Innholdsfortegnelse for July 26, 2023 i Autocar

Volkswagen will mark the 50th anniversary of the Golf next year with the introduction of a facelifted eighth-generation model, and company CEO Thomas Schäfer has hinted that it could be the last combustion-engined version of the world’s best-selling hatch. Featuring updated styling, revised hybrid powertrains and a reworked cabin with larger displays and upgraded digital functions, it is set to be launched in the UK during the second half of next year. The scheduling forms part of a strategy that will see the model cycle of the existing Golf extended beyond the traditional seven years of its predecessors, in line with VW’s planned transition to an all-electric European line-up by 2033. As previously reported by Autocar, VW intends to offer the new Golf exclusively with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox in…

AUDI HAS REVEALED that the advanced lighting set to be used by its upcoming Q6 E-tron will establish two world firsts for production models: the ability to provide specific warning signs to fellow road users and a range of bespoke ‘signatures’ for each driver. The new SUV (driven, p26) features digital daytimerunning lights with 61 individual segments (in place of the 10 on the smaller Q4 E-tron), while the third-generation OLED tail-lights use 60 segments per OLED tile – a tenfold increase over those of the A8. Together, they provide the Q6 E-tron with up to eight different lighting signatures. The tail-lights, with a total of 360 individual elements in six OLED tiles, feature a world first with what Audi calls the Dynamic Active Light function, which sees the lighting…

THE TESLA MODEL Y has surged to the top of the sales charts, finishing June as Europe’s best-selling car and topping the leaderboard for overall sales in the first six months of this year. The compact SUV recorded a 212% increase in sales compared with the first six months of 2022. It is the first time a battery-electric car has topped the sales chart at the half-year stage. The Model Y finished ahead of other hugely popular models such as the Dacia Sandero, Vauxhall Corsa and Volkswagen T-Roc. A total of 29,764 Model Ys were registered in June alone in the EU, plus the UK and EFTA countries, representing a 104% year-on-year increase. EUROPE’S TOP 10 BEST-SELLERS (JANUARY-JUNE 2023)…

THEY MIGHT SEEM like fierce rivals, but car companies help each other out occasionally by doing product swaps. The marketing people and engineers can get a taste of what they are up against, otherwise the employees may never drive anything other than a company car and whatever they hire on holiday. Staff at the British branch of a Swedish car maker were therefore excited when a brand with an engineering base in the UK asked to swap, offering a slinky V8 coupé in exchange. The designated week passed, but the other company asked if the Swedish brand would mind extending for another week. The same request came the next week; by the third it was clear something was up. Eventually the Brits confessed they had taken the aircon apart to…

My local pub recently received a two-star online review from a walker who arrived to find it shut. They had checked a website created, but left dormant, by the pub’s previous landlord: wrong times, wrong menus, wrong everything. They didn’t follow-up before leaving a review. Didn’t call. Didn’t check. So the new landlord, busting a gut to make it a success, cops unjustified two-star flak. Hundreds of people enjoy the pub every week. If five more visitors think to leave a five-star rating, it still only pulls the mark up to 4.5. As the cliché says: no good deed goes unpunished. And so to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, one of the biggest, most successful events in the motoring calendar. The de facto British motor show; a success to all…

Having introduced Europe’s cheapest electric car in 2021, Dacia has confirmed it will make the Spring Britain’s most affordable EV next year, when it launches the facelifted version in right-hand-drive form. UK buyers haven’t been offered a sub-£20,000 EV since the government ended financial incentives for electric car take-up last year, but as of 2024 the Spring could be on sale here from as little as £18,000. That should be low enough to secure the standout status Dacia wants for this car, even with several competitors, both European and Chinese, preparing to launch direct competition for it. You will no doubt guess how that’s possible: the Spring is built in China, as part of a joint venture between Dacia parent Renault, alliance partner Nissan and Dongfeng Motor Group. Whatever you…

Audi engineers acknowledge that what the company’s performance cars offer in whip-crack acceleration and visual drama, they tend to concede in steering feel and dynamic responsiveness. So to avoid the hallowed ‘S’ prefix becoming a mere trim level as the brand phases out the charismatic combustion engines that help to compensate for this numbness today, those criticisms must be eradicated. As the flag-bearer for the ‘new Audi DNA’, the sporty SQ6 is thus charged with not only providing confidence-inspiring handling but also establishing a flair for balance and engagement that, you could argue, has been missing from warmed-up Audis of late. The latest iteration of the Quattro set-up has been tuned to send the bulk of its power rearward in ‘dynamic’ driving situations in the mid-range. The results are cornering…

The Vauxhall Astra Electric has arrived in the UK, albeit still only in left-hand-drive form for the time being. Its pricing announcement in May raised a few eyebrows. The battery-powered Astra is available in two specifications and starts at a fiver under £40,000, with the upper-spec Ultimate costing £43,110. At the top level it’s Tesla Model 3 money. Maybe that’s why Vauxhall is keen to note that you can have one from £263 per month on 0% finance for three years, although this includes a £12k deposit and an £18.2k balloon payment. Anyway, as ever the company car tax case is compelling, and the rest of the equation might revolve around what your company pays. The electric Astra is a 4.4m-long small family hatch, just like the petrol and plug-in…

“I think this, part of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, tops all of the long drives I’ve had” When I found a packet of French Fancies in the Co-op reduced to 57p on account of their rapidly I had a good feeling about this trip. As well I might have. Spoiler alert: Ireland is my new favourite driving destination. How have I not driven these roads before? There’s all the talk of Scotland’s North Coast 500, of which I’ve driven and ridden large parts, batting off midges and taking in sensational views. But this, part of Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, tops it. I think this tops all other long drives I’ve had too. I’ve driven a Land Rover Defender to Portugal; taken a Honda NSX across Route 66; ridden a motorbike…

MODEL TESTED 63 4MATIC+ PREMIUM PLUS Price £171,965 Power 577bhp Torque 590lb ft 0-60mph 3.5sec 30-70mph 2.8sec Fuel economy 19.7mpg CO2 emissions 299g/km 70-0mph 42.1m Mercedes’ ‘W194’ endurance racer left an indelible mark on motorsport in 1952, winning Le Mans, the Nürburgring Eifelrennen and Mexico’s Carrera Panamericana, and it finished second on the Mille Miglia. It was retired after only a season, but such was the interest it caused that Mercedes’ US importer Max Hoffman (who would later prove key in the genesis of so many Porsches) suggested Mercedes should make a production version. So it did: in 1954, there followed the ‘W198’ 300 SL ‘Gullwing’. Six further generations of what would become known as the Mercedes SL followed, the longestlived remaining in production for a remarkable 18 years. But over…

MILEAGE 10,983 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To assess DS’s progress as a premium brand and unpick this car’s dual identity I have not met a single person who knows what my current long-termer is. When I told my mum my next car was a DS 4, she said: “I’ve not heard of it. What brand is it?” There was a similar response from a neighbour: “That’s a nice-looking car. What is it?” He’s of an era that referencing the Citroën DS did the trick. Retired parents and neighbours aren’t the demographic for DS, to be fair. But my younger peers are none the wiser either. Nonetheless, feedback on its looks have only been positive. I frequently see people looking at my car when I drive past. It reminds me of…

A great way to save £20k With breathless anticipation, I have just finished reading your 12 July road test of the new BMW M2, complete with a six-speed manual gearbox. Yummy. I have to say I was expecting more and came away somewhat deflated. My 2023 BMW M240i xDrive, which I have owned for a month now, cost almost £20,000 less than the M2 before options, and I believe is a much better road car. The legendary low-down torque of the ‘B58’ unit means the M240i would walk away from the M2 in any side-by-side ‘throttle mash’ from low and medium revs, making it the quicker car in the real world. Don’t get me wrong: I love the style and attitude of the new M2, but with a starting price…

I still claim my Renault Scenic was the best longterm test car I was ever given custody of. It was 1997, when its features – including sliding and removable seats, a deep, aircraft-style windscreen, a twoposition parcel shelf and sundry storage bins – were all novel. Soon, Scenics were popping up all over my neighbourhood, many bought by young families keen to inject some Gallic flair into their humdrum motoring lives. Forward to 2016, when the model’s fourth-generation successor was launched and those early adopters had drifted away, tempted by crossovers and SUVs. Recognising this, Renault served up a Scenic intended to appeal to the eye as much as the brain – a handsome thing with a high waistline, deeply scalloped sides with sill finishers, a curving roof, distinctive…

THE THIRD-GENERATION Mazda RX-7 had lost its edge by 1999, after seven years on sale. Speculation bubbled about a successor and whether it would retain the Wankel rotary engine that had come to define the model. The highly strung powerplant’s future was in doubt ahead of tightening emissions regulations in Europe and the US. Indeed, the Mk3 RX-7 had already been pulled from sale across most of Europe in 1995 ahead of Euro 2 standards in January 1996. Clarity came when Autocar reported that it would return in the new millennium. We said it would retain its twin-rotor arrangement but drop its sequential turbochargers for an atmo set-up. This was tipped to produce 270bhp. Mazda would mitigate the low torque output by trimming weight, we said. The new engine was…

“The rugged, compact 4x4 is rumoured to have been on the cards for several years” Land Rover has given the green light to its long-mooted and highly anticipated ‘baby Defender’ programme, which will take the 4x4 brand boldly into a new segment to face a whole new field of rivals. The rugged, compact 4x4 is rumoured to have been on the cards for several years but has never officially appeared on JLR’s product roadmap presentations. However, it is now finally inbound as a sibling model to the next-generation Range Rover Evoque, Velar and Land Rover Discovery Sport, and it will share with them the company’s new EMA electric vehicle platform. The move to expand the Defender family into the compact 4x4 segment was confirmed at JLR’s recent investor conference by…

CHINESE EV START-UP HiPhi is “open to” developing a wide variety of new models, from a Ford Fiesta-sized supermini to a hypercar in the mould of the Nio EP9. HiPhi’s chief technology officer, Mark Stanton, revealed to Autocar that the brand is considering the viability of broadening its line-up, having revealed the X, Y and Z as a trio of radically styled electric crossovers. Speaking at the UK debut of the more volume-focused Y, Stanton said: “Clearly, the one direction we are heading at the minute is, having established [with the X and the Z], we’ve come down a bit into the volume market, and we’ll potentially move a little bit more down or around [that] area. But could we go up and make a more expensive supercar, or whatever?…

The next-generation Santa Fe will become Hyundai’s most flexible family car to date, adopting a boxy design aimed at appealing to new customers in the off-road ‘lifestyle’ market. The new Santa Fe’s wheelbase is longer than that of the outgoing model, bringing what Hyundai claims is class-leading interior space. Its tailgate has also been enlarged with the aim of providing a ‘terrace-like’ space when the second and third rows of seats are folded down, with room for a small workstation or lounge area. The SUV’s length is unlikely to increase too significantly, however, because the front overhang has been shortened, although Hyundai has yet to officially disclose the exact dimensions of the new model. Inside, a focus on usability and practicality is evident, with physical buttons and dials provided for…

ADVANCED DRIVER assistance systems (ADAS) are an acquired taste, with many finding features such as lane keeping assistance (LKA) an irritation they could do without. But car makers are continuing down the road to autonomy. Mercedes buyers in Europe can now order an automated overtaking feature on the new E-Class (driven, p24). It’s already available on the C-Class, E-Class and S-Class and EQ series in North America, but Mercedes says it has been adapting the function to suit European traffic conditions. Mercedes’ Automatic Lane Change (ALC) system is part of ‘Active Distance Assist Distronic with Active Steering Assist’. If the car is going at between 47.3mph and 87mph (80-140kph) and it detects a slower vehicle ahead, it can initiate a lane change automatically if it detects lane markings and ‘structurally…

The N1A supercar is a British-made, V8-powered, ultra-light tribute to one of McLaren’s best-known race cars. It is the product of Hampshire-based Nichols Cars, the eponymous outfit of renowned motorsport engineer Steve Nichols, whose pioneering work with carbonfibre was instrumental in McLaren’s domination of the 1988 Formula 1 world championship, with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna driving the Honda-powered MP4/4 to victory in 15 out of 16 races. Nichols’ inspiration was the McLaren M1A – a ferocious Group 7-spec prototype, and the first race car designed from the ground up by the British firm. It was powered by an Oldsmobile-sourced smallblock V8, weighed just 551kg and later evolved into the similarly designed M1B and M1C, which saw high-profile success in America’s Can-Am series. The legacy of the M1A shines through…

“Everyone’s loving the V12, Murray tells me. No wonder” FRIDAY Goodwood at last. Wondering how the Duke of Richmond’s team will cope with the 55mph winds forecast for tomorrow. Then comes news of Saturday’s cancellation and I start wondering how I’ll cope with not attending my first Festival of Speed in 30 years. A reprieve arrives: Saturday hacks can go on Sunday. Lucky for some… SUNDAY 5.00am, Gloucestershire Into the 4WD Duster (chosen following reports of muddy car parks) heading to Goodwood. Waze says I’ll arrive at 7.12am but gets slowly more pessimistic. Should have got up earlier. 7.30am, Southern Car Park Actually, no problem. I’m parked in a rock-hard field. Could have brought the Bentley, dammit. Still, Duster’s showing 56.5mpg. Head to the foot-slogger’s gate (a tramp across a…

“The transition from electric power to petrol is hard to detect unless you’re giving it a bootful” Walking out of our hotel in the heart of Vienna’s historic Petersplatz square, a fellow journalist and I head towards our press car for the day, the all-new, sixth-generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and attempt to open the door. The salient word here being ‘attempt’, because it’s only when the retractable door handles fail to deploy from their recessed cubbies that we realise we’re trying to jump inside an S-Class support car. Mistaking one car for another is a rather embarrassing faux pas for an automotive journalist, but in our defence Mercedes has designed the new E-Class to resemble its big brother quite closely. More conservatively styled than its electric parallel, the EQE saloon, it…

The SUV trend is snowballing at quite a rate, but as a large family car, the Skoda Superb Estate is still one of the best. It might lack the visual presence of its Kodiaq stablemate, but it’s enormous, comfortable, fine riding and competitively priced, and it offers a wide range of engines that are cheap to run. So its fourthgeneration successor will have big shoes to fill when it arrives in 2024. The new Superb hatch and estate share much of their architecture with the jointly developed Volkswagen Passat. The styling is still smart but updated (such as with slimmer headlights and taillights) to bring it in line with the new Kodiaq, launching at a similar time. The new Superb Estate is 40mm longer and 5mm taller than its predecessor,…

The ZR-V is an important car for Honda. After seeing a gap in its range, mainly created by the forthcoming new CR-V growing substantially to compete with cars such as the Hyundai Santa Fe, the Japanese brand decided to act. “Our dealers are very excited by this car,” said Honda UK product boss Andrew Winfield. “We expect to see a lot of conquest sales.” You can understand why. Look beyond the odd naming strategy – the ZR-V sits atop the HR-V but below the CR-V – and this is basically a Civic SUV. It’s an ideal Kia Sportage/Nissan Qashqai rival. Indeed, the hybrid ZR-V shares much of its technical make-up with the Civic, such as the 181bhp generator-spinning 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. It is different inside, but not by much.…

Fancy a challenge? Try to categorise the car I’m about to describe. Simple as that. Trackday star, supercar, super-GT, roadster. Whatever. You descend into its cockpit to find Sabelt harnesses but also, if specified, heated seats. At just 750kg wet, in theory it belongs firmly in the super-lightweight clique, yet the contact patch is almost to Ferrari 430 Scuderia spec. Then there is the power-to-weight ratio, which is a satanic 666bhp per tonne, though engineers on the project insist the car is capable of rewarding those of a more saintly disposition (or simply unable to take it by the carbon scruff). They also say it’s fit for touring, with real ride quality, yet there’s little doubt this car would munch anything the sensible side of a McLaren 750S were you…

MILEAGE 4867 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if this hybrid can strike the sweet spot between a car and a van One of my main gripes with modern cars – shared with my colleagues, my family and very nearly everyone I’ve ever talked to about them – is the overzealous warning system that can be an absolute pain in the proverbial to turn off. In the Corolla, though, the vast majority of these systems just make sense. Included in the £29,440 base price is lane keeping assistance, active cruise control, emergency steering assistance and collision avoidance, all working thanks to a small radar system hidden away behind the front grille. The best part about it? Unlike a few other systems I’ve tried, they actually work and aren’t too overbearing.…

In the 12 July issue of Autocar, Renault design chief Gilles Vidal said: “It’s no secret cars have grown, for safety, because buyers want more content, more equipment and so on.” This is the same philosophy that manufacturers say when they produce yet more SUVs. They say we want them. The point is that it’s not really the public driving what the manufacturers make and what equipment they put on the vehicles. It’s the manufacturers telling us what we want by seduction. When Nissan invented the small crossover class with the Qashqai, I very much doubt the public wrote to Nissan and said they wanted a higher-riding hatchback that can’t really go off road, has extra weight, is slower and handles worse than the hatchback equivalent does. I also don’t…

An owner’s view DAVID CLARKE “I’d have liked the Grand Scenic but couldn’t justify the extra room, let alone expense, so went for the regular five-seater. It’s an early, 2016-reg 1.5 dCi Dynamique S in orange with a black roof, which, I think, looks terrific. The kids love their tables in the back. It’s coming up to 68,000 miles, 40,000 miles of which I’ve done. Touch wood, it’s never put a foot wrong, although the sunblind in the panoramic roof rattles over bad roads. I was worried about the cost of the tyres but they’re no dearer than smaller ones. We’ve had 70mpg on a long run. I’ll take that!” Buyer beware… ENGINE Last year in France, a legal action was launched claiming that the 1.2 TCe petrol engine used…

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…

JLR OWNER TATA has finally confirmed its plans to build a battery factory in the UK, targeting a start of production in just three years from now and an eventual annual manufacturing capacity of 40GWh. In an investment totalling more than £4 billion, the Indian industry giant will establish local battery production with a view to commencing supply to ‘anchor customers’ – initially named as JLR and Tata Motors – as soon as 2026. Tata’s planned output is higher than the eventual 38GWh target for Envision’s battery factory alongside Nissan’s plant in Sunderland. The Faraday Institution, a battery research body, has forecast that the UK needs a total of 100GWh of local capacity by 2030 to satisfy demand for EV production, rising to 200GWh by 2040. It has been widely…

Toyota may be planning to replace its time-limited GR86 sports car as early as 2025 with a redesigned hybrid version that sits on a new platform and uses the turbocharged three-cylinder engine that already powers the much-admired GR Yaris. Reports from Japan suggest that the current version of Toyota’s two-door sports coupé, launched early in 2021, will need to be removed from sale within two years because it will no longer comply with forthcoming Japanese fuel consumption and emissions standards. Another factor is that its windscreen dimensions may no longer suit the advanced European safety systems – believed to be traffic light recognition cameras – that will be required in new cars from next year. Speaking exclusively to Autocar during the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Toyota chief technology officer Hiroki…

EX-NISSAN DESIGN boss Shiro Nakamura’s latest project, the Aim EV Sport 01, could be produced in the UK, as its creators hunt for potential manufacturers to build the final limited-run production car. The compact two-seat electric sports car, designed by Nakamura’s SN Design agency, is scheduled to be produced in limited numbers, but the specific volume and price are “not decided”. Speaking exclusively to Autocar, Nakamura revealed that he and Aim are looking to UK companies to make the car for low-volume production. “We have begun talking with companies, some in the UK and some in the EU, so we are currently trying to find opportunities,” he added. On its development, Nakamura said: “Sports cars are getting too big. What you want is to make a car tight and small…

Concerns are rising that public appetite for switching to electric vehicles is waning as the cost of living crisis combines with increasingly vehement anti-electric car rhetoric to severely dent consumer confidence. While electric car registrations grew 32.7% in the first six months of this year, equating to an additional 37,719 cars over the same period in 2022, much of that is due to the easing of the chip crisis and other supply issues. The market as a whole is up 18.4% but, in contrast, EV market share growth, once exponential and a key indicator of market health as a whole, is much more modest. Electric cars held 0.9% of the market in 2019, rising to 4.4% in 2020, 7.2% in 2021 and 14.4% in 2022. To date this year it…

THE MINI IS going back to its roots for 2024, with the upcoming fourth-generation Cooper sporting a retro, pared-back cabin inspired by Alec Issigonis’s 1959 original design. “The Mini is more Mini than ever before,” said the firm, revealing the reimagined interior. The cockpit is notable for featuring a knitted dashboard with integrated LED light motifs and a distinctive circular touchscreen in place of the old car’s trademark central speedometer. There is still a panel of chunky toggles for the climate control and buttons on the smaller, sportier steering wheel but, like the original Mini, there is no gauge cluster. That has been replaced by a minimalist head-up display and a raft of new displays on the infotainment screen.…

A British world champion is likely to be crowned in London this weekend. Jake Dennis heads to Formula E’s double-header finale with a surprisingly comfy 24-point advantage over his only realistic title rival, Nick Cassidy, for what should be a glorious homecoming. It’s always dangerous to take anything for granted in motorsport, but it would take a dramatic upheaval for Dennis to lose what would be his first world title from such a position of strength. Add in his previous form on the circuit that weaves in and around the ExCel exhibition centre in London’s Docklands, and it only reinforces Dennis’s credentials. The 28-year-old has won twice before in London, so a hat-trick beckons too. A GIFT IN ROME Dennis was left thanking his lucky stars at the end of…

“Power is meted out sensibly in all modes, albeit with more of a shove in Dynamic” The long-awaited debut of Audi and Porsche’s new PPE EV platform comes early next year when Audi launches the Q6 E-tron. It’s the sister car to Porsche’s keenly anticipated electric Macan and a key remaining piece of Audi’s electric SUV puzzle, slotting in logically between Qs 4 and 8. The Q6 E-tron 55 here uses an asynchronous motor at the front and a permanent magnet synchronous unit at the rear for ‘optimum efficiency’ and a combined 396bhp. Between the axles is a circa-100kWh battery pack, equipped with 800V hardware (touted as among the PPE’s most revolutionary features) for charging at speeds of up to 270kW, where infrastructure permits. Efficiency is the name of the…

The first Hyundai Kona Electric was something of an afterthought. The multi-powertrain crossover was developed as a combustionengined model, with the batterypowered version following later. That was fine in 2018, but while the Kona Electric is still a strong performer, relentless progress means the EV market is quite different now. With the Electric accounting for 40% of European Kona sales, Hyundai has developed the second-generation version as an EV first, and the petrol and hybrid versions afterwards (although deliveries of the ICE models will start in the UK first). The new Kona doesn’t have all the benefits of a bespoke EV like the Ioniq 5, but it has switched to a new multi-powertrain platform that was developed with BEVs in mind. Benefits include that EV versions have a flat floor…

Here’s a thing: a compact MPV powered by a diesel engine without even a whiff of electrification. Is that still legal? Apparently so, and for those prepared to stand against the turning tide, the Mercedes-Benz B200d has plenty to recommend it. The B-Class sits on the same platform as the A-Class hatch, but unlike a marginally jacked-up compact crossover with rugged cladding, the changes here focus on practicality. More head room and extra boot space are proper MPV stuff, even if this remains firmly a compact five-seater. Mercedes has given the B-Class a mid-life facelift, although the changes are minimal. There are a few styling changes on the outside, while the interior gains some updates, including the latest MBUX infotainment system. On our AMG Line Premium Plus test model, that…

“Why not start with the road car?” we ask McMurtry managing director Thomas Yates, while we stand next to the long-awaited, and recently revealed, track-only production model of the motor-world-shaking Spéirling. This is the sibling to the car that, just over a year ago, almost silently catapulted itself up the famous Goodwood hill, to demonstrate what electric cars were really capable of when unleashed into the world of motorsport. But it wasn’t the single-seater’s electric powertrain that shocked the onlooking petrolheads: it was the fans that sucked the car to the asphalt. It’s a technology reminiscent of the banned Brabham BT46, but the McMurtry uses a pair of fans that can produce two tonnes of ground-effect downforce from standstill – that’s more than a Formula 1 car at 150mph. The…

MILEAGE 4811 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a fast estate – even a diesel one – is one of the best cars in the world Unexpected: turning up to try a bleeding-edge supercar – one whose figures make even a Porsche 917/30 look wispy – and finding that personnel on the project want to chat about your oil-burner estate. Okay, not wildly unexpected. Any Alpina goes unappreciated by 99.9% of people, but for the other 0.1%, even a subtle one like ours may as well show up in fluoro-pink with pom-poms attached and General Lee Dixie horn firing. And there were lots of 0.1 per centers on this event. Everyone, basically. Having been invited to test one of the first production examples of the Pininfarina Battista near Turin,…

GROUP TEST Last of the V8 interceptors The Mustang, LC 500 and F-Type are the only sub-£100k front-engined, rear-drive V8 sports cars still on sale in the UK. So which is best? FIRST DRIVE Fisker Ocean Ex-Aston designer Henrik Fisker is back with a new electric SUV. We rate it FEATURE Ioniq 6 to Lake Como We put the chic, sleek cruising ambitions of Hyundai’s retro-style streamliner to the test EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Mercedes-AMG SL 43 We follow this week’s road test with AMG’s entry-level RWD roadster ROAD TEST Tesla Model S Plaid Scorching 1020bhp electric saloon gets the eight-page treatment SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p20…

Concepts allow car makers to flex the muscles of their imagination. This might happen in secret, or as a way of promoting the brand at motor shows – or something in between. Concepts have been around since the 1930s, and many remain in the public consciousness for years, while others are fast forgotten. Here are seven of the less well-remembered ideas from automotive history. Citroën Metropolis 2010 Unveiled at the Expo trade fair in Shanghai in 2010, the Metropolis was longer than an Audi A8L and as wide as a contemporary Maybach, but it was nonetheless of a type that remains popular in China. Power came from a petrolelectric hybrid drivetrain that mated an electric motor with a 2.0-litre V6 engine. The combination was said to be as muscular as…