Innholdsfortegnelse for January 09, 2019 i Autocar

THERE WERE WHISPERS among analysts and the business papers throughout last year floating the prospect of Ford following great rival General Motors out of the European car market completely. However incredible that might seem, we can see why: Ford has made a dozen pre-tax losses in Europe in the past 20 years and it recently admitted that while it made money on vans, it lost cash on each car sold. No wonder investment bank Morgan Stanley predicted that, at this rate, Ford would be Europe’s least profitable car maker by 2021. We will soon hear of Ford’s huge global restructuring plan, which will include much focus on getting things right in Europe to help address this. While cuts, restructuring and axing unprofitable models are one thing, a different way of…

THE BIG LOSERS IN CHINA -35% Ford: year-on-year -20% JLR: year-on-year -27% French brands: year-on-year China’s new car market is predicted to recover this year after five months of turmoil, sending a lifeline to a number of global car makers who rely heavily on the country for profits and have seen painful double-digit sales declines. Throughout 2019, the world’s biggest car market is predicted to recover 3% of growth and up to around 24 million units, compared with a decline of 2.6% in 2018 and 23.4m units, according to industry experts IHS Markit. The decline is the first time since 1990 that China hasn’t recorded growth in the automotive sector. “We do expect China to come back this year,” said Colin Couchman, director of global automotive forecasting at IHS Markit,…

Although Chinese vehicles aren’t widely available in the UK, they’re already plagued by reputation, mostly bad. But where we might expect a cheap sticker price, sketchy build quality and woeful crash test performance, Chinese start-up Nio’s ES8 is targeting the premium segment. Its weapon of choice for this assault is an SUV: five metres of performance and seven seats aimed squarely at the Audi E-tron and Tesla’s Model X. Whereas prices for its American rival start at £78,000 in the UK, the ES8 is on sale in its homeland at £51,500. So far, so Chinese. Yet that is where, for the most part, the stereotypes end. At first sight, Nio’s debut offering is a smart, substantial if conservative-looking SUV that wouldn’t look out of place in any European car park.…

The four-wheel drive combines with a torque-vectoring rear differential to make the car handle uncannily like its saloon sibling, the Giulia – at least through the early phases of a corner. It’s very quick to turn in, hardly rolling until lots of lateral load builds into the car, while the chassis’s brain is ready, as you feed power, to let the rear axle spin up well beyond the limits of grip. Quickly but progressively, it then shifts torque to the front wheels before the outward arc of that rear progresses too far. The effect of that rear diff, combined with a suspension that’s inclined towards a highly strung temperament anyway, is to make the car move into and out of oversteer quickly. The drivetrain works fast enough that you seldom…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 11,771 WHY WE RAN IT To discover if Vauxhall’s flagship offers an unbeatable mix of practicality, value and executive comfort in estate form Eleven months ago, when we started running the Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer on the Autocar fleet, Britain’s future in Europe was as clear as mud, England only had one World Cup to their name and Manchester City were top of the league. Despite my unfounded optimism that all of these things would change, only one has… But in that time we’ve learned everything there is to know about the 2.0-litre diesel-engined four-wheel drive Insignia estate, covering more than 11,000 miles across the UK. The point of Autocar’s long-term tests is to see how easy a car is to live with, how reliable it is…

QUESTION As night follows day, road tax will surely rise in April 2019 but do you know by how much? Paul Sweeney, Bristol ANSWER Rates for new petrol cars, and diesel cars complying with the new RDE 2 emissions standard (none will be certified as complying until 2020), will rise by £5 for models emitting between 90g/km and 150g/km CO2. Rises are greater beyond that, with cars emitting over 255g/km paying £65 more. New, non-RDE 2 diesels (that’s all of them) will pay £5 more in a range from 75g/km to 130g/km CO2 and a higher figure beyond that, peaking at £65 more for a diesel emitting over 255g/km. Meanwhile, the fixed standard rate will increase from £140 to £145 for petrol and diesel cars. The five-year premium rate will…

CAR WITH GENUINE X FACTOR Mercedes CLK63 AMG Black Series £95,000 He can spot a star and, if his choice of wheels is any guide, a car, too. The X Factor judge Simon Cowell is the first name in the log book of this CLK63 AMG Black Series. A couple of others follow him but, as far as we know, they’re not music moguls. It’s a 2008-registered car with 14,000 miles on the clock. Just 25 right-hand-drive Black Series were made out of a total run of 700. New, it cost around £100,000. This particular car’s association with Cowell has bolstered its value but, even so, it’s a relative bargain compared with the £52,000 someone was asking 12 months ago for a crashed left-hooker imported from the US. (Its front…

“The unveiling of the Defender is one of several blockbuster events JLR has in store” This year’s unveiling of the next-generation Land Rover Defender will crown the most crucial 12 months in Jaguar Land Rover’s history. The Defender’s reveal is scheduled for the autumn. A whole family of vehicles is set to be shown in order to demonstrate that the company is reinventing the model for the 21st century. As recent spy pictures have shown, the intention is to create a broader appeal than ever while including many nods to the model’s utilitarian 4x4 roots. The public unveiling of the Defender – and dealing with the inevitable backlash from purists no matter what the final production car looks like – is just one of several blockbuster events and launches JLR…

“The ES6 Performance makes 544bhp and has a 0-62mph time of 4.7sec” Chinese newcomer Nio has revealed ambitious plans for its range of premium SUVs. The New York Stock Exchange-listed company has just launched its second model, the all-electric five-seat ES6, which is intended to take on premium EVs such as the Audi E-tron. Order books have opened in China for the all-wheel drive ES6, with prices starting at the equivalent of £41,075. The ES6 shares its platform with the ES8 seven-seat SUV, which went on sale last July. It uses two electric motors, one on each axle, and a liquid-cooled lithium ion battery. Performance and Standard models are available with either a new 84kWh battery or Nio’s current 70kWh pack. The Performance model features a 240kW motor at the…

UK NEW CAR registrations fell almost 7% year on year to 2.36 million units in 2018, with a near-30% drop in diesel registrations accounting for the most notable decline in the market. However, the total – down from a high of 2.69m in 2016 – is still in line with the UK’s 10-year sales average and maintains the UK’s position as the second-largest new car market in Europe. Registrations for diesels have now fallen for 21 consecutive months. Petrol registrations increased by 8.7% in 2018, year on year, and registrations of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles rose 21%. Underlining the impact of the diesel collapse, the 30% fall equates to 316,000 registrations – almost twice the drop in 2018 registrations from the 2017 figure of 2.54m. The Society of Motor…

The BMW X5 M50d is proof that, in spite of what your primary school teacher told you all those years ago, four into six does in fact go. In fact, when four turbochargers are forcing hot air into the six inline cylinders of the BMW X5 M50d’s diesel engine, there is much that seems to go – and go really rather well. This is the M Performance ‘caretaker boss’ of Munich’s new fourth-generation X5 range, all set to take charge of the big SUV line-up until M division lets loose another X5 M wide boy. It’s pretty wide itself, mind you, the ‘G05’-generation X5 having put on just over 60mm in overall width and now taking up more side-to-side lane space than even the new X7. On the spec sheet…

The Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio is a first-order performance creation of breathtaking pace and uncompromising temperament, as absorbing to drive as almost anything Turin has made in decades. You’ll probably have assumed that, because it’s an SUV, it might be something of a half-measure in most of those respects. Well, guess again. This car has speed, soul, poise and verve to burn. But was it a mistake to have its credentials as an everyday-use family car hamstrung by such a hardcore ride, and by handling that can, at times, feel like too much to stomach? Not least given that the Stelvio’s dynamic temperament seems even more uncompromising, at times, than the Giulia Quadrifoglio’s does. But while we fear plenty of owners might ultimately conclude the same, others will embrace a…

“We crest a summit on a bend and I become suspended by my seatbelt” We’ve guided you towards Britain’s best driving roads, but the hard stuff need not be your limit for a truly satisfying motoring year. Off road is where the real challenge lies and with a range of vehicles that crave the most rutted trucks and the steepest inclines, Land Rover Experience (LRE) centres offer the most accessible way to get down and dirty. We visited six LREs in the UK to find out how. LRE Scotland DISCOVERY SPORT TD4 180 HSE AUTO Our adventure begins in the lush, wooded Perthshire hills just outside Dunkeld. The sky is a brilliant blue and instructor Will Cox has a spotless white Discovery Sport ready for us to sully. Before starting,…

Mobilit y must remain strong In reply to the letter from Phill Greetham (Your Views, 2 January), I am not for one moment minimising the threat of climate change, nor the necessity for us to change our habits. However, to encourage change of the magnitude required, any new technology such as electric vehicles must be at least as user-friendly, flexible and affordable as the one it seeks to replace. Right now, the limitations of range and charging times make electric cars less convenient, so take-up is mostly by a section of the public who are able to accommodate the limitations. We’ve seen in a recent Autocar article that even the Jaguar I-Pace caused range anxiety on a long trip, and anywhere outside conurbations or motorways, it’s more likely that there…

MILEAGE 7977 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 Much has been made of this car’s ability to swallow just about anything. Our photographers – who can’t go anywhere without a wagon train of equipment and will throw a pre-arranged loan car back in a road tester’s face if it’s a touch poky, bless ’em – love it. That they disappear off in the thing for days on end, ghosting about the country to locations far and wide, also says something about the Arteon’s easy-going manner. It’s true that the sweeping dashboard, perched driving position and delicate steering action combine to make guiding the car a detached but effortless experience. In fact, for…

The Flying Pig has been doing some miles recently and it wasn’t until my daughter came along for a ride that she complained bitterly about the windscreen wipers. On reflection, they did squeal like a pig being run over by a cement mixer. She did the decent thing and ordered a fresh set. She insisted on Bosch items rather than a cheap brand and she may well be right at £28, with a trade discount. The old ones looked fine but must have been old and stiff. I must say, compared with some wipers, these were a doddle to fit. Unclip. Clip on. Done.…

The Greeks called them Sirens: mythical creatures that lured sailors to their deaths on rocks by warbling to them. Unfortunately, there’s nothing mythical about the Renault Sport Clio 197, whose charms, not least the promise of 194bhp combined with a superb chassis, have led drivers if not to the rocks then at least to the bank. The problem lies with the TL4 six-speed gearbox – specifically its graunchy synchros. Changing down to third, up from third to fourth… It’s a well-documented problem and far from isolated, as we found when combing the classifieds. This chap, for example, selling his 82,000-mile 2007 197: “Intermittent crunch 3rd and 4th possibly synchros.” Another owner shared his frustration on the renaultsport.co.uk forum: “My 197 Cup has been superb other than the well-known synchro issues.…

The hammer fell at just £950 on this 1999 Cougar 2.0, a 55,000-mile car with one previous owner. Was it a deal? Well, it has a full service history and it looks bright. The exterior is relatively unmarked and the interior has scrubbed up really well. The engine has been steam-cleaned and lacquered, and the bonnet slam panel and inner wings look fresh. It’s a nice car but a shame it doesn’t have the more muscular 2.5 V6 engine. Still, at this distance (the Cougar was launched in 1998 and killed off in 2002) you can’t have everything.…

“It will be available with front-and four-wheel drive and the choice of two rear suspension systems” Mercedes-Benz has promised that the second-generation CLA coupé, revealed at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, will offer the sportiest driving dynamics of its new wave of compact cars. The new four-door coupé is due to arrive in the UK in June. It is built on a re-engineered version of the previous car’s platform and uses technology from the latest A-Class. Available with front-and four-wheel drive and the choice of two rear suspension systems, the new machine was displayed at CES in CLA250 guise, featuring a 221bhp four-cylinder 2.0-litre petrol engine, driven through a seven-speed automatic gearbox. The rest of the engine range is likely to mirror the A-Class, with 131bhp and…

PORSCHE HAS REVEALED the new 718 Cayman GT4 in track-only Clubsport spec, giving a big hint at what can be expected from the upcoming GT4 road car due towards the end of this year. The biggest news is that the GT4 Clubsport retains the old version’s 3.8-litre naturally-aspirated flat-six, rather than moving to the turbocharged four-cylinder unit found in all current 718 Caymans. Here it produces 425bhp – 40bhp more than before – and sends it via a six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. It’s not clear yet whether the road-going GT4 will benefit from the same power hike, although it is likely that it will. Last year Porsche’s GT boss Andreas Preuninger confirmed the flatsix would make a return. The GT4 Clubsport is said to be the first production racing car…

VAUXHALL HAS REVEALED the new Vivaro Life, the MPV version of its popular van, ahead of its official launch at the Brussels motor show. It will go on sale in February, with an all-electric version following in 2021. The Vivaro Life will be built alongside the van version at Vauxhall’s Luton plant, further securing the future of that facility. It will be offered in two lengths – 4.95m and 5.30m – although both will have a wheelbase of 3.28m and can accommodate up to nine seats. The Life version features a two-piece panoramic roof, an opening tailgate window, movable leather seats and electrically powered sliding doors. It will also be offered in Lounge spec, with massaging front seats ahead of two further seats, each with a 48cm-thick seat cushion. With…

Take a drive along a UK motorway in a Lamborghini Aventador and you’ll find that hot hatchbacks tend to gather in your wake, like pilot fish swimming behind a tiger shark. You can watch them ‘forming up’ in the Italian supercar’s rear-view mirror before they paddle frantically past, only to subsequently slow down again for another pass. Regrettably, though, when you’re driving the new Aventador SVJ (the latest top-of-the-pile, extra-special, near-800-horsepower version of Sant’Agata’s bigger series production two-seater), that’s a pastime denied to you. The SVJ’s rear wing has a chunky central pillar not seen on other Aventador derivatives that, conspiring with the shape of the car’s new carbonfibre engine cover, can entirely conceal the outline of an enthusiastically driven Volkswagen Golf R, just 30 yards off your bumper, in…

MODEL TESTED QUADRIFOGLIO Price £69, 500 • Power 503bhp • Torque 443lb ft • 0-60mph 4.0sec • 30-70mph in fourth 4.5sec • Fuel economy 2 2 .0 mpg • CO2 emissions 227g/km • 70-0mph 55.1m Were you to speculate on the identity of this week’s road test subject from its specification sheet alone, your efforts would be at risk of going widely awry. Carbonfibre-shell seats and a claimed 3.8sec 0-62mph time? Must be some sort of supercar, a notion reinforced by carbon-ceramic brake discs and a Race driving mode. Somehow, the truth is more extreme – and unpredictable – than that. When Alfa Romeo presented its very first sports utility vehicle back in 2016 at the Los Angeles motor show, it wanted to leave an indelible mark. While lesser petrol models…

When it is your job to convey the passion and joy of driving, it’s a problem when that thrill is no longer easy to achieve. I live in the south-east of England, and whatever the car, driving in this part of the country is not a lot of fun. Short journeys in mileage can be epic in time taken. And even when the traffic is not at a standstill it’s so dense that overtaking and making progress is almost impossible. Speed limits and cameras I can cope with; there is little one can do with congestion. But I’ve not given up, it has just required a shift in attitude and approach. To really enjoy driving in 2019 you will have to make an effort, almost by recreating a past in…

COMPARISON New Audi A1 vs Mini Cooper vs Ford Fiesta Vignale Who makes the best fashion supermini? This trio of new and recently revised small car stars face off to find out ROAD TEST BMW 8 Series New flagship faces its toughest test yet: the full eight pages in Autocar USED SPECIAL Bangernomics: cheap dream cars Run out of cash this month already? James Ruppert can help EVERY WEEK FIRST UK DRIVE New Ferrari Portofino It’s the cheapest way into Ferrari ownership, but is it any good? USED BUYING GUIDE Volvo 850 R Want your very own mid-1990s touring car on your driveway? Here’s how Alpina B3 Alpina works its magic on the last 3 Series. Still want BMW’s new one? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p20…

MILEAGE 4875 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Merc’s Golf rival has come of age – and to try to pick the ‘perfect’ spec By the time you read this, A-Class number one of three in this series of back-to-back tests will have returned to its maker. This A180d is to be replaced by a petrol-powered A200, meaning the diesel leg of this trilogy is over and the first set of conclusions can be drawn. What’s worth noting straight from the off is just how relevant a diesel engine of any type remains if you do big miles. When you’re doing just shy of 2000 miles a month, as we were averaging in our short stint in the car, diesel makes the best sense of all. Our average economy…

Paul Cowland has popped up in Autocar before and you might recognise him from TV’s Turbo Pickers and Salvage Hunters: Classic Cars. An inveterate car buyer who owns more than 40 classics, he has a collection that includes a lovely £800 Audi 80. “Yes, I use that as a daily,” he says. “I will probably put 60k miles on it and I would be likely to get my money back, wouldn’t I? So far, I have done 6000 in a couple of months. It starts every time and just does the job. I love it because no one has one any more.”…

An owner’s view JANE HARRIS “My 197 is a 2007/07 car with 76,000 miles. It’s been fun although it’s for sale now, for £2995. It’s not exactly comfortable over bumps but it’s really nimble. The gearbox had to be refurbished – it had eaten the selector ring – and I got little change out of £900. The electric windows packed up too. It’s a common fault caused by blocked windscreen drain holes. Otherwise, the car is very reliable, although it’s very thirsty – mpg in the high-20s typically.” Buyer beware ▪ ENGINE Cambelt (and water pump) must be changed every five years or 72,000 miles. Oil changes are every 12,000. Engines are strong so walk away from any that leak or rattle. Expect a 197 to ‘kangaroo’ from cold (a…

Mazda 3 2.0 Sport Nav Price new £22,165. Price now £18,490 We like the Mazda 3. In fact, it came close to nudging the new Ford Focus off that car’s top slot in our mega-test recently. We praised our 2.0-litre test car’s pin-sharp throttle response, well-weighted controls, and honest-feeling, firmly sprung chassis that gives great body control and good grip. So be silent as we mourn its imminent passing. Later this year, it’ll be replaced by an all-new 3. Time, then, to sniff out a few run-out deals. We tracked down a 2018/68-reg 2.0 Sport Nav showing just 10 miles for £18,490, which is £3675 less than new.…