Innholdsfortegnelse for December 23, 2020 i Autocar

“Despite its performance, it has been designed to stay drivable at lesser speeds” Long-established US tuning company Hennessey has launched its first fully bespoke hypercar, with which it aims to break the road car speed record, thanks to a maximum in excess of 311mph. First previewed with a styling model in 2018, the carbonfibre-bodied F5 Venom is differentiated from 2011’s ultra-low-volume Venom GT by utilising an in-house platform instead of a heavily modified Lotus chassis. Autocar has seen the first fully constructed car in the UK ahead of its dispatch to the US. Hennessey claims the combination of an 1817bhp twin-turbocharged V8 petrol engine and a 1360kg dry weight help make it one of the fastest road-legal cars in the world – possibly even the fastest. The company also predicts…

TOYOTA WILL GROW its UK line-up in the next five years with a focus on expanding its SUV range and the promise of more high-performance halo models to follow the well-received GR Yaris hot hatch. A sales target of 1.4 million vehicles a year in Europe by 2025 marks an increase of about half a million on current levels. Cars such as the new Yaris Cross and Highlander large SUV (which is coming to Europe for the first time) will join today’s three-strong high-riding line-up, with a new RAV4-sized EV due to be revealed next year. But Toyota’s Europe vice-president, Matthew Harrison, told Autocar that the range will grow even further in the next five years – and a key target is a new model to sit between the C-HR…

IT’S HUMAN NATURE to ask: ‘Which is better?’ Even if the answer is usually ‘neither’, because each has its pros and cons. People will still question whether it’s iPhone or Android, PlayStation or Xbox, manual or dual-clutch automatic. The same is true of engines, and maybe next it’ll be EV electric drives: radial flux or axial flux? Like the other stuff, each has its pluses and minuses – only in this case, the differences are probably more clear cut. The radial flux motor is the familiar cylindrical shape and the axial flux is shaped like a biscuit tin, and on shape alone they lend themselves to different installations. The traditional radial flux is a natural fit between two wheels on a single axle because it’s greater in length but smaller…

The final total of new car registrations in the UK in 2020 is forecast by the SMMT to be around 1.56 million. That would represent a huge, Covid-caused 32.5% drop on 2019 and the lowest annual figure since 1982. The 2021 total is expected to be two million. The peak was 2.69 million, as recently as 2016. ALFA ROMEO 2019 market share: 0.15%  2020 market share: 0.12% Alfa has recorded its smallest UK market share since the 1960s. The Stelvio SUV is a particular disaster, as the worst performer in its class, outsold 10 to one by Jaguar’s F-Pace. ALPINE 2019: 0.01% 2020: 0.01% Notwithstanding that the A110 is an absolute joy to drive, Alpine has a battle on its hands to make Porsche buyers see past the Renault link.…

We’re living in a period of peak mega-hatch. Truly, never before has there been such a wide choice of high-powered, performance-oriented hatchbacks from so many different manufacturers. Even the Toyota Yaris is getting in on the act. But while buyers are spoiled for choice, the task of creating a mega-hatch that truly stands out has become increasingly difficult – not least in the premium ranks. Volkswagen has a long history here, starting with the front-driven Golf GTI in 1976. It wasn’t until 2002, however, that it decided to add four-wheel drive into the mix, creating an even more serious car in the Golf R32. The car driven here is the fifth Golf to wear the R badge. Although not since 2009 has the Golf R been powered by six cylinders,…

The styling changes brought along with the big mid-life facelift for Peugeot’s smart-looking 3008 compact SUV – European Car of the Year back in 2017, as they casually remind us – have wisely been kept quite few in number and minimal in impact. New headlights, a new front bumper and a new radiator grille with an extra-streaky plastic surround is your lot, really. On a higher-end GT or GT Premium model, you can now order a suspiciously fashionable Black Pack dressing-up kit, too, which replaces much of the car’s exterior brightwork with dark chrome and glossy black bits. I’m not sure you would; but the good news is that those who do will immediately make the ‘murdered out’ look (which has become an annoyingly popular trope of premium car design…

When mid-life changes were announced for the seventh-generation BMW 5 Series, they had all the hallmarks of a routine review: different lights, reshaped bumpers, a larger grille. But then came bigger news: BMW was reintroducing the M550i xDrive ‘comfort flagship’, with 523bhp on tap from a twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre petrol V8 but refinement built in. Previously, the presumption had been that the 616bhp BMW M5 Competition catered best for performance-loving customers. But the model has grown more hardcore over the years, so it’s now quicker than many drivers need and has suspension too stiff, much of the time, for rough-roads Britain. Not that this new M550i is any shrinking violet. It’s extremely fast (0-62mph in 3.8sec) but also classy and cultured. Its starting price of £68,590 is also around £30,000 lower…

It’s funny that the company whose name literally translates as ‘people’s car’ now makes the type of vehicle originally devised to accommodate the needs of gun-toting aristocrats. Irony aside, the new Arteon Shooting Brake is an attractive car: far more distinctive than the original fastback, as well as more spacious. It’s about as exotic as Volkswagen gets when it’s not making science-fiction-grade curios such as the XL1. There remain the four-cylinder TSI and TDI stalwarts you expect, including the 187bhp 2.0-litre petrol tested here. However, underneath the Arteon’s long and artful clamshell bonnet, Volkswagen will soon deploy its 1.4-litre eHybrid PHEV unit and the new Golf R’s 2.0-litre motor. With 316bhp and two driven axles, the latter will present as an all-weather Audi S4 Avant stalker, but don’t expect much…

1 McLAREN 765LT Harder, faster version of the already excellent 720S arguably represents McLaren at its best. A stunning road car and a great one on track. 2 MERCEDES-AMG GT BLACK SERIES Most powerful AMG model yet also holds the lap record at the ’Ring. Brutally quick but exceptionally communicative. 3 FERRARI F8 TRIBUTO Probably the easiest car to actually live with but still scalpel sharp in its reflexes. Very, very quick on both the road and on a track. 4 McLAREN 620R A real race car for the road but easily at its best on track. Beautifully communicative steering and a phenomenal chassis are its ace cards. 5 DALLARA STRADALE Retro looks and thoroughly modern technology are combined to stunning effect in the Stradale. Simply sublime to drive on…

“You must stay at home.” Those five words, uttered by prime minister Boris Johnson just after 8pm on Monday 23 March, defined the month – and, indeed, all of 2020. But we’ll get to that later, because the first 22 days of March offered plenty of significant events in the car world – even as the looming threat of Covid-19 grew. The month was supposed to start with the Geneva motor show, the industry’s biggest annual shindig. Except, of course, it didn’t. The late cancellation, which came as firms were assembling their stands, angered many at the time, but with hindsight it was a prudent decision. And even though the show didn’t go ahead, most car makers pressed on with their big reveals. Our non-Geneva show cover star was the…

June marked a cautious but greatly appreciated move back towards some form of normality post-lockdown. Mark Tisshaw travelled to the first (socially distanced) launch event to take place in what felt like an age, to drive the new fourth-generation Honda Jazz. The Japanese packaging marvel perhaps wasn’t the most exciting car to jump-start the Autocar launch calendar back into life, but Honda’s decision to host an open-air event near its Bracknell HQ absolutely had its benefits. “We probably had more time in the car than if we’d gone somewhere exotic,” said Tisshaw. “We were on roads we knew in cars with the steering wheel on the right side. Twenty miles like that is worth 100 on unfamiliar roads.” Of course, Autocar’s first drives section wouldn’t be the same without a…

September was a big month that began with two important drives. Just how good, we wondered, is the new Land Rover Defender if you pitch it against its chief rivals in the middle of a quarry? Very good: in fact, off the shelf, you’ll hardly do better, and while a Mercedes G-Class and Jeep Wrangler have advantages over the Defender in some areas in the rough, neither can compete with what’s a new class leader on the road. That’s good news if you’re incoming Jaguar Land Rover boss Thierry Bolloré, who took over from Sir Ralf Speth in September, a task we nonetheless thought looked “awesomely difficult”. It’s a company that makes large, heavy vehicles, and not all of them are obviously ripe for immediate electrification. One of them is…

Has the moment for hydrogen finally arrived? Or has it heaved into view? The second-generation Toyota Mirai came to the UK in left-hand-drive form in early December, so that we could test and report what is a 2021 Car of the Year contender. With a bigger range than the first-gen Mirai and more interior space, it quite impressed us. Whether many passenger cars are ripe for adopting hydrogen rather than batteries is set to be the Betamax/VHS of the 2020s, so strap yourselves in for that one. What’s clear is that tech once considered technical wizardry, the rotary engine, has probably had its day. (Although we rather like the idea that an incredibly niche sports car running e-fuels might still resurrect the exceptionally smooth and high-revving engine layout.) Mazda, the…

JANUARY • Nothing of note happens in Wuhan, China. • Billionaire investor Lawrence Stroll’s bid to buy a major stake in Aston Martin is foiled when Geely, buoyed by a surging Chinese car market that isn’t slowed by, say, a pandemic, raises its bid and snaps up the British firm. Stroll surprisingly pivots to buy Aston Villa and announces plans to rebrand his Racing Point Formula 1 team after the Premier League football club for 2021. Coincidentally, Lance Stroll is named as Villa’s new centre forward. • Buoyed by its success in returning the Corolla to the British market, Toyota announces plans to revive its dormant Corona name for a new large saloon. Absolutely nobody spots any potential unfortunate issues with this name whatsoever. FEBRUARY • Continuing the trend of…

Results matter in motorsport, and winning is everything. Drivers are ultra-competitive by nature and developed with a narrow definition of success. As Ricky Bobby once said: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” It makes sense, then, that drivers find losing hard – especially when victory is snatched away from within their grasp. And so they should: winning is their job, after all. But as seen with a certain president, you can learn a lot about someone by how they handle disappointment. In December, two British stars experienced the most crushing of disappointments. On the verge of becoming just the third Brit to win the World Rally Championship, Elfyn Evans made a minor slip on Rally Monza, putting his Toyota Yaris WRC off the road and handing a seventh crown to…

Britain’s all-new, multimillion-pound desert racer – the Bahraini-backed BRX T1 – is poised to start its first-ever event: the world-famous Dakar Rally. Beginning on 3 January, it will run for 13 days on a punishing, 4800-mile circular route through Saudi Arabia. The Prodrive-BRX (for Bahraini Rally Xtreme) team is based in Prodrive’s Banbury headquarters and consists of two cars: one driven by Frenchman Sébastien Loeb, nine times a World Rally Champion, the other by Spaniard Joan ‘Nani’ Roma, who has entered every Dakar since 1996 and won it both on a motorcycle (KTM, 2004) and in a car (Mini, 2014). Roma has done most of Prodrive’s latest T1 development testing, at venues in the UK and Dubai. During November, he spent nearly two weeks at Millbrook test track in Bedfordshire,…

Here we are, thinking about doing our bit for the Earth, reading about electric cars, talking to new owners, deciding when to take the plunge and so on. But are we drivers alone? If the aim is to reduce urban pollution, what about heavy trucks (apparently road deliveries cause 30% of vehicle emissions), diesel trains, container ships and new houses? How are those being tackled? Especially houses: each new house emits three tonnes of carbon per year (older ones much more). That’s at least twice what the average car would emit, and we’re building a third of a million new houses a year. Doesn’t that rather put carbon-emitting cars in the shade? The government could ask builders to use a Passivhaus specification, which emits only half a tonne a year…

“You can tell there has been a determined attempt to infuse at least a semblance of the MX-5’s spirit” FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the CX-30’s sleek style and driver-focused dynamics make it stand out in the congested family SUV class By its own admission, Mazda has arrived that’s famed for the light and lithe MX-5 roadster perhaps being a little unnerved by the ever-increasing clamour for these larger, heftier and less efficient vehicles. But like many slow starters, it’s making up for lost time and has launched an array of rugged crossovers in the past few years, including the electric MX-30. Yet arguably the most important addition is this: the CX-30, which represents Mazda’s first foray into the fiercely fought family crossover class. It’s here…

MILEAGE 7420 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out whether the 911 in its purest form is all the sports car you need At our 2019 Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest, the third place. This year’s rear-engined entrant from Stuttgart was the latest 911 Turbo S, complete with four-wheel drive to carve through the sodden Castle Combe track. All of which made turning up for the day there in our long-term 911 Carrera feel like going back to your old workplace. It’s all a bit awkward: they’ve already moved on from you, and you’ve been replaced by a shiny new version. Only two driven wheels and 380bhp? Try four-wheel drive and 641bhp this year… And that’s before you consider that the shiniest of new Porsches, the Taycan, was also in…

Good to hear from Andrew again: “My daughter is 17 on Monday and we’ve accidentally landed this Yaris through the grapevine (neighbour of a friend and his smart intervention before the scrap lorry arrived). It has cleared the MOT fence with no faults and is ready to do teenage battle for £360. Seems a perfect first car. “Before it turned up, we were ready to pass down our Panda 100HP (lurking in the background). Insurance quotes are the same for her with a provisional licence – and £100 cheaper for the Panda once she has a full licence. That’s odd, as it’s a Yaris ‘67HP’ and doesn’t have the 100HP’s unique bumpers.”…

An expert’s view JULIAN VOELCKER, OVERLAND CRUISERS “You don’t buy an Amazon for its economy. It’s a comfortable, powerful and reliable workhorse. If it’s been serviced properly, the engines take high mileages in their stride, but the transmission and suspension get tired. It’s not immune to rust, especially at the back along the sills, but if it’s not terminal, you shouldn’t be put off. You could buy a mechanically sound one for £6000, spend £2000 getting the rust fixed and you’d have an £8000 4x4 that’s good for another 10 years. Facelift cars are usefully improved and corrosion should be less advanced.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE Beware shonky V8 LPG conversions. A smoky diesel will fail its MOT; check its EGR valve hasn’t been blanked off. Inspect injector pump for…

“Jaguar’s designers have used it to display themes likely to affect showroom models of the future” Jaguar has revealed a new 1900bhp electric endurance racer concept, displaying themes that are likely to affect production models of the future, such as the successor to the F-Type. Although the Vision Gran Turismo SV was created for the hugely popular Gran Turismo video game (it has 83 million users worldwide), Jaguar has underscored its importance by building a full-scale model to display around the world. Other manufacturers have previously designed cars for Gran Turismo (Bugatti, Maserati, Peugeot and Jaguar itself among them), but what’s significant here is that the firm has gone much further, creating a 3D model, involving its road car engineers and putting the finished design on public display. It denies…

Donald Trump may not like it, but Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States of America on 20 January. The change in occupant at the White House will lead to a major shift in the country’s environmental policies – and is already having an impact in accelerating the car industry’s shift to electrification. General Motors recently made a series of announcements outlining aggressive plans to become a market leader in electric vehicles, with a target of 40% of its US sales to be electrified by 2025. It recently revived the Hummer brand with an electric off-roader, while Chevrolet offers the long-running Bolt hatchback. All of this has coincided with another shift that highlights how the US car industry is likely to shift…

Volkswagen describes the new Golf GTI Clubsport as a different kind of Golf GTI: more powerful, more heavily focused in the dynamics department and, naturally, more expensive. We’ve been here before, of course. Last time around, it was the GTI TCR that filled this particular niche. But now that Volkswagen has turned its back on all forms of motorsport, including the Touring Car Racing class, it has decided to resurrect the Clubsport name last used in 2016. The GTI Clubsport arrives just six months after the GTI, bringing with it several subtle styling changes. Included is a revised front bumper with a more pronounced splitter element and a wider honeycomb air duct without the distinctive foglights of the standard hot hatch, as well as chunkier sills under the doors. At…

You might want to sit down for this: the new Dacia Sandero has a reach-and-rake adjustable steering wheel. There are LED headlights, too. There’s even a touchscreen (on certain trim levels). Okay, it’s easy to be flippant about these sorts of things, but they serve to show just how much Dacia has overhauled the Sandero. It may still be the UK’s cheapest car (prices start from £7995 and rise to our top-spec test car’s £11,595) and it’s still called the Sandero, but it’s a total contrast between this version and the last. For starters, this car sits on the all-new CMF platform. That means it shares its underpinnings with the Renault Clio and promises greater rigidity with less weight. We’ll get to what all that means in a tick, but…

Nissan’s third-generation Navara remains one of the best pickup trucks to drive, even six years into its life. There are no mechanical changes to report here, but there are visual, trim and specification alterations with the introduction of this N-Guard Double Cab variant (whose name I can’t say without a French flourish, as if I’m about to referee a fencing match. And now neither can you. Sorry.) Outside, there are four new colours to pick from, some new decals and, in the loadbay, a new spray-on bed liner, slightly soft to absorb knocks and noises, as befits one of the more civilised pick-ups on the market. When this generation of Navara entered production in 2014, it did so with five-link suspension and coil springs at the rear, rather than the…

MODEL TESTED 620R • Price £250,000 • Power 611bhp • Torque 457lb ft • 0-60mph 3.2sec • 30-70mph in fourth 5.6sec • Fuel economy 17.8mpg • CO2 emissions 278g/km • 70-0mph 41.9m For an organisation that breathes genuine motorsport credibility into every product it makes, something like the 620R ought to be an automatic home run. McLaren the racing team existed some 22 years before McLaren Cars was formed to deliver the F1 road car and some 47 years before McLaren Automotive, as we now know it, arrived. So not only is the new 620R a supercar built in the typically racy modern McLaren mould, being mid-engined, carbonfibre-tubbed and equipped with a 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine and dual-clutch automatic gearbox, but it’s also one actually intended to function as an entry-level…

Despite having a chilly and in places damp handling circuit on which to run, the 620R matched the lap time set last year by the 600LT in drier conditions. We can only guess at how much quicker it might have gone on another day, but the answer is likely to be at least half a second. The car’s unflinching stability and iron resistance to body movement make it so easy to gauge the grip level of the tyres. Driving right up to that level takes physical effort, but it’s mentally absorbing as well. It’s as if every bit of cornering energy is transmitted laterally into the car’s tyre sidewalls rather than being lost vertically into the suspension, and every bit of braking energy goes straight into the tyre carcasses and…

We didn’t know it then, but one of the first cars to be put through the Autocar review wringer in 2020 would finish the year as an early contender for ‘car of the decade’. In prototype form, the hugely anticipated GR Yaris promised laughs aplenty – unsurprising given it was designed with a rare emphasis on lightness and fun – but married its raw keenness with unexpected civility and refinement. “Buyers will be getting a fun, formidable machine developed with passion and commitment,” reckoned helmsman James Attwood, “but one that probably won’t quite be what you expect it to be.” The thumbs-up verdicts just kept coming, too, as we got behind the wheel of the all-important new Ford Puma – a “true class leader” in terms of dynamism, and one…

When the history of Autocar is being written, the month of April 2020 deserves a chapter. Perhaps under the title: How to make a weekly car magazine when you can’t test any cars. Or go on any news reporting jobs. Or indeed even have an office open to work from. We’ve tried to keep mentions of Covid-19 to a minimum in this yearbook, but in April and May there’s no getting away from it. Covid-19 changed everything about the way we produce the magazine, but thankfully not entirely its content. The story of April actually begins in March. Sensing what was coming, the entire editorial team planned a ‘work from home’ day on Monday 16 March to test our home wi-fi and internal communications to see if you could make…

As a war cry to kick off the second half of the year, the coverline ‘Defender reborn!’ does take some beating. This was the news that official images of the Ineos Grenadier had landed, and while Land Rover’s official take on an all-new Defender cleverly modernised the old car’s unmistakable aesthetic, the brainchild of Ineos billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe remained much truer to the visual cues that first saw daylight in 1948. The story was enough to knock even our first drive report of the Ferrari SF90 Stradale – the 986bhp plug-in hybrid whose ability to go from silent all-electric running to V8-induced mayhem Mike Duff described as “brain-fry” – off the top spot for that issue, not to mention the glorious BMW M2 CS. In fact, only by looking…

Appropriately for the month of Halloween, Autocar broke some truly frightful news in October. This was the discovery that the next generation of Mercedes-AMG C63 would drop its monstrous V8 – without doubt the defining feature of the car – and adopt an “advanced four-cylinder plug-in hybrid” powertrain instead. Cue howls of anguish etc. But AMG clearly wasn’t going down without a fight, as Matt Prior had discovered only the previous week, from the helm of the firm’s 720bhp GT Black Series. “You can drive the crackers off the Black Series, feel involved and bonded into the process and, at the end of it, it’s likely to have lapped about five seconds slower than a full-fat GT3 race car,” he wrote. Indeed, the first half of October was a rollercoaster,…

Back in January, the major challenges facing the car industry seemed clear: electrification, sustainability, technology, consolidation and, for firms with UK operations, Brexit. Not simple issues, but ones that were understood. Then, of course, everything changed. The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of society – and, let’s not forget, primarily it’s a health issue that has cost lives and affected the well-being of millions. But the economic hit has been severe, and the car industry hasn’t been spared. While dealing with the tough consequences of Covid-19, the car industry has continued to face those aforementioned challenges – and, in some cases, the pandemic has accelerated their impact. THE EARLY IMPACT OF COVID-19 The car industry began to take note of the pandemic in January and February,…

FERNANDO ALONSO WILL WIN A GRAND PRIX Okay, we’re sticking our necks out here – but we can’t just say Lewis Hamilton will be world champion for an eighth time, can we? That’s not so much a prediction as a likely statement of fact. Instead, let’s push the boat out and back the soon-to-be 40-year-old to push the rejuvenating Alpine (née Renault) team back to the heights of Formula 1. In truth, he’ll probably need a dose of luck to land a win – but if anyone can return and make an impact after a couple of years racing at and winning Le Mans (among other things), it’s the Spanish warrior. That he won his last F1 title 15 years ago? Doesn’t matter. Age is no barrier for super-fit, motivated…

How the British Touring Car Championship fired out of lockdown packed a nine-event season into 16 intense weeks was good for the hearts, souls and minds of British motorsport fans in this desperate year. We could barely see the join after the long, pandemic-induced delay, at least until the TV cameras panned to the spectator banks and grandstands. Britain’s premier racing series missed the crowds that were barred from the circuits this year. Of course it did. But ITV’s wall-to-wall live coverage meant we didn’t miss a drop from the usual crash-bang-wallop glut of great racing action. In such a context, the season can only be considered a triumph. Autocar gathered BTCC supremo Alan Gow and ITV commentators David Addison and Tim Harvey to look back on another great season…

SPECIAL FEATURE What’s coming in 2021 We reveal every new car that’s due to be launched over the next 12 months. Your motoring year starts here… INTERVIEW George Russell We sit down with the highly rated Brit fresh from his stunning Mercedes F1 debut ROAD TEST BMW 4 Series Coupé The design may be controversial, but just how good is it objectively? EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Nissan GT-R Nismo Godzilla has been overhauled once again. We rate the range-topper LONG-TERM TEST Skoda Octavia We’ve named it the best family car on sale, and now it has joined our fleet SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 2789 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT It won our electric SUV mega-test, but is it a Tesla-beater in everyday life? Aaaand breathe. Many words have been written when you drive an EV, but I think the Mercedes-Benz EQC experience takes that to a whole other level – so much so that I actually get excited about driving it and can, no word of a lie, feel myself relaxing as I put hand to door handle and prepare to slide in. How so? I have to acknowledge that 2020 must be playing a part, my commute having become the six steps from the side of my house where I sleep to the side of my house where I work. No question, leaving the front door has become significantly more novel and…

QUESTION Can you buy second-hand Tesla battery packs? I’m looking to electrify my oldMini. Tom Barnes, Liphook, Hampshire ANSWER You’ll want to buy the individual modules that make up a Tesla battery pack, rather than the entire assembly, which would be too large and much too heavy for a classic car conversion. Pay between £900 and £1000 for a used 5.3kWh module, six of which would be needed for a range of around 100 miles and suitably zippy performance. That’s a hefty sum, even before the added cost of ancillaries and refabrication, but a full Mini EV conversion kit from Swindon Powertrain adds up to about £30,000, so the DIY route could be best if you have the necessary skills and tools. FP QUESTION I need a spacious, smooth and…

Renault Clio V6 255 £47,995 At the time of writing, it’s been a month since the live and still the internet is awash with gushing praise, screenshots of hurriedly placed order confirmations and convincing comparisons with supercars costing five times as much. All of which has got us thinking about giant-killers: unassuming cars that were modified to go after the titans of the sports car segment with hilariously misplaced powertrains and radical styling to match. Cars, then, like the Renault Clio V6. In the vein of its similarly silly 5 Turbo ancestor, this humdrum hatch turned hooligan drew up to 252bhp in facelifted form, enough for a 5.9sec 0-62mph time and a top speed of 153mph. Practicality took a bit of a hit, obviously (the kids won’t be comfortable sitting…

Daihatsu Terios £1950 It’s only in recent years that what we now refer to as the ‘compact crossover’ has become one of the most in-demand bodystyles on the market, but it seems Daihatsu had an inkling that a compact footprint combined with a raised ride height could prove a winning combination. The first-gen Terios is a rather more utilitarian proposition than, say, a Volkswagen T-Cross, but four-wheel drive gives it genuine off-road credentials and its 88bhp 1.3-litre won’t be much thirstier than today’s turbocharged three-pot motors. This solid 1999 car looks in great nick and comes with 12 months’ MOT, and you can’t say fairer than that.…

Why take such trouble with a car you’ll never build? “Because it’s still very important. This project is as serious as anything we’re aiming at for production. It will be ‘driven’ by many more people than will ever get the chance to drive one of our production cars.” How do you decide how much heritage to use in a radical design like this? “It’s a wonderful resource, but you don’t want too much of it. Some people are mesmerised by classic shapes – the D-Type and C-Type in particular – but a modern Jaguar can’t just be a pastiche of 1958 to suit the traditionalists. There aren’t enough of those. You want younger buyers for Jaguar, and you especially want female buyers. Fine if people respond to the heritage, but…

Chinese electric car start-up Xpeng will launch in Europe this month as part of a long-term plan to establish itself in the Western EV market. One hundred examples of its G3 electric crossover will arrive in Norway in December before the company introduces the model to other major EV markets in Europe during 2021. The G3 is promised to have a WLTP-certified range of 280 miles from a 66kWh battery pack and can charge its battery from 30% to 80% in 30 minutes. It has also been awarded five stars in China’s C-NCAP crash tests. Moreover, the promised price point of around £30,000 for this model would mark out Xpeng as especially competitive. Xpeng, which sold its first car in 2018 and is now listed on the New York Stock…

The danger of drivers becoming distracted by ever larger in-car touchscreens is becoming the focus of potential new legislation as countries grapple with the reasons why road deaths and accidents are no longer falling but plateauing. Currently, there is little in the way of regulation surrounding the design of infotainment systems and both safety experts and legislators are worried car makers are losing sight of the distraction factor in their rush to add ever more functions via the touchscreen. Just how distracting they can be was revealed in a 2020 study by the UK’s TRL (formerly the Transport Research Laboratory). It found that operating features within Apple CarPlay and Android Auto significantly increased driver reaction times to an emergency event, even more so than texting or driving under the influence…

So, Ford has electrified a new Mustang; note the use of the indefinite article there, folks, because we’ll come back to it. The new Mustang Mach-E is a high-rise, four-door crossover-ish hatchback not unlike the Polestar 2, and it comes with a choice of either one motor or two; a bigger drive battery or a slightly smaller, lighter one; and with up to 379 miles of WLTP-certified range (which, not so coincidentally, is as much as any current Tesla will give you, and more than you’ll get from any electric Polestar, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz or Audi). It’s an impressive EV debutant for plenty of reasons, but perhaps not quite as impressive as the strategic design and positioning behind it, which, if it works, could be a masterstroke. The designation of an…

The ID 4 is where Volkswagen’s ambitions for global EV sales leadership really begin to take shape. Due to be produced in four manufacturing plants on three continents, the new SUV is seen by VW as a world car in the mould of the original Beetle and the Golf. Following the smaller ID 3 hatch, with which it shares its MEB platform, the ID 4 will be sold in the UK from February 2021 initially in single-motor, rear-wheel-drive guise. A dual-motor, four-wheel-drive model, set to usher in new GTX performance car badging, is due to be added to the line-up next April. It’s a modern-looking car, the ID 4, with short-bonnet proportions unlike any other VW SUV. At 4584mm long, 1852mm wide and 1612mm tall, it’s 75mm longer, 13mm wider…

This is the latest limited-run, special-edition version of Ford’s excellent little Fiesta ST hot hatch. It’s called the Fiesta ST Edition, and it’s not to be confused with the Fiesta ST Performance Edition, which itself is a brightly coloured, limited-run version of the Blue Oval’s fastest supermini. But where that car was bright orange, this one is a dashing shade of Azura Blue. And with those contrasting black wheels and trim details, you could almost mistake it for a pint-sized version of the fabulous old Ford Focus RS. Like the Performance Edition, this one is based on the range-topping ST-3 trim level, so it gets loads of goodies (including the ST Performance Pack with a Quaife limited-slip differential) as standard. Crucially, it also has the same manually adjustable coilover suspension,…

The idea of a road-going McLaren that genuinely has been derived from a racing car is an intriguing idea. Even the very quickest and most powerful supercars typically have grip and track purpose eked into them, rather than gradually taken away until they become just palatable enough to use away from the circuit. Woking has given us ‘GTR’ track-only versions of road-legal products several times now, but the 620R represents a new approach. Or it does, at least, for McLaren. The trouble is, with that kind of departure point, you set yourself against huge expectations because nothing but blockbusting, unprecedented performance and track pace will really do. During our test, it was the 620R’s inability to go much beyond the measurable dynamic potential of other Sports Series McLarens that made…

Although they wouldn’t bear fruit until later in the year, the seeds were planted in early February for two major personnel changes within the UK automotive industry. First, Jaguar Land Rover announced that CEO Sir Ralf Speth would be stepping down from his role later in the year, kicking off a search for a replacement that would eventually lead to former Renault boss Thierry Bolloré taking over the top job. Then, a consortium led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll took a 16.7% stake in Aston Martin, setting off a chain of events that would see CEO Andy Palmer replaced by Mercedes-AMG boss Tobias Moers just two months later. At the time, we’d just driven the gadget-packed DB5 Goldfinger Continuation model, which featured smokescreens and oil slicks but, perhaps thankfully for…

Testing cars is quite tricky from your kitchen table. You might have been surprised by how much of it we managed to do throughout the spring and summer months of 2020. Nevertheless, Autocar’s road testers did the right thing by putting down the timing gear and the tape measure, closing the front door and simply stopping driving and testing cars through the UK’s first lockdown. Both the Millbrook and MIRA proving grounds actually stayed open throughout it all, with strict anti-infection measures in place, as vital working environments for the UK car industry. MIRA even waived its usual testing fees for a month as a filip to a pressurised business. It was simply that nobody at Autocar Towers could really argue, when the infection rates were at their peak, that…

August is typically a fairly quiet month in an automotive journalist’s diary, but it wasn’t in 2020. Nothing else seemed to matter in the first issue of the month other than ace designer Gordon Murray’s sensational successor to the legendary McLaren F1, the GMA T50, which we all cooed over and daydreamed about, as it sat there resplendent on the front cover. Perhaps it was exactly as intended, then, that the second magazine of the month turned out to be the one with so many significant first drive verdicts in it. Matt Prior drove the vital Aston Martin DBX (“better than any other exotic SUV to drive”); Greg Kable got behind the wheel of the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf GTI (“a predictable advance on the model it replaces”); Richard Lane pronounced…

November presented an opportunity for Autocar to pat itself on the back more than usual, as we marked 125 years of the magazine’s status as the pre-eminent authority on motoring and the car. We hope you will forgive the self-importance of that statement. A look back at our formation, which coincided with the genesis of the car in Britain, showed the impact that we had in stoking the fires of a four-wheeled revolution. With a quarter of a century passing since our massive 400-page centenary issue, we also elected to focus on both what had changed in that period since 1995 (much, as it turned out) and what we could be recapping from the next period in our 150th anniversary. Certainly, with electrification finally on the cusp of the mainstream,…

WHAT TO DO DISCOVER THE JOY OF KEEPING YOUR CAR CLEAN Mud on your lovely paintwork. Grime covering up your shiny alloy wheels. Empty bottles in your car door pockets. Paperwork practically bursting out of the glovebox. Unknown items rolling around in the rear footwells. Paraphernalia in the boot… Cars tend to accumulate dirt and rubbish through daily usage, and it can be a faff to take the time to stop and clean up. But it’s so worth it. A clean car is a source of pride, and much nicer to spend time in. Plus, on a quiet weekend afternoon, cleaning your car is really satisfying. Go on, you won’t regret it. WHAT WILL HAPPEN THE GR YARIS WILL REVIVE THE HOT HATCH MARKET Its arrival was a metaphorical shot…

While the big motorsport story of 2021 will be Lewis Hamilton’s quest to claim a record-breaking eighth Formula 1 title, there will be lots of other drivers worth watching in many categories. Carlos Sainz With its mix of electric SUVs, remote locations, unusual format and environmental messaging, the new Extreme E championship will be worth watching for intrigue alone. The biggest name in the line-up so far is Carlos Sainz (the elder one), who brings lots of off-road experience as a double World Rally Championship winner. Fernando Alonso The double world champion will return to F1 after a two-year break for the Alpine team with which, under its previous guise as Renault, he had enjoyed the most success. Alonso is 39 now, but he still has incredible talent and will…

MILEAGE 3317 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover whether a technology that suits the car industry also suits drivers Slightly controversial statement time: I don’t In fact, I actually quite like it. Doubtless some of my colleagues will be shaking their heads at me right now. But, like them, I remain generally unconvinced by lane guidance systems, which do often aggressively intervene and save you from some imagined danger should you choose to steer vaguely close to a painted line. However, I do reckon that such systems have a use in the right circumstances – and that’s shown by my experience with the XC40 T5 on long motorway trips between various lockdowns in recent months. Volvo’s Pilot Assist function effectively combines its adaptive cruise control (ACC) and lane-keeping assistance systems.…

It’s technically not my day-to-day responsibility any more but, well, after a sub-zero morning that required de-icer, the door mirror went missing at some point in the day. One explanation is that the de-icer delaminated the mirror somehow. Obviously, it could have been popped out and nicked by some bad people, especially as it ought to be attached, not flapping by the detachable bayonet electrical connections. There were big quotes from the usual sources for VW replacements. But at the back of my untidy garage, I have some of that cut-out reflective cardboard that you need very sharp scissors to fashion into a shape. A proper replacement is coming soon.…

We’d all like to think that we’re above SUVs, but seats, shopping and occasionally the in-laws quite so well. The Land Rover Discovery Sport is particularly adept in this regard, and now that used ones can be had for £13,000, it’s a tempting alternative to an estate. The Disco Sport arrived in 2014 as a more practical replacement for the Freelander 2, thanks to the option of two flip-out perches from the boot floor. To begin with, it had to make do with a 187bhp 2.2-litre diesel from its predecessor before the 2.0-litre Ingenium engine appeared in 2015. You can get this in 148bhp eD4, 178bhp TD4 and 237bhp SD4 forms. Then the world went off diesels, so petrol engines in 237bhp and 287bhp guises were hastily added in 2018.…

Imagine if you could somehow travel back in time and prevent 2020 from turning out the way it did. Well, with just a few subtle modifications, this 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 of Back to the Future fame could make that dream a reality. With just one owner from new until 2015, it’s a stunningly original (and thankfully unpainted) example, with an overhauled brake system, clutch master cylinder, window motors and fuel system among its selling points. Hopefully, whoever paid £33,290 for it wasn’t expecting a bona fide sports car: that 2.85-litre V6 chucks out only around 130bhp, so it needs plenty of road to crack even 60mph, let alone 88mph……

Would you pay £11,500 for a 14-year-old Japanese 4x4 with 260,000 miles on the clock? People do. Said 4x4 is the Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon, the supersize Land Cruiser J100 of 1998 to 2007. That price is of the ‘asking’ variety, of course. We’re not sure what it and others like it actually go for, but with rust establishing a toehold (especially on pre-facelift models), the automatic height control (AHC) suspension showing its age and electrical gremlins rife, it has to be lower. Not by much, though. The Land Cruiser Amazon J100 and its smaller relative, the Land Cruiser J120 of 2002-’09, are admired the world over for their reliability and comfort. They’re among the slowest-depreciating cars on the market, the smaller J120 especially so. Being more expensive, less economical…