Innholdsfortegnelse for 20/09/2017 i Autocar

The Bentley Continental GT will be one of three models from the car maker to get hybrid powertrains within the next three years, confirmed boss Wolfgang Dürheimer. A V6 PHEV from the Bentayga has already been scheduled for next year, and will be followed by plug-in hybrids for the Continental GT and Flying Spur. The Continental, which made its public debut at Frankfurt, is expected to use the same hybrid powertrain as the Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid with which it shares a platform. In the Panamera, the hybrid’s overall system output is 456bhp and 516lb ft. The Continental GT Hybrid is expected to offer 31 miles of electric-only driving range. The hybrids will sit alongside the existing W12 and V8 conventional engines. Dürheimer said that while the combustion engine “is…

THE HONDA URBAN EV Concept will go on sale in 2019 and insiders are vowing that very few changes will be made to its exterior styling in production guise. Sources have indicated that changes to the concept’s exterior are likely to be limited to the adoption of smaller wheels and the addition of more production-typical addenda, such as door mirrors and door handles. The core lines of the concept are said to be heavily production focused. Inside, the major changes will be the switch to five seats from four and the adoption of more conventional switchgear. The timeframe for the car’s creation leaves little time for design amendments. The concept itself is known to have been created in an unusually short time, after Honda initially resisted the move to full…

TOYOTA WILL EXPAND its range of hybrid models with additional power outputs including a higher-performance option, as previewed at the Frankfurt motor show by the C-HR Hy-Power concept. Details of the new powertrain were not revealed, but Toyota could boost the power output from the combustion engine, fit a higher-power electric motor and battery, or add an extra gearbox to boost drivability. “We are at the stage now when we think we’re ready to offer more choice of hybrid powertrains,” said Toyota Europe CEO Johan van Zyl. The higher-performance powertrain as seen in the C-HR Hy-Power concept will be launched soon. Sales of Toyota hybrids are booming as diesel demand has fallen. Of the new C-HR crossover’s sales, for example, 77% are hybrids. Moreover, hybrids account for 50% of the…

TESTED 5.9.17, MIDDLESEX PRICE £24,595 ON SALE NOW f Vauxhall has an issue, it is that, far more often than not, it has been too keen to go with the popular flow. Instead of blazing a trail itself, it has been happy simply putting its own take on concepts and classes that already exist. Rarely, if ever, does a Vauxhall place you at the cutting edge of engineering endeavour, bringing you cars that do things that, in their category, have never been done before. And the only problem with this is that making your cars really stand out on grounds other than financial can be resultantly quite tricky. This new Grandland X is just such an example. It brings Vauxhall to the mid-sized crossover SUV class fully ten years after…

TESTED 7.9.17, SURREY ON SALE NOW PRICE £85,450 Land Rover says the Range Rover Velar is the best driver’s car it has ever made, but so far we’ve been unimpressed by the variants equipped with lower-rung engines. This time, we’re driving a model far better prepared to stand up to that opening claim: a top-spec First Edition P380 fitted with JLR’s proven supercharged 3.0-litre V6. The First Edition – a high-spec variant that’s only available for the first year of sales – starts at an eye-watering £85,450, which is £15,240 more than the regular P380, but it does so with a considerably longer list of standard kit. Key among the additions is All Terrain Progress Control and £1140 worth of air suspension, as well as a head-up display, normally a…

MODEL TESTED DCI 175 SIGNATURE 4X4 X-TRONIC Price £34,200 Power 175bhp Torque 280lb ft 0-60mph 9.8sec 30-70mph in fourth 11.5sec Fuel economy 33.6mpg CO2 emissions 156g/km 70-0mph 49.7m If mention of the Renault Koleos nameplate has you furrowing your brow and staring meditatively into the middle distance, don’t worry: that serves to confirm the level of impact the car has made in the UK up to now. For the record, the first-generation model was launched in 2007 as Renault limply embraced an early flush of enthusiasm for crossovers. The reason you might not remember it is because, despite sharing its platform with the supersonically popular Nissan Qashqai, the Koleos looked like a dull-sided stone at launch and proceeded to sink like one in the years that followed. Before the third…

“Fit and finish here isn’t so far away from the old car” Well, that didn’t seem to take long. Zenos is back. Nearly. The company you’d barely started hearing of before it went into administration at the start of the year has been rescued by one you’d forgotten existed (AC Cars is one of the oldest names in the business with, seemingly, one of the most complicated histories in the business too, but such is motordom). But more on that in a bit, because here is a development mule of the new Zenos E10, which should go back into proper manufacture in February next year. A quick recap, then. Zenos was launched in 2014 under the guidance of former Lotus and Caterham duo Mark Edwards and Ansar Ali. The first…

Josh de Wit has been on an incredible journey. Roll back to November 2016 and the University of Sussex student was waiting on stage at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders annual dinner in front of a host of industry experts, wishing for his name to be called out as the winner of the Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award. Josh did scoop the top prize, and with it he won £9000 and one-month work placements at McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Now, eight months later, he has just finished his final placement with Toyota and is about to return to university with a wealth of industry experience under his belt. “It’s made me realise exactly what I want to do,” Josh says. “I want to stay…

FEATURE We visit every UK car factory From Nissan in Sunderland to Lotus in Norfolk by Bentley Bentayga, we track the state of the UK’s car-making nation FEATURE Cars that did it first We track down the inventor of ESP, plus other innovations INTERVIEW VW boss Matthias Müller Steve Cropley sits down with the man in charge of the VW Group EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Aston Martin DB11 V8 We assess Aston’s brilliant new era GT fitted with AMG’s 4.0 V8 engine ROAD TEST VW Arteon VW’s answer to the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupé is scrutinised by our experts NEWS Volvo XC40 Pictures and details as the covers come off Volvo’s new baby SUV SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p36…

MILEAGE 2995 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT The kitchen sink has been thrown at the Civic to make it a credible family hatch to rival Europe’s best. So is it? LIKE OR LOATHE the look of our Civic’s edgy styling, the car certainly has its benefits in other areas. I’ve mentioned before how the lower stance has improved its dynamics and how the sporty driving position ups the feel-good factor inside. So does the steering: it’s well weighted and geared (with a variable ratio, in fact, but not done so sharply that you’d notice) at a quick 2.14 turns from lock to lock, despite which its turning circle is a respectable 11m. I approve of that and also of its handling, which borders on fun – and if its road-holding is…

Isuzu TF Tim Boles thought he’d share his latest car with us. “I’d been on the lookout for an Isuzu KB or TF and found this: a 2002-reg TFS54 with 80,000 miles for £2400,” he says. “After spending £700 on new brakes, a service, one new tyre, one track rod and some work to the canopy, I fitted a new gearknob and new seat covers and she was ready to go fishing. “As you can see, she carries a 17ft salmon rod and smaller trout rods with the roof-mounted rod holders I found. These cars go on forever.”…

Volvo XC60 The first-generation Volvo XC60 might be on its way out, but it’s a lovely old thing, big on comfort, blessed with a delightful interior, and still doing steady business for a dealer friend of ours. He says family buyers love them, just as long as they have reasonable miles and full histories. That means looking at cars from around 2011 with 80,000 miles for good examples. Expect to pay from £10,000 for an 11-plate D3 DRIVe in SE Lux spec with leather, sat-nav and capable of 50mpg. A facelifted model from 2013 will cost a further £3000. Not much goes wrong, so just check the electric handbrake and that the door locks don’t stick. Skoda Octavia vRS Last week, our ‘Past Master’ was the super-cheap Mk5 Volkswagen Golf…

Ferrari 488 GTB From £184,000 Possibly Ferrari’s greatest achievement. Scintillating natural ability intertwined with interactive technology. McLaren 650S From £195,200 McLaren’s mainstay goes from convincing to compelling. Better day to day than a Ferrari 488 GTB, but not as special. Lamborghini Aventador From £260,000 Big, hairy V12-engined Lambo has astonishing visuals and performance. Handling could be sweeter. Lamborghini Huracán From £180,700 Junior Lamborghini mixes all-wheel-drive usability and drama skilfully. Chassis and steering need work to worry the best in class. Noble M600 From £247,000 Has aged and crept up in price, but it remains deliciously natural and involving, if a bit ergonomically lawed.…

“The Road Rover line-up is expected to develop into a series of more car-like, but still rugged, vehicles” Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will stun the automotive world by launching a new model line, the ‘Road Rover’, before the end of the decade, Autocar can reveal. The first production vehicle will be a premium all-electric model, aimed primarily at markets such as California in the US and China. The first Road Rover is understood to be an Mercedes S-Class rival in terms of outright luxury and interior craftsmanship but with some ‘all-terrain’ capability. The car will also be tuned for impressive on-road dynamic performance, taking advantage of the potential delivered by electric motors. The car could make its public debut at the Los Angeles motor show in late 2019, with sales…

“Insiders say the 0-62mph time of less than 4.0sec and a 372-mile range are realistic for production” The BMW i Vision Dynamics will make production as the BMW i5 in 2021 — and it will usher in a new era of intense electrification across the BMW Group’s line-up. Insiders say the launch of the third i-branded model has been made possible by breakthroughs in battery development. They add that the concept’s 0-62mph time of less than 4.0sec, a top speed in excess of 120mph and a zero-emission range of up to 372 miles are all realistic for production. At 4800mm in length, 1933mm in width and 1387mm in height, the i Vision Dynamics is 167mm longer, 122mm wider and 42mm lower than today’s 3 Series. A long wheelbase also provides…

There’s a good chance that the Mercedes-AMG Project One hypercar, revealed in Frankfurt a week ago, could be made in the UK, according to AMG boss Tobias Moers, one of a handful of company executives currently deciding its future. The new hypercar’s engine and many of its body, chassis and suspension parts are already planned to be made in the UK alongside Formula 1 components at Mercedes’ F1 facilities in Brixworth and Brackley. It would be a short step to assemble the car here as well. The Project One, which has yet to be given an official name, is to be built in a one-spec batch of 275 units, each costing about £2 million. The build rate will be around one a day, with work starting in 2019 once a…

SUZUKI IS PROMISING the character of the Swift Sport has not been altered, despite a switch to turbocharging. The previous car was highly regarded for its high-revving normally aspirated 1.6-litre engine, coupled with engaging handling. Indeed, it was the last hot hatch available with a normally aspirated engine. The new model uses a turbocharged 1.4-litre with just 4bhp more than the old car, at 138bhp at 5500rpm. However, torque is up by 52lb ft, to 170lb ft, and available much lower down the rev range, at 2500-3500rpm. As a result, the car is “more fun to drive” across more of the rev range, according to chief engineer Masao Kobori. The 0-62mph time has improved by 25% to an estimated 6.2sec and the top speed now stands at 127mph, up by…

THE NEW FERRARI Portofino may seem like no more than a California replacement, but the engineering of it will affect the way all mainstream Ferraris are likely to be built. Although, like other Ferraris, the Portofino sits on an aluminium structure, the brand has made a big effort to cut down on the number of parts used – to not only reduce complexity, but to also aid stiffness and reduce weight. The best example of this new process is the A-pillar, the component count of which has been reduced from 21 in the California to just two in the Portofino. The number of parts used to make up the chassis has fallen by 40%, while the chassis rigidity has improved by 35%. Overall, the weight of the new car has…

Kia’s dramatic Proceed concept is intended to gauge interest in a new type of Volkswagen Golf-sized model, according to the brand’s European chief Michael Cole. The concept is part of Kia’s examination of how its Ceed hatchback family could be extended. Cole told Autocar that the rise of crossovers had encouraged Kia to explore ways of boosting the appeal of a future Ceed family. With the three-door compact hatchback and coupé market segments shrinking, this sleek ‘shooting brake’ concept could be added as a third body style.…

“Alongside these models, VW is considering a retro electric model” A second electric SUV will sit alongside the ID Crozz as part of Volkswagen’s initial five-model electric line-up. The first SUV, the Crozz, was shown in near-production form at the Frankfurt show and will go on sale in 2020. A larger electric SUV will follow later. The remaining ID models will be the hatchback (confirmed for 2020), Buzz (2022) and a saloon that is likely to be revealed in concept form at the Geneva motor show next March. All will be built on the Volkswagen Group’s electric MEB platform. The first ID cars will have a choice of ranges, depending on battery size, from 250 miles to 373 miles, and the top speed will be 99mph in the hatchback —…

The Renault Koleos feels like a good car that should have been better executed. It’s both well sized and fairly well priced, but several important constituent parts of it simply aren’t up to snuff. Even a rudimentary round of benchmarking would have told Renault that the CVT’s performance was outmoded and the suppression of engine and running-gear noise was inadequate. However, neither of these problems has been prevented, ultimately, from coming between the car and a more glowing reception. Elsewhere, the issues are a little more subjective and therefore a little more forgiveable. For our money, the interior, its functionality and the ride quality aren’t quite where they ought to be and Renault will be disappointed that the X-Trail (no model of perfection itself) scored higher in all departments. Being…

“You’d be forgiven for thinking wrapping was invented for the amusement of attention seekers” Thirty years ago, if you wanted your Ford Sierra or Vauxhall Cavalier to stand out, you reached for a roll of pinstripe. Body panels weren’t that curvy, so it was easy to apply. I remember, as a car salesman in 1988, applying parallel lines of gold tape to a brand-new Fiat Tipo 1.4 in Kermit green. It looked a proper eyeful. Around the same time, 100 miles away in south London, a chap called Sean Davis was touring car dealers and pinstriping cars from the back of his van. One Ford dealer wanted him to stripe 100 Fiestas he’d called ‘Hip, Hop, Pop’ specials. Davis must have been pretty good because, three decades later, he’s still…

“If driving a car like this is now a guilty pleasure, I’m well and truly hooked” FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 22,220 WHY WE RAN IT To assess whether there remains a place in the market for a powerful large-engined diesel saloon When we collected our V6 diesel Jaguar XF last September, we didn’t appreciate exactly how dramatically and quickly opinion would turn against oilburners. The funny thing is, this XF S and its powerful 3.0-litre diesel proved perfect for my needs during its spell on the Autocar fleet. Even against the threat of tougher legislation and taxation that is prompting a sharp decline in diesel car sales, I reckon we’d still choose the same powertrain were we making the choice today. Does driving a car like this now rate as a…

QUESTION I am after a tow car that I can fit with a front pusher tow bar. I can spend up to £4000. What do you recommend? Karl Smith ANSWER There are plenty of options and I would recommend you buy a petrol car because it will be cheaper. The obvious choice is a Mitsubishi Shogun, quite likely a tidy import. Because you need to push around a couple of tonnes, I’d also suggest that a Nissan Patrol would be a good idea and perhaps the big-engined BMW X5 or Mercedes-Benz M-Class. QUESTION How has the used car market changed over the decades and is it better for buyers than it used to be? Bob Waugh ANSWER Quite simply, used cars are better than ever. Old motors in the 1970s…

“Think of the Crossfire as a secure but relaxed GT that’ll hit 62mph in 6.5sec when pressed” Which would you chose? A 2004-reg Mercedes SLK 320 with 73,000 miles for £2995 or, for the same money, a same age, same mileage Chrysler Crossfire? They’re closely related and share a rear-drive platform and 3.2-litre V6. What’s more, there are rare AMG-fettled versions of each, called, respectively, the SLK32 and SRT-6. However, the first-gen SLK was bowing out as the Chrysler, built by manufacturing company Karmann, came on stream in 2003, so even a late-plate Crossfire is actually a pretty old design. Still, it’s available in coupé and convertible forms, although while the SLK is classy, the Crossfire coupé looks awkward and the convertible is prettier. While rust is an issue…

ALPINA D5 S | EARLY 2018 Upgraded version of the BMW 5 Series-based Alpina has been fine-tuned for Britain with sharper handling and a 100kg weight saving. The D5 S is powered by a twin-turbo 3.0-litre straight-six diesel with 322bhp and 516lb ft; 0-62mph takes 4.9sec and top speed is 171mph Price from £62,000 (est) SEPTEMBER Alpina B5 and D5 Touring, BMW M4 CS, Citroën E-Berlingo Multispace, Fiat 500L update, Ford Ecosport update, Fiesta, Fiesta Active, Honda Civic Type R, Maserati Levante S, Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet, Peugeot 308, 308 GTi, 308 SW update, Renault Trafic Spaceclass, Skoda Kodiaq Scout (left), Smart Fortwo Electric Drive, Fortwo Cabrio ED, Forfour ED, Volvo XC60 OCTOBER Aston Martin V8 DB11, Vantage AMR, Audi TT RS, BMW 6 Series GT, Hyundai Kona, Jaguar XF Sportbrake,…

The most recent financial report makes clear just how much Jaguar Land Rover is spending on expanding the business for the future. The company says that in fiscal year (FY) 2017/18, it will invest between £4 billion and £4.35bn in new products and the factory that is being constructed at Nitra in Slovakia (pictured). This will specialise in the construction of aluminium-bodied vehicles and the first model to be built there will be the new Discovery, according to JLR’s annual report. Such is the rate of investment that JLR’s profit margin will slide significantly. In the first quarter of FY2017/18, the profit margins were down to 7.9% from the 12.5% in the first quarter of FY2016/17, even though revenues crept up to £5.59bn from £5.35bn and sales grew by 4.7%.…

Chery, the Chinese car maker targeting a European debut in 2019/20, is promising to launch with a range comprising solely electrified models. Setting out its high-tech future, company CEO Anning Chen told Autocar: “Every model will be electrified, either micro-hybrid, hybrid or plug-in hybrid. And, for sure, we will also have BEV [battery electric vehicles].” Chery showed its hybrid powertrains at Frankfurt, with a 113bhp electric motor attached directly to the flywheel end of the transversely mounted, 147bhp 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine. For its European launch, Chery will sell the Exeed TX, a 4.7m-long five-seat SUV sitting on a 2.7m-long wheelbase. Its contemporary bodywork was designed in Shanghai by Canadian James Hope, a former Ford designer who worked on the GT90 concept and 2005 Mustang. He joined Chery in 2012.…

THE SUCCESS OF the Cayman GT4 was the spark for Porsche’s GT arm to create the 911 GT3 Touring package. “The GT4 showed us there was demand for a pure driving Porsche with a manual gearbox,” said Porsche’s head of GT, Frank Walliser. “This theme of ‘pure and simple’ is a success in other fields too, like scrambler motorbikes and single-speed bicycles. People like simplicity.” The £112k GT3 Touring Pack is on sale now with first UK deliveries expected in January next year. The model is not limited in production numbers and Porsche is keen to point out that, unlike other GT models such as the 911R, there is no allocation to sell out. “Buyers just need to get a regular slot on the production line. It’s not a limited-run…

“High-performance estates have never been as fast as this along a twisting road” TESTED 6.9.17, KENT ON SALE NOW PRICE £96,930 The Mercedes-AMG E63 S Estate might well be the car to dethrone the Audi RS6 as the quintessential modern-day super-wagon. The Audi’s appeal lies in its handsome styling, massive grip, faultless stability and enormous straight-line performance. If the AMG can add some level of agility and on-the-limit precision to that set of attributes, it’ll swiftly unseat the Ingolstadt charger and assume the role of king of the super-estates. The booted Merc uses the same drivetrain and underpinnings as the E63 S saloon, which is probably, all things considered, the fastest and most dynamically competent four-door there has ever been. The engine is basically the same 4-litre twin-turbo ‘hot-vee’ V8…

Performance is an entirely relative thing: there are times when 40mph can be lethally fast – approaching a school at chucking out time, for instance – and others when 600mph seems desperately slow, such as eight hours into a 12-hour flight. So perhaps we should not be too surprised that road car performance once seen as groundbreaking now seems really rather normal. But how long does this process take? How long is required for the once completely extraordinary to seem really rather ordinary? To find out, we gathered together three limited-edition old-stagers whose performance in their category was once thought groundbreaking to see how they’d do against their brand new, mass-market descendants. “Even now it feels fast: in 1983, it must have seemed like witchcraft” Audi Sport Quattro (1983) VS…

“When you see a Land Rover in traffic, it stands out. Our new car needs to inspire the same affection” The people behind one of the most interesting niche-market cars of the decade, the Ineos Grenadier, need you. If you like a bit of serious off-roading, they want your ideas, your opinions, the benefit of your experience, particularly so if that experience features a Land Rover Defender. In the medium term, they will want employees too, of course. But most of all, as movie robot Johnny Five once asked, they just want your ‘input’ – and plenty of it. And as of this week, there’s a website you can visit to deliver that input (www.projektgrenadier.com), and also a host of social media routes to take to find out exactly how…

Pure and simple In his column (30 August), Matt Prior contrasts the compromise that McLaren, Porsche, Honda and Ferrari have accepted with their hybrid supercars to the different approach that Ariel is taking to address the same underlying problem: ‘at some point this car will lose its performance capability until you take a breather’. As usual, Matt makes an interesting point. May I however suggest an alternative view? We do not need, and most people do not want, hybrid supercars in the first place. Instead of driving a hybrid car, I’d rather drive a car that has proper propulsion and is not lumbered with an extra 200kg of usually dead weight. Making supercars in hybrid form is merely a virtue-signalling concession to the green lobby and political correctness. The extent…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Charm, usability and simplicity are the C3’s trump cards – we’re finding out how it plays them Citroën’s C3 has never been a wildly popular car, easily eclipsed by better looking and better engineered rivals such as the Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio. But this reincarnation, its third generation, hails a step change, as the French car maker looks to reinvent itself following its split with DS. That is now deemed the premium brand in the PSA Group, while Citroën focuses on being ‘fresh and different’. Indeed, in place of its bubbleesque predecessor, this new C3 is infinitely better looking, with funky colour themes and the option of those unusual airbumps, first seen on the C4 Cactus. We’ve opted for the top of three…

MILEAGE 79,158 BMW 320 I pay attention to readers who contribute to the letters pages of Autocar and I agree with those who wrote in to affirm that the in-car CD player is not, in fact, dead. I once had an E34-generation BMW 5 Series from which I deplumbed a rather excellent Sony player and 10-stack CD system (pictured above). Which of my cars should I fit it in? My Austin Cooper is too noisy and too much fun to need a radio. The Land Rover Defender is away. The BMW 320, though… It would be nice to be able to play some music in the ‘Baby Shark’, but it has no in-car entertainment plumbing at all. To be continued.…

“Once on song, the rate of acceleration is still thrillingly impressive. It’s very civilised, too” Cast your mind back to the early 1990s and you might remember there was a vague ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ among the larger Japanese car makers to restrain the escalating power outputs of their increasingly sophisticated motors. The figure agreed on was 280PS, and thus it was that a number of the supercars emerging from the Land of the Rising Sun at that time, including the Honda NSX, the Subaru SVX and the Nissan Skyline, were advertised as producing no more than 276bhp. In reality, this agreement turned out to be worth no more than the paper it was never actually written on, and it soon became clear that a lot of these cars had far more…

An expert’s view STUART DAVIES, SDSC SPECIALIST CARS “I’ve sold more than 100 used Crossfires. A lot of buyers are older people who’ve had Triumph TR7s and Stags and want something reliable but just as quirky. I’m picky about the Crossfires I buy. If the seller says the headlight covers look milky, I won’t go to view the car because I know it’s been left outside and will likely have rust issues. Blaze Red is the colour to have. Convertibles look better than coupés and suffer very little scuttle-shake. Regardless of model, now is the time to buy before the classic bug takes hold.” Buyer beware… • ENGINE The Mercedes V6 takes eight litres of oil and 12 spark plugs, so factor that in if a service is due. If…