Innholdsfortegnelse for April 17, 2024 i Autocar

The Mercedes-Benz EQS electric saloon has gained an extra 51 miles of range and a new front-end design that echoes the firm’s traditional radiator grille as part of a series of major upgrades. The BMW i7 rival also receives wide-ranging interior updates, including the option of more luxurious rear seats, new driver assistance features and the deployment of the MBUX Hyperscreen as standard. The updates will also be applied to the smaller EQE saloon, EQE SUV and EQS SUV, which all share the same EVA2 bespoke electric platform. Despite the significant increase in range, Mercedes doesn’t consider this a full mid-life facelift. Instead, the platform’s chief project manager, Holger Enzmann, described the changes as “an upgrade before the update”. The most eye-catching styling revision to the EQS is the option…

BYD PICK-UP TRUCK Having already become one of the world’s biggest car makers, BYD enters the light commercial vehicle market with a new mid-sized truck to rival the Toyota Hilux. MERCEDES-BENZ G580 WITH EQ TECHNOLOGY Quad-motor EQG concept finally evolves into production form with familiar two-box styling but a lengthy new name. It can still do tank turns. MERCEDES-AMG GT 63 S E PERFORMANCE Plug-in hybrid version of AMG’s four-seat super-coupé will come armed with more than 800bhp and 1000lb ft, plus a pinch of electric-only range. MINI ACEMAN The replacement for the Clubman is… an electric SUV, obviously. A small one, though – and it remains remarkably true to the funky concept from 2022. SMART #5 Smart’s reinvention continues as it prepares to unwrap its largest model yet: a…

News that Porsche will continue to sell the 718 Boxster, 718 Cayman and Macan in the UK while withdrawing the models from the EU, where a forthcoming cybersecurity regulation will forbid their sale, might please British consumers, but its decision raises questions: what exactly will buyers be missing and will their cars be more vulnerable to theft or hacking as a consequence? The UNECE WP.29 Cybersecurity regulation has been agreed by the EU and the UN and comes into force across the EU from 1 July. Models that don’t comply with it will no longer be eligible for new registration. The regulation is concerned with vehicle cybersecurity, and every new car sold in the EU from then on must come with a certificate confirming that it’s protected against 70 vulnerabilities…

’m pleased to see the government is to look into the issue of headlight I brightness and glare – let’s hope they squint a bit – following a recent RAC survey that found a large number of drivers thought dazzling was a problem. There may, though, not be a quick legislative fix. The Department for Transport has already been talking to a United Nations expert group on vehicle lighting – who knew? – but proposals to introduce automatic beam alignment, which would lower beams as cars go over hills and the like, won’t come into play until 2027. And even then? Well, I’ve driven a number of cars with the most advanced ‘intelligent’ lighting on sale, which automatically aligns the beam or limits the areas lit by high beam, and…

The technical rundown of the new second-generation Skoda Kodiaq might sound quite familiar if you’ve been reading Autocar over the past couple of weeks or if you’ve sneakily turned to the end of this week’s First Drives section before reading this. That’s because Volkswagen and Skoda are doing a wholesale refresh of their large cars. The Volkswagen Passat and Tiguan and the Skoda Superb and Kodiaq are all based on a new version of the MQB Evo platform. The estates were a joint development led by Skoda, but the SUVs are “entirely separate” from each other. Mind you, Skoda can stray only so far from what the mothership dictates. The biggest mechanical change here is that this updated architecture can accommodate a massive, 25.7kWh hybrid drive battery for a company…

Yup, that’s right: it’s another Chinese brand that’s on the cusp of launching its offensive on UK shores. Hold the eye-roll for just a moment, though, because Omoda could well be of genuine interest, not least as it’s offering very competitively priced petrol cars as well as electric ones. Case in point: the family SUV that you’re looking at here has a 1.6-litre petrol engine beneath its bonnet. Anyway, to go back to the start, Omoda is a new brand created by Chinese giant Chery for European domination. It has existed since 2022 and deliveries of the petrol 5 and electric E5 (see right) will start this summer from 64 UK dealers, including major franchises such as Peter Vardy and Listers. The 5 is the brand’s core family SUV model,…

Crazy, I know, but a £200k Aston Martin doesn’t automatically qualify for Q-car status. And yet… Get your foot down in the new DB12 Volante and an outwardly genteel, wind-in-your-locks poseur of a leather-slathered, canvas-roofed grand tourer suddenly appropriates the straight-line pace of far more savage open-air machinery – such as, say, a Ferrari F50 on its merry, screaming way past 8500rpm. How this loafing Aston looks, and what it will do to your internals when the AMG-built V8 is really rocking, don’t match. Perhaps this is the influence of Amedeo Felisa. Aston’s 78-year-old outbound CEO, whose chestnut derbies will soon be filled by Adrian Hallmark, latterly of Bentley, has overseen the latter stages of the DB12’s gestation. In a former life as head of product development at Maranello, Felisa…

When you sell 7.5 million of something, the last thing you do is change the recipe – but you can refine it. Which is why, for this third-generation Tiguan, Volkswagen has focused on refining perceived cabin quality to the point that it feels slightly more in keeping with the BMW X1 than the Kia Sportage. And so it should, because it now starts at £34,075, meaning it’s nearly identically priced to the £35k X1 and well above the £29k Sportage. Five trims are offered in the UK and as many powertrains: two plugin hybrids, a 2.0-litre diesel (which we previously drove in France) and two 1.5 mild-hybrid petrols, one of which we’re testing here. Our car is in Elegance trim, has 19in alloys and lacks the optional (£1065) adaptive dampers.…

Ask 100 different people to conjure up a mental image in response to the words ‘Motor Industry Research Association’, and 98 of them would, I reckon, probably draw a blank. “MIRA?,” they’d ask. “Don’t they make power showers?” The remaining two – if they were UKabiding car-literate folks, at least – might just picture some yellowing library footage of an interchangeable British Leyland model of the early 1970s wobbling and wriggling its way across a cobblestone track or locking up its wheels as part of some cadence braking exercise (the film very likely also depicting some clipboards along with fairly extravagant facial hair and large, practical spectacles). And, until now, that is precisely how the management at what is now Horiba MIRA Ltd – once only known by those ‘in…

What’s in a name? China is a breath of fresh air from the increasingly stifled European car industry. Its model names alone blow the cobwebs away. Where before we were bludgeoned with phallic imagery, aggression and status and were bored stupid by alphanumeric monikers that wouldn’t look out of place emblazoned on the side of a photocopier, we now have the BYD Seal and Seagull, and there’s more aquatic appeal to come. It’s a pity the Ora Funky Cat didn’t quite bed in, but I look forward to more names that challenge the hyper-masculine, robotic and timophilic naming conventions with some feel-good fun. The Kia Kiss, for example, or perhaps the Ford Flirtation. They don’t have to be alliterative either: the Nissan Mango would be sure to bear fruit and…

At its launch in 2012, the Ford Focus 2.0T ST-3 was around £1000 cheaper than the Volkswagen Golf GTI manual that arrived the following year. Used examples now cost up to £2000 less than the VW. Which one has the edge? The Focus, with 247bhp, or the Golf, with 217bhp? In the opinion of Autocar’s road testers, the Focus was a four-and-a-half-star car while the Golf scored four stars, and the team praised the fast Ford’s poised, interactive handling and responsive and flexible engine. It was offered in multiple guises: five-door hatch and estate, a choice of 2.0-litre Ecoboost turbo petrol or, from 2015, 182bhp 2.0-litre TDCi diesel engines, and in three trims, called ST-1, -2 and -3. Here, we’re zeroing in on the petrol hatch. Before anyone got their…

THE CAR INDUSTRY’S reaction to the UK’s new zero-emission vehicle mandate hasn’t been positive, not least as some makers are unable to comply – and here we can hear echoes from early-1970s America. Americans had become acutely aware of environmental damage post-war, primarily through the smog hanging over many major cities, and so it became a key issue in the 1968 US presidential election. That was won by Republican Richard Nixon, who said in his 1970 state of the union address: “The automobile is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control requires further advances in engine design and fuel composition. We shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict standards and strengthen enforcement procedures, and we shall do it now.” Two months later, an astonishing 20 million Americans came out…

Japanese car makers are known for thinking outside the box when it comes to design. It hasn’t always been that way; in the 1970s, many of Japan’s biggest car companies settled for lookalikes of American and European cars. But most of them had forged a strong design identity by the turn of the 1990s. Here are some of their wildest and most unusual designs. Suzuki X-90 1995 In the 1990s, Suzuki regularly displayed its wild side with motor show concepts, but it rarely dared to launch production models that disturbed the status quo. This changed completely when it released the X-90. Closely related to the Vitara, the X-90 was a two-door coupé with the roof height and ground clearance of an SUV. Vitara-sourced hardware gave it decent off-road prowess and…

The next Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio will arrive in 2026 as the firm’s most potent car to date, with power outputs nudging 1000bhp and onboard artificial intelligence that is able to tweak handling characteristics on the fly. The next Giulia will be underpinned by parent company Stellantis’s new STLA Large platform. The structure is said to be “BEV-native”, but it can also host combustion and hybrid powertrains, like the platform Alfa is using for the new Milano crossover it has just revealed (see p6). Stellantis boasts of the Large platform’s gamechanging potential, claiming its quickest cars will hit 62mph from rest in around 2.0sec. They will be fitted with 118kWh battery packs, giving range figures of around 500 miles. Alfa CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato previously said the new Giulia Quadrifoglio would…

HYUNDAI’S N DIVISION is putting the finishing touches to a hot version of the Ioniq 6 saloon, which will bring Porsche Taycan levels of performance and dynamic agility honed on the race track. N’s second electric car, following the Ioniq 5 N SUV, is entering an advanced stage of development shortly after the performance arm confirmed it will stop developing internalcombustion cars, following the removal of the i20 N and i30 N hot hatchbacks from Europe. The next stage in the N brand’s transition to an all-EV offering was previewed by the outlandish RN22e concept in 2022. Now the car has been spotted testing at the firm’s technical centre in Germany, wearing only light camouflage to reveal a range of styling tweaks over the regular Ioniq 6. As with N’s…

The Nissan Qashqai has received a bold new look to bring it into line with the electric Ariya, boost its efficiency and secure its position as one of Europe’s most popular cars. The family crossover, which was the UK’s best-selling car in 2022 and the runner-up in 2023, has been reworked with sharper lines and an aggressive new face inspired by Japanese samurai helmets. The headlights and daytime running lights are split into three distinct elements, with the latter representing horns above the new ‘eye’ projectors. They bracket a significantly larger grille area finished in black and satin-silver chrome, intended to evoke the chainmail armour worn by the ancient Japanese soldiers. The rear end, meanwhile, wears a new set of clear LED lights styled to match those up front. The…

WHEELS FALLING OFF vehicles may not be the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to road safety, but it does happen, and it’s well documented. A two-phase project carried out by The Transport Road Laboratory between 2006 and 2010 established that every year in that period, there were between 7500 and 10,000 cases of loose wheel nuts reported on heavy vehicles and 150 to 400 wheel detachments each year in the UK. There were between 10 and 27 injury accidents and three to seven fatal accidents as a result. Part of the problem in some markets is thought to be the higher frequency of wheel changes, due to drivers switching between winter and summer tyres, increasing the possibility of an inadequately tightened wheel nut. In Japan, it…

AFTER A FEW years of restricted supply, it seems the car industry is back to normal – and that means big discounts and some sneaky methods of keeping metal moving. Manufacturers will use all the tricks they can to tempt customers when times are tough, but hopefully they won’t have to resort to one particularly shady practice from the past: clocking cars forward. This barely believable cheat was used by one big car maker when the market was flat and it couldn’t discount any more without crashing residual values. To absorb some of the cars coming off the line, it registered hundreds of saloons and hatches as ‘management cars’, but the staff were already changing their company cars every month. Trying to sell year-old cars with delivery miles spooked the…

MONDAY The tiny, beautiful Wells Vertige sports car, the all-British two-seater now only weeks from a full Autocar road test, has appeared on display in the entrance hall of the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, just four miles from the tiny factory at Bishop’s Itchington, where Vertiges are hand-made by a committed crew of artisans. By now, many people will be familiar with this story – how a well-heeled sports car lover, Robin Wells, who couldn’t find his perfect driving machine for love nor money, decided to design and build his own. But this familiarity doesn’t make the tale any less extraordinary, especially given the astounding quality of the finished car. A few possessed individuals set out every year on a journey to build their own car, but most never…

BMW’s recent unveiling of the Neue Klasse X concept showed us how the iX3 is set to radically progress in 2025. The heavy focus on the electric SUV doesn’t mean BMW is abandoning the combustion-engined X3 any time soon, though. On the contrary: as petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid cars continue to take the majority of the brand’s sales, it will send its most popular model into a fourth generation at the end of this year. The new X3 uses the same CLAR platform as before, so it’s not an entirely new car but a development of its seven-year-old predecessor. Nevertheless, says project leader Martin Delitz: “We’ve re-engineered many elements, including the chassis, to give it an even broader range of driving characteristics and added ride comfort. The electric architecture…

ndependent design houses, I was once told, are sometimes involved in exterior-designcentric mid-life facelifts. They’re fresh eyes, I suppose, capable of the sort of detachment that can address what’s lacking in the visual appeal of a car without dispensing with its strengths. You wouldn’t imagine that a third party was at the table in the case of the Volkswagen T-Cross, though, and perhaps one should have been. Because although it appeared back in 2019 as exactly the sort of rounded, practical, grown-up supermini crossover that you might expect from Volkswagen, it has never really laid a glove on the likes of the Ford Puma, Nissan Juke or Vauxhall Mokka for kerbside appeal; and despite receiving some new bumpers and headlights, a palette of new paint colours and a refreshed interior,…

Mike Johnstone’s charcoal suit matches neatly the tasteful modern walls of Group Lotus’s new showroom in Piccadilly, central London, across the road from the Ritz Hotel. The bearded, clear-eyed, late-40s Brit meets us downstairs in a spacious meeting-cumconference-room basement, with gleaming cars on sale a floor above. A little over a year ago, Johnstone joined Group Lotus from Volvo as global vice-president in charge of commercial operations. Before that, he had six years with Skoda, having arrived in the automotive business via motorcycle marques that included Harley-Davidson, for which he launched the all-electric (but problematic) Livewire spin-off. Today we’re talking about the life and times of the enigmatic Chinesecontrolled Lotus organisation, newly branded by its proprietors as ‘Born British, raised globally’. Johnstone needs a bit of prompting to talk about…

MODEL TESTED C EXCLUSIVE • Price £31,835 • Power 168bhp • Torque 207lb ft • 0-60mph 8.7sec 30-70mph 7.7sec • Fuel economy 39.4mpg CO2 • emissions 145g/km • 70-0mph 56.4m With this week’s road test subject, the BMW Group takes its third swing at the idea of a family-sized modern Mini. The Countryman SUV has been around as a model since 2010, but until now it has had the aura of a water-tester model – a gauge of the receptiveness to the idea of a bigger Mini. With this third-generation model, however, there’s a certain new-found presence and gravitas about its appearance. That’s partly to do with the size of this ‘modern Maxi’, which has increased significantly. But it may also be to do with a change in attitude about…

MILEAGE 11,647 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT It took Nissan 11 years to give us a second EV. Has it been worth the wait? Welcome to the long-term squad, Nissan Ariya. W Well, Ariya the second. I’ve recently swapped from an Ariya Advance, which is near the bottom of the spec league table, with a 63kWh battery and front-wheel drive, to the almost-top-spec Evolve, with an 87kWh battery and four-wheel drive. I won’t go into the tedium of specific spec level differences (although if you are that way inclined, there’s always the online configurator), but I will cut to the chase with the thinking behind it. Broadly we’re running two Ariyas back to back in order to determine the progression from Nissan’s first electric car, the Leaf hatchback, to its second,…

Having read the letter from Anthony Lunt about needing to read the manual to find out how to use the windscreen wipers on a Tesla Model 3 (13 March), I can only thank my local Ford dealer, Perrys of Worksop. I’ve bought many used and new cars from them, and in their handover, they go through everything with you. All the controls, where to find them, what each button does, matching your phone to the car, programming your favourite digital radio stations… I don’t know if it’s just this dealership that goes out of its way to interact with its customers, but I wouldn’t buy a car any other way. I certainly don’t like these car drop-offs that some friends have received from some manufacturers. Sometimes, the old ways are…

An owner’s view SIMON HURST “My ST is a 2016 car, which I’ve owned since new. It’s an ST-3, it has done 45,000 miles and it has been serviced only by main dealers. It’s reliable and looks great, but the paint isn’t great: it looks thin in places and marks easily. The lacquer has started peeling off a couple of alloys, too. The dealer said I must be using the wrong type of wheel cleaner… The boot lock has broken: it still locks but the release button no longer works. It’s cheap to fix. The ST is no Porsche or Ferrari, but I reckon it’s as good as a little hatch gets. I love it!” Buyer beware… ENGINE Services are every 12,500 miles, and the engine has a timing chain…

ALFA ROMEO HAS revealed the Milano as both its third SUV model and its first series-production electric car. Named for Alfa’s home town but built in Tychy, Poland, the urban-focused crossover is positioned as the spiritual successor to the Giulietta and Mito hatchbacks. Its design majors on accessibility, but with the aim of offering both premium appeal and driver engagement in a bid to “attract a new generation of Alfisti”. The Milano measures 4170mm long by 1780mm wide and 1500mm tall, and while it adopts a number of bold new design cues, it references Alfas of old with features such as the swollen wheel arches, ‘Coda Tronca’ bluff rear end and SZ-inspired headlights. As with the Citroën C4, Fiat 600, Jeep Avenger and Peugeot 2008 with which it shares a…

TESLA BOSS ELON MUSK has pledged to reveal his longawaited self-driving Robotaxi on 8 August, following reports that the firm has scrapped its entry-level EV project. The ‘Model 2’ was tipped to come to market next year at less than £25,000 as a rival to the likes of the Volkswagen ID 2, Renault 5 and MG 4 EV. But Reuters recently reported that the project had been cancelled and the platform that was to underpin the affordable EV will instead be used for a line of autonomous robotaxis, produced at far lower volumes. Tesla refused to comment when approached by Autocar and Musk responded to the report with a post on his social media platform, X, that read simply “Reuters is dying”, without elaborating on any perceived inaccuracies. He later…

THE FINAL VERSION of the Huracán brings to a close more than two decades of V10-engined Lamborghinis. Based on the ultrahardcore, track-honed STO, the limited-run new STJ is the final car Lamborghini will equip with its naturally aspirated 10-cylinder engine. The Huracán’s replacement, coming later this year, will pack a hybridised V8 (see below). Just 10 examples of the 631bhp run-out special will be produced, marked out by bespoke carbonfibre aerodynamic elements and a choice of two striking multicoloured liveries. JUNIOR L AMBO DARES TO ELECTRIF Y The Huracán’s hybrid replacement is nearly ready to be revealed. New shots show the McLaren Artura rival with only minimal disguise – revealing its striking hexagonal front lights and beefy rear diffuser. Recent trademarks suggest it could be called the Temerario – meaning…

There will “always be demand” for combustionengined cars, according to Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, who has pledged to keep selling them for as long as he is legally allowed to. Aston Martin recently pushed back its plans to launch its first electric car in 2025 to 2027 and has increased investments in plug-in hybrid technology accordingly. Stroll expects PHEVs to be far more than a bridging technology and that they will remain on sale well into the mid-2030s and beyond. Aston customers have told dealers that they want “sounds and smells” and favour ICE technology for their cars, according to Stroll. Going electric Aston Martin has developed a bespoke EV architecture and plans to launch four electric cars on it, including a GT, an SUV, a crossover and…

The Jeep Recon off-roader could be offered with a hybrid powertrain as well as an electric one when it arrives in 2025, according to new brand boss Antonio Filosa. The Land Rover Defender rival was revealed in concept form as an electric sibling to the fabled Wrangler, which is currently offered with petrol and plug-in hybrid powertrains. As with the Wrangler, the Recon will be engineered to offer considerable off-road ability and feature removable doors, together with around 600bhp and a range of 373 miles. The Recon will arrive at a similar time to the Wagoneer S, a luxury flagship with a more road-going focus. Both were previewed as bespoke electric cars based on Stellantis’s STLA Large platform. In response to the slowdown in growth of EV sales, Jeep recently…

Formula 1 heads to China this week for the first time in five years. Its last grand prix in Shanghai was back in those ‘innocent’ pre-Covid days of 2019 – when the world of F1 was also a very different place. That race was a landmark in more ways than one, for it was the 1000th world championship grand prix since the series’ inception in 1950. Then as now, F1 faced a same-old-story scenario. This weekend, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez will pitch to extend Red Bull’s record of three one-twos in four races, just as at the last Chinese GP another duo made it three from three. Then, of course, Mercedes-AMG was still in its pomp, with Lewis Hamilton stroking to another victory from Valtteri Bottas on his way…

Sometimes we will drive a new car under embargo, securing early access in return for not writing about it until a certain date. Usually, that’s only a few days or so after the drive, but on occasion, event logistics and launch cycles lead to a gap of a few weeks. In the case of this Audi E-tron GT prototype, the embargo was so long that I actually drove it last year. I mention this partly so you don’t think the ‘tested’ date atop this page is a typo but mainly because it has created an unusual situation: I know more about this car now than I did when I drove it. I think. Back in the heady days of last December (merry Christmas, by the way), Audi’s engineers were tight-lipped…

The tech-centred era in which the car now seems thoroughly ensconced presents certain problems for the established players, especially where older ‘legacy’ models are concerned. The Volkswagen Passat is one of those. Now entering its ninth generation, it has a longer history even than Wolfsburg’s hero model, the Golf – and because so many of us feel like we know it so well, we’ve come to develop certain expectations of it that simply don’t encumber the likes of BYD, GWM and Nio. We expect, for starters, a certain sense of maturity, functionality and grounded sensibleness from the Passat – a car that has always served as a filter of the affected, fleeting and superfluous. Do we expect a 15in infotainment touchscreen with built-in ChatGPT artificial intelligence? Probably not here. And…

Two years after being facelifted and gaining a plug-in hybrid option, Citroën’s C5 Aircross family SUV is now available with a new mild-hybrid powertrain. This is an important addition: Citroën parent company Stellantis has been developing it for several years and is set to diffuse it right across its sprawling empire. It pairs a 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine (running on the Miller cycle for greater efficiency) with a new six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, replacing the old eight-speed torque converter. Integrated into that gearbox is an electric motor that develops 28bhp and 41lb ft of torque, its energy coming from a 48V battery located under the front passenger seat. Citroën says the system delivers 30% better urban fuel economy than the standard 1.2-litre turbo petrol triple and 15% in mixed…

“We serve a community of enthusiasts. We don’t make Jeep: they do” It’s hard to think of anyone more suited to be the new boss of Jeep than Antonio Filosa. When not at his desk in Detroit, the Italian likes to spend his weekends in the wilderness caving, diving, hunting and open-water swimming. Many car firms pay brand ambassadors who aren’t such a ‘lifestyle’ fit. It’s little surprise, then, that Filosa isn’t just Jeep’s CEO but also a customer. Although he has two company cars (a Grand Cherokee 4xe and a Grand Wagoneer), he has a third Jeep on the way: a Hemi V8-powered 469bhp Wrangler Rubicon 392. “That’s the one I bought. I put my own money in for it,” he says proudly. But Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares didn’t…

MILEAGE 10,450 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a Baja-ready pick-up truck can handle the Wild West that is British roads I don’t know anyone who has actually complained that a new Defender isn’t a ‘proper’ Land Rover because you can’t hose out its interior. Perhaps such people exist, but if they do, they’re far outnumbered by those who seek to mock people who want to hose out a car’s interior. I mention this because I have an old Defender, full of hay and horse feed, and guess what: I’m not going to hose out its interior either. There’s paperwork, a few CDs, electrical cables, shoes and coats and hats in there, and even if I clear those out, there are also carpets, switches and sockets, none of which…

SPECIAL ISSUE Our 100 favourite cars on sale today Trying to rank the best vehicles you can buy is a foolish task – but one we’ve happily taken on. Find out what makes our list FIRST DRIVE Dacia Duster Our preferred nononsense SUV enters a new generation. Is it still a brilliant bargain? FEATURE Why BTCC is so good Britain’s biggest motorsport series is back. Its boss shares its recipe for success EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Bentley Bentayga EWB Can a stretched SUV really fill the Mulsanne limo’s enormous boots? FIRST DRIVE Audi S3 Warmed-up A3 has gained extra power and torque vectoring tech SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p62…

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…