Innholdsfortegnelse for February 19, 2020 i Autocar

LAST YEAR, THE UK’s small, specialist manufacturers – including the likes of Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, McLaren, Morgan and Lotus – saw their collective production grow by 16.2% to 30,756 cars built. With the wider doom and gloom around the UK car industry, those figures are a timely reminder that so many of our car makers are truly world class and hugely desirable to buyers globally. One such success story is the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, our road test subject this week (p32). Although many choose not to look past its design, the Cullinan proves to be an excellent car to drive and a hugely appealing ownership proposition for those who can afford it. It also helped Rolls in 2019 to achieve its best annual sales in its 116-year history. It’s often…

The new high-performance Volkswagen Golf R has been spotted testing without camouflage, a fortnight before the unveiling of the latest Golf GTI. Spy photographers saw a prototype undergoing winter testing near the Arctic Circle. Their images reveal that the new hot hatchback is sticking with the formula of its predecessor, with understated performance the order of the day. Telltale R design cues include a quartet of tailpipes, an enlarged lower air intake and R-specific alloy wheels covering performance brakes with blue-painted calipers. Although not yet confirmed, power outputs for all of the hot Mk8 Golf variants (the GTI, GTI TCR, GTD, GTE and R) leaked out last month via a slide from an internal presentation. The slide revealed that the R will put out 329bhp – a 33bhp increase over…

THE NEXT ELECTRIC Kia, due to arrive in 2021, will sit above the existing e-Niro and Soul EV and be based on the Imagine concept that was revealed at last year’s Geneva motor show. The zero-emissions model will take a new name and design, rather than be a variant of an existing model. Kia’s policy is to have stand-alone model lines for its electrified vehicles. The Korean manufacturer recently announced a plan to launch 11 electric vehicles by 2025. This is part of its £19 billion strategy to transform into a maker of electrified vehicles and mobility solutions within the next five years. Kia currently sells two electric models, the e-Niro and Soul EV, both compact crossovers. Adding a larger one will help the brand reach its goal of taking…

KOENIGSEGG WON’T SAY what, but it will hopefully reveal something special on the morning of 3 March at this year’s Geneva motor show. Rumour has it the Swedish supercar maker, known for its highly innovative drivetrains, will reveal a production car concept capable of breaking the 500km/h barrier (a smidge over 310mph). Koenigsegg currently employs two bespoke transmission technologies in its existing models, neither of which exists in mainstream production cars. The question is which, if either, will be used to help raise the speed record bar yet higher. The first is the Koenigsegg Direct Drive (KDD) fitted to the Regera, which does away with selectable gear ratios altogether. However, it’s not a continually variable transmission (CVT); instead, it blends three electric drives with power and torque from the engine…

MODEL TESTED BLACK BADGE Price £306,935 • Power 591bhp • Torque 664lb ft • 0-60mph 4.9sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Fuel economy 18.6mpg • CO2 emissions 343g/km • 70-0mph 48.0m Park your indignation for a moment. The Cullinan might be yet another obscenely large and heavy capitulation to the market’s appetite for SUVs but, in the world of ultra-premium manufacturers, Rolls-Royce stands on firmer ground than any other in terms of precedent. From 1914, armoured cars built upon its Silver Ghost chassis were equipped with water-cooled .303 Vickers machine guns and sent to serve in the First World War. Squadrons a dozen strong made it as far afield as the Middle East, where they helped TE Lawrence conquer Turkish forces in the desert. “More valuable than rubies” was how…

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“At its heart, handling is not measured by a car’s ability to powerslide until its tyres melt” The white Porsche 911 angles into the turn. It’s a quick corner, top end of third gear, but instead of gently coaxing it into the apex, managing its mass and keeping the loaded tyres within the circle of adhesion where longitudinal and lateral forces haggle eternally for grip, the driver sharply lifts and then flattens the throttle. Instantly the car is sideways. It wants to spin, but the driver catches the fast-moving tail with the steering. But no attempt at recovery is made. Instead the foot stays down, the tail stays out, now towing a ball of super-heated, atomised rubber particles. Yet it still finds the apex and still finds the exit before…

“It’s mostly just an excuse to gather some amazing cars for a slidy motorsport party” The sight of a near-silent electric Formula E car on the move is no longer a novelty, but watching Daniel Abt’s Audi E-tron FE06 in action was certainly surreal on this occasion. For one thing, the single-seater wasn’t on a race circuit but a snowbank-lined ice course on a frozen airfield. And it was fitted with studded ice tyres. Oh, and there was a tow rope trailing from its diffuser, at the end of which a skier was hanging on as best he could. And yet that probably wasn’t the weirdest sight you could find in the vicinity of that ice track. Try a 2012 Dakar Rally-winning Mini All4 Racing slithering on ice. Or a…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 15,018 WHY WE RAN IT To discover if it’s as capable as we think it is – or if it’s just silly I know it’s ridiculous, but I’ve enjoyed it, okay? The Ford Ranger Raptor is based on a commercial vehicle but no longer tows or holds enough to be classed as one. It’s an off-roader developed in Australia, tested in the outback and modelled on recce trucks used on the Dakar Rally, but I work in Twickenham. It’s a slightly ludicrous machine, then, to have enjoyed thoroughly, but here we are. It helps, of course, that it’s a large family car, capable of towing 2.7 tonnes of caravan/horsebox/trailer, and returns nearly 30mpg, which is still a perfectly acceptable set of abilities and statistics, even without it…

Audi A2 1.4 SE £3000 Our selection of affordable mould-breakers kicks off with the chic A2. Launched in 2000, it was not only the first European production car to average 94mpg but also the first mass-market vehicle to feature weight-saving concepts in its construction, with aluminium the principal material. The UK got very few of the economy-busting 1.2-litre diesel versions. Instead, buyers could choose from 1.4 and 1.6-litre petrols, and a 1.4-litre diesel in two outputs. Today, it’s the 1.4 petrol and lower-powered 1.4 diesel (they each produce 74bhp) that appear to have weathered best. The direct-injection system in the 1.6 petrol can be troublesome, ditto the dual-mass flywheel in the 89bhp 1.4 diesel. This engine’s turbo suffers carbon build-up, too. At this age, provenance, condition and history should be…

An expert’s view JUSTIN, GROSVENOR GARAGE “The X5 E70 is unreliable but people buy them because they’re so cheap. Some are over £20,000 but plenty more cost from £4000 to £10,000, which is where you run into problems. They look like value, but the next thing they’re spending lots of money on repairs. Some faults aren’t immediately obvious. For example, the rear suspension airbags perish on a routine basis but the air pump keeps working, so the bags appear to be inflated, but one day the air pump packs up and the owner has doubled their repair bill. Buyer beware, indeed!” Buyer beware ▪ ENGINE On LCI engines, listen for timing chain rattles from cold. On all engines, poor starting and rough running may be failing injectors. Exhaust smoke may…

GOT A STORY? Email our news editor lawrence.allan@haymarket.com “The M2 is scheduled to go on sale in the UK in 2022 with a detuned version of the new M4’s engine” BMW has given the production green light to a new rear-wheel-drive M2 performance coupé, as part of a future compact M car line-up that will include a four-wheel-drive M2 Gran Coupé and a 1 Series with more than 400bhp. The second-generation M2 coupé, which takes the internal codename G87, is scheduled to go on sale in the UK in 2022. It will bring with it a detuned version of BMW M’s latest six-cylinder petrol engine, sourced from the soon-to-be-revealed new M3 and M4 and the recently introduced X3 M and X4 M. This twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre petrol unit, dubbed S58,…

New US company Czinger (News, 12 February) has confirmed its “rule-breaking, record-hunting” 21C hypercar will receive 1233bhp from a hybrid powertrain of undisclosed size, allowing it to blast from 0-62mph in a claimed 1.9sec. The powertrain was developed in-house, as was the 21C’s 3D-printed structure, which centres on a two-person in-line seating configuration. The car will make its public debut at the Geneva motor show on 3 March.…

Kia has revealed its new Sorento ahead of the large SUV’s debut at the Geneva show next month. The fourth-generation Skoda Kodiaq rival adopts a design distinctly different to that of its predecessor or any other Kia sold in Europe. This angular styling, which apes the larger Telluride, is likely to be a reflection of its greater sales status in the US than Europe. The Sorento’s proportions have been altered with the aim of making it look longer, by way of shorter front and rear overhangs and a 35mm-longer wheelbase. All other dimensions are only around 10mm greater, although space inside – especially for middle-row passengers – is said to be significantly enhanced, thanks to improved packaging. All UK models will be seven-seaters. The only image of the interior released…

The organisers of a record-breaking drive by an autonomous car on UK roads have hailed the event as a major step forward for the technology. A modified self-driving Nissan Leaf travelled 230 miles from the Japanese car maker’s technical centre in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, to its factory in Sunderland on an trial dubbed the Grand Drive. That route, the longest single journey achieved by an autonomous car in the UK, included B-roads, motorways and challenges such as unlined roads, complex roundabouts, multiple traffic lights and, on motorways alone, overtaking manoeuvres. The record-breaking run was one of two trials undertaken as part of a £13.5 million development programme called HumanDrive and carried out over 30 months with the aim of creating a more human-like autonomous vehicle (AV) experience. The second trial, a…

How private are you on a scale of one to four? That seems like a random question, but it’s one the Volkswagen Group is posing to owners signing up to the We Connect app-based feature it’s now rolling out across its range. Think carefully about your answer, because it determines both what happens to your data and how many features to which you’re given access. If you’re very private, you could be locked out of even what we now think of as basic features. All new cars sold across the European Union since 2018 by law must be connected in order for them to be able to automatically contact emergency services in the event of a crash. So, with an embedded SIM card now mandatory, manufacturers are eagerly exploring what…

Ah, that’s better. Simply turning the key in the ignition is all it takes to confirm that the new Porsche 718 Boxster GTS is already on the right track. In place of a chuntering, sub-Subaru soundtrack, there’s now real mechanical musicality, the engine sited just over your shoulder once again emitting a familiar hollow bark as it fires into life. That’s right: a naturally aspirated flat six has returned to mainstream versions of the firm’s mid-engined roadster. Porsche won’t admit that its four-cylinder philosophy has failed (turbocharged fours remain in the standard, S and T versions) but, having developed a bespoke flat-six engine for the Motorsport division’s Boxster Spyder and Cayman GT4, it seemed, well, a shame to restrict its use. So now we have that 4.0-litre in the Boxster…

Customers who move in the rarefied atmosphere where new Rolls-Royces are sold don’t use anything as ordinary as equipment levels with which to define their cars. Through its Bespoke Collective, the company will do its best to produce any kind of equipment or accessory in your car that you can design, conceive of or might have a use for. You can also commission your own paint colour, should none of the available 44,000 ‘ready to wear’ hues be suitable. The firm’s Black Badge extra-special design and performance treatment, as featured on our test car, first appeared with the Wraith in 2016 and has since been applied to the Ghost and Dawn.…

VERDICT For a great many, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan Black Badge will be at least one convention-defying subversion too far. However, it does add versatility and usability to the Rolls-Royce model portfolio – and both in transformative doses. It manages this without departing so far from the demure and genteel dynamic mould that remains so powerful a selling point for these incredible luxury cars that 95% of owners might notice the difference. As such, it succeeds where it really matters. If, for a moment, we think like a Rolls-Royce owner, with a Phantom at the Hertfordshire estate and a Wraith in Monte Carlo, we might easily imagine having a Cullinan at the desert ranch or ski lodge – where you might freely use it and where it would be a delight…

How expensive can the humble hot hatchback become before the concept loses all meaning for drivers of typical means? Renault recently let its ambition run rampant with a version of the Mégane RS that, in its most pulverisingly hardcore, carbonfibre-wheeled form, costs more than £72,000. It’s an awe-inspiring asking price, and too much, because if most of us wanted an impractical machine that prioritised involvement for that sort of money, we’d have the new Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 or a lightly used Lotus Exige Sport 410. And it wouldn’t require much head-scratching to come to that realisation. But now Mercedes-AMG is having a go. Its effort is called the A45 S, and all £50,570 of it (£56,570 for the option-laden Plus driven here) is being chased across the sort of…

Hällered proving ground sits an hour’s drive east of Gothenburg and seems an exemplary place to experience a Polestar 2 for the very first time. Sets of quiet, remote test tracks wind among the forest and chime with the car’s environmental brief. Unlike the plug-in hybrid Polestar 1, the 2 is entirely electric, with a WLTP range of 311 miles and nothing less than the Tesla Model 3 in its sights. This place also has space enough to properly exploit the performance on offer. Which is lucky because, with a dedicated electric motor for each axle, the 2 makes 487lb ft – more even than the Nissan GT-R on p42 – and does so almost instantly. But Hällered also feels an odd place to become better acquainted with the 2,…

So, the government has brought forward its ban on petrol and diesel cars (News 12 February). I question how this is in any way helpful to the case for EVs. Assuming that the merits of electricectric cars are well founded, their adoption by the masses should be organic and self-sustaining; build a better product and make it affordable and people will buy it. Then there will be no need for a petrol and diesel ban. The government would do well to encourage adoption via better tax incentives and, most importantly, a massive drive on infrastructureure to actually try to solve the problems that are holding EVs back. I don’t recall the horse being banned to boost the sale of the motor car. Andrew FletcherVia email WIN Letter of the week…

MILEAGE 2114 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the magic touch Volvo has with its premium SUVs translates to this compact executive saloon Since arriving at Autocar, the S60 has spent most of its time shuttling to airports or on short local trips to and from my Hertfordshire home. It was enough to give a glimpse of its character, but I felt I needed an extended spell in the Volvo to really get under its skin, not to mention properly run in that turbocharged 2.0-litre engine. Fortunately, the opportunity to properly stretch soon arose when I needed to spend a few days away visiting family in Jersey. The early morning drag south for the ferry from Poole certainly played to the S60’s strengths. With the kids snoozing in…

Blink and you’d have missed them. The Fiat 124 Spider and its sister car, the more powerful Abarth, were on sale for just two years, from 2016-18. Fiat gave no explanation for their abrupt demise other than to say they were no longer on sale. Pundits reckoned its failure to get the Multiair engines through the tough new WLTP tests was the reason. Whatever the truth, their departure was a sad loss for sports car enthusiasts who were now denied a capable and distinctive alternative to the brilliant but ubiquitous Mazda MX-5 Mk4 on which they were based (they even share interiors). That’s enthusiasts wedded to buying new, by the way. The good news is there’s a decent number of used Fiat and Abarth 124s on the used car market…

Production of the old Defender ceased in 2016 but as minds turned to its replacement, Land Rover celebrated the model’s 70th anniversary in 2018 with the launch of the Works V8. Powered by a 5.0-litre Jaguar engine producing 399bhp and 380lb ft and with an eight-speed automatic gearbox, the new edition was built around specially selected examples of nearly new Defender 90s and 110s. Land Rover’s Classic division assembled 150 of them. Prices started at £150,000 and within a month they’d sold out. A 90 Works with 57 miles was sold at auction recently for £129,000. No investment, then.…

The all-new i20, revealed ahead of its public debut at next month’s Geneva motor show, represents the start of a “revolutionary and ambitious” new design language for Hyundai. The third-generation Vauxhall Corsa rival is set to go on sale in May and introduces what Hyundai describes as a theme of “sensuous sportiness” that will be applied across the rest of its line-up in due course. The latest i10 city car features a watered-down version of the i20’s angular look, while the facelifted i30 (see below) and new Tucson SUV for 2021 will adopt a similar design approach. Further to the adoption of distinctive creases and other styling details new to Hyundai, the latest i20 is proportionally different from its predecessor, being 30mm wider, 5mm longer and 24mm lower. Its wheelbase…

MERCEDES HAS REVEALED the Coupé version of AMG’s new GLE 63, which utilises a mild-hybrid powertrain. Aside from the sharply styled roofline, the sports SUV is virtually identical to the GLE 63 that came out last November, pairing AMG’s 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged petrol V8 with a 48V starter-alternator. The mild-hybrid tech supplies an extra 22bhp and 184lb ft when required. The GLE 63 Coupé will be offered in 563bhp regular and 603bhp S forms. However, as with the standard GLE, only the S will be offered in the UK. British buyers will therefore be able to experience a 0-62mph time of 3.8sec and a top speed of 174mph – both identical to the SUV version. The Coupé also gets the same nine-speed automatic gearbox, 4Matic+ four-wheel drive, active air suspension, active…

The Grand Drive Nissan Leaf bristles with stereo cameras, laser scanners, a radar and a military-grade GPS system. All feed data to multiple autonomous driving and vehicle control ECUs. The boot is filled with a rack of computer equipment that, Nissan claims, will eventually be miniaturised. The Hitachi-equipped cars used for the MUEAVI trials have forward-facing stereo cameras working with rear- and side-mounted lidar sensors to provide the richest possible picture. Behind the scenes, Leeds University used its Virtuocity driving simulator to capture driving style and behaviour data for modelling and refining the autonomous driving controllers to behave in more human-like ways.…

There’s an M badge on the back and a suitably weighty number next to it, yet the new M235i Gran Coupé isn’t what could be termed a traditionalist’s choice. Like the M135i hot hatch, it’s based on BMW’s natively front-driven FAAR architecture, with power coming from a four-cylinder engine in place of the sonorous straight six that still propels the M240i Coupé. That means lifting the bonnet of this four-door 2 Series reveals the incongruous sight of a short engine sitting across the bay and mounted entirely ahead of the front axle line. This is a detail that will offend some people, possibly to the point of rage, but it’d be unfair to turn this first review into an ethical inquisition into the company’s bold new direction. After all, Mercedes…

They say that good things come in small packages. They also say that too much of a good thing can, well, sort of be a bad thing. So does that mean that a large collection of small packages might be something we should be mildly concerned about? They (whoever they might be) don’t seem to have any pearls of wisdom on the subject, which is probably a good thing if you’re in the compact SUV-making game. Peugeot’s latest creation is the second-generation 2008 and, based on interior and exterior style appeal alone, it could well be one of the most desirable of its type yet. The 129bhp Puretech GT Line is expected to be the best-selling model. It’s priced from £26,100, placing it in the same ballpark as the similarly…

1 BENTLEY BENTAYGA SPEED Has versatility and breadth of ability the Rolls can’t touch. Plush and aloof one moment, fast and composed the next. 2 ROLLS-ROYCE CULLINAN BLACK BADGE Drive has most of the grace and refinement the appearance lacks. Enormous luxury appeal. 3 LAMBORGHINI URUS Much more the super-sports car on stilts than the high-rise luxury conveyance; but capable of the genuinely hair-raising. 4 RANGE ROVER SVAUTOBIOGRAPHY LWB Once singularly lustrous shine of the big Rangie has dulled with age and competition. A fine thing. 5 MASERATI LEVANTE TROFEO Top-of-the-range Levante has a Ferrari turbo V8 for power and plenty of fairly exotic driver appeal. Substance a bit lacking.…

No point beating around the bush: the Polestar 2 is good to drive. It may never set your synapses on fire but the natural steering response is well matched to what the suspension is doing, and on Hällered’s quick, flowing handling course, the Ohlins dampers – hydraulically textured in their movements – only ever need one bite of the cherry to get the body under control. Given the powertrain layout, it is no surprise that the car’s balance is good and one can’t fail to notice how high the limits of grip are compared with, say, an XC40. It can be teased into neatly rotating on the brakes, but snow and ice are required to get the car expressing itself under power. On the more challenging rough-road tracks (there are…

COMPARISON Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé vs Polestar 1 vs Porsche Taycan We assess three very different takes on the high-performance grand tourer – and find out whether petrol, hybrid or electric power is best FEATURE Renaultsport Méganes reunited Tracing the lineage of one of the greatest-ever hot hatches FEATURE Bond behind the scenes We visit the set of the new 007 film to see Aston stunt cars in action EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Skoda Superb iV Skoda’s first plug-in hybrid faces the toughest test in the business USED BUYING GUIDE Volkswagen Beetle This icon was revived in 1998 and lived on for 13 years. Here’s what to look for LONG-TERM TEST Mercedes-Benz E300de Andrew Frankel sums up life with this diesel-electric plug-in hybrid SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p40 CONTENTS SUBJECT…

MILEAGE 10,777 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Because a plug-in hybrid diesel seems like the best of both worlds. But can reality live up to the theory? The winter tyres turned up just in time for the first properly cold snap of the season and, round where I live, you really need them – especially if your transport is a two-tonne rear-driver with no limited-slip differential. And the Pirelli Sottozeros are simply superb, just as they were in a somewhat different application on the McLaren 720S I ran before the Benz. The greatest compliment I can pay them is that for the vast majority of the time you are unaware of their existence. There’s little or no additional pollution of the steering, and an at most fractional degradation in ride comfort,…

Yes, you could spend loadsamoney on a Land Rover Defender instead. But this handy-sized 4x4 is so capable. We’d go for the independent-suspension models and totally ignore the normally aspirated diesel, or petrol. The 2.8 Turbo is best. The really interesting thing about the Fourtrak is that it hasn’t changed much over the years. Stick a non-year plate on one and there is no telling how old it actually is. So there really is an alternative to the ubiquitous and often expensive Defender that is just as practical and able but with the edge on build quality, comfort and sheer value for used 4x4 money. Can’t think of a higher compliment than that. A 1996 TDS Fourtrak with 250k miles is £1000.…

Toyota Celica 1.8 VVTL-I GT Price £5490 Not an obvious future classic, but the seventh-generation Toyota Celica GT of 2006 has many of the qualities necessary to qualify. For one thing, it’s a dedicated coupé and not a hatchback with the rear doors filled in. It looks the part, too, with its reduced ride height compared with the standard model, its oversized, Supra-like rear spoiler and its neatly integrated bodykit. Also in the mix is a revvy, variable-valve 1.8-litre motor and a sweet-changing six-speed ’box. Finally, few exist and it was made by Toyota, so it’ll never break.…

Read ‘Buyer Beware’ over on the right and you might wonder why we’re spending time on this second-gen X5, launched in 2007. Weak timing chains, disintegrating swirl flaps, leaky suspension airbags… the list goes on. Specialists were unanimous in their condemnation of the vehicle, while one leading used car warranty company rates the vehicle as poor, with an average repair bill of £612. Axles and suspension attract the lion’s share of claims, followed by the electrics and the engine. Why buy one? Good question, but people do, tempted by prices starting as low as £4000 for the 232bhp 30d diesel, but rising to £24,000 for the monster 547bhp X5 M. There’s a diesel M50d, too, with a triple-turbo 3.0-litre engine making 375bhp and 546lb ft – 45lb ft more than…

For full reviews of every car listed here, visit our website, autocar.co.uk ECONOMY EXPLAINED Between the various figures produced on the old-style ‘NEDC’, transitional ‘NEDC correlated’ and new-style ‘WLTP’ lab emissions and fuel economy tests, it’s become tricky to compare manufacturers’ claimed efficiency on the latest new cars. When you see a fuel economy and CO2 figure reference elsewhere, it’s often without explanation. So, to provide as fair and clear a basis for comparison as possible, you’ll only ever read ‘WLTP combined’ fuel economy and CO2 figures in Autocar’s first drive reviews, features and comparison tests – and on these data pages. Those are the aggregated result of four lab tests carried out across as many different cruising speed ranges – although they’re sometimes expressed as a range rather than…