Innholdsfortegnelse for April 13, 2022 i Autocar

“The design team are looking at an unusual replacement for the Giulia” Alfa Romeo’s premiumfocused reinvention under the ownership of Stellantis is continuing apace, with the focus now shifting to a replacement for the Giulia saloon and, according to senior sources, the creation of a new large SUV flagship. Speaking to Autocar at the Pomigliano factory in Italy that will build the recently revealed Tonale crossover, Alfa Romeo boss Jean-Philippe Imparato said that he had tasked the design team with looking at an unusual replacement for the Giulia. In addition, industry reports have been circulating about the development of a new range-topping SUV in the vein of the Porsche Cayenne, likely to be battery-electric. Imparato told Autocar that the current Giulia and Stelvio SUV have “some years left to run”…

The reinvention of 28-year-old Smart as a style-led electric mobility brand is officially under way, with the production version of the #1 (pronounced ‘hashtag one’) arriving to challenge a host of electric compact crossovers. This is the first new Smart car since Chinese group Geely became a 50% stakeholder, taking half of the company from Mercedes-Benz in 2019. It is also the first all-new car to wear a Smart badge since 2014 and described by the firm’s European CEO, Dirk Adelmann, as “the nucleus of all things to come”. The #1 is positioned as a premium-oriented crossover with dimensions and technical figures that line it up as a rival to the Renault Mégane E-Tech and Kia Niro EV. Importantly, however, Smart emphasises that a focus on maximising interior space results…

Lamborghini has launched the most versatile and ambitious version of the mid-engined Huracán supercar to date. With styling lightly inspired by the hybridised Sián hypercar, the rear-driven Tecnica will bridge the gap between the Huracán Evo and the hardcore STO when it arrives later this year at an expected asking price comfortably in excess of £200,000. Chief technical officer Rouven Mohr described it as “more or less a combination of both [existing] cars”. As such, the spread of its recalibrated driving modes is broad, with Strada offering the same languid cruising manners as the regular Huracán Evo and Corsa bringing the Tecnica close to the aggression of the STO. However, midway Sport mode will be the new car’s ace card, enabling levels of controllable oversteer never before seen in any…

MAYBE IT’S NO surprise but the worldwide boom in electric vehicles is spawning furious activity in battery development. Work is going on to improve existing lithium ion technology (such as solidstate batteries that do away with liquid electrolyte), but determined efforts are being made to perfect the use of more diverse ingredients, too. Most are still at the research stage, and although it’s true that attempts to develop better batteries in the past haven’t amounted to anything tangible, there’s now a lot more incentive and financial backing to try to make game-changing ideas work. One of those is the lithium air cell, a sort of halfway house between a conventional battery and a hydrogen fuel cell. The man who really started the ball rolling on lithium air cells is Professor…

A POLISHED ACT We scooped Fiat’s radical electric future last month, but it turns out Fiat EVs have existed for decades. The Polish National Museum of Technology has acquired a Polish-built Fiat 125p that was electrified at the Warsaw Electrotechnical Institute in 1977. Its range is just 62 miles and its top speed 50mph, but that’s impressive when you consider that it has eight 40kg batteries in its boot. GEMERA GETS GOING Do you have a spare three minutes and 42 seconds? Koenigsegg has published a video of the boss himself, Christian von Koenigsegg, firing up and driving the first completed prototype of the Gemera, a mega-GT due in 2023 with 1700bhp from a 2.0-litre twin-turbo triple and three EV motors. We’ve yet to verify its 250mph top speed, 1.9sec…

All new large goods vehicles must have zero-emissions powertrains from 2035, the heaviest articulated trucks following in 2040. Currently, most are diesel-engined. Industry stalwarts like Mercedes-Benz already have a range of batteryelectric trucks, such as the Fuso eCanter 66kWh in service with DPD and the eActros rigid/artic, with a 448kWh battery for a 250-mile range. And for intercontinental long-haul haulage, Mercedes will employ hydrogen fuel cells, with its first tractive unit due in service in 2027. Just like on the car side, there are also EV start-ups, like Volta. Its Zero 18-tonne rigid truck, equipped with a 150kWh battery for 125 miles of range, is scheduled for first deliveries in 2023. Truck operators face even more upheaval in the next 10 years than car drivers as net-zero policies close out…

In Norway, you navigate to the swap station via your Nio’s sat-nav, which automatically books you in when you get close. Park in the marked rectangle, press an icon on the car’s touchscreen and the car autonomously backs in. Rollers line up the car, magnets prevent movement and jacks elevate it just enough to take weight off the suspension. Extractors then remove 10 bolts holding the battery in place and a separate jack removes the battery, which forms the car’s underside. A fresh battery is then extracted from the ‘hotel’ where it has been sitting charging at a maximum rate of 60kW and preconditioned. The new battery is fitted, the car is checked for new firmware downloads, the screens come back to life and you can drive off. Each swap…

Aheadline power output can often give the biggest clue to a car’s positioning in a line-up. In the case of the Aston Martin DBX 707, that 707PS (or 697bhp) is the highest power output yielded to date from Mercedes-AMG’s superb twintur-bocharged 4.0-litre V8 petrol engine, which quickly signifies the latest version of the SUV as the range-topper, and by some margin. That it indeed is. Yet this is a high-performance range-topper that goes far beyond the usual ‘uprate it, lower it, stiffen it’ approach, being more akin to a facelift or a remastering. The DBX done better, in other words. Not that the DBX was wanting for much. It got a four-and-a-half-star Autocar road test rating less than two years ago, after all. Yet since then, Aston Martin has appointed…

The range-topping A8 has never achieved the cut-through that most other Audi models have. Granted, the luxury saloon sector is a fairly small space, and it’s one that’s shrinking at that; plus the Mercedes-Benz S-Class has pretty much had it sewn up since God was a boy. Still, it’s a segment in which manufacturers show off all their shiny new technology that will in time trickle down their ranges; and at this cutting edge, there’s far more than pride at stake and sales charts to top: there is influence to be had and there are reputations to be made. This revised A8 arrives with no new technology to showcase, though, which is a bit awkward given that the tech-rich new-generation S-Class is being launched in the UK at the same…

MODEL TESTED RECHARGE TWIN ULTIMATE Price £58,900 • Power 402bhp • Torque 487lb ft • 0-60mph 4.4sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Economy 2.6mpkWh • CO2 emissions 0g/km • 70-0mph 48.5m When you think of electric Volvos, the first car that springs to mind could easily enough not be a Volvo at all, but the Polestar 2. After all, the two brands are very closely related, so much so that the Polestar 2 was originally intended to be a Volvo, until it was decided Polestar should be an electric brand in its own right and needed a volume model to follow the Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid coupé. While the Polestar 2 looks quite a lot like a Volvo and feels quite a lot like a Volvo, future Polestars are planned…

Question of moral agency I read your article about the industry switch to an agency retail model (Business, 23 March) with a mixture of amusement and irritation. Tony Whitehorn said “customers don’t really enjoy haggling” and “the agency model is completely transparent”. Yep, it certainly is, because if you want a certain brand of car, you will know you have no chance of getting a better deal by trying a different dealer or a broker. And we haggle in order to save our hard-earned money; forcing us to pay what the manufacturer wants is hardly a good solution to this. I found the peppering of management speak amusing, in particular Whitehorn’s “almost monetise the asset”. Yes, I love my asset being monetised. And: “It will be what the customer wants,…

The Honda Jazz has been with us for more than 20 years now and the current, fourth-generation car ushered in the most comprehensive update the model has ever had. On top of a hefty interior overhaul, new, eye-catching styling and a host of premium safety equipment, it also received the de rigueur compact SUV treatment. This was for the Crosstar variant, which sits alongside the standard hatchback. The Crosstar is 31mm wider and 46mm longer and its ride height has been raised by 37mm. It also has off-road styling details, such as black wheel arches, roof rails, body cladding and a bespoke front grille design. The Jazz hatchback and Crosstar share one drivetrain option. It’s an economical hybrid unit, consisting of a 1.5-litre i-VTEC petrol engine, two electric motors, a…

A road test in any other magazine might well be a short, subjective summary of a new car produced under almost any circumstances, but the Autocar road test is different. Specific, rigorous and detailed, it’s the closest examination we can give of any new model. It appears over at least eight pages and is close to 50 man-hours in the making every week. Most of what the road test process entails is designed to be strictly repeatable and fair. We benchmark standing-start and in-gear acceleration at a purpose-built test facility every week. We carry out both subjective and objective handling tests on both road and track, on the latter up to and beyond the limit of grip, so as to fully assess stability, drivability and limit handling appeal. And while…

This is the fifth-generation Range Rover and, well, it doesn’t feel like it needs a reinvention, does it? While the new Land Rover Defender was a product transformed and the latest Land Rover Discovery went a bit on-piste compared with its predecessor, what we have here is the same luxury car meets SUV – the sort of model the Range Rover helped to define – only more so. More luxury, more refinement, more size. More technology? More price? Put it this way: “Alexa, how much is this new Range Rover I’m sitting in?” “From £99,375.” Some background, then. The new Range Rover can be had in short-or long-wheelbase forms, and both are larger than the versions they replace. It rides on a new platform called MLA Flex, 80% aluminium but…

Tonale New small crossover, which offers Alfa’s first plug-in hybrid powertrain, is due in the UK very soon and will gain an electric version if the demand is there. A Quadrifoglio also hasn’t been ruled out. Brennero A Ford Puma rival to open up Alfa’s expanding SUV range, the Brennero (named after a mountain pass between Italy and Austria) is expected in 2024 as a close relation to the Peugeot 2008. GTV Hallowed GTV name is tipped to return for a rakish electric five-door coupé to take on the BMW i4. A plug-in hybrid powertrain option could be one of the final combustion cars Alfa launches. Giulia The successor to today’s well-received Giulia, now in its sixth year, is set to be a less conventional shape, possibly straddling the saloon-estate…

THE STORIED DeLorean name is returning for a futuristic American electric supercar, which will take a completely different design approach to the DMC-12 sports coupé of 1981-1982. Now confirmed for an unveiling on 18 August ahead of a debut at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance three days later, the DeLorean EVolved, as it is currently known, will be a highly modern proposition with what look to be only subtle nods to its famous namesake. Previews released by its creator hint at a rear end clearly designed with a focus on aerodynamic efficiency: the rear deck is tapered and houses louvres for directing airflow, the rear arches extend dramatically from the side of the car and there looks to be an extendable rear wing housed above the full-width light bar. Beyond…

Driving a late-development prototype Tecnica on track at Nardò is huge fun, even if it feels like a step down after the spikier adrenaline highs of the Huracán STO. The Tecnica is clearly more road focused than its race-inspired sibling. That’s no bad thing: the STO’s refinement could politely be described as marginal. But it does make the Tecnica a less intense ten-tenths experience. Its V10 is noticeably quieter when being revved out – apparently, tougher drive-by regulations are partially to blame for that – and it has less darty front-end responses thanks to fixed-ratio steering. Yet once turned in to Nardò’s many corners, the Tecnica produces huge grip and the exciting, edgy sensation that comes from big power and rear-wheel drive. The dynamic systems still keep guard, but the…

The new EV6 GT is Kia’s most powerful car yet, but it will be a true grand tourer with a high degree of versatility, according to the brand’s development guru. The range-topping version of the electric crossover features a dual-motor powertrain with combined outputs of 577bhp and 546lb ft of torque, resulting in a 0-62mph time of 3.5sec and a top speed of 161mph – making it faster than the Porsche Taycan 4S. Yet Albert Biermann, the Hyundai Motor Group’s retired R&D boss who now serves as an advisor, promised that the EV6 GT “will be a true GT”. He said: “We started GT on the Stinger, and the GT is always the top-of-the-line model. It’s not a car for the race track; it’s a different story. This is designed…

I’ll tell you who get an easy ride: dogs. And cats, for that matter. They have things far too easy, given how bad they are for the world. For a start, when they’re not eating your slippers, dogs eat loads of meat. Cats do too when they’re not after next door’s budgie. And consuming meat, you probably will have read, is bad. Animal farming contributes to CO2 or equivalent emissions and, in some countries, to deforestation. Less meat and more plants is the uncontroversial current thinking. Then there’s what these animals are doing when they’re not eating. Partly breathing out, which is only marginally antisocial in itself compared with the defecating. Oh, the defecating. Depending on when and where they’re doing it, that’s much worse. The bags that most pet…

The microfactory concept was first proposed in 1998 by Cardiff Business School academics Peter Wells and Paul Nieuwenhuis. They shook up car making by replacing a large-output, sprawling factory with a network of low-volume plants. Instead of a high-investment, metal-bashing press plant, a paint shop and a complex production line, their vision was of low-investment, flexible production equipment responsive to changing market conditions. “You can build a microfactory network bit by bit, which from a strategic point of view is important, because you expand your production to a growing market by replicating each microfactory locally, rather than building a huge factory and then forcing cars into the retail network,” Wells told Autocar. They studied low-volume firms like Lotus (which had recently launched the revolutionary extruded-alloy, compositebodied Elise), Ferrari and electric…

DENNY HAMLIN DELIVERED a victory for the Nascar Cup Series’ old guard by claiming his first win of 2022 on home territory in Richmond, Virginia. The 41-year-old threetime Daytona 500 winner took the lead from William Byron with only five laps to run to head fellow veteran Kevin Harvick across the line by just 0.552sec. The result marks a season upswing for Hamlin, who hadn’t finished in the top 10 this year before arriving at Richmond Raceway, where he fell in love with Nascar in his childhood. It was his fourth top-tier victory at the short, 0.75-mile oval, where his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team can also boast a strong success record. Following the Richmond round, Penske Ford driver Ryan Blaney and Hendrick Chevrolet’s Chase Elliott shared the championship lead,…

Mercedes-Benz means business with the new little brother of the EQS luxury limousine: a super-slippery travel soap of an electric executive car, rather than a full-sized bar. Specifically, the EQE means global fleet business. Unlike the bigger EQS, this new pure-electric saloon will be built in Beijing as well as in Bremen. And eventually coming down to a sub-£70,000 entry price, it should take significantly more sales than its longer and pricier relation. This is every inch the downsized EQS, for better and worse, from its teardrop-shape outline to its almost seamlessly smooth surfaces and ever so gently arcing ‘one bow’ silhouette. Being a bit shorter in the hind quarters might better balance its looks, I suppose, but honestly, Mercedes can still put down my name in the ‘unconvinced’ column…

Why no electrification at all in the all-new Toyota Aygo X? It’s a simple answer: weight. Even something as minor as a mild-hybrid system would force Toyota to abandon the fundamental concept around the Aygo X, leading to increases in size and cost. As for a full-on electric version, that would add “about 500kg” to the car’s base 965kg kerb weight, according to Stijn Peeters, senior project manager for R&D at Toyota Motor Europe. So it is that we’re greeted by a naturally aspirated 1.0-litre petrol triple in a remarkably simple package. The Aygo X is heavily based (to the tune of a 50% component share) on the larger Yaris’s GA-B platform but, thanks to the lack of hybrid bits, with much shorter overhangs. The Aygo is a city car…

The year is 2013 and BMW has just launched the i3 electric car. Cast your mind back: the world was mercifully free of Covid, we were still three years away from teenagers TikToking, Prince Harry was mates with his brother and no one had yet thought that chucking a bucket of iced water over your head would lead to millions in charity donations. It feels like a lifetime ago, and in car terms it was. Nine years is a life cycle and a half in most model runs, yet here we are today, still looking at a new i3 and still marvelling at it. And mourning it, because production will end in July. It has been tipped as a future classic, no less than in our recent Autocar-Beaulieu Future Classics…

Are we looking at a British Touring Car Championship GOAT? That’s the question that series watchers are asking when it comes to reigning champion Ash Sutton. The greatest of all time? Well, three titles in just six seasons sure is a stunning return for the 28-year-old, and now he bids for a record-equalling fourth not only with a new team and car but also having switched from rear-wheel to front-wheel drive. That’s a tall order in itself, without also factoring in the biggest BTCC technical shake-up in a generation as hybrid power comes to Britain’s top motorsport series. It’s a giant season all round for the BTCC. The 2022 action will begin on 24 April at Donington Park, the first of 10 rounds. Three bump-and-grind races in a day featuring…

REVEALED Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV Stuttgart joins the rapid luxury EV fray with a new BMW iX-rivalling flagship for its growing EQ family FIRST DRIVE Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance Is AMG’s first plug-in hybrid a real four-door supercar? We find out FEATURE Welcome to Molsheim We get to see what goes into building a £2.75m Bugatti EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Dacia Jogger UK’s cheapest seven-seater faces the toughest test in the business HOW TO BUY Porsche 944 It may have only four cylinders, but this is a sporting classic for £5000 SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p26…

MILEAGE 3008 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a mid-engined supercar really can work as a commuting grand tourer If you’ve been following the McLaren GT reports on these pages, you will probably have noticed the paintwork. It’s from McLaren’s Elite paint range, specifically the Belize Blue colour. And at £4000, it certainly ain’t cheap. Although, as an aside, if you were to compare the percentage of its cost against the value of the car (2.45% in the GT) versus Oryx White mother of pearl paint on the Volkswagen Golf (4.52%), it’s actually not bad value. The quality of it is a thing of beauty. TVRs were famed for having the most incredible paint quality (it was probably their most reliable feature), and with modern spray-booth techniques, a lot…

Pour yourself a cup of tea and grab a crumpet, because this cult hero is one of Britain’s most iconic products: the Mini Cooper. From its go-kart-like handling to its role in The Italian Job, it arguably has the best charm-to-size ratio in existence, yet it won’t cost you as much to buy as you might think. But first let’s recap the Mini’s inception. Born of the fuel crisis of the late 1950s at the British Motor Corporation (BMC), it was envisioned as a compact, practical and economical car. As such, its four-cylinder engine was mounted transversely (rather revolutionary at the time), freeing up interior space. Then in 1961, motorsport legend John Cooper turned Austin’s 34bhp 0.9-litre engine into a 55bhp 1.0-litre unit and added beefier brakes and sharper steering,…

The origins of many great motorsport engines can be traced back to a road car, and often an entirely unremarkable one. Some were developed with a specific series in mind, others went on to power many and varied competition cars and several were transformed beyond recognition. Here are our picks of the best engines that went from road to race. Audi straight five Audi’s development of four-wheel drive from a military truck to rally stages is well documented, but the Quattro’s 2.1-litre five-cylinder engine had more prosaic beginnings, starting life in Audi saloons with 170bhp. For the rally coupé, it gained a further 30bhp, giving 0-60mph in 7.1sec and 137mph in 10-valve form. To qualify for the World Rally Championship, it had to be reduced in capacity from its normal…

The Range Rover is sold in more than 170 countries, and not all of them are quite up to the speed of some others when it comes to electrification. The P360 (355bhp) and P400 (394bhp) 3.0-litre petrol straight sixes are from JLR’s Ingenium family, with a twin-scroll turbocharger, an electric supercharger and an integrated starter-generator to give a little torque-filling kick. The D250 (247bhp), D300 (296bhp) and D350 (345bhp) diesels are also straight-six Ingenium units and, like the petrols, they have a 48V mild-hybrid system to help nudge the car along and reduce overall consumption. All of these so far get a mild-hybrid system, but in the very few markets that don’t care, they will go without. The P530 (523bhp) petrol V8 has received a new sump, new intake and…

BMW HAS UPDATED its X7 flagship SUV with a bold new front end, an upgraded interior, revised digital functions and new mild-hybrid petrol and diesel engines. Due in the UK in August, the refreshed X7 gets a distinctive split-headlight treatment that will also be used for the new 7 Series limo, coming next week. In the future, BMW plans to provide each of its model lines with their own unique look, so the 5 Series saloon and X5 SUV will be more closely linked, for example, too. The front bumper has also been heavily reworked to accommodate new-shape air ducts, the tail-lights are a different shape and there’s now the option of a light-up front grille, as well as the option of 23in wheels – a first for BMW. The…

Our first taste of the EV6 GT came from the passenger seat with Albert Biermann driving. From a short test route that consisted largely of German autobahn, we can’t offer too many dramatic insights. What we can tell you is the EV6 GT is impressively quick to accelerate and cruises effortlessly at high speeds. Biermann insisted that our car wasn’t finished, describing it as “a mix of prototype and pre-production”. Even so, it felt settled and composed, and Biermann demonstrated how he has learned to use Kia’s i-Pedal energy recuperation system to aid spirited driving. We could feel differences in the car’s poise as he switched driving modes, but even in GT mode the ride didn’t feel overly stiff, helped by the enveloping bucket seats. We will have to drive…

One of Britain’s most advanced vehicle factories, owned by EV start-up Arrival in Bicester, is gearing up to make its first parcel delivery van, and Autocar has been given an exclusive first look. The site is the first in the world to use a ‘microfactory’ production system, in which the usual assembly line is replaced by flexible manufacturing cells, with the design, layout and low output of the site established for supplying the local market. “We’re all about being local, selling locally, configuring our plant to local demand and being flexible in production,” said EV platform boss James Broomer. Arrival’s manufacturing revolution is revealed by its van’s high-tech interior, rather than the exterior of its two anonymous industrial sheds. One building of 120,000sq ft houses the body plant, where composite…

Frank Skarpass, manager of a Norwegian power grid company, is digesting the information that the structure resembling a high-tech car wash right next to the bank of chargers where he’s topping up his Jaguar I-Pace is for swapping EV batteries. “It only takes five minutes? That’s the dream,” he says. “Charging is without doubt a hassle.” This battery swap station in Lier, southern Norway, is the first to be installed in Europe by Nio, a Chinese EV company that has been compared to Tesla. The premise is simple, even if the mechanics aren’t: the swap station will replace a depleted EV battery for a full one in around five minutes. Nio already has 836 swap stations in China and plans to increase that to 1300 globally by the end of…

SUNDAY Deeply enjoyable trip to Paris in a Citroën C5 Aircross, doing some reporting for a story you will see soon enough. Two cheery colleagues and I left south London at midday and travelled via the Tunnel. We splurged on Flexiplus fares to avoid the constraints of the timetable (there was a massive truck queue on the M20) and to allow a coffee stop in that welcoming little croissant hut beside the embarkation lanes at Dover. I wasn’t familiar with the C5 Aircross, so it was fun discovering its nice, quiet ride and generous space for people and luggage. However, when it comes to big Citroën suspension, I still can’t get the special nature of the old self-levelling hydropneumatic system out of my head, for all its old-school cost and…

It’s the initial touchpoint that grabs you. Back when Kia was a cheap Korean brand trying to make its way up in the world, the leather on the steering wheel was that fake-feeling plastic stuff, with the sort of grip factor that meant a healthy dose of climbing chalk was needed before you drove off. All that has changed now, and it’s the sort of instant grab-you quality to the leather on the wheel that marks the latest Kia Sportage out. This car is considerably less powdery. The plug-in hybrid is the last variant to join the Sportage ranks, alongside petrol, diesel, mild-hybrid and hybrid versions. That’s a total of nine different powertrains. Talk about hedging your bets. With a 178bhp 1.6-litre turbo petrol engine and a 90bhp electric motor,…

Here it is, folks: the £30,000 Mazda MX-5. “That’s not what an MX-5 is about,” remarked our photographer. That price is indeed rather startling, but in Mazda’s defence, this is the top-end 2.0-litre GT Sport Tech, and you can have a 1.5-litre for ‘just’ £24,775. It’s a mark more of how bonkers car prices have become in general than of any particular greediness from Mazda. The MX-5 remains a unique offering: a sensibly sized, two-seat sports car with a naturally aspirated engine, a manual gearbox, a limitedslip differential and rear-wheel drive that’s still vaguely affordable. The Toyota GR86 will do the same when it arrives later this year, but the MX-5 also allows you to drop the roof. Mazda does model-year updates in addition to the occasional facelift, so new…

Everyone makes mistakes Some interesting letters about road tax appeared in the 23 March issue. Autocar one, Norman ‘I know better than you’ Hawkes nil. Darren Ross then says that you’re liars. Given the number of outrageous lies you tell every year (“this device was first made in 1948” when in fact it was 1949, “the car was green” when in fact it was blue and “the GLS was the best seller” when in fact it was the GLX etc), I’m sure that, like me, Mr Ross will now cancel his order, insist that Autocar is banned from printing and see that you’re all sent to jail and only fed gruel and drain water. I’d advise him that I suspect the overwhelming number of people still call it road tax…

Bugatti back with a bang NEXT WEEK, YOU can read about our visit to Bugatti to drive the new Chiron Super Sport. How about the old EB110 to whet your appetite? The Ferrari F40 rival revived the hallowed horseshoe after 36 years, courtesy of Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli (who would later buy Lotus and gift us the Elise). “If humiliating Maranello is your game, 12 cylinders, 60 valves, four turbos and four-wheel drive are what you’ll need,” said our man. As for the driving experience? “If you want 550bhp and 211mph, you can wave goodbye to turning in with a flick of the wrist rather than a stab at the throttle. Yes? Not so. “The handling and refinement are everything I thought they wouldn’t be. But the performance is everything…

MILEAGE 1850 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To learn if a sporty crossover can ever be as rewarding to own as a hot hatch Call it an inconvenient truth, but the way of the world dictates that even diehard driving enthusiasts will generally cover a good many more miles on Britain’s monochrome motorway network than they will on a race track or demanding B-road. Thus modern sports cars (of all shapes and sizes) must be ready at will to set aside their prevailing traits of dynamism and pep for a slightly more cosseting, frugal and laid-back approach to long-distance driving. That duality is evident in some of the fiercest performance weapons on sale, like the BMW M4 Competition and Porsche 911 Turbo, but needs to shine through even more tangibly in…

An owner’s view SAM PHILLIPS “I own a 1990 Rover Mini Cooper RSR. Having a motoring icon tucked away in the garage is a real privilege, not only because it’s a great little car to hoon around in but because of the history that goes with it. Naturally, an older car brings a host of maintenance tasks, and rust is something you need to be wary of, particularly on the sills and bulkhead. But from behind the wheel, you can’t help smiling, thanks to its agile handling and wonderfully charismatic exhaust, which produces a nostalgic throaty warble reminiscent of the cars in The Italian Job.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE A knocking noise coming from the engine, particularly when you’re accelerating or decelerating, is a sign of engine-mount failure. Check the…

IS THERE SUCH a thing as a trackbred demon that’s also suitable for the school run? Jaguar certainly thought so when it produced the ultra-limited XE Project 8 – a bespoke reworking of the firm’s XE compact saloon. While it may appear at first glance to be a normal XE with a spoiler superglued to the rear, the Project 8 is much, much more. It was developed by Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division and retained four seats but gained an entirely new, bespoke body, save for the roof and the front doors. The model’s suspension was also reworked, and its Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres became the first such set to be fitted to a new Jaguar. Under the relatively unassuming bonnet sits Jaguar’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8,…