Innholdsfortegnelse for June 21, 2023 i Autocar

Renault has unveiled its long-awaited new D-segment flagship, the Rafale – a powerful hybridpowered coupé-SUV “born and bred for driving pleasure”. It will appear initially, from summer next year, as a 197bhp front-wheel-drive hybrid, but a 295bhp four-wheel-drive version is also scheduled. Its launch is the latest move in the comprehensive ‘Renaulution’ plan laid out by boss Luca de Meo when he arrived three years ago. De Meo identified the French firm’s first mission as being to strengthen its C-segment model range – which it has done with the Arkana, Mégane and Austral – but believes the next priority is the D-segment, which accounts for 15% of car sales across Europe. The Rafale will be built in Valencia, Spain, on a variant of the CMF-CD platform that has already underpinned…

IT LOOKS TO be curtains for the manual Golf GTI after nearly 50 years, as the eighth-generation Golf line-up goes automaticonly in a move to reduce Volkswagen’s fleet emissions. The entire Golf line-up will lose the option of a manual as part of the upcoming midlife facelift if the Euro 7 emissions regulations are signed off in their current form, Autocar understands. This means the GTI will be offered only with the DSG seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, which currently commands almost £2000 extra over the stick-shift car. The move is also likely to raise prices for the standard Golf, which currently starts at £26,565 in 1.0 TSI form. The cheapest DSG variant, the 1.0 eTSI, costs nearly £2000 more.…

ARE EV TYRES all that different from what went before? Or will any old tyre do? A lot of drivers will just want the cheapest deal, despite all the evidence that in terms of grip, handling, braking distance, comfort, noise, economy, performance in the wet and wear rate, a premium tyre will outperform those from super-cheap unknown brands. But fitting a tyre to an EV that isn’t designed for the job could turn out to be a costly mistake. So why is engineering tyres for EVs a different proposition from designing tyres for an ICE car? There are four reasons. First, EVs weigh a lot more, because of battery weight. For example, the entry-level Volkswagen ID 3 weighs almost 30% more than the conventional Golf equivalent. Then there’s torque. With…

THE STUDY OF spreadsheets occupies a good portion of a car marketer’s working life, but thankfully there are much more rewarding parts of the job, too. Perhaps the biggest thrill comes from naming things. Big agencies will usually be drafted in to take care of the actual model name, charging thousands for their creative input and “customer focus clinics”, but smaller, less visible stuff can be entrusted to product managers with barely a glance from the big cheeses. So when it came to thinking of new names for the colours of a van-based car at one maker, no one really cared enough to call an expensive agency or even demand a meeting. The product manager was allowed to choose pretty much whatever he wanted and it was waved through. Which…

It’s normal, towards the close of a conversation, to ask someone what they’re doing next. Unless, that is, you’re talking to car industry people, because they won’t tell you. The car industry is notoriously tightlipped about giving away its future plans. So a casual “what’s next?” asked to Paul Williams, Bentley’s chief technical officer for Mulliner and motorsport, isn’t something he can answer easily. Bentley recently finished building the Bacalar limited-run convertible but hasn’t yet started delivering customer versions of its limited-edition Batur coupé (driven, p30). And it’s disinclined to announce what there will be beyond that, except that given the speed with which the Bacalar and Batur models both sold out, it’s certain the super-exclusive Mulliner coachbuilding division will make something. “What do you think it should be?” asks…

“A, B, H, Z, C, D, E, F, G…” is, as we all know, how the alphabet goes. We all learned it in school. Hang on, no it doesn’t, but it seems Honda thinks it does, because it has just launched the ZR-V, a new crossover to sit between the HR-V and the CR-V. A space between those two cars has been created because the new CR-V, which is coming later this year, has grown substantially to compete more directly with cars like the Hyundai Santa Fe. Honda doesn’t actually have an official explanation for choosing the ZR-V name. Apparently there were some mutterings internally about Generation Z. But that’s not a logical explanation, because the ZR-V is aimed at slightly older families. Not confused yet? Well, this car is…

Fetch the torches and pitchforks: it’s a new diesel SUV. Actually, don’t, because a frugal diesel can still make sense, even if it no longer attracts tax breaks. When DS revised the 7 Crossback into the 7 recently, it killed most of the pure-ICE options, leaving just a trio of plug-in hybrids and the 1.5-litre four-cylinder diesel. It might look like you will have to suffer for your economy: 129bhp and a 10.7sec 0-62mph time hardly appeal, and when you merge onto a motorway, it’s clear that this SUV isn’t especially quick. However, in a world of hard-working turbo petrols and hybrids, it’s nice to be back in the torquey embrace of a diesel. At everyday speeds, it just gathers pace quietly and adequately. Even if you plant your foot,…

“How much more time have you got?” asks Michal Velebný, Skoda Depository’s head honcho, while we stare at a near-perfect lightgreen 110 L Rallye that has just arrived from a life in Cyprus. An intriguing question, and one to which I already know the answer as I look at the Czech Republicbased Skoda rep staring both at his watch and my way. “About five, maybe 10 minutes,” I lie – but it’s a fib I would not long regret. Velebný ushers us out of his workshop and guides us through the underbelly of Skoda’s treasurefilled Mladá Boleslav museum – which, in the building of the car maker’s old factory, houses more than 300 cars and pre-Skoda Laurin & Klement bikes – to where a large wooden door stands. A padlock…

MILEAGE 9987 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a vRS badge can make an electric car exciting A recent stint in a Ford Focus ST Estate for a first drive (Autocar, 14 June) provided an interesting impromptu sort-of comparison test with the Skoda Enyaq iV vRS – and not just of their respective shades of very lurid green. Clearly, you can’t really compare the two directly: one is a front-drive turbocharged petrol estate car, the other a fourwheel-drive electric coupé-SUV. But there is a shared philosophy: both attempt to bring sporting cachet to unlikely subjects through the use of their makers’ respective ‘everyday performance’ divisions: Ford’s ST and Skoda’s vRS. A great accessible performance car blends driving thrills in a package practical and benign enough to serve as a…

Looking back in anger Whatever the seriousness or hideousness of the crime of which you’re accused, you have ‘the right to remain silent’, and it’s up to the police to produce the evidence of your guilt so that you can be successfully prosecuted. I believe that in recent years, our parliament has taken away this fundamental right to silence in cases of the so often victimless crime of speeding offences, as detected by automated cameras. Therefore drivers now have to admit to offences they are alleged to have committed, as happened recently with Noel Gallagher and be prosecuted if they fail to do so. [The rock star was given six penalty points and ordered to pay £1138 in fines and costs for failing to identify who was driving a Range…

Always leave ’em wanting more: who said that first is up for debate, but the commercial sense behind it is not. Almost every high-end car brand employs it to some degree by making far fewer of a certain model than they can sell. Porsche, Ferrari, Bentley, Aston Martin et al, they all do it. But Honda? Yes, even Honda has left ’em wanting more. Just 500 examples of the Integra Type R were brought to the UK, starting in 1997. Most were sold before they arrived on the strength of reviews of the car, which had been on sale in its native Japan since 1995. It was, simply, brilliant to drive and Honda could have sold way, way more than 500. Then it got worse. The first, DC2-gen Integra Type…

We sample life as a London taxi driver THE LEVC TX of modern London has a heritage stretching back to 1930, over six generations of taxi. In 1925, a new Tory government extended the tariffs that had been introduced to pay for the war onto commercial vehicles. This made the dominant French Unic taxis intolerably costly, so dealer Mann & Overton asked Austin to return to the market with a new model. Austin reused the chassis from its old ‘heavy’ Twelve car, keeping the 27bhp four-pot but regearing the four-speed gearbox and, to get a tiny turning circle, the steering. Bodies (usually landaulet) then came from coachbuilders, their extra height over rivals earning the nickname ‘high lot’ – and favour among top-hat wearers. As per the 1906 Conditions of Fitness,…

“The Vision One-Eleven explores new paths for the future of performance” Mercedes-Benz’s striking new Vision One-Eleven concept is a “progressive interpretation of a ’70s brand icon”. The new two-seat hypercar – which sports a dramatic monolithic exterior design, gullwing doors and a flamboyant cockpit with silver upholstery – has been created as a one-off tribute to the firm’s C111 experimental prototype. Just 16 examples of the C111 were produced over two generations for various test and development programmes during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Vision One-Eleven also provides clues to the EV drivetrain developments Mercedes has earmarked for its upcoming electric sports cars. It has been conceived with two rear-mounted axial-flux electric motors from British firm Yasa and a battery with liquid-cooled cylindrical cells and novel cell chemistry…

FIAT HAS QUIETLY revealed the 600 as the electric successor to the 500X crossover. Appearing undisguised in a promotional video ahead of its official debut in the coming weeks, the new EV is effectively the bigger brother to the retro-styled 500 city car, adopting the same retro-inspired design cues but boosting practicality with a raised ride height, a bigger boot and rear doors. Based on Fiat parent company Stellantis’s EMP2 architecture, the 600 is expected to broadly match the technically related Jeep Avenger with 154bhp, a 9.0sec 0-62mph time and a range of around 250 miles. That car is due a more potent four-wheeldrive option in the near future too, which paves the way for a more sporting Abarth version of Fiat’s new crossover. MYSTERIOUS START-UP UNVEILS £6000 EV Say…

VOLKSWAGEN CEO THOMAS Schäfer has ruled out reviving the Beetle for the electric age, even as some of the brand’s most famous model names are primed for comebacks. The future of Volkswagen’s naming strategy has been a hot topic recently. Schäfer previously told Autocar that Golf and Golf GTI EVs were on the cards, and he has now suggested that several other storied names are tipped to survive the transition from combustion to electric power. “We’ve decided that we’re not going to throw away the traditional, successful names that have carried us for so long, that we’ve invested in for so long, like Golf and Tiguan,” said Schäfer. “Why would you let them go?” Asked what qualifies a name to be significant enough for revival on an EV, he said:…

Citroën will pitch itself headlong into the affordable EV market this October with a battery version of its revised C3 that will cost “below €25,000” in France and hit the UK market at prices around £25,000. There will also be new ICE-powered models in the wider C3 range, but Citroën has insisted that the ë-C3 will become the lead offering in its B-segment hatchback range. This represents a bold attempt by the Stellantis group to start addressing the issue of affordable EVs. Until now, European manufacturers have concentrated on highvalue EVs while Chinese manufacturers make rapid progress with the biggerscale, low-cost EVs that the market will ultimately need. The ë-C3, which Citroën said will be “fully equipped” as standard with niceties such as air conditioning and electric windows, is claimed…

The Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport siblings have been updated for 2023 with a sleek new cabin and a raft of technology upgrades. The headline change for the updated SUVs is a totally revised dashboard that ditches physical controls and ushers in a new-look, larger touchscreen familiar from the latest Range Rover models. The outgoing cars feature a haptic climate control panel below the dashboard, with rotary dials for temperature selection and fan speed, but this has been removed to free up a cavernous central storage cubby, complete with a new wireless phone charger. All core functions are now hosted in the 11.4in curved touchscreen, which runs the latest generation of JLR’s Pivi Pro interface. A suite of “permanently accessible” sidebars ensures that access to these commonly…

THURSDAY Back to Le Mans after six years. It was the 100th anniversary of the world’s greatest endurance race and I was never going to miss it – especially when an invitation arrived from Alpine to join a two-A110 convoy from Blighty. As well as the race, we would see the unveiling of next year’s hybrid Hypercar and meet the team who built it. Our road-going Alpines were an S and a GT. Perhaps I should have taken more account of which was better, but since this seemed a matter of comparing 95% with 94%, I didn’t bother. The best thing was seeing how well our increasingly loved 21-plate Pure compared with these newer editions – and how easily and comfortably any A110 puts away 400 fast miles. That’s a…

David Cameron in Number 10, Cheryl Cole atop the charts and a certain someone slacking at college; Russia waging war on Ukraine and the Mk3 Mazda 2 featuring near the front in Autocar. In some ways, summer 2014 feels like ancient history; in others, it’s like nothing has changed at all. Things have actually changed in facelift number two for the 2, but it still feels like a proper throwback – and happily a “footy at lunch?” one, not a “cheeky referendum?” one. There are some style alterations – the grille, wheels and trim change with each of the four new trim levels – and tweaks inside. Fundamentally, though, this is still the same old 2. The dynamics are as they were, the engine range is still just variants of…

Three in the morning is not a time I’ve seen recently. Long gone are my clubbing days and the kids are now old enough that we’re spared those brain-scraping wake-ups. But at Le Mans, 03:00 is perhaps the greatest time. It’s when the best drivers and teams know they can make a difference, when all about them are at their lowest ebb and concentration starts to lapse. Eleven hours in, 13 to go: this is the time. And at this particular Le Mans, no one should miss it. This is the centenary anniversary of the greatest race, with the sort of stories and legendary moments that make it feel like a Hollywood script. Heck, there’s even a Nascar running around. It’s why photographer Max Edleston and I are perking our…

MILEAGE 7783 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the new Range Rover is all the car you will ever need I’ve previously moaned in these pages about the disproportionately large footprint and needlessly lazy turning circle of my Ora Funky Cat (see right), but for all its flaws, it remains a much more sensible urban proposition than some of the towering tanks I see hurtling around London. Big cars just make no sense in a tight, busy city centre. So when the keys to the Range Rover PHEV landed in my lap one Friday evening, I had harrowing visions of scraped alloys, warped bumpers and scuffed trim. At more than five metres long, at 2.2 metres wide and with a wheelbase in which you could comfortably park a Smart…

I’m very lucky to have driven new, expensive, big-engined diesel cars over the past 20 years. They were great, but none would I call fun or did I feel passionately about. Covid changed everything. Time for a change, I thought. A small, manual petrol that was lighter and more fun was the plan. I lost patience trying to get a Porsche 718 so bought a VW Golf GTI. What a blast: small, light, with a great ’box and comparatively great-sounding. After a while, though, I needed a bit more space so sought an alternative. I searched and searched. No manuals, smaller engines, electrified this and that. As a kid, I had V12s, V8s and sixes on my walls, not hybrid SUVs. Disillusioned and knowing time was running out, I looked…

An expert’s view SIMON CLARKE, MIDLAND HONDA SERVICES “The DC5 is the evolution of the DC2. Everything they should have done with the DC2 they’ve done with the DC5: slightly bigger engine, better suspension. They’re great to drive. You can set them up to handle like a go-kart. They’ve got massive amounts of mechanical grip if they’re set up properly. Bulletproof reliability. Great investment. Parts for them aren’t too easy to get because they are an import, after all. The last ones were produced back in 2005 and 2006, so it hasn’t been made for a while. But there are a lot of aftermarket parts available for them and many of the parts will cross over from the EP3 [Civic Type R].” Buyer beware… ENGINE Due to its age, the…

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…

“If you asked someone to drive it and guess the powertrain, they probably couldn’t tell you” Toyota Gazoo Racing has begun testing its first battery-powered prototype, with Toyota chairman and so-called master driver Akio Toyoda personally involved in development work to ensure that it meets expectations, Autocar can exclusively reveal. Talking during the recent Le Mans 24 Hour race, Toyoda – who recently bequeathed the role of Toyota CEO to GR boss Koji Sato – revealed that his baseline expectations for the BEV are for it to be at least as good to drive as current combustion Gazoo cars, which include the GR86, GR Supra, GR Yaris and GR Corolla. “I actually had the opportunity to test drive a BEV GR we’re working on recently,” said Toyoda. “I don’t know…

The next Volkswagen Tayron SUV is due on sale in the UK in 2025 as a successor to the seven-seat Tiguan Allspace, which will be retired after this model generation. The current Tayron is sold exclusively in China in both standard and coupé (Tayron X) bodystyles, but the redesigned Mk2 car is being engineered for sale in all of Volkswagen’s key markets, including the UK, officials at the German company have confirmed. “We will extend our existing SUV line-up on a global basis with the second-generation Tayron, which is already under development and will go on sale by the middle of the decade,” said Karl-Heinz Hell, head of engineering for Volkswagen’s mid-to full-size models. Based on the new thirdgeneration Tiguan (driven, p26), the new Tayron will receive its own unique…

CITROEN IS AGGRESSIVELY bidding to increase its annual sales by almost 50% with concerted marketing efforts in countries the world over. A wide-reaching plan revealed in Paris this week by newly arrived Citroën CEO Thierry Koskas is targeting one million sales annually for the French brand by 2025, compared with last year’s total volume of 680,000. Koskas, a former highachieving Renault executive, wants to boost Citroën’s current 4% share of Europe’s 14 million car sales to 5% – a matter of 140,000 cars. He also aims to increase sales outside Europe from the current 20% of total volume to 30% – close to 200,000 cars. He believes that expansion in Europe will come from model improvements that are already under way – citing the ë-C4, ë-C4 X and new C5…

US-ITALIAN START-UP Aehra has revealed its second model, an electric super-saloon to rival the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air. Named simply the Sedan, it joins the SUV revealed last year and features a similarly dramatic design with extravagant falcon doors, a muscular, cabforward silhouette and supercar-inspired design cues throughout. The Sedan launches with two motors on the rear axle and one up front, producing a combined 794bhp, and a mammoth 120kWh battery for a claimed range of 497 miles. Recharging can be completed at rates of up to 350kW thanks to 925V electrics. Sedan prices are expected to start at around £137,000 and Aehra founder Hazim Nada told us the company aims to build 25,000 units of each car per year by mid-2027.…

After all the hype, what an astonishing motor race. The 100th-anniversary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours matched expectations as a major happening, then blew the doors off as a sporting occasion. Twenty-five years since my first Le Mans, this was up there with the most intense and enthralling editions of the grand old endurance race that I’ve witnessed. I’m writing this bleary-eyed the morning after a race that I simply couldn’t tear myself away from. The previous best I remember are 1999, a year of mass manufacturer entries and flipping Mercedes-Benzes, and 2008, when Audi beat a superior Peugeot against all the odds. This one topped both for me, even if we were robbed of a thrilling fight to the finish. Ryo Hirakawa will be haunted by his…

Forget the rest: this is the Ranger that most people will buy. Or is it? Because although this is Ford’s first time offering a crowd-pleasing V6 diesel, Wildtrak spec might now be less desirable. The Ranger has been a runaway success ever since it was restyled as an Americanesque lifestyle tank in 2011, with Wildtrak spec the aspirational peak for would-be owners. But times change, and the Ranger line-up has been expanded for this latest model generation. The standard twin-turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel (with 168bhp or 202bhp) might not sound so impressive now that there’s a 3.0-litre V6 diesel producing 237bhp – and Ford has created an even more ostentatious Platinum spec to fill the apparent void between the Wildtrak workhorse and newly V6 petrol-powered Raptor show pony. Still, while…

I suppose you’re not paying just for the metal, carbonfibre or leather. It’s the chance to have a look behind the door, access what others don’t and, importantly, own something nobody else does. All Bentleys try to offer a bit of that, which is why there are 46 billion ‘curated by Mulliner’ option combinations for a Continental GT alone, and why people spend on average £30,000 on those. You can double that amount for those who opt into the next-level ‘Mulliner bespoke’ line-up. This is one of the reasons why Bentley posted its biggest-ever profits last year, up 82% on just a 4% increase in vehicle sales. Do a bit more work, earn a lot more money. I’ll try suggesting this at my next pay review and let you know…

MODEL TESTED 63 S E PERFORMANCE • Price £178,800 • Power 831bhp • Torque 1084lb ft • 0-60mph 2.9sec • 30-70mph in fourth 3.6sec • Fuel economy 21.3mpg • CO2 emissions 180g/km • 70-0mph 44.4m When Mercedes-AMG was celebrating its 50th anniversary at the Geneva show in 2017, it unwrapped what then boss Tobias Moers introduced as only its third “autonomously developed” sports car (following the SLS and GT). The name of the Mercedes-AMG GT Concept wasn’t a great guide to its intended role within Affalterbach’s model range: it was to be the firm’s first four-door model. But what was most interesting about the car wasn’t its practicality but its powertrain. Rather than the handbuilt V8 you normally associate with AMG, it had a performance hybrid powertrain offering four-wheel drive –…

“It’s a 550-mile-to-a-tank and 50mpg-without-trying-too-hard mile eater” FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a fast estate is still the best car in the world Time is running out for independent-era Alpinas like this, the D3 S Touring, which is based on the latest-generation BMW 3 Series and has joined Autocar for the next few months. Goody. Alpina was bought by BMW last spring but will continue with its own line-up of models (although they are largely finished on BMW production lines) until 2025. After that, BMW will be in control of new Alpina output. Hopefully they will continue being things like this. A fast 3 Series wagon is perennially the sort of car that migrates to the top of those ‘all the car you’ll ever need’ lists,…

MILEAGE 3530 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Ora is one of a number of Chinese EV brands hoping to make it big in Europe. Does its first model land on its feet? So far, Ora has opened nine UK dealerships in partnership with various franchises in several key locations – although none particularly close to my place in west London, as I discovered when I decided to sample the Ora dealership experience for myself. Bristol and Braintree were my two closest options, and given that a trip to the latter was doable on one charge, the only way was Essex. This site is run by Lookers, which has repurposed part of its expansive Ford dealership to give Ora a decent-sized showroom and service facility that will play a key role not…

COMPARISON Stick-shift showdown We pit the manual versions of three epic driver’s cars – the BMW M2, Honda Civic Type R and Mazda MX-5 – against each other DRIVEN Hyundai Ioniq 5 N Has Seoul cracked the performance EV code with this new SUV? We find out AUTOCAR AWARDS Great Women We once again put the automotive industry’s rising stars in the spotlight EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce Does the Italian SUV still stand up to scrutiny after six years on sale? OUR CARS Toyota Corolla Commercial Estate-based van joins our fleet. How much can we cram in the back? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p18…

Small European firms wanting an engine for a new car often looked to the US – it was a cost-effective route to big power so they could compete with betterestablished rivals. The formula was proven when the Ford GT40 smashed Ferrari at Le Mans in the 1960s, and it continues to this day with the all-new TVR Griffith (we live in hope). Here are some more. Facel Vega For a country that rules the high-end roost in so many areas – think Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès – the fact that France has rarely cracked the luxury car recipe post-war is a quandary. One valiant attempt was Facel Vega, the former coachbuilder that created the winsomely pretty FV/FVS and HK500 (pictured), of which 886 examples were produced in total. Both used…