Innholdsfortegnelse for 04/06/2014 i Autocar

WHATEVER YOUR VIEW OF DACIA, you can’t ignore its impact on the European car market. Renault’s budget brand has been hugely successful in western Europe, serving up no-frills superminis and SUVs to an audience tempted by its cars’ value for money and credibility. Dacia even threatens to outperform its mother brand if its rise continues. Last week we said goodbye to our £5995 Sandero, Britain’s cheapest new car. It had its flaws and you can buy used for the same money, but its talents still belie its price and new will always have a special allure for a certain type of buyer. This week Hilton Holloway reports on his visit to Dacia’s HQ. Read what’s next for the Romanian car maker on p24. The main impact of the Sandero will…

This Zagato-bodied Lamborghini Gallardo could make production in a limited run. Collector Albert Spiess originally commissioned the model as a one-off for last week’s Villa D’Este Concours D’Elegance in Italy. The model, known as the Lamborghini 5-95 Zagato, has been given the approval of Lamborghini and Volkswagen Group design director Walter de Silva. Its carbonfibre body is the work of Stephane Schwarz, designer of the original Nissan Qashqai, while the mechanical package is taken from the Gallardo LP570-4.…

WITH 553LB FT OF torque on tap from just 1250rpm, this Audi RS5 diesel is, as you might expect, bombastically rapid. We drove the car at Audi’s new driver training circuit near Munich. The track’s very tight curves demand a great deal of braking and acceleration, so they were ideal for testing out the e-boost promise. There’s no doubt that this engine gets away from rest very quickly indeed. And after that, the wall of seamless torque never seems to let up. Left in the automatic gearbox’s Sport mode, the engine never had a chance of revving out — not just because the transmission’s brain wouldn’t let it but also because there’s little point in trying with torque peaking at 2000rpm and power at 4200rpm. The promise of massive pull…

DACIA 1300 The long-lived Dacia 1300 — it survived from 1969 until 2006 — was Dacia’s main car under communist rule and was based on the Renault 12. It was preceded by a license-built version of the Renault 8. Over its life, the 1300 morphed into a van, pick-up and estate. It was sold briefly in the UK as the Denem. DICTATOR’S LIMO This is a scale model of a proposed limo for Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who came to power in 1965. Although it’s dated 1989, its styling is more in line with what western Europe had seen in the 1970s. The project came to nothing because of the 1989 Romanian revolution, which ended with the execution of Ceausescu and his wife. DACIA SIX-WHEELER The Duster ‘truck’ was a…

FIRST VERDICT New diesel offers more poke and cuts CO2 but isn’t the most refined SO GOOD • Strong engine • Very low CO2 for the power • Interior quality tops the class • Small steering wheel aids agility NO GOOD • Gearbox throws are very long • Others have more rear room TESTER’S NOTE Seat/steering wheel relationship has been tuned so the driving position feels far more natural. SC IF YOU READ newspapers, you’ll know that turbodiesel engines have lately been losing their lustre. In a nutshell, they have always been good news for keeping CO2 outputs respectable but, until recently, some have given too free a rein to other pollutants, especially exhaust particulates and oxides of nitrogen. Peugeot, always a leader in diesel research, has been fitting exhaust…

FIRST VERDICT Aims to appeal to keen drivers but lacks low-end urge and engagement THE E400 AMG Sport Plus is the flagship of Mercedes’ revamped E-class coupé range. It’s designed to appeal to keener drivers, a fact emphasised by what’s under the bonnet: a twin-turbo 3.0-litre petrol V6 with 329bhp and 325lb ft. The high-performance powerplant is complemented primarily by a Dynamic Handling Package, which adds electronically adjustable dampers and the option of a more responsive throttle and gearbox. Unfortunately, the big Mercedes doesn’t quite deliver. While competent in corners, its steering frequently feels leaden and lacking in consistent weighting, which makes it rather disengaging to drive. Things aren’t quite right with the engine, either. It is powerful and sounds suitably evocative, but it doesn’t deliver the low-down torque you…

There will be a new Vauxhall Corsa at the Paris motor show in October. Amid the usual array of concepts and the more eye-catching production unveilings, it won’t figure too highly on many ‘must see’ lists. Yet anyone who knows their onions won’t leave the Parc des Expositions without running a rule over it. New superminis are important – the lifeblood of European car making. And this one is more important than most. The new Corsa’s turbulent story is emblematic of the uncertain few years that General Motors has just endured. This car was supposed to be the big money-spinner for the Global Small Vehicle Gamma II platform developed in Korea and used under the Chevrolet Aveo and Vauxhall Mokka. That was until Opel’s engineers realised that Gamma II would…

Phil Bevan is not your average car company boss. The overalls are the obvious giveaway but, combined with an extravagant ’tache, he looks not unlike a Battle of Britain pilot. Indeed, Bevan has been fighting a one-man campaign against the supercar fanboy idiocracy, who believe that you are only as big as your brake horsepower figure. It’s a torque thing in reality. He has been doing this with his Norfolk-built Trident Iceni, a truly ethical sports car with a stainless steel chassis, composite body and quite astounding fuel economy that allows owners to cross a continent on a tank of diesel. Or chip fat oil. Or paraffin. The project has been running for more than a decade, the firm having shown numerous concept versions, completed thousands of miles of testing…

A compact SUV from Porsche has been on the cards for years, to join the Cayenne in its line-up. The Cayenne was introduced in 2002 and its financial success has turned Porsche from niche sports car maker into industry heavyweight. Porsche’s CEO, Matthias Müller, suggested at a few motor shows at the turn of the decade that a smaller model might steal sales from the Cayenne, but the global market for mid-size SUVs is now just too vast for that to be a problem.…

Being tuned for peerless roadholding doesn’t make the Macan as compromised over the mud as you might expect. On 21-inch wheels, our test car’s low-profile tyres weren’t ideal for clawing through wet mud. But on a smaller wheel, on one of the all-season tyre options offered by Porsche, there’s no reason to shy away from fairly serious off-road use. The angles recorded above all improve by about 10 per cent if you opt for the height-adjustable air suspension and select ‘high level’.…

EMAIL FROM THE MANAGEMENT As an engineer educated in the UK, I wholeheartedly agree with Colin Goodwin’s views on Britain’s proud V12 engineering heritage (Email to the management, 21 May). Allow me to clarify the point that I made during my recent interview. There are two logical reasons for Rolls-Royce to build its V12 engines on a dedicated line in Munich. Firstly, as a very small volume manufacturer, we benefit from the economies of scale and a wider pool of R&D facilities provided by the BMW Group. This makes sound business sense. Secondly, the success of this Great British marque since its renaissance began 11 years ago means that our manufacturing facility is fully utilised. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is an important cornerstone of British engineering excellence. Over 1000 British jobs…

Test date | 26.4.06 Design and engineering As with the XM, the C6 is a distinctive, pneumatically suspended front-wheel-drive executive cruiser from a maker renowned for producing odd and ultimately rare luxury cars. At almost 5m long, it cuts a stately shape and seems elegant and imposing from most angles. Interior Fit and finish are first-rate, as is provision of space. The C6 is enormous inside, with huge, electrically adjustable front seats. All C6s feature a tremendously roomy rear cabin. This is a car designed as much for its occupants as its driver. Performance The C6’s 0-60mph time of 8.6sec is some way short of what its price rivals manage. Its performance is more respectable once moving: a 50-70mph time of 4.8sec is nothing to write home about, but rarely…

This is the new five-door Mini hatchback, which is set to give the brand the biggest sales boost of any single model so far when it goes on sale in October. BMW insiders believe it could outsell today’s three-door model by a factor of three to one. It is thought that this new model could account for around 150,000 units annually, massively boosting Mini’s sales overall. The five-door Mini will go on sale initially with the choice of three-cylinder Cooper petrol and three-cylinder Cooper D diesel engines and in four-cylinder Cooper S petrol and Cooper SD form. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard while the six-speed Steptronic torque converter automatic transmission is optional. Despite being a physically larger and more capacious car than the new Mini three-door hatch, BMW UK…

Google has begun work on its own self-driving car. The internet giant wants to make cars that can take you to your destination at the push of a button, removing the human element entirely. It has made simple two-seat prototypes with minimal creature comforts, capped at 25mph. A display shows the planned route while sensors allow the car to ‘see’ 274 metres in all directions. The autonomous prototypes do without regular controls such as a steering wheel and pedals because Google claims “software and sensors will do all the work”. The early prototypes are basic in order to allow issues to be identified and remedied as quickly as possible. “We’ve been working towards the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving,” said Chris Urmson, director of…

Toyota’s European design and engineering arm has poured £68 million and 576,000 hours of development into a deep facelift of its Yaris hatchback. More than 1000 new parts have made their way into the facelifted Yaris. It will go on sale later this year with a heavily restyled interior, distinctive new exterior styling and a host of ride and refinement tweaks, plus more economical engines. Externally, the main changes comprise the adoption of the more distinctive cross-shaped front-end styling introduced on the new Aygo. At the rear, there’s a redesigned bumper with an integral diffuser, and new LED light clusters. The interior revamp consists of a redesigned dashboard and door panels that grant it a sleeker look, higher-quality materials and a larger display for the multimedia system. More premium-looking chrome…

Audi has revealed an almost production-ready prototype of its upcoming electrically assisted V6 turbodiesel engine. Based on an all-new V6 engine architecture, this new motor features twin turbochargers, which are assisted by an ‘e-booster’. Like many of today’s higher-end diesel engines, the new unit uses two-stage turbocharging. The smaller of the two turbos is lighter and easier to spin up and is intended to give the engine more grunt at lower engine speeds. The bigger turbo takes over at higher speeds. This engine, demonstrated in an Audi RS5, is something of a landmark design in that it uses electrical assistance to ensure that the smaller of the two turbochargers is spinning quickly enough to be active even at very low engine speeds. In simple terms, Audi engineers have added an…

FIRST VERDICT An expensive but surprisingly decent rapid estate SO GOOD • Appealing Q-car credentials • Nicely sorted steering • Suspension works well • So do the brakes NO GOOD • Pricey for a Volvo • Handling a touch cumbersome TESTER’S NOTE Love the car’s exhaust note. It sounds deeply reminiscent of the BTCC circa 1988. SS THERE WILL ONLY ever be 125 Volvo V60 Polestars made for the UK market. So even though it costs a tear-inducing £49,775, you will always be guaranteed a certain edge of exclusivity with this car. As it turns out, however, the V60 Polestar may appear expensive but, in reality, it comes with every single option you could ever want for. And better than that, it’s actually rather a tasty piece of kit to…

“The only one Turbo Engine sporting at the same time.” Ignore the dodgy English and focus on the message. Ferrari says the engine in this new car, the California T, is the world’s only engine that is both turbocharged and sporting. Let’s have a think about that. Porsche 911 Turbo? No. McLaren 650S? No. BMW M4? No. Volkswagen Polo SEL 1.6 TDI 90? Perhaps. Actually, no. Only the California T, they say. Bold. I’m assuming that they mean engines currently in production, by the way, what with the 288 GTO and F40 in the back catalogue. But the reasons for adopting a turbocharged engine for the California now are not the reasons they strapped two IHI turbos to the F40’s 2.9-litre engine 27 years ago. No, this time the reason…

Forgive the hyperbole and adoption of rose-tinted spectacles for a minute – the British Touring Car Championship in the 1990s was surely the most exciting racing series ever seen, right? The BTCC’s Super Touring era, which ran from 1990 to 2000, had strong grids packed with big-budget manufacturer teams competing with proper ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ cars being driven by well paid international star drivers, and all cheered on by huge crowds watching close, exciting racing. This weekend at Oulton Park, you can take off those rose-tinted spectacles and watch some of the star cars and drivers from that era race again in the Super Touring Car Trophy, a new championship that is on the bill as a support race to the main attraction of event four of…

BACK TO FRONT The reason for the rear wheels being larger than the fronts — other than looking suitably dynamic — is that the Macan is, in effect, predominantly a rear-driver. Power goes from the engine, via the seven-speed PDK gearbox, to the rear axle, and it’s only once it gets there that it meets a multi-plate clutch, electronically controlled, which diverts power forwards again. It’s possible to send as much as 100 per cent of power to the front wheels, although such a situation, with the rears on a Teflon saucepan and the fronts on sandpaper, are unlikely. It also ties in the Automatic Brake Differential (braking an inside rear wheel to act like a limited-slip diff), so it tends to send power specifically to the wheels that can…

Steve Sutcliffe was absolutely on the money to award the Porsche Cayman GTS five stars (First drives, 14 May). I own one of the earlier ‘987’ S versions and the car is brilliant in every respect, but particularly in its handling/ride mix, performance and packaging. It has no peers at its price. Having owned six Porsches, including two 911s, I see the Cayman as the car that the 911 would have been allowed to evolve into, had the 911 not continued to be such a milch-cow for Porsche. The basic package is simpler and lighter, with all the benefits of a mid-engined configuration over a rear-engined layout. Stuart Crewe Portishead…

During the year that I ran it, I only ever saw three other Kia Procee’d three-doors, two of them the pricier and less satisfactory GT. Which is a shame, because this car deserves a much wider audience. It’s a winner on multiple counts, from styling to equipment, from convenience to civility. It’s good value, too, especially with a seven-year warranty. Ours was a Procee’d 1.6 GDi SE, featuring the lean-burn 131bhp petrol engine, a six-speed manual gearbox and automatic stop-start. The SE is the second most expensive trim level and gets you an array of kit that includes sat-nav, a reversing camera, Bluetooth, a stylish set of 17in two-tone alloys, automatic lights and wipers, front cornering lights (surprisingly useful) and electric folding door mirrors. And while its two-tone cloth seats…

C6s start at about £6000 — good news for those after a huge, luxurious Gallic barge at the rarer end of the spectrum Every road tester in 2006 must at some point have conceded that Citroën’s then-new C6 would one day be an excellent used buy. French saloons, along with any large mainstream offerings with pretensions in the premium market, always are. It was difficult to justify the expense of the C6 as a new purchase, even though it was competent and charming. It was also a boldly styled car and the latest in a line of big, eccentric Citroën saloons. Dealers weren’t exactly swamped with buyers. Citroën sold only 899 C6s in the UK, although it was always fairly realistic with its sales expectations, recognising that the market for…

MR2-based replica Fezza for £8k This Ferrari F355 replica is a 1990 Toyota MR2 underneath. Which means a gutsy 158bhp 2.0-litre engine mounted behind the cockpit, rear-wheel drive and a playful chassis. This car has 116k miles on the clock and the dealer is asking £7995. Call 01992 571 322 Real M6 at a real-world £17k The BMW ‘E63’ M6 has to be one of the cheapest ways into a 200mph (derestricted) car. We found this clean-looking 2006 model in ‘metallic carbon’ black with black interior. It’s done 54k miles and has full service history. The dealer wants £16,995. Call 02476 366452 Exotic looks, American muscle If big horsepower and outlandish looks are your thing, then how about a Chevrolet Corvette C6? This 2006, 19k-mile example features a 400bhp 6.0-litre…

THE NEXT-GENERATION Nissan GT-R is set to feature hybrid technology to align it with the firm’s recently announced return to top-line Le Mans competition. The Japanese manufacturer has revealed that its LMP1 challenger will be known as the Nissan GT-R LM Nismo, creating a link with the iconic GT-R road car. Although Nissan hasn’t revealed full technical details of its LMP racer — which will compete against Porsche, Audi and Toyota next year — it has confirmed that it will have a hybrid powertrain. “We’re on a road towards low emissions and eventually zero emissions that is relevant to all cars,” said Nissan’s vice-president, Andy Palmer. “What’s interesting about hybrids is that they not only improve fuel economy but they also improve performance, so therefore it is relevant.”…

TOYOTA HAS PLAYED DOWN the idea of a production hybrid GT86 sports car, suggesting that such a model would not “speak to the majority”. Toyota engineers have previously spoken about having the performance hybrid technology at an advanced stage, but it appears that the firm is struggling to find a business case for it in the GT86. Toyota marketing director Fabio Capano said: “We can create a product with this technology, but it needs to make proper business sense. We have to prioritise.” Capano cited the small market for such a car and the costs involved as the key reasons for focusing the brand’s efforts elsewhere. However, Toyota is co-developing a larger sports car with BMW and it’s believed that this will have an advanced Le Mans-derived hybrid drivetrain using…

THE NEW SKODA Fabia has been spotted almost completely undisguised months before its official debut at the Paris motor show. The pictures show a cleaner, more modern design than today’s car, inspired by Skoda’s recent Rapid and Octavia. There’s a distinctive shoulder line, sleeker roof line, more heavily creased bodywork and a subtle lip spoiler. Skoda’s designers were tasked with giving the Fabia a more youthful look. The car spied here is a more basic version on steel wheels, but a wide range of colour schemes, graphics and options, including contrasting roof colours, body kits and a wide choice of wheels, will be offered in a bid to make the Fabia more customisable. It’s also clear that the new Fabia, which again will be five-door only, is based on the…

Ten years ago, Dacia, Renault’s Romanian budget brand, launched the small Logan saloon. The Logan was a simple, rugged and affordable car designed for developing nations. Since then, the Dacia brand has spread out from central Europe and the Mediterranean and its back-to-basics products are now also sold as Renaults and Nissans elsewhere in the world. The upshot is that the Dacia family has become a significant part of Renault’s profitability. According to estimates by analysts, the models based on Dacia’s ‘M0’ platform accounted for about 40 per cent of the French company’s profits last year. With about 1.2 million cars based on the M0 architecture last year, Renault looks like it is about to upturn the conventional wisdom that insists that the best margins are made by high-end and…

FIRST VERDICT An appealing mix of load-lugging ability and big performance SO GOOD • Thumping performance • Handsome looks • Estate practicality NO GOOD • High price • Inconsistent steering weight • Jittery low-speed ride TESTER’S NOTE Even the leather on the seat bolsters and door armrests is carbonfibre-effect. Not to all tastes. AM THE WORLD HARDLY needs cars like this. Even Jaguar admits that it will sell only about 100 examples of the XFR-S Sportbrake (mostly in the UK) in its current life cycle, what with its thirsty petrol V8 and £80k-plus price tag. But there’s something wickedly appealing about the concept of taking an inherently practical estate and turning it into a hot rod, in this case by fitting the 542bhp supercharged 5.0-litre V8 from the XFR-S saloon…

FIRST VERDICT Classy SUV works well with frugal downsized petrol turbo engine A FEW YEARS ago an SUV with a 1.2-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine, even if turbocharged and able to muster 113bhp and 140lb ft, would have been laughed out of court. Not enough grunt, people would have said. It’ll rev its head off and wear itself out before the rest of the car. Which goes to show how things have changed. Suddenly, an engine matching that description has appeared in Nissan’s super-successful Qashqai. A look at the specs shows what great competition it poses for the 1.5-litre diesel model, undercutting it by £1260 and bringing slightly brisker performance. The trade-off is fuel consumption 8-10mpg behind the 1.5 dCi’s, but a real-world figure of 38-42mpg is impressive for any petrol…

Can you spot the differences? Look closely — and I mean really closely in some instances — at our Adam and you’ll see five of them since its last appearance in these pages. The easiest new arrival to spot is the subtlest of subtle rear spoilers. The £331 addition sits atop the tailgate and blends nicely into the roof with no hint of The Fast and the Furious about it. It’s a nice fit and gives a tad more muscular oomph to the Adam’s appearance from some angles, although I’m yet to take the car to a circuit to check out any increase in downforce. On the more practical front is a set of mudflaps, costing a grand total of £108. Typically, there hasn’t been a muddy puddle in sight…

Ask when the cambelt was changed. It should be done at about 100,000 miles and costs in the region of £450. That price includes a new water pump and tensioners. Any knocking from underneath at the front on pre-2009 cars points to worn bushes and ball joints on the lower suspension arms. It’s not possible to buy the ball joint on its own from Citroën, but there are aftermarket options. Check that the headlights work properly. Water can get in and they’re prone to damage from knocks. They’re expensive to replace, costing as much as £1400 new, each. The suspension should start rising the second the car is opened, not just when you turn on the engine. If doesn’t, it could be an issue with the electronic pump. Check for…

British supercar for hot hatch money IF YOU WANT supercar looks and performance for a fraction of Ferrari money, the Lotus Esprit V8 might just be the answer. Launched in 1996, the Esprit V8 brought a notable performance boost over its turbocharged four-cylinder S4S forebear. The twin-turbo 3.5-litre V8 produced 349bhp at 6500rpm, enabling 0-62mph in 4.9sec and a top speed of 175mph. The Esprit V8 also has delicate, precise steering that’s rich in feel and a chassis with superb body control. However, you’ll develop the calf and arm muscles of an Olympian, such is the weight of the clutch and gearshift. Esprit V8s are collector’s items and hold their value extremely well. We found a stunning 1997 Esprit V8 in metallic blue. It has done only 37,000 miles, has…