Innholdsfortegnelse for February 13, 2019 i Autocar

DEAL OR NO deal, or anything in between, those controlling the purse strings of the UK car industry just want to know which way the wind is blowing to help them plan for whatever trading conditions they will be working under from 23:00 on 29 March. But with claim and counterclaim, and views ranging from ‘it’ll all be fine’ to ‘this will be the death of the UK car industry’, we ask this week: what does the best-and worst-case scenario actually look like (p18)? Brexit is just one of several high-stakes issues the global car industry is facing, of course. Falling diesel sales have affected many car makers, as have sales in China going into a dramatic tailspin. For many, it’s both, their businesses having to be radically overhauled in…

JAGUAR LAND ROVER posted a pre-tax loss of £3.4 billion in the final three months of 2018, a figure caused by a massive one-off adjustment in the value of its assets. The £3.1bn ‘exceptional charge’ resulted from the firm marking down the value of assets understood to include factories, equipment and model designs. The move reflects that, in particular, previous heavy investment in infrastructure for diesel-engined cars won’t be recouped due to the slump in demand for the powertrain. The £3.1bn charge affects the company’s balance sheet but has no effect on cash. Excluding that, Jaguar Land Rover still posted a pre-tax loss of £273 million between October and December, compared with a £90m loss in the previous quarter of 2018. Jaguar Land Rover attributed that drop in profit to…

THE BMW iNEXT electric SUV has begun testing in prototype form in Sweden ahead of an expected sales launch in 2021. The model, shown in concept guise last year at the Los Angeles motor show, sits on a radical new platform and will provide the “building blocks” for the BMW Group’s future. Although the iNext is a similar size to the X5, BMW has said that it represents “Project i 2.0”, sitting outside of its planned range of electric i-badged SUVs as a new “technology flagship” for the brand. The prototype is running at BMW’s winter testing facility in Arjeplog, Sweden, and features a number of notable differences from the concept. The backwards-opening rear doors have been replaced by a conventional pair and larger B-pillars have been added. Although disguised,…

The drumbeat of bad news coming from the UK’s car industry in 2019 is becoming deafening. Jaguar Land Rover is cutting 4500 jobs, Nissan has reversed plans to build the next X-Trail SUV in Sunderland, and Ford will axe up to 1000 jobs at its engine plant in Bridgend. Last year, there were significant job cuts at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant and Nissan’s Sunderland factory, while Toyota’s Derbyshire plant and Honda’s Swindon factory both lost models (the Avensis and CR-V respectively). The danger is that Britain’s car industry isn’t just reversing its recent production gains, but it’s going into terminal decline. The job cuts and model deletions are being blamed on a toxic brew involving cratering demand in China, a slump in diesel sales and changing investment priorities as car…

Hold on a second: has someone over at Kia popped a picture of a Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo on a photocopier and hit ‘reduce’? Because to these eyes, this new Proceed bears more than a slight resemblance to Stuttgart’s four-door bruiser. Not that I’m complaining, mind. I think the Proceed looks absolutely fantastic. Kia has been keen to give the Proceed a more sophisticated, dynamic edge over its siblings, though, so its suspension configuration differs from that of the hatch and estate. While it maintains the same MacPherson strut set-up at the front, its swooping backside and 594-litre boot are now suspended by a multi-link arrangement, as opposed to double wishbones. The engine line-up has been trimmed, too, and comprises 138bhp and 201bhp four-cylinder petrols and a sole 134bhp diesel.…

Plenty of stories have been written about the compelling industrialballet of the modern car factory, and even more reviewing shiny new models. But this is the tale of the bit in the middle: how a car gets from assembly line to showroom floor. Kia agreed to let us shadow a car all the way through the process. Not one of the company’s Korean-built models (three weeks at sea would really have messed up Christmas plans), rather by tailing a new Ceed from the Zilina plant in Slovakia where it is built to a dealership in the UK. FINAL INSPECTION There’s a lost-in-translation moment as I arrive at Zilina, my first visit here since I picked up Autocar’s first long-term Ceed in 2008. Having negotiated the security barriers to gain entry…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To evaluate Jaguar’s under-appreciated entry saloon and discover whether some of the UK’s BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 buyers need to think a little deeper It’s an odd time, you may think, to take on a Jaguar XE long-termer. The company is within months of refreshing its smallest saloon to distinguish it better from the bigger XF. And its showroom performance hasn’t been exactly stellar. But step back a bit. The XE is Jaguar’s most naturally agile and sporty saloon, because of its compactness light weight. That, if you think about it, makes it arguably the best-handling Jag saloon of all time. And we already know enough of the coming refresh to be confident that the changes will mostly be cosmetic: the XE…

QUESTION I’m considering buying a Hyundai Nexo, the brand’s new hydrogen car. How big is the refuelling network? George Bodian, Redhill ANSWER The Nexo will be available to lease from March. However, there are just 13 publicly accessible hydrogen filling locations in the UK. Most are located around London but ITM Power, the UK’s biggest hydrogen fuel operator, has recently opened sites in Swindon and Rotherham and this year will open one in Gatwick, another in Birmingham and two in Derby. UKH2Mobility, a government-funded organisation promoting the fuel, says that 65 filling stations will be up and running across the country by 2020. JE QUESTION I’m 23 with three years’ driving under my belt and a clean record. I fancy a hot hatch for £5500. Any suggestions? Ryan Jones, via…

Citroën 2CV £5000 An honest classified ad showing a car warts ’n’ all is always an encouraging sign. One like the ad we came across for a Citroën 2CV Special. It’s a 1986 car with just 79,000 miles, up for £5000. So far so good but we know enough about 2CVs to know that these butter-wouldn’t-melt classics can knife you in the back and cost you dear. So we were pleased by the private seller taking the trouble to not only supply clear photos of its engine but also of rust breaking out on the rear wing, the dimpled but rust-free floor (it’s galvanised, apparently), and sundry seams and mounting points. They say the car is “absolutely reliable and in good working order”. Given their transparency so far, it’s a…

Peugeot 108 1.0 72 Allure 5dr Price new £13,049. Price now £8700 You can have any engine you like in a new 108 so long as it’s the 1.0 72. The earlier 1.0 PureTech 68 and 1.2 PureTech 82 are no more. If that spoils your appetite for a 108, then consider this: it’s possible to secure a discount as high as £4349 on one. It brings the price of a new and amply equipped Allure five-door (air-con, richly featured infotainment system, reversing camera, alloy wheels and auto headlights) to £8700, from £13,049. That’s a big saving at this price level, although you can pick up a nearly new 1.2 Allure from £7350.…

“The new twin-turbocharged straight six is also being earmarked for the first-ever M4 Gran Coupé” The next-generation BMW M3 and M4 due in 2020 will receive a significantly upgraded six-cylinder engine capable of more than 500bhp in its top form. The flagship model to use this new engine will be a new M4 Gran Coupé (imagined by Autocar above), the first time the four-door coupé has featured a full-fat M variant. It will be joined once again by two-door coupé and cabriolet variants, beside the M3 saloon. The 3.0-litre powerplant, which carries the internal codename S58, is a development of the firm’s standard B58 unit, as used in the existing 440i and other BMW models. But as M division officials have revealed to Autocar, “it is for all intents and…

BMW M HAS ADDED two new SUV models to its burgeoning line-up in the form of the X3M and X4M. Set for UK delivery in September following a public debut at April’s Shanghai motor show, they are among seven new dedicated M models planned for 2019. The M8 Coupé, Cabriolet and Gran Coupé and new X5M and X6M models are all also due by the year’s end. “Our philosophy from the start was to deliver an M3 and M4 driving experience, but with the added assurance of four-wheel drive and a slightly higher seating position,” said Lars Beulke, BMW M product manager. “We originally referred to them internally as the M3X and M4X.” Following the strategy taken with other M models, the X3M and X4M will be sold in both…

MITSUBISHI HAS REVEALED a facelifted version of the ASX ahead of its Geneva motor show debut. The compact SUV gets a new front-end design with LED lighting and a lightly revised rear, alongside new colour choices. An improved infotainment system with a larger screen and new features has been added inside, while new safety kit includes forward collision mitigation braking. The sole engine choice for the ASX is now a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol unit, mated to a five-speed manual transmission or six-speed CVT automatic gearbox. Two-and four-wheel-drive versions are available. ▪ Mitsubishi has removed the Shogun 4x4 from its pricing list after 12 years on sale with minimal changes. The Shogun Sport fills the car’s market gap.…

THE CAR INDUSTRY has always disliked the idea of Brexit but remained sanguine in the belief that, in the words of Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark, “common sense will prevail”. Increasingly, car makers are talking much tougher. As well as shutting down production through much of April to cushion disruption to parts supply in the event of a no-deal Brexit, makers are threatening plant closures. “Nothing would be off the table in a hard Brexit,” Ford of Europe CEO Steve Armstrong said in January. Back in 2015, at the height of optimism about the industry, the SMMT’s production analyst forecasted the UK would break its all-time production record of 1.92 million cars, set in 1972, by 2017. By 2018, the UK would break through two million. Instead, car production last year…

You look out of the kitchen window and there’s a pterodactyl sitting on the bird bath. It’s the same effect when the Bowler Bulldog you’ve come to test is parked outside a BP station just off the A14 – straddling two bays, because it has to. Licence plates mean it’s road legal but everything your eyes tell you seems to contradict that. We’ll come on to the wider implications of this latest V8-engined rally-raid ‘prototype’ in a moment, but that it can concurrently exist as a successful silhouette racer and, quite feasibly, as the basis of a more luxurious road car demonstrates two things. First is that the engineering capabilities of Derbyshire-based Bowler far outweigh its status as a relative manufacturing minnow. (It numbers fewer than 40 employees and builds…

MODEL TESTED BLUEHDi 180 FLAIR+ Price £32,725 • Power 174bhp • Torque 295lb ft • 0-60mph 9.0sec • 30-70mph in fourth 9.3sec • Fuel economy 37.2mpg • CO2 emissions 126g/km • 70-0mph 46.1m Citroën has taken longer than most of its European rivals, but it has finally got what you might loosely call a range of family-friendly proprietary SUVs into showrooms on this continent. Having launched its Aircross SUV sub-brand with the Mitsubishi-based C4 Aircross in 2011 (a car that never made it to the UK market) and then developed it with the pillarless, coach-doored Aircross concept car of 2015, Citroën followed up with the smaller C3 Aircross in 2017. And it has just partnered that supermini-sized crossover with this week’s test subject; and so, having been in production in China…

“The A35 is just beginning to seem like the more serious driver’s car” 8.51AM, THURSDAY: CASTLE DONINGTON A new power has risen in the realm of the everyday hot hatchback – which, for the purposes of the next few pages, is rural Derbyshire. That’s where we’re heading. Right now, though, we’re waiting… for a nice chap in a Volkswagen Golf R, long-standing lord and champion of the realm in question (up yours, Mr Darcy), and another nice chap with a camera or two. It’s two degrees below freezing and, after a few unseasonably mild months, the British winter has finally bitten. Around here there’s only about an inch of snow on the ground, but elsewhere the wintry barrage has been more severe – in the West Country, south Wales and…

“Diagnosing a fault is like spotting food going off in a fridge” We’re like mushrooms: fed s*** and kept in the dark.” I’ve heard it before but it still makes me laugh. On this occasion, the person responsible for saying it is David Massey who, unless you’re into vehicle diagnostics, you’re unlikely to have heard of. David’s describing how independent garages are, he claims, denied essential technical information by car makers. “There are the EOBD-II error codes that most drivers are familiar with and which correspond to a vehicle fault. They’re universal and can be interpreted by all garages. But then, running in parallel, are manufacturer-specific diagnostic platforms that require special software, and which generate their own codes,” he says. “Manufacturers will argue it’s progress but it freezes out the…

I found the 60th-anniversary Mini features just great (30 January) because it was my first car. But you don’t need to have £65,000 to build your own Mini. I know: I’ve just done it. My rare 1972 BL Special Tuning 1275GT cost £4400 at auction (pictured pre-restoration), but it had the wrong engine, wheels, brakes, interior: just about everything. It took a year to track down the genuine bits and another year to restore it. We kept the original shell but replaced the panels with heritage parts, which cost far more but is accurate. Total cost including buying the car was £23,000 and that includes professionals to rebuild the bodyshell and paint it. I did the rest. You only need a basic English tool set and common sense. They are…

MILEAGE 1844 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Merc’s Golf rival has come of age – and to try to pick the ‘perfect’ spec Now we’re onto our second Mercedes-Benz A-Class – this A200 AMG Line following the original A180d Sport – the different ways in which an A-Class can be specced to create cars with such different characters are really starting to manifest themselves. Each difference between the two A-Classes is big enough on its own, but combined they create a car that feels like something new again. The most obvious distinction between this A200 and its A180d predecessor is, of course, the engine – and the fuel station pump at which you fill it. The A200 uses a turbocharged 1.3-litre petrol unit to the A180d’s 1.5-litre diesel.…

MILEAGE 82,709 BMW 320 The weather has taken a turn for the worst and that means I am running around in an almost 40-year-old car. Obviously, it should be stored away and not used on our salty roads. Well, never mind: I believe in using cars, because who knows how long I have to enjoy interesting motors? Well, I decided that the handling of a 1970s E21-gen 3 Series on ice wasn’t good, so I’ve added some ballast in the form of compost. The bag cost £2.99 and effectively this is analogue 1970s’ ASC. It drives great, but there remains a list of to dos.…

If the prospect of owning a good Mazda MX-5 Mk1 is fading as prices rise, how about a Mk2 one instead? True, it’s not as pretty and it has an even worse reputation for rust, but as the years roll by, it seems less bland, while a wire brush and lashings of Dinitrol anti-rust proofing should keep the worst of it at bay. If Volkswagen ever thought launching a new Golf was tough, launching a new MX-5 must have been harder still for Mazda’s dutiful executives, still reeling from the success of the original. Of course, it could never be a straight copy but, even so, the absence of the Mk1’s pop-up lights – a move forced on Mazda by US safety officials – was a blow. A bit like…

Having produced a design masterpiece in the original Range Rover Evoque – first as a concept in 2008 and then as a showroom hit from 2011 – Land Rover was never likely to move far away from the original when it came time to launch this second-generation car. That relationship was instantly proven when we clapped eyes on the new machine for the first time outside of a show stand. It was waiting beside one of the challenging Welsh roads on which it had been developed over the past 18 months, ready to be demonstrated by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) dynamics expert Mike Cross. Keep looking and you see that the 2019 Evoque is modernised in almost every detail but that it continues to use every one of the original’s…

Infiniti’s forthcoming electric production cars will present a chance to reset the brand in Europe and make a “compelling statement” to help it grow, according to its design director. Nissan’s luxury arm, which was launched 30 years ago, has become an established firm in the US and Japan, but has failed to make major inroads against rivals in Europe. The brand sold just 750 cars in the UK last year. The firm is gearing up to electrify its range from 2021 onwards, including its first full electric cars – previewed with the near-production-ready QX Inspiration concept car showcased at the Detroit motor show recently. Design boss Karim Habib said the design changes enabled by electric cars – particularly the lack of need for a front grille and the greater interior…

Audi has revealed updated versions of its range-topping small coupé and cabriolet, the TT RS and TT RS Roadster. The revised model brings the BMW M2 rival in line with the rest of the range but arrives as doubts surface about the future of the two-door. It’s increasingly likely that Audi will axe the entire TT line-up due to rapidly declining sales in key global markets. Facelifted versions of its standard TT and TT Roadster will hit UK showrooms in April and the 2019-model-year TT RS and TT RS Roadster receive a series of small updates conceived to tide them over until a model change originally planned for 2022. However, recent word from insiders at Audi’s Ingolstadt-based headquarters in Germany suggests new chairman Bram Schot has already devised a plan…

IT’S NOT ALL gloom for the UK’s car industry. China’s Geely is pouring money into Lotus to create a world-class factory at the brand’s Norfolk HQ. It has been reported that a future SUV will be built in China, but keeping the UK as a base for halo models and research is crucial. Overall, manufacturers spend £4.7 billion annually on R&D in the UK and this is likely to continue. Aston Martin will start production at its plant in St Athan, South Wales, in 2020, making its first SUV, the DBX. McLaren had a record year in 2019, selling almost 5000 cars globally. And Bentley looks to be turning around its recent slump. Jaguar Land Rover is creating a new battery assembly centre at Hams Hall, Warwickshire, to work towards…

The Honda CR-V has reached something of a zenith with this first hybrid version of the new fifth-generation model. I’m not sure this super-sensible, practical, grown-up family SUV has ever felt more rational, more serious, less frivolous or less exciting than it has become by the addition of Honda’s latest petrol-electric powertrain. There are two electric motors (the main drive one producing 181bhp) and a 2.0-litre petrol engine (which produces 143bhp) although Honda apparently can’t tell you how much power or torque this powertrain makes as a combined whole. That says a lot about how much CR-V customers are expected to care about such things, doesn’t it? Not a jot. The car’s new Multi-Mode Drive hybrid propulsion system is interesting because, unlike older Honda hybrid set-ups, it aligns the piston…

Millbrook’s Hill Route wasn’t a happy hunting ground for the Citroën C5 Aircross. The track’s sharp, cambered turns and dramatic elevation changes often emphasise the inherent top-heaviness common to taller vehicles, and the Citroën was no exception. Body roll is abundant through tighter bends and hairpins, but it does at least build progressively and predictably. More troubling is the C5 Aircross’s steering, which at times not only feels overly light but also inconsistent in its rate of response. Having to suddenly wind off or add on lock mid-corner to maintain your line isn’t a particularly enjoyable experience. Front-end grip is as plentiful as you’d expect it to be, but no more. Attacking a corner at too great a pace or possessing an overly liberal approach to throttle application mid-bend will…

SPECIAL FEATURE Autocar’s icon of icons So which car really is the greatest? Our writers present the case for their choice – and you can then pick the winner FEATURE How much power is enough? Cars get ever more powerful. So have we gone too far? INVESTIGATION Forgotten modern cars Some cars launched this century have already disappeared… EVERY WEEK EVERY WEEK New Toyota Corolla The Auris is dead, long live the Corolla – a British-built Golf rival USED BUYING GUIDE Mitsubishi Shogun Want some rough, tough Japanese 4x4 in your life? Of course you do ROAD TEST Ford Focus We put it through the toughest test in the business. So how good is it? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 7347 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover if Peugeot has a class leader on its hands by fitting seven-seat MPV convenience into an on-trend SUV body How much should you forgive a car? Or, perhaps more pertinent, how much should you forgive a car that’s just six months old? I pose this question because the 5008 has developed a squeak – or maybe a subdued roar – between the steering wheel and the steering column. Wind on a lot of lock quickly and it makes a sound that is either like a mouse that’s got the cheese or the young offspring of Chewbacca learning to roar, depending on your point of view. It kept us amused for a while, trying to think of how to describe the noise in…

Smart Roadster Christopher Walker Brown purchased this Smart Roadster and was chuffed with his £550 bargain sports car. “Then oil sprayed over the hot exhaust, and caught alight!” he tells us. “I jumped out and emptied a powder extinguisher over the exhaust and rear of the tiny engine, but the fire had burnt the wire harness, coil packs, fuel lines and intake manifold. Things looked terminal. But after just £98 of purchases I had enough new parts to repair the fire damage. Now the car is running great and has put a smile back on my face.”…

An expert’s view ASHLEY MARTIN, THE MX5 RESTORER “I know Mk2 MX-5s inside out, literally so, due to the cavity rust issues afflicting them and Mk1s. We do a really thorough repair job on the cars. I own a Mk1 and a Mk2, both 1.8s, and love them. I’ve driven a few Mk3s but there’s something about the earlier cars. They just want you to have fun. There’s a huge and growing following for both, with the Mk1 still the most popular. The trouble with the Mk2 is that it’s not a question of if it will rust but when. They are cheap, though.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE Cambelt should be changed at 60k miles. With luck, the water pump will have been changed at the same time. Check for…

Honest, low-mileage E36-generation 3 Series coupés like this are rare. The 1998 car fetched £5000 – not stupid money, given its modest 40,000 miles and good service history. It’s in the right colour, too, and the nappa leather looks fresh. Add the electric sunroof and BBS alloys, and it’s a bargain, especially when the classifieds yield so little. Closest we came was a 1996 328i coupé with full service history and 99,000 miles for £5495. Mind you, we did find a later, one-owner, 2000-reg E46-gen 323i auto with 70,000 for £2995. Rather have that thuggish 328i manual, though.…