Innholdsfortegnelse for August 28, 2019 i Autocar

RECENTLY, JAGUAR APPEALED to the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition of a car. According to the OED, a car is “a road vehicle powered by a motor (usually an internal combustion engine)”. Jaguar wants that to be updated given the rise of electric cars – including the I-Pace, which we’ve just added to our long-term fleet (p64). Car terminology is becoming dated. For example, the Porsche Taycan is set to have Turbo and Turbo S variants – despite lacking an engine and turbochargers. Away from EVs, four-door SUV coupés are on the rise, despite dictionaries insisting a coupé has only two doors. The meaning of words change over time. As electric cars become the norm, long-standing terminology will adjust with it. What’s key for us driving enthusiasts is…

The next Mercedes-Benz C-Class has been redesigned from the ground up, with highly efficient new hybrid drivetrains and advanced autonomous driving technology set to be some of its key draws. Having experienced a sharp drop in C-Class sales in recent years because of the universal gravitation of buyers towards SUVs, the German maker is providing the fifth-generation model with many of the developments being readied for the new S-Class. The new C-Class, codenamed W206, will challenge the recently facelifted Audi A4 and new BMW 3 Series when it arrives in UK showrooms in 2021. As evidenced by the latest prototypes, the design of the new C-Class is a clear evolution of the styling seen on today’s model. Although its exterior features a new-look front end with more angular headlights, the…

Mercedes-AMG has also worked its magic on the GLE Coupé, unveiling the GLE 53 variant at the same time. A prelude to the full-blown GLE 63 that’s expected next year, it features a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged inline six petrol engine with 429bhp and 384lb ft of torque. It also has a 48V mild-hybrid system, making use the firm’s EQ Boost starter/alternator that delivers an additional 22bhp and 184lb ft for short periods and improves efficiency. It makes the SUV capable of 0-62mph in 5.3sec and a governed 155mph, yet also a claimed 30mpg combined. As with other Mercedes-AMG models, there are revisions to the chassis, including retuned active ride control and air suspension, a more direct steering set-up and a high-performance braking system with 400mm-diameter front discs. AMG-specific styling modifications inside…

Hyundai’s Frankfurt motor show star is an electric concept called the 45, previewed in this first official image. Named to mark the launch in 1974 of the brand’s first production car, the Pony, it takes design inspiration from that model. It features a retro-style LED rear light bar that displays a matrix animation on start-up and is said to “act as a symbolic milestone for Hyundai’s future EV design”. It doesn’t preview a particular future model, though. The 45 will appear alongside an all-new i10 city car and a not-for-UK special i30 N called the Project C (see p15).…

BENTLEY WILL UPDATE its best-selling model, the Bentayga SUV, next year to bring it into line with its latest models – and disguised prototypes have hit the road. The Bentayga has been around since 2016 with no significant styling or technology upgrades. Since its launch, an all-new Continental GT has arrived and the latest generation of the Flying Spur will appear in dealers soon. To ensure the Rolls-Royce Cullinan rival is brought up to date, revisions to the exterior will bring it into step with the brand’s latest look. It’s too early to tell how extensive these will be, but expect a reshaped grille, fresh bumpers and tweaks to the front and rear lights. Just as significant will be the technology overhaul inside. The current car’s infotainment system has been…

If car ownership levels stay as they are now, the UK isn’t going to fulfil its climate change promises. That was the conclusion reached by MPs from the Science and Technology Committee last week. Even electric cars aren’t seen as a panacea to the problem, mainly because factories would pump out too much CO2 to replace cars at the rate we currently buy them. The committee’s recommendations were pretty scary for any car owner. “In the long term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation,” its report said. However, not all motoring came under attack. Car-share schemes emerged from the report as the one long-term option that keeps a lid on CO2 output, mainly because they’re compatible with electric technology but also because, according…

For reasons I think I understand, this story feels different. Every week, we go some place to drive some thing, and lucky we are to do so. But to drive the first all-electric Porsche – well that, surely, is different. Different because Porsche and electricity seem as natural a fit as fire and ice. Different because if Porsche really can pull it off and produce the world’s first electric production driver’s car, the ramifications could be enormous. But, for Porsche, perhaps not quite so enormous if it cannot. Because of the way the media is micro-managed these days, especially with cars as important as this, there is still much about the Porsche Taycan I am not allowed to say, because the car has yet even to be unveiled. So far…

If you haven’t been keeping count, this is now the fourth powertrain option to make its way into Hyundai’s popular compact crossover. Petrol and electric versions remain, with this hybrid effectively replacing the axed diesel model. It’s a familiar set-up, with the same 1.6-litre four-pot petrol engine and 32kW electric motor as the Ioniq hybrid. Both work in parallel to drive the front wheels only, and the small 1.56kWh battery pack recharges itself entirely through braking and coasting. Hyundai’s choice of six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox should, in theory, mean less droning than a CVT too. That’s largely true for sedate city driving, with the default Eco mode dropping back to battery power alone whenever it can and the engine staying fairly innocuous. But it does blunt the accelerator, even if…

Ford’s Ranger Raptor is a curious machine and, speaking objectively and dispassionately, a rather flawed one in some ways. For a performance car, its engine is lacklustre and its heavily compromised payload makes it of little use as a pick-up truck. It’s expensive and certainly not the most sensible family vehicle you’ll find at its price point. But regardless of all of this, it is an incredibly difficult car to dislike. The remarkable lengths to which Ford Performance has gone to re-engineer the Ranger’s chassis and suspension for really punishing off-road use are impressive just to contemplate. The capability the changes then afford it off road and the level of abuse they allow it to deal with, meanwhile, really do beggar belief. That it’s still as comfortable as it is…

Volkswagen is progressing ever faster towards an electric future with its new ID sub-brand. It has invested around £40 billion in its electrification programme, looking firmly to the future of motoring. But the latest in a series of ID concept cars harks back to a far simpler machine. The ID Buggy is a back-to-basics off-road two-seater inspired by the classic Meyers Manx Dune Buggy. Like its forebear, the Buggy does without doors and a fixed roof and it features minimal controls. But whereas the Meyers Manx machine was built on a VW Beetle chassis, the ID Buggy uses VW’s new MEB electric car platform – the same one that will underpin the forthcoming ID 3 hatchback. The aim is to inject some fun into the ID family and to showcase…

GROUP TEST Old rivals, new rules We pitch a Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes-Benz EQC and Audi E-tron against each other, as well as a Tesla Model X, in our big electric SUV showdown FEATURE Rimac revealed An in-depth look at the Croatian hypercar firm’s bold future plans FEATURE Hillclimb with a difference We pack our thermals and tackle the Himalayas… in a rickshaw EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Tesla Model 3 The definitive, eight-page verdict on Elon Musk’s pride and joy USED BUYING GUIDE Lotus Elan Front-drive Lotus shocked in 1989, but is it a good buy in 2019? FIRST DRIVE Vauxhall Astra Vauxhall’s Focus rival has had a mid-life makeover. We rate it SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p20…

MILEAGE 10,007 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the third-gen Conti GT rules the roost as the ultimate grand tourer It’s perhaps no surprise to learn that if you have the dosh to buy a Bentley, you can expect a personalised experience when speccing your car. This has long been the case, but Bentley is bringing it to the digital age with its Bentley Network app. We’re already in our Continental GT, so we did a hypothetical exercise to spec my next Bentley in the way that so many loyal Bentley owners do. First up is the questionnaire. Having shown interest in a new car, I receive a link in my Bentley app inbox. It asks questions aimed at someone with a far more grandiose lifestyle than me, but…

Skoda Fabia vRS Here is part two of Nick’s inspiring tale, which began last week with his Peugeot 206 banger. “My colleague’s granny bought a Skoda Fabia vRS diesel new in 2004 and then passed it on a couple of years back. It’s done 99,000 miles with full history but it isn’t perfect: the bushes need replacing, the fuel cap doesn’t clip shut, the radio maintains a poor grasp on a signal and the bonnet is sun-bleached. But I’m now stopping at the pumps once every seven days rather than every four. It cost me £700 with no increase on my insurance. I put a fresh MOT on the Peugeot 206 and sold it – for £700. I’d call that a free upgrade!”…

Volkswagen Beetle 2.0 TSI Turbo Price £9985 The last Beetle scuttled out of the Mexico factory recently, making this a good time to comb the family album for promising derivatives. And lo, we found this: the 2.0 TSI Turbo with 197bhp and an impressive 206lb ft at just 1700rpm. Check out those 19in Tornado alloys, rear spoiler, privacy glass and red, uprated brake calipers. True, it’s a stretch to imagine it might one day achieve real classic status, but with looks, rarity and performance on its side, it must stand a fairly good chance. And they don’t make them any more……

Jaguar is favouring a mid-engined layout for the next-generation F-Type – and it is set to revive a number of design cues from the ill-fated C-X75 concept. The brand’s designers and engineers are mulling key decisions about the direction of the next-generation Porsche 911 rival, chief among which is whether to stick with the current front-mid-engined layout or reinvent it as an electrified – or even pure electric – model with a mid-mounted powertrain. Autocar understands that the latter is favoured by those close to the project. Speaking recently to Autocar, now former design director Ian Callum revealed he had laid out a blueprint for the next generation of sports car in collaboration with his successor, Julian Thomson. “We could get quite close [to the C-X75],” Callum said. “There’s…

Seat’s electrification roll-out has begun with a plug-in hybrid Tarraco, which is due at next month’s Frankfurt motor show. Available to order in the first half of 2020, the petrol-electric SUV will be the first launched by any of the Volkswagen Group’s non-premium brands. The Tarraco PHEV makes use of a 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine, putting out 148bhp. It’s mated to a 113bhp electric motor and 13kWh lithium ion battery pack. The total system output is quoted at 242bhp and 295lb ft. That’s sufficient to enable a top speed of 135mph and a 0-62mph time of 7.4sec. Official fuel economy has yet to be quoted prior to homologation, but CO2 emissions are said to be below 50g/km. Seat claims a pure-electric range of “more than” 31 miles. The Tarraco PHEV…

MOUNTUNE HAS TAKEN the Ford Focus RS to a whole new performance level with two new packages – and the most powerful boosts the hot hatchback’s output to 513bhp. Each new package replaces the 2.3-litre Ecoboost unit’s existing turbocharger with a bespoke BorgWarner item. In the lesser-powered M450 package – priced from £2950 – the new turbocharger boosts output to 444bhp and 428lb ft of torque. That’s considerably more than the 416bhp of the Mercedes-AMG A45, currently the most powerful production hot hatchback on sale. Mountune’s next step for the Focus RS is the M520, using a more advanced BorgWarner turbo alongside an uprated fuel pump, camshafts and valvetrain, plus a recalibrated ECU, for 513bhp and 516lb ft. That kit costs a minimum of £5975. Both packages also get a…

PORSCHE HAS REVEALED the interior of its first electric production car, the Taycan, ahead of its public debut at the Frankfurt show next month. The Tesla Model S rival’s cabin takes the brand’s design and technology to a new level. It’s based around up to four digital displays, including a curved, free-standing 16.8in configurable driver’s display – Porsche’s first fully digital instrument binnacle. To the right of that, the Taycan has a 10.9in infotainment screen, where navigation, music and connectivity functions are handled. To the right of that – uniquely for Porsche – is an optional screen of the same size for the passenger. It can’t control driving functions but allows the passenger to programme the sat-nav and media features independently. Finally, there’s an 8.4in portrait-format screen on the centre…

MODEL TESTED RAPTOR Price £47,874 • Power 210bhp • Torque 367lb ft • 0-60mph 10.5sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Fuel economy 24.4mpg • CO2 emissions 233g/km • 70-0mph 57.7m And so the inexorable rise of the SUV continues. It is not just big chunky ones that are unstoppable – we’ve tested a new Jeep Wrangler and Mercedes G-Class and will soon be in a Land Rover Defender this year – but these days there’s about an evens chance that your family car is one, too. But it goes on. There are already performance passenger SUVs and now this: the pick-up made into a sports car, the Ford Ranger Raptor. In the US, Ford has sold an F-150 truck with Raptor badging for a while. It has an oversized, overpowered…

1 ARIEL NOMAD No other car lets you take so much joy from so few components. Epic on tracks, but otherworldly across broken terrain. 2 JEEP WRANGLER RUBICON Rock-climbing king and loaded with personality. Not especially quick but, in the Wrangler’s most off-road-focused Rubicon trim, almost unstoppable. 3 FORD RANGER RAPTOR It deserves a better engine but the suspension is a masterwork. Shame it isn’t more broadly usable as a commercial vehicle. 4 ISUZU D-MAX AT35 Arctic Trucks’ D-Max could hardly be less pretentious. It comes up short on refinement and ride quality but is a tool truck if ever there was one. 5 BOWLER DEFENDER CHALLENGE This isn’t the last word in sophistication but it is sensationally tough and surprisingly agile.…

Guess who wants to go first when it’s decision time at an Autocar Handling Day test and you have to take your turn to sit down at our veteran Windows laptop (no brutish jabbing at the keyboard, please; it’s pre-war) and type your final scores into the all-knowing spreadsheet of doom? Nobody – that’s who. Trust me, there’s much less ‘politeness’ when we open the pit lane. From urgent phone calls to bursting toilet commitments, every stalling tactic you can think of suddenly comes into play in order to prevent a given road tester from being the first to vote, and therefore being unable to sneak a peek at his colleagues’ rankings before committing his own. As the bloke who usually sets up the Excel score sheet, my votes are…

Bruce Meyers, a surfer and former marine turned boat builder, was intrigued by the heavy, eight-cylinder beach buggies he started seeing on the Californian beaches in the early 1960s but felt he could do better. His solution: shorten a Beetle platform and make a new glassfibre body for it. It maintained the Beetle’s flat-four engine and rear-drive layout, with the shorter wheelbase boosting handling. The buggy proved so popular that Meyers set up the Meyers Manx firm to produce them, making around 6000 between 1965 and 1971. Its lightweight design won over admirers (helped by prominent appearances in films such as The Thomas Crown Affair) and ensured it dominated dune racing. It also inspired other small-scale manufacturers to produce their own Beetle-based buggies. A total of 250,000 such buggies are…

QUESTION I’ve seen a one-owner, 2015 BMW i3 Range Extender with 77k miles for £12,950. It would be my first EV. Does it sound like a good buy? Don Shelby, Bristol ANSWER The range extender version is no longer made so used ones are sought after. You can expect up to 180 miles of range from the car compared with 100 miles max from the regular i3. If the batteries have always been topped up and the extender never used, the 650cc motor occasionally cuts in to keep itself fresh. Its servicing is condition-based and should be recorded on the key fob. However, the motor was subject to recalls, so check they were actioned. All being well, it sounds good. JE QUESTION I’m planning a driving trip after October, but…

Nissan GT-R £32,990 It’s a constant source of amazement that the company that trots out the Micra and Pulsar is the same one that fashions the mighty GT-R. It arrived in the UK in 2009 costing from £57,000, but today’s updated and more powerful version starts at £82,000. All this makes the 50,000-mile 2009 Black Edition we saw for sale at £32,990 very tempting indeed. It has every service accounted for, most performed by leading specialist Litchfield. Being a Black Edition, it has powered seats, a Bose sound system and automatic headlights. Any worries about how it’s been driven can be addressed by taking it to an official Nissan GT-R performance centre, which, for about £60, will interrogate its software. Within a few days, its darkest secrets will drop through…

If the Alfa Romeo GTV could talk, it would still be hoarse from its acceptance speeches. In 1995 it garnered at least 10 gongs, two of them from this magazine: Best Sports Car and Car of the Year. Almost 25 years later, the champagne may have gone flat but this 2+2 coupé (there’s also a two-seater roadster called the Spider) is still impressing enthusiasts, as prices approaching £10,000 attest. Such a sum buys a one-owner, 42,500-mile GTV 3.0 V6 24v Lusso registered in 2001. But you don’t have to pay that. We turned up an example of the rarer and more sought-after 3.2 V6 Lusso. It’s done 92,000 miles, has full history and is being offered for £7495. It dates from 2003, the year this most powerful version was launched…

An expert’s view NED KIRKHAM, DIRECTOR, AUTOLUSSO “I’d buy a Phase 2 3.0 V6 with the CF2 engine. The CF2 was a useful improvement on the CF1 in the Phase 1 car but not as complicated as the later CF3 that complied with Euro 3 standards. Then I’d fit a Quaife ATB limited-slip diff. It makes a big improvement to the way the 3.0-litre turns in because without it, it can understeer horribly. Avoid the JTS – it suffers oil dilution caused by its direct fuel injection, which causes cylinder bore, camshaft and big-end bearing wear. It also suffers from carbon buildup in the intakes. Look out for the 3.2. Only 54 were sold in the UK and a good one is highly prized.” Buyer beware ■ ENGINE All engines…

Before the Jaguar F-Type evolves into a new generation, efforts to update the current six-year-old design are well under way. Recent prototypes show a significant rethink to the sports car’s front-end design, with slim headlights similar to those on the facelifted XE saloon drafted in, alongside a redesigned grille, new bonnet shape and tweaks to the rear light design. The interior is expected to be a step forward, too, with some of the advanced infotainment features seen in the XE and I-Pace brought in. The biggest mechanical change will be found under the engine bay. Ford will stop producing JLR’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8 next year, and the F-Type is tipped to receive a BMW-sourced 4.4-litre V8 in its place. Lesser variants will also get a new unit in the form…

Mercedes-Benz has extended its SUV portfolio with a second generation of the GLE Coupé. Revealed ahead of its public debut at the Frankfurt motor show next month, the BMW X6 rival will arrive in dealerships in spring 2020. The newcomer raises the number of Mercedes SUV models to eight, indicating the significance to the brand of a sector that accounts for a third of its global sales. The GLE Coupé joins an ever-growing segment of style-focused variants of traditional high-riding models and can also count the Porsche Cayenne Coupé, Audi Q8 and Range Rover Velar as competitors. Despite sharing its underpinnings with the standard GLE, the GLE Coupé is 15mm longer and a substantial 63mm wider. Its wheelbase is 20mm longer than the previous version’s but is still 60mm shorter…

The boss of Jaguar’s Special Vehicle Operations arm has said it’s a question of “when, not if” the firm builds an SVR version of the I-Pace battery-electric SUV. Michael van der Sande made the admission to Autocar, despite also acknowledging that a timeline and official development plan for the car is not yet in place. SVO is prioritising the roll-out of more volume-focused models. SVO already develops and builds the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy race cars that support the Formula E electric race series. “Those cars all come from our base in Oxford Road,” said van der Sande, “and they’ve taught us a lot. By the time you fit the roll-cage and race kit, they’re only slightly lighter than standard. “But the battery’s duty cycle is very different in racing. We’ve…

McLaren is readying a faster, lighter, Long Tail version of the 720S for launch next year – and a new prototype caught testing appears to confirm development is well under way. This test mule looks at first to be a standard 720S with some modifications, but tell-tale cues include Gurney flaps and a much larger front splitter. Although the traditional Long Tail extended rear end – found on models such as the 600LT – doesn’t feature on this early mule, the extended spoiler plastered in tape suggests engineers are testing for such bodywork modifications prior to completing them. McLaren is yet to confirm whether or not it’ll use the 750LT name for the Long Tail model, but earlier this year, CEO Mike Flewitt told Autocar that the power gain from…

SINCE THE MILLENNIUM and rapidly developing emissions legislation, automatic transmission technology has moved on at a pace. To perform economically, engines need to run in the most efficient part of their operating cycle, the ‘sweet spot’, as often as possible. To do that, they need a transmission with enough gear ratios. Autos increased from three to four gears in the 1980s and from four to five in the 1990s, but to make the jump to six took some figuring out due to the extra space needed. Epicyclic (aka planetary) gearsets are the building blocks of traditional automatic gearboxes and consist of a sun gear surrounded by three or more planet gears inside a ring gear. German transmission manufacturer ZF was one of those which succeeded in making a huge leap…

VOLKSWAGEN WILL UNVEIL a revamped logo as part of a major rebranding at this year’s Frankfurt motor show. The fresh look, called ‘New Volkswagen’, has been in development for more than three years and has its roots in changes the firm has made following the Dieselgate scandal. The reveal is timed to match the launch of the ID 3, the firm’s first vehicle built on the MEB electric platform. But the first car to go on sale featuring the new logo will be the Mk8 Golf in early 2020. VW’s current logo has been in use since 2012. The revamped version retains the VW letters in a circle but uses a simpler, two-dimensional design, with the letters no longer touching. It will appear in white on ID electric cars and…

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The Skoda Kamiq’s headlights are upside down. That might be the most daring and enigmatic thing about this new compact crossover hatchback, which is set to join bigger SUV-ish siblings the Karoq and Kodiaq in UK showrooms later this year. On those two larger cars, the dipped-beam projectors sit just above the daytime-running light (DRL) strips as part of one combined lamp unit. On the new Kamiq, though, the DRLs are sited above and the headlights themselves sit – separately, as it happens – just below. And this is what passes for ‘interesting’ on a compact Skoda in 2019: a design trick already pulled by the Citroën C3 Aircross and Hyundai Kona a year ago, for what it’s worth. Remember those crazy, free-spirited types – the Roomster and Yeti? Well,…

Pick-ups by their nature have long wheelbases and lengthy rear overhangs and that doesn’t make for good breakover and departure angles. Thanks to a pretty mammoth 283mm ground clearance, though, the Raptor’s are better than most. At 24deg, neither is as good as, say, the Mercedes G-Class that graced these pages a few weeks ago, but it’s fiercely good for a truck. The 32.5deg approach angle is great in any class, ditto an 850mm wade depth. That ground clearance, wade depth and an under-body bash plate made of 2.3mm high-strength steel give clues to what the Raptor really likes doing off road. This is a long car with a large turning circle so is not built for delicate turns through tight woodland tracks – although it’ll put up a better…

Spend a little, get a lot: that’s the spirit in which Autocar’s annual Britain’s Best Affordable Driver’s Car competition is convened – and it has yet to fail to produce an engaging contest or to address the appetite-whetting relevance needed to make for essential reading on any of the previous occasions we’ve run it since the turn of the decade. This year, BBADC majors on variety. It brings together examples of go-faster fun from purveyors of the stuff as alphabetically distant as Abarth is from Volkswagen. It includes performance-tuned takes on the supermini, city car, estate car and four-door fastback GT, as well as several full-sized hot hatchbacks – and one classic sports car appearing in none other than its 30th anniversary year. Front-driven, rear-driven and all-wheel-driven options are included…

In previous years, we’ve strapped our timing gear to each of the contenders and sent Matt Saunders out to see which can set the quickest lap time. This year, slightly variable weather – and the organisational deficiencies of the road test editor – denied us the necessary time. It’s a good job, then, that fast lap times aren’t directly proportional to fun behind the wheel. Had we pitched each of these cars against the stopwatch, both previous testing experience and gut instinct suggests that the Civic would have set the pace. The Type R feels devastatingly quick, successfully balancing surgical precision and agility through the tight sections of track at Bus Stop and Devil’s Elbow with masses of grip and accelerative power through the sweeping right-hander that leads on to…

No defence for Defender I disagree with editor Mark Tisshaw that the new Defender “must be judged on its toughness”. All those who used to buy them for their toughness have moved to crew cab pick-up trucks that offer more reliability, practicality and value for money along with well-engineered toughness required for working on farms and construction sites. To be honest, I’m not sure why Land Rover has even bothered to test the new Defender off road. It’s so expensive and far removed from the original that any owner wouldn’t dare risk a scratch to its pearlescent paintwork, let alone a flooded interior or damaged sump. The days of Defenders being the lifeline to communities in remote parts of the world, fighting wars and being repaired in shacks by mechanics…

MILEAGE 4343 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT The sporting appeal of BMW’s roadster has diminished over the generations. We want to find out if it’s back The Z4 was in high demand around the Autocar office last month thanks to July’s sweltering weather – and because the onslaught of rain that would inevitably follow would instantly thwart any roof-down driving. My turn behind the wheel had been booked well in advance, less to take advantage of the sun, more to coincide with our annual affordable performance car test (reverentially known as Junior Handling Day here in the office, see p42). It meant a chance to experience the BMW on track at Llandow Circuit in south Wales, and to find out whether a selection of the best hot hatchbacks going would give…

MILEAGE 55,175 VOLKSWAGEN GOLF The immediate follow-up to last week’s fat-pin-in-tyre crisis: the Michelin Fit2Go tyre checker said the pressure was dropping fast, and a tyre specialist condemned the rubber. Given that the car belongs to Miss Ruppert, it’s up to her to do the shopping around. She found a 205/55 R16 19W Michelin Energy Saver to match the rest for £76 fitted. At times like these, a good old-fashioned space saver would really help, and my daughter wasn’t keen on using a tin of tyre gunge. The garage, though, took the car in a day early.…

Four years ago, the all-new Volvo XC90 arrived in a blaze of ice-cool Scandi glory – if that’s not a contradiction – and a price tag to match: £68,785 for the D5 First Edition. This limited-edition version was a showcase for the new Land Rover Discovery rival and featured air suspension, nappa leather and a 1400W Bowers & Wilkins sound system, in addition to the model’s impressive and appealing roster of standard-fit safety kit. It was a lot of money, but then Volvo has always had an inflated sense of its own worth. Not so the used car market. It has a different view of the Chinese-owned Swedish brand, and the result is that today you can pick up a one-owner, 2015-reg First Edition with 52,000 miles and a panoramic…

PORSCHE 928 S4 AUTO Proof that auctions are the place to go if you want a bargain is this 150,000-mile, 1988-reg 928 that went for £9056. A bargain? Not if it’s a bucket, but this one has just been serviced, so there’s another stamp to add to the 13 already in the file. It had an engine rebuild in 1997 and since then has had £8000 spent on it, with an aluminium radiator among the new parts. We’d have been keen to check that belts, tensioner and water pump had been changed at intervals, that the gearbox isn’t leaking and that the underside and window surrounds are free of rust.…