Auto Express 1714

WHAT a time for the UK car industry! Bentley announcing its bold plans for electrification, a beleaguered Aston Martin coming out fighting with a 697bhp version of its excellent DBX, Land Rover revealing plug-in hybrid versions of the new Range Rover, and Lotus teaming up with new battery supplier Britishvolt to produce its next all-electric sportscar. Then there’s the newest – and one of the most exciting – British car maker: Gordon Murray Automotive. If ever I’ve seen an car-related example of knowing your market and delivering exactly what your customers want, this is it. A compact, lightweight sports car that’ll cost around £1.4m (plus taxes) may not be mainstream, but I suspect the T.33 (above) will be another car that Gordon Murray and his colleagues won’t have to sell…

John_McIlroy@autovia.co.uk @johnmcilroy • Two-seat T.33 enters production next year • Powered by 607bhp Cosworth V12 GORDON Murray Automotive has followed up the T.50 with a new supercar that’s billed as being more approachable, but just as pure in its attitude to performance. It’s called the T.33 and it will go into production next year with a conventional two-seat layout. The new car gets its own chassis made from carbon fibre and aluminium, and loses the fan-based aerodynamics of the T.50, resulting in a neat, clean shape. “It’s really a look that’s been in my head for many years,” designer Gordon Murray told us. “It’s absolutely not retro, but there are a lot of small influences from my favourite sports racing cars of the sixties.” Key features include vertically stacked headlights,…

AS part of Bentley’s fully electric vision, its home in Crewe will play a key part. Securing £2.5bn of sustainable private investment, this will underpin the transformation towards a ‘Dream Factory’. The plant in Cheshire has already achieved certification as a carbon-neutral facility, and among future initiatives to further improve sustainability is an extension of on-site energy production at Crewe, with targets to also increase the number of solar panels from 30,000 to 40,000 over the next two years. The brand also intends to reduce the level of water consumption, waste sent to landfill and many other processes that produce CO2 in the manufacturing process for every vehicle built at Crewe. Bentley will also impose minimum sustainability standards on its suppliers. As part of its extensive renovation of the Crewe…

James_Brodie@autovia.co.uk @JPBrods DBX707 arrives in summer 0-62mph in 3.3 seconds ASTON Martin has revealed what it calls “the world’s most powerful luxury SUV” in the form of a new, high-performance version of the DBX. It’s called the DBX707 and, like the regular DBX, it will be built at the brand’s St Athan factory in South Wales. It hits the road this summer. The headline figures read 697bhp (the 707 name refers to its metric horsepower), with 900Nm of torque going to all four wheels. The 707 will get from 0-62mph in 3.3 seconds – that’s 0.1 seconds quicker than the latest Porsche 911 GT3 – and while its top speed has not been confirmed, expect a decent advance on the regular DBX’s 181mph, edging close to 200mph. What makes those…

James_Brodie@autovia.co.uk @JPBrods THE NEW Range Rover is now available as a plug-in hybrid, with prices starting from £103,485. Two versions are offered: the P440e and the more powerful P510e. Both models use a 3.0-litre straight-six turbo petrol engine in tandem with a 141bhp electric motor and a 38kWh battery (with a usable capacity of 31kWh), but the P440e’s engine is detuned slightly. The total output of the P440e stands at 434bhp with 620Nm of torque, while the P510e steps things up to 503bhp and 700Nm. Land Rover claims 0-62mph times of 6.0 seconds and 5.5 seconds, while top speeds are 140mph and 150mph respectively. Both cars will offer up to 70 miles of range on electric power, and CO2 emissions are as low as 18g/km. This means Benefit-in-Kind tax of…

THE next Morgan ‘Three-Wheeler’ will be unveiled on 24 February, powered by a three-cylinder Ford engine. Morgan hasn’t confirmed the exact name of the car yet and only refers to it as its new “three-wheeled model”. But trademark applications suggest that the car will be called Super3. Morgan says the new car will be its first clean-sheet design since the Aero 8, launched in 2000. The brand has also hinted that this will be its most customisable model yet, while Steve Morris, Chairman and CEO of Morgan Motor Company, said: “The allnew model continues a 113 year legacy of three-wheeled Morgan cars, and – as has always been the case – the new model will be totally different to anything else.”…