anyone else and set a trend that, ultimately, the rest of the world followed for a glorious decade. At its peak, there were 10 manufacturer-supported teams in the BTCC, robust television coverage and a phalanx of international stars all chasing the British accolade. It was a long journey from the decade before. In the 1980s, tin-top racing had been fought out between cars of different specifications and engine capacities…

WHY WE RAN IT To see whether a facelift has succeeded in keeping this combustion-engined hatchback relevant o back a decade or two and an Audi A3 was “It has been one easy, effortless journey after another” Go back a decade or two and an Audi A3 wasthe slightly posher mainstream choice for an everyday car. If you wanted to be a bit more fancy than a Ford Focus or even a Volkswagen Golf, this (or a BMW 1 Series) was it. Audi even claims to have established the premium compact segment by introducing the A3 in 1996. Times have changed in the car buying world, but this hatchback is still more important for Audi that some people might expect. It accounts for a quarter of the firm’s sales and…

MILEAGE 2232 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the Tavascan really is a sporty SUV – and if the segment needs it It’s late on a wet Tuesday evening and I’ve just driven to my local EV charging hub, an old 20kW unit, for some pre-commute juice. I’ve completed the ritual of topping up my account (it baffles me that all chargers aren’t mandated to be plug-and-pay) and I jump out of the Tavascan into the rain. “The brakes on that really aren’t very good are they?” says a voice, which as I turn I find belongs to a man on rollerskates staring intently at me. Quite the fever dream. “I’ve just bought one,” he continues before I have a chance to respond, “and I really don’t think…

MILEAGE 3588 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see whether this big new estate really is a flawless family hauler We don’t give five-star road test verdicts often at Autocar. Indeed, 2024 qualified as an unusually fertile year with just three – for the Porsche 911 S/T, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N and Skoda Superb 2.0 TDI Estate. As the road tester who wrote the Superb verdict, I was looking forward to spending more time with the big Skoda. At the same time, there was a bit of uncertainty nagging at me: it’s just a collection of Volkswagen MQB bits, so is it really that good? Happily, any doubt melted away as soon as I picked up this car. The Superb isn’t exceptional because it brings you driving ecstasy on a special…

Finished in unblemished Blue Le Mans and with an unmarked Connolly hide interior, the Ferrari 456 GTA of Mark Lee looks as fresh as the day it left its Maranello birthplace in 1997, destined for its first owner in Hong Kong. And so it should, with just 23,000 miles on the clock and, since its arrival in the UK in 2003, the regular attentions of Ferrari dealers. That programme of TLC culminated last year in a thorough overhaul by Meridien Modena, prior to the car being auctioned at the Classic Motor Show in November. Mark was there at the auction with a few quid in his pocket. “It got to mid-afternoon and then this 456 GTA came through,” he tells me. “There had been some high prices for fast Fords,…

JORDAN-FORD 191 1991, price on application Rather than spend £20m on a McLaren F1 (p84), why not buy an actual F1 car? This 1991 Jordan was driven by Michael Schumacher on his F1 debut at Spa. The last F1 Jordan to be auctioned sold for more than £1.5m, so that’s your price guide. AUDI RS2 AVANT 1995, 158,000 miles, £47,995 Easily a ’90s standout, the RS2 is a super-cool performance wagon that can keep up with most modern estates. This RHD example has done big miles, but the recently serviced turbocharged five-pot is said to be in good order. We’d buy it just for the Nogaro Blue paint. MGF 1.8i VVC 1998, 12,500 miles, £8995 Those in the market for an Elise S1 or MX-5 might wish to consider MG’s mid-engined drop-top,…

“It gives McLaren Automotive the expansion and security it craves” McLaren Automotive is to merge with British start-up Forseven in a bombshell move that will enable it to expand beyond making mid-engined supercars for the first time. The merger secures the future of McLaren, giving it the capital, technology and resources to go into areas of the market that it hasn’t been able to finance itself. Forseven has been quietly assembling a team of more than 700 industry professionals, among them big-name designers, engineers and executives from other British car firms, and has been building towards the launch of a range of luxury models under a new brand. The common link here is the Abu Dhabi government-backed investment company CYVN Holdings, which has facilitated a merger operating under the McLaren…

General Motors has unveiled a fully finished, future-looking Chevrolet Corvette EV concept produced entirely in Britain, to underscore the importance of its large and impressive new UK advanced design studio. The recently opened studio in Leamington Spa is led by Julian Thomson, previously Jaguar’s head of design. Thomson has also worked for other manufacturers including Volkswagen and Lotus and was responsible for the creation of design icons such as the original Lotus Elise and the Range Rover Evoque. The opening of a new design outpost comes as part of a push by GM to re-establish itself in Europe following a decade-long absence. GM-owned Cadillac’s new Lyriq EV is already available in certain markets in the region and the smaller, Europe-focused Optiq crossover is due to follow in the coming months…

HYUNDAI HAS REAFFIRMED its commitment to hydrogen cars, revealing the second generation of its Nexo fuel cell SUV. Based on 2024’s Initium concept, it introduces a new ‘Art of Steel’ design language to distinguish the brand’s future FCEVs. Key features include the grid-shaped ‘H-two’ front and rear lights, and H-shaped surfaces on the front and rear bumpers. As well as a radically different design from its predecessor, the new Nexo is longer, taller and wider, repositioning it as an alternative to battery-powered EVs such as the BMW iX3 and Tesla Model Y. The Nexo receives the same ‘connected cockpit’ dashboard as the Ioniq 5, with a pair of 12.3in displays. Traditional side mirrors are replaced by cameras. The second-generation Nexo houses a completely reworked powertrain. Its fuel cell stack’s electrical…

Ten major car makers and the British and European automotive trade bodies have agreed to pay fines totalling £77.7 million after admitting to breaking UK competition laws, while the European Commission (EC) has fined 15 car makers a combined £382.7m in a related probe. The UK fines have been levied by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) following a three-year investigation into what it ruled was an illegal agreement between the manufacturers not to compete against each other when advertising the percentage of their cars that could be recycled. BMW, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault, Toyota and Volkswagen have all been fined by the CMA, as have Stellantis (as the owner of Citroën, Peugeot and Vauxhall) and General Motors (as the former owner of Vauxhall). The UK’s Society…

As a Volvo enthusiast, I read Jim Rowan’s interview (19 March) with an increasing sense of alarm. A car is absolutely not an electronic device on wheels. What we do with our PCs, our smartphones and our cars are three separate things. I remember when, with Windows 8, Microsoft tried to make my PC like a smartphone: it was a disaster. Boeing recently tried to mask a poor mechanical design with a software patch and in the process cut the pilot out of the equation: it cost many hundreds of lives and nearly brought down the company. EVs are still in their infancy; Volvo should take a leaf out of Lucid’s book and concentrate on motor efficiency, packaging and cool design. I suggest that creating a full stack of software…

CHINA’S LEAPMOTOR ISN’T yet a well-known brand in Europe, but given that it has the powerhouse of Stellantis behind it, there’s plenty to suggest that it can succeed here. We’ve already driven its T03 electric city car and C10 electric SUV, and by year’s end the latter will gain a range-extender option in the UK. In this new powertrain, badged REEV, a 1.5-litre petrol engine is used as a generator for a 28.4kWh battery that powers a 212bhp permanent magnet synchronous motor at the rear axle (and can also be plugged in to charge). The benefits of such a system over a plug-in hybrid one, says Leapmotor, is better efficiency, better environmental credentials and an impressively long range – up to 90 miles using the electric motor only or 603…

SKODA CLAIMS THE new Enyaq Coupé is the most aerodynamic car it has ever made, and in its ultimate form it’s also one of its most potent. The 85x gets a combined 282bhp from two electric motors – one on the rear axle and a smaller, asynchronous unit on the front for four-wheel-drive running. Straight off the bat, it feels slightly more planted and assured to drive than rear-driven Enyaqs, and its healthy 402lb ft of torque is delivered without any drama. Once you’re up to speed, the Coupé is almost as quiet as the regular SUV. Almost: strangely, we heard a little more wind noise, especially above 60mph. That said, it’s a subtle difference and not something you’re likely to notice unless you’re listening out for it. Interior space…

CARWEEK Estimated peak sales 130,000 Publisher Emap What they said “Blimey, they’re giving away a DB7” CAR CHOICE Estimated peak sales 50,000 Publisher Haymarket What they said “Conclusive proof there’s no display ad revenue in used cars” PERFORMANCE CAR Estimated peak sales 35,000 Publisher Emap What they said “We had that Jeremy Clarkson in the back of our mag once” COMPLETE CAR Estimated peak sales 60,000 Publisher Motor-Presse What they said “Germans make great cars, but magazines? Not so much” PETROLHEAD Estimated peak sales 10,000 Publisher Mediahead What they said “Max Power for grown-ups. Of which there aren’t any”…

Porsche Boxster (986) A howling flat six, celery-crisp steering and stunning wide-hipped looks – they can all be yours from just £3000. Of course, the cheapest Boxsters are best avoided, but the truth is that these are surprisingly hardy little roadsters – provided you buy carefully. Its best-known Achilles is the intermediate-shaft (IMS) bearing, which in some cases fractures or even shatters after a long and hard life. This then throws off the engine’s timing and shunts pistons into valves, requiring a really rather expensive rebuild. Thankfully, many examples’ bearings have already been replaced, and typically with a sturdier aftermarket item that isn’t prone to exploding. If it hasn’t been done, add another £800 or so to the car’s price, if you get it done alongside a new clutch –…

BMW 318is (1992-1994) The BMW 318is had big shoes to fill. The original Prodrive-built BMW M3 race car had been a staple of the 2.0-litre undercard in the BTCC for almost five years when the revolution happened, and BMW was already an active player in tin-top racing on the global scene. It put its weight behind a refreshed ‘E36’ 3 Series saloon, which met the new rules head on. Volvo 850 Estate (1994) The Tom Walkinshaw Racing-created 850 Estate was a curio in on-track terms but really ramped up the publicity for Volvo. Veteran Jan Lammers and rising star Rickard Rydell were at the controls of the car, which unsurprisingly was prevented from really hitting the sweet spot by the excess weight at its rear. It was replaced by an…

WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover whether the quintessential Jeep, which looks like fun, is really a vehicle you could live with day to day The characteristics that make a car good are quite different to those that make it interesting. We’ve known this for years, but the theory is less prominent nowadays, because today’s cars are decent to excellent on almost every front. However, the Jeep Wrangler, my car for the next few months, is a glorious exception. It takes you right back into an era of old-school variability, laughing at sober perfectionism, and makes your life all the better for that. It has already been a couple of weeks since this Wrangler – a sensible-spec Sahara, rather than an even more aggressive and offroady Rubicon – arrived in…

MILEAGE 12,240 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the spirit of the classic Land Rover Defender really does live on here To north-east France and the Grenadier factory to see the opening of a biomass plant (saves money, greener than gas, smells like Christmas trees) and more importantly interview Lynn Calder, Ineos Automotive’s CEO (hear us wherever you get your podcasts). I could have taken several trains or flown, but Hambach is a way away from big cities. Colleagues reported taking more than two and a half hours to transfer across from Frankfurt airport. And where’s the fun in any of that? It’s only five hours from Calais, lending it ripe for a road trip, and I love road trips. Via the Eurotunnel, Hambach is about 10 hours door…

What is the greatest road car of all time? There are many standouts that have had such an impact that they remain as aspirational in their old age as the day they left the factory. When it comes to engineering and design, one 1990s hero can hold its own with the best of any era: the McLaren F1. With just 106 cars in existence (including race variants and prototypes), the chances of even seeing McLaren’s seminal hypercar, never mind owning one, are slim. But if your Euromillions numbers come up, or a long-lost relative leaves you around, say, £15 million, then hopefully this guide will serve more as useful consumer advice than indulgent fantasy. Either way, it’s a tasty prospect. The F1 was designed by legendary duo Gordon Murray and…

The best… 1990 HONDA NSX “What makes the NSX special is that it rewrites the supercar rules. It proves that a 160mph, mid-engined two-seater need not be uncomfortable, heavy and impossible to see out of. Quite the reverse, it packages the ability of a Lotus or Ferrari in a form as friendly and, most importantly, as safe as a Civic.” 1991 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF VR6 “The first of a new breed of car. It is a front-drive hatch that is nevertheless more fun to drive than the finest rear-drive sports saloon. It’s faster too, thanks to a 15deg V6 engine every bit as characterful as BMW’s sublime straight six. These are qualities that are hard to forget.” 1992 NISSAN MICRA “Setting new standards for build quality, refinement, interior design and safety…

What is CYVN Holdings? CYVN is an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi state (part of the UAE) with what Forseven CEO Nick Collins calls “a remit to invest in advanced mobility”. It formed Forseven as an anchor investment in 2022 and has expanded its automotive portfolio since. It paid $2.2 billion (£1.7bn) for a 20% stake in Chinese electric car company Nio in late 2023 and Collins sits on the Nio board as part of its stakeholding. It bought Gordon Murray Technologies in 2023 and also acquired the rights to GMT’s innovative iStream production process as part of that deal. CYVN acquired McLaren Automotive in December 2024 and it was Collins, who also acts as an automotive advisor to CYVN, who first suggested around a year ago that it…

HYUNDAI HAS REIMAGINED the new Inster urban EV as a futuristic hot hatch with aggressive styling and a stripped-out interior, taking inspiration from video gaming. Called the Insteroid – a portmanteau of ‘Inster’ and ‘steroid’ – it follows last year’s 641bhp, 546lb ft, 3.4sec-to-0-62mph RN24 Concept, which was described as a ‘rolling lab’ for future hot Hyundai EVs. “The Insteroid represents a modern take on the idea of a dream car,” said Eduardo Ramírez, chief designer for Hyundai Europe. “It is designed to inspire and create enthusiasm.” Although the Insteroid is officially conceptual, its existence – like that of the RN24 – suggests there’s an appetite within the company to produce a hot version of its smallest EV. Indeed, Hyundai acknowledges that the “Insteroid is another step in the hot-selling…

TWO STRIKING NEW Genesis concept cars spawned from the Korean luxury brand’s G90 flagship showcase its “new chapter”. Unveiled at last week’s Seoul motor show, the X Gran Coupé and X Gran Convertible have been created to “demonstrate the brand’s future position” and arrive 10 years after it was spun out of Hyundai. Both concepts clearly resemble the donor limousine (sharing the same front and rear twin-light bar design) and have been created to show that there is room in the Genesis line-up to expand with niche model derivatives, design boss Luc Donckerwolke told Autocar. Features such as the frameless windows and pillarless doors and the extensive use of quilted materials appear to be almost production-ready, suggesting such elements will appear in road cars. The duo build on the three…

SEAT AND CUPRA CEO Wayne Griffiths has left the Spanish firm after nearly five years at the helm. Griffiths stepped down with immediate effect “at his own request” so that he could “pursue new challenges”, said Seat. At the time of writing, it was not known if the Briton had a new job to go to. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Seat’s production and logistics boss Markus Haupt, with a permanent successor to be announced at a later date. Griffiths was named Seat and Cupra CEO in 2020 and helped Cupra to become one of Europe’s fastest-growing car brands. Thomas Schäfer, the VW Group’s core brands boss, thanked him for an “excellent contribution”.…

ROAD TEST BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT Can you replace a magnificent W12 engine with a plug-in hybrid V8 and still make a characterful, truly luxurious GT? Our road testers tell all INSIGHT NISSAN’S BOLD COMEBACK PLAN New CEO reveals his vision – and it includes small EVs and sports cars SPEC-TACULAR HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT VALHALLA We visit Aston Martin’s HQ to select the dream spec for ‘our’ hypercar EVERY WEEK MY CAR & I VOLKSWAGEN XL1 It was the future once. An owner tells us how it stacks up in 2025 LIVING WITH A… MINI COOPER S Final verdict on petrol hot hatch after 6000 miles of everyday life…

NISSAN IS PLOUGHING £2 billion into its Sunderland plant to prepare it to build the new Leaf and electric successors to the Juke and Qashqai. But with uncertainty surrounding EV uptake and regulations, it’s yet to commit to an arrival date for the latter. Given the popularity of the segment-defining crossover, that’s understandable caution. In the meantime, the firm is focused on improving the current Qashqai, including upgrading the e-Power hybrid version that arrived in 2022. Nissan claims e-Power is a hybrid system born from EV technology, rather than a petrol powertrain that has been electrified. Instead of both power sources driving the wheels, only the electric motor does so, drawing power from a 1.8kWh battery charged by the 1.5-litre three-cylinder engine. It works the same way as the Leapmotor…

The car under scrutiny in this road test extends the number of Chinese-built and Chinese-branded, budget-priced, plug-in hybrid, family-sized SUVs competing for attention in the UK to three. That may not sound like the most extensive selection. In fact, it’s barely worth coining a collective noun for (though feel free, if you’re so inclined). And yet, when you look at what most European brands offer with cars like this in comparison and how much they expect to charge, you realise in an instant how serious these Asian brands are about making significant inroads into UK market share – and how well placed, on the face of things, they seem to be to make them. The Jaecoo 7, then, is here to lock horns with the at least fairly wellestablished MG…

Everyone loves 1990s cars. Over the past decade their popularity has risen rapidly as the differences between them and contemporary models have become ever more distinct. What’s the reason? After all, 1990s cars are now 25 to 35 years out of date. And there isn’t the same love out there for the cars of the 1980s or 2000s. It’s tempting to blame simple nostalgia: teenage kids of the mid-1990s are approaching 50 today. Back then they desired the cars of their era; today they can do something about it. We believe there’s much more to it than that, though. Today, the cars of the 1990s are admired by a far wider cohort of enthusiasts than those teenagers of the time. There’s a unique purity and originality baked into the best…

Understudy to Alain Prost. Subbed in after the death of Ayrton Senna. Undermined by a returning Nigel Mansell. Teamed with and against Damon Hill in a Williams blessed by the Midas touch of Adrian Newey. And that was just the first three years. At the time, it was all just life for young and promising David Coulthard. Now long retired at 53, established as an eloquent TV pundit and about to do it all again as a racing dad, the man universally known as DC has to admit: his 1990s kinda rocked. “I recall testing with Prost [in 1993], looking over to his side of the garage and just thinking: how can my life be any better than this?” Coulthard tells me. “I’m test driving for the guy who was…

The 1990s wasn’t the friendliest environment for hot hatchbacks. The previous decade had bred some of the genre’s biggest icons, but an epidemic of thefts and spiralling insurance costs began to stifle car makers’ swagger. The Golf GTI, a pioneer of the formula, was softened in its third generation, while the Escort Cosworth’s irresistibility to more than its paying customers meant Ford’s follow-ups lost their lustre too. Thankfully, towards the decade’s close, rescue came from a reliable source of inexpensive fun: the French. The cars you see here were not only dinky in size and affordable, but their running costs were also attainable by everyday folk. The Citroën Saxo VTS was flung to the top of the hot hatch sales charts by its now ludicroussounding free insurance deals, which, allied…

SILVERSTONE, 1992 Flashpoint! The championship came down to a three-way showdown in 1992, with BMW’s Tim Harvey, Vauxhall’s John Cleland and Toyota’s Will Hoy all in the mix going to the Silverstone finale. With Hoy down the order, Harvey stole a march in the points chase and was ‘assisted’ when the second 318is of Steve Soper cannoned into Cleland’s Cavalier and knocked the Scotsman out of the race. It was box-office stuff. OULTON PARK, 1994 Italians storm out Alfa Romeo knew it had a trick up its sleeve with the 155 TS, and its homologation special caused a major rift in the BTCC – and moved the aerodynamics goalposts. It had special extended wings on the car but kept them under wraps until race one. Others protested, Alfa was told…

MILEAGE 38,943 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if an approved used car is the best route into Tesla ownership One of the reasons I went for a Dual Motor Long Range version of the Model 3 was to avoid the range anxiety that’s a feature of life with most EVs. A claim of 360 miles sounded like more than enough, particularly because I don’t do many long journeys. Of the 82kWh battery, only around 75kWh is usable, so that total sounded ambitious against the WLTP efficiency claim of 4.2mpkWh, yet I still found myself frustrated by my early economy. On motorway runs, the car was getting about 3.7mpkWh, but that was dropping in town, resulting in a disappointing average of 3.4mpkWh for the first thousand miles or so,…

MILEAGE 8563 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the new-gen Tiguan maintains the appeal of VW’s best-seller So many mainstream cars these days offer a Sport driving mode, but usually it does little more than make an unpleasantsounding engine rev harder and for longer, and as such I will try it once and then never touch it again. This Tiguan, though, has been enhanced with the Dynamic Driving Package (for £1025), meaning its modes affect not just the powertrain but also the dampers and steering. Having defaulted to normal (Eco) mode, I decided to drive home the other day in Sport mode – or at least I planned to. I lasted only about 15 miles before the constant jiggling over rough surfaces and thumping over potholes became too…

AN OWNER’S VIEW RAY BELLM, FORMER OWNER AND F1 GTR RACING DRIVER “I ordered chassis number 46 after attending the launch event in Monaco in 1992 and planned to convert it into a racing car. Ron Dennis said I couldn’t and offered to build me a one-off racer for £1 million, but I didn’t have the money. He told me to go and find three other customers who wanted a racing car, and he’d charge us £650,000 plus VAT. I found two other buyers and took delivery of the car at the same time as my road car, so I had two McLaren F1s.” BUYER BEWARE… ■ GEARBOX The six-speed manual ’box is a robust transmission that can easily handle the 627bhp V12, but run it up through the gears…