Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i CAR UK

1979 FRENCH GP – WAS IT REALLY ALL THAT? Are you kidding? Rene Arnoux’s turbo Renault and Gilles Villeneuve’s flat-12 Ferrari all out of shape and clonking bodywork in mortal combat? YouTube would be a cold and empty place without it. And the battle royale was over second place – Arnoux’s teammate, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, had checked out for the win. ‘It’s such a great pleasure to recall this race, and I remember it like it was yesterday,’ Arnoux told CAR recently. ‘That race was Renault’s first win, but for me it was all about the fight with Gilles Villeneuve. We were able to battle like this because Gilles was my best friend. He had confidence in me, and I had confidence in him – when you lose that trust, F1…

The timing of the Lightyear One solar concept car’s unveiling – in the middle of another uncomfortably hot European heatwave – could not have been better. In June the company pulled the covers off the One, a premium EV designed from the ground up to boost its range and operating efficiency through solar power. Meanwhile much of continental Europe sweltered in the kind of heat climate-change experts have been talking of for years. What’s more, in June an Australian think tank published a faintly terrifying paper warning that global warming represents a ‘near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation’. Cheery. The first 100 Lightyear One production cars (500 are planned) have been reserved (via a €119k fee – this thing ain’t no Leaf rival) for 2021 deliveries. The car…

Free-revving and fun like a petrol engine but with the torque, economy and CO2 emissions of a diesel – that’s the boiled down, highly concentrated jus of Mazda’s clever new engine technology. The engine has been in development since 2013, but we’ve finally driven it in the production version of the new Mazda 3 hatchback. Skyactiv-X uses diesel-esque ‘spark controlled compression ignition’ (SPCCI). A unique piston design, a fuel injection system capable of super-high pressures and an air compressor that forces air into the fuel all work together to create a fuel-to-air ratio two to three times leaner than that of a regular petrol engine – so much so that a regular spark plug can’t always ignite it. The mixture is split into two zones when compression ignition is active;…

When all around you the world is going mad, it turns out you can still rely on BMW to build an excellent 3-series Touring – especially when equipped with a six-cylinder diesel. And if it’s impossible to gaze upon that chamfered front grille without being reminded of a toast rack, at least its dimensions are in line with the rest of the car, which has a sense of proportion that seems to be rapidly going out of fashion in Munich. You’ll get a 320d Touring from £35,235, but this all-wheel drive 330d xDrive is £43,065. It’s a superb all-rounder, melding a magnanimous driving experience with a level of practicality that’s enhanced by some delightful details. There’s irritating stuff too, but as a whole this is BMW and this is Estate…

Diesel do nicely April 2019 was a great issue. I’m a big BMW fan and I was very interested in your 850i bit in the Our Cars section. At one point Ben Miller says that no truly great driver’s car has ever run on diesel. This is true when you talk about sports cars. But for fast saloons, I beg to differ. I am the owner of an F30 BMW 335d and it’s much nicer to drive than the equivalent 340i. It has massive amounts of torque, effortless grunt and respectable economy. I believe the same applies for many other models, especially in the past decade. I understand that diesel is on its way out and I will probably change mine soon. But through the years we saw many great…

While the exterior may have been toned down compared with its fantastic concept car preview, the Honda E’s interior is still a dramatic departure from everything else the brand makes today. In this not-quite-finished prototype there isn’t a single rough edge, frayed corner or malfunctioning component. It’s a blend of familiar and futuristic in here; the thin-rimmed, two-spoke steering wheel and grained wood dashtop contrast with the gigantic glossy infotainment displays. It’s also deceptively roomy. The styling may be inspired by the tiny original Honda Civic, but the dimensions are closer to the current Jazz, and it’s easily accessible for adults who aren’t gymnasts. The cameras that replace conventional door mirrors are fitted as standard on the E, unlike the Audi e-Tron’s optional equivalents. They work well; the display’s high…

Electric cars are inherently stealthy, gliding quietly along in a bubble of zero-emissions driver satisfaction. Ironic then that most of the established manufacturers’ electric cars are given bespoke designs and branding to stick out like Gary Lineker’s ears: Zoe, Leaf, i-Pace, Ioniq, EQC. Except that’s not Peugeot’s approach. Everything about Peugeot’s e-208 is deliberately normal. It’s called a 208 for starters, and the look evokes this magazine’s Car of the ’80s, the 205. Pure electric signifiers are few: an ‘e’ symbol on the side, a colour-shifting bonnet badge and body-coloured grille inserts, endowing the red test car with a mottled red-and-black mouth. It looks like you’ve run over Deadpool. Thanks to a water-cooled 50kWh battery pack mounted below the floor, cockpit space and boot space (311 litres, more than a…

It feels less like a machine, more like a piece of performance art designed to show that humanity was once a little more romantic A car is basically a conduit for moments. Designing an automobile, for example, means stacking thousands of small decisions, instances where some engineer or stylist helped determine the nature of the end product. Or take driving, which is little more than stringing memories across a piece of landscape, then processing those instances through your brain’s unique filter. The list goes on—racing, breaking, fixing, whatever, it’s all the same. Wheels are just an excuse to get off the couch and spend time in satisfying ways, and that time is then packaged into instances you remember later. And yet, you cannot drive a Jaguar D-Type without being consumed…

Being a passenger in your own car is always a slightly odd sensation. But this is odder than most. At the wheel is affable Belgian engineer David Put, one of Ford Performance’s senior dynamics wizards (and a driver of serious talent), and we’re currently blatting around a serpentine test circuit. Plunging through thick forest, the little ST dances light on its feet over crests and dangles its inside rear wheel as it’s flicked into controlled slides by Put. Ford’s Lommel proving ground in rural Belgium is a sort of Area 51 for car development, a complex of test circuits, steering pads and punishingly bumpy durability test zones, ringed by a banked speed bowl and hidden from prying eyes by thick forest. Access is rarely granted to people outside the company,…

Alex Tapley If you want your hot hatch to do everything, you buy a Volkswagen Golf GTI. If you want it to be a great hot hatch – pin-sharp handling, punchy acceleration, blatty exhaust – you buy a Renault Sport Megane. That might be an over-simplification given there’s serious opposition from Hyundai and Honda to muddy the waters these days, but Renault Sport has nailed the putting-the-smile-on-your-face aspect of hot-hatch ownership for over a decade. Now we have six months with the new Megane RS Trophy, enough to take us through the over-eager honeymoon period and into the reality of mpg, reliability, practicality… Well, okay, I won’t go on too much on the humdrum stuff – this is a Trophy, after all, so its raison d’etre is driving thrills, not…

Here’s something that’s new to me: rugby being played in blazing sunshine. Here’s something not so new: the traffic in the Twickenham area being incredibly, ridiculously heavy (not least because in the same area you also have Kew Gardens and the Oval cricket ground). In fact the whole journey down the M1 and round the North and South Circulars was horrendously busy. But the DS 7 Crossback was superb. The climate control worked a treat, the leather seats stayed comfortable, the tinted rear windows made a difference, the sound-deadening kept the outside world at bay and the audio system (which links very readily to phones and other devices via Bluetooth if you can’t face doing battle with the inaccessible USB slot) kept us entertained. It’s no dynamic hot-shoe, but the…

Here’s a second chance to make a first impression. When I first drove the Z4 at its launch in October last year, it was a good car but not an exciting one. It felt more like a saloon that happened to have two seats and a soft-top than a spine-tingling sports car. I’ve been wondering if I judged it harshly, especially after enjoying driving its closely related, co-engineered Toyota Supra platform-mate recently. Now the Z4’s got an entire British summer (and a bit of autumn too) to argue its case. The Z4 range starts at £37,115 for the 20i model, with a 196bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, or £40,815 for the same engine hopped up to 256bhp in the 30i. This car, however, is the range-topping Z4 M40i, with a musclebound…

Let’s get straight to that white elephant in the room: our CR-V Hybrid’s CVT ’box. My initial fears of loathing it and wanting to drive the car off a cliff haven’t quite materialised. Don’t get me wrong: put your foot anywhere near the go pedal and it sounds like a fox being flayed outside your bedroom window. Thing is, all the non-CVT automatics I’ve driven recently have been set up to engage high gears quickly, and hold on to them doggedly, in search of lower emissions. This results in slow pick-up and jerky gearchanges. And in truth that is more annoying than the CR-V’s CVT, which is seamless, and almost as smooth as a good electric drivetrain. But I’m baffled by the shift paddles behind the steering wheel. Rather than…

What to travel in to Le Mans is always a difficult question to solve. You might end up in some sort of supercar, look flash at the Channel tunnel, make some noise in an empty piece of France, cruise through Arnage regally, and then spend four days in the same pants and attempt sleep in a tent the size of a carrier bag. Or you might take an X-Class and still do it in style, with three mates aboard, and all the food, drink and camping comfort you need to turn your stay into a five-star lounge in the sun of La Sarthe. I consider myself an expert in few areas, but packing is one of them, using up every cubic centimetre to best effect – my logistical skills would…

AC SCHNITZER QUAD SPORTS EXHAUST FOR BMW M2 COMPETITION From £2830.06 AC Schnitzer’s sports exhaust for the M2 Comp turns up the volume for added drama but retains the car’s particulate filter, so comes fully homologated for road use. Physically smaller than the standard item but with generous 100mm-diameter carbon tailpipes, the exhaust can be neatly tucked away behind the optional carbonfibre diffuser. ac-schnitzer.co.uk TOYO PROXES TYRES Prices vary Replacing the iconic T1R, the all-new Toyo Proxes TR1 blends form with function with its distinctive tapered and conical zigzag grooves which allow improved wet and dry performance over its predecessor. Combined with a wear-resistant polymer in the compound, innovative star wear indicators and strengthened construction, TR1 will keep enthusiastic drivers safe and legal for longer. www.toyo.co.uk CLASSIC ADDITIONS CAR COVERS…

America’s sports car becomes a global challenger with the imminent arrival of the C8 version of the Corvette: still powered by a pushrod V8, still fibreglass bodied, but now mid-engined and ready to rival high-performance European two-seaters. And for the first time, Corvettes will be built at the Kentucky factory with right-hand drive. Born in 1953 as America’s MG TF, Corvette’s once tawdry reputation, based on poor build quality and boorish manners, is ancient history. Fending off import and domestic challengers – Ford’s Thunderbird, Dodge’s Viper, every Porsche – has been the Corvette’s cause for ages. But now it goes up a division, as the 2020 model will be the long-rumoured mid-engined edition. Corvette patron saint Zora Arkus-Duntov – not the car’s creator, but its champion within GM for two…

1 GTI AND R GET FASTER VW is preparing three fast Golfs; GTI, GTI Cup and the all-wheel-drive R. The 232bhp GTI is an evolution of the original concept, complete with cloth upholstery. The 286bhp Cup adopts the more extrovert livery of today’s TCR, including bigger wheels, more spoilers, extra warpaint and a go-faster interior. The Golf R retains the 2.0-litre engine but power leaps to 328bhp. Aided by a 37lb ft torque boost, 0-62mph drops to 4.5sec. Illustration Avarvarii 2 THEY DON’T ALL LOOK THE SAME Big-ticket Mk8s get more chrome, five-point LED lights up front, twin exhausts (round or rectangular, depending on engine) and bigger rims. The GTI gets a standalone visual treatment with added black and red accents, bespoke wheels, diamond-shaped daytime running lights, a wider…

Ford Puma ST Ford wants its Performance range to grow in Europe, and the controversial new Puma is an easy place to start. Same platform as the Fiesta means it’s relatively simple to also carry across the Fiesta ST’s fizzy three-cylinder turbo, and CAR understands the steering rack will be even quicker. Expect a slightly more aggressive look than the ST-Line, and there’s a twin exhaust poking out from under that camouflage, where we’ve only seen other Pumas with one. NEED TO KNOW What is it? Ford’s potent new crossover Tech specs Three-cylinder turbo with 197bhp, super-quick steering rack Any rivals? A toppy Seat Arona or VW T-Cross When will it be real? Early 2020 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet One of the halo models of the whole 992-generation range has…

Illustration Chris Rathbone It’s a great automotive turnaround story: how did Volvo go from being offloaded by Ford to posting its best-ever half-year financial results last month? Lex Kerssemakers has the answers. In fact, the Dutchman could write the company’s history, having served Volvo around the globe for more than 30 years. He’s been on Volvo Car’s executive management team since 2004, and became the first non-Swede to run product planning. That was his role when the 2008 financial storm broke. ‘We were very vulnerable. Ford was going to sell us,’ Kerssemakers recalls. ‘We had no future engines, old cars – Volvo was almost gone. We had to replace a portfolio and modernise it.’ In 2010, the year Chinese automotive group Geely took over Volvo, global volume was 373,525 units.…

Unless you’ve been living there, you’ll probably have noticed that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings. Watch geeks seem more excited that Buzz Aldrin’s Omega Speedmaster reached our satellite than Neil and Buzz themselves, and there have been three special editions already this year to celebrate. We’re also marking 50 years of the Heuer Monaco and 60 years of Breitling’s Navitimer. There are special editions to celebrate these anniversaries too. 01 I Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch 321 Platinum £45,500 Omega’s famous 321 movement powered the Apollo 11 crew’s watches but was discontinued soon after. Now it’s back. This is the first watch it has appeared in, and the third to mark the anniversary. It looks similar to a standard Moonwatch, but with a platinum case and meteorite-finished…

Decisions made years ago are now coming home to roost. At one extreme, VW has bet the farm on building millions of electric cars on EV-only platforms. PSA, to the contrary, has committed itself to platforms that can be fitted with petrol, diesel, hybrid or full-electric powertrains. How did they arrive at these very different positions… and are they having any regrets? Frank Bekemeier: VW’s vision from the beginning was that the MEB platform has to offer affordable electric vehicles for less than €30,000 (£27,000) in volumes of up to 10 million a year. The flexible architecture allows a wheelbase from 2750mm to 2900mm and wheel tracks around 1900mm for a wide range of models. We can also offer several battery packs. Without the ICE and ancillaries like the exhaust…

Of all its diverse berths, BMW’s straight-six feels more potent in this car than any other We turn left in the middle of nowhere, then right at the back of beyond, and by magical coincidence stumble upon a classic car rally. MG and Triumph owners’ heads whip round to rubberneck the Morgan. Their senses are very finely attuned to old-British-car spotting, and they know before they can see us that this isn’t an old car, nor an entirely British one. The smooth straight-six BMW engine may sound peculiar in a context of pushrod rattlers, and the lack of leaking hot oil may leave their nostrils under-employed, but their sixth sense correctly tells them they’ve been joined by a kindred spirit. An MGC owner recognises it as the new Plus Six…

Many will mourn the M135i’s switch from six cylinders and rear-wheel drive to a four-cylinder, all-wheel drive layout. But get behind the wheel of this new M135i and the paradigm shift starts to make sense. Trading rowdiness for poise, antics for precision, hooliganism for manners, it is in many ways a more complete driving machine than its outstanding predecessor. The new M135i is powered by a 302bhp, 2.0-litre four and will run rings around its predecessor on low-grip tarmac while holding its own in the dry, despite lower power, less torque and fewer cylinders. Wider, longer and taller yet with a shorter wheelbase, the M135i is more pragmatically packaged and economical. The xDrive system uses a 50:50 torque split, but the car’s electronic brain – dubbed ARB and borrowed from…

TESLA MODEL 3 The 3 is so rapid it’s borderline whether the sensation is even enjoyable MUSK GOES MAINSTREAM Tesla: you’ve heard the name, you’ve probably seen a few around, maybe seen an unfeasibly fast Model S embarrassing some pretty storied names in YouTube drag races. But only now can you actually buy one. By which we mean ordinary people with a few hundred quid in their pocket each month to fund a car can now choose a Silicon Valley alternative to a sensible mainstream car. The Model 3 is where Musk meets mass market. Well, mass-ish. Predictably the initially touted sub-£30k price never materialised, at least not in the UK. The entry-level Standard Range Plus’s $38,990 home-market price translates to £32k, but swells to £37,340 by the time it’s…

The future is now. The ID3, VW’s Golf-size battery-electric hatch, goes on sale this time next year as an affordable mainstream car designed to be more desirable, more functional and more normal than the Leaf, Zoe and i3. Expected to cost from just over £30,000, it’s a five-door five-seater with up to 201bhp and a potential range of almost 350 miles. And we’re driving it right now, in unfinished pre-production form, one of the first ID3s to roll off the Dresden assembly line. Hit the starter button, then use the gear selector mounted on the steering column. It twists in two directions: forward for drive and the re-gen modes; back for neutral and reverse. It’s unfamiliar if you’ve only ever driven petrol or diesel, but it’s simple and logical enough…

New Yorkers love the Mini Electric. Correction. The few who notice it love it. Except when I honk at them, and then they hate it. I have to honk because they’re so absorbed by their phones that they don’t see me coming. And they can’t hear the low-speed warning chirp that it emits, because they’re wearing earphones. So pedestrians and cyclists take a bit of prompting before they’ll admit to admiring the new EV, on sale early next year. But it’s a different story at the traffic lights, where not only most cars but also some motorcycles are beaten away by the rapidity of the Mini’s initial acceleration. It may not have headline-grabbing figures like the Lotus Evija’s 2000bhp, but it’s very quick – as quick as a BMW M4…

DIFFERENT YES, DULL NO Instant torque, and lots of it. Phenomenal braking. Low centre of gravity. This does not sound like a recipe for a dull car. And yet, despite the glowing promise of 2000bhp from the new all-electric Lotus Evija, and the extraordinary performance of the VW ID R on record-braking runs around the Nürburgring and up Pikes Peak, there is a suspicion that EVs are short on the sort of excitement that usually fires up car enthusiasts. For an expert perspective we turned to Katherine Legge, a British racing driver based in the USA, who has raced in everything from DTM to NASCAR, and is currently focused on racing a Honda NSX hybrid in the IMSA sports car series. Along the way she’s also raced more electric cars…

The Lotus brain drain is over. For years, McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and others have been plucking many of its brightest and best engineers and designers. Now, emboldened by new owner Geely’s investment, Lotus grows again. The engineering team has almost doubled since the takeover in 2017. Within a year, it will double again (to 500). One of the biggest winners is Russell Carr, the man shaping Lotus’s bold new future, who has seen his design team swell from under 20 before Geely to 50 today. It will likely grow to 100. The Hethel factory once seemed a sad reminder of a glorious past. Now, you can begin to believe its best days may lie ahead. After years of remodelling Elise-type roadsters into faster and meaner shapes, Lotus…

The Volkswagen Golf is about to regenerate. The brand-new Mk8 Golf will be revealed this autumn (see Insider for more details), with the excellent, but ageing, Mk7.5 holding the fort until then. Sensing a brief window of opportunity – like ambitious young lions circling a fading senior – the rest of the industry has recently launched a flurry of would-be Golf beaters. Ford’s already struck gold with its reimagined Focus, and now Mazda and Toyota have entered the fray with two striking-looking contenders, the latest 3 and the resurgent Corolla (née Auris). And there’s a further challenge from within the VW Group: Skoda’s Scala uses stretched Polo underpinnings to create a car that’s bigger than a Golf but also cheaper and very well equipped. But for all their ambitions, how…

It’s a ridiculous figment of so many schoolboy dreams, manufactured in Somerset The Ariel Atom is eccentric yes, but at least it has a clear purpose: continuing that long tradition of lightweight British sportscars, it belongs on a track or a winding B road, and its function is to slice through brain cobwebs like a Spartan sushi knife. The Ariel Nomad, on the other hand… well, the Nomad makes even the Atom look reserved. This is a car with no clear purpose. It’s an off-roader, sort of – though I doubt many buyers actually take it on the gravel. Instead, it’s more like an imaginary dune buggy for the road; a muscled-up sand-rail; an ’80s Tamiya radio-control, made flesh; a Desert Storm Fast Attack Vehicle minus the .50 calibre machine…

That first drive, all 60 seconds or so of it in the cul de sac outside our house, is still one of the most exciting drives of my life For a while, I could carry this whole kart around in my pocket. It began at an after-school club held in the metalwork block. The aim? To build a kart from scratch and then race it to glory, a notion too exciting to be true. And for a long time, it was; after weeks of toil I’d succeeded only in building two small brackets to carry the front stub-axles. Hence the pocket-portability. Had my dad not stepped in to help me, I’d still be building it now. We started it when I was 11. We had only a couple of hours…

Audi bailed out of the World Endurance Championship back in 2016, after a decade and a half of near-complete dominanace. Its swansong was the Audi Sport Team Joest R18, but the story began with the R8 – the R8R contested the 1999 race. Heck, even the R8 production car’s concept forebear was called the Le Mans Concept. So, when you’re invited to Le Mans, glamping, and with the opportunity to rub shoulders with some famous people (courtesy in my case of Aston Martin Racing, not Audi), taking our R8 to one of the most famous races on the planet is a no-brainer. I’ll be the closest thing to a 2019 Le Mans entry Audi Sport will have – hell, they should be paying me for this. In the tunnels, the…

Yes, you read that right. We asked GM Europe, and they told CAR: ‘We can confirm that the next generation Chevrolet Corvette will be built as a right-hand-drive variant and will officially be sold in the UK. This is a milestone for us, with the UK being one of the most important sports car markets in the world.’ But at the moment GM is not offering any details on UK price, timing, spec or distribution channels. The challenge there is that since GM sold Vauxhall/ Opel to PSA, GM in Europe has been little more than a maker of diesel engines, so there’s no established dealer network through which to sell the Corvette.…

The new 911, the 992, was introduced in Carrera S and 4S forms, and has since seduced everyone who’s been anywhere near it. Blame a stunning interior, bewitching driving dynamics and such weight of desirability you wonder why anyone else even bothers. Now the new 911 is here in non-S Carrera guise, both as a coupe and as a convertible. Much stays the same. Same elegant cockpit, complete with 10.9-inch touchscreen, same handsome exterior (the 992 Carrera and Carrera S use the same body), same ultra-safe Wet mode and same fundamental engine hardware: a twin-turbo 3.0-litre flat-six and eight-speed twin-clutch transmission. While the Carrera retains split front and rear wheel sizes, those wheels are an inch smaller: 19s up front, 20s at the rear. The Carrera also carries smaller brakes…

Ian Callum picked his moment to retire from director of design at Jaguar perfectly. The electric i-Pace SUV, his last all-new design to launch before leaving, beat all its German rivals to market and has since scooped numerous awards – including UK, European and World Car of the Year gongs – as much for its design as its impressive eco credentials. But now Callum, who turned 65 in July, is on a new mission, away from the mass-production, corporate world where he managed more than sketched, to start a small Midlands-based firm focusing on limited runs of bespoke cars, plus various travel-related products and accessories. Called simply Callum, and born from an existing engineering business with colleagues he knows and trusts from his decades in the industry – and whose…

Green car sales are growing globally – but financial incentives are proving to be a bigger factor than any number of powertrain improvements. In June this year UK sales of electrified vehicles went down for the first time in two years. If that seems odd at a time when there’s a bigger and better choice of full electric vehicles and hybrids than ever before, you’re looking in the wrong place. The trigger was pulled last November, when the UK government changed its system of grants for green cars. Hybrids lost the £2500 discount most had qualified for, while electric cars are now helped to the tune of £3500 rather than £4500. It took a few months to work its way through the system, but when it hit it hit hard:…

To date, the original Moose Dodger was the best A-Class produced by Mercedes – a sophisticated chunk of sandwich-floored engineering, and something of a Tardis in the accommodation stakes to boot. Alas, over-deterred by the all too real risk of an unseemly encounter between a permanently nose-bagged, Twiglet-legged quadruped and Mercedes in, say, Macclesfield, the company suddenly decided that ‘A’ no longer stood for smallest car in the range but ‘A Golf Rival’. The result was a bit of a dog even in AMG 45 guise; fast, but displaying all the subtlety and finesse of trout fishing with hand grenades. By contrast, the second-generation A Golf Rival-Class is really rather good. And in AMG guise – a homage both to the pleasingly brutal AMG GT and the face of the…

It’s possible I would have liked this 3-series plug-in hybrid more if I hadn’t just driven the 330d Touring. But where the big diesel simply feels like a lavishly engineered answer to hauling practical ass, this 2.0-litre petrol and electric saloon is just a little too much like a rolling science experiment. It is clever. Electric-only range is up to 41 miles (50 per cent more than before), and it will swiftly hit its 87mph e-power limiter if you disengage the dinosaur juice – although not for long, as sustaining such speed sucks the life out of the battery like a vampire with a drinking problem. The top end is 143mph, and you can choose a preferred battery percentage to maintain while driving should you want to save the electrons…

It happens a lot. There you are, just about coming to terms with the four-cylinder engine note of the 718 Boxster, when you’re overtaken by a six-cylinder 987-gen Boxster doing, according to your ears, some 400mph. And you find yourself back at square one. So it’s very gratifying that Porsche – contrary to some poorly-informed speculation – has chosen not to use a tuned version of the 718’s four-cylinder turbo in the new Spyder, but instead a naturally-aspirated six. A four-litre motor with an 8000rpm redline, at that. The good times are back. Like the 981 Spyder, this car has been released alongside the tin-topped Cayman GT4, except this time around both cars share a technical base, akin to the 911 Speedster and 911 GT3 pairing. No longer making do…

Why is it here? It’s the most exciting car to come from Jag since the XJ220, and it feels almost as fast when you stomp the right pedal. The i-Pace looks great, is fun to drive and is our current favourite electric SUV. Any clever stuff? We could prattle on about the platform and the powertrain but frankly the cleverest bit of the Jag is how practical it is. It’ll do almost 300 miles on a charge, there’s plenty of room in the back and the boot is colossal. Which version is this? We’ve got the basic £61k S model (but fitted with £16.5k of options that make it more expensive than the HSE range topper). Regardless of trim, all versions come with the same powertrain.…

Show of hands: how badly do we want M division to make its first mid-engined sports car since the BMW M1 of 1978? Wow, pretty badly. Quieten down, enough whooping! Now tell us, how much do we want this exciting mid-engined BMW to be a four-cylinder, all-wheel-drive, plug-in hybrid that can cruise silently into zero-emission cityscapes? No, wait, don’t leave. Don’t boo ! This Vision M Next concept does portend the inevitable electrification of Munich’s high-performance sub-brand, but take comfort from R&D boss Klaus Fröhlich’s words. ‘The M badge means one thing: the car performs like hell,’ he says. Fröhlich also reassures us that his ‘power PHEV’ is more than motor show eye candy: ‘We are no-nonsense guys, we deliver what we promise.’ Expect a production equivalent to be on…

Back in the very, very olden days – like, in 2010 – car enthusiasts like you and me used to play a pub game, an idle conversation about what cars you would buy if you won a million pounds on the lottery. I remember, a million pounds was a lot back then and your imaginary garage could encompass a whole fleet of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches. Just a decade ago, you could buy an F40 for £170k, a 288 GTO for just £400k. Now what does a million quid get you? The front bumper off that Bugatti ‘Noire’? A Rolls-Royce wheel nut? The million-pound garage game just isn’t the same when you find yourself saying, hands clasped as in prayer, ‘My dream would be a Honda Jazz and classic Ford…

I’ve chosen the 313mpg XL1 for a reason. I’d split my last gallon in two. Driving solo is fun, but the real thrill is always in the chase The options raced past my eyes like the fruit on a slot-machine drum. Maybe I’d fuel half a dozen passes down the drag strip in Dick Landy’s wheelying ’65 Dodge Coronet. Pull off one flying lap of VW’s Ehra Lessien test track in a Bugatti Chiron. Maybe I’d hook up with Markku Alén and ride shotgun as he went maximum attack on a section of the Tour de Corse in a Lancia 037, because that’d be almost as much fun as doing it badly myself. I could have picked any of those. Instead I picked a diesel hybrid. Not just any diesel…

Tim Pollard (Lexus) Land Rover and Lexus. More normally neighbours in our GBU pages rather than outright rivals, but I guess with the arrival of the seven-seat RX-L we can finally compare them side by side. And would you believe it, my Lexus is actually a whisker longer than your Disco at precisely five metres from tip to toe. Ben Oliver (Land Rover) I can believe it. Sorry, Tim, but I think your car just looks weird. It’s very oddly proportioned: the detailing is extreme but the low roofline and fast screen angles make it look apologetic about being an SUV. Your RX-L reminded me of Merc’s R-Class the first time I saw it, and that’s not a good thing. At least you know what the Disco is. The extra…

Well, the CX-5’s certainly proving a more involving steer than the Honda CR-V it’s replaced. However, much like the diplomatic deployment of the word ‘striking’ when asked to comment on a close friend’s new nettle-dyed lambswool tank top, the up-close-and-personal levels of intimacy implied by the use of ‘involving’ are not always entirely desirable. Just ask Chris Froome. On the plus side, the Mazda’s helm is meatier, more accurate and a deal more communicative than that of the Honda. Lob stiffer springing and damping into the equation, and the Mazda is far happier to string together a sequence of bends without increasingly strong signals from the bodyshell that, if you offered it a biscuit, it might actually come over all toy dog on you... The downside is a somewhat firm…

Chris Teagles ‘It’ll light up the rear tyres if you push on, but it’s unusually delicate too’ THE OBVIOUS CHOICE I bought my 2013 McLaren 12C Spider from Alastair Bols, an independent McLaren dealer with a very good reputation. It came down to a choice between this or the Ferrari 458 Spider, but I’m not keen on the Ferrari’s looks and I think the 12C has matured nicely. It’s not as in-your-face as the Ferrari. My car is finished in Volcano Red paint, with the Stealth pack, upgraded wheels and full sports exhaust. TIME TO SETTLE DOWN Owning the 12C has been a watershed for me. I compete in tarmac rallying and I’ve always wanted each road car to be faster than the last, but the 12C is mind-blowingly rapid…