Innholdsfortegnelse for 7/2/2018 i Autocar

THE CAR INDUSTRY’S fascination with SUVs shows no signs of slowing down. Volvo, whose XC40 we road test this week (p34) now sells more of the high-riding machines than it does regular saloons. BMW is rapidly filling in gaps in its line-up with the likes of the sporty X2 (p24). And even Lamborghini (p16) and Lotus (p13) are getting in on the act. Which is why it might surprise you that the best-selling Mercedes- Benz model in the UK last year wasn’t an SUV: it was the A-Class. Of the 179,000 cars the German firm sold, the A-Class accounted for 43,000 – compared with 36,000 for its entire SUV range. In fact, the UK is the largest market for the A-Class in the world. It’s a reminder that we Brits…

Skoda has confirmed that its Vision X concept, due at the Geneva motor show, previews a production model to rival the Nissan Juke. Styling for the final car is likely to remain largely unchanged, although the 20in wheels and a huge touchscreen in the cabin will be pared back ahead of next year’s launch. The concept previews the brand’s adoption of plug-in hybrid powertrains. Also likely in the lineup are 1.0 and 1.5 petrol models and a 1.6 diesel. A model name hasn’t been confirmed, but Skoda has recently trademarked Amiq and Anuk. NEW CEE’D TO FOLLOW STINGER’S LEAD The new Kia Cee’d will have a “more engaging drive” than its predecessor, claims the Korean car maker. The five-door and estate variants, due on sale later this year after a…

The UK car industry faces “the greatest challenge of our time”, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) chairman Mike Hawes, in light of a 3% drop in domestic car building in 2017. SMMT figures show that 1,671,166 cars were built in the UK last year, down from 1,722,698 in 2016. Although that represents a 3% yearon- year fall — the first decline in eight years — it remains the second-biggest year for production since 2000. The SMMT says the industry downturn is largely attributed to poor domestic demand due to “declining business and economic confidence and confusion over government’s policy on diesel”. Speaking about ongoing uncertainty over Brexit and anti-diesel rhetoric, Hawes said: “[The fall in production] comes at a time when the car industry faces…

Lamborghini is planning an all-roads competition programme for its frontengined four-wheel-drive Urus but won’t yet reveal where the turbocharged V8-powered model will compete. Sources say an announcement is likely towards the end of this year, once Urus production has hit its stride at Sant’Agata. The company denies that it will follow Bentley, which has just revealed plans to run a Bentayga at the famous Pike’s Peak Hillclimb in Colorado, although it acknowledges that Bentley’s performance “will provide us with a benchmark”. “Lamborghini welcomes challenges, but whatever we do will be quite different from other brands,” said Stefano Domenicali. We will choose a form of competition intended only for our class of vehicle. Our car has many faces. You can enjoy its beauty, it is very fast on the track, very…

Lamborghini’s chief talked about a mysterious racing exploit with the Urus WEDNESDAY When Lamborghini announced it’d be staging the UK launch of the Urus SUV in the Royal Horticultural Halls, a stone’s throw from the Palace of Westminster, I was a bit dubious. I mean, it’s not exactly sunny Sant’Agata Bolognese, is it? Still, I’d yet to see the car in the flesh and there was a chance to chat about it with the company’s new chief, Stefano Domenicali, so I grabbed it. So glad I did. The car looked spectacular, but there were big surprises in two directions: space and cost. Using the Bentley Bentayga and Range Rover as yardsticks, the Urus’s £165,000 price is competitive, and the rear cabin is extraordinarily spacious, given the car’s rakish lines. Domenicali…

You’re still rewarded for scaling the upper reaches of the tachomoter For a subset of car lovers, BBR GTi will be a familiar name. Performance-chasing owners of the R53 Mini and fans of celebrated rocketship Fords such as the Sierra Cosworth will likely know of the place, which now sits, quite literally, in the shadow of Mercedes’ Formula 1 headquarters in Brackley. This is an outfit best known, however, for turbocharging a car normally praised for its free-spirited naturally aspirated engine: Mazda’s purer-than-pure MX-5. BBR sells around 100 MX-5 turbo kits a year, almost half of which end up in the US, although there have been recent dispatches to customers in places as far afield as Bahrain and Taiwan. The firm’s association with the big-selling Mazda roadster goes back to…

MODEL TESTED D4 AWD FIRST EDITION Price £39,905 • Power 188bhp • Torque 295lb ft • 0-60mph 8.5sec • 30-70mph in fourth 9.7sec • Fuel economy 38.3mpg • CO2 emissions 135g/km • 70-0mph 50.6m Volvo has more or less accidentally discovered that it’s an SUV company. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise, given that it’s a car maker founded on the virtues of strength and stability, but where once it was famed for its blocky, spacious estate cars, today those have given way to more dynamic-looking saloons and estates and the values of spaciousness and pragmatism are instead found more in its SUVs. Which is handy, given that 4x4s, crossovers or anything with a hint of rufty-tufty will likely find itself as one of the faster-growing and more profitable market…

The gold standard for loud and expensive fast cars remains the Porsche 911 with 30,700 examples sold last year, an increase of 4% compared with 2016. In fact, the 911 dominates its segment like no other model – the second bestseller is the Mercedes-Benz SL with 5800 units (down 14%). Ferrari and Aston Martin enjoyed year-on-year sales growth of 10.1% and 58.1% respectively. Lexus made a remarkable jump up the charts. The LC (5700 sales) grabbed third spot from the Mercedes-AMG GT (5100 sales). Total global volume was 75,400 units, a year-on-year rise of 5.3% – highly respectable given that this is a segment of cars with starting prices around £80,000.…

Highlights of the sports car segment were continuing strong sales of Mazda’s fine-handling MX-5 (nearly 40,000 units), while Porsche’s 718 family was also on the up. Abarth’s new 124 Spider had a strong first year of full sales, claiming 10th spot, and fell only just short of the well-established Mercedes SLC. Meanwhile, Toyota’s GT86 found new support as it approaches run-out years. But, overall, the segment suffered from a drop in demand for US muscle cars, led by the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette, and, in Europe, the Audi TT.…

NORTH AMERICA USA: Ford F-Series 820,799 Mexico: Nissan Versa 90,543 Canada: Ford F-Series 145,409 Antigua and Barbuda: Honda Fit SOUTH AMERICA Brazil: Chevrolet Onix Colombia: Renault Sandero 21,500 Argentina: Toyota Hilux Peru: Toyota Yaris 12,600 Venezuela: Ford Explorer 770 Guatemala: Toyota Hilux Chile: Chevrolet Sail 12,770 Ecuador: Chevrolet D_Max Bolivia: Suzuki Vitara Costa Rica: Toyota Hilux Panama: Kia Rio 4290 Uruguay: Fiat Uno 4038 EUROPE Russia: Hyundai Solaris 90,380 Germany: Volkswagen Golf 235,935 Turkey: Fiat Egea 38,260 United Kingdom: Ford Fiesta 120,525 France: Renault Clio 112,152 Italy: Fiat Panda 126,000 Spain: Seat Leon 33,456 Poland: Skoda Octavia 16,967 Macedonia: Dacia Duster 270 Ukraine: Kia Sportage 2736 Andorra: BMW X5 Liechtenstein: Volkswagen Golf 103 Iceland: Toyota Yaris 2000 Estonia: Skoda Octavia Cyprus: Volkswagen Golf Slovenia: Renault Clio 3854 Latvia: Nissan Qashqai…

With the very greatest of respect to David Moore (Your Views, 24 January), I don’t believe he is really aware of what ‘makes’ your typical Alfa Romeo owner – who, from personal experience, actually prefers to own a niche market vehicle. Alfa will never be a mainstream brand, which is one reason they are loved by their owners. There’s exclusivity that you don’t get with other vehicles in the same price range. Where I live in Cheshire, we have a long-established Alfa dealership and, as such, it’s a delight to regularly see their vehicles out and about on local roads. Since reading David’s remark, I did ask my three Alfa-owning friends for their opinion and, without hesitation, they all said they’d be mortified if the offset number plate was removed…

We’ve had the annual ‘what was the most popular car colour of the past year?’ announcement. I know this because I found myself on the radio talking about the whole nonsensicalness of it all. In fact, the only good thing to come of it was a rather entertaining graphic from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). All you need to know is that black is the new white, for some reason. The thing is, colour doesn’t really matter when it comes to used cars. Well, only a bit. A used car buy is usually a colour compromise. You might get roughly what you want, or you tolerate the hue. Some say fashionable colours are cheap once they become loud or stupid. At the moment, I am prevented from…

The nation’s classifieds may be gripped by classic car fever, a condition that drives prices of even the worst old tat through the roof, but there are one or two models about which the claim ‘future classic’ doesn’t seem too far-fetched. The Alfa Romeo Spider of 1995-2006 is one. There are only around 1000 examples of the 916-series Spider remaining, most of them 2.0 Twin Sparks of 1999 to 2005 vintage. (The 3.0 and 3.2 24-valve V6 cars are rare birds.) Prices range from £1000 to £5000 but around £3500 is enough for a decent car. There’s a coupé version, too, called the GTV. It’s less numerous but you’ve a better chance of finding a V6 example. Both versions were styled by Pininfarina and both have aged exceptionally well. Beauty…

Sales in the UK will start in June after a public debut in Geneva in March Mercedes-Benz promises class-leading levels of connectivity from its new A-Class, which receives a new interior with the most advanced version yet of the German car maker’s Comand infotainment system. The sixth-generation set-up features a newly developed MBUX (Mercedes-Benz User Experience) function that brings touchscreen control, an innovative voice control system and augmented reality navigation not even offered on Mercedes’ rangetopping S-Class. The A-Class will once again be offered exclusively in fivedoor form when UK sales of the new, fourth-generation version start in June after a public debut at the Geneva motor show in March. It will be the first of up to eight new compact models that are under development and due for launch…

Mercedes will showcase the first of its two AMG-badged A-Class performance models later this year. The A35 4Matic – a Volkswagen Golf R rival – is set to be unveiled at the Paris motor show in September prior to the start of UK sales in 2019. Positioned above the A250, which is the rangetopper at the standard A-Class’s launch, the new go-faster variant will have an advanced mild-hybrid driveline under the ‘EQ Power’ banner that Mercedes has reserved for all new models featuring electric driving or boosting capability. Based around the M260 petrol engine used by the A250, the driveline features a belt-driven generator and 48V electric architecture that contribute to a wholesale increase in performance through the operation of an electric motor that assists the 2.0-litre four-pot. Mercedes-AMG sources…

LOTUS’S LONG-MOOTED SUV will arrive in less than four years to battle rivals such as the Maserati Levante and Porsche Macan, the firm’s boss has revealed. Lotus will cherry-pick platform modules from parent company Geely to create a Levante-sized car weighing less than two tonnes. “It will go round bends like nothing else in its segment,” said CEO Jean- Marc Gales. “If we fail on that we fail the project.” Geely-owned Volvo will be a big source of parts. The SUV will likely use elements of the SPA platform that underpins the XC90 and XC60, which are both relatively light SUVs thanks to the platform’s use of high-strength steel. The SPA structure would restrict the car to four-cylinder engines, but Gales said the car will have a hybrid option. Volvo’s…

22% The estimated rise in CO2 emissions for an engine measured to WLTP standard rather than the NEDC >700 The number of pages the WLTP test certification manual runs to x2 Time and effort required to conduct a WLTP compared to the outgoing NEDC cycle Discussions about the new regulations began in November 2007 Over the next few months you could drive home one night, park up and then get in your car the next morning only to find it is 20% less fuel efficient and 20% more polluting than when you last turned the key. How so? The car you had yesterday will still be the same as it is today, but its official — on paper — efficiency and environmental ratings will be certified to a new, tougher…

I you’re after evidence of real change at BMW as it works to regain sales momentum having lost the global premium-brand crown to Mercedes-Benz, look no further than the X2. The new compact crossover ditches convention and receives bold new styling treatment unlike any other model in the BMW range, as well as a distinctly youthorientated marketing campaign to support it in a move that, the German car maker hopes, will win potential new customers – and that all-important crown once again. Not that BMW thinks its grab for sales with the more sporting sibling to the X1 in one of Europe’s fastestgrowing market segments will be easy, mind you. The X2 enters a class brimming with impressive contenders, including the Audi Q3, Jaguar E-Pace and Mercedes-Benz GLA. Success is…

DS Automobiles has shoehorned so many features into its first compact SUV that it’s difficult to know where to start. Alongside semi-autonomous driving functions, night vision and aesthetic elements intended to capture French savoir faire both inside and out, the DS 7 Crossback is also the first among its peers to use active suspension. The idea is that you’ll be tempted away from more established rivals by the car’s fresh take on combining old-school luxury with the latest technology. Alas, for all the Breguet-inspired detailing and swivel-eyed LED headlights, this is a familiar product, built on the same modular platform as the Peugeot 3008 and offering front-wheel drive with a choice of existing diesel and turbocharged petrol engines. Furthermore, the assertion that the Crossback possesses a ‘unique personality’ lasts as…

The world is already well served for premium-branded compact SUVs, but there isn’t one as simple, self-possessing and distinctive as the XC40. There may not be one, either, that delivers against its own particular dynamic brief quite as well. In its pragmatic, comfort-orientated, functionality-focused way, it is a classic Volvo to its core. But it’s also great to look at; rich, pleasant and refined to travel in; strong, polished, responsive and driveable on the road; and sufficiently cleverly resolved in its ride and handling to be wieldy and enjoyable one moment, and relaxing and protective the next. That the XC40’s suspension is prone to the occasional low-speed stumble must also be noted; likewise that its rear seats don’t deliver better comfort for full-sized adults. All considered, this isn’t quite as…

We have already discussed China’s onward march as the biggest car market. In contrast, the UK went into retreat in 2017 with the biggest percentage drop of any global market, down 5.4% to 2,902,754 sales as a result of economic uncertainties and new motoring taxes. The decline at least wasn’t sufficient to push the UK behind France, where 2,539,826 cars were sold, but a drop of 166,000 units repeated in 2018 alongside a rising French market would put the UK’s position under threat. THE TEN BIGGEST NEW CAR MARKETS…

Last year, US car sales fell by 1.9%, driven by drops in all car segments. The only two segments that posted an increase were the top two, SUVs (+5.8%) and pick-ups (+4.8%) according to JATO. Both segments combined accounted for 57% of total US sales, an increase on 2016. The reasons? Low petrol prices, bigger ranges of models and local production. JATO’s analysts expect this trend to continue in the coming years. Highlights of the sports…

You have to admire McLaren Automotive’s chutzpah. For a business not yet a decade old to risk naming its latest car after Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna requires huge confidence in your product. The name, bestowed upon the £750,000 supercar seen here ahead of its public unveiling at next month’s Geneva motor show, is definitive. If you give your car such a highfalutin name, it jolly well had better live up the hype: you won’t get a second chance. And, well, here it is, all unsubtle sharp edges, wings, vanes and purposeful aggression. A road-legal track car that “can be driven to the shops”, as vehicle line chief Andy Palmer puts it. The Senna is significant for being the first McLaren Automotive production car (500 examples to be made from…

Skoda Karoq versus the longest night Is it possible to drive the length of Great Britain between sunrise and sunset? We’re about to try in a humble family SUV… What Dany Bahar did next We meet controversial ex-Lotus boss and see his new supercar ‘It’s even better than the old one’ Mr G, Gunnar Güthenke, on the making of Merc’s new G-Class EVERY WEEK Audi RS4 Avant Has Audi cracked the fast-and-fun formula? We’ve eight pages to decide Citroën C4 Cactus Funky hatch has lost some visual quirks but gained clever new suspension tech Ford Puma How to get ‘the driver’s dream’ into your garage for less than a grand SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 5324 WHY WE RAN IT To find out if Honda has made a credible family hatch to rival Europe’s best According to an old motoring adage, if you have to measure an improvement, you haven’t made one. So there was no need, when we took delivery of our Civic, to reach for the slide rules and tape measures: one drive was enough to tell us that this all-new car was a vast improvement on the model it replaced in nearly every area. But what people seemed to be far more interested in initially was the new car’s raffish styling. At first, I thought it so ugly I was afraid to go near it, especially at night, but as time went by I grew to love it. Our…

MI LEAGE 128,447 After the successful installation of the ex-TV speakers I wrote about (24 January), the next step was the actual sound system. I bought a JVC with a CD slot, an aux input and some radio channels. The thing is that the wiring that should have supplied the power actually didn’t. It was a leftover from the Land Rover’s recent rebuild and was meant to be all ready to rock and roll, but sadly was not. The only way to get power was to go back to radio installation basics from the 1970s and run a wire directly from the positive battery terminal. That worked. M is for Mondeo Like a Vauxhall Vectra but more interesting. If a rep is going to enjoy themselves and not get too…

An expert’s view JAMIE PORTER, ALFA WORKSHOP “The Spider is a great sports car: pointy and agile in Twin Spark form, beautiful-sounding and effortless in V6. The V6 is heavier and not as responsive as the TS, but is my favourite. A shame they’re so rare. A late-plate 3.2 is a real collector’s item. Saying that, I see all 916-series values going through the roof. Early cars are getting rusty around the rear arches and jacking points, and some parts are hard to source. Spare hood release motors, for example, are non-existent, so make sure the hood works.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE Check the oil level because it likes a drink. Oil pumps are prone to failure. Timing belt should be changed every 36,000 miles on the 2.0 TS, every…

McLaren chiefs have confirmed they are “working on a plan” to go racing with the new Senna supercar, providing a series can be found for which it would be eligible. The 789bhp, 590lb ft machine was conceived as a road-legal track car with the intention of making it the fastest McLaren yet around a circuit. With some modifications — the car features continually active aerodynamics and adjustable ride height, neither of which is currently permitted in most leading racing championships — it could be readied for competition use. “I certainly could conceive racing [the Senna],” McLaren Automotive chief executive Mike Flewitt told Autocar. “I genuinely cannot confirm anything at the minute but we are working on a plan. “The way it is designed from an aerodynamic perspective, and the sheer…

Two thirds of Urus orders have been from buyers new to the brand Lamborghini boss Stefano Domenicali expects sales of the new £165,000 Urus super-SUV to more than double the company’s annual UK sales volume to around 700 cars when it arrives in May. The Urus is the first Lamborghini to be launched in right and left-hand-drive forms at the same time. Domenicali said this is because the company believes a positive UK market reaction is “fundamental” to the early global sales prospects for the ground-breaking model. Speaking at last week’s London launch of the 641bhp, 190mph Urus, Domenicali said the entire first year’s production — tipped to be around 3000 cars — had already been sold. “We will have to revisit our allocation of cars to the UK because…

Our first go in the Mégane RS 280 (First drives, 31 January) revealed a significant threat to the dominance of Autocar’s Best Affordable Drivers Car 2017, the Honda Civic Type R. This third-gen Renault Sport hot hatch, it turns out, has a chassis even more biddable, poised and absorbing than you’d dare hope for, either from Renault’s in-house performance department or from a front-drive five-door. But, in EDC dual-clutch automatic transmission form at least, it’s also a car of one or two frustrations. So what of the ‘other’ Mégane RS? The one we couldn’t report on last week, with the stiffened Cup chassis, six-speed manual gearbox, standard-fit Torsen helical limited-slip differential and optional lightweight ‘bi-metal’ brake discs? This, you’d suggest, is the specification in which most UK owners will order…

The explosive Audi RS2, all 311bhp of it, is often reckoned to be the world’s first high-performance estate. Certainly it was the first car to combine the practicality of a bigger-booted wagon body with the straight-line speed of a supercar. Thanks to its quattro four-wheel-drive system and punchy turbocharged engine, it was actually faster to 30mph than the mighty McLaren F1, as discovered by this magazine’s road testers in the mid-1990s – but the first rapid estate car it was not. BMW’s E34 M5 Touring had arrived two years before it, in 1992, albeit in left-hand-drive markets only. Another two years before that, Subaru had endowed an estate car with more power than was strictly necessary by offering the Legacy with as much as 197bhp in its home market of…

The rise of SUVs has historically meant a corresponding slide in conventional saloons. And although isolating sales of four-door saloons from those of hatchback and estate body styles is not easy, JATO’s figures suggest that trend continued globally, with the exception of China. Three of the four main saloon/hatchback/estate segments in China actually expanded last year: mid-size (10% year-on-year growth), executive (14%) and luxury (109%). Only the compact segment decreased (-5%). The opposite is true in America, where all four segments posted declines, and Europe, where both mainstream and premium compact and mid-size segments fell.…

FEATURED THIS WEEK FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 18,208 WHY WE RAN IT The original MPV is now more SUV than ever before, but is it just as charming and usable? Not many cars can claim to have instigated an entirely new segment, but our departing Scenic is such a thing. The reason for its existence? An MPV segment haemorrhaging sales to a new wave of SUVs such as the Seat Ateca and Nissan Qashqai. The result? A typically French take on things, and a sort of quasi-MPV with some of the desirable cues you’d find on a compact to mid-sized SUV. A high belt-line, the raised ride height and enormous wheels are all present and correct, and during the design process Renault threw in a meaningful dose of concept car –…

MILEAGE 4222 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if, after 40 years, the Golf GTI is still the world’s best all-round hot hatch One of the biggest decisions to make when we were speccing our Volkswagen Golf GTI was whether or not to go for the Performance Pack. The common consensus suggests that it is something of a bargain, at £1360, in light of how it transforms the car. It gets you an extra 15bhp – taking the 2.0litre turbo to 242bhp – as well as a proper diff and larger, more effective brakes. Much more than a ‘pack’, then, due to how much it is likely to change the driving experience; other car makers have used more modest upgrades as an excuse to host a new model launch. Yet,…

Fancy a 308bhp 3.0-litre six-cylinder BMW that’ll see off the 0-62mph dash in five seconds and waft up to 155mph with ease, and yet still be capable of returning around 50mpg? What if it also comes with four doors and four seats and its interior is a cocoon of luxury, while its ride and handling and general road manners are those of the very finest and most expensive sporting GTs? Cloak it in a body of other-worldly beauty and what you have is this 640d M Sport Gran Coupé. New, this will set you back a whopping £67,450, but on Pistonheads’ used car classifieds, we found a 2012 example for a mere £19,995, which appears to us to be a bit of a bargain. The one we found for sale…

Although it didn’t enjoy great sales success, the Avantime is a highly regarded, if divisive, piece of car design. The two-door, four-seat MPV-cum-coupé was a brave and stylish attempt to kick-start a new class of car. It was built by Matra and it looked like a high-speed train. It was chic and not that bad to drive, either. This clean-looking example made £2520 at auction, somewhere in the middle of its estimate, and that looks pretty good for a potential classic that would certainly make a good investment. Ahead of time? Certainly forward-looking. Skoda Yeti 2.0 TDI 110 SE L Price new £22,495. Price now £15,365 Everybody loved the dearly departed Yeti and it’s not hard to see why. It was one of the first truly appealing crossovers, with tall,…

BRIEF Jaguar XFR £14,980 I feared this might be a choice between BMW or Mercedes, but, fortunately, there is this brilliant 2010 Jaguar XFR for sale on Pistonheads. The supercharged V8 is happy to waft along on its huge reserves of low-down torque, but when you bury the throttle, the eight-cylinder bass line builds to a peak of raw power. Only one owner from new and a vampish red leather interior – beat that, Alex. MAX ADAMS Mercedes CLS63 AMG £13,000 What’s wrong with a Merc, eh, Max? This terrific 2007 Mercedes CLS63 AMG for sale on Pistonheads has the numbers on Max’s Jag: 6.3 litres versus 5.0 litres; 4.5sec to 60mph versus 4.9sec; 75,000 miles versus 98,000 miles. Don’t get me wrong: I love an XFR; but the dash…

This aeroplane is crashing. There’s no doubt about it. As I look out of the window, I can see snow, and trees, both far closer than they ought to be. We seem to be descending parallel to a chair lift because our pilot is, apparently, attempting a wheels-up emergency landing on a ski slope. Although my knuckles tighten on the armrest and I brace for the impact, I’m surprisingly relaxed about this. And then I wake up, as confused as hell. The aeroplane’s whirr is still constant and we’re still cruising at 38,000 reassuring feet. A few minutes later, I doze off again and – wouldn’t you know it? – we’re sinking again, inescapably, unavoidably earthbound… until the airliner becomes an absurdly agile train, skipping between wooden stepping stones where…