Innholdsfortegnelse for July 21, 2021 i Autocar

THE EPONYMOUS COMPANY of Marc Philipp Gemballa (son of the late Gemballa tuning firm boss Uwe) has created a rally-ready supercar based on the current Porsche 911 Turbo S, with styling influenced by the legendary 959 Dakar racer. Called the Marsien (French for Martian), it packs a Ruffettled flat six making 740bhp and 686lb ft, enabling it to hit 62mph from rest in just 2.6sec. An optional ‘second stage’ upgrade heightens the performance further still by boosting power to 819bhp. In line with the carbonfibre-bodied Marsien’s off-road focus, suspension specialist KW Automotive has provided double wishbones for the front with solid piston damper technology and ‘intelligent active damper control’, while ground clearance can be raised from 120mm in road mode to 250mm for off-roading. Inside, there is a choice of…

If not by the blue paint then by the rakish looks, you will be able to tell that this is a fast Volkswagen. The Arteon estate (or Shooting Brake, as they prefer to call it) is a big, stylish thing that steals all the thunder from the Passat Estate and, in its standard form, is a car that I have rather a lot of time for. In this colour, with this stance and on the 20in alloys pictured (19s are standard in the UK), it’s the Arteon R. If you had to guess what this meant, you might, given that it’s a big, fast Volkswagen, take a punt on it having a tuned version of the EA888 engine from the Golf R, mated to a dual-clutch automatic gearbox and driving…

Cut through to the core and it’s hard to argue with Land Rover’s assertion that the latest Discovery is the most capable and family-friendly SUV in the world. If you’re after a breadth of on- and off-road talents, our road test long ago found that you need look no further. The most desirable, though? Definitely not, as reflected by the sales of both rivals such as the Audi Q7 and BMW X5, and the Discovery’s Velar and Range Rover stablemates. Now a raft of updates aim to address that – at least to a degree. The most visible is the switch to Land Rover’s new, hugely improved infotainment system, which goes by the name of Pivi Pro, lives in a 11.4in touchscreen and – praise be – banishes ugly memories…

It’s all about the numbers with performance cars, isn’t it? You know, the headline stats that can be pulled out at the bar any time you’re engaged in an impromptu Top Trumps tussle. Power, torque, 0-60mph, top speed – bigger, better, faster, stronger and all that. Yet as we race towards 2030 and the looming cessation of the sales of pure internal combustion engines, a new breed of go-faster motors is appearing. Big power outputs and greased-lightning acceleration times are still part of their appeal, but equal emphasis is placed on nailing a low CO2 figure and the ability to travel as many miles as possible on electricity alone. Welcome to the age of the high-performance plug-in hybrid. It’s a genre that Peugeot has embraced wholeheartedly; one that it has…

Dr Mark Porter, the Cotswolds GP well known for over 20 years as a plain-speaking expert on medical matters for TV, radio and print, is also a lifelong petrolhead. He keeps an eclectic collection of cars at home, from a Jeep to a Citroën 2CV, to support his view that, like people, it’s the differences between individuals that make them interesting. For five seasons through the 1990s, Porter was also the resident medic in Ford’s World Rally Championship team, at the very time that rallying was realising just how much fitness matters to competitive driving. He had developed strong connections with the sport with the help of the late Mark Lovell, his wife’s brother, who was a Ford works driver, and it was Lovell who persuaded the team that, for…

You might not have heard of the Envisage Group – but you’ve almost certainly seen some of its work. Envisage has been responsible for the design, engineering and production of everything from gleaming motor show concepts and production-previewing prototypes to comprehensively re-engineered road-legal cars and one-off bespoke creations. They just might not be able to tell you about it. The firm – established in 2009 and now encompassing four distinct divisions, four sites in Coventry and two international offices, in India and the US – has quietly grown into an industry leader in the expanding market of coachbuilding: creating limited-volume cars, either through the use of a bespoke platform or extensively reworking a donor vehicle. Although a large stack of non-disclosure agreements prevents Envisage from revealing many of the projects…

Formula 1 bosses have unveiled a prototype car built to the radical new 2022 regulations. It shows the impact that the new design rules, which favour mechanical over aerodynamic grip in a bid to improve on-track battles, will have. It also rides on 18in wheels, up from 13in. Formula 1 and MotoGP lose Australian rounds The Australian Grand Prix, which was due to run in March but then delayed until October due to the pandemic, has been cancelled, along with Australia’s MotoGP race. Formula 1 bosses say they are still confident of running a full 23-race season. Sports car bosses agree convergence Sports cars built to the Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) rules, such as the Toyota GR010 Hybrid and Peugeot 9X8, will be allowed to race with the Le Mans…

Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport 45 vs BMW 128ti, Honda Civic Type R VW has wasted no time in sharpening its new Golf GTI with a special edition. Can it topple the class’s finest front-drivers? ULEZ used cars Ultra low emissions zones are coming. We find the best cars that comply for you to buy Mercedes-Benz EQS Big new saloon bids to be the plushest and most luxurious electric car yet EVERY WEEK Nissan Qashqai Is the initiator of the crossover craze better than ever in third generation? Alpina B8 Alpina’s BMW 8 Series Gran Coupé brings intriguing chassis changes SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p40…

MILEAGE 6262 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Europe’s best-selling retail car lives up to our bullish road test claims When we road-tested the Dacia Sandero Stepway a few months ago, the verdict was so effusive (not the perfect car but much better than you would expect for the money) that we started wondering exactly how big the upward step had been to this all-new model, utilising its modern Renault Clio platform. Dacia, not remotely shy about helping us quantify the scale of its improvement, happily sent a previous Stepway for assessment, similarly powered to our TCe 90 but on a now-outmoded platform. Immediately obvious were that car’s much-discussed lack of rear knee room and less comfortable ingress/egress, despite there being only millimetres of difference in the overall package.…

It might not seem like much, but I paid £8.75 to watch a master at work. My local cobbler and key-cutter has saved my sartorial bacon for very modest sums. It took just a minute or two to construct my Lorry key. Having been reduced to the British Leyland original, the part-rubberised plastic one gave way the other day and caused something of a keypocalypse. Replacing the ignition key made sense, so at least I have a spare. The thing is, I have only one key for the driver’s door, passenger and rear door, fuel filler padlock and spare wheel. A full set of spares will not come cheap, but it will be much less than an electronic fob.…

Slipping discreetly under the brash-o-meter on the luxury SUV radar, this is actually the third-generation Volkswagen Touareg, a technofest on wheels that combines sharp but subtle looks and a lush interior with real on-road ability. Underneath, it shares much with everything from the imperious Audi Q7 to the manic Lamborghini Urus. There’s aluminium here and more of the stuff over there, and if it’s not exactly lightweight, it at least tosses a caber in that general direction. You can choose from a variety of turbocharged 3.0-litre six-cylinder engines. The 228bhp and 282bhp diesels are a touch gruff at idle but smooth on the move and have plenty of power. The 335bhp 3.0-litre petrol arrived late in 2019 and is quieter and even faster, but that comes at the price of…

Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned homologation hero? The Ford RS200 is one of the best known and most exciting, having been conceived as essentially a Group B World Rally Championship car that you could drive to the shops. This 1988 car has done just 5500 miles; its 2.0-litre, Cosworth-developed engine was fully rebuilt last year, having been fully recommissioned and uprated to produce more than 400bhp; and there’s zero bodywork damage. It also features a replacement turbocharger with an updated ECU and better wastegate. Get an eyeful while you can: it sold for a mouth-watering £233,500, so we reckon it’s likely to spend the rest of its life as part of a private collection.…

Much of Renault’s model line-up has received the Renault Sport treatment over the years. The Clio and Mégane have appeared in several RS guises with performance-focused modifications aimed at giving the GTIs, AMGs and Type Rs of this world a few sleepless nights. This week, we’re looking at the firm’s smallest hatchback, which in hopped-up Renault Sport 133 guise arguably acted as the vanguard for future tiny performance cars. It weighed just 1120kg, cost relatively little and remains one of the cheeriest performance-focused cars we’ve driven. The previous warmed-up Twingo, the GT, accounted for 25% of all UK Twingo sales, so expectations were high for the RS 133. Sadly, it never quite reached the same heights: Renault sold around 250 Twingo RS models per year from its 2008 launch until…

Aston Martin’s all-new Valhalla supercar is a radical, mid-engined Ferrari SF90 Stradale rival with a hybridised V8, concept car looks and a chassis set-up inspired by Formula 1. As Gaydon’s first plug-in hybrid, the Valhalla “heralds a new definition of Aston Martin”. It’s also the first all-new model launched under the guidance of CEO Tobias Moers. It forms an integral part of his bold Project Horizon transformation plan for the British brand, which will result in the launch of “more than 10 cars” by 2024, including the Valhalla, the closely related but less potent Vanquish supercar and the ultra-exclusive, V12-engined Valkyrie hypercar (see our ride-along on p9). One of the biggest influencing factors in the Valhalla’s transformation from the RB-003 concept shown at the 2019 Geneva motor show to production…

Audi has ushered in a raft of design, technology and powertrain upgrades for the third-generation version of its hardcore RS3. The new rival to the The new rival to the Mercedes-AMG A45 S will go on sale in August, priced from £50,900 for the hatchback and £51,900 for the saloon, with the first customer deliveries due towards the end of this year. POWERTRAIN Audi’s venerable 2.5-litre turbocharged five-pot motor, named an International Engine of the Year on nine consecutive occasions, returns for the new arrival. As in the RS3’s larger sibling, the RS Q3 SUV, it sends a total of 395bhp through a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox to both axles. This is sufficient to propel both the hatchback and saloon from standstill to 62mph in just 3.8sec and to an optional…

Porsche has updated its Macan for a second time ahead of launching the largely unrelated new electric Macan next year. The SUV has been treated to performance enhancements, styling tweaks and an entirely overhauled cabin to keep it fresh until the end of its life. The standard Macan, the S and the GTS are now all more powerful than previously (the Turbo has been discontinued). The entry-level Macan keeps its 2.0-litre turbo four, but with a boost from 241bhp to 261bhp, while the Macan S has swapped its 3.0-litre V6 for a 2.9-litre V6 that pushes out 26bhp more, at 375bhp. Both also receive slight torque uplifts and therefore reductions in their 0-62mph sprint times. Meanwhile, the Macan GTS has had its 2.9-litre V6 tuned to almost exactly match the…

Nearly 11 years after its unveiling, the Lamborghini Aventador is destined for retirement and the commemorative Ultimae edition will serve as Sant’Agata’s final non-electrified V12-powered production car – the last in a line of top-rung sports cars that stretches back to the 350 GT of 1964. The Aventador’s successor, launching in 2023, will retain the 12-cylinder motor, but it will make the landmark shift to plug-in hybrid power and be joined on sale by a raft of other electrified models, including an all-new, four-seat pure EV in the coming years. We caught up with Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann to hear how he will lead the Italian brand through this transformative era. How do you feel about Lamborghini’s V12 becoming electrified? “There’s a lot of emotion attached to that. There is…

Despite the outlawing of new petrol and diesel car and van sales in the UK being eight and a half years away, 2030 is writ large within the automotive industry. It is also at the forefront of the minds of those who work at the Department for Transport – not least Rachel Maclean, the Conservative MP for Redditch who is the minister responsible for transport decarbonisation. It seems as though the tide is turning and British drivers are slowly backing out of petrol and diesel vehicles in favour of zero-emissions ones. Statistics published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders show that electric cars took 10.7% of all new registrations in June. But there is still a long way to go. Although the focus so far has been on…

Compact crossovers are now doing such good business for the European car industry that several of the big players have decided they need not one but two of them in their showrooms; and so the apparently never-ending conveyor belt of new cars like these looks set to find a second gear. Whoopee. For those of us who find such things about as interesting as freshly daubed matt emulsion on plasterboard, this news may be somewhat unwelcome. But facts are facts: if you need a family car that’s affordable, spacious, versatile, convenient, comfortable, well equipped and easy to drive, this is the class in which to find it. The all-new Hyundai Bayon will certainly give you all of those qualities. Think of this as the slightly more practical, servile sidekick of…

MODEL TESTED SPORT 390 FINAL EDITION Price £64,000 • Power 392bhp • Torque 311lb ft • 0-60mph 4.0sec • • 30-70mph in fourth 5.9sec • • Fuel economy 22.1mpg • • CO2 emissions 230g/km • 70-0mph 42.2m So inimitable is the Exige proposition that you might wonder how it came to be. The textbook answer is ‘via the Elise’. The Exige was conceived simply to be the hard-top, hardcore version of the tiny roadster that transformed Lotus in the 1990s. But the less obvious answer is Ducati motorcycles. After the sales disappointment of the front-driven Elan, it was the pared-back beauty, jewel-like componentry and bone-deep purity of these Bolognese motorbikes that inspired chassis designer Richard Rackham and stylist Julian Thomson during the conception of the seminal S1 Elise. Four years…

SIT UPRIGHT AND CLOSE “Slip behind the wheel of anyone else’s car and the first thing you’re likely to do is adjust the seat and steering wheel. Cars have to be all things to all people, so driving positions are always a compromise, but here’s a tip that should help improve control and comfort: contrary to street lore, sitting low with straight arms and legs is anything but ideal. Race drivers know better so tend to sit higher and closer to the wheel than their road peers. The nearer you are to the wheel (within reason), the better control you have and the lower the load on your lumbar spine (extended arms are heavy). “I’m 6ft 2in tall and can’t remember the last time I had the seat in any…

DAVID BROWN SPEED BACK GT 2014 This is a true coachbuild project: taking the chassis of a Jaguar XKR and adding a bespoke chassis that draws inspiration from classic 1960s GT cars such as the Aston Martin DB5. The chassis is made from hand-formed aluminium panels. Envisage built the prototype model for the car’s 2014 launch and then produced the bodies for the low-volume production run. BENTLEY BLOWER CONTINUATION 2020 Bentley’s Mulliner division will produce 12 recreation versions of the famous 1929 4.5-litre Blower, each costing around £1.5 million. The project involved stripping down Bentley’s original Blower to catalogue, capture and recreate every single part. That project was based at Envisage’s base in Coventry and used the firm’s high-tech measuring tools. BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT ZAGATO 2012 Fabled Italian design house…

The sheer variety of cars taking part in the hillclimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed is well known, but did you spot the striking new machine that came 13th on the final shootout up the Duke of Richmond’s garden path, about nine seconds slower than the winning McLaren 720S GT3X? Sneaking in just behind a BMW M1 Procar and in front of a Ford Mustang Mach-E 1400 (told you the field was eclectic) was the new Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1, making its competition debut around six months before its key rivals. True, that’s not exactly the same competition it will face when rallying embarks on a new hybrid era in Monte Carlo next January. But the early unveiling of the much-rumoured Puma underlines M-Sport’s serious intent to move up…

Thanks to Simon for showing us his Volkswagen Up: “I bought it six years ago when I worked for a VW dealer to avoid paying too much tax, but it’s been great for my boys to drive given the cheap insurance. My youngest’s 250-mile round trips to university in Birmingham take no longer than in our Passat but get more than 60mpg. The clutch has been replaced, for which VW paid 70%, and the rear brakes have been overhauled, but that’s it after 64,000 miles. I’ve had Michelin Cross Climate tyres fitted, and they’ve really made an improvement.”…

Can you imagine a more cheerful and approachable hot hatch than this? Less than £10,000 in 2008 would have nabbed you the hopped-up 100hp version of Fiat’s reborn Panda, which remains to this day one of the best examples of accessible performance. Alongside the hike in power, it was lowered by 25mm over the standard supermini on stiffer springs and dampers. It also gained rear disc brakes from the Panda 4x4 and a tantalising ‘sport’ button. It’s getting rare already, but you can still find one for a sensible price. Our find looks extra purposeful in its clean shade of blue, sounds sensibly cared for at 77,000 miles and is up for just £2750.…

An expert’s view DAVID KIRK, K-TEC RACING “Engines are strong and reliable, as are the gearboxes, and we see several cars that are used regularly on track without any issues at all. As an entry into the world of Renault Sport ownership, it really is a great place to start. They’re fantastically agile and capable little cars, with great handling with the Cup chassis, and its engine is keen when revved. They really do live up to the term ‘pocket rocket’… We have had great success tuning them with remaps, exhaust and camshaft upgrades and have seen over 160bhp.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE It’s generally reliable but some may have been run ragged by boy-racer owners or on track days. Take note of maintenance schedules. Cambelt change is every six…

THE EUROPEAN UNION is considering a ban on the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars – including plug-in hybrids – from 2035 as part of its wide-reaching plan to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions. A new report from the European Commission (the EU’s executive branch) has proposed a 55% cut in vehicular CO2 emissions from current levels by 2030, rising to 100% by 2035, which would effectively make it impossible to sell non-electric vehicles in the EU’s 27 member states. The new targets are a substantial increase on the current measures, which require a 37.5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. These measures, which are becoming increasingly tougher, have already forced manufacturers to dramatically increase their electrified vehicle offerings to avoid heavy fines from the EU. Significantly, the…

OF ALL THE technologies developed to improve ride and handling, one of the most cunning has to be the Magneride damping system originally developed by mega-supplier Delphi and now produced by spinoff BWI. Next year, Magneride will have been around for 20 years. It’s still going strong and is in its fourth generation. The technology has been used by a large number of well-known brands, from Cadillac to Ferrari, and is fitted to the Mustang Mach-E GT, which appeared at the Goodwood Festival of Speed recently. Dampers are absolutely crucial to three things: roadholding, handling and comfort. Without them, a car would be undrivable, and the more effective they are over the widest range of conditions, the better the car will perform. Conventional dampers consist of a piston moving up…

The second of this week’s new Defenders is rather more old school. Land Rover first put a V8 in a Series 3 in 1979 and one in the 101 Forward Control as early as 1972 but, special variants aside, the basic Land Rover hasn’t offered one since the 1990s. Now the Defender V8 is back, unsurprisingly with the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 that Land Rover uses elsewhere in its line-up. This range-topping Defender isn’t a product of the Special Vehicle Operations division but a regular Defender model, available alongside the rather more frugal versions. I suppose, depending on where you live, what the regulations are and what kind of fuel is cheaply available to you, it could be the most sensible choice. But I suspect that it will sell because people…

Hyundai’s big mid-life facelift of its inaugural N performance division product, the i30 N hot hatchback, has been pretty wide-ranging. Four years ago, this car had a lot going for it but an awful lot more untapped potential that careful development promised to tease out. Well, a spoiler alert, folks: there’s still plenty of teasing to do. This updated version has a little bit more power than before, but quite a lot more torque. It becomes the first European Hyundai to get the firm’s specially developed eight-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, which can be had instead of the standard six-speed manual. It has new lightweight forged 19in wheels and enlarged front brake discs, too. And a wider suspension update has left it with new coil springs and adaptive dampers, new strut…

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Let’s give this clever box of tricks a go and see if it can unleash the hidden Jacky Ickx in me. It’s unlikely, but there might be a little extra pace to be dragged out of this old dog. I might even be able to impress our young-gun road testers next time I’m out on a track with them. Garmin’s aviation products have been guiding me safely around the skies ever since I learned to fly, so perhaps its new Catalyst gadget will prove to be equally useful at ground level. Garmin calls the Catalyst a driving performance optimiser but, put simply, it’s a data logger. Using 10Hz sat-nav, image processing and a built-in accelerometer, the Catalyst knows exactly where you are on the track to within inches. It isn’t…

Californian firm Plus. AI recently made the first cross-country trip with an AI-driven truck, delivering butter to Pennsylvania; Tesla has self-driving car technology; and self-driving electric taxis are being tested in China. Am I amazed by these technological developments? No. What I am amazed by is the fact the media and the car industry aren’t fighting to stop this. Why should we all be fighting against this? Well, once this tech becomes reliable, you can say goodbye to all lorry-driving jobs, taxi jobs, car sales jobs, vehicle mechanic jobs and ultimately even cars themselves when governments ban private vehicle ownership. They will use the excuses of increased safety, less congestion, less pollution and saving the environment. They will say: “Hey! Just use the app on your phone and a car…

MILEAGE 1080 WHY WE’RERUNNING IT Will unusual EV make daily driving a joy, or will its limitations frustrate? It drew a confused look from my next-door neighbour when I started piling tools, petrol cans, oil and a 12V battery into the boot of the MX-30 but, although I’m excited to try the forthcoming rotary range-extender variant, I don’t have the skills to carry out a combustion conversion on our long-termer. No, I was using the Mazda as a support vehicle in my attempts to rescue my Volkswagen Beetle from a five-year slumber and to see what it really has to offer dynamically over the rest of the electric SUV crop. Heavy rain the night before had made my hometown’s crumbly country roads particularly inhospitable, and the periodic appearance of a…

QUESTION I’m looking for a used electric SUV with a budget of £20,000. Is it possible to find one less than three years old? Anthony Edmunds, via email ANSWER The used market is awash with Kia Soul EVs, ranging from three to five years old, but these are high-milers. We also found a number of MG ZS EVs, many of which have been barely driven, for less than £20,000. There were examples in the higher Exclusive specification and with fewer than 500 miles on the clock. You will get around 163 miles on a full charge. Upping your budget to £23,000 will increase your options, as we found a 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric with just 7200 miles at this price point. JW QUESTION Returning to Goodwood this year made me…

If hunting for a hardcore hot hatchback, would you prefer a modern, fire-spitting tech-fest or a gracefully ageing modern classic? This week, we’re making a claim for the latter option. Having looked at the family-friendly but ultra-rare Volkswagen Passat R36 in last week’s Used Buying Guide, it’s time to consider that car’s more popular sibling: the second-generation Golf R32. Packing Volkswagen’s charismatic and much-missed 3.2-litre V6 motor, the R32 one-upped the Golf GTI with an impressive 247bhp and 236lb ft. As with its modern-day Golf R descendant, top speed was capped at an autobahn-friendly 155mph, while its grippy 4Motion four-wheel drive system helped to dispatch the 0-62mph sprint in 6.2sec or 6.5sec, depending on whether you went for the six-speed manual or dualclutch automatic (DSG) gearbox. A launch price close…