Innholdsfortegnelse for June 16, 2021 i Autocar

Semi 2021 Tesla’s first commercial EV is said to be “the safest, most comfortable truck ever”. First shown in late 2017, the lorry can be reserved in the UK for £15,000 and is set to make its official debut later this year when customer deliveries begin. Cybertruck 2022 Due for a market launch this year, Tesla’s brutalist answer to the Ford F-150 Lightning is now on course to enter production in late 2022. Buyers can place a fully refundable $100 (£71) deposit on the pick-up truck and have the choice of one, two or three motors, with a claimed maximum range of more than 500 miles. Roadster 2022 Set to rival the Lotus Evija with a sub-2.0sec 0-60mph time and an unprecedented range of 621 miles, Tesla’s flagship four-seat supercar…

THE RAPID RANGE expansion of nascent Korean luxury brand Genesis continues, with new spy shots suggesting the firm is readying a crossover to take on the new Audi Q4 E-tron. Likely to be called GV60, the EV will sit atop parent company Hyundai’s new E-GMP platform, which offers 800V charging functionality and a range of more than 310 miles. However, these images suggest it will take a radically different design approach from the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, which also use the E-GMP. Visible features include a coupé-style sloping roofline, slim horizontal LED lights at each end and cameras in place of conventional wing mirrors. The minimal camouflage and seemingly production-ready bodywork suggest a reveal is not far off, so a 2021 market launch is feasible for the GV60,…

JAGUAR LAND ROVER will start testing its new fuel cell powertrain technology with a hydrogen-powered Defender prototype later this year. The company’s Project Zeus programme forms part of JLR’s plan to achieve zero tailpipe emissions by 2036 and is a core part of the Reimagine strategy unveiled by CEO Thierry Bolloré earlier this year. Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) will be “complementary to battery-electric vehicles” in the company’s new-era product line-up. Key benefits over battery-electric vehicles, as outlined by JLR, include rapid refuelling and optimal range in low temperatures. Project Zeus will use an adapted FCEV Defender to test these attributes in a real-world setting, as well as other characteristics, such as off-road ability. Part-funded by the government-backed Advanced Propulsion Centre, Project Zeus is being run in partnership with engineering…

THE RADICAL RENAULT Mégane eVision concept is destined for production in 2022 as the Mégane E-Tech Electric, which has been revealed in camouflaged prototype guise ahead of a public debut later this year. The showroom-ready car, which Renault also refers to as the MéganE, stays true to the silhouette of the concept but loses some of its more outlandish styling elements. Its proportions are largely shared with Alliance partner Nissan’s new Ariya, which uses the same CMF-EV platform, although the MéganE has a straighter roofline and less aggressive design cues. The Peugeot e-2008 rival uses a 215bhp electric motor on its front axle and a 60kWh underfloor battery, making it good for 280 miles of range on the official WLTP test. Renault says that a “slim and sleek instrument panel”…

Bustling halls and stands packed with new metal: the 2021 Shanghai motor show had it all. Indeed, right down to that faste-merging staple of any major car event: a huge controversy over Tesla, this one sparked by a disgruntled buyer’s protests. Hard though it is to imagine on Europe’s bumpy road in and out of lockdowns, the car industry isn’t merely back on its feet in China but thriving. May marked the 14th month of year-on-year sales gains, even in the face of the global semiconductor crisis, and while it wasn’t hard to eclipse the dire figures from early in the pandemic, the recovery is now tipped to be deep-set and long-standing. Evidence of that is the fact that new car sales in the first quarter of this year hit…

Some 31 years after Lexus famously tried to smash its way into it with a little-known and much-dismantled limousine called the LS 400, the European luxury car market must still seem like that toughest of tough nuts, just lying there uncracked on the table, for so many aspiring global car makers that remain on the outside looking in. Even after so long, Toyota’s premium brand seems still to be engaged in the gradual process of establishing itself on our continent. After a couple of expensive attempts, Nissan’s latecomer equivalent, Infiniti, has given up trying. Cadillac and Chrysler both tried too, you might dimly remember. Neither stuck. The view from the inside isn’t much rosier today. Stellantis’s French luxury specialist, DS, is struggling to make headway, and even established European brands…

By its own admission, Renault has recently been a bit of an also-ran in the UK. But the company aims to change all that under new boss Luca de Meo’s ‘Renaulution’ plan by launching a new range of electrified cars, starting with a stylish and handily priced hybrid coupé-SUV called the Arkana. This all-new C-segment offering is one of 14 electrified Renault Group models due for launch by 2025, half of which will be EVs. In particular, de Meo plans to target the Volkswagen Golf segment – an understandable move, since it’s currently Europe’s biggest, grabbing some 40% of sales. Two more electrified C-segment cars are in the pipeline, one of them a fully electric Mégane crossover (see p13). The Arkana is already going down a storm in France, Germany,…

TOYOTA MIRAI An FCEV with a discernible dynamic character. Also keenly priced and in possession of a reasonably opulent interior, even if it isn’t the most spacious. HYUNDAI NEXO Marginally more practical and longer-legged than the Toyota, but considerably more expensive and offers the driver even less to get stuck into. HONDA CLARITY FCV Not on sale but was a convincing case study on the feasibility of hydrogen power. Handling is soft but comfortable and it has an impressive real-world range. MERCEDES-BENZ GLC F-CELL F-Cell never arrived in the UK, despite being made in RHD for Japan. It proved refined and effortless everyday transport when we tested it in 2019. BMW i HYDROGEN NEXT SUV’s power suggests BMW will bring its sporting credentials to the FCEV class when the i…

What goes up must come down, except when we’re dealing with high-performance cars like the E46-generation BMW M3 CSL and the McLaren 12C, one of which has gone down then up in value while the other has dropped steadily. The result is that these two disparate machines can now be had for the same outlay. The BMW cost £58,455 new in 2003 and dipped as low as £20k in the jaws of the financial crisis, but last April, a 10k-miler sold online for £73k plus fees. The McLaren 12C retailed at £168,500 on its debut a decade ago, but of 12 examples listed on a classifieds site, seven are £68k-£70k with 15k-40k miles. You can buy a 12C for more, a CSL for less, but there’s sizeable overlap where both…

BICESTER SCRAMBLES All year round The Bicester Scramble is a regular, informal get-together at the site of Bicester Heritage, a World War II RAF bomber station turned hub for several bespoke motoring businesses. There’s even a brewery on site for your passengers’ pleasure. YORKSHIRE MOTORSPORT FESTIVAL 25-27 June This new-for-2021 event will be the first event of its kind in the region. It will be centred on Yorkshire’s first-ever closed-road hillclimb, running largely for pre-1986 machinery, but there will also be a concours, a car display and plenty more. GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED 8-11 July Goodwood is the UK’s biggest celebration of motorsport and automotive culture, held at the magnificent country estate in West Sussex. It’s the perfect place to see the world’s most hallowed road and race cars for…

Cars and locations come with very personal associations, so my advice would be to, when the opportunity or occasion presents, plan a weekend with someone you care about, in a car that means something to you, somewhere that will evoke the right kind of warm feelings. A website like classiccarhire.co.uk is a good place to start. Bringing together classic car hire providers across the UK, it lets you search via model or area and shows you very clear pricing. A long weekend in, say, a 1975 Triumph TR6 in the Highlands of Scotland could be an ideal choice for just £650, and short-term insurance shouldn’t be too pricey. If you’re stuck for location inspiration, try a tour of the Peak District or a visit to the new Great British Car…

NATIONAL MOTOR MUSEUM This wonderful museum at Beaulieu showcases more than 80 years’ worth of automotive heritage. It hosts several ‘Simply’ brand events every year, so there’s something for every type of motoring enthusiast. BROOKLANDS MUSEUM Built as the world’s first permanent race track and later a plane factory, Brooklands is now a shrine to motoring history. And if for whatever reason you need a break from cars, the Surrey site has some amazing aircraft to see as well, not least a Concorde. THE GREAT BRITISH CAR JOURNEY The Great British Car Journey is a new interactive ‘museum’ in Derbyshire that showcases car design and manufacturing from the 1930s through to the 1990s. Visitors can drive a selection of 30 British cars (with an instructor alongside). MERCEDES-BENZ WORLD The German…

This isn’t just a pipe dream but something I’m aiming to do before the school holidays start in earnest. My fancy is to step into my favourite car of the moment (any moment), the no-frills Porsche Taycan, and drive it with the Steering Committee from our place in the Cotswolds to Lymington in time to catch the 7.25am ferry to Yarmouth, eschewing the traffic-blighted A34 for the sinuous, ancient roads that take you south through Wiltshire. Having been braced by the morning sea air, we will arrive on the Isle of Wight in time for breakfast in The George at the end of the pier. Then we will drive down the A3054 to that extraordinary array of rocks, The Needles, hoping to beat the horde and even more for a…

Yuki Tsunoda’s favourite word during his rookie Formula 1 season has so far been ‘unacceptable’. He has had ample opportunities to use it, given how much has gone wrong, meaning he has been celebrated more for his excitable, expletive-laden team radio messages than his results so far in 2021. Yet it all started so well, with eye-catching performances in pre-season testing. From underachieving in qualifying on his debut in Bahrain when capable of a top-10 position, to crashing on Saturday at Imola, to suggesting his car was different from team-mate Pierre Gasly’s in Spain, to hitting the wall while attempting to keep it clean during the second practice session on his first taste of Monaco’s streets, the 21-year-old Japanese has much to regret. And he’s nothing if not frank about…

FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 1321 WHY WE RAN IT To see if app-based subscription services can replace ownership as the future of motoring How do you hand back the keys to a car you never had the keys to in the first place? With a few taps on a screen. Ending our final month of Onto’s app-based subscription service was, like just about everything else to do with the firm, handled via a smartphone. Just open the app, tap ‘Arrange a return’, confirm which date you’d like a friendly face to turn up on your doorstep and, after a few checks for damage, wave them off. There’s no paperwork to sign, and no break clauses to trouble your bank balance. For sheer ease of use, few other methods of car ‘ownership’…

MILEAGE 3721 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if PHEV power and eight seats give van greater lifestyle appeal I KNEW THAT our Ford Tourneo Custom plug-in hybrid had some kind of artificial sound generator that kicked in while it was reversing, as it’s mandatory for all electrified vehicles to have one in order to warn pedestrians. I’ve only ever heard it from inside the cabin, though, and even then it’s not especially prominent. On a recent job, a few of my colleagues heard it first-hand and thought it was playing some kind of tune; the pitch seemingly changes based on speed and can be surprisingly melodic, although probably not enough to convince any nearby children that an ice-cream van is about to pull up. Either way, it makes…

Volkswagen Polo Dune 1.4 Rob showed us his 2003 Volkswagen Golf 1.9 TDI S about a year ago. “In the end it proved a good servant,” he says. “Just a new clutch by a local specialist was all that was essential. I spent time practising my buffing skills and polished £500 into it. Bought for £700, sold for £1250. You featured the Polo Dune recently, which I’ve had my eye on for a while, so I bought one to replace the Golf. It had to be Clean Air Zone-compliant, so I found a 2006 1.4 petrol with 12 months’ MOT and a recent full service, including a cambelt change, an oil change and a new steering rack. It had super-straight bodywork and a clean interior for £2000. As you said,…

FORD MONDEO 2.0 ECOBLUE ZETEC 5DR £1831 deposit, £302 per month, 48 months, 8000 miles per year The Mondeo defined the large family car class until SUVs stole all of its buyers. It’s therefore no surprise that it remains good to drive, gives a comfortable ride and comes with loads of standard equipment. MAZDA 6 2.0 SE-L NAV+ £1676 deposit, £276 per month, 48 months, 8000 miles per year We really like Mazda’s suave saloon here at Autocar. It has really neat handling yet avoids a stiff ride, is solid value for money and comes very well equipped. There’s also a great, non-touchscreen infotainment system inside and a huge amount of space. PEUGEOT 508 FASTBACK 1.6 PURETECH ALLURE £1736 deposit, £281 per month, 48 months, 8000 miles per year Okay,…

Honda Integra Type R £16,985 It may not match up to the more radical sports offerings of today, but Honda’s hot Integra offered a truly unique driving experience as a stripped-out road-racer, with a 187bhp 1.8-litre VTEC engine. A top speed of 145mph and a 0-62mph time of 6.7sec helped to make it an entertaining track car, with all of its available power delivered at 8000rpm. The lack of vanity mirrors, cruise control and rear wipers clearly doesn’t put off owners, who instead revel in the Integra’s pure driving experience, such as that offered by this 2003 model with 60,000 miles.…

An expert’s view NIGEL MAY, CHAIR, MG CAR CLUB’S MGF REGISTER “The MGF is a great introduction to classic car ownership. For not a lot of money, you can own a mid-engined sports car. Look for signs of rust, particularly on the subframes, and check all electrical items are working. New and used parts are freely available and there are specialists and mobile mechanics around the country who will undertake maintenance if you are not comfortable undertaking work on your own car. On a sunny day with the roof down, you won’t get more smiles per mile for the pounds you’ve spent.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE The engine isn’t particularly accessible, but get digging because it’s important to check for blown gaskets and coolant issues. The cambelt should also be…

What does the subconscious know that the conscious doesn’t? Last Saturday, I packed my motorbike for a road trip, heading first to Scotland, then to Lincolnshire for another job. I think the bosses would have let me fly if I had insisted but, honestly, I haven’t missed Luton airport but have missed riding around the UK. I tested the bike and checked its levels and pressures, and for a couple of moments I thought about packing some tools. Specifically, I imagined my largest crosshead screwdriver at the bottom of the pannier, easy to hand. But don’t be ridiculous: this is an unbreakable Honda. Besides, I couldn’t picture why I would need that screwdriver, particularly. I’m on a crusade to rid my bike of crosshead screws, even though, it being Japanese,…

“Set to go on sale in 2023, the new hatchback will mark Tesla’s shift away from the premium sector” Tesla is making a renewed push to cement itself as the world’s leading electric vehicle brand in the face of fierce competition from established manufacturers, particularly in Europe, after achieving the most successful sales quarter in its 13-year history. Crucial to the US firm’s continued success will be the introduction in the coming years of the long-mooted small, affordable electric hatchback to rival front-runners in that segment, such as the Volkswagen ID 3, Nissan Leaf and Kia e-Niro. Set to go on sale in 2023, the new Tesla hatchback will mark the firm’s landmark shift away from the premium EV sector into more accessible territory, building on the mammoth success of…

Lexus has ushered in the second-generation version of its NX crossover, which has gained a 302bhp plug-in hybrid option along with a bold new cabin design and evolved exterior styling. The latest iteration of Lexus’s best-selling model in Europe arrives shortly after the brand’s announcement that it will ramp up its electrification efforts with 10 new hybrid, PHEV and pure-electric models by 2025. The new NX forms a key part of that assault, bringing with it the NX 450h+. This is the first PHEV offered by Lexus, which has previously used parent company Toyota’s ‘self-charging’ hybrid technology for its electrified powertrains. The NX 450h+ uses the same petrol-electric set-up as the closely related Toyota RAV4 and Suzuki Across SUVs. It pairs a 182bhp 2.5-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine with…

The new Porsche 911 GT3 has gained a “more understated” Touring Package, which brings toned-down styling and a six-speed manual gearbox. The new line-up addition is mechanically identical to the 503bhp standard GT3, revealed earlier this year, but has key revisions aimed at drivers with “a pronounced passion for understatement and classic driving pleasure”. Equipped with the six-speed manual, the 911 GT3 Touring weighs 1418kg, or 1435kg with the optional seven-speed PDK auto – the same as the standard GT3. The huge fixed rear wing has been replaced by a concealed, automatically extending item, while bespoke details include aluminium window trims, a colour-coded front splitter and tinted headlights. Inside, it’s marked out by a unique leather finish for the seats, steering wheel, gearstick, centre console and armrests, as well as…

Graham Hoare, newly appointed chairman of Britishvolt, the Northumberland-based start-up that will open the first phase of a 30GWh battery manufacturing business in 2023, recently made a major career change – the kind of move he admits would not have been possible in any other era of motoring history. For the first 20 years of an illustrious engineering career, Hoare spent most of his time making and improving internal combustion engines. Working first at BMW, then Land Rover and Ford, he led and inspired the creation of some of the automotive world’s most admired powerplants, most recently Ford’s Ecoboost units, which have won consistent plaudits for their sophistication and affordability. So good was his performance that he was eventually given sign-off authority for Ford’s global product line-up, and then appointed…

Genesis’s first-ever SUV, the GV80, uses the same mixed-metal platform as the G80 saloon, and its driveline and suspension are closely technically related. Go for the larger offering, however, and you get rear-biased four-wheel drive as standard, as well as seating for up to seven. Diesel stalwarts, meanwhile, can trade up from the G80’s four-cylinder oil-burner to get the Hyundai Motor Group’s brand-new 274bhp straight six if they order a GV80. The petrol option is the 300bhp 2.5-litre turbo four that we tested in the saloon. On paper, considering the fairly modest difference between the G80 and GV80 on showroom price, the SUV’s offering looks quite the package. Perhaps that’s why Genesis expects it to outsell the saloon in Europe, at least for the time being. The GV80’s cabin certainly…

Electric cars have altered our perception of refinement with their near-silent drivetrains: in just a few years, the standards in this particular area have increased enormously. Even so, it’s difficult not to be impressed by the overall quietness of the new Maybach S680, a V12-powered limousine that for the most part is every bit as serene as the latest crop of high-end EVs. Set off in the new leather-lined saloon, which has a 180mm-longer wheelbase than the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class from which it’s derived, and you can’t help but marvel at the hushed qualities of its engine. There’s an inherent calmness to its operation that puts it in the same exalted class as the Rolls-Royce Ghost for tranquillity. The twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre V12, now mated to Mercedes’ own nine-speed torque-converter gearbox…

Millbrook’s Hill Route isn’t the natural habitat for a mid- to senior-sized saloon with soft suspension and relatively little torque. With the same boat-like gait as the Honda Clarity FCV, the Toyota will tolerate being hustled but lacks precision in all areas, making it much less enjoyable or confidence-inspiring to plot along the barrier-lined bends of this course than, say, a BMW 7 Series or Mercedes E-Class. However, to its credit, the Mirai never gets itself into any trouble. Its suspension might be supple but the car maintains good directional stability, and though outright grip levels are hardly exceptional, both ends of the car are consistent with one another, and the Mirai shows a mid-corner balance that yields higher speeds than you might be expecting. Up the ante and you’ll…

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PORSCHE 911 GT3 (996) A direct CSL rival in period, the first GT3 offers comparable performance from a similarly exquisite naturally aspirated six, but it’s more like a McLaren dynamically. It’s more abundant than a CSL and can be had in the low-£50k bracket, but most are up for around £70k. FORD SIERRA RS COSWORTH The CSL wasn’t the first repmobile-based motor to scare supercars, as this car attests. No charismatic motor here, though, just a 2.0-litre YB based on the old Pinto with added twin cams and single turbo. It only just clears 200bhp (or 500bhp with work). Two are currently at £65k and a rare RS500 is up for £82k. LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO The Gallardo’s mid-engined concept is similar to the 12C’s, but its execution could barely be more…

VERY FEW PEOPLE will ever get the chance to play football at Wembley, cricket at Lord’s or rugby at Twickenham, but through a track day or driving experience, pretty much anyone can drive a racing car around a fabled British circuit such as Silverstone or Brands Hatch. Granted, you won’t be able to lap the home of the British Grand Prix in Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 car, but most circuits offer driving experiences where you can hire a single-seater (or various other machinery) and receive some valuable tuition. In an era when Britain’s public roads are becoming ever more congested, few driving experiences can match piloting a car designed purely for racing on a wide-open expanse of asphalt. Of course, it’s not absolute freedom: for safety reasons, you will…

It’s no secret that Mercedes-AMG’s V8-powered super-saloons can get properly sideways in the right hands. You will have seen plenty of drift shots on these very pages, smoke billowing from the tyres and the driver wearing a massive grin. But how hard is it to slide an AMG in real life? A trip to Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey will let you find out, with a half-day package getting you behind the wheel of both a C63 and E63 on the company’s selection of test tracks. The highlight is the circular skidpan, one of very few in the UK that are open to the public. With a professional in the passenger seat, even a complete novice can learn what it takes to slide out the rear – and how to recover…

I’ve never understood why convertibles are unpopular among motoring writers. No matter which soft-top model you have, whether it’s a new Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante or a second-hand Vauxhall Cascada, there are few motoring pleasures finer than cruising along with the top down, no rush, shades on and laid-back tunes playing with a companion or three on a sunny day. You don’t even need a destination – although a pub garden or beach will enhance the experience. For me, if I’m not allowed to cross the Channel, the ideal would be a Mazda MX-5 and good old Sussex by the sea. For you, it could be anywhere. It really doesn’t matter, because we will both be mightily enjoying ourselves.…

I’m cheating a bit here, I’m afraid, but I can blame geography. A home in Lincolnshire, a desire to drive around the Ardverikie Estate in Scotland and a car in the shape of a 1955 Willys Jeep (the M38A1 version, if you want to talk specifics) that’s flat out at 45mph do not happy bedfellows make, so a trailer and a tow car must be involved in my plan. Even so, once you’re up there, there’s surely no finer way to celebrate ‘the release’. The weather can sometimes be beautiful up on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, with lochs, hills and heather, and where man and machine can get back in touch with nature. There were few highlights of the past 15 months, but the way the natural…

Hannah Denton took 18 months to secure her first deal, but it was a big one: 1100 vans for a housing association. Her role selling vans to fleet customers is more of a slow burn than the quick hit of dealership sales, so the first was always going to be memorable. “I remember exactly where I was when I heard it: sitting in a traffic jam on the M6,” she says. Denton, 36, works for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles targeting van fleets of between 100 and 2000 in size across one of four UK regions. Last year, hers was the only region to hit its sales target. Two years earlier, she was responsible for nearly 2200 sales, making her the second-most-successful area fleet manager by volume in the whole Volkswagen Group.…

High drama as F1 returns to Baku Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez won an action-packed Azerbaijan Grand Prix recently. He held his nerve to win the two-lap sprint to the finish after team-mate Max Verstappen crashed out of the lead, bringing out the red flags. Pirelli claimed debris may have caused Verstappen’s sudden left-rear tyre failure, which looked similar to that of Lance Stroll earlier in the race. A brake blunder at the restart left Sir Lewis Hamilton out of the points, so Pérez led home Sebastian Vettel – who bagged Aston Martin’s first F1 trophy – and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. Singapore slung The Singapore GP is the latest race to drop off this year’s F1 calendar due to the pandemic. The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, is tipped…

Sergio Pérez’s inherited Baku win moved him onto a long list of two-time grand prix winners. Among them is Elio de Angelis, who stands comparison to Pérez as being respected and popular without being considered among the elite. He was from a wealthy family but quickly shook off his pay-driver tag to become a cult hero. After an apprenticeship at Shadow, he joined Lotus in 1980, spending five years as team-mate to Nigel Mansell and one to Ayrton Senna. His first win was memorable as one of the closest ever, as he beat Williams’ Keke Rosberg to the line in Austria by 0.05sec. His second was inherited when Alain Prost was disqualified at Imola in 1985 for his McLaren being underweight after running out of fuel. A year later, de…

WRITE TO autocar@haymarket.com Motoring for the rich At last, a sensible voice from within the motor industry. Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares has publicly voiced what many of us have thought and tried to get heard for many years. I’ve long said that the rush to electric cars in order to comply with a target of notional zero-emissions transport is an expensive blind alley Just as the politicians got it so wrong when they damned petrol in favour of diesel by looking at only one headline aspect, they’ve again got it disastrously wrong by encouraging expense in both monetary and ecological terms. Car taxation should be based not on emissions but on weight and size, as these aspects have at least as much environmental impact as emissions. We’re told that the…

MILEAGE 9183 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see how easily a hot-shoe rally-replica fits into daily life There are dog walkers; pensioners who won’t get out of their cars; and me. Hello from a Dorset seafront. The GR Yaris has had such an uneventful few weeks while I’ve been on ordinary commuter jobs that I thought it (and I) deserved an adventure. Or what qualifies as one these days. So this morning, instead of heading to the Post Office to send a couple of family birthday presents, on a whim I loaded them into the Yaris’s less than cavernous boot and headed south to deliver them in person. I figured it would remind me of a few things so I could write this at the end of the drive. Discovery…

QUESTION Is there any more info on Mitsubishi leaving the UK? PM Webb, via email ANSWER Mitsubishi recently agreed a deal with Renault to continue selling new cars in mainland Europe, so it’s not going too far. But in the UK, the Japanese firm will continue to operate as an “aftersales-only business”, so you can still have your car maintained if you’re the owner of one of the 400,000 Mitsubishis in the UK. Subaru importer International Motors is in advanced discussions to take over the aftersales business, which could secure parts supply for the longer term. JW QUESTION My 2014 Volkswagen Passat Estate’s rear wiper wash leaks into the boot and causes its alarm to go off. Why hasn’t there been a recall to fix this? Nicholas Loveland, via email…

Vauxhall Ampera Electron £7000 Vauxhall surprised everybody in 2012 when the Ampera hit UK roads. It was actually a Chevrolet Volt rebadged under the Vauxhall name, with only light visual tweaks to tell the American original from its Luton-hailing cousin. It provided a good opportunity for the EV-curious to dip their toes into the land of hybrid power. The Ampera is somewhat forgotten as an important player in the hybrid scene, but its stats still read impressively today. It could cover 0-62mph in 9.0sec thanks to its 1.4-litre engine and electric motor, producing a combined 148bhp, and its claimed EV range was up to 50 miles, when even today’s Volkswagen Golf GTE tops out at 40 miles before petrol power must cut in. Altogether, the Ampera claimed an (unrealistic) average…

WE’VE JUST GIVEN out awards for 2021’s best cars and the people behind them, but 30 years ago the (imaginary) trophies at hand were of a very different nature, in the Angry Young Man Awards. The motorsport winners were F1 driver Alain Prost for his implosion and firing after Ferrari’s struggles and Porsche for the embarrassing performance of its new V12 in F1. The worst concept car was the Mazda HR-X, which was “obviously the product of a deranged mind”. The worst design was given to the Bugatti EB110, “a great ugly slab of a thing”, and Campogalliano also won the “worst specialist manufacturer of the year” title. The equivalent for medium-size manufacturers was bestowed on Alfa Romeo; while Ford narrowly missed out on worst mainstream manufacturer, thanks to the…

Tesla has started US customer deliveries of its headline market introduction for 2021, the Model S Plaid, with a 1006bhp tri-motor powertrain good for 0-60mph in 1.99sec and a claimed range of 390 miles. But the even more potent Plaid+, which was meant to up power to 1100bhp and range to 520 miles, courtesy of a 140kWh battery, has been cancelled, despite generating significant worldwide interest at its unveiling and being available for pre-order on Tesla’s website earlier this year. “Plaid+ is cancelled. No need, as Plaid is so good,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter, going on to describe the standard Plaid as the “quickest production car ever made of any kind”. It is not yet clear how many pre-orders the firm had taken for the Plaid+. The…

THE KIA SPORTAGE has been completely overhauled inside and out for its fifth generation, as revealed by the first official pictures of the mid-sized SUV before its market launch later this year. And for the first time in the SUV’s 28-year life cycle, Kia has confirmed a Europe-specific variant, which will arrive in September and be closely related visually to the car revealed here. A bespoke chassis tune and lightly revised styling will set it apart, and it will be built exclusively in Slovakia. The new Sportage is the second production model after the new EV6 to be designed under Kia’s new ‘Opposites United’ ethos. Its relationship with the upcoming flagship electric car is evident from shared elements, including its ‘boomerang’ headlights, concave bootlid, swollen rear arches and prominent spoiler.…

The new Volkswagen Multivan has been revealed, marking one of the most significant reinventions for the company’s largest MPV in its 71-year history. The passenger-carrying version, previously called the Caravelle, now has a new name to reflect its comprehensive reinvention and the fact that it no longer shares its underpinnings with the commercially oriented Transporter. Instead, the seven-seater has made the switch to an extended version of the Volkswagen Group’s caroriented MQB platform, also used by the Seat Tarraco, Skoda Kodiaq and VW Tiguan. That move paves the way for a raft of technological, stylistic and ergonomic enhancements while allowing the MPV to adopt a new plug-in hybrid powertrain. The Multivan eHybrid’s electrified powertrain pairs a 148bhp 1.4-litre turbo petrol engine with a 114bhp electric motor on the front axle…

Bugatti has revived the Super Sport name for an uprated version of the Chiron to serve as a sister model to the recently launched Chiron Pur Sport. The Chiron Super Sport shares its mechanicals and most of its styling with the Chiron Super Sport 300+, a limited edition based on the specially adapted Chiron that achieved a record-breaking 304mph top speed in 2019. Unlike that model, however, the £2.75 million Super Sport, which will enter production early next year, places more of an emphasis on refinement. Whereas the Super Sport 300+ was a lightweight and pace-focused affair, the Super Sport stays true to the Bugatti tradition of “combining top speed with absolute luxury”, according to president Stephan Winkelmann. It is, he claimed, “the ultimate grand tourer”. Chief among the design…

BEFORE DIGITAL COMPUTING arrived on the scene, the next step in lifting ideas from the drawing board and turning them into reality was the building of prototypes. Prototypes can be individual parts or complete cars, and once they’re built, they can be put through their paces to see how well they do and, in some cases, tested to destruction if necessary. Traditional prototyping was a slow and expensive process because, even with the best engineers, theory wasn’t always borne out in practice. The constant back and forth between drawing board and prototypes was costly and enormously time-consuming. Computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) for designing and simulating the performance of products changed things entirely, with the inevitable consequence that cars can now be engineered, prototyped and tested in a…

MONDAY Electrified week. I spent a fascinating few days with Fiat’s 500e, a car I tried in left-hand-drive form months ago but have been itching to assess in the real world ever since. Why real world? Because no matter how many left-handed miles you do on the rutted, high-crowned roads of Britain, you can’t form an accurate idea of a car’s ride quality while bumping along in the gutter. At first, the 500e seems bigger than its petrol sibling, but there are only a couple of centimetres in it. (We measured.) Striking impressions are of a familiar design cleverly progressed, and a heartening improvement in materials and assembly quality. A week is enough time to show how quickly you stop missing a conventional drivetrain, too. For me, the 500e’s quick…

There has been a lot of talk about the upcoming fully electric version of the Porsche Macan, which is set to arrive in the UK in 2023. Company officials have been dropping hints about it for well over a year now and we’ve recently received a series of photographs that expose prototypes of the new model. But Porsche hasn’t been neglecting the existing petrol-engined Macans. Far from it, as we found out during a drive of a prototype facelifted Macan, a model now in its seventh year of production. Seven years. For most car makers, this would represent a full generational cycle and high time for an all-new model. Not for Porsche, though. Sticking to an evolutionary approach it has followed for decades, it has reworked the Macan, giving it…

MODEL TESTED DESIGN PREMIUM Price • £64,995 Power 180bhp • Torque 221lb ft • 0-60mph 8.7sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Fuel economy 38.0mpkg • CO2 emissions 0g/km • 70-0mph 45.9 m The past 10 years ought to have been nourishing ones in the realisation of that sustainable dream of personal transport, the hydrogen fuel cell car. Despite the best efforts of many car makers, however, and principally due to external factors, they haven’t quite gone to script. It was back in 2014 when Toyota took the covers off its first-generation Mirai hydrogen production car (its name Japanese for ‘future’). A year before, Hyundai had started making fuel cell cars in low volumes, and in 2017 Honda’s second-generation Clarity FCV came along. Even lower-volume, toe-dipping hydrogen car pilot schemes…

We’re precariously balanced on top of a steep, rocky outcrop. After six or so miles of punishing vertical strikes that have tested the suspension to its very limits, the severity of today’s testing has reached its pinnacle. Up front, the right-side wheel hangs in mid-air at full rebound. At the rear, the heavily loaded left-side wheel is tucked well into its wheelhouse at a truly improbable camber angle. Welcome to the daunting off-road trail that winds its way up the Schöckl – just outside the city of Graz in Austria – to an altitude of 1445 metres. It’s here where the Ineos Grenadier is undergoing its latest phase of durability testing. In a torturous five-week programme, two prototypes of the bold new British-designed off-roader are planned to be driven 336…

When it comes to tyres, Jamie Smeeth has seen it all. He’s the manager of Protyre in Portsmouth, one of 160 depots in a nationwide network. But even he is shocked by a tyre taken off a customer’s car this morning. Around its inside shoulder is a long split that’s wide enough to put your fingers in. Just above it, the cords that support the tyre are exposed. Worryingly, the driver had no idea his tyre was like this. Smeeth turns it over and, in truth, it doesn’t look so bad: worn, yes, but not to the wear blocks. How did it get that nasty split? “Probably a slow puncture,” says Smeeth. “As the tyre goes down, it spreads out, allowing the wheel to rub the shoulder, causing it to…

Open spaces. Mountains. Vast stretches of water. Friendly welcomes. Empty roads. Shortbread. Midges. Scotland. What with one thing and another, I couldn’t get up to my favourite road-trip destination last year, but that hasn’t been the case in 2021. I love how you can drive on lovely, lonely roads all day and yet still not end up back where you started. My favourite Scottish road trip to date was in an Aston Martin Vanquish S. Right now, the ideal car for it would surely be the Toyota GR Yaris. But the weather was so nice last week that I decided to ride my old Honda Africa Twin motorcycle instead. You can read more about how that went on p90.…

‘Go west, young man’ might or might not have been the phrase uttered to those looking for a new life in 19th-century America, but it’s definitely the advice I will heed for my lockdown escape. Instead of the inhospitable Midwest, however, I will be setting a course for Mid Wales. As a lifelong fan of rallying, I’ve spectated live and sucked up all the TV coverage I can, but I’ve never driven any of the cars I’ve spent so long watching storm along special stages. So that will all change with a trip to The Forest Experience. Following in the wheel ruts of Richard Burns and Colin McRae, I will get my gravel groove on in a brace of Mk2 Ford Escorts and Subaru Impreza WRXs as I swap ‘stay…

Land Rover Experience (LRE) centres are to the off-roading world what PalmerSport is to track days, getting you out in Land Rovers on tricky off-road courses through forests and over crowd-pleasing man-made obstacles (two-wheel drive, with those wheels at opposite corners, anyone?). The daddy of the LRE centres is Eastnor, the Herefordshire proving ground where Land Rovers have always been developed. And the daddy of Land Rover off-roaders is now once again the Defender, of which I finally got a first taste in the rough stuff at Eastnor recently. At any LRE, you will join a small convoy topped and tailed by experienced instructors on walkie-talkies to guide you through the woods and explain the different Terrain Response settings to ensure the car is best set up for the mud,…

Get some tinfoil around those Scotch eggs and make sure the cola is nice and flat: we’re going on a road trip. Nope, not Route 66 or the North Coast 500 but the A21 from London to Camber Sands – arguably the UK’s most picturesque beach. I will concede that it’s not the most physically demanding or dynamically rewarding schlep, so you might as well take things easy with a proper old-school Volkswagen camper van. You won’t get there quickly, but you can sleep in it afterwards – and you can’t make a cup of tea in a Caterham. There’s a range of fully equipped VW vans on offer throughout London on camperbug.co.uk, including newer water-cooled examples if you’re not feeling particularly brave. Prices range from roughly £50 to £100…

Formula 1 isn’t due to stage its first proper trial sprint race until the British Grand Prix next month, but it seemed race director Michael Masi couldn’t wait to give the concept a go on the Baku street circuit, with a two-lap shootout to conclude the Azerbaijan GP. Previously, an incident similar to Max Verstappen’s crash so late in an F1 race generally led to the result being declared at the time of the red flag or a safety car finish. Just a few years ago, the prospect of F1 chiefs stopping a race to ensure a two-lap shootout – with a standing start, no less – would have seemed somewhat gauche. Something unbecoming of the pure art of grand prix racing. So what has changed? Well, after picking his…

Jaguar eases to title 12 October 1988 “IF YOU’RE GOING to become world champion, there’s only one way to do it, isn’t there?” remarked Jaguar’s Martin Brundle after a commanding win at Fuji to end the 1988 World Sportscar Championship. “After all the tension, it turned out to be our easiest win of the year. The car never missed a beat.” The WSC’s grids were especially strong in 1988, with factory entries from Jaguar, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche and Toyota, plus some strong privateers, but the XJR-9’s victory in Japan hadn’t been in doubt since hour three of the race’s six. Brundle’s co-driver, Eddie Cheever, started cautiously as a quartet shot off to fight tooth and nail at the front, but he had clawed his way up to second position…

DRIVEN New Mercedes-Benz C-Class The verdict will be delivered on one of 2021’s most important new cars. Will the BMW 3 Series still rule the roost after this? FEATURE Swindon after Honda What happens to a town when its car factory is shut down? We find out DRIVEN Nissan Qashqai The model that started the crossover boom enters its third generation. We rate it EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Ford Mustang Mach-E The EV that tries to be a family car, sports car and eco-warrior all at once LONG-TERM TEST Dacia Sandero Britain’s most affordable car joins our fleet. Steve Cropley heralds it SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p40…

MILEAGE 720 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Will unusual EV make daily driving a joy, or will its limitations frustrate over time? WHILE EVERYBODY ELSE slapped on the factor 30 and ordered jugs of Pimm’s, I was to be found gleefully unplugging our Mazda for its first real stab at an extra-urban jaunt. Warm weather arrived like manna from heaven, boosting the MX-30’s range from an oft-displayed 115 miles to 128. Small fry, you might think, but in the world of the nervous urban EV owner, every single one counts. Off to Kent, then, on a 100-mile round trip to see my parents – a journey that I approach with caution ever since our old Vauxhall Corsa-e long-termer and its optimistic range indicator got me stuck at Cobham services in the…

LAND ROVER SERIES 3 Weeks after removing the spare wheel from the bonnet of the Lorry, I had to heft it back on, because I needed to put most of a new bathroom in the back for transportation purposes. Then the battery went flat. It wasn’t just reluctant to turn over but showed no signs of life at all. I checked whether I had left a light on, but no. A solid 24 hours of charging brought the five-month-old battery back to life. It seems that some idiot had left the radio on – well, glowing. This car has had some electrical and earthing issues in the past, so maybe this is another manifestation – or just a lame excuse. I will keep you posted.…

This handsome Mazda fits between the CX-3 crossover and CX-5 large SUV, yet it isn’t called the CX-4. What’s in a name, after all? You see, the purpose of the CX-30 is very clear, even if its identity isn’t: to offer all the good qualities of those two cars in a more modern family SUV-sized package. And by and large, it succeeds in that purpose admirably well. As you would expect from Mazda, there are some interesting engines to choose from. It gives you a choice of two 2.0-litre petrol engines, both of which lack turbocharging but use mild-hybrid technology, with a small electric motor and battery working together to improve fuel efficiency and engine response at low speeds. Both engines come with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, plus…

SUZUKI CAPPUCCINO With its 50:50 weight distribution and tipping the scales at just 725kg, Suzuki’s tiny Cappuccino roadster was popular on release. It made use of a turbocharged 660cc engine producing a meagre 63bhp, but still managed to hit 62mph from rest in 8.9sec. Only 1100 examples made it to the UK after its release in 1992, and silver ones like this 1994 example are especially rare, originally outnumbered four to one by the more popular red cars. It sold for a strong £8100 thanks to its exterior and engine, both in good condition after 22 years of very light use and garage storage.…

In a market swamped with compact SUVs, you wouldn’t be blamed for craving a blast in something small, cheap, fun to drive and quick off the line, and the MGF fills this shrinking niche perfectly. It arrived at an exciting time for diminutive, mid-engined British sports cars as it went toe to toe with the Lotus Elise (even if it was a little-known front-motored Japanese roadster called the Mazda MX-5 that really came to define the segment). The F arrived to high praise in 1995, received a facelift four years later and soldiered on until 2002, when it was replaced by the closely related TF. The MGF, it is worth remembering, also fought off competition from the Audi TT and BMW Z3 to become the UK’s top-selling affordable sports car.…