Innholdsfortegnelse for December 7, 2022 i Autocar

The next-generation Toyota C-HR will be thoroughly reinvented, radically styled – and available for the first time with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. Due by 2024, the striking second-generation C-HR will be closely related to the recently revealed Mk5 Prius, sharing the latest generation of Toyota’s TNGA architecture and offering the same choice of motive power. It will be sold alongside a similarly styled, slightly larger, pure-electric SUV-coupé (see separate story, below) as part of Toyota’s continued assault on the critical C-segment crossover market – a sector it estimates will account for 61% of its European sales in 2025. The C-HR is an integral part of Toyota’s European line-up and its success was cited as a key reason for not bringing the new Prius to the UK. It sold 18,000 units…

MERCEDES-BENZ HAS unveiled the EQT ahead of a planned 2023 start to UK sales for the electric version of the recently introduced T-Class. Developed in an engineering partnership between Mercedes and Renault, the new commercial vehiclebased, MPV-style offering is closely related to the Renault Kangoo E-Tech, Nissan Townstar EV and Opel/Vauxhall Combo Life Electric. The EQT will be sold initially in shortwheel-base five-seat guise with two sliding rear doors and a large tailgate. Power comes from a frontmounted electric motor developing 121bhp and 181lb ft of torque. A 400V, 45kWh (usable) lithium ion battery provides an official range of 175 miles. Mercedes is also developing a so-called ‘micro-camper’ variant of its latest EQ-badged model, previewed by the Concept EQT Marco Polo. Featuring a pop-up roof and other typical camper features…

MAJOR SUPPLIER ZF has unveiled a new generation of modular electric drive units aimed at mainstream manufacturers. The line-up will be available from 2025 and includes new designs of electric motorgenerators, a new type of EV transmission, inverters (the power electronics that sit between AC motors and DC batteries) and the software to integrate the whole lot. First, let’s look at the motors. These are claimed to be smaller, more efficient, more sustainable, more power-dense (more grunt for the size and weight) and more affordable to make than the status quo. There are some facts to bear out those claims. For instance, the cooling technology and design of the copper windings are new. There’s a cooling water jacket around the stator of permanent magnet motors (the bit that doesn’t move,…

DAUPHINE EV NEXT? Renault has betted on its heritage with the new 4 and 5 electric cars coming by 2025, but design boss Gilles Vidal said there’s no more plans to bring back historic nameplates for other future models. “We have the 4 and 5 as the retro-futuristic objects, which play to the icons of our history, but the rest of the range will be super-innovative and push into the future.” A GRAVE AEHRA The chief designer of Aehra tried to persuade its founder to abandon the idea of launching the EV start-up with a flagship SUV. Speaking to Autocar, Filippo Perini – formerly of Lamborghini and Genesis – revealed that he and head of design Alessandro Serra weren’t convinced by Hazim Nada’s idea, instead wanting a super-saloon to become…

It’s always tempting to look at the last of a breed of car and feel vaguely guilty that faint praise has damned it to the point of extinction. Wait! We didn’t mean it! Please don’t leave! So it is with the Honda NSX, the final example now having left the factory, no longer a warrior from the land of the rising sun but a sunset in the cornfields of Ohio. As a follow-up act to the original, the reborn NSX had a lot to live up to. Too much, really. The first NSX was an utter revelation at a time when mid-engined Italian exotics leaked and overheated and regularly threw mechanical fits costing thousands to repair. Instead, why not a gorgeously engineered mid-engined coupé from friendly Honda? This car was…

The one thing the Audi RS3 didn’t need was a Performance Edition, with a 0-62mph time of just 3.8sec. Nevertheless, here we are, just a year on from the launch of the standard car, with a limited-edition run of 300 that ups the RS3’s ante. This version won’t go on sale here – the current two-year wait for a regular RS3 means Audi UK has declined to take it. Engine power from the five-cylinder turbo is up by 7bhp for the Performance Edition, while the torque remains the same but is spread over a further 100rpm. Top speed increases by 6mph but the 0-62mph time stays at 3.8sec. All of this is achieved with slightly higher boost pressure, and it’s reined in by standard carbon-ceramic brakes (an option on the…

The raised-up, ruggedised, large estate is becoming another casualty of these tempestuous past few years for the motor industry. And yet the Volvo V90 Cross Country is still going strong. This is a V90 estate with fourwheel drive, 60mm extra ground clearance, hill descent control and all-season tyres, all to deal with the kind of light off-roading that an ‘active’ lifestyle might entail. The Cross Country is the only V90 that doesn’t have sport suspension and the only one with a diesel engine (although we drove the lower-powered of two turbo petrols in lower-rung trim with passive steel coil suspension). There’s no Cross Country Recharge plug-in hybrid option. It’s the infotainment software that’s new. Volvo’s latest Googlebased touchscreen system has been added this year, having moved into Volvo’s 60-series cars…

Famously a Formula 1 World Champion for all of about 10 seconds, Brazilian Felipe Massa came up through the São Paulo karting scene, then made an unusual jump to the relatively low-key Euro Formula 3000 series, which he won. Out of nowhere, Sauber picked him up in 2002. He moved to Ferrari as Michael Schumacher’s team-mate in 2006 and in 2008 emerged as a genuine title contender. At Interlagos he stormed to a home win as rival Lewis Hamilton toiled in his McLaren. The Ferrari pit erupted as Massa took the flag seemingly as champion, until there was a slow realisation that Hamilton had passed Timo Glock’s Toyota at the final turn for the fifth place he needed to become champion instead. How a tearful Massa conducted himself having won…

Scalextric, the racing game for drivers young and old, celebrates its 65th birthday this year. Computer games are smarter but playing them can be a solitary experience. Not so, Scalextric. With current coursing through its veins, the famous slot racing game is a living thing. Everyone can enjoy it together and it creates memories that last forever. If you have a set gathering dust in the loft, one of your strongest is likely to be of playing it on a Christmas Day long ago, you and your siblings or cousins shrieking with laughter. Granted, it was annoying the way your car would suddenly stop for no reason or a clumsy adult would fail to replace it on the track quickly enough but that was all part of the drama. Despite…

ALL IN A GOOD CAUSE Corporate social responsibility is nothing new and, with watches often being at the luxurious end of purchases, it’s to be expected that companies want to inject a bit offeel-good into the buying process. You can almost pick your watch by the cause you want to support as much asthe styling: Omega has the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital, whileIWC champions the Laureus for Good Sport. Movember? You’ll need an Oris. And so on and so on. For an automotivefocus, it’s the Omologato Reims Chronograph. FounderShami Kalra said: “It didn’t feel right to launch this watch without supporting the volunteers who run Reims [the restoration project looking after the old buildings at the historic French circuit].” Omologato has raised €10,000 (£8599) in eight weeks through sales of…

Fiat 500 JACK HARRISON THE YELLOW FIAT 500 you see here was a special car to me. I learned to drive in it, and once I’d passed my test, I couldn’t get enough of it. It was reliable, unexpectedly comfortable and, most importantly, obscenely fun to drive, until an unfortunate motorway shunt sent it to the great big scrapyard in the sky. It was succeeded by the blue car that’s also pictured – a 500 Collezione special edition. It uses the same bubbly 1.2-litre four-pot as the old car, so while it’s not as easy to spot in car parks, it has all the charm of the Yellow Peril alongside a fair few improvements, too. Here’s to many happy miles. CROPLEY’S GARAGE 2007 YAMAHA YP400 MAJESTY This fine machine, aka…

MODEL TESTED SOLENT FLYER • Price £5 million • Power 2126bhp • Torque 7376lb ft • Top speed 45kts (52mph) • Fuel economy 170 litres per hour On a clear day, if you stand on one side of the Solent and peer across at the other, with a bit of guidance you will soon see it once it leaves its pad and starts to build pace: this small object in the distance, moving fast among the far more sluggardly yachts, liners and tankers around it, kicking up spray as it accelerates towards its maximum speed. Around eight minutes after you first make it out, it will be upon you, making a distinct buzz that, once heard, you will never mistake for anything else, as it skims across shingle (in Southsea)…

The best way to contemplate death is to remember that you’ve already spent far more time being dead than alive, for you were just as dead before you were born as you will be after you have passed. So when we consider the future of fun on four wheels when all cars are powered by Electrolux refrigerator motors, it is perhaps reassuring to consider that while we are now entering the end of the ICE age, so too did it have a beginning. And before that there was no fun of any kind to be had on four wheels, other than those pulled by horses in your local chariot race. We didn’t miss it then because we didn’t know there was anything to miss. A somewhat cold comfort, though, because…

It started with a text from Steve Cropley: “How are you placed for Brighton Run Nov6? Interesting piece of Autocar history.” I was free, and I was in – although not yet had I realised exactly what co-pilot Will Rimell, who Steve had already recruited to sit next to me, and I had let ourselves in for… MT Being involved in the legendary run, an event that Autocar reported on from its very beginning in 1896 and which was set up following the legislative removal of the infamous ‘red flag man’, was something of an unfulfilled dream. Will and I would be in one of 330-ish pre-1905 cars to set off from Hyde Park. But first, we needed to find out what we would be driving. Steve had got us…

Poor old Goodwin seems to have forgotten, or perhaps didn’t know, I’ve just spent six months with an driver, so I know what I’m doing. But I get his thinking: he texts me from his plane telling me he’s got spark-plug issues and that I seem like the sort of bloke who might have a spare in my shed. The trouble is, I’ve just got back from a job in my Honda E so there’s not a lot of charge in it, and he’s going to land at Shobdon airfield, which is an inconvenient 100 miles from my house near Bicester. Can I save his bacon? All right, as you can tell this is a bit contrived, because I don’t usually have a photographer with me at home when I’m…

Christmas, when I was a nipper (circa 1896), was defined by the stocking that contained a foil-wrapped satsuma, some walnuts and a model of a motor car. Later it would be a die-cast metal self-assembly Dinky Action Kit. But now we’ve all grown up, the world of kits is transformed: any Autocar reader can relive that childhood memory by treating themselves to a kit car this Christmas. Kit cars have always been a big thing in this country. Essentially it’s been blokes in big sheds selling parts and stapled instructions to other blokes in smaller sheds, who reconstituted their MOT-failure Cortinas into something more interesting. There’s a rich history. Selling DIY kits is how Colin Chapman got Lotus started, and it was bread and butter for Caterham in the early…

THE HONEST ENDEAVOUR AWARD DACIA JOGGER For the car that couldn’t care less what people think of it but instead just wants to get on with doing the job affordably and well, I give you the Dacia Jogger. It’s a breath of super-functional, no-nonsense fresh air amid all those ghastly, overpriced crossovers. AF THE HUW EDWARDS AWARD FOR COMPOSURE POLESTAR 2 My snarling Puma ST wouldn’t have matched the vibe of an awfully sad family funeral, so I took the Polestar. Its subtle form didn’t distract from proceedings, and its blistering acceleration cheered up relatives looking for a distraction at the wake. FP THE AVOID-THE-HYPE AWARD DACIA DUSTER Reckon it’s too early to put your eggs in an EV basket? Need a simple workhorse that won’t cost much and will…

ANOTH E R H UGE DOUBLE ISSUE TWIN TEST Let’s see how good you really R How does Volkswagen’s latest Golf R shape up compared with the original Golf R32? We head to Wales to find out SPECIAL Road Test Yearbook Our annual look back at the best (and worst) cars we’ve driven this year FEATURE News review Chip shortages and a war added to the car industry’s post-Covid woes. We take stock EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Ferrari 296 GTB Electrified V6 supercar has Lambo, McLaren and five stars in its sights FIRST DRIVE Mercedes-AMG C63 S Hot coupé is now a hybrid with four cylinders. Can it be as good as a V8? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p28…

ECONOMY EXPLAINED Between the various figures produced on the old-style NEDC, transitional NEDC Correlated and new-style WLTP laboratory emissions and fuel economy tests, it has become tricky to compare manufacturers’ claimed efficiency on the latest new cars. When you see a fuel economy and CO2 figure reference elsewhere, it’s often without explanation. So, to provide as fair and clear a basis for comparison as possible, you’ll only ever read WLTP combined fuel economy and CO2 figures in Autocar’s first drive reviews, features and comparison tests – and on these data pages. Those are the aggregated results of four lab tests carried out across as many different cruising speed ranges – although they’re sometimes expressed as a range rather than as one specific figure to show the different results recorded by…

The Mercedes-AMG S63 has been reborn as a plug-in hybrid performance saloon housing an electrically assisted 4.0-litre V8 that develops up to 791bhp. Set for UK sale early next year, the luxury super-saloon runs an updated version of the twin-turbocharged engine used by its predecessor, but now adopts a rear-axlemounted electric motor and a 13.1kWh lithium ion battery. The set-up is similar to that of the Mercedes-AMG performance car division’s recently introduced GT 63 S E Performance. The new petrol-electric drivetrain brings an additional 214bhp over the old S63, which makes the 2023 model – officially called the S63 E Performance – the most powerful series-production S-Class model to date. Even more impressive is the increase in torque: up by 391lb ft to 1054lb ft. This means the new S63’s…

LEXUS HAS CONFIRMED shock new details of its upcoming electric LFA successor – with features such as a race-bred chassis, electronic steering and a manual gearbox. Chief engineer Takashi Watanabe said the outlandish Electrified Sport concept – first revealed in December last year – “is meant to become reality” and his team is working on adapting it for production in the coming years. At the heart of the Electrified Sport is a monocoque chassis based on that beneath Toyota’s GR GT3 track concept. The bespoke nature of this chassis allows engineers the chance to experiment with various features aimed at promoting driver engagement, says Lexus. Most notable among these is a manual gearbox, which, says the Japanese company, is an integral part of an enthusiastfocused drivetrain. The idea was hatched…

FORD WILL INVEST an additional £150 million in its Halewood factory as it scales up the historic UK facility’s involvement in its European electrification strategy. The company confirmed last year that it would convert the gearbox plant to an electric powertrain factory by 2024. The new investment raises the total cost to £380m. The extra cash injection means planned production of electric drive units at the plant will almost double, from 250,000 per year to 420,000. The plant will supply electric drive units for 70% of the 600,000 EVs Ford aims to sell in Europe annually by 2026. This also safeguards the jobs of 500 staff working at Halewood. Powertrains will be shipped to Romania and Turkey, where crucial vehicles such as the upcoming Ford E-Transit Custom – the electric…

nside an anonymous building in Vélizy, northern France, is a remarkable room, more ‘mission control’ than the mainstream warehouse its surroundings suggest, in which a team of engineers sweeps from desk to desk with intensity, monitoring walls of screens constantly updating with real-time data. An alarm sounds. Something is wrong. Busan, south-east Korea, 5778 miles away: just another day as far as the workers are concerned – until they take the call. A robotic arm is using more energy than it should, its spot welds sticking, soaking up power and risking mechanical failure. The previously unknowing workforce hurriedly shut it down and get to work on repairs. Crisis averted. This is just one small example of what Renault – never short of a catchy title these days, under the guidance…

Nissan’s performance car division, Nismo, is readying a new flagship model, expected to be a stand-alone sports car. Speaking to Autocar, Nismo CEO Takao Katagiri confirmed the as yet unnamed car will be sold in the UK as well as mainland Europe and the US, following its release in its home country of Japan. He hinted that it will arrive this decade. “There’s a very, very important vision [in Europe] for Nissan. It’s around the heart of this [new car],” said Katagiri, adding that the Sunderland factory also makes the UK an “essential” market for the firm. “This region is very, very special for us, especially for performance cars,” he said. “So one thing I can say is ‘please wait’. We’re going to introduce a very exciting model to the…

Public transport is in short supply around my place. Which should be a surprise, really, given that I live not even five miles from a town of 35,000 people, but here we are. When I moved here, there was a daily bus that went into Bicester mid-morning and came back again mid-afternoon, meandering around some villages as it did. Which is fine if you don’t work, can manipulate your appointments accordingly and have time to kill looking at hedgerows, but not many people do, so nobody used it. Ultimately, then, people end up using a car. Therefore that bus route was canned and a three-month trial to replace it was introduced (a similar deal, going mid-morning and returning in the early afternoon), but instead of once running daily, it ran…

Chinese EV maker Xpeng has positioned itself on driver assistance tech with the wild card of flying cars thrown in. Already in business in certain European countries, it has been gradually expanding its footprint across the continent. The G9 large SUV is its fourth model and is expected to join the G3i compact crossover and P7 sports saloon in Europe in the first quarter of 2023. To date, the P7 has been Xpeng’s best-seller, and the new G9 rides on a highly redeveloped version of the same platform. Designed from the outset as a world car, it’s a very different beast to previous Xpengs and moves the brand onto a more premium footing. While handsome enough, the G9 plays it safe stylistically. Among the few innovations are the two 5G…

Acutting-edge electrified future beckons for Caterham, but there’s clearly also a heavy sense of nostalgia sweeping through the corridors of its Dartford factory. While plans for a lightweight electric sports coupé are forming, the firm is also mining its past for the latest versions of its evergreen and unashamedly combustion-engined Seven. After the success of last year’s retro-themed Super Seven 1600, which has been culled due to the demise of its 1.6-litre Ford Sigma engine, Caterham has added 2000 and 600 versions. We have driven the former and liked it a lot, so now it’s time for the latter, arguably the most authentic evocation of the original Lotus Super Seven. Packing a Cosworth-tuned 1.3-litre four-pot Ford engine, the 1961 special made a modest 85bhp. By contrast, the new 600 has…

Having the best job in the world as an Autocar road tester makes you duty-bound, at least once a year, to use your good fortune to spread some cheer. We are in the lucky position of borrowing brandnew cars – with the interests of you, the Autocar reader, firmly in mind, of course – but it makes a change to think about somebody else for once: a valued and respected colleague, for example. That’s the spirit from which our road testers’ Christmas lunch was born a few years ago, and we’re happy to continue the annual festive tradition. Seven of us – Steve Cropley, Matt Prior, James Disdale, Mike Duff, Matt Saunders, Richard Lane and Vicky Parrott – met for our festive feed this year, each having chosen and brought…

SAAB 900 T16 CONVERTIBLE £123,000 Saab owners tended to drive their cars much farther than other marque loyalists, until, eventually, trading it in for another Saab. The 246-mile 1987 Saab 900 T16 Convertible on US auction website Bring a Trailer in August, therefore, drew a lot of interest. In a desirable spec and near-new condition, it drew bids up to an astonishing $145,000 – more than 10 times the going rate for those with the usual miles behind them. PANHARD DB HBR £238,500 Le Mans legends of the 1960s have had a resurgence this year, with the various historic racing events returning to full swing. One of the more unusual auction lots was the headliner of the Aguttes Summer Sale in June: a stunningly slinky 1957 DB HBR Le Mans…

“This isn’t quite the end of the earth – but you can see it from here,” quips one of our hosts. Looking north from our windswept perch across the heaving seas, I think he might be right. We’re closer to the Arctic Circle than we are to London, but our passports are safely at home because we’re still in the UK. Just. Rewind 24 hours and Autocar staff photographer Max Edleston and I meet at Port Edgar, a smart marina just outside Edinburgh, with a plan to drive north until the blacktop stops. Our car for the journey is a fully electric Polestar 2, whose namesake celestial body – variously known as the Pole Star, Polaris or the North Star – will guide us there, hanging as it does directly…

I can’t imagine that many people think of Wing Commander Andy Green – you know, the fastest man on Earth, Thrust SSC driver – as they’re piloting a steamroller at its top speed of 4mph. But that’s exactly the thought that pops into my head as I try to stop this 97-year-old road roller from hitting either the kerb to the left or the oncoming cars to the right. Green often spoke about having to invent a new type of steering when he was driving Thrust in order to keep the rear-wheel-steer machine stable. It was all about double-input steering and I swear I’m now doing the same thing, using a combination of short, sharp movements combined with larger sweeping arm twirls to keep us on the straight and narrow.…

We report on some amazing things in Autocar, but in truth our words can never do justice to the entire… well, picture. We need Luc Lacey, Max Edleston, John Bradshaw and Will Williams to do that, to quite literally add colour to our black-and-white text. So look, stare and enjoy over the next eight pages. On this page, Max timed his newly found location in the North Pennines to perfection to capture the cars in the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS group test in the best light. And Luc’s disused quarry shot marked a good day: “This job was right up my street. As a keen climber, getting to spend the day learning what the volunteers at Central Beacons Mountain Rescue do was fascinating – and reassuring.” Luc was rushed…

You know that moment when your child flies the nest, driving off into the distance on their way to university, and when your mixed emotions of pride, sadness and nervousness all get bungled up into a maelstrom of heart-wrenching melancholy? I think I’ve just had that but about 12 years early. Because, as you’ll tell from these images, my son Archie is definitely not university age. What he is doing is driving an electric ‘car’ just inches from the rear bumper of photographer Max Edleston’s Citroën Berlingo van, in a vehicle he first sat in just 10 minutes ago. Pride and nervousness: that’s two of those nest-emptying emotions ticked for me. Because Max’s van remains dent-and scratch-free, another one soon takes over: relief. We’re here today to capture Archie’s ‘first…

1 Pirelli sponsors which football team’s stadium in the Midlands? 2 Which Autocar correspondent wrote the book about the Ford Cortina 1600Es that were given to members of England’s 1970 World Cup squad? 3 Which Autocar journalist appeared on The Chase earlier this year? 4 Who was the first Formula 1 world champion to die of natural causes? 5 Which team was running Stirling Moss when he secured the first victory for a Lotus F1 car? 6 In which country is the new Honda Civic Type R going to be manufactured? 7 McLaren’s new Artura plug-in hybrid supercar matched the 0-100mph acceleration benchmark of which one of its legendary forebears in its road test earlier this year? 8 Which car maker spent most of the past decade sponsoring Manchester United’s…

Cubed not squared Jesse Crosse’s article about the increasing importance of vehicle aerodynamics (Under the Skin, 16 November) contains a common but significant error. The resistance to motion due simply to drag does indeed rise as the square of the speed. However, power required to overcome resistance is the product of drag force and velocity, so it rises as the cube of the vehicle speed. Consequently, a doubling of speed requires eight times, not four times, as much power. As a more practical example, a vehicle travelling at 70mph requires 2.74 times the power required at 50mph, assuming that aerodynamic forces dominate. Tony PikeBridport, Dorset It’s a Lofus I owned an original Lotus Elise in the 1990s and loved it, even with the “lots of trouble, usually serious” jibe. Recently…

New big Triumph impresses in hottest form TRIUMPH DIDN’T HOLD back in its race to improve its flagship, upgrading the 2000 to a Mk2 just a year after giving it the TR6 sports car’s engine to create the 2.5 PI. The Coventry firm stretched the 2000 by some 22cm and made the cabin yet plusher, increasing weight by around 50kg but not denting performance as a result, because Michelotti’s new design created less aerodynamic drag. The tasteful curved wooden fascia, leather-rimmed sports wheel and multi-purpose levers “deserved the highest praise”. We weren’t keen on the softer suspension, which bordered on sloppy, but we liked tremendously the new option of power steering, even if it diminished the feel a bit. At about £1800 (£23,895 today), the 2.5 PI was rather pricier…

The Audi S3 was ahead of its time. While all-wheel drive and turbocharged four-cylinder engines are common in modern hot hatches, this pocket rocket arrived in 1999, when they were comparatively rare. Did someone say ‘future classic’? By contrast, there is some old-school hardware mixed with the then new. You have a six-speed manual gearbox, for example, with an intuitive shift action. There’s also some classic turbo lag to contend with, although many people are likely to enjoy the thrill of the surge. Once on boost, you’ll be deploying 207bhp from its 1.8-litre engine – if your S3 is a pre-2001 example. After that year and until production ceased in 2003, the model came with 222bhp. Either way, it’s sent through an all-wheel drive system that, although called Quattro, is…

Honda’s Type R models will continue into the electrified age, giving the firm’s hot hatchbacks and other driver’s cars a future despite the demise of internal combustion engines. In recent years, Peugeot, Ford and Renault have axed their respective GTI and RS programmes due to a lack of profitability caused by stringent emissions laws. However, Hideki Kakinuma, lead engineer for Honda’s Type R project, told Autocar: “Without Type R, there is no Honda.” He said: “Honda strongly believes that driving pleasure is the core essence of private mobility, personal mobility.” However, Kakinuma admitted that in the face of “carbon neutrality and emissions regulations that are very stringent, it’s very difficult to think about such a sports model in these boundaries”. He added: “But for Honda, they are only new hurdles,…

Volkswagen has confirmed plans for the launch of a facelifted ID 3 in March next year, releasing new sketches. The mid-life changes – recently brought forward due to well-publicised software issues – include a revised exterior and cabin upgrades such as a larger infotainment display, the latest generation of VW’s ID software and more upmarket materials. Previously, CEO Thomas Schäfer said: “We’ve listened very carefully to the ID 3 community; [the new ID 3] delivers what the Volkswagen brand promises.”…

Renault’s adoption of the phrase ‘metaverse’ appears to extend to anything improved by digital progress and encompasses people as well as machines. One example is the use of virtual reality to train paint-shop technicians. Don a headset and suitably equipped paint gun and it’s possible to step into a realistic recreation of any paint booth in the firm’s global empire and practise your technique on any car that’s on sale or even being developed until it’s perfected. “We can model any scenario and give realistic feedback on how well the work is done,” says Caroline Wurth, pedagogy and innovation project manager. “Across the areas we have been using VR, we estimate skills are picked up four times faster and at significant cost and environmental savings. We are not spraying actual…

RIMAC TECHNOLOGY, THE engineering and electronics arm of the fast-expanding Croatian EV maker, has begun a campaign to increase the size of its British engineering team. Rimac Technology already has around 20 engineers working in temporary premises near Warwick, and it aims to more than double in size by the time it moves to its permanent UK base in 2023. The UK division currently works in direct partnership with a much larger Croatiabased team, which expanded by 537 people during 2022. It counts 20 major firms – including Aston Martin, Bugatti, Hyundai, Kia, Pininfarina and Porsche – as “manufacturer partners”. Its client projects include battery systems design, mechanical design, body engineering, embedded software, purchasing and even vehicle trimming. “The level of engineering talent within the UK makes it an absolutely…

DON’T TALK TO me about the pace of life! Last time I looked, we were eagerly anticipating the new driving season. Now we’re back to focusing on those days over Christmas when normally crowded roads are eerily clear, although it’s tough to decide which will be which. The departing year showed early signs of lockdown torpor, which led to a full year’s programme of motoring events being squeezed into a shorter, later period than usual – as this far-from-complete summary of a vibrant 12 months shows. Great cars arrived in numbers, and many more are coming. For the new year, Autocar will focus as usual on the future. Motor shows will be less prominent, and market headwinds are promised. But car makers only really like going forward, so there will…

TESTED 9.11.22, SEVILLE, SPAIN ON SALE SOLD OUT “Any TT RS, even one as overpriced as this, remains a mighty all-season weapon” Let’s deal with some numbers first. A big one to begin: £87,650. That’s a huge sum of money for an Audi TT, even one that is the last of its kind in a sports coupé market that seems to have got a case of the dreaded shrinks. So let’s temper that with a lower number: 100. That’s how many of these TT Iconic Editions will be built, with just 11 coming to the UK. There’s an even smaller number as well: 0. That’s how many remain on sale in the UK. Say what you will about Audi, but it knows its market intimately well. Nigh-on £90k for a…

Alpina has cornered the ultrarapid BMW 3 Series estate market for quite some time, but not for much longer, as we’re only months away from the arrival of the first-ever M3 Touring. It will be a compelling and wildly quick machine, the M wagon, but you would be foolish to immediately forget about Buchloe’s B3 Touring, with its more sat-back personality and cultured appearance. In line with BMW’s recent update to the G20-generation 3 Series, the B3 has been facelifted, gaining some design tweaks, more power and torque plus marginal improvements in cooling and aerodynamics, all of which you would expect to make an already five-star car even more… five-starry. It’s no surprise that on British roads, the B3 Touring remains almost absurdly versatile. Ride quality and direction changes unfold…

IT’S ONE-ONE in the Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg stakes in Extreme E, the off-road EV racing series in which both own teams. Last year, Rosberg’s RXR team claimed the inaugural title, but this time it swung to Hamilton’s X44 squad in a nail-biting finale at the Energy X Prix in Uruguay. RXR didn’t even make the final as the Abt Cupra team scored its first win, thanks to Dakar Rally hero Nasser Al-Attiyah and Klara Andersson, who saw off McLaren’s Tanner Foust and Emma Gilmour. Behind them, United Andretti appeared to get the better of X44, until penalties were taken into account. Nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb ceded to United Andretti’s Timmy Hansen during his stint, before handing over to Cristina Gutiérrez – who was handed a 5sec…

JIM HOLDER In a lucky life of driving fancy cars and more, an hour in the company of softly spoken, fact-focused scientist Gill Pratt is what I’ll remember. Yes, really. CEO of the Toyota Research Institute, Pratt is well known for being an articulate exponent of (and I paraphrase) using the world’s finite battery resources for the greatest impact on CO2 reduction, which means, in some cases, prioritising hybrids over EVs. It’s a controversial stance, because it stands in the face of global governmental direction, enrages EV evangelists and neatly ties into Toyota’s Prius-established credentials. But it’s also courageous, because it opens him and his employer to criticism for being slow, retrograde and self-serving, and fascinating, because it forgoes hype for expertise. He might be right or he might be…

Most people use metal detectors when they’re treasure hunting, but I arm myself with a camera and atlas instead. For the past three decades, I’ve been visiting the US, scouring roadsides, deserts, forests, barns and salvage yards, searching for rare and forgotten automotive jewels to photograph. During my tin-hunting travels, I’ve clocked up tens of thousands of miles, visited all 50 states and had some scary encounters with the angry scorpions, spiders, snakes and junkyard dogs who guard these gems. I reckon it’s a lot more interesting than traipsing through a field and digging up the occasional rusty nail… OPEL MANTA, TEXAS A captive import for GM, the Mk1 Opel Manta initially sold well. However, fluctuating exchange rates and eye-watering price increases put paid to that in the mid-1970s. Instead,…

THE BIG PICTURE INSIGHT At an Alexander Lindsay exhibition, you don’t just walk around the room, you walk around the photographs. His prints go up to 15 metres wide, with a surface area more than two-thirds that of the Bayeux Tapestry. But unlike, say, giant-format billboard ads, Lindsay’s prints are incredibly sharp – 200 dots per inch at a minimum – which means you’ll never see pixelation or degradation: what looks like a beautiful landscape from across the room still looks beautiful at the end of your nose. It’s brain-bending stuff, widely known as gigapixel photography. Lindsay explains his process: “Every camera has a sensor, whether it’s film or digital, and the size of the sensor dictates the quality of the picture. Taking a digital sensor and overlapping images in…

Sent to London during the Blitz to help fill gaps in the capital’s bus fleet, then returned to Birmingham a few weeks later for the same reason after a major bus depot in the city is bombed. After the war, sent to a scrapyard but somehow spared and in 1969 discovered in a Herefordshire field being used as a home defended by a chap not afraid to use a shotgun to repel trespassers. Bought, minus its engine, by a preservation society and eventually, after a series of false starts, embarks in 2012 on an extended period of restoration interrupted, in 2018, by the expensive realisation that the refurbishment of its replacement engine has been bodged. Finally, in June 2022, following a second but this time successful rebuild of its mechanicals,…

It was Our Nige, the second coming; it was Mansell maniaall over again. Déjà vu doesn’t do it justice. Back in the summer, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Nigel Mansell strode back into the spotlight, a place that was always very much his comfort zone. The plan was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his Formula 1 world championship and, oh boy, his adoring fans loved every moment of every day. So did Nigel, complete with a new moustache and back aboard Red 5 for a nostalgic blast up the Goodwood hill. Pausing every few steps for a selfie, our hero comes before us, for the first of his interview sessions. It’s as if he’s never been away. The excitement is palpable, the enclosure heaving. A great many women…

What’s the most disappointing Christmas present you’ve ever received? For me, and relative to the size of the box in which it came, it’s probably pipe lagging. But what if the box were small and when cracked open revealed just a small, gleaming key fob and a note saying: ‘Yours, one McLaren 765LT, for a day’? No, it’s not likely. But just imagine it did. Someone gave you a state-of-the-art supercar for 24 hours. What would you do with it? The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it? You’d just get in and drive until whichever one of the tank, your bank balance or the 24-hour egg timer ran dry first. Surely? Surely not. Because that would only tell you what such a car was like to drive, not what it was…

THE EXTENDED-HOURS LONG-DISTANCE AWARD For the car you would most want to take on a very long journey WINNER LAND ROVER DISCOVERY HIGHLY COMMENDED MERCEDES-BENZ S-CLASS, POLESTAR 2 With long journeys back on the agenda (thank you, 2022), our fleet has got some proper miles under its belt this year. And for doing just that, the Disco was the clear winner, showing that even in today’s COP-conscious age, there remains a taste for big, comfortable diesels and a seating position that gives you a clear view of the road ahead. Steve Cropley ran the Discovery and had nothing but praise for it after the near-13,000 miles they racked up together: “I drove long and short distances (the straight sides and high seating make it pretty good in towns). If parked…

I’m so tyred of this How interesting it was to read Matt Prior’s column about spare wheels (9 November), and yes, they are a godsend. I’ve owned five Mercedes-Benz C-Class Estates, my latest one being the first not to have a spare. Last year, I had six punctures, and on only one occasion did the inflator kit provide any assistance – only for me to be told by my tyre fitter that had I not used it, a simple tyre repair would have been possible. When the solution cost me £54 and only gave me recovery distance to the garage, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed. As regards the other punctures, only once have I had a mobile phone signal (I drive mostly in the West Country); you can’t inflate a tyre…

What to buy, where to buy it and how much to pay If ever a car summed up the Aristotelian belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it’s the current BMW 5 Series. Make no mistake: its individual parts are deeply impressive, but put them all together and the resultant car is terrific – especially as a used buy. Regular petrol models range from the 520i to the 523bhp V8 M550i. Petrol plug-in hybrids include the 530e and, from 2021 onwards, the four-wheel-drive, six-cylinder 545e. There’s even an M5, a 592bhp supersaloon (616bhp in Competition form, 626bhp in CS trim). The diesels are the best-selling 520d and the punchy 530d. Some 5 Series cars have four-wheel drive (xDrive) and all feature an eight-speed automatic gearbox.…

An expert’s view ALEX GREEN, FONTAIN MOTORS “The Mk1 S3 has proven to be a real ‘I told you so’ moment for Audi, with competitors today all building conceptually identical cars. Tellingly, 20 years on, the original S3 remains a remarkably modern package. As an ownership proposition, it’s key to remember that good upkeep and even light restoration will be essential to ensure not just reliability but also that the car drives as sharply as possible. Worn-out suspension and a lazy engine are no fun, but parts availability is excellent. There’s also an enthusiastic community of owners and specialists, and prices are still fairly sensible – although honest examples are becoming harder to find.” Buyer beware… • ENGINE Check the breather pipes at the inlet manifold and ideally replace them…

We don’t know if it will be a white Christmas. If it is, we’re sure Santa will find any of the vehicles here useful. The only way to go truly off the beaten path in a frozen snowscape is with a purpose-built vehicle. From custom-builds that cost millions to more down-to-earth inventions, here are your best options for getting from A to B this winter, whatever the weather. Highland Garron Before the country’s police was unified in 2013, Scotland’s Northern Constabulary had to patrol an area the size of Belgium with some of its most rugged highland and remote island regions, including the tallest mountain in the UK. Previously equipped with elderly Snow Tracs, which weren’t much good in summer, in 1982 the force took delivery of the Scottish-built Garron…