Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/7/2017 i Autocar

I DOUBT I was alone in raising more than one eyebrow at the price of Renault’s reborn Alpine sports car when it was revealed to the world earlier this year. The £50,000-plus price for the new A110 could have been a sign that Renault was overplaying just how revered the Alpine badge still is. Remember, a new Porsche Cayman can be had for £40,000. However, as Dan Prosser reveals on p60 after catching up with Alpine’s development team, the ambitious price is a reflection of just how serious a sports car the new A110 is, and also how impressive the engineering that has gone into it is. As good as the Cayman might be, Porsche has had that segment to itself for far too long without a serious challenger. Not…

The Aston Martin Vulcan AMR Pro, which was revealed at Goodwood, is the latest model from the firm’s recently announced AMR performance sub-brand. The upgrade package for the track-only supercar will be the flagship model for the hardcore AMR division, which draws on the firm’s racing history to offer enhanced performance, sharper dynamics and more extreme styling on its current range of cars. For the Vulcan AMR Pro, this includes increased downforce from aerodynamic enhancements and shortened gear ratios for better acceleration. The AMR Pro package will be offered to all 24 Vulcan owners, with a third of them expected to opt for it. The upgrade is likely to cost between £100,000 and £150,000, which represents a small percentage of the Vulcan’s £1.8 million price. Aerodynamic improvements at the front…

Dacia believes driving should be easy. Your car should be able to tackle anything you throw at it from long motorway hauls, to a morning commute, to dirt tracks, wet roads and snow. Take the the two-wheel-drive dCi 110 version of the 2017 Dacia Duster: a peppy 1.5-litre diesel car with Dacia’s automatic six-speed, dual-clutch EDC gearbox, designed to be the ultimate in smoothness and convenience. Genuine off-road capabilities are matched by well mannered road performance, a spacious, modern cabin and a choice of specifications that allow the 1.6-litre, two-wheel-drive Duster Access to start at just £9,495 on-the-road. Not much money for an awful lot of car. Flexibility should be a given, and with up to 1,636 litres of boot space, space for five and the ability to pull a…

If Ron Dennis had only been a more emollient character, he’d probably never have had to leave the £2.4bn racing and engineering empire he spent more than three decades building up. Without his spikiness, appetite for perversity and desire to control every detail, Dennis might now be moving into his senior years as a kind of British Enzo Ferrari, revered, honoured and viewed as an asset by the younger, more modern management at the McLaren Group. It’s arguable that Dennis’s achievements will come to be regarded every bit as great as Ferrari’s — perhaps even greater. Like Ferrari, he moved into racing as rather an upstart but built a famous, world-beating organisation on two things: determination and the ability to pull off bold deals. He provided the cars and team…

Seat sold 408,700 cars in 2016. What’s the maximum sales ceiling for the firm? “I don’t know. Seat selling an extra 50,000 cars isn’t going to change the industry. We need to find a way to have a sustainable, profitable business for Seat. For seven years in a row, we lost money. It was difficult. Now we’re out of the [red] and it’s a good feeling to be out. I want to make sensible decisions to keep us in the black now.” Will you a launch a car bigger than your upcoming seven-seat SUV? “The ceiling is there. We won’t go beyond that. Premium is a bit overdone. We’re not a premium brand. We need to match a quality standard and need to beat the Ateca with this car, but…

THE CHANGING MEDIA landscape means motor shows must prove their marketing value to continue attracting manufacturers, according to BMW’s senior vice president of brand, Hildegard Wortmann. “As ever, it’s about cost versus return,” she said. “We have to review what we are doing, as some shows don’t attract the right audiences or give us the right opportunities.” THERE HAS BEEN a major decline in sales of diesel-engined Citroëns, according to the company’s boss, Linda Jackson: “Four years ago, 70% of the cars we sold in Europe were diesels. Now it’s 50%. That’s an enormous shift. It’s why we only offer an automatic on the petrol C3 Aircross, for example. We can cope with the shift.” NISSAN’S PULSAR FAMILY hatchback has been less prolific than its closely related Qashqai sibling, but…

Price £19,480 On sale Now What’s new? Low-rung model is cheaper than the more characterful, entry-level Ford Mondeo Estate by almost £4000 THE NEW INSIGNIA Sports Tourer range aims to undercut its rivals with maximum value for money, and no trim level does it better than Design Nav. This low-rung model still gets, as standard, an 8.0in touchscreen with sat-nav, DAB and wi-fi hotspot technology, as well as a 560-litre boot (1665 litres with the rear seats down). The 1.5 Turbo Ecotec petrol engine tested here offers a claimed 47.1mpg combined and has strong mid-range grunt, but it lacks the character of higher-priced rivals, ensuring that this remains a great-value model but one that’s short of excitement.…

CITROEN C2 The C2 may never have been replaced but it lives on in the classifieds as a bargain hatchback. A budget of £1000 buys a clean example with fewer than 80,000 miles on the clock, or a higher-mileage VTS warm hatch version — if you’re lucky. FORD FIESTA The driving instructor’s go-to choice in the early 2000s, for its trademark sharp handling and abundance on the roads. That abundance also means there are tons to choose from. Just £1000 gives you the pick of the range, with the exception of Zetec S trim and the desirable ST version. VAUXHALL CORSA The Corsa is the archetypal first car and £1000 gets you an abundance of tidy C-generation examples to choose from, with lower-spec versions under 80,000 miles. Any D-generation Corsas…

718 divided by four Why do so many people jump on the bandwagon that says the Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxster now feature an unlovable, characterless engine, as you intimated in your top 50 list (‘The Best New Cars of 2017’, 14 June)? We’re moving into a different world with engines and emissions and we need to face up to the fact that the new era is not necessarily bad. Sure, the 718’s engines sound different and have a dissimilar feel to the naturally aspirated ones, but they’re certainly not bad. They’re just different and Porsche has done a fantastic job in producing a powerplant with only four cylinders. I’d go so far as to say that I actually prefer the sound and the quick response of the flat four.…

“For under £600, I saw a barely run-in, 135k miles Peugeot 406 2.0 HDi Rapier saloon” Finance. If you’ve read our investigation into the crazy world of car finance on page 64, you’ll appreciate what a scary word that is. Back in the very old days, it was ‘F&I’, which stood for finance and insurance. The F&I specialist was usually the only person in the car showroom with a calculator and had the phone number of an insurance broker. Now every car salesman deals in F&I, and the majority of new motors are bought on easy terms. Increasingly, that’s the case for the used models we love, too. The thing is that there seems to be a suggestion that the finance industry is a house of cards. So when it…

An expert’s view MARK MCMANUS, MDM TECHNIK “We’ve just completed a ground-up refurbishment of an RS4 B5. The customer spent around £8000, but given what the car had just cost him to buy (it hadn’t been maintained well) and the way prices are going, it was money well spent. We did the lot: cambelt, water pump, rebuilt the turbos, renewed the suspension. It had been misfiring on cylinder five. When we drained the oil we found small bits of metal in it. We took the heads off the engine and the side walls of the hydraulic tappets were scored. We polished those out, polished the buckets and re-cut the valves. On the test drive I was amazed by how it pulled so well and still felt so tight.” Buyer beware…

“Quite a few of us would like to park in motorway stations for longer than two hours” That you can park for only two hours in British motorway stations before being charged for the privilege tells me something. Namely, that, given the choice, quite a few of us would like to park in them for longer. I know that, sometimes, I would. Not to see the sights, generally. But to meet a colleague, park one car, take another, share the driving – use less fuel, be less tired – that sort of thing. You can do that, of course, but only if you pay a surcharge to do it. The service station’s thinking is that, as a weary traveller, two hours is plenty of time to get what you need…

Aston confirmed its zero-emission future last week, announcing that its first all-electric model, the RapidE, will be produced in 2019. The four-door will be developed with Williams Advanced Engineering, which worked on the RapidE concept shown in 2015. Aston Martin says the production car will deliver the dynamics of the Rapide S but with an all-electric powertrain in place of that car’s 5.9-litre V12. Aston boss Andy Palmer said the model, which is set for a limited production run of 155 cars, will spearhead Aston’s low and zero-emission strategy, but he emphasised that cars powered by internal combustion engines will remain at the brand’s core.…

You might not imagine a new Range Rover would attract a crowd in the Goodwood Cathedral Paddock, sitting there next to brand new sports cars, super-saloons and stripped-back track specials. But, boy, you’d be wrong. Lots of festival show-goers use Goodwood to shop for their next car these days, and the Festival demographic could have been made for a new Range Rover to thrive in. Just think about how many tweed jackets, straw hats and colourful slacks you saw at FoS this year. This is Velar central. I had to fight my way into the passenger seat of the car (Corris Grey, body-coloured roof, 22in wheels, R Dynamic trim) before we set off on the usual hurry-up-and-wait buildup to the Goodwood hillclimb. Opposite was Andy Mould, vehicle integrity manager at…

Ron Dennis, the man who led the McLaren team that created the iconic F1 road car, established today’s road car division and scooped numerous Formula 1 world titles, setting the standards by which teams in the sport today operate, is selling all of his shares in McLaren for an undisclosed sum. The move ends a 37-year association between the two sides, which began when the team was struggling for success in F1 in 1980. Today, the McLaren Group is valued at £2.4 billion. The split will be formalised by Dennis transferring his remaining 25% stake in McLaren Technology Group and 11% shareholding of McLaren Automotive. He is reported to have received £275 million for the shares and, as such, he will have no role at McLaren in future. The deal…

The idea that the British had had ‘enough of experts’ was one of the most controversial sound bites of the Brexit campaign. But the decision by Transport for London (TfL) to aggressively target diesel vehicles might have thousands of drivers having sympathy with it. From the early 2000s, EU and UK governments incentivised diesel engines. The emphasis was on climate change and anything that offered lower CO2 levels. But EU ‘experts’ ignored US and Californian clean air rules, which had effectively banned diesel cars as far back as 1993. While Europeans were chiefly concerned about CO2 emissions, US authorities emphasised clean air. Diesel pollution is worst in heavy traffic. TfL has arguably worsened London congestion (average speeds in central London are down to just 7.8mph) with its policy of road…

“Who will care if their driverless box is a Mazda or Maserati?” MONDAY Spent a fascinating couple of hours at the London HQ of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers – under the all-seeing gazes of Brunel and Trevithick – talking about autonomous cars, the technical matter of the moment. My job was to chair a panel of experts for a webinar, a pretty easy gig when you think about it. You’ve just got to make sure people who know their stuff answer the bald questions posed by those of us who don’t. Autocar stalwarts Jay Nagley and Hilton Holloway were there among the eggheads, talking about the societal and practical aspects of driverless cars that are moving into focus now that most experts agree the technical challenges are beatable. But…

Price £10,700 On sale Now What’s new? Facelifted Citigo gets minor tweaks and a new infotainment system but leaves its small car formula untouched SKODA HASN’T DRASTICALLY changed its Citigo for this refresh. There are minor changes to the front and rear ends and no revisions to the mechanicals, which it shares with the Volkswagen Up and Seat Mii. The headline story is the new infotainment system fitted to Citigos in SE trim and above. It now comes with a new 5.0in screen and a smartphone dock that, when paired to Skoda’s Move&Fun app, allows drivers more functionality than the previous Garmin-powered unit did. Overall, nothing fundamental has really changed with the Citigo. To be fair, it didn’t need much attention anyway, and the tweaks give this Skoda a further…

2003 CONTINENTAL GT W12 The earliest Continental GTs are now 14 years old, but since the styling evolved very gradually during that time, most onlookers would assume it was much younger than that. It still offers an awful lot of presence, performance and luxury for under £20,000. 2009 CONTINENTAL SUPERSPORTS At the time of its launch, the original Supersports was the fastest and most powerful Bentley. Its performance – 0-60mph in 3.7sec – is still impressive, and its 420mm carbon-ceramic discs are every bit as remarkable. It can be had for £60,000 today. 2014 CONTINENTAL GT3-R The GT3-R was built to forge a link between the company’s GT3 racing programme and its road cars. Based on the lighter, V8-engined model, it did without its rear seats. Just 300 were sold,…

Last December, Emmalyne Holgate, 22, returned to the UK after 12 months spent travelling in Australia with her boyfriend. Although she had only around £1000 in savings to her name and was without a job, within a couple of weeks she was the proud owner of a brand-new Volkswagen Polo 1.2 Match Edition, thanks to a financial product that UK car buyers have become addicted to. Called personal contract purchase, or PCP, it makes acquiring a new car more affordable because a proportion of the vehicle’s price is deferred, which means the customer has only to finance the balance, plus interest on the entire sum (or on the invoice price). It gets better. Depending on the model, the deposit required from the customer can range from nothing to just a…

THE CIVIC IS proving popular here. The older people in the office want to borrow it for its practicality and fuel economy (40mpg-plus on longer runs) and the younger ones because it looks a little bit like the Type R. In fact, opinion is divided pretty much 50/50 on the question of the car’s looks. I freely admit to being a convert. When I first saw it, I thought it was so ugly that it made me weep, but I’ve grown to like our car’s fruity red bodywork and menacing black alloy wheels, and I love the length of its wheelbase and how low the car is, two factors that must contribute towards its impressive dynamics. What has caused most people to reel in surprise is when they’re told that…

No one produces as thorough a judgement on a new car as Autocar. As well as acceleration, braking, fuel economy and noise tests, we carry out benchmark limit-handling tests, setting lap times if appropriate. But we don’t just drive at the track, essential as it is for finding the limits of performance; we also drive on a wide range of roads. We aim to produce the most complete, objective verdict in the business, so you can be sure how good a car is. Where we have tested more than one model in a range, the rating is for the range overall; where a model within the range meets our coveted five-star standard, it is highlighted in yellow. » 30-70MPH Indicates overtaking ability 1 through the gears 1 » 50-70MPH Recorded…

Video: BMW M4 CS Watch to find out how BMW’s stripped-out, powered-up M4 fares on UK roads. Festival of Speed review Missed the Goodwood garden party? Catch up with our gallery and report. The UK’s best-sellers The latest industry sales figures are in. Find out who’s hot and who’s not. ALSO FIND US AT youtube.com/autocar autocar.co.uk/facebook twitter.com/autocar autocar_official SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe For all our latest print and digital subscription offers…

The previous GT2 RS came with a Ludicrous Mode even before a Tesla came with a Ludicrous Mode. Thing is, the 997-series GT2 RS of 2010 wasn’t labelled that way, and the mode just began from the moment you twisted the key and stayed on until you switched it off again. With the 690bhp promised by this one, you might well be forgiven for thinking the same thing again. Especially given that 690bhp is a whopping amount of power to generate from only a 3.8-litre engine. Any engine that has attempted this specific output before has been a bit, well, ‘boosty’. And so it might be again. Except that Porsche doesn’t seem to do ludicrous these days. Everything it does is wrapped up in a complete, rounded package and is…

Audi may be gone from today’s Le Mans grid, but its passion for the sport remains undimmed if its commitment at Goodwood to honouring Danish driver Tom Kristensen’s career was anything to go by. The nine-time Le Mans winner (seven of which wins were at the wheel of Audis) was reunited with several of his race-winning cars, all resplendent with the detritus picked up during their runs to glory. One could only wonder at the mechanics’ fears lest an overzealous polisher try to return one of them to concourse condition……

THE DRIVING EXPERIENCE is more intense, they say, the shorter the distance you drive a brilliant car. So it proved, at least, on my quick-ish, wet-ish run up Goodwood’s hill in the new McLaren 570S Spider, the first time any hack has been able to slide behind the wheel. Excellence was expected, of course. We’ve spent enough time in the 570S coupé to reach a general agreement that it’s one of the world’s finest supercars, regardless of price. And given that this new open version is every bit as powerful and torsionally rigid, that it rolls on the same tyres and suspension and weighs only 46kg more, there’s no way it was going to be any less superb to drive. Neither was it going to be a lot more expensive:…

HIGH POINTS Dennis rose through the ranks of motorsport team ownership, buying the struggling McLaren team in 1981. That season, the team started winning races again, and, soon after, world titles. From persuading Porsche and Honda into F1, to aligning with sponsors like Marlboro, to introducing carbonfibre construction to the sport, Dennis was regarded by many as a revolutionary thinker. From 1988 to 1991 McLaren — and Honda — were the undisputed champions of F1. During that time, the team won four consecutive constructors’ titles and either Alain Prost or Ayrton Senna won the world drivers’ title each season. In 1988, Prost and Senna won 15 of the 16 races. The creation of the McLaren Technology Centre, the team’s futuristic Woking headquarters that opened in 2004, was key to Dennis’s…

“An electric five-door family hatch could be launched first in 2019, followed by an electric SUV” “This is the last attempt for the brand.” So said then Seat boss James Muir in May 2010 when outlining a five-year turnaround plan for what was at the time the black sheep of the VW Group. The successful launch of a higher-quality Leon with an expanded family of models was the sole plan. It was launched in 2012 as ‘Phase 1’ of the turnaround and simply had to be a success if Seat was to survive. It was. The success was crowned in 2016 when Seat, now under Luca de Meo’s control, returned to the black financially after years of losses. De Meo has no grand plans to significantly grow the Seat brand…

Two things, above all, needed proving as I took to the quiet, sinuous roads of Warwickshire, sitting in the passenger seat of the latest four-cylinder F-Type with ‘Jaguarness’ guru Mike Cross at the wheel. One was that it was quick enough to honestly be classed as a serious performance Jaguar; the other that it sounded like it. Proof came quickly. The rear wheels chirped and then big thrust instantly established itself in the small of my back, relieved in five or six nano-instants as the Quickshift gearbox picked up the next ratio at 6500rpm. The noise was different from the seamless, race-bred yowl of Jaguar’s V6, gruffer and tougher, with a slightly hoarse throb that sounded powerful — and about as far away from expectations of a 2.0-litre four-pot as…

Alpine has taken 3000 deposits for the €58,500 (£51,500) Premiere Edition launch model, which arrives in the UK early next year. In that first group of buyers, Alpine has identified four separate sub-groups. The first, accounting for around 10% of the total, consists of die-hard enthusiasts who like do track days. The second is of people who are passionate about brands, be it a revived brand with a famous history or a new one (depending on your level of knowledge, Alpine could be either). The third group is made up of people who simply like attractive, well-designed objects. The final group is of those who are drawn to something a little bit out of the ordinary. Alpine has seen a varied cross-section among early buyers. Twohig recalls one inquisitor at…

Nissan Micra MILEAGE 2333 LAST SEEN 21.6.17 An intermittent fault plaguing our Micra is the reluctance of the manual gearbox to go into third gear. Several times, it has refused to go through the gate, and releasing the clutch and depressing it again doesn’t always solve it. So you either have to opt for fourth and endure the lag or select second and the thrashy note of an engine begging for mercy. HM Jaguar XF MILEAGE 19,973 LAST SEEN 21.6.17 Near my house is a wide road that has a 30mph limit. So it was a surprise when, driving home, the XF’s Traffic Sign Recognition system suggested the road had a 70mph limit. A one-off glitch? Maybe not: it happened again a few days later, showing a 60mph limit on…

Fast Audis evoke strong feelings in many enthusiasts, and this car is one of the main reasons they do so. The original RS4 set the template for the RS brand, combining enormous power and immense four-wheel-drive traction, the latter making the performance accessible to any driver, whatever the weather. The problem is that making a powerful car accessible also means making it foolproof. As a result, fast Audis have traditionally tended to lack the driver involvement of their rivals from Mercedes and BMW, and that lack of engagement is the key fault their detractors hold up against them. But the RS4 is an old car now, with hydraulic steering and all the feel that should go therewith, so is it really that unenthralling? It’s an easy car to want, and…

STAR RATINGS EXPLAINED 0-20% Inherently dangerous/ unsafe.Tragically, irredeemably flawed. 20-35% Appalling. Massively significant failings. 35-50% Very poor. Fails to meet any accepted class boundaries. 50-60% Poor. Within acceptable class boundaries in a few areas. Still not recommendable. 60-65% Off the pace. Below average in nearly all areas. 5-70% Acceptable. About average in key areas, but disappoints. 70-75% Competent. Above average in some areas, average in others. Outstanding in none. 75-80% Good. Competitive in key areas. 80-85% Very good. Very competitive in key areas, competitive in secondary respects. 85-92% Excellent. Near class leading in key areas, and in some ways outstanding. 93% Brilliant, unsurpassed. All but flawless.…