Innholdsfortegnelse for May 29, 2019 i Autocar

JUST HOW FAST is a McLaren F1? In May 1994, an eager 14-year-old picked up a copy of Autocar that promised to reveal all. Inside, an in-depth road test – sorry, the only road test – of the F1 answered that question, and so much more. The mind-boggling performance statistics stole the headlines, but it was the detail that captured your attention. It left you in no doubt that the McLaren F1 wasn’t merely a car: it was an engineering milestone, a work of art. (The review was very good, too!) Twenty-five years later, a still-eager 39-year-old picked up a proof copy of an Autocar feature (page 44) and quickly found himself lost in the majesty of the F1 – and Autocar’s incredibly talented writers – all over again. That…

BMW’S MOST POPULAR global SUV, the X1, has been given a mid-life makeover, bringing tweaked looks and – for the first time outside of China – a plug-in hybrid version. Given that BMW shifted nearly 287,000 examples of the X1 last year, leading the segment, it’s no surprise that visual updates are modest. The kidney grille is now larger, in line with its newer siblings, while reshaped lights and bumpers front and rear aim to freshen the X1’s look. The M Sport variant also has more styling changes to differentiate it more than before. Interior revisions are limited to new materials and upholstery targeted at boosting perceived quality. The big story under the bonnet is the introduction of the xDrive25e plug-in variant. On sale in March 2020 (a few months…

Vauxhall has unveiled the electric version of the new Corsa hatch, which will kick-start the brand’s electrification plans when it goes on sale next March with 134bhp and a 211-mile range. The Corsa-e will be the marque’s first mass-market battery-electric model, and will go on sale shortly after the yet-to-be-revealed combustion-engined versions of the Ford Fiesta rival. The new Corsa is the first Vauxhall model that has been developed since the firm was bought by the PSA Group, which also owns Peugeot, Citroën and DS. It shares the PSA Group’s new CMP platform and powertrains with the recently launched Peugeot 208, although the cars were otherwise designed and engineered separately. The Corsa-e will match the e-208 in having a 50kWh battery to power the electric motor. The powertrain produces 134bhp…

JAGUAR WILL RELEASE a heavily updated F-Type sports car next year and the first spy images of a disguised prototype of it have emerged. The camouflaged car shows significant styling alterations for Jaguar’s Porsche 911 rival, including a reshaped bonnet and slim headlights relocated further down the front fascia. A redesigned front grille also features, as does a new tail-light design. Although the prototype’s interior hasn’t been seen, it’s expected that much of the more advanced technology and infotainment features from the I-Pace and recently facelifted XE saloon will make their way into the 2020 F-Type. That means new digital dials, a larger and more feature-laden touchscreen and substantial upgrades to the cabin’s materials. Jaguar Land Rover is now phasing out the long-used supercharged petrol V6 in favour of a…

The third-generation Bentley Flying Spur will be the first model from the marque to feature all-wheel steering, as the car maker seeks to make its four-door luxury saloon the most dynamic yet. Also included will be active all-wheel drive and Bentley’s Dynamic ride system, as found on sibling model, the Continental GT. Bentley claims the trio of systems promise “unparalleled agility in the segment”, which includes the Rolls-Royce Ghost and Mercedes-Maybach S 600. It added that the introduction of all-wheel steering will “enhance both stability at highway speeds and manoeuvrability around town”. The past two generations of Flying Spur used all-wheel drive, but the new model’s active system means drive is sent to the rear wheels in normal road conditions for a sportier feel. The latest images (pictured, below) show…

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The easy way to view the arrival of this Audi S6 is as a new and enticingly warmed-over executive four-door, a decent progression from its predecessors, but nothing more controversial than that. The new S6 – like its close relatives, the S6 Avant, S7 Sportback and SQ5 soft-roader, that are being launched at the same time – gets its extra performance from a brand-new 48V mild-hybrid powerplant whose heart is a new 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel engine. And diesels, as we know, are in sales decline in the UK following Dieselgate and bad publicity for human health caused by exposure to untreated diesel exhaust constituents, principally NOx. Thus the far more intriguing story is about Audi launching a new generation of A6 sports saloons that depend on a form of motive…

The fifth-generation Toyota Supra – the cult Japanese sports car that had 24 all but unbroken years of continuous production history until disappearing from the scene in 2002, and stayed away for almost as long as it had previously existed – gave us a lot to admire a couple of weeks ago when driven in Spain. It also left us a lingering whiff of unrealised potential, though – of a car that’s more exciting for what it might yet become than for what it already delivers. Even so, on UK roads and in right-hand-drive form, it’d be a particularly joyless driver who couldn’t savour a cross-country blast in this car. The new GR Supra’s performance certainly doesn’t leave much to chance. Handling may not be as nimble or delicately involving…

“Compared to many cars, these are a mechanic’s dream,” says Pani Tsouris as we both peer past the dazzling gold heat protection and highly polished titanium exhausts to the vast V12 nestling deep in the engine bay. “Everything has been properly thought through. The fuses are easy to access, all the fluid reservoirs are bundled together in the nose and there’s space – you can get to all 12 spark plugs and the air and oil filter.” Now I wasn’t expecting to hear this. I was prepared instead for tales of the McLaren F1 being a proper prima donna, requiring a tortuous service schedule and a technician with double-jointed wrists and an ability to see through steel. However, if anyone can set me straight then it’s Tsouris. He’s lead F1…

COMPARISON New Volvo S60 vs rivals: so you don’t want a German saloon? Not all executive saloons come from Germany. The best of the breed from Kia, Peugeot and Alfa Romeo face Volvo’s latest INTERVIEW Meet Mr VW Group The most powerful man in the car industry? We talk to Herbert Diess ROAD TEST Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Can a stretched hatchback take on the estate status quo? EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Volkswagen Passat VW’s Insignia rival has been overhauled. Is there still life in it? AS GOOD AS NEW Ford Kuga It’s never quite hit the spot among its peers. But what about nearly new? LONG-TERM TEST Bentley Continental GT Crewe’s new GT joins our fleet. We find out just how special it really is SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see…

MILEAGE 26,700 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a utility vehicle is an endearing everyday vehicle Usually we try to use every feature in a long-termer, but there’s an instruction sticker on the door of the Toyota Land Cruiser that I think will go unneeded. The Land Cruiser, like all modern diesels, gets a diesel particulate filter for its 2.8-litre, four-cylinder engine. These trap exhaust soot, until such time as it gets burnt off when the exhaust is hot, a cycle the car usually enters of its own accord on the open road so you don’t know it’s happening. In some kinds of driving, though – if, say, you spend a lot of time at slow speeds, idling or doing short hops, as a utility car might – the…

J is for Honda Jazz What we have here is a compact hatchback that nonetheless has lots of flexible space inside. Yes, the Jazz is such an ingenious little car, it is hard to find a rival model that is any better. The well-proportioned small-people-carrier styling is a key reason why the Jazz works so well. At the back is a very large boot and the load area can be changed easily. Simply fold the rear seats into the footwells for a completely flat floor or just fold the seat bases forward to effectively create two separate boot areas. It is very clever and all passengers appreciate the extra head and leg room. The high driving position is great for the driver and there is lots of adjustment in the…

ALFA ROMEO 155 2.0 16V You’ll need a brass neck to drive this down the high street but look past the mock Gabriele Tarquini BTCC livery and you’re gazing at one of the 1990s’ best ‘if only…’ cars. The 2.0-litre Twin Spark engine was a peach and this car is the Series 2 wide-body version of 1995 that looked so much better than the less aggressive Series 1. It was great to drive but let down by poor build quality and dodgy electrics. This 109,000-mile example has good service history and, according to the auction house, is in tip-top condition. The hammer fell at just £1332.…

BMW has revealed the completely re-engineered 1 Series, with the range-topping 302bhp M135i model given all-wheel drive for the first time to directly rival the Volkswagen Golf R and Mercedes-AMG A35. While the premium hatch has been rear-wheel drive since it was first launched in 2004, BMW has taken the significant step of switching to a front-wheel-drive platform with the new third generation, in order to improve the car’s interior space and practicality. The new model is based on the FAAR architecture, also used for the X1 and X2 SUVs, and the Mini Countryman. Despite the switch, product manager Jochen Schmalholz said BMW was determined to ensure the car offered a dynamic driving experience, especially for the range-topping M135i hot hatch. “We put a lot of effort into producing a…

The Skoda Superb will feature a plug-in hybrid powertrain for the first time as part of a series of revisions to the Czech firm’s flagship saloon and estate. The hybrid will be named the Superb iV in recognition of the new sub-brand that will be used for Skoda’s bold electrification plans. The firm launched the Superb alongside the pure-electric Citigo-e iV (below) at an event in Slovakia. The Superb iV features a 154bhp, 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine mated to a 114bhp electric motor, which sends drive to the front wheels through a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. The peak system output is 220bhp, with 295lb ft of torque. The Superb iV will be capable of completing 34 miles of pure-electric running, identical to the similar Volkswagen Passat GTE. Skoda has yet to…

CARBONFIBRE IS ONE of those things that gets taken for granted as the superlightweight material that costs a lot and few people can afford, but what is this stuff? The answer to that is pretty much what it sounds like: fibres made of a graphite-like carbon. Those fibres are made from stuff called polyacrylonitrile (or PAN, a plastic), which in turn is made from acrylonitrile. The PAN fibres are heated at around 300deg C to burn off anything that isn’t carbon and then superheated to produce the carbon fibres. That takes time and a fair amount of energy, which is why carbonfibre isn’t the most sustainable of materials – that and the fact that it can’t be recycled into high-grade material in the same way as aluminium can. Wound onto…

It would be very easy to view the Porsche Cayenne Coupé as a distinctly cynical machine. Take one look at its SUV-coupé specification and you could argue it has been developed purely to plug a niche (a small but growing one, though) and maintain Porsche’s standing as one of the most profitable car brands on the planet. There are no bold engineering gains here, is no extra performance and is no hardening of dynamic focus. It is to all intents and purposes a standard car but with a lower roofline, fewer seats, less space inside and – here’s the kicker – a higher price tag. However, perhaps there’s more to it than that. For starters, this isn’t some opportunistic cut and shut, because this current third generation of Cayenne was…

Audi’s decision to break conventions by using the same mild-hybrid diesel V6 for its new middleweight sporty models is about to extend to the classy SQ5 TDI, due in showrooms in a couple of months. Like the S6 saloon and S7 Sportback, the sporty soft-roader has a newly developed 3.0-litre diesel V6, working with a 48V integrated starter-generator that collects power on the overrun and deploys it during acceleration for greater fuel efficiency. Like its siblings, the SQ5 engine’s turbocharger is fed at low crankshaft speeds by an electric compressor that keeps the impeller turning fast and greatly reduces turbo lag. Working together, the starter-generator and V6 produce 342bhp at a relaxed 3850rpm. Performance also closely matches the saloons: the 0-62mph sprint takes 5.1sec; the SQ5’s top speed governed at…

MODEL TESTED CARRERA S Price £93,110 Power 444bhp Torque 391lb ft 0-60mph 3.4sec 30-70mph in fourth 5.3sec Fuel economy 23.1mpg CO2 emissions 205g/km 70-0mph 39.8m The much-celebrated, world-renowned Porsche 911, now 56 years and eight full model generations old, remains a shining beacon to the rest of the car business. It offers a salutary lesson to other car makers: manage your icon carefully and preserve what’s unique and distinctive about it, while updating what’s old and flawed; listen to what people love about it; and keep it relevant, modern and competitive without making it any less special. By sticking to these principles, you can make enduringly profitable success out of sports car making. What’s more, you can do it in a way unlike anyone else in the industry. It may not…

PORSCHE 911 CARRERA S A more multi-talented mid-range 911 than we’ve ever seen. Pace, class and drivability in generous supply. Could use just a hint more charm. JAGUAR F-TYPE 5.0 R COUPE AWD Ageing poster boy still offers dramatic looks and outstanding bang for the buck. All-wheel drive helps tame the limit handling. LOTUS EVORA GT410 SPORT Now the most involving driver’s car in the class, the Evora has only got more hardcore with age. Testing but brilliant, and a blast on the road as well as the track. MERCEDES-AMG GT COUPE Still much more brutish and less delicate than our class-leading Porsche, but likeable for it. Ride and handling improved with the car’s last update. BMW i8 COUPE The £115k price puts this close to super-sports car territory, where…

The biggest compliment you can pay the Nio ES8 is that driving one feels remarkably normal. A very brief run in the large SUV on Nio’s Hefei proving track betrayed few signs that the ES8 is the product of a barely five-year-old firm. The air suspension made for a soft ride, the handling was direct and it had the instant, potent response you’d expect from a 644bhp, 620lb ft twin-motor electric powertrain. It likely wouldn’t disgrace itself in the company of a Tesla Model X or Audi E-tron. There is a big tablet-style touchscreen in the centre of the dash, but unlike the Model X, the ES8 also has plenty of more traditional controls. In fact, the most notable tech you spot instantly is Nomi, the firm’s voice control system,…

QUESTION My four-year-old Peugeot 308 is starting to develop problems, but is almost at the end of its PCP. Am I tied to Peugeot for its replacement? Donald Stewart, Kirkcudbright ANSWER Fortunately, under the terms of a PCP, you can offer your Peugeot to any car dealer in part-exchange for another – be it a new or used Peugeot, or another make entirely. Peugeot Finance, or whoever stumped up your loan on your 308, is only interested in getting back the money it’s owed. Whichever dealer you go to will contact it to establish the car’s so-called settlement figure. Assuming they think your 308 is worth this sum and that you plan to buy its replacement from them, they’ll pay it and take ownership of the 308, allowing you to…

Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6 £5750 We have a soft spot for the Suzuki Swift Sport of 2010-17, a result of its puppyish, naturally aspirated 1.6-litre engine, crisp suspension and accurate steering. It was facelifted in 2012, when it gained a sixth forward gear, firmer suspension and a more rigid front subframe and steering bracket. All these refinements and still it registered just 1045kg on the scales. Together, they kept the Swift on top of its game at a time when rivals were moving to lustier turbo motors. Prices for facelifted Sports start at around £5000, and these are 2012-and 2013-registered cars with only around 50,000 miles under their wheels. That’s fun motoring on the cheap. We found a privately advertised 2013/63-reg with 52,000 miles for £5750. A little strong, granted,…

Mitsubishi ASX 1.6 Juro  Price new £19,585. Price now £16,895 The ASX isn’t the last word in mid-sized crossovers, but this 2019/19-reg car does represent a whopping £2700 saving on the new price. It has done just 25 miles so comes with virtually all of its five-year/62,500-mile warranty intact. What’s more, deals like this one won’t be around for long because, later this year, Mitsubishi is kicking the 1.6 Juro and its brothers, the 1.6 Black and 1.6 4 Diesel, into the long grass, to be replaced by a 2.0-litre version. Could be your last chance to pick up a crossover bargain.…

With new Range Rovers today priced from around £84,000, it’s incredible to think you could waft into something akin to the royal enclosure in a used one costing a tiny fraction of that and still feel on equal terms. That’s the beauty of the P38-series Range Rover of 1994-2002. The original Mk1 looks from another era (and is becoming madly expensive) but the P38 Mk2 bears a closer relationship, design-wise and conceptually, to later generations, culminating in today’s Mk4. And to think this new home for your Hunter wellies costs from just £1400. That, at least, is what one dealer is asking for his P38, a 1997 P-reg 4.6 HSE described in ‘One we found’ (right). It has full service history, as a surprising number do. Obviously, that’s good news…

SKODA HAS OFFICIALLY unveiled its first pure-electric car: the Citigo-e iV. The new city car comes with headline figures of 81bhp, 155lb ft of torque and a range of up to 164 miles under the WLTP testing protocol. The Citigo-e iV is in effect Skoda’s updated version of the Volkswagen e-Up. It will reach the UK early next year after orders open in the autumn. Skoda promises it will be one of the most affordable EVs on the market and UK prices are expected to start at around £15,000. Although Skoda promises that the two upcoming models that will sit on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB pure-electric architecture are more adventurous, the Citigo-e has a much more traditional design. The body-coloured grille is the biggest visual difference from the petrol model.…

RENAULT’S MOST HARDCORE hot hatch, the Mégane RS Trophy-R, has been launched with the firm claiming the Nürburgring lap record for front-wheel-drive production cars from the Honda Civic Type R by three seconds. Based on the Mégane RS 300 Trophy, the limited-run Trophy-R is powered by the same 296bhp, 295lb ft 1.8-litre turbocharged petrol engine, but is 130kg lighter thanks to an extensive weight-reduction programme. Full performance figures have yet to be released; the regular RS 300 Trophy does 0-62mph in 5.7sec with a top speed of 161mph. With a focus on improving handling and increasing cornering speeds, the Trophy-R also features reworked chassis drive axles to boost performance, alongside improved aerodynamics. Development work undertaken by Renault Sport’s partners includes a new Akrapovic exhaust, Brembo brakes, Bridgestone tyres and Öhlins…

Last week, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) revealed a £3.6 billion annual loss, much of which was due to it reducing the value of company assets and a recognition of a reduction in future earnings. The results came after two weeks of speculation that the PSA Group – owner of Peugeot, Citroën, DS and Vauxhall/Opel – had made a bid to buy JLR from Indian owner Tata. A ‘post-integration’ document was reported to have been in circulation at the British car maker. JLR boss Ralf Speth did not rule out discussions between PSA and Tata but suggested he was not party to them. For its part, Tata said there was no truth in the rumours that it was about to “divest its stake in JLR”. What Tata’s statement didn’t say was…

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, almost half of the new cars sold in the UK were diesel. In May 2017, in the first of a series of powertrain studies done for Autocar, market research firm Simpson Carpenter forecast that within three years diesel sales would fall to 23% of the total new car market – a prediction that was met with some scepticism at the time. But now, two years on, diesel sales in the first quarter of 2019 have fallen to just 27% of the new car market. So far, the main beneficiary has been petrol. While buyers expressed an intent to buy hybrid or electric, the relative shortage of available models has limited alternatively fuelled vehicles to just 6% of new car sales. Simpson…

“The Honda CR-V Hybrid is amazingly quiet and smooth. You don’t have to think about the hybrid – it does it all for you. It feels nicely balanced, with power available when you need it.”Alex Imlach. The innovative new Honda CR-V Hybrid intelligently blends petrol and electric power, helping you to improve your fuel efficiency and lower your emissions without ever needing to change the way you drive. Combining the great design and tech-packed interior of the CR-V with a hybrid system that is smoother, quieter and easier to use, it retains all of the sporty performance, interior comfort and practical luggage space you would expect from one of Britain’s most popular and acclaimed SUVs. But don’t take our word for it. We invited some Autocar and What Car? readers…

For a view on how faster and more capable a track car the ‘ordinary’ Porsche 911 Carrera S has become after the addition of turbocharging, four-wheel steering and the like, consider this: it is now only half a second slower around MIRA’s Dunlop dry handling circuit than a 2015 991 GT3 RS. Being almost 200kg lighter than its nearest rival from Aston Martin, meanwhile, helps explain the lap-time advantage there. The 992 feels amazingly adhesive, controlled and secure even on the limit of grip. The car’s rear-axle steering is subtle enough to make handling feel intuitive and forgiving, and its widened tracks make it turn in, hunker down and stick to the apex with real tenacity. Handling isn’t as playful or readily adjustable, either on or off the throttle, as…

“The spirit of everything we learned from the Fiesta ST is definitely in there,” says Leo Roeks, peering up at the differential housing of the latest, third-generation Focus ST. He is not, I might add, talking about that specific piece of hardware, not least because this is the first time Ford has put an electronically controlled limited-slip differential in anything exclusively front driven. The boss of Ford Performance Europe is instead referring to the entire car – the new Focus ST, yours later this summer for £29,495 – and how his engineers have captured the bubbly, chuckable persona of the smash-hit Fiesta ST in a larger, more refined package. It’s worth getting excited about, certainly, and Roeks makes the point again: “The DNA is very important to us.” We’re stood…

The McLaren F1 sits in the sun just as it did all those years ago.Twenty-five to be precise, almost to the day since we carried out its one and only proper road test. But today it has a new generation of fans to pore over its carbonfibre bodywork, find the most dignified way into its driving seat and experience what we did two and a half decades ago. You’ll be hearing from them shortly. This is no small thing we are doing and I’ll tell you why. McLaren F1s are vanishingly rare. Of just 64 standard production road cars built, McLaren estimates that fewer than 10% are in regular use. So that’s six cars, possibly five. Globally. And this isn’t one of them. This is McLaren’s F1 prototype. The first,…

Some aspects of the F1’s design have endured: it was the first car to have a carbonfibre tub (unless you count the Jaguar XJR-15) and it would be unthinkable to make a modern hypercar without one. But in many ways the F1 actually represents the end of an era rather than the start of a new one. Think of its normally aspirated engine, manual gearbox, unassisted steering and the absence of either ABS or traction control (though both were around at the time). The arrowhead seating position didn’t catch on either, though it’s good to see the Speedtail reprising the idea. Then again, 25 years from now everything we take for granted in hypercars today will have changed too, starting with the deletion of its internal combustion engine.…

“There isn’t a Chinese premium brand. We have a chance to become one” A premium electric car start-up, founded by a serial entrepreneur with a bold plan to take on the giants of the car industry through new technology and business concepts – it’s easy to see why Nio has been referred to as ‘China’s Tesla’. But scratch below the surface and you’ll find there are far more differences than similarities between the two firms. That starts with their underlying philosophies: whereas Tesla set out to use new technology to disrupt the car industry and reinvent the car itself, Nio is aiming to capitalise on the massive changes the industry is undergoing to reinvent the user experience. It’s an approach that makes Nio worthy of attention among a swarm of…

“If you can sell over 300,000 EVs now, you can be the number one globally” WM Motor is another Chinese start-up with global aspirations, but it has embarked on a very different strategic direction from Nio’s: targeting the mass market with affordable models, bigger production output and building cars in the company’s own factory. “We are going for the mass market,” says WM Motor founder Freeman Shen (above), “because the companies that survive and become market winners always start from the mass market.” Shen’s inspiration comes from seeing premium brands like Jaguar, Ferrari and Volvo thriving under the ownership of volume brands – Tata, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Geely respectively. Shen has 23 years of car industry experience, most notably as Geely’s negotiator when it bought Volvo. WM Motor has…

A mild problem We need to talk about mild hybrids. Am I the only one who remembers talk just a few years ago of 48V systems becoming essential just to feed new cars’ insatiable abundance of technology? Or, 15 or 20 years ago, that high-tech petrol and diesel engines do not use any fuel at all on the over-run? Now, though, car makers can add coasting, or make this or that function electronic, and claim to have created a ‘mild hybrid’ – bringing forward the forecast date of making their whole fleet electrified. But is this really so different from when windscreen wipers moved from hydraulic to electronic operation? Many new models are claimed to ‘store kinetic energy when braking’ – yet as far as I can see, Mercedes’ mild…

MILEAGE 4747 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To assess if Cupra’s first own-branded car feels like the real deal or just a Seat made too sporty for its own good There was a small cluster of people gathered around the nose of the Ateca in a car park the other day. They were staring at its grille. Was some strange wildlife caught in its wide-holed mesh, or were there odd noises emerging from beneath the bonnet? Neither. Instead, they were discussing the Ateca’s copper-coloured Cupra badge – one of them, I subsequently realised, having parked next to it in a Seat Leon FR. He knew its significance, and was explaining it to the other two. The Cupra has now triggered several moments either of approving recognition, or bafflement sufficient to trigger…

LAND ROVER SERIES 3 Just to let you know that the fuel line was fixed. I got so covered in gunk patching it up, I let my local garage finish the dirty work and also make the headlamps work again as there was a rogue earth connection. Meanwhile, the driver’s side sliding window popped out again. My mistake: I slammed the door without the window being shut. I remember 99% of the time, but I forgot just the once and there it was on my lap again. Hopefully that is it for the Lorry, as there are now so many stories to tell about the other sorry members of the fleet.…

The lazy charge that all new cars are the same these days could never be levelled at the current Mini under the spotlight here or, indeed, any Mini before it. Despite being bigger, safer and better equipped than ever before, it retains its forebears’ cheeky charm. It was launched in 2014 in three and, for the first time, five-door bodystyles. The latter was made possible by the new car’s longer body, designed to boost space in the rear cabin and the boot. It was a success, there now being room for a couple of six-footers to make themselves reasonably comfortable. If you want to make the 211-litre boot a little bigger, the back seats split and fold. Up front, the five-door is much like the three-door, with ample room for…

An expert’s view TONY HOOPER, CHIEF MECHANIC, HEREFORD 4X4 “The body, gearboxes, chassis, mechanicals, drivetrain… they’re all pretty good on the P38. The things that let it down are coolant issues with the petrol engines, the underpowered diesels, problems with air suspension that often go unresolved and, most of all, the electrics. Everything runs through the body control module, located under the driver’s seat. Water ingress can damage it but it doesn’t need an excuse. One day it’ll be fine and the next it’ll be up the creek. It’s no respecter of full service history, so while a good history is essential in terms of oil changes and so on, it’s no guarantee your P38 won’t let you down when you least expect it.” Buyer beware ▪ ENGINE On petrol…