Innholdsfortegnelse for January 20, 2021 i Autocar

The original Renault 5, launched in 1972, was designed to fill the gap between the Renault 4 and the Citroën 2CV in the French market. Engineers were given a brief to develop a small car meeting the needs of the widest range of the French public possible. The unconventional final design remained close to designer Michel Boué’s original sketch. Under the bodywork, the 5 used many of the mechanicals from the Renault 4 and Renault 6 and featured front-wheel drive, with a choice of two engines. The car was a huge hit: by 1980, it was one of the best-selling cars in the world, and in 1976 it spawned the 5 Alpine (branded the 5 Gordini in the UK), one of the first true hot hatches. That was followed in…

Peugeot is looking to expand its model range in 2023, with a small premium model and a larger flagship among the options being consider by boss Jean-Philippe Imparato. “We’re obviously looking at the next steps for the Peugeot line-up in 2023,” said Imparato in a media conference last week. “Do we add on top, or below? That depends on studies and discussions on this. It’s not a question of dimensions but positioning. You can go below in dimensions but up in terms of content. That’s one direction we could choose.” Peugeot’s efforts to shift its image upmarket in recent years have paid off, with one-third of the company’s sales now of the top-spec models in any given range, while almost half are sold with an automatic gearbox. “I wouldn’t have…

Porsche’s Taycan has a new entry-level rear-wheel-drive model that’s available with two battery sizes. The standard 79kWh version puts out 402bhp in overboost mode and has a claimed range of 268 miles, while the 93kWh Plus variant has 469bhp and a claimed 301-mile range. Both models cover 0-62mph in 5.4sec. The base Taycan is available to order now, priced from £70,690 – around £13,000 less than the 4S. Deliveries start in March.…

The British van industry has never properly recovered from the blow of losing Ford Transit production to Turkey in 2013 but, against all odds, this unlikely arena is now host to the latest home-grown unicorn: a multibillion-pound start-up company. Arrival is aiming to disrupt the van (and bus) market with an electric alternative from its base in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and has amassed an impressive war chest of funds to make it happen. In a canny move, the five-year-old company has jumped on the trend for a quick US stock listing by agreeing to merge with a SPAC (special acquisition company). If you add up the share price and use that to calculate the worth of the portion of the company held by investors, you get to an overall value…

The decision by the UK government to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in 2030, with some hybrids to follow in 2035, has been welcomed by many, but its impact extends far beyond our borders. There are also significant implications for a global manufacturing network, and it could mean saying goodbye to models that are big-volume sellers today. While sales of battery-electric vehicles (BEV) in the UK rose by 185.9% year on year in 2020 for a market share of 6.6%, the majority of cars imported still have an internal combustion engine (ICE), be they petrol, diesel, hybrid or plug-in hybrid (PHEV). Twenty-six countries from almost every continent around the globe supply the UK with cars, and many of them build only ICE-propelled vehicles, the top five…

The logic behind Mercedes-Benz’s decision to lift the various petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid drivetrains out of the engine bay of the GLA and replace them with an electric motor to create the new EQA is easy enough to understand. Without a dedicated EV platform to underpin the most affordable of its EQ-branded models, the German manufacturer really didn’t have much choice other than to rely on existing hardware if it was to make good on its promise of delivering an electric compact SUV priced to rival the BMW i3 and Volkswagen ID 3. The creation of a unique structure, like those used by its key competitors, would have taken years and cost billions. It’s not an ideal situation. The GLA’s MFA platform was conceived to support electrification but only…

As the ‘road to zero’ emissions-cutting noose tightens around the neck of European performance cars of all kinds, change is inevitable if it delivers a better chance of survival. Although it may seem drastic to us Brits, Renault has deleted the manual version of its Mégane RS for the latest model year because, while the dual-clutch version may be only a handful of grams more CO2-efficient, it’s a difference that will save people in France thousands in CO2-based first-year showroom tax. The updated hot Mégane also gets new headlight and tail-light designs and a new infotainment system and digital instrument display, but no changes have been made to its mechanicals save that gearbox deletion and one other: both standard RS and RS Trophy models now use the higher-powered 296bhp version…

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Last year, one in 10 new cars offered for sale in the UK was electrified. This represented a mighty jump and dwarfed the 2015 figure of one in 200. Green car advocates were delighted. However, a landmark decision reached by the government during 2020 – to ban sales of all new internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and most hybrids by 2030 – made it shockingly clear that all recent EV gains were chicken feed. To meet legislators’ new targets, sales of battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will need to expand from today’s 150,000 to around 2.4 million in just nine years, a rise of 1500%. It was – is – a staggering demand with unprecedented implications. In nine years’ time, everyone who buys a new car will have to make…

It has always struck me as strange that when we think of the cars we like, especially if we’re deciding whether to buy one or not, it’s always the exterior we find ourselves considering. Why? I guess it’s because, consciously or not, we’re keen to project the right image of ourselves. But the truth is that once our cars are bought, we spend hardly any time looking at them, whereas we literally live in their interiors, whose design by comparison we barely think through at all. Yet interior design has undergone a revolution over the past generation. Time was when interiors were scarcely styled at all, at least from the point of view of the driving environment. Instruments were placed wherever was easy and a dashboard created around them. Then,…

When Andrea Adamo walked into Hyundai Motorsport for couldn’t have been more relaxed. Yes, he was at its HQ in Alzenau, Germany, for a job interview, but it was going be the easiest interview of his life. Whether he left there as Hyundai Customer Racing manager or not, it wouldn’t change his life. “I had been working in motorsport for 25 years,” says Adamo. “But I had stopped. I was ready for a normal life, to work from eight in the morning until five in the evening and then go home. And stay home at the weekend. “I had a call to ask if I would come for the interview. Why not? I went and had a nice chat with [then Hyundai Motorsport team principal] Michel Nandan and then I…

Infiniti QX70 £19,995 And just like that, it’s almost two years since Europe, faced with infeasible costs for securing continued regulatory compliance in a market on which it had never truly left its mark. It wasn’t the first brand to shuffle quietly away from Europe to seek its fortune in the US or Asia – and with Mitsubishi teetering on the brink of a similar fate, it looks certain not to be the last. It’s a shame, in any case, because it was one of very few brands that might be considered by a prospective buyer in the premium segment who was determined to own something that didn’t hail from Stuttgart, Munich or Ingolstadt. We’ll take the QX70 (née FX) as an example. Here was a not-unattractive compact SUV in…

Alpine and Lotus will team up on the development of a new electric sports car that will serve as the successor to the Alpine A110 and underpin part of Lotus’s bold reinvention. The new car is one of three new electric Alpine models under development – alongside a new hot hatch and a performance crossover – as the marque is reinvented by its Renault Group parent from a niche sports car manufacturer into an electric-only premium performance brand with a focus on ‘avant-garde’ models. Alpine will also encompass Renault Sport’s road car and motorsport division, including the Renault Formula 1 team, which has been rebranded Alpine F1. Renault revived the Alpine brand in 2017 with the reimagined lightweight A110 two-seater. Although that car has been a huge hit with critics,…

Neil Yates, one of the UK’s foremost niche vehicle engineers, has launched an affordable and highly flexible EV chassis system that, he believes, can play a vital role in guiding this country’s plethora of low-volume vehicle makers through the coming electrification revolution. A consultant on the Ariel Hipercar project, Yates believes niche manufacturers must start adapting to forthcoming 2030 electrification demands now – or risk being left with stocks of unsaleable vehicles and no clear way of updating them. The new chassis design, called PACES, is adaptable to almost all kinds of low- to medium-volume vehicle manufacture, from tiny Caterham-style roadsters to large commercial vehicles – hence the name, which stands for ‘Passenger And Commercial EV Skateboard’. A PACES chassis is configurable in almost any size and format – with…

MK has made more than 4000 of its two-seaters, and every time we’ve tried an Indy, we’ve fallen for it. There are myriad options, from a single-donor Mazda MX-5 car to build yourself through to fully assembled and track-ready cars. The Suzuki GSX-1300R Hayabusa bike-engined Indy RR is towards the latter end of the spectrum. As with many cars you can self-build, there’s a bunch of bespoke components (the chassis, body and so on) and a donor for some mechanicals. Traditionally that was a Ford Sierra, but parts tend to be Ford-like and supplied new now. You can buy the whole thing from £18,877 (plus engine) to build or from £23,617 (plus engine, so call it £25,000) for a fully built car. There are options around windscreens, roll-cages and more,…

MODEL TESTED 1.6 HEV T-GDi 2 AWD Price £38,845 • Power 226bhp • Torque 258lb ft • 0-60mph 8.5sec • 30-70mph in fourth 10.4sec • Fuel economy 35.0mpg • CO2 emissions 158g/km • 70-0mph 45.8m Any which way you judge such things – by outward appearance, by SUV-typical capability, by technical sophistication or by sheer metal-for-the-money value – the fourth generation of the Kia Sorento has now become a very serious, ambitious and distinctive player in the UK’s family SUV market. The Sorento has long been rated – by this magazine and plenty of in-the-know owners – as a big, practical, capable, bargain-priced tow car and family holdall. But now it’s really spreading its wings. In this iteration, the car’s platform has been renewed; its engine range has been expanded; the…

Perhaps you’ve been waiting to discover an electric car that’s drive but are bored rigid of reading tributes to the Porsche Taycan (£85,000), Jaguar I-Pace (£64,000) and Polestar 2 (£45,000). Excellent cars all, but crikey, they don’t half make a dent. Some good news, then. Neither of the EVs in this brief twin test costs more than £28,000 after the government grant for plug-in cars, yet both come from makers who understand the importance of involving the driver. More than that, it could be argued that, at their very best, the Mini Cooper and Mazda MX-5 exemplify what we love about front- and rear-driven sports cars respectively. So even before we’ve unplugged the charging cables, there’s cause for optimism. The Mini Electric has been out for some time, so it’s…

“Cocky, confident, lazy – dead.” As a means of getting a student’s attention, these words work every time, says Stuart Cadman, a professional driver who trains development engineers to drive test cars in such a way that they reveal their innermost secrets. “People can easily become blasé behind the wheel of a car, which is when accidents happen,” he adds. “An engineer must be alert and focused and driving at a level where they don’t need to devote 100% of their concentration to driving a vehicle at or close to its limits. They need to have some reserve capacity to appraise the vehicle and provide a running commentary if necessary.” As a former panel-beater, Cadman knows what happens when someone loses control of a car at speed. However, what gives…

Formula 1 revises 2021 calendar The Australian Grand Prix has been postponed until 21 November, due to concerns over Covid-19, leaving Bahrain as the first race of the 2021 Formula 1 season on 18 March. It will be followed by a race in Imola, Italy, rather than the originally scheduled Chinese GP, after organisers asked for the Shanghai event to be held later than 11 April. Portimão in Portugal also looks set to be used again – in the vacant slot on 2 May. F1 still plans to hold a record 23 grands prix this year. Rally GB off again British motorsport’s governing body, Motorsport UK, says it is working closely with the Welsh government and other regions to secure funding to enable Rally GB to return to the World…

Don’t believe the hype Is it just me, or does the Volkswagen ID 3 already come across as a bit of a dinosaur at launch? Let’s look at the hype versus the facts. Hype: It’s the electric car for the people, as different from the current Golf as the Mk1 Golf was from the Beetle, with a new architecture to move the art of car manufacturing forward. Facts: It’s an electric car for rich people who don’t drive very far, given that it costs more than £30,000 and has a range of less than 270 miles. It’s about as different from the current Golf as a tangerine is from a satsuma. It’s a steel-bodied car weighing twice as much as it should, with an ‘engine’ twice as powerful as it…

MILEAGE 4423 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover whether a technology that suits the car industry also suits drivers Having agreed to borrow the XC40 PHEV a week my annual pilgrimage to the West Country via East Sussex was rapidly shortened – but a support bubble at least meant that I wouldn’t be the one cooking the turkey and the Volvo would still get to stretch its legs. Admittedly, I had managed only a two-thirds battery charge at my local supermarket before setting off, and as I pretty much default to Android Auto for every car that plays nicely with my phone, I missed out on the built-in sat-nav’s economy optimisations, which calculate how best to divvy out the remaining electricity along your route. This meant an MPG figure that…

MINI COOPER Things are being cancelled, so the Mini Cooper isn’t having the MOT that it needs just yet. But it is worth mentioning just how useful the Mini is when the Lorry doesn’t start (I haven’t been charging its battery nearly enough). So one day recently when I needed to be somewhere, the Cooper fired up and took me there. It was interesting driving home hours later in a monsoon and pitch darkness. It coped, but Minis are so low that the dipped beams of following modern cars illuminate the interior like a summer’s day. The Mini’s lights are like a pair of candles so need to be changed if I’m going to make a habit of using it.…

Whatever your opinion about modern Land to behold. Take this handsome devil, the Range Rover Velar. It’s objectively good, too, and although it seems to be aimed more squarely at those living up in town rather than down in the country, it will still do all the rough stuff brilliantly given half a chance. Underneath its suave exterior, there’s the choice of a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol in the 247bhp P250 and 296bhp P300 or a 3.0-litre V6 petrol in the 375bhp P380. There’s also a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 in the 542bhp P550. Later models revised this line-up to just the P250, P400 and P400e petrol-electric plug-in hybrid. Of the oil-burners, there was originally a 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel in the 178bhp D180 and 237bhp D240, plus a 3.0-litre V6 in the…

BMW Z8 Have you ever seen a BMW Z8 on the road? Felix Page did once: “It was raining and I was eating a Bakewell slice – details that stick in my mind as testament to just how profound an impact the car made on me.” The millennial reincarnation of the stunning 1950s 507 is an aluminium-bodied, 5.0-litre V8-powered, shark-nosed snarler designed by Henrik Fisker and with genuine Bond car credentials. It failed to quite capture our contemporary testers’ imaginations dynamically, but fewer than 6000 were built, so it will snap more necks on the high street than a same-age Ferrari 360.…

You will get to surprise your neighbours twice tell them it’s a Volvo and again when you reveal that the first examples were built in West Bromwich. This is no doubt a conversation that you will become used to having fairly quickly, considering that the P1800 coupé is among the most objectively eye-catching cars ever released, but this stylish Swede has a few more trivia tricks up its sleeve. You might know, for example, that the Guinness World Record for the highest mileage travelled by a single car is held by the late Irv Gordon’s 1966 P1800S, which quickly hit 250,000 miles without requiring any unscheduled maintenance, before going on to accumulate 3,000,000 miles in 2013 at the age of 47 years old – with its original engine block and…

“ Reinventing a cult product lights a fire under the whole brand ” Renault will reinvent the popular 5 supermini as an electric hatchback designed to win over new buyers to battery-powered cars and to be the cornerstone of a new model blitz intended to move the brand upmarket. The all-new 5, which takes styling and design cues from the Clio’s predecessor that Renault produced from 1972 until 1996, will be one of 24 vehicles – including 10 EVs – launched by the Renault Group within the next five years. These will cover Renault, Alpine, Dacia, Lada and a new mobility brand called Mobilize. That total will include 14 new Renault cars and commercial vehicles, seven of them fully electric. As well as the 5, an electric version of the…

The Alpine business will now encompass all of the Renault Group’s motorsport activities, with new boss Laurent Rossi promising that knowledge gained in competition will be used to help develop its road car models. Renault’s Formula 1 team will be renamed Alpine F1 for this season and the firm has now revealed the new livery that Fernando Alonso’s car will sport for his comeback season. Alpine will also back an FIA World Endurance Championship campaign. Expertise from the 300 engineers at the Alpine/Renault Sport factory in Dieppe and the 1200 staff working on the F1 project – at its race team base in Oxfordshire and its engine plant – will be used to inform future road car work. Rossi suggested learnings from the 1.6-litre hybrid F1 powertrains will be applied…

WITH THE 2030 ban on new combustion-engined cars looming and EVs a done deal, new targets for improving air quality will inevitably swim into view. One of those is particulate matter (PM) generated by brakes, something that the UK government earmarked for action back in 2019 as part of its Clean Air Strategy. The concern lies in the generation of ultra-fine particles up to 2.5 micrometres in diameter (about 200 times smaller than a grain of sand) that are particularly damaging to health. Surprisingly, fixing the problem could lead to better-looking cars and much cleaner wheels. Brake pads and discs (or shoes and drums) work on the basis of mutual destruction, with both wearing out and producing dust while generating enough friction to decelerate the car. It’s a pretty brutal…

Hyundai’s family-sized Tucson SUV is its best-selling model to date, now in its fourth generation since its 2004 debut, so you’d expect it to come in plenty of versions. Most are two-wheel drive, but there are basic petrol and diesel powertrains, lots of mild hybrids, several levels of full hybrid, and a plug-in hybrid a few months away. However, there’s less choice if you want a four-wheel-drive Tucson. You’re restricted to the spec of our test car, a 178bhp mild hybrid whose smooth and efficient transverse 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine is assisted by a 48V integrated starter-generator driving through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. It’s full-time four-wheel drive, like its many rivals, bristling with traction controls and a selectable hill descent function. The all-new Tucson is a little bigger than the…

HONDA CR-V HYBRID SR AWD Unambitious driver’s car but unusually good family SUV, owing to fine road manners, slick powertrain and airy interior. Could be more economical. TOYOTA RAV4 HYBRID AWD DYNAMIC Rugged Toyota holds plenty of charm and utilitarian appeal. Not as well-rounded as the Honda or as large as the Skoda. SKODA KODIAQ 2.0 TDI 200 4x4 No hybrid elements, but Skoda’s top-spec, top-ranking SUV is frugal, cavernous, surprisingly plush and easy-going company with VW Group’s 2.0-litre diesel. LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT P250 MHEV S More refined than ever and a genuinely pleasant steer. Capable, desirable, good to drive but relatively expensive to run. FORD KUGA 2.5 PHEV ST-LINE X Kuga PHEV is well priced in this company and potentially the most economic car here, but it isn’t…

Imagine the outcry if the British Grand Prix lost its spot on the Formula 1 calendar, as has come close to happening a few times. It would surely be major news and a huge blow, both to British fans and to the sport itself. We’re not being biased: the heritage of the event is something valuable. Rallying’s lower profile here meant Britain losing its spot on the World Rally Championship calendar for this year – after organisers failed to secure regional government backing for the event – wasn’t big news beyond the motoring world. But for rally fans, the loss of Rally GB is a shocking gut-punch. Rally GB has a glorious history going back to 1932, when the RAC Rally – inspired by Autocar – was dreamed up as…

COMPARISON Volkswagen Golf GTE vs rivals Plug-in hybrids aren’t all about economy; they can deliver performance, too. Can the new GTE beat its Peugeot and Merc rivals? FEATURE Record breakers We set a whole host of new records in a Porsche Taycan FEATURE Watt Car Meet the Cornish specialist aiming to preserve low-volume car making EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST McLaren GT Sports car or grand tourer? We have eight pages to find out BUYING GUIDE Honda Civic Type R EP3 Reformed hooligan is fast becoming a collectable classic, so act now SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p36…

MILEAGE 7520 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out whether the 911 in its purest form is all the sports car you need Farewell, then: the 911 is back with Porsche, by now (one careful owner and all that – promise…). It’s too soon to say goodbye, though, because its short but oh-so-sweet time with us means there’s a fair few tales still to tell before we give the car the full send-off on these pages in a couple of weeks’ time. Aside from the trips to Castle Combe for our latest Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest (18 November 2020) and to Silverstone for a twin test against the Chevrolet Corvette C8 (25 November) detailed in recent updates, most of the 911’s journeys have been the kind of mundane here-to-there…

Volvo C70 Volvo fan Martin bought a 2000 X-reg C70 T5 Auto with 94,000 miles for £500: “It was covered in mould, the boot and engine compartment full of leaves. The roof wouldn’t open and there were several warnings and lights on. I put a dehumidifier in it for three days; on the fourth morning, I pressed the roof button and it worked perfectly. I’ve replaced the rear disc pads and handbrake shoes, have found a man who can repair the radio and over the next few weeks will clean or replace all of the fuses.” Part two next week.…

Renault Twingo Renaultsport 133 £3490 We love spicy superminis at Autocar. Part of the appeal is how overtly they rekindle the spirit of the original hot hatches of the 1980s. Take this fast version of the already hilarious Twingo, for example. With a 1120kg kerb weight, 131bhp, a naturally aspirated motor and subtle sporty styling cues, it’s as close a modern car you will find to the Peugeot 205 GTi or Mk1 Volkswagen Golf GTI, and a good deal more accessible than either. Proceed with caution, though, because heavy applications of your right foot will result in swiftly reduced frugality and traction.…

An expert’s view ROBERT WHITTON, PHOENIX CLASSIC RESTORATIONS “It’s so easy to find parts for the P1800. There are some rare items that are no longer available, but you can easily find general maintenance parts – seals, bushes and repair sections. If you want the look and the rarity, go for the Jensen. Many think it has lots of problems and that’s why Sweden took over production, but let’s face it: you’re not buying new now, and any issues will no doubt have been sorted.” Buyer beware… ■ BODYWORK The rarity of UK-built P1800s makes replacement panels harder to find, but you’re unlikely to find a rust bucket. The same can’t be said of cheaper and less commonly restored post-1963 examples, which can often suffer from crumbly sills, door bottoms,…