Innholdsfortegnelse for August 14, 2019 i Autocar

WHILE FORD AND Ferrari are worlds apart in the cars they make, the challenges they face in needing to future-proof their businesses have a lot more in common. Ford chairman Bill Ford is as candid as they come about the challenges his company faces: the old way of doing business just won’t work for much longer. So, as Steve Cropley finds out in the most in-depth of looks at the present and future of Ford (p53), a complete reinvention of the company is needed for survival. Ford, in Europe in particular, has lacked the strength in depth in its product lines in recent years as others have innovated more. What emerges from Steve’s interviews is a real humility within the company and an openness to get on and make changes…

Lamborghini Urus Perhaps the most similar car in concept to the high-riding Ferrari comes from its most noted Italian competitor, Lamborghini. The polarising Urus launched last year and has sold more than twice as much as any other Lambo so far this year – a fact that Ferrari cannot ignore. It features a twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 putting out 641bhp, enough for 0-62mph in 3.6sec and a top speed of just under 190mph. Bentley Bentayga Speed Rival Rolls-Royce will be more aligned with the Ferrari in pricing terms with its Cullinan, but Bentley’s Bentayga SUV – particularly in Speed form – is a more natural rival. With a 626bhp twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre W12 providing the propulsion and a lighter chassis honed for a more dynamic drive, it will also be Ferrari’s reference…

MASERATI HAS CONFIRMED plans for a successor to the Granturismo and Grancabrio in its half-year presentation. The replacements are part of a wide-reaching brand overhaul aimed at reviving falling sales. A slide (right) reveals that an all-new Granturismo is being lined up for a 2021 launch, with the convertible version following the year after. There will also be a drop-top version of the ‘Alfieri’ sports car (itself arriving next year) alongside a new sub-Levante SUV in 2021. The slide also reaffirms the Italian maker’s plan to offer fully electric versions of every model in its line-up, starting with the new sports car. Next year, the brand will introduce mid-life refreshes of the Levante, Ghibli and Quattroporte. An all-new Quattroporte is due in 2022 and the Levante will move to a…

NEVER MIND WHEN, can self-driving cars ever even work at all? That’s probably the question in the minds of most people. But to work, fully autonomous cars will require the invention of a machine that has the cognitive abilities of a human. The building block of a human nervous system is a neuron and millions of them form a neural network in the body’s central nervous system. To make autonomous cars a reality, computer scientists need to create artificial neural networks (ANNs) that can do the same job as a human’s biological neural network. So assuming that really is achievable, the other thing an autonomous car needs is the ability to see, and this is where opinions in the industry are split. Until recently, conventional wisdom had it that as…

Prototypes of the upcoming 2021 Range Rover have been seen testing with a BMW-sourced 4.4-litre petrol V8, following reports that Jaguar Land Rover and the German maker had agreed a wide-ranging combustion-engine partnership to produce electrified powertrains together. It’s unclear if the same engine will be used in the facelifted 2020 Jaguar F-Type, with prototypes seen still running the 5.0-litre V8 that will go out of production as Ford’s engine plant in Bridgend, Wales, closes towards the end of next year.…

The Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid is the most powerful and fastest Cayenne of all time, more powerful and torquier than even the Lamborghini Urus. That alone is quite a statement of just how bought in to an electrified future Porsche is. It has 671bhp, 664lb ft and a top speed of 183mph. The 0-62mph sprint takes 3.8sec. And the Top Trumps stats don’t end there. Thanks to its plug-in hybrid system, the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid is also rated as one of the cleanest SUVs around, capable of 25 miles on electric power alone, with official fuel economy of up to 58.9mpg and CO2 emissions from 110g/km on the latest WLTP cycle. And yet… it is also around 350kg heavier than the Cayenne Turbo because it has to lug…

VERDICT All the hype and 1990s nostalgia that came with the protracted development of the GR Supra leaves us yearning to write that it is thoroughly deserving of its revered cult nameplate and that it is the defining Japanese performance car of its era. But while it’s very good, it’s not quite that good. Not yet, perhaps. Make no mistake, the fifth-generation Supra has plenty of strength and dynamic reserve, and plenty of likeability too. Not only has it got muscular, characterful straight-line performance, but it also successfully puts its shared platform architecture to use to carve out a dynamic identity mostly of its own. And it looks fantastic. But the car’s cabin leaves too much room to wonder exactly how much truly distinctive Supra DNA really has been invested…

Evidence of just how thorny a problem designing a purely sporting electric car can be is found in the fact that, to date, only one person has tried. And they didn’t get very far. One of the most trenchant critics of the original Tesla Roadster is none other than Elon Musk himself, who loved his so much he shot it into space. The truth was that while the Roadster was interesting, it just didn’t work in reality. It was quick but prohibitively expensive, had a deathly dull sound and at least in its early days was at times more than a little lacking in the reliability area. Worse was the decision to base it around the platform of a Lotus Elise. For a start it required so much modification that…

“Targets are the foundation of the opposite of good retailing” Upwe go to the third floor, out into the lashing rain then clamber up temporary steps held in place by scaffolding. Only now, as we stand in the shadow of a six-metrehigh Three-Pointed Star – a handy indication of the scale of what we’re surveying – does the size of Mercedes-Benz’s largest and newest retailer in Europe, made up of two connected buildings, a dedicated body and paint centre and a so-called Autohaus to showcase its wares, hit home. This one dealership stretches across 10.5 acres of Stockport and is charged with spearheading a carretailing revolution. Master of all he surveys is Martyn Webb, UK boss of LSH Auto’s nine Mercedes-Benz retail outlets, and the man responsible for ensuring that…

We weren’t supposed to meet Ford’s president and CEO Jim Hackett on this two-day flying visit to Dearborn. They told us he’d be committed elsewhere, and knowing how top car executives’ schedules are stretched to the minute, we knew with regret that there’d be no room for flexibility. Except there was. While we hovered in one of the corridors connecting the remarkably modest offices of Ford’s recently refurbed executive suites (do they suddenly have more executives to accommodate?) Hackett suddenly appeared, greeted us in his friendly way and swept us into his smallish office crowded with desk, computer and a large window overlooking the estate – one of his several domains. “Come on in,” he boomed, politely offering us a coffee we all knew there wouldn’t be time to drink.…

EV missed opportunities As a surveyor I visit lots of new housing developments in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset, but when desperately sought planningng is granted by local authorities there is no stipulation for the builder to install electric vehicle charging points or solar power sources. Many of these new homes are for the peopleple electric vehicles are most suitable for: peoplee with company cars, people in retirement or young drivers. Drive through any housing development that was built five years ago and you will see almost all new cars on the driveways. With the houses lacking charging points, what cars will be on the driveways in five years’ time? It will be down to the homeowner to install a charging point, but it’s an opportunity missed by authorities and the…

MILEAGE 3752 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Is the world’s best-selling SUV still as comfy, refined, spacious and dynamically competent in hybrid form? I knew I wouldn’t get away with it. You caught me. In the opening report on our long-term Honda CR-V Hybrid, I omitted the car’s towing limit. It was with good reason. Paying the issue the necessary lip-service was always in my plans, but I hadn’t expected the flurry of letters and emails that would arrive from our scrupulous readers. A big ‘thank you’ to those who took the time to write in – your own real-world experiences are a joy to read and reflecting those is the raison d’être for our long-term tests. The quoted maximum braked towing weight of the Honda CR-V Hybrid is 750kg. It’s…

MILEAGE 88,273 INNOCENTI MINI I have been using the real Italian Job on a regular basis, and it’s huge fun. Out in the real world I get people telling me how cool it is, which is nice, especially as they have no idea what it actually is. During the hot spell I used it because the fuel tank was pretty full, although after a run it behaved like a boiled kettle with a coolant leak. The temperature gauge was normal, so I would like to believe that there is nothing to worry about. However, after one blown gasket this year, I don’t need another.…

There’s been an Audi A4 saloon since 1994. We’re now on the fifth generation, which was launched in 2015 when it was billed as the most efficient, refined and high-tech one of all. No surprise there, but it takes nothing away from the fact that each generation of A4 has played its part in establishing the model as a serious player in the family saloon class. Among the current A4’s many attractions are a level of build quality that on occasion eludes its rivals. It has a clean and unostentatious appearance that buyers find appealing. And rather than excelling in one or two areas, it’s satisfying across most. It replaced the fourth-gen model that ran from 2008-15. Their registration years aside, you may struggle to tell the two apart. Our…

“The challenge is to open a new segment for Ferrari. We always have very tight positioning” GOT A STORY? Email our news editor lawrence.allan@haymarket.com Ferrari is stepping up development of its eagerly anticipated SUV, which will push the brand in an entirely new direction for comfort, interior design, space and powertrain technology. Due in 2022 and being developed under the codename Purosangue, which translates as ‘thoroughbred’, the Ferrari SUV promises to be like no other performance or ultra-luxury SUV on the market thanks to positioning unique from the likes of the Aston Martin DBX, Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and Rolls-Royce Cullinan. The SUV, also known internally as ‘175’, is one of 15 new Ferraris announced last year and set to launch by 2023. They will be built off two bespoke…

Last year Ferrari finally opened its own design centre, having for years seen design houses, most famously Pininfarina, lead the styling of its models. Ferrari head of design Flavio Manzoni has told Autocar that a large in-house team is now essential due to the complexity of the design process and the need for multiple designs to be integrated into architectures from the beginning. The days of a car maker supplying a chassis to a coachbuilder for styling are over. “One of the main reasons for an in-house design team was the growing complexity of our cars,” Manzoni said. “The technology and aerodynamic requirements grow day by day. Interaction is needed between the different areas. “Using the other system, you could not now conceive the shape of a new Ferrari on…

Mark Stanton was one of the big beasts in the British car industry. He built his career at Ford and Jaguar Land Rover, becoming JLR’s director of vehicle engineering and then head of its Special Vehicle Operations division. But he has joined the exodus of senior automotive talent to China, where he is now chief technical officer for bold EV start-up Human Horizons. The firm revealed its first car, the HiPhi 1, last week. A six-seat coupé-ish SUV with high levels of autonomy, it’s due on sale in China by 2021. But why did Stanton, 59, leave JLR’s high-performance arm to gamble on a Chinese start-up? “SVO was meant to be the pinnacle and to begin with it felt that way,” he said. “I don’t want to speak ill of…

Volkswagen is carving itself a new niche with the unveiling of the T-Roc Cabriolet, the only mainstream crossover with a fully convertible roof. Claimed to bring an “extroverted and emotive design” to the brand’s range, it indirectly replaces the Golf and Beetle cabriolets and will bear the burden of being the only drop-top Volkswagen for the foreseeable future. It’s due to go on sale early next year after a Frankfurt motor show public debut in September, with first deliveries in the spring. Far from chopping the roof off a standard T-Roc, the cabriolet’s body and structure are mostly new, with 37mm added to the wheelbase and a 34mm increase in overall length. As well as the absence of rear doors and a unique rear-end design, there is structural strengthening in…

HYUNDAI WILL PULL the covers off the third-generation i10 next month – the first all-new city car to be launched in Europe since 2017. It will make its public debut at the Frankfurt motor show before going on sale early next year, but the new A-segment model has been previewed in a sketch that shows a dramatic styling rethink. Although it features the exaggerated proportions typical of concept drawings, the sketch previews the company’s new grille, with LED running lights integrated into it, alongside a more aggressive stance and an X-shaped C-pillar. Hyundai says the new i10 has been designed, developed and built in Europe and claims it will feature “new connected car and safety features”. It’s expected to share its platform and mechanicals with the latest Kia Picanto –…

Take two otherwise identical versions of any given car and the conventionally powered model will out-handle the hybrid. This applies as much to supercars as it does to a supermini. Add a battery pack and you have a heavier car with greater inertia and fractionally delayed responses – plus the need to manage the additional mass with higher spring rates for the suspension, and so on. People who really enjoy driving therefore tend towards whichever pure petrol or diesel version strikes the best balance of performance, refinement and economy for their tastes and budget. Which brings us to the new BMW 330e: an unapologetic plug-in hybrid whose maker cannot afford not to build and yet, as a 3 Series, ought to put handling on a pedestal. We’ll come to that…

MODEL TESTED GR SUPRA PRO Price £54,000 Power 335bhp Torque 368lb ft 0-60mph 4.4sec 30-70mph in fourth 4.8sec Fuel economy 28.4mpg CO2 emissions 170g/km 70-0mph 41.9m We like • Unusual ride comfort – even for a GT sports car • Hugely tractable and responsive engine packs impressive punch We don’t like • BMW parts-bin origins of cabin content may detract from appeal • Auto ’box lacks dexterity, doesn’t engage as well as a manual would It’s impossible to talk about the new Toyota Supra, which arrives some 25 years after the fourth-generation, cult-hit ‘A80’ car was launched, without talking also about BMW. So we may as well get it out of the way now, before turning to the more important matters of the car itself: how it looks, how it feels…

SPECIAL FEATURE The top 50 new cars on sale The only place where you’ll find Ford Fiestas in the same group test as McLarens and an Alpine. These are the UK’s best cars FEATURE Fiat Centoventi How this innovative concept car will influence the future of Fiat INVESTIGATION Full service history What does it really mean, and how can it be exploited? We find out EVERY WEEK USED BUYING GUIDE Ferrari 456 The cut-price – and interesting – route into Ferrari ownership LONG-TERM TEST Renault Sport Mégane 280 No longer the default hot hatch, the Mégane tries to prove its worth to us ROAD TEST Mercedes-Benz CLA The A-Class’s swoopy saloon sibling gets the full eight pages SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 3699 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT The sporting appeal of BMW’s roadster has diminished over generations. We want to find out if it’s back I managed to snatch the Z4’s keys for a (mostly) sunny weekend at last month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. My thinking was that if I was going to be stuck in the festival’s usual morning traffic queues, I’d rather be doing so with the roof down and limitless amounts of vitamin D coursing through me. As it turned out, I managed to dodge the worst of the snarl-ups so could enjoy the twistier route down and then back from the West Sussex event. In theory, then, this should have been a report where I revel in the latest Z4’s new-found lightness and agility, its rear-wheel-drive balance…

V is for Volvo V70 Estates have always been Volvo’s specialist subject, and the V70 was a state-of-the-art load carrier with plenty of clever details. There’s masses of room and it has lots of nets and hooks to keep everything in place, while the centre rear seat has a useful pop-up worktop. Standard equipment is good and the choice of engines is extensive, from the frugal to the outrageously powerful T5. Everyone seems to agree that the D5 turbodiesel is smooth and powerful, plus it returns just over 40mpg, which is almost the best of all worlds.…

PORSCHE 911 CARRERA 4 (996) In case you’re wondering, yes, this 911 has had a new intermediate shaft bearing. The 996 of 1998-2004 has such a poor reputation – in particular pre-facelift cars such as this one – that without it, it would probably have been knocked down at least by the price of the bearing job, not to mention a rear main seal (which can also let go). The car showed 85,000 miles, was registered in 1999 and sold or £10,000. Its four previous owners seem to have taken care of it, if the 12 service stamps plus sundry later service receipts are anything to go by.…

More high-speed express than B-road hooligan: that was our verdict on the E92 M3 coupé of 2007-13 (there’s also an E90 saloon and E93 convertible). Its 414bhp 4.0-litre V8 could still make your spine tingle, said our testers, but there were concerns regarding both fuel consumption and the limitations of its rear-drive layout. That said, we praised its layers of sophistication and ability to bring a little happiness to the daily grind, the latter being a quality that a good used one is still capable of to this day. And by ‘good’ we mean one with a full service history which, to be clear, must conform to the official schedule using the correctly specified oils, plugs, filters and fluids. Tales of failing big-end bearings, possibly caused by tired oil or…

“The idea is to combine the agility of the Pista with the comfort of the GTB”, says Ferrari test driver Fabrizio Toschi on the new F8 Tributo, the successor to the 488 GTB as Ferrari’s core mid-engined supercar. The F8 Tributo is the latest Ferrari in a series that can trace its roots back to the 458 Italia. This version adopts the most powerful V8 yet for a mid-engined series-production Ferrari by using a Pista-spec 710bhp 3.9-litre turbo. It can crack 0-62mph in 2.9sec and reach a top speed of 211mph – and we’ll drive it before the end of the month. For now, we join Toschi, a test driver at Ferrari for the past 13 years, in the passenger seat on the roads in the hills around Maranello as…

Mini plans to enter the shrinking market for small MPVs with a new electric model. It will be the brand’s most practical car yet, and it’s thought it will revive the Traveller name. The new Mini MPV has been conceived to appeal to family car buyers seeking greater levels of interior versatility and space than the existing Clubman and Countryman. It will be based on parent company BMW’s FAAR platform, which supports front- and four-wheel drive. There will be versions powered by internal combustion engines, a plug-in hybrid and, later in its seven-year life cycle, a battery-electric driveline in a Traveller SE model. It will rival the Volkswagen ID 3, which will be revealed next month. In pure-electric form, the new Mini model is set to be twinned with the…

A year has passed since BMW released what it called OS7 – the seventh iteration of its iDrive infotainment system – but the first customers are now being asked to hand over money in order for some services to continue. Owners are now seeing the message: “Your free trial of Apple CarPlay is up. Would you like to renew? Please pay £85 for another year.” We’re used to automakers bundling in free infotainment features such as CarPlay and Android Auto, both of which migrate functions from your phone to the car’s multimedia system, but manufacturers are now starting to ask customers to pay for the services. It’s the start of a revolution called ‘features over the air’, which offers the ability to continually upgrade cars remotely with both useful and…

AUTOMOBILI PININFARINA boss Michael Perschke says that the recruitment of several new employees, including the former head of the Mercedes-AMG One, has greatly accelerated development of its 1900bhp Battista electric hypercar. The Italian firm has hired a number of key staff including René Wollmann, who previously led development of Mercedes-AMG’s forthcoming electric hypercar. Former Formula 1 racer Nick Heidfeld has also been signed up as a test and development driver, while the company has recruited engineering specialist Danisi to aid development. Due to go on sale in 2021, the Battista features a powertrain based on that in the Rimac C_Two, with a motor on each wheel, which Pininfarina says will produce up to 1696lb ft of torque, a 0-62mph time of less than two seconds and a top speed of…

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This 400d example of the GLE, a new SUV that is longer, wider and lower than the car before it and with the option of seven seats for the first time, gets the most potent 325bhp, 516lb ft version of Merc’s 2.9-litre straight-six diesel. A really lovely thing it is too, with actual aural character. That’s so lacking in most petrol cars these days, let alone diesels that were never known for their bark. Yet the growl from under the bonnet as you explore the wide band of torque, which is delivered with some considerable shove, will raise a smile. It’s an engine willing to be revved, and also one with acceleration that feels better than the official 0-62mph time of 7.6sec suggests. The engine is ideally suited for towing,…

First thing to note is that this initial iteration of the fourth-generation Supra has not been developed specifically with track days in mind. In time, such a car is likely, but as it stands the Supra’s brakes begin to fade relatively early and the car’s weight – and the pronounced manner in which the car moves about its low centre of gravity – is simply too much and too often a feature of the handling to make this a track natural. In Sport mode the gearbox is prone to abrupt downshifts (several rivals’ auto-blipping dual-clutch automatic gearboxes massage these out), but the car’s balance is good and its grip level dependably high, while the chassis makes for predictable slides – and plenty of fun – when you breach the limits…

The cattle-grid rattles under the car. Not for the first time it occurs to you that as a way of heralding the arrival of a great experience, there’s none more understated than the humble cattle-grid. But there they are, at the start and finish of many of the country’s greatest roads. You know this car and you know this road. It’s why you’ve brought it here. You know the drill, too: a kick of the clutch and a blip of the throttle. You’ve already decided how many gears you’re going to drop. Then down goes the foot. Let it build. You feel the engine respond and hear it, too: the induction noise hardening, the exhaust note sharpening. The revs rise, but slowly at first. There’s no external assistance from turbos…

TRAVEL REPORT MILEAGE 9863 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Bentley’s third-generation Continental GT rules the roost as the ultimate grand tourer The continent in a Continental. It had to be done. The original plan was to re-enact the route of Le Train Bleu, a train which ran between Calais and the French Riviera and against which one of the Bentley Boys, Woolf Barnato, famously raced in the 1920s. Time and funds did not quite permit such an excursion, however, so instead I concocted my own road trip of Bentley-based highlights. It started, as most do, at the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone. In the same way that the Bentley Boys would doubtless be in awe at the engineering feat that is a modern-day Bentley, I wonder what would surprise…

Volkswagen Corrado £6000 At the last count Volkswagen had five SUVs in its ranks but, if you ignore its R and GTI models, no traditional sports cars. Rewind to 1989 and the company had no SUVs but two sports cars: the Scirocco and Corrado. Today the Corrado, which was dropped in 1995, three years after the Scirocco, is the more sought-after, but either in good nick is worth having. The 2.9 VR6 is the most plentiful Corrado, and prices begin at £3000 for a high-miler. The potent 1.8 G60 is rare, partly because its supercharger had a tendency to self-destruct. The 1.8 16v and 2.0 16v versions were the bread and butter but again, few remain. That said, we found a 1990 1.8 16v with 82,000 miles and full service…

Abarth 124 Spider Price £17,995 Everyone raves about its sister car, the Mazda MX-5, but the chances are that the Abarth 124 Spider will be the one people pay a premium for in years to come. Its 168bhp 1.4 MultiAir turbo develops maximum power earlier than the 2.0-litre unit in the Mazda, so you don't have to wring its neck anything like as hard. There’s a sports exhaust, Brembo brakes, Bilstein dampers and a limited-slip diff, too, but it’s the car’s Italian associations and its exclusivity that will attract future enthusiasts. And the fact that it isn't an MX-5.…

An expert’s view JAGS BHAMRA, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, BMSPORT “I prefer the saloon to the coupé and convertible. It’s more discreet as well as practical, but all three are reliable. There’s the occasional leaky gearbox sump and failing throttle actuators, but otherwise they’re tough. If any are troublesome it tends to be those that have been over-cared for, as in valeted and detailed every weekend. You’re better off with one that looks like it’s rarely seen a bucket and sponge. As long as it’s had its oil and fluid changes, it’ll be fine. The only mod I might make is a fruitier exhaust, something like a Supersprint. Also consider a custom remap to improve driveability.” Buyer beware ENGINE Some specialists report failing big ends. It’s not mileage-related and the advice is…