Innholdsfortegnelse for Agosto 08, 2018 i Autocar

NEITHER PLUMMETING DEMAND for diesel nor Brexit have stopped someone from buying a car today in a showroom, however challenging they are for the car industry to deal with. But some cars are now being forced off sale thanks to something else entirely: the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP). WLTP is the long-promised more real-world-representative fuel economy figure that each individual version of a car must be certified with. No more 60mpg quoted in the sales brochure, when the reality is more like 40mpg. WLTP, as we reveal this week (p17), is claiming plenty of victims as car makers scramble to comply: entire models and engines have gone, choice within a range has been made more limited and, in some cases, specs have been downgraded. The Volkswagen Golf…

Land Rover has worked through numerous iterations to reach the right shape for the new Defender and it may have settled on taking the icon back to where it began. Sources suggest JLR bosses are looking at the sales success of modernised classics like the Mini and Fiat 500 and will take a similar approach for their new car. Company chiefs have always made much of the fact that the original Land Rover’s profile is so distinctive that it can be represented clearly in just in three strokes of a pen, yet it seems to have taken years of experimentation for it to dawn on these people that potential buyers simply want this to continue. Jeep has known this all along: even after a dozen iterations, its Wrangler’s profile and…

Nissan will replace its popular Juke crossover supermini with a car that’s equally bold and distinctive to look at, and yet quite different from the outgoing version. Having been designed at Nissan’s London studio, the car is being readied for a motor show debut within months and will enter production in 2019. In an exclusive interview with Autocar, Nissan’s global design boss, Alfonso Albaisa, said the second-generation Juke “doesn’t look too much like the last one”. He added: “It doesn’t look like IMx [the electric crossover concept unveiled at Tokyo last year] or new Leaf, either. It’s an urban meteor with a nasty attitude.” Albaisa quashed a rumour that the Juke replacement had been reviewed and sent back for a redesign, He said: “[The Juke] is certainly coming soon. But…

Audi will reveal an electric-powered supercar concept, which previews the next generation R8 EV, during the Pebble Beach automotive week later this month. OFFICIAL PICTURE The PB18 E-tron Quattro, partially visible in this darkened image, is a “design study for a puristic sports car of the future”. The name is a nod to Pebble Beach and the firm’s Le Mans 24 Hours-winning R18 E-tron Quattro race car, hinting at its links to the next R8. As revealed by Autocar last week, that will be an electric supercar. Audi will reveal its first series production electric vehicle, the E-tron, in September.…

“You can feel what great work the adaptive dampers are doing to keep the body mostly flat” Another week, another Competition version of a BMW. But unlike the M2 Competition we reviewed in last week’s issue, the M5 Competition is an addition to the range rather than a replacement for the regular M. There are a few prongs of thinking on this one. The biggest is that an M5 has a broader range of use than an M2 anyway, so there’s a reason for keeping both models in the line up. The standard M5 is for those who just want to potter around in a fast approximation of comfort and the M5 Competition is for those who want a bit more focus and driving keenness. Not many M5 owners are…

Welcome to the BMW i8 sans roof edition or – to use the official terminology – the BMW i8 Roadster. Yes, Munich has finally gone and removed its out-of-this-world hybrid sports car’s lid and, in doing so, created a car that makes us wonder why it hasn’t arrived sooner. Anyway, this new model – which has been launched alongside a refreshed i8 Coupé – commands a £12,000 premium over its hardtop stablemate. Despite this, BMW expects the £124,735 Roadster to outsell the Coupé at a rate of three to one. And when you look at the specs, you can kind of see why. Weight gain is minimal, owing to the strength of the i8’s carbonfibre-reinforced plastic bodyshell (only 60kg separates the two), so the Roadster will hit 62mph from a…

Combining the ego-free, functionality-first design ethos that defines a modern Volkswagen with the aura of style and lavishness that every successful luxury car needs is proving a very tricky task indeed for VW. The original Phaeton didn’t manage it; the latest Arteon doesn’t quite succeed at it, either and, entering its third generation, the Touareg is still struggling with the necessary proportions of the recipe. Roomy, refined, easy to use and well stocked for off-road capability, the Touareg covers many of the bases required of a large SUV well. But, while its infotainment technology and features are impressive, it lacks the alluring desirability of a fully formed, £50,000 luxury family car. To look at, it’s smart if derivative; to travel in, it’s spacious and pleasant, but lacking material richness; to…

People who buy Lamborghini Aventadors and then drive them backwards and forwards outside Harrods are seeking attention. Fine, but they’ve got it wrong. If you want to rack up a serious eyeball count, you need a beach buggy. Furthermore, if people are saying nice things about your choice of motor, you can’t hear them in an Aventador. You can in a beach buggy: I know because a lot of people have been complimenting me on my choice of wheels. And shirt. Back in 1970, the Sprinkle family moved to the UK from the US and sent their two sons to the school I was at. Along with the boys, Mr and Mrs Sprinkle brought with them their daughter Susanne, who made a major impression on me, and their beach buggy.…

“The controversial robots,” Adrian Hallmark points out on our tour of the factory. Bentley is rightly proud of the hand-built craftsmanship in all of its cars, so bringing in robots to do work previously done by human hand was indeed a controversial one last year. The three robots take care of the initial 70% or so of the sanding of parts of the interior that the dexterity of the human hand makes it tricky to sand, before they return to human hand for finishing. Rather than replace the work of a Bentley employee, they’ve enhanced it. Hallmark says they’ve helped reduce fatigue and allowed production to be ramped up and the craftspeople to save their skills for the parts of the interior the customer really notices.…

“My trainers told me they were going to break and rebuild me,” says Dave Lyth. “I lost three stone. It takes over your life.” The former UK and European champion, and world number three, turns his gaze back to Ryan Millar, his colleague, working quickly and expertly under the watchful eyes of two clipboard-wielding judges, within a precisely marked-out space he cannot leave and we cannot enter. “I’m feeling good,” Ryan had told me an hour before he went into the ‘ring’, here at the giant Frankfurt Messe exhibition complex. “Me and Billy Johnston, my trainer, have been practising ever since I won the UK title last October.” Welcome to the world windscreen repair championships or, as the organisers call it, the Best of Belron. Best of Autoglass would have…

I have just copied about 80,000 digital images onto a 128GB SD computer storage memory card, which got me thinking. When battery technology allows, say, 30 miles’ worth of charge for a mid-range car to be stored in a cell the size of a house brick, it would be possible to allow a car to be ‘refuelled’ by the insertion of the required number of ‘bricks’ for the planned journey. Filling stations would then house racks of these ‘bricks’, already charged or charging, which would be exchanged, at a ‘refill’ cost, for the exhausted ones, which would be put in the rack to recharge. There would be an initial cost for these ‘bricks’, which, like SD cards, would have differing capacities. There would be no waiting for long charging times…

MILEAGE 7020 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To determine whether Hyundai’s first stab at a hot hatch can stand up to its more established foes in everyday life It’s not every day you find yourself on Silverstone’s full Formula 1 circuit. It gets even more unusual when Albert Biermann, Hyundai’s R&D boss and former BMW M development chief, is sitting in the driver’s seat. We’re in my i30 N long-term test car, helmets on and disclaimers signing our lives away completed, and are lucky to get the circuit to ourselves for half an hour during a break in the track sessions. This is a car built to handle well on track, Biermann tells me, and adds that this is his favourite car of the scores he’s developed recently. But it’s not…

MILEAGE 80,933 I did say that I was going to tell you about the kindness and overall goodness of Autocar readers. Huge thanks, then, to Mark Rozhon, who went that extra mile by spotting an E21-gen 3 Series brochure in a recycling bin. He rescued it and thought of me and the Baby Shark. What an absolute star. There is a lovely image in it of a gold one just like mine. I’ll tell you soon about the radio I’m not very pleased with and the stick-on aerial that I loathe. There is lots more minor sorting to do before I’m happy. Meanwhile, thanks, Mark.…

Last month, a prototype of the Toyota Supra Mk5 wowed the crowds at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a curtain-raiser to the main event when the production-ready model goes on sale in about 12 months. The ensuing hullabaloo is sure to fan the flames of desire currently engulfing its predecessor, the Supra Mk4. Remarkably, this model ceased production 16 years ago, in 2002. But as far as we Brits are concerned, it died out in 1996, following three years of less-than-stellar sales. Only around 500 Mk4s found homes. It wasn’t for want of trying. The Mk4’s 3.0-litre straight six engine was fed by two sequential turbochargers for improved flexibility and response. These UK Supras produced 326bhp and 325b ft, around 40bhp and 7lb ft more than Japanese-market cars, thanks to…

“Despite its utilitarian roots, the new Defender will be pitched as a premium offering” The new Land Rover Defender will be a family of vehicles based around two wheelbase sizes, with versions ranging from basic utilitarian vehicles up to luxurious high-end models. The mission for Land Rover’s reborn icon is to offer the “biggest breadth of capability of any model to wear the badge”. The revived nameplate, set to be officially revealed within the next year, is Land Rover’s most anticipated new model in decades. The firm had previously considered unveiling it this year, to coincide with Land Rover’s 70th anniversary, but the imminent launch of the Mk2 Evoque is understood to have made this less likely. Despite its utilitarian roots, the new Defender family will likely be pitched as…

The next-generation Porsche 911 has been spotted almost completely undisguised ahead of its expected public debut at the Los Angeles motor show in November. The images, taken on public roads in Germany, reveal the evolutionary styling of the new 992-generation 911, which is due to go on sale next year. The new model features a more muscular design, inspired by the 356 Speedster models from the 1950s. It has more upright headlights than the current car and a revamped bumper with new air duct channelling. It is understood those louvres will include active aerodynamic elements. The rear end of the 911 has received more of a revamp. It features the full-width LED tail-light design that is being introduced across the Porsche range and takes styling cues from the Mission E…

If the Hyundai i30 N is a hot hatch tearaway, the i30 Fastback N is its more studious sibling. It’s a little more sophisticated, and concerned with style as much as performance, although its engineers insist it’s still fun to drive. We drove a pre-production i30 Fastback N prototype in Performance spec at the Nürburgring. The most obvious aesthetic difference between this model, due to be launched at the Paris motor show in October, and the i30 N hatch is clearly the roofline, but there will be a handful of other styling changes. The i30 Fastback N weighs slightly more than the hatch, although the powertrains are unchanged. The 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine is available in two states of tune, producing 247bhp or 271bhp. The only gearbox option is a…

MODEL TESTED 3.0 TDI R-LINE TECH 4MOTION Price £58,195 • Power 282bhp • Torque 442lb ft • 0-60mph 7.2sec • 30-70mph in fourth 7.2sec • Fuel economy 36.8mpg • CO2 emissions 173g/km • 70-0mph 46.5m You might have noticed that the Volkswagen Phaeton – one-time vessel of a mighty 6.0-litre W12 engine shared with Bentley – is no longer on sale. But it’s more likely that its culling from the range in 2016 passed you by entirely, such was the glacial rate at which people bought them and the model’s resulting rarity. Either way, it’s a development that promotes the subject of this week’s road test to nothing less than flagship status for one of the world’s largest car makers. We’re talking about the third-generation Touareg, which Volkswagen describes as a…

“Of course the engine boosts a bit. It shifts gear with rapid precision, too” WAY TO GO Woking to Paul Ricard: that’s plenty enough public road to judge the credentials of the new McLaren Senna. Try it in most cars developed solely with a track focus — but armed with numberplates — and you’ll end up with ringing in your ears for weeks and a loyalty card to the local chiropractor. In the Senna? Read our main story… 1198kg The dry weight of the Senna, 95kg less than a 720S. What’s it like? What’s it like to be among them, to live like they do? To spend the money. Have the life. The money. The sponds. The houses, the luxury. And, of course, the cars. David has a car. We’ll…

DRIVEN All-new BMW 3 Series BMW’s perennial bestseller enters its seventh generation next year. Matt Saunders gets an early steer to see if it’s still the driver’s choice FEATURE Garden scrapyards We take a look into the bizarre world of Britain’s old car hoarders INTERVIEW Vauxhall’s Steve Norman Luton is on the comeback trail. We speak to the new boss EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Ford Fiesta ST Ford’s latest hot hatch bargain gets the full Autocar road test treatment USED BUYING GUIDE Mercedes-Benz SLK Mid-2000s roadster is a tempting used buy and we tell you what to look out for CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE LONG-TERM TEST Peugeot 5008 Why we’re looking forward to life with this French seven-seat SUV SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p30…

MILEAGE 12,542 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if, after 40 years, the Golf GTI is still the world’s best all-round hot hatch A diesel hot hatch is something of an oxymoron. Yes, there’s plenty of torque and decent on-paper performance, but the game is up when you listen to the sound of the engine, run out of power halfway up the rev range and have such a heavy lump sitting over the front axle blunting the handling and the possibility of a sharp turn-in. Yet diesel hot hatches still exist, most famously with the Golf GTD. In the past few months of Golf GTI ownership, I often spot what I think to be a fellow GTI owner, yet closer inspection of the bootlid reveals it to be a GTD,…

Remember these? Late Hyundai Elantras came in just one flavour, a 2.0 CRTD CDX five-door hatchback. Everything was standard apart from sat-nav. There are some low-grade interior plastics but the styling isn’t too offensive, being ever so slightly Toyota and vaguely European. What you are getting is a full-sized family car, with comfy seats and plenty of space. Older models offered an estate and more engine options. The difficult thing now is finding any for sale, but £500 buys a 1.6 or 2.0 from 2001 with a full MOT. SEND YOUR USED CAR TALES TO james@bangernomics.com AND READERS' QUESTIONS TO autocar@haymarket.com…

An expert’s view TRISTAN LONGDEN, FOUNDER TORQUE GT “Demand for the Supra Mk4 easily outstrips supply so prices are getting higher with each passing month. Buyers tend to be in their 40s — people for whom the Supra was a poster car. It’s a nostalgia thing and now they’ve got the money, they want one. The engine is bombproof. A good Supra feels like it’ll go on forever. UK cars were rare to begin with and prices for the few that remain are strong. The cheapest Supras are naturally aspirated autos but even their prices are rising. The turbo auto is roughly 30% cheaper than the manual. It’s underrated but I reckon the auto suits the Supra, which is more grand tourer than sports car. It’s a tough ’box, too.”…

Another ‘get in while you still can’ tip here. Prices for the Renault GTA have been pretty stagnant for the past few years, which is surprising given that it’s exactly the sort of cult 1980s classic that should be climbing away out of sight. With all the hoo-ha surrounding the Alpine brand right now, don’t expect things to stay that way. Granted, this one’s only a V6, not a Turbo, but the mileage is just 54k and there’s a long MOT and history, so £8480 doesn’t seem like a lot to pay for a car like this. It feels like now’s the time to take advantage if an Alpine — sorry, Renault — GTA is on your want list.…

One statistic jumped out of the UK automotive manufacturing figures for June. The number of cars built in the country for sale here, rather than for export, fell by 47%. Have we really fallen out of love with UK-built cars that much? The answer is tied up in a rollercoaster of a half year for car sales in this country. “I’ve been in the industry 26-27 years and I can’t recall a year with so much distortion,” said Daksh Gupta, chief executive of the Marshall Motor Group, which has 99 dealers in the UK. On the surface of it, UK car sales are holding up pretty well considering the disruptive forces of Brexit, a weak pound and the flight from diesel. The numbers for January to June of this year…

AN EVEN RACIER F-badged version of the Lexus LC sports car is expected to arrive next year as the firm’s new flagship model — and it’s set to be powered by a hybrid drivetrain offering up to 600bhp. Spy photographs show a prototype LC F with an aggressive body upgrade that includes enlarged air intakes, flared wheel arches and a lower stance. Bespoke wheels look to shroud enlarged brakes. At the rear, a revised bumper hides a beefier exhaust system and what appears to be an underbody diffuser. Although technical details remain under wraps, Autocar understands that Lexus is keen to showcase its hybrid technology and give the model a significant power upgrade over the LC500 V8’s 467bhp. It is not clear yet if the car will feature an upgrade…

CAR MAKERS ARE racing to ensure their ranges are compliant with the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) for emissions and fuel consumption before it comes into force on 1 September. The WLTP test will replace the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) procedure and includes real-world testing and a greater focus on individual models and lines. Cars sold after 1 September must have passed the new test and that has led to certain models, particularly those with heavily tuned, downsized engines and more strained high-performance units, being withdrawn from sale while they are reconfigured to meet the new WLTP test. Doing so has been hugely costly for manufacturers. Volkswagen estimates the profit burden of meeting the new rules will be more than €1 billion (£890 million). Mercedes-Benz has…

Hyundai’s N performance brand will only release a range-topping halo model when it is confident it can fulfil expectations placed upon it, according to the division’s boss, Albert Biermann. In development since 2013, the Korean firm’s N division officially launched with the release of the i30 N hot hatch last year. That model has now been joined by the Veloster N for the US and Korean markets, with an N version of the i30 Fastback nearing production (see separate story, right) as the final model in ‘phase one’ of the division’s growth strategy. With the initial launch phase of N nearly complete, Hyundai’s challenge is how to grow the division in the future. The firm is already evaluating N versions of the i20 hatch, Kona and Tucson SUVs, and the…

Options for those who would like an open-air supercar with no fewer than 12 cylinders are thin on the ground. There is the fantastical £2.3m Huayra Roadster by Pagani or there is Lamborghini’s Aventador Roadster, which is now available in heavily revised S form. Even at £251,462 before some exorbitantly priced options (it costs £820 to have the calipers painted black) the latter is a snip relative to its compatriot and, but for a pair of 25kg carbonfibre roof panels that unclip easily enough and slot into braces in the luggage compartment under the bonnet, is mechanically identical to its much-improved coupé sibling. As such, were you to strip away the carbonfibre and aluminium bodywork, you’d find pushrod suspension with retuned inboard spring-and-damper units and driveshafts leading to all four…

Consider this more as an on-limit/emergency safety section, rather than traditional track notes. Because unlike some cars on this platform — a Porsche or Lamborghini, for example — the Touareg approaches brisk driving with no grander intentions than not to fall over or fall off. As a result, then, it’s remarkably composed around Millbrook’s hill route. Setting the suspension to one of the dynamic modes, doesn’t make a huge amount of difference to the handling compared with the Comfort setting. Stability and security are the watchwords and you can make reasonable progress before the stability control is inclined to intervene. When it does, it does so unobtrusively.…

A reader wrote: “Although cars are better in every objective way than they were only 10 or 15 years ago, being so efficient and competent inevitably comes at the expense of character. “It’s a car’s shortcomings, and the unique compromises that manufacturers were previously obliged to make, that help create character. Such compromises are no longer necessary. As a result, things tend to become better but blander. It’s the price of progress.” We think James Ross, the reader in question, could be on to something. What is character? Has the quest for efficiency robbed us of cars we can really love? We asked Autocar’s keenest drivers to tell us what they think constitutes a car with character. Caterham 620S ANDREW FRANKEL Character comes in many forms, but all that have…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a cut-price luxury offering can be as urbane to live with as it is to look at The Arteon is a curious thing, and not only because it’s pure motor show concept from the front but looks like a taxi when viewed side on. Notwithstanding the fantastically slippery XL1 plugin hybrid of 2013, this is the most dramatic design Volkswagen has given us in modern times. And putting aside for a moment the new Touareg SUV, with which the Arteon shares so much of it general aesthetic, it’s also VW’s flagship offering. It’s a level of status at odds with the reality that success for this car largely hinges on its suitability to motorway drudgery. It’s your silver-plated porridge spoon, if…

QUESTION Has the new Honda NSX had any effect on values of the original? I have one that I’ve owned for 10 years and would like to know if it’s now worth any more. Peter Tweedy, Nottingham ANSWER NSX values were already on an upward slope before the new car came along. They aren’t rising quite as rapidly as they once were but are still creeping upwards, so your car might be worth more than you reckoned. AR QUESTION Our VW Touran has been a very good car, but now I want something a bit more exciting. It still needs to seat seven, though. I’m wondering about an ex-demo VW Tiguan Allspace. What do you think? Sandy Walters, via email ANSWER The Allspace isn’t a bad car, but space in…

BMW M135i £16,500 Hands up those of you who’ve noticed how cheap the BMW M135i has become lately. Go on, be honest. Well, okay, maybe you had, as an astute reader of these pages, but clearly you’re in the minority, because otherwise they’d be being bought up in their droves. The M135i is, of course, that rare thing: a rear-wheel-drive hot hatch, last heard of in the days of the Renault Clio V6 and, before that, the Vauxhall Chevette HS. But that isn’t the only thing that makes it special. For one thing, there’s a 316bhp powerplant that combines a glut of low-down shove with a soaring top end, and then there’s the balanced chassis with a fabulously sticky front end that makes hurling the little BMW through corners at…

Volkswagen Touareg Price new £50,770. Price now £34,499 It has never had the badge to compete with premium rivals such as the BMW X5, but the Volkswagen Touareg has gained a small following as a big, no-nonsense SUV with loads of space, comfort and toys on offer. True, you don’t get seven seats, although you do get a cavernous boot as a pay-off. Now the new version is out, nearly new previous-generation Touaregs are cheaper than ever, which means this used example with 6000 miles on the clock can be had for a whopping £16,000 less than it cost new.…