Innholdsfortegnelse for January 13, 2021 i Autocar

Bristol Cars, the company that won post-war fame for its fast and plush grand tourers but was liquidated last year, is to be revived by a British entrepreneur. Jason Wharton, an Essex-based property developer and Bristol enthusiast, wants to reinstate traditional manufacturing of Bristol cars quickly, and to build an “atelier-style” division around the new business that will sell, restore and support Bristol models of all ages. If all goes to plan, the new concern will be based near the company’s original home at Filton, on the outskirts of Bristol. Wharton’s idea is to launch “remastered” versions of the Fighter two-seater and the 411 four-seater during 2022, before unveiling an all-new Buccaneer (reinstating a name previous owners used for a stillborn new model) around the middle of the decade. “Our…

The axiom that new technology is created to make our lives easier seems to have been ignored when establishing the UK’s electric vehicle charging network. The patchwork of dozens of different operators, each with its own payment system, has long bamboozled the ever-growing number of EV and PHEV drivers. But that’s now changing. In July 2019, the government stepped in to say that it wanted all “newly installed rapid or higher powered charge points” to accept card payment by spring 2020. The goal was to offer a single payment method “without needing smartphone apps or membership cards”. The Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was looking into EV charging to address any competition issues and “ensure the sector works well for people now and in the future”. The statement…

WITH THE WHOLE of the UK now under another Covid-19 lockdown – one that’s stricter than November’s second lockdown – some motorists understandably remain confused about how these restrictions affect them. Here’s what you need to know. Can I go for a drive? As before, motorists should not go for a drive just to get out of the house. There are a number of key exceptions that allow driving – to travel to a place of work if you cannot work from home, to shop for essentials locally, to visit those in your support bubble and for medical or veterinary appointments, for example. Outdoor exercise should be done as locally as possible, but government guidance suggests travelling “a short distance” to access an open space is allowed. You should not…

At face value, you would have to be stoutly committed to diesel to choose this TDI take on the new Octavia vRS instead of the petrol version. Both cars are striking to behold and equally well equipped but, for a premium of just £25, the higher-revving TSI gives you 45bhp more. The fact we’re talking about moderately hot hatches here, rather than the 300bhp-plus sharks, makes the discrepancy even more acute. So what does the TDI deliver in return? Superior fuel economy is an obvious one. On paper, the 197bhp TDI (16bhp more than before) is virtually teetotal compared with the TSI, and an indicated average well over 60mpg on 30 miles of motorway elicited a genuine double take at the smart digital instrument readout. On the continuum of real-world…

MODEL TESTED GHOST Price £249,600 • Power 563bhp • Torque 627lb ft • 0-60mph 4.7sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Fuel economy 18.0mpg • CO2 emissions 347-358g/km • 70-0mph 46.6m Ghost. It’s an appropriate name for the model that sits neither fully in the present nor in the future, at least so far as Rolls-Royce’s product planners are concerned. On one hand, the arrival of this substantial limousine completes an overhaul for the line-up at Goodwood, which began with an all-new Phantom in 2017, before the arrival in 2018 of the Cullinan crossover (which, inevitably, set new sales records for the company). Now, in the Ghost, we have the Phantom’s not so junior, £250,000 understudy. The circle is complete, so to speak, and more fundamentally so than you might think.…

It feels a bit rude to hurtle around Millbrook’s Hill Route in a car as stately as the Ghost, but it copes with this tortuous stretch of track well enough, given its immense size. Body movements are, of course, entirely conspicuous, and you get the sense that its stability and four-wheel drive systems are working overtime to keep its nose tracking in the right direction. The threat of understeer is ever present. Even so, once its front end bites and mass has settled over its outside tyres, it navigates tighter sections of track with impressive neutrality and reassuring levels of grip. The featherweight steering that makes the Ghost so delightful to manoeuvre at sociable road speeds takes some getting used to at pace and can sap your confidence a little.…

They say that dog owners become like their pets. I wonder if something similar can fairly be said of car makers and their products. Modern Land Rovers have many qualities, but they aren’t the most responsive or agile of modern family cars; and neither, as a company, is Land Rover. Remember the Land-e concept? Some years ago, I spent a happy couple of hours being told all about it in the airy lobby at Land Rover’s Gaydon headquarters. It was a technological showcase intended to give prominence to all the little things the firm was either doing or developing at the time to make its showroom models more fuel efficient. As such, I dare say it served its primary purpose perfectly well. But it was also a Freelander-sized car with…

Battery-electric vehicles are no flash in the pan: they’re here to stay. From a whole-life perspective and taking everything into account from battery production to end of life, recent studies rate BEVs as having the least negative impact on the environment of all conventional and alternative powertrain types. That brings the importance of energy demand and sufficient charging capacity into even sharper focus than before, and the organisation that will ultimately have to step up to that particular plate is National Grid plc. Whether or not there will be enough capacity, the seemingly colossal degree of infrastructure improvements needed and how reliable public charging can be provided on a sufficiently large scale have probably been the subject of more pub discussions than you could shake a stick at. Still, National…

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging isn’t a wild idea, and it’s already being trialled in the UK and Europe. The idea is that while your EV is plugged in, a special two-way charger can take energy out of the EV’s battery when it’s not needed to balance the network during peak demand. So far, trials are restricted to business fleets, one of the latest being undertaken by Nissan and Eon. The two companies predict that Eon fleet customers could save the equivalent energy needed to drive 10,000 miles a year (£308). Figures assume a 40kWh Nissan Leaf, with a 168-mile WLTP range on a full charge, consuming 0.238kWh per mile and an energy cost of 12.93p per kWh. It’s still early days and similar plans for domestic customers have yet to be…

The bad news for rally fans in 2020 was the most disrupted (albeit fascinatingly unpredictable) season in recent history. However, the flip side of a year that finally dragged to a mid-December finale at Monza (who would have predicted that last January?) is the shortest off-season we’ve ever seen. In just a matter of weeks, the 2021 championship will get under way with Rallye Monte-Carlo. While most of the key players stay the same, there are some fascinating new variables to get on top of. One of them is Pirelli tyres, with the Italian firm exclusively supplying the WRC’s top class for the first time since 2010. How will the drivers adapt? We won’t see Rally Sweden, which has decided to give 2021 a miss due to the real protagonist…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 2834 WHY WE RAN IT To make an owner’s comparison between traditional petrol and new battery versions of the same car What exactly is a ‘people’s car’? It’s a label we apply readily to stalwarts of affordable mobility like the original Volkswagen Beetle, Austin Mini and Fiat 500, and so we could take the term to describe a facilitator of mass motorisation or – more grandly – a transformative automobile that rewrites the entire rulebook for its segment. Perhaps naively, that’s what I thought the Corsa-e might prove itself to be and was fully prepared to end our string of reports with the somewhat gushing conclusion that this electric supermini had arrived to make zero-emission travel accessible for all with minimal compromise. If only things were so…

MILEAGE 2189 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out how appealing this dynamic family hatch is in its most basic form It’s quite telling that even my friends who have little knowledge of or interest in cars know that a Seat Leon is “basically a Golf” underneath. It seems decades of platform sharing has a downside in that you become notorious for it, even though essentially everybody is doing it these days. But I had a feeling that in the Volkswagen Group’s cost-sensitive, post-Dieselgate era, its genetic homogeneity between brands was more obvious than ever. So when we had a comparable VW Golf booked in, I leapt at the chance to get them together for closer examination. The 1.0-litre Life model we have here is the lowest rung of the…

Bristol 410 Claude has some fabulous stories about cars he has owned. Here’s part of a tale: “One of my finer road trips was to negotiate the purchase of a Bristol 410 3000 miles west of where it was. En route, I found an Earl Scheib paint franchise in Bellingham, Washington, that advertised a full-car paint spray for $100. The guys so loved the car that instead of doing the usual (wash, tape, spray), they also took out all the dents and sanded it down. So long as I ordered in pizza, they kept working – late into the night, and still charged just $100.”…

Ford Probe £1995 It’s come as a bit of a surprise to learn how hard it is to find a good Ford Probe these days. In fact, at the time of writing, this was seemingly the only one for sale, the others having been either deemed unroadworthy or subject to some horrid visual modifications. So we’d be inclined to snap it up quickly were we hunting for a Sunday driver with investment potential, even though it packs the lowly 2.0-litre 16-valve engine rather than the rortier 2.5-litre 24-valve unit. It’s been dry stored, hasn’t wanted for a thing and has an MOT until July.…

An owner’s view PAUL FRANKLIN “I first bought a Cayenne in 2010 – a 55-plate 3.2-litre petrol – but upgraded to a 2015 model in 2019, mainly because the emissions laws in my area meant I needed a Euro 6 diesel, as there weren’t many petrol models available. Although the power is similar between the two, I do prefer the petrol, but the diesel is great for our trips to Devon and Cornwall.” Buyer beware… ▪ ENGINE The epoxy coolant tube sealant can degrade on V8 petrols, potentially causing overheating, so take a long test drive and check for moisture. Oil leaks are a common issue, particularly on diesels, and in the worst-case scenario necessitate resealing of the engine block – astoundingly expensive (£10,000) out of warranty. Changes to the…

Rolls-Royce is preparing a high-profile entry into the electric vehicle ranks with a new luxury car that Autocar understands could form an entirely new model line. Set to be detailed in official plans before the end of this year, although not expected to be unveiled fully at that point, the bespoke EV could adopt styling inspiration from the future-previewing 103EX concept of 2016. Autocar has learned of the existence of a battery-powered Phantom prototype at the Munich research-and-development hub of Rolls-Royce’s parent firm, BMW. While the British brand has considered putting an electric version of an existing model into production as its first EV, it is now understood to favour an entirely new car, with the prototype being used as a powertrain test bed. Late last year, BMW filed a…

JEEP’S UPCOMING European flagship, the Grand Cherokee, has been previewed with the unveiling of the bigger ‘L’ variant for the US market. The large SUV, which rivals the Ford Explorer in the US, has been shown in only elongated six/seven-seat form so far, but Autocar understands it will come to the UK and mainland Europe later this year in a shorter, five-seat guise. It will serve as the range flagship, given that the even larger Grand Wagoneer is not expected to be sold here. Replacing today’s 10-year-old Grand Cherokee, the new model takes design cues from the Grand Wagoneer, but its squared-off shape retains a familiar identity. As before, it uses a unibody architecture, which is said to have been heavily upgraded to “optimise ride, handling and quiet sounds, while…

IT’S BECOMING INCREASINGLY obvious that one of the things right at the forefront of emerging vehicle technology is the robot equivalent of being able to see things clearly. Radar has been in use since the Second World War and in its most rudimentary form transmits a signal that bounces back from an object, revealing its presence and range. It has become a so-far-irreplaceable component in cars for collision avoidance, because it works in the dark and poor weather and sensors are relatively cheap. Now, though, the emergence of 4D imaging radar promises much more. Ten-year-old Israeli firm Vayyar will have its single-chip, 4D imaging radar in production cars in 2023, and while it has a role to play in future vision systems for enhanced ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) and…

“Hey Mercedes, I’m stressed” is all you need to say. In response, a swirly pattern will appear on the huge central touchscreen, the seats will begin massaging your back and the stereo will start playing soothing music. Ironically, trying to work out how to control all of these things is what made me stressed in the first place. The new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, tested here in the UK for the first time, is a hugely complex piece of machinery from an interior technological standpoint. More so than from a conventional automotive engineering standpoint, at least in this S500 form. Heavily electrified versions of the S-Class are coming, but the S500 has a 3.0-litre turbo petrol straight six, driving via a nine-speed automatic gearbox to, in this 4Matic variant, all four wheels.…

When is a Suzuki not a Suzuki? Answer: when it’s a Toyota. The new Swace feels familiar because behind the badges sits the Corolla Touring Sports. Bodywork, 120bhp hybrid powertrain, shiny new TNGA platform, surprisingly elegant interior fixings; everything. All is supplied by the world’s second-largest car company (rather than its 20th) – the result of an industrial partnership formed between the two Japanese makes in 2019 and whose initial badge-engineered progeny was the RAV4 PHEV-based Suzuki Across. You may wonder why these cross-brand models exist in the first place. In this case, Suzuki benefits crucially from reducing its fleet-average CO2 output in Europe (even this top-spec SZ5 Swace ducks beneath 100g/km), while Toyota grows its sphere of influence. We will witness a similar arrangement in 2023, when the Mazda…

VERDICT The second-generation Ghost is not flawless, but if the intention of Rolls-Royce was to offer the material extravagance and extraordinary rolling refinement of the flagship Phantom, only in an understated and more usable package, it has succeeded. The Ghost’s only imperfection is its secondary ride, which is just a shade short of perfection. It’s still much better than that of a Bentley Flying Spur, but if we pulled the Bentley up for the transgression, we must do the same here. In every other aspect that matters, the Ghost is an exceptional vehicle and makes travel an unambiguous delight. Indeed, the new Ghost offers quantifiable improvements over its excellent predecessor, especially in terms of isolation. It is an uncannily serene car and wonderful company, whether you find yourself in the…

The company car market is already fuelling plenty of the growth in UK registrations of electric vehicles, and that should accelerate again in 2021. To see why that might be, take a look below at the fleet car cost breakdown of two of the plug-in hybrids in this test compared with two fully electric alternatives. While the high price of the electric cars may still put off private buyers, you only need to be a fleet driver who typically pays for a couple of tanks of fuel every month out of your own pocket (fuel costs aren’t factored into our table) to already be able to realise a cost saving by switching to an electric SUV rather than a PHEV. For employers, current capital allowances mean that 100% of the…

When Bugatti broke the 300mph barrier with the Chiron last year, it looked like a record that might stand forever. Reaching the unlikely peak of 304.77mph had required considerable engineering effort – and the creation of what became the Chiron 300+ special edition – but also exclusive use of the 12-mile high-speed track at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien proving ground in Germany. It took driver Andy Wallace nearly a week to build up to the record speed, and he only reached his target on the final run of the last day. When Bugatti boss Stephan Winkelmann announced the record, he also said the firm wouldn’t seek to defend it. Then in October, relative minnow SSC from the US announced that it had not just broken the Chiron’s record but smashed it. Its…

When Extreme E (XE) was announced by Formula E founder Alejandro Agag two years ago, such a novel concept seemed even less credible than his idea of an electric single-seater racing series did before Dieselgate. Not only was this to be an amalgam of rallying and circuit racing contested by 550bhp electric SUVs but quite literally a race to save the world, broadcasting races from damaged locations with the goal of raising public awareness of environmental and sustainability issues. But already the scepticism and scoffing is dying down. Since Autocar first spoke to Agag (‘Eco warriors’, 3 June 2020), XE has been awarded FIA International Series status and fleshed out with a number of star names, both human and corporate. It’s not content to be seen as a Mickey Mouse…

So large is your excellent New Year double issue that it would be easy to miss the ‘visit the Zeithaus’ suggestion in ‘Things we didn’t get round to doing… but you still can’. ‘Do it while you still can’ was my motivation for taking three generations of my family to Wolfsburg in July 2019. I thought my grandchildren might never experience the freedom of being able to jump in the car and drive across Europe, due to things like Brexit and climate change. I also though the existence of vast manufacturing complexes like Wolfsburg could be threatened by industry consolidation and changing patterns of car use. The collection in the Zeithaus superbly displays the development of the car, but it’s only one part of the Autostadt theme park. Each VW…

FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see how easily a hot-shoe rally replica fits into daily life I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been saying it for ages: performance cars could do with being smaller and less powerful. And yet is it only Toyota that’s really listening? The GT86 (and its Subaru BRZ cousin) was my standout sports car of the previous decade. And the 2020s are off to a solid start with this, the GR Yaris, made to celebrate Toyota’s involvement in the World Rally Championship but constructed not because it needed to build it, rather just because it wanted to. The GR Yaris is barely a Yaris at all. (Which perhaps explains why some of my colleagues have occasionally referred to it as an Aygo or…

QUESTION I’m moving to London. Will £5000 get me a combustion car that meets the ULEZ requirements? Lauren Holmes, Sheffield ANSWER London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone will encompass a much greater area from 25 October this year, so you’ll want to act fast before canny sellers realise that their ULEZ-compliant runaround is becoming quite valuable. We’d advise you to avoid diesel if you’re nipping around the city, so you’ll want a petrol car that meets Euro 4 requirements. There’s plenty of choice at your budget: how about a 2005 BMW 320i with an auto ’box for £3980, or a smaller and more frugal 2012 1.0-litre Toyota Aygo for £2800? For those out-of-town jaunts, though, we’d take a 2007 Audi TT coupé for £3999. FP QUESTION A garage just changed a…

BMW 430i Cabriolet £21,490 Welcome to midwinter. Chances are you have said “it’s miserable out there” at least once today and are quietly glad you’ve less reason than usual to venture past the front door. But let us not mope, for sunshine and good times are on the horizon, and what better way to get ready than by bagging an open-roof cruiser? Let’s kick off with one of our favourites: the BMW 4 Series. Shortly to be replaced in dealerships by the buck-toothed G22-generation car, the original version, launched in 2014, is starting to look like extremely good value. Bolstering its appeal, for many, will be its metal folding roof, replaced on its successor with a conventional canvas item. We’re quite taken by this post-facelift 430i, resplendent in unmarked Arctic…

A NEW ENTRY-LEVEL four-cylinder version of Toyota’s GR Supra has gone on sale in the UK, a year after its introduction in mainland Europe. Priced from £45,995, it is £7000 cheaper than the 3.0-litre model and is powered by a BMW-sourced 2.0-litre turbo motor with 255bhp and 295lb ft mated to an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox. Its 0-62mph time is quoted at 5.2sec and the top speed is electronically limited to 155mph. It is claimed to be capable of 38.7mpg combined and to emit 167g/km of CO2. The new engine is 100kg lighter than the 3.0-litre model, allowing 50:50 weight distribution and offering “agile steering and stable cornering”. Alongside the standard car, a Fuji Speedway trim will be sold. Limited to just 45 units, the Fuji Speedway model is priced…

Deal or no deal, there were always going to be obstacles to post-Brexit trade. Here’s what the agreement should mean for the automotive sector. Bureaucracy Jubilation at the trade deal was tempered by scepticism at prime minister Boris Johnson’s assertion that UK industry would face “no non-tariff barriers” when trading with the EU. The new agreement will result in increased paperwork, processes and border checks, with some estimates suggesting an extra cost to the UK economy of £15 billion in customs declarations alone. Felipe Munoz of industry body Jato Dynamics said: “Costs are likely to grow due to longer processes and more authorisations involved,” which will “complicate things for the OEMs producing locally, and those exporting to Europe.” With modern factories operating according to a ‘just-in-time’ supply model, any delay…

New car registrations fell by 29.4% in the UK last year, with the 1,631,064 cars sold the lowest annual total since 1992, as the industry was hit hard by the effects of Covid-19 lockdowns. But sales of both electric cars and plug-in hybrids both rose sharply, with plug-in cars now accounting for more than 10% of UK sales. Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reveals that 680,076 fewer new cars were sold in the UK last year than in 2019, the largest year-on-year fall since 1943. The bulk of the sales decline in 2020 was attributed to the first lockdown, from March to June, when many dealerships were shut. Although sales fell during the second lockdown, in November, dealerships were able to continue offering ‘click and…

The problem with Ferrari launches is that hacks have to try doubly hard to remain objective. Usually held in northern Italy, often at and around the factory, they treat you to superb and almost-always dry roads, the legendary Fiorano test track and, as if that weren’t sufficient, dinner at a restaurant called Montana, whose pasta alone constitutes reason enough to get on the plane. It’s hard not to feel at least tolerably well disposed towards a car presented in such circumstances. Well, this one was going to be different. A diary clash meant I had to skip the Roma main event in sun-scorched Italy back in August, so if we were to meet at all in 2020, it would be in December in southeast England, where the roads could…

I have a lot of time for Hyundai’s N performance cars. The i30 N flirts with being the best mid-size hot hatchback and the upcoming i20 N, which we’ve driven before in prototype form, is set to give the supermini class an equally hard time. Hyundai takes it so seriously that the i20 N will even receive additional body structure stiffening and welding over the regular i20. But sporting sub-brands can’t live on hatchbacks alone, so inevitably attention now shifts to a crossover: the Kona, a funky-looking vehicle that, shorn of the cladding of this development car, could look quite endearing on 19in wheels and with the right stance, like a pseudo-fierce little action figure or a child yelling ‘raaa!’ while impersonating a tiger. Go with it. Anyway, if R…

Could this new plug-in hybrid be the real-world sweet spot of the Audi A6 range? Yes, everyone loves the idea of justifying the RS6 Avant (it has a boot, so it must be a family car), but in reality it’s a lottery win away for most people. This A6 50 TFSIe, on the other hand, is more realistically attainable, with a saloon starting price of £52,790 (our S Line is £56,450). It features a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine and a 141bhp electric motor housed in the dual-clutch gearbox to give a total output of 295bhp. That’s on the money with the BMW 530e, and its mid-range punch should be healthy, thanks to the 332lb ft of torque – a smidge up on its rival. Thanks to a 14.1kWh battery, the…

1 ROLLS-ROYCE GHOST Imperious performance meets exceptional material quality, refinement and grandeur. Ride quality is exquisite, but perhaps not as special as we’d hoped. 2 MERCEDES-MAYBACH S650 Spectacular ride comfort and V12 performance but doesn’t quite feel as genuinely special as the Rolls-Royce. Still magnificent. 3 BENTLEY FLYING SPUR A phenomenal driver’s car in a class of ultra-wafty luxo-barges. Ride isolation could be better, but if dynamism is a priority, it could easily be the class leader. 4 RANGE ROVER SV AUTOBIOGRAPHY LWB Flagship Range Rover is starting to feel long in the tooth but remains a wonderfully plush way to travel all the same. 5 ALPINA B7 Buchloe’s take on the BMW 7 Series is a match for the Bentley on the grounds of driver appeal, but it lacks the same sense of opulence.…

While overall speed records are recorded and verified by the FIA, the production car title has always been subject to looser criteria and, like boxing, runs under what are effectively a variety of codes and self-appointed sanctioning bodies. The big ideological division is now one that dates to the very beginning of record-setting: whether a car needs to run a course in two directions for an average time. Although Pierre-Henri Raphanel’s Bugatti Veyron Super Sport record was run in two directions at Ehra-Lessien, Volkswagen has since stopped these, meaning that two-way runs can only take place on either lesser tracks or public roads. Guinness World Records recognised Raphanel’s run as a record but not Andy Wallace’s later effort; instead, the Chiron’s time was validated by Germany’s TUV Technical Inspection Association.…

Formula 1 season opener in doubt The opening round of the 2021 Formula 1 season is set to be postponed, according to reports. The Australian Grand Prix is due to be held on 21 March, but it now looks set to be shuffled to later in the year due to ongoing Covid-19-related travel restrictions. If that happens, the season would start in Bahrain on 28 March. Aston Martin ends GTE Pro programme Reigning FIA World Endurance Championship manufacturers’ champion Aston Martin has canned its GTE Pro programme with the Vantage. The firm said that it will “switch the strategic focus” to supporting customer teams. The move comes as Aston Martin enters F1 by rebranding owner Lawrence Stroll’s Racing Point team. Williams expands Mercedes ties Williams will benefit from an expanded…

Formula E became the first international all-electric racing series in 2014, but it has yet to be followed, save for the low-key Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy that supported it for a couple of seasons. Now, though, it looks like the track will start to follow the rapid electrification seen on the road. Last year, the World Rallycross Championship introduced a special class for an electric Ford Fiesta to take on its traditional turbocharged monsters. Extreme E is due to start this February and a series for electric touring cars, named Pure eTCR and also run to a standard specification, so far has Alfa Romeo, Cupra, Hyundai and MG signed up for its inaugural season, which will use proper circuits. If you like your entertainment rather more gimmicky, there’s another electric SUV…

COMPARISON Mazda MX-30 vs Mini Electric These two brands have taken different directions with their first electric cars, but which is better? INVESTIGATION Road to 2030 Every question that needs to be answered ahead of Britain’s ban on new ICE cars FEATURE Frankel on interiors Forget the outside, it’s what’s inside that counts. Here’s what makes a good cabin EVERY WEEK OUR CARS Citroën C5 Aircross PHEV French marque’s first-ever plug-in hybrid joins our fleet ROAD TEST Kia Sorento Hybrid Big new petrol-electric SUV gets the full eight-page treatment SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p12…

MILEAGE 2389 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover whether the electric version of this new SUV is better than the petrol Where in Britain would you guess is best for owning an electric car? London, probably, or places with significant car industry presence, like the Midlands. How about the city that’s home to the only Green Party MP and only Green Party-led council? Er, no. Far from it, in fact. Brighton and Hove isn’t shockingly short of public EV chargers, and their number is increasing, but it does lack chargers that won’t take forever to fill your battery. Zap-Map shows just four 22kW fast-charging sites – two of them in pricey car parks, one at the industrial port and one at a hospital. The nearest rapid stations (43kW or faster),…

MILEAGE 103,506 MINI COOPER Real life, rather than garage life, has been getting in the way recently. I’d promised to get the Mini’s MOT done, but I’ve been flat out on so many other things. That’s my excuse and I will have to stick to it. For instance, I cleaned the Cooper up because someone came and took some pictures and asked me questions about it. That’s sort of my job, but it’s interesting to be on the other end of things. I’ve been checking everything, though, because after going through some water for the purposes of photography, the brakes became very noisy. Spraying around some magical WD40 seemed to do the trick.…

Banish thoughts of Margo and Jerry and revel instead in the undeniable allure of the modern Volvo estate. These days, both this V60 and the larger V90 add more than a touch of glamour to many a Home Counties school run. Now, good looks aren’t everything. Volvo knows this, and that’s why you can only get the second-gen V60 with sensibly sized 2.0-litre petrol and diesel engines. The range initially kicked off in 2018 with a 148bhp version, badged as the D3, and a more powerful 187bhp unit, designated D4. For petrol fans, there’s a 247bhp T5 and plug-in hybrid T8 models in 385bhp standard and 399bhp Polestar Engineered forms. All diesel models can be had with either a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic. Petrols are auto only. In…

TOYOTA SPACE CRUISER How cool is this? Well, perhaps to a lot of people, not very. But it has a fantastic name – and one that it wholly lives up to, with acres of room for each passenger and a wilful ability to sit at 70mph that belies its van origins. It’s a rare beast today and its wonderfully 1980s design cues give it kerb appeal like no other MPV built in the 32 years since. This one was expected to garner £2000-£3000 but failed to sell, perhaps because it needs extensive cosmetic work and was listed as a Category C write-off in 2007, but it starts, drives and comes with a stack of history, so here’s hoping it finds a home.…

You might very well turn your nose up at the prospect of a high-riding, diesel-drinking Porsche, but you might just lower it again when you hear that such a vehicle could cost as little as £13,500, crack nearly 40mpg on a long jaunt and provide a more than agreeably luxurious driving environment. The second-generation (958) Cayenne – lighter, less offensively styled and more efficient than the original – is what you might call a lot of car for the money these days, particularly in its earlier forms. That £13,500 would buy you a 2010 model with the Volkswagen Group’s 3.0-litre diesel V6, packing 245bhp and 406lb ft for a 0-62mph time of 7.6sec and a top speed of 136mph – hardly figures that would worry the Carrera GT with which…