Innholdsfortegnelse for August 31, 2022 i Autocar

2025: Polestar 6 Stunning O2 concept has been confirmed for production as the Swedish brand’s most exclusive model yet. Keeping its folding hard-top and priced from £170,000, it will pack up to 874bhp and dispatch 0-62mph in around 3.0sec. 2025: Mercedes-AMG Vision The first bespoke EV from Audi Sport’s Affalterbach-based rival will be a rakish super-saloon in the vein of today’s GT 4-Door Coupé. Expect an equal focus on outrageous straight-line pace, keen handling and endurance. TBC: Honda NSX The Japanese marque will launch a sleek, high-performance halo car as part of its EV push but has yet to disclose any details. The car will showcase Honda’s commitment to offering a “sports mindset and distinctive characteristics”.…

AUDI HAS CONFIRMED that it will join Formula 1 for the first time in 2026, bringing its own powertrain to the sport. The announcement, which has been on the cards for months, comes in the wake of the FIA’s approval of new F1 powertrain regulations for the 2026 season. These were broadly seen as a green light for Audi and sibling brand Porsche to enter the fray. Audi will build the engine at its motorsport headquarters in Neuburg, Germany. Both Audi CEO Markus Duesmann and technical boss Oliver Hoffmann have suggested the V6-hybrid development programme will inform development of electrified road cars. “This is the first time in more than a decade that a Formula 1 powertrain will be built in Germany,” noted Audi. The decision not to announce which…

RADICAL IDEAS FOR internal combustion engines aimed at replacing the four-stroke piston engines we have today have come and gone, but that hasn’t stopped new ideas from surfacing. One that has been garnering a fair bit of attention this year is Astron Aerospace’s Omega 1, a rotary design that isn’t a Wankel engine or turbine. It’s claimed to produce near-zero emissions and has a high specific power (power-to-weight ratio) so in theory it could equally be used for powering cars, motorcycles or aircraft. The engine consists of two pairs of rotors, with each pair comprising one rotor sitting atop another. The two are geared together so rotate in opposite directions. The first pair is ‘cold’ and the second ‘hot’. The first pair acts as a supercharger, ingesting and compressing air…

21C PLUS 21C IS… A BIT OF A HEAD-SCRATCHER Czinger has revealed that some of its customers are so torn over which variant of its new £1.5 million 21C hypercar to go for that they’re purchasing both. The start-up offers the aerodynamically focused 21C and the speed-chasing 21C V Max, both at the same price and within the same 80-car production run. “We’ve already had five people who couldn’t decide between the different body variants and have each put deposits on two cars,” said company co-founder Kevin Czinger. “So they’ve put down deposits on cars that are each costing them $5 million-plus [due to options]. They’re like: ‘I can’t make up my mind, I’m taking both of them.’” QUICK ROUND OF GOLF Volkswagen’s new Golf R 20 Years edition is…

Even a short while ago, the idea that MG could directly benchmark one of its cars against a Volkswagen, not merely as an ambition but as a serious attempt to match and even better the model in question, would have produced reactions ranging from acidic cynicism to full-on mirth. But study the look, content, price, specification and price again of the MG 4, then take a drive, and your mind will be duly adjusted. This car is more than competitive, more sophisticated than anything the Chinese company has offered to date, decently enjoyable to drive, very well equipped, civilised and priced to make you look twice. Guy Pigounakis, MG commercial director and industry veteran of more than 40 years, calls the 4 a “disruptor”, for offering vastly more for less.…

Usually, we hear rumblings that a manufacturer is planning a new model. Then a few months later, we might see a concept car or some spy shots. After what seems like an eternity, it will be unwrapped, and if we’re really lucky we get invited to drive it within half a year, at first on a carefully curated scenic route abroad, then some months later on UK roads, shortly before it finally starts making its way to customers. That’s not what has happened with the BYD Atto 3. Our hands gripped the wheel for the first time about 14 hours after we saw it in the metal for the first time and about 13 hours after we got official confirmation that it was coming to the UK (News, p14). And…

The Mk4 Ford Focus launch was a significant event in 2019, yet not even three years later, the car feels a bit of an anachronism. And another sign of the times is that its mid-life facelift is far more about the digital than the mechanical side. Where previously was an 8.0in touchscreen running Sync 3 software is now a 13.2in one with Sync 4, its novelties being wireless updates, live traffic data and Alexa-style voice control. More active safety technologies have also been added. As for the actual car stuff, the front end has gained a new look and mild hybridisation of the 1.0-litre three-pot petrol engine has gone from niche to mainstream, offered on the 123bhp or 153bhp units for an extra £1400; and now also with a…

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Simon Saunders and Ariel first started thinking about an EV nearly 20 years ago, when a customer – a founder of Tesla, as it turned out – set out to electrify an Atom. The car was good, but compared with the regular petrol-powered Atom 2, it was heavy and very expensive. And slower. “We learned a lot,” says Saunders, “but mainly that this wasn’t the way to go. Telling people your car is slower but greener isn’t much of a marketing pitch. “However, we knew we had to find an EV future for Ariel so in 2014 we commissioned a feasibility study backed by the Niche Vehicle Network to investigate what kind of EV sports car the company should build – something we could go on producing into the future,…

An instant hit of torque isn’t exclusive to electric vehicles – it’s also quite pronounced in electric chainsaws. Which is quite a daunting prospect when you’ve never picked up a chainsaw of any kind. Giving a numpty like me a Husqvarna 540ixp – which has a maximum chain speed of roughly 45mph, reached with a mere twitch of the fingers – is like popping a learner driver in a Porsche Taycan Turbo S for their first lesson. Everyone is going to be holding on tight. Thankfully, I successfully slice through the trunk of tree before me with zero incident. In fact, it’s all rather pleasant, the typical gnawing scream of a chainsaw significantly muted, bringing just a touch more peace to this Peak District woodland. You can hear yourself think…

With regard to the comments by Mike Varey concerning Toyota hybrids’ fuel consumption (3 August), I felt that I should mention our experience. My wife and I have a Mk4 Yaris Hybrid Excel that never ceases to amaze us. On a journey a few months back from Glasgow to Largs on the Clyde coast with a mix of motorway, city and A-road driving, we recorded 86mpg! Just last month, on a 100-mile motorway journey from Glasgow to Carlisle then on main roads through the Borders back to Glasgow, we recorded overall 76mpg. The car was regularly in electric mode at speeds averaging 65 mph. Mike stated that his C-HR gets 60-65mpg where Toyota states 53mpg. Perhaps he had been on longer journeys previously that kept the MPG looking higher? Our…

Take the Volkswagen Up GTI at face value and you might see it as a slightly disappointing hot hatch. With 113bhp and a 0-62mph time of 8.8sec, it wouldn’t take much to beat it in a straight line. The interior is finished in hard and scratchy plastics and you’re so surrounded by glass that you feel like you’re the centre of an art exhibition. But consider this. When you drive an Up GTI, you’re in one of only 4000 jollying around Britain’s B-roads. If it’s exclusivity you’re after, find an all-white GTI and you will be the talk of the town. It really isn’t like anything else on the road, with no direct contenders pitted against it. Sure, there are cars like the Ford Fiesta ST and the Suzuki Swift…

An owner’s view ANDY JEFFREYS “I bought one of the last 928 GTSs ever made in 2003. It had hardly been used and was in perfect condition – beautiful, if at that point hugely unfashionable. By far the most fun trip I ever took in it was to drive from Beirut to Istanbul. The low chassis struggled across the poor roads and the car finally surrendered as we arrived in Aleppo – not because of the terrain but because the local petrol was of such low quality. Overall, though, my 928 was a terrific way to get around: smooth, stylish and fast, with enough space to make it a decent grand tourer. The biggest regret is selling it in 2008 for £3500, no question the worst financial decision of my…

Emblems are synonymous with the companies they represent, and each is something every car fan – and even many non-enthusiasts – will recognise in an instant. However, most people don’t know the often fascinating symbolism within them. Here, we pick seven with the most interesting origins – and you can learn the meanings of many more at tinyurl.com/3k53j29b. Alfa Romeo ‘Alfa’ is an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, while Romeo is the surname of Nicola Romeo, the businessman who bought the company in 1915. Of the badge, the red cross on the left is the flag of Milan (that of St Ambrose, not St George as in the flag of England), while on the right is a crowned viper swallowing a child – the insignia of the House of…

Audi is readying an R8 successor for a middecade launch, which will reinvent the marque’s famous halo model while also helping to reposition the brand as an electric forerunner. The supercar has not yet been officially signed off but is very much under way, according to insiders. It won’t be called the R8 and will take an entirely new design direction, so it won’t resemble the long-standing model. However, it will stay true to a pure sports car concept, with two doors and more power than anything else in the Audi range, albeit coming from an electric set-up. The current R8 remains in production and a run-out model, expected to be a RWD GT, will be revealed later this year before all variants of the car stop being made at…

Any mainstream Audi models launched from 2026 will be electric, but it’s a slightly different story at Audi Sport, which is taking a more softly-softly approach. “By 2026, 80% of Audi Sport models will be electrified, and by 2030, 100% will be electrified,” said Audi Sport boss Sebastian Grams. “This shows our direction in the electric world. We have models which jump to plug-in hybrid and afterwards to electric, and others where we go directly to EVs. It depends on the platforms available but also customer demand. We’re trying to make the best of today’s world.” On making the most of its combustion-engined line-up, Grams said: “We believe we can squeeze out extra in the R8, and the same for RS4 and RS3 Competition packages with our legendary five-cylinder. It’s…

Toyota president and CEO Akio Toyoda has doubled down on his enthusiasm for hydrogen-combustion technology, taking to the wheel of the flag-bearing Toyota GR Yaris H2 prototype at the recent Ypres Rally Belgium. The motorsport fanatic demonstrated the potential of the specially adapted prototype, a hydrogenfuelled combustion-engined concept version of the brand’s acclaimed four-wheel-drive hot hatchback, with four-time WRC champion Juha Kankkunen serving as his co-driver. It was the first time that Toyota had deployed a hydrogen-combustion prototype outside of Japan. Toyoda said the run “was a good chance to think about races with spectators in mind”, given that the GR Yaris’s ICE soundtrack remains. He added: “We also had a Toyota Mirai [fuel cell EV] at the venue demonstrating external power supply, and I believe that, together with driving…

PORSCHE IS ALSO eyeing up hydrogen as a low-emissions fuel for combustion engines, and it has been using a virtual recreation of the Nürburgring to evaluate whether it can offer comparable performance to petrol. Porsche noted that other manufacturers are testing hydrogen-combustion engines but said that other programmes are largely focused on commercial vehicles, eliciting an output of around 67bhp per litre. “For the passenger sector, this is insufficient,” said Vincenzo Bevilacqua, senior expert of engine simulation at Porsche Engineering. Therefore Porsche’s virtual hydrogen-combustion test programme is aimed specifically at achieving the same power and torque output from running an engine on hydrogen as on petrol – in this instance the twinturbocharged 4.4-litre V8 used by the Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Panamera. It has been modified to run on…

Technology giant Apple has again signalled its intentions to push on with its secretive car project, hiring the former head of chassis and vehicle dynamics at Lamborghini. Luigi Taraborrelli – whose 20-year career at the Italian supercar maker is surely a red herring as to the type of car that Apple will make – signed on with the American firm to work on its autonomous vehicle, named Project Titan. Now in the eighth year of development, its launch date has been pencilled in for 2025. Recent reports suggest that a passenger-facing design has now been signed off. News that the Apple car might not feature a steering wheel will reassure many car manufacturers, at least in the medium term. Although now largely through the full hype cycle, total autonomy is…

British car production rose for a third consecutive month in July, new data from the SMMT has revealed, but the underlying trend shows that car making in the UK is still declining. The data shows that the UK recorded an 8.6% year-on-year increase to 58,043 cars. However, this was significantly below pre-pandemic levels. The UK built 108,239 cars in July 2019. Moreover, the 4605-unit improvement compared with July 2021 must be qualified against that being the worst July for car production since 1956, when the Suez Crisis forced petrol rationing and dampened demand for cars. Exports to the EU and the US were down by 7.3% and 22.3% respectively in July to 22,842 and 7615 cars. Orders from Asia increased, though, by 54.0% from China and by 40.1% from Japan…

I just wanted to buy the same pair as last time. I had noted down the model name and size and walked into the shop trying to find the same type of jeans as the ones I had just worn out. But no. Different season (different year?), different styles, so I had to start trying to find the ‘right’ pair all over again. Try some, reject most of them, settle on one, then purchase it. That’s presumably fine if you like that sort of thing. But if clothes shopping is something that you endure rather than enjoy, it’s just half an hour of a Sunday that you will never get back. So I thought I had better buy a couple of pairs to put off having to do it again…

TWO WEEKS AFTER Ott Tänak conquered Rally Finland, he was back on top, winning on the roads of Ypres in Belgium. The Estonian ace managed what his Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville failed to do by running virtually trouble-free, as the Belgian lost a second consecutive win at his home event through an agonising mistake on the penultimate stage of Saturday’s leg. Neuville crashing out handed the lead to Tänak, who then fended off an attack from Toyota’s Elfyn Evans to beat the Welshman by five seconds. As for Kalle Rovanperä, the 21-year-old sensation proved that he’s human after all with a barrel roll on only the second stage of the event on Friday morning. His team pulled out the stops to repair the mangled GR Yaris, which allowed him to…

The X7 has received possibly the most comprehensive midlife update of any BMW to date, endowing the American-built giant SUV with fresh appeal just over three years after its UK introduction. With heavily altered front-end styling – including split headlights and, on the flagship M60i xDrive driven here, an illuminated grille – the X7 now has clear visual ties to the recently unveiled new 7 Series limo. For the first time on any BMW, buyers can now specify 23in wheels, plus the new M Sport and M Sport Pro styling packs bring added dashes of sporting boldness to the exterior by way of unique bumpers, a series of black accents and other touches. The interior has also been changed significantly. The restyled dashboard features a curved digital panel, like in…

Although Mazda’s first plug-in hybrid is very tardy by wider industry standards, it arrives carrying plenty of innovation. The first novelty is the lack of a turbocharger, instead the relatively big engine capacity of 2.5 litres giving efficiency gains under gentle loads. The second is a clever new eight-speed automatic gearbox that uses an electronically controlled clutch pack rather than a torque converter. The electric motor is powered by a 17.8kWh battery that gives a claimed electric-only range of 39 miles – sadly short of the Toyota RAV4 PHEV’s 46 miles and the Volvo XC60 Recharge T6’s 48 miles. It can be fully refilled by a 7kW charger in 180 minutes, or you can while driving get the engine to charge it to a certain level for later. As with…

MODEL TESTED 420 CUP Price £54,990 • Power 210bhp • Torque 150lb ft • 0-60mph 4.2sec • 30-70mph in fourth 4.9sec • Fuel economy 27.1mpg • CO2 emissions na • 70-0mph 46.0m Caterham doesn’t need to build specific, rarefied versions of the Seven in order to homologate its racing cars, but if it did, the result would look like the 420 Cup. This unmistakable, caged and liveried new model is, in the words of its maker, “a machine built specifically for the race track” and as such takes its mechanical lead from the uncompromising 420R-based Caterham Seven Championship racer. It is, for all intents and purposes, a road-legal version of the slick-shod competition car, only with a little ‘luxury’ thrown in here and there and, usefully, a passenger seat. It’s also…

Currently rolling out from under the domed roof of a Race Shuttle trailer is an advanced taste of things to come from Ariel Motor Company Ltd. A fairly compact, unconventional, insectoid-looking supercar with a closed cockpit, dihedral doors, some huge aero fins, and hindquarters that could have been donated by a jet aircraft, it gently drops off the trailer ramp, and then just sits there – so bold as to be almost indecent in places – ready for closer inspection. It’s a long way from an Atom, in more ways than one. This is the jawdropping electrified Ariel Hipercar – and today, we will be among the very first in the world to drive it. It’s early on a foggy Tuesday and we’re on a disused airfield, only about 20…

After two development stages, concept and prototype, the Ariel Hipercar is poised to begin its vital third phase: production. All signs for the future look positive: although the new Ariel is still at least two years from reaching its first customer – and company bosses haven’t even devised a system for collecting deposits – there have been dozens of “expressions of interest”. Potential customers are both current Ariel owners, who have an inkling of what to expect based on their existing machinery, and others who just love the Hipercar’s unique purpose and persona. Whatever, the new Ariel is much more than a new, extremely fast, British-built EV with an optional gas turbine range extender. It is rolling proof of the success of various government-backed financial assistance schemes devised by successive…

Lamborghini’s cars are never short on character, and the same can usually be said of the company’s senior executives. Few were more charismatic (or knowledgeable) than Maurizio Reggiani, Lambo’s longserving chief technical officer, whose previous career highlights included doing much of the development work on the Bugatti EB110 and its quadturbocharged V12 engine. So when it was announced earlier this year that Reggiani was leaving his role to head up Lamborghini’s motorsport division and was set to be replaced by an Audi engineer called Rouven Mohr, it looked like the start of a new (and possibly duller) corporate era. Yet we shouldn’t be worrying. Because while much of Mohr’s personality is as you might expect from a German automotive engineer (including a ferocious intelligence, borne out by the title of…

FEATURE BAC Mono R Extra-special, extra-powerful, British-built track-day wonder takes to the wilds of North Wales DRIVE Range Rover Sport Our first chance to get behind the wheel of the new footballers’ favourite FEATURE The latest radical EV We meet the former Jaguar and Williams engineers behind the Bo M e-scooter EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Kia Niro EV Has Kia nailed the second generation of its popular electric crossover? CULT HERO Smart Roadster The fun factor is high in this dinky sports car from 2004 SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p40…

MILEAGE 8822 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a plug-in hybrid S-Class can be as convincing an ultimate long-distance luxury saloon as its diesel ancestors It’s a peculiar quirk that the distance from my front door to the barrier that guards the entrance to the lower paddock at Le Mans is precisely 500 miles. To the tenth. I would leave on a Wednesday morning, drive there, spend the night, spend the following day working, then turn around and drive straight home again. A thousand miles in 40 hours. Alone. If ever a job called for an S-Class, this surely was it. But there had been a problem. A couple of days earlier, a warning light had flashed up on the dash telling me in red letters to ‘Stop vehicle’.…

Skoda will launch a rangetopping electric sevenseat SUV by 2026, plus a supermini and a compact crossover, in a push to become one of Europe’s leading sellers of mass-market EVs. The flagship SUV has been previewed by the striking new Vision 7S concept, which recently appointed brand boss Klaus Zellmer has described as an “entirely new” proposition for Skoda, in the sense that it showcases a radical new design language referred to as ‘Modern Solid’. The SUV will be among the final Volkswagen Group cars to use a variation of the MEB modular platform – which will be phased out from 2025 to be replaced by the new SSP architecture – and will effectively serve as an electric alternative to the combustion-engined Kodiaq. The concept has a WLTP range of…

JCB The heavy machinery maker’s four-pot hydrogen engine showcases its view that such conversions are a cheaper and quicker way of reducing emissions on-site. “We don’t believe that batteries and fuel cells are the only solutions,” said chairman Lord Bamford. Bosch The parts-supply giant has worked with Graz University of Technology to convert a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine to run on hydrogen, demonstrating “significant functional potentials” in terms of power per litre, torque and NOx emissions. Ricardo The renowned engineering firm is a vocal advocate of both hydrogen fuel cells and combustion. It’s currently testing the performance of a single-cylinder hydro-genfuelled prototype engine in a range of different scenarios.…

In just 18 seconds during one evening in April this year, another car became a statistic in the UK’s growing epidemic of numberplate theft. As our black and white stills, taken from a security camera near the vehicle owner’s house in Farnborough, show, the thief knows precisely which car to target and quickly unscrews the plate before melting into the shadows. Figures obtained from police forces by Direct Line reveal that 53,000 numberplates were stolen from vehicles in 2021. Because numberplate theft is not generally reported, statistics for other years are difficult to obtain. However, figures on the cloning of numberplates – the practice of disguising a car’s true identity by fitting it with plates stolen from a similar model or made illegally, often to avoid ANPR camera detection or…

CHINESE COMPANY BYD, the world’s biggest seller of EVs so far this year, will begin full-scale European deliveries of three new electric cars in the coming weeks, climbing up from a market foothold that it has quickly established since starting limited sales in 2021. Already active in Europe through its Hungary-based commercial vehicles division, known in the UK for its electric buses, BYD first confirmed its plans to sell cars in Europe in 2020, starting with the Audi E-tron-rivalling Tang SUV and focusing initially on Norway. The brand did previously offer the e6 electric crossover in limited volumes in the UK, primarily to private hire fleets, but it has been absent from the market for nearly a decade. Now it’s returning with a trio of EVs targeted at the most…

FULLY ACCESSIBLE HIGH-speed EV charging sites will become the norm up and down the UK, according to the CEO of Osprey Charging, which is aiming to eliminate range anxiety – especially for disabled drivers. Ian Johnston’s words came as Osprey, which operates more than 300 chargers across the country, opened its first fully accessible site in Brackley, Northamptonshire. This has eight 150kW chargers fed by an on-site substation, lightweight cables, no kerbs and low-positioned screens and buttons for use by anyone who needs them. “Whenever we build a new hub going forward, this will be the standard in terms of the accessible layout and the charging hardware that we’re using,” said Johnston. “We just have to keep pushing ourselves forward to make [charging] hubs better and better.” Space is one…

MONDAY Now it can be told: for the past five years, we’ve been tracking the progress of the mighty Ariel Hipercar, the next-generation project this unique firm has been building in the background while progressing its Atom, Nomad and Ace (see p42). It has been a fascinating and complex journey. One bizarre Ariel creation I’ve always wanted to talk about, not possible until now, has been a plastic-bodied Ford Mustang mule, complete with an enigmatic message on the side. Under those white flanks lurks a Hipercar prototype, used for the past few years for a range of early road trials. Did it ever pass you? How fast? I would be amused to hear. We were meant to drive the fully fledged Hipercar prototype today, but the weather turned to rubbish…

The Alfa Romeo Tonale compactish SUV has arrived in the UK for review, albeit still in lefthand-drive form. It has a mildly hybridised 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol sending 158bhp to the front wheels through a sevenspeed dual-clutch automatic gearbox. A plug-in hybrid is coming later. Here, with just 20bhp provided by the electric motor, it’s good for 46.3mpg and 139g/km of CO2. For rivals, of which there are a lot, you could consider anything from the Audi Q3 through to the Volvo XC40, but everyone from Ford to Hyundai has something like this in their range these days. There are three trim levels. This one is the middle Ti, which starts at £39,995, but it has some options, most notably 20in alloy wheels. If you go for the range-topping Veloce…

Genesis wants increasingly to look like a responsible alternative to the usual suspects in the luxury car market. Its first electric cars are now arriving in showrooms and in Europe it’s omitting some of the more potent engines that buyers elsewhere in the world can choose. So if you would rather petrol than diesel power in your large SUV, the GV80 offers a four-cylinder engine only. It’s a 2.5-litre turbocharged unit with both direct and multi-point fuel injection, and it makes bang on 300bhp – more than the equivalent Volvo XC90 offers but less than most other rivals, which use six cylinders. The GV80 is also a little bit cheaper than most of those rivals if you buy it in basic Premium trim, although we tested it in top-end Luxury…

The Ariel brand has had two starkly different historical phases. It was established in 1870 by ‘pennyfarthing’ bicycle pioneers James Starley and William Hillman (Starley’s nephew John went on to invent the diamond-frame bicycle still used today), but by 1902 it was making motorcycles. These thrived at first but, like many British brands, their fortunes faded in the 1950s and 1960s in the face of Japanese competition. When in 1999 designer turned lecturer Simon Saunders (above) sought a production brand for the skeletal Atom mid-engined sports car he and a studentcolleague, Niki Smart, had devised at Coventry University in the mid-1990s, he was able to acquire rights to the Ariel brand and start making cars at new premises near Crewkerne, Somerset. The car was immediately successful. Today’s company, Ariel Motor…

Sales people are fond of reminding us that after a house, a car is the second most expensive thing we ever buy. Add the fact that many people drive fewer than 7000 miles a year and the result is a rather expensive asset sitting on the driveway doing nothing but costing money in servicing, fuel, depreciation and interest. In these times of rising living costs, that hurts. What to do? How about renting it out for cash? I know what you’re thinking and I agree. I mean, I have trouble lending my car to a family member, never mind a complete stranger. However, what if you could rent out your car Airbnb-style to vetted users, with comprehensive safeguards (financial and duty of care) in place and, in return, make around…

Pedalling a new idea With the three-pedal layout for car control now at least a century old and in most cases now a two-pedal layout, is it time to rethink things? What I’m wondering about is: acceleration on the right and braking (regenerative and physical) on the left, with your feet on both pedals while you’re driving. It requires a little recalibration of muscle memory, but to my mind it makes sense. Changing from accelerator to brakes has to be quicker that way than heeland-toeing. Same for emergency stops: your left foot is already where it needs to be. No lost time while you move the right foot from one pedal to another. Added bonus? It should cut down the ‘wrong pedal’ accidents that some, particularly elderly, drivers seem prone…

Fantastic new sports car from France HOW OFTEN THESE days do we hear of a faltering marque aiming to appeal to a younger, richer and sportier clientele? Ninety years ago, this was the story for Delahaye. The French firm swapped tractors, trucks and basic cars for tourers that won it rallies, fame and the finest coachbuilders’ attention – and probably the most admired of all was the 135, which we tested on its UK arrival as a drophead. We clocked it doing 0-60mph in 13.7sec and topping out at 99mph. “The car sweeps up hills, and it has brakes and roadholding in keeping,” we beamed. “The whole thing is almost alive, so exactly does the engine answer the driver’s ideas and so exactly do the controls perform the necessary operations.…

MILEAGE 11,481 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if this humble but capable sevenseater is slick enough in day-to-day use Life with the Jogger continues, and so far, this Romanian-built, budget-friendly, sevenseat option is proving likeable and adept. I’ve not had the opportunity to properly stretch its 999cc, front-driven legs yet (although my colleague Felix Page has done so, the resulting 2000-mile feature appearing in last week’s issue), but hopefully that will happen soon enough – and before then, there’s plenty more worth discussing. Starting with the interior, which is where unflattering cost-cutting is usually most apparent and is probably where most reservations harboured by any prospective Jogger buyers will reside. However, it isn’t the explosion of cheap plastics and rough fabrics that you might expect it to be. That,…

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. Consider the case of Ferdinand Porsche. His first automotive dabblings were with electric cars and petrol-electric hybrid cars, and more than 120 years later, look where we’ve all ended up. He was keen on front-wheel-drive cars, too, which might seem a strange fit for a man who went on to design a number of immensely successful front-engined, rear-wheel-drive racing cars for Mercedes-Benz, and whose name went on – via the KdF-Wagen and VW Beetle, and through the whole 911 line – to be, for a huge chunk of time, synonymous with rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive cars. So were we surprised by this front-engined, rear-wheel-drive 928 bearing his name when it hit…

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…