Innholdsfortegnelse for 29/11/2017 i Autocar

VOLKSWAGEN’S FUTURE powertrain plans include all-wheel-drive 48V mild hybrids and advanced petrol engines, the company has revealed. Bio and synthetic fuels are also on the way and expected to “revolutionise the environmental balance sheet for internal-combustion engines”, according to a company spokesman. Diesels also remain high on the agenda. “Diesel has a long, clean future ahead of it,” said the spokesman. Electrification will use front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive 48V mild hybrid technology. The MHEV (mild hybrid electric vehicle) is powered by a 148bhp 1.5 TSI petrol engine equipped with an 8kW belt-integrated starter-generator, giving fast stop-start, boosting engine torque and recouping energy to store in the 48V lithium ion battery. An MHEV Plus version incorporates an extra 35bhp electric motor driving either the front or rear axle. This feeds extra torque…

INFINITI IS BIDDING TO crack Britain with its new QX50, a car design boss Alfonso Albaisa believes will finally show “the true potential of the brand”. The Audi Q5 rival will be the world’s first production car to have a variable-compression-ratio petrol engine. The turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, called VC-Turbo, is claimed to improve efficiency by up to 35% compared with the old QX50’s 3.5-litre V6. It can seamlessly shift its compression ratio from 8:1 (for performance) to 14:1 (for economy), essentially giving the 268bhp and 280lb ft engine the best traits of petrol and diesel engines. It comes with a continuously variable transmission – the most efficient gearbox type – and drives the front wheels in standard form, although all-wheel drive is also available. When pushed, the engine can…

Mercedes-Benz has overhauled the interior of the new A-Class to give it a more premium feel, in part because the growing trend for downsized cars and urban living is pushing more affluent buyers towards smaller models. That’s the view of Christoph Eberlein, Mercedes’ compact car product manager. Speaking to Autocar at an event to showcase the interior of the forthcoming fourth-generation A-Class, he said the decision to infuse the compact car with tech and features from the larger E-Class and S-Class was because buyers are increasingly prepared to shell out on infotainment options. “Some people want a small car because they live in a city or need to save space but still want to have all the luxury features and options,” he said. “This is a luxury design for compact…

“Make the brand instantly recognisable. That will be the key to our success.” There’s a blueprint for how China’s car makers will be able to crack mature markets overseas such as Europe and the US, according to Borgward design chief Anders Warming. He should know a thing or two about building brands, having joined Borgward, the old German marque rekindled under Chinese ownership, from Mini, where he was part of its shift upmarket. Whatever you think of Mini’s cars, the sales suggest the brand repositioning has had strong early success. What was clear from walking the halls of the Guangzhou motor show last week was how serious China’s car makers are about going global. Korean and Japanese brands were name-checked as targets by China’s car makers, who for the first…

The XC40 is the third and final SUV in Volvo’s line-up and it sits bang on where you’d expect it to: it’s a 4.4m-long car priced from £28k to £40k and will go up against SUVs like the Audi Q3, BMW X1 and also, now, the Jaguar E-Pace. The XC40 looks like it wants to do things slightly differently from those. Not in its mechanical makeup, necessarily, which is pretty straightforward (more on which in a moment), but at least in its design and ethos. It’s still a Volvo at heart, but whereas other cars are facsimiles of bigger models in their makers’ ranges, the Volvo you should think of as “a cousin, rather than a brother” to XCs 60 and 90. Not only is it smaller, then, but it’s…

Nigh on £30,000 for a kit car of this Westfield’s dubious aesthetics and flawed drivability may cause some to baulk. Certainly, a laser-focused hot hatch such as the Honda Civic Type R has a broader range of talents, and a used Caterham Seven offers greater precision, lower depreciation and that all-important brand kudos. The Sport 250 hits back with a humdinger of an engine, delivering performance that is the preserve of supercars – or, to bring Caterham back into the equation, the Seven 620, for which you’ll need to stump up at least £45,000. Indeed, as an enjoyable way to go very, very fast, the next level on from this is decidedly less practical. It is not, alas, a machine of notable finesse, although its dynamics are markedly better than…

“I always wanted to make a car that was light, that was simple – so you can feel the air passing” The recent unveiling of the Dallara Stradale was a proud moment for Gian Paolo Dallara, the 81-year-old engineer whose eponymous motorsport engineering company employs 600 people worldwide and builds more racing chassis than any other. The Stradale, the company’s first road car, had been a long time coming and, during an hour-long interview, he tells me that it was his earlier career that provided the inspiration for it. Dallara’s CV gleams with highlights. He was recruited after studying aeronautical engineering at university by Enzo Ferrari and set up Maranello’s first ever wind tunnel. But he wanted to go racing so he defected to Maserati under the promise of working…

Dressed in feisty R-Dynamic spec, the glowing blue Jaguar F-Type Coupé filling these pages looks every inch the cranked-up performance variant. But, in fact, it’s ‘only’ the 296bhp, 2.0-litre, four-cylinder version that was launched in the summer to add a cheaper, cleaner option to the laudable sports car’s line-up. Yet it still costs 50 grand. In the £-per-cylinder stakes, it’s up there among the most brazen of this new generation of cube-canny, turbocharged performance cars that goad us via ever-increasing specific outputs, augmented induction noise and manufactured exhaust crackles into accepting the new normal of ‘less for more’. That you can buy any secondhand alternative with twice the cylinders for the same money sounds compelling enough. That one such candidate is a pristine Audi R8 seemingly makes the proposition rhetorical.…

It is disappointing that your impression of the future Range Rover Evoque Mk2 (News, 8 November) shows that it is likely to be yet another iteration of the same styling now given to all the Range Rover/Discovery vehicles, with only a small change of scale to differentiate the various models. The replacements for Discovery Mk2 and Freelander have both lacked the hint of ruggedness that applied to their predecessors. If the long-awaited ‘New Defender’ follows the same ‘softening’ style, I am sure sales of the equally competent Jeep Wrangler will increase significantly, especially with the improvements you outlined in the same issue. However, a greater disappointment is Jaguar Land Rover’s continued investment in a soft-top Evoque when the design budget would be far better directed to producing a two-door coupé,…

MILEAGE 10,945 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out how well this high-tech exec blends luxury and sporting traits in a practical body Reader Michael Williams accused me of ‘a double fail’ for the apparently pitiful average fuel economy I achieved on a 567-mile trek from the Isle of Mull to Basingstoke (Letters, 15 November). Michael pointed out that my indicated 47.8mpg average paled in comparison with the 53.3mpg he’d achieved in his E350 Estate over a 453-mile drive, and also fell flat in comparison with the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) figure of 67.3mpg for the E220d. I’d counter by saying my learned friend failed to note that our car is a 4Matic four-wheel-drive E220d, which rates at an official claimed combined economy figure of 57.7mpg.…

QUESTION Was the VW Beetle’s survival versus the original Mini’s death due to better marketing or technical innovation? Tristran Barry ANSWER An interesting question, although the most direct comparison would be Beetle versus Minor. The Minor may have lasted until 1970 but it was failure compared with the Beetle, which was brilliantly marketed and a tremendous export success for Germany. QUESTION Knee ops mean I need a car with an auto ’box and adequate leg room. Ideas? Molly Storck ANSWER Molly, you tell me Volvos are great and want a car that’s easy to get into. It seems that an XC60 2.4 D5 SE Lux would be ideal. We stumbled across a 2011 model with 77,000 miles and a full Volvo service history for £10,795. QUESTION I have just bought…

“Its composure serves to underline the M5’s status as perhaps the defining super-saloon ❞ BMW’s floor-hinged accelerator pinned, 3.6-litre 24-valve straight six howling, you’ll swear that your motoring life can’t get much better. This is the kind of engine note that turns teenagers into car lovers and bankers into car collectors – which, in part, explains why used values of the E34-generation BMW M5 continue to rise skywards. But depending on how far you are prepared to compromise, there is everything from sub-£10,000 to £50,000-and-above examples to choose from. The leggier the car, the more reasons there are to be nervous, although a mid-life engine upgrade and the addition of increasingly complex driver aids and damper systems do mean that some of the older examples are well regarded for having…

An expert’s view STUART GOLDSMITH, SENIOR ENGINEER, RIKKI CANN “The Vantage’s V8 engine is strong and reliable but it doesn’t like being taken for granted. Make sure the car has been properly serviced. That doesn’t mean the work must only have been carried out by main dealers. The specialist service network is just as good if not better since they work on a much greater variety of cars. Check the correct tyres have been fitted and all are in good condition. Air-con and heater controls need to be working correctly as they can be very expensive to put right. When properly maintained at the standard you’d expect of an Aston Martin, a V8 Vantage can be surprisingly affordable to own.” Buyer beware… • ENGINE The alternator belt may squeak from…

“There will be two different wheelbases and two bodystyles” Land Rover will use its 70th anniversary celebrations in 2018 to finally reveal its plans for a reborn Defender, which will go on sale in 2019. It is now almost two years since the Defender went out of production – 67 years after the original Land Rover Series I it’s derived from entered it – and there has been a wall of silence around the company’s plans to launch a replacement. However, Autocar can now reveal that the new Defender, codenamed L663, will finally be shown towards the end of 2018 as the centrepiece of Land Rover’s 70th anniversary celebrations – and the model revealed will be the final production car, not a concept. Land Rover is now wary of revealing…

Car makers will find it impossible to sell cars that are exempt from the new diesel taxation rules announced in last week’s Budget. Chancellor Philip Hammond said that any diesel car that meets a certain testing standard, called Real Driving Emissions Step 2 (RDE2), would not be subject to a first-year increase into the next tax band, applied from April next year. However, in reality, no cars are able to meet that standard because it is not due to be introduced until 2020, meaning car makers have only just started working on the technology to achieve these targets in three years’ time. Even if a vehicle did meet these emissions limits, the certification for RDE2 does not exist, so it is impossible to avoid this new taxation. RDE2 is the…

“The world believed Ford was too big and inflexible to operate in a new way, but that’s wrong” Don’t doubt the long-term potential of the traditional global car giants, says Stephen Odell, Ford’s retiring executive global sales and marketing boss – even if it’s fashionable to do so in a world increasingly focused on autonomous and electrified vehicles. The winners, Odell believes, will be the companies that pay attention to the fast-changing requirements of customers – and he numbers Ford among them. The task will be to make “frenemies” of the emerging connectivity and data companies, as people adopt and use the new transportation and mobility services. Perhaps you’d expect a top-notch Ford retiree to spread love and optimism as he departs, but Odell is special. He’s the “tough but…

Remember that one kid at school? Precociously talented, sportingly adept, stylish, interesting, conscientious and yet easy to get along with, he or she was seemingly all things to all people. On the face of it, that’s what the Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo represents to cars. Bear with… Taking the Panamera Turbo as its base, then adding both additional performance and a gloss of environmental respectability through a hybrid system that includes a 14kWh battery, the E-Hybrid boasts numbers so absurd that they’re almost comedic. Remember the old twin-turbo V10 Audi RS6? Powerful car. This has another 100bhp. Seen the new Porsche 911 GT2 RS recently? This has another 74lb ft of torque. The top speed of this five-seat estate – all right, ‘4+1’ in Porsche speak –…

“Gemmell thinks that even Porsche’s Mission E will be four years behind the Model S when it arrives ❞ With the switch from combustion-engine cars to EVs now all but inevitable, it is inevitable too that there will one day be a racing series specifically for electric cars that are based on road-going models. Enter Electric GT, a brand-new championship that it is hoped will emulate the success of the single-seater Formula E racing series (see p60). Currently in the thorny midst of securing FIA accreditation, it will run for the first time, we’re told, in 2018. The inaugural race is scheduled for the summer. For the time being, all 20 cars will be modified versions of Tesla’s Model S P100D but it isn’t too much of a stretch to…

18-PAGE SPECIAL Britain’s Best Driver’s Car 2017 This year’s finest driver’s cars head to Castle Combe for our annual fextravaganza. Find out which one prevails DRIVEN New BMW M5 The super-saloon icon has gone all-wheel drive. We give our verdict FEATURE Lynk&Co uncovered We head to China to meet the world’s newest car brand EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Mini Cooper S Works 210 With a spec sheet like a ‘best of’ list, is this the greatest Mini you can buy? FIRST DRIVE Range Rover PHEV We run the rule over Land Rover’s first plug-in hybrid model NEWS LA motor show report All the new car unveilings and industry gossip from Los Angeles SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p26…

MILEAGE 4367 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if Seat’s small car can truly live up to its Fiesta-beating crown After a recent holiday to Texas, spent driving a typically anodyne hire car, I was excited to regain the keys to our Seat Ibiza. Before even reaching the exit of the Autocar Towers car park, I had regained the warm glow of contentment I’ve felt whenever I’ve been driving it. If anything, being reunited with the Ibiza after a break has made me appreciate it even more. This struck me a few days after returning from Texas, when I forced myself out of bed before dawn on a chilly Sunday morning to take part in a 10k run in Wiltshire. After breezing through the quiet streets of southwest London,…

MILEAGE 79,619 BMW 320 The shorter days mean that there are times when the Baby Shark and I are wandering around at dusk, or dawn. I now notice that the dashboard illumination isn’t happening. The light knob is a work of genius in that you pull and push to turn on or off, and then simply twist to operate the rheostat to dim and brighten the illumination. That last bit doesn’t happen. I am tempted to leave it alone because taking the bulb out of the dashboard involves removing the steering wheel. I did that recently and don’t want to mess it up.…

Citroën C6 £4950 Too many cars these days bounce where what you want them to do is waft. Enter the C6, a hydropneumatically suspended Citroën of the old school, with a chassis so clever, so modern and so compliant that, as ever with big Citroëns, nobody in the UK bought one. Wonderful details abound, and all this comfort – there’s a sybaritic interior fit to match its exterior style – is now available for below £5k. Fiat Grande Punto £1695 Never underestimate the appeal of the Grande Punto, the most handsome of all small family cars, whose charms have been somewhat eclipsed over the years by the better road behaviour of some of its rivals. This 64bhp 1.2-litre is not the fastest thing on the used car market, either, but…

PORSCHE 911 GT3 TOURING | JAN 2018 The Touring Package turns the GT3 into a “purist’s 911”. While mechanically the same as the GT3, with a naturally aspirated, 493bhp, 4.0-litre flat six, it gets the six-speed manual gearbox as standard and classic 911 styling (with the Carrera’s retractable rear wing) and a leather interior. Price £111,802 DECEMBER Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Audi A8, Mercedes-Benz X-Class, Porsche 911 GT2 RS, Seat Arona, Toyota Yaris GRMN, Volkswagen T-Roc, Touareg, Vauxhall VXR8 GTS-R JANUARY 2018 Alpina D5 S, Bentley Continental GT, BMW M3 CS, Ford Fiesta Active, Hyundai i30 N, Jaguar E-Pace, Jeep Compass, Kia Picanto X-Line, Stinger, Land Rover Discovery SVX, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport updates, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport PHEVs, Lexus LS, Maserati Ghibli update, Mercedes-Benz S-Class…

Aston Martin could fight for outright Le Mans victories again, if the regulations are rewritten to allow race-modified versions of hypercars such as the Valkyrie to compete at the top level of the sport, CEO Andy Palmer has confirmed. Speaking to Autocar at the launch of the new Vantage road and race cars, Palmer said he had been consulted by motor racing’s governing body, the FIA, on future regulations for sportscar racing. The sport is currently in a state of flux because Toyota is the only works team confirmed to compete at the top LMP1 level following the withdrawal of Porsche, Audi and Nissan in recent years. “They were debating the future of LMP1 and asked me for my view,” said Palmer. “My personal perspective is very clear: Aston Martin…

The Jaguar XE SV Project 8 has knocked the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio off the top spot at the Nürburgring, setting a new record for a four-door saloon in “production-intent specification”, according to Jaguar. The 592bhp Project 8 lapped the ’Ring in 7min 21.23sec, almost 11sec quicker than the Giulia, which set its record in 2016. The lap time was achieved with an SVOprepared prototype Project 8 in Track mode and on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. Just 300 Project 8s will be made, with the UK demand exceeding its 30-car allocation. It costs £149,995, about £100k more than a top-trim standard XE.…

Another week, another new crossover from the Volkswagen Group. Yet the Skoda Karoq, tested in the UK for the first time, manages to stand out thanks to both an impressive range of talents and some very attractive pricing. Our test car was a Czech-registered left-hand drive model, but we’re told that the European ‘Style’ trim is almost identical to the spec of the tree-topping British ‘Edition’ when it gets here early next year. It’s pretty well loaded with kit, including leather trim, a panoramic sunroof, a power-operated driver’s seat and an electric tailgate as standard, plus Skoda’s top-spec Columbus infotainment system. When powered, as here, by the 1.5-litre TSI petrol engine that Skoda reckons will be the biggest seller in the UK, it is set to cost a very competitive…

MODEL TESTED SPORT 250 Price £30,475 Power 252bhp Torque 270lb ft 0-60mph 3.6sec 30-70mph in fourth 4.3sec Fuel economy 31.6mpg CO2 emissions na 70-0mph 48.6m Ask the management of most makers of niche, low-volume British sports cars whether they’d prefer jam today or jam tomorrow and most will snap your hand off for the latter. This is an attritional trade in which even getting established with a credible, well-engineered, well-priced product can be hard enough. Just ask the former owners of Zenos. For those who do surmount that initial challenge, nurturing a sustainable business capable of enduring the years is absolutely key – and that’s just what the maker of this week’s road test subject has done. The Sport 250 is the latest offering from the Black Country’s best-known purveyor…

“It’s a little lighter than before and mostly rear-wheel drive” And all at once, Wolfgang Dürheimer’s tenure as Bentley’s guv’nor makes even more sense. Dürheimer, one of the best engineers and managers within the Volkswagen Group, was also, you might remember, Porsche’s head of research and development when the Panamera was first launched, so he saw it through to a (pretty successful) completion. And now, here comes a Bentley, the Continental GT, which is based on the same architecture as the latest Porsche Panamera. I suspect that having somebody of Dürheimer’s influence around has been quite useful during this car’s gestation. The latest Continental GT is, as before, a 2+2. And it’s nearly ready. Nearly enough that this story could almost have appeared in this magazine’s First Drives section. But,…

 he race route notes read like features on a road map from The Hobbit – cross the Tropic of Capricorn, avoid wandering stock, pass the world’s longest fence, and Beware of Aliens. “I’ve been shoved over rumble strips and narrowly missed a dead kangaroo” Competitors in the biennial Bridgestone World Solar Challenge race across one of the least hospitable places on Earth. They follow the notorious Stuart Highway, 1850 miles from Darwin to Adelaide, long revered as Australia’s most dangerous and demanding road. Driving in lightweight cars with no air-con and skinny tyres, teams mostly composed of students must overcome searing temperatures, unpredictable wildlife and the wake from 50-metre-long road trains just to make the chequered flag. Speed limits weren’t introduced in this godless place until 2007 and drink-driving is…

A British team at the cutting edge of solar technology crashed its vehicle in Australia just days before the start of the race. Cambridge University Eco Racing worked for two years preparing its £500,000 vehicle for the World Solar Challenge. Twenty members of the 60-strong team had spent a month in the outback fine-tuning Mirage. The all-female line-up of drivers were on a private test track near Alice Spring when the car went out of control and crashed into a barrier. “Everybody was completely shocked,” said team spokesman Dan Browne. “We ran to get the driver out but the car was a mess. The emergency services were there very quickly but she broke her foot in the accident.” Mirage was narrower than most entries in the race – although the…

“It costs a fraction of the works budget for Le Mans, let alone F1” However you measure it, Formula E has been one of the big motorsport success stories of recent years. In fact, at the start of only its fourth season, you can make a compelling case that the all-electric single-seater series is the most successful motorsport championship currently running – ahead of Formula 1. Start with the manufacturers flocking to the series: the 2016/17 season featured manufacturer-backed entries from Renault, Audi, DS and Jaguar. This season, Audi has raised its commitment to a full works entry, while BMW will increase its support of Andretti-Autosport, then become a full powertrain manufacturer in 2018/19 when Mercedes-Benz and Porsche also join the grid. It’s not all one-way traffic: Renault is leaving…

Dacia Logan Hugh Hatrick is back with one of his fine family vehicles. “I paid £7000 for a Dacia Logan,” he says. “It’s roughly £140 per month over five years’ HP and I reckon I can get around £6000 in a private sale. I’ll probably sell it next year with 53,000 miles or so on the clock. “Actually, I think I’ve just found the cheapest and probably most practical 14-plate car on sale today. Just £2950 buys a Logan MCV (like mine), a diesel estate with 135,000 miles. Not sure about the service history but it’s a lot of car for the money. I’m tempted.” SEND YOUR USED CAR TALES AND READERS' QUESTIONS TO james@bangernomics.com…

“ We spied a 2009 one-owner 4.7 coupé with 35k miles and full Aston history for £42,480 ❞ If you can’t afford the £120,000 or so required to buy an example of the all-new Aston Martin Vantage V8 4.0 slated for release later this year, perhaps you’d like to consider its forebear, typically available from around £30,000 for a 2006-reg manual one with 50,000 miles and full Aston service history. It’s tempting, especially since this previous-gen V8 Vantage looks sensational and has a reputation for being one of the best-built Astons yet. Okay, you say, that’s not saying much but its engine is rock solid and, apart from occasional paint bubbling, the bodies are holding up well. What’s more, generally speaking, the cars seem to have been well looked after…

Porsche 718 Cayman From £39,700 Scalpel-blade incisiveness, supreme balance and outstanding driver involvement. A practical two-seater, too. ★★★★★ Mazda MX-5 From £18,495 Brilliantly packaged, brilliantly priced and even more vibrant and perfectly poised to drive than the original. ★★★★★ Toyota GT86 From £22,700 Who knew Toyota had another dynamic masterstroke in it after the Lexus LFA? Almost as fun as you can buy on a limited budget. ★★★★★ BMW M240i From £35,100 Towers over most German rivals. Outstanding engine, characterful handling, strong usability. ★★★★★ Lotus Elise Sport From £30,800 If you want a delicate, vivid and unfettered drive, none does it better. If you want a daily driver, shop elsewhere. ★★★★★…