Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i CAR UK

In a short and spectacularly successful career, Richard Seaman blazed a trail that’s been followed by Stirling Moss and Lewis Hamilton. But after his death in the 1939 Belgian GP (above), he was written out of history. When he’s reappeared, it’s been as a caricatured toff, or Nazi sympathiser, or reckless playboy. In truth he was none of these, as detailed in the new book A Race With Love and Death from Richard Williams. It’s a great read. ‘I thought the only way really to tell his story in a richer way was to immerse myself in every aspect – not just the Mercedes archive, but also visiting the places where he lived, and where he died. The longer I went on, the more the idea of him being a…

In January VW welcomed back one of its superstars: itinerant designer Jozef Kaban. A passionate VW enthusiast from childhood, Kaban’s first car was a Mk3 VW Golf GTI. He started in car design at VW before setting out on something of a pinball career path… Kaban: the very early years Born in what was then Czechoslovakia in January 1973, Kaban’s been obsessed with cars from childhood. ‘My father loves cars too but he is more technical. He loves them under the steel and loves the steel itself. Actually, for me it’s the combination. The challenge is bringing the two together – motorbikes are a good example.’ A hopeless four-wheeled romantic Kaban’s love for cars runs deep. ‘The best thing I’ve ever done in a car? Driving in the rain. When…

Audi e-Tron GT Ingolstadt’s hotter EV is nearing its debut, with help from the Porsche Taycan. Stuttgart’s J1 platform underneath means an e-motor on each axle for all-wheel drive with torque vectoring and an 800-volt electrical system that allows for ultra-fast charging. Underneath the body (one that design boss Marc Lichte told CAR was the highlight of his career) this four-seater will have around 575bhp and be good for a 3.5sec 0-62mph sprint time and 250 miles between charges. NEED TO KNOW What is it? Audi’s Taycan twin Tech specs 800-volt electric architecture, e-quattro, fast charging Aimed at? Giving Audi’s e-Tron line-up a true flagship How long do we have to wait? Until the end of 2020 DS 4 Now that it has an SUV in each segment, DS has…

The only problem with the standard watch designs is their ubiquity. There are thousands of variations on the core watch types, such as the chronograph, the diver’s watch or the travel watch with a GMT hand. With the standard black dial and stainless steel bracelet they can be hard to tell apart: handy if you’d prefer muggers to think your 10-grand Rolex is a 100-quid Rotary. But occasionally the watch makers enliven their classics with a bold new colour, and three such variations have just arrived. 01 I Junghans Max Bill Edition Set 2020 £2750 (two-watch set) Sold as a limited-edition box set, these two pieces were designed for Junghans by Bauhaus artist Max Bill in the ’60s. Only the colours have been changed, but to what effect. With black…

The British government’s announcement that it’s banning not just internal combustion but also hybrid power for cars by 2035 sent shockwaves through the motor industry and posed many questions. Was it a smart decision? Will it really happen? And will it have the desired effect? We spoke to representatives of two globally respected British think tanks about the implications of the policy: Dr Jonathan Marshall, a chemist who is head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, and Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the free-market-championing Adam Smith Institute. Dr Eamonn Butler: There is no clear basis on which the policy has been made; there are lots of competing claims about internal combustion engines (ICE) and electric vehicles (EVs) and their environmental footprints. We are adopting a new policy that…

Toughening the suspension, allied to the loss of torsional stiffness, is not a good idea When it comes to no-brainers, press-ganging Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire into service as the accompanying jingle to an advertisement for Preparation H strikes me as somewhat more of a given that lopping the top off a T-Roc. However, with the ongoing absence of plans for another Golf Cabrio adding yet further weight to the SUV’s current status as automotive cock-of-the-walk, there is a certain inevitability to the arrival of this machine on the launch pad. Moreover, with Range Rover’s pricey Evoque Convertible now consigned to the circular filing tray and the rear seats of smaller soft-tops such as the Mini and BMW 2-series fit for only babes in arms, it appears that VW’s latest…

When Gustl Achleitner handed Frank Walliser the keys to the chief engineer’s office at Porsche last year, the DNA of the sports car family took an invisible step towards more extreme dynamics. That’s what you get when you appoint a man whose CV features the 918 Spyder and RS Spyder, 919 and 911 RSR race cars. Previous Turbos were, to an extent, aimed at graciously greyed gentlemen who enjoyed showing off in a prestigious piece of street furniture that made a statement about wealth and about not being ready for the retirement home. Those silver foxes will still be drawn to this 992-generation 911 Turbo S. But beneath the skin lurks a very different animal: raw, aggressive, more tactile, so much faster, and not as easy to drive at the…

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There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it: this is a £27,600 Peugeot 2008. You could get a bigger, far faster Ford Focus ST for £2k more. Less money buys a brand new Mk8 Golf hatchback with the 148bhp 1.5-litre Evo four-cylinder engine and some very lovely metallic yellow paint. Ouch. The ‘issue’ is this car’s GT Line trim (18-inch wheels, reversing camera, 10-inch touchscreen, heated seats) and its 128bhp version of the 1.2-litre PureTech triple. All of which makes our Peugeot something of a hot rod in this company, and outlandishly expensive. More comparable would be Allure trim (smaller touchscreen, smaller wheels, slightly less exterior funk) with either this engine (from £23,550) or the tiddler, the 100PS (99bhp) petrol (from £22,350). Choice is…

Quick cost-benefit analysis of a 3-series estate versus saloon to ramp up excitement this month. Touring benefits include 500 litres of luggage space with rear seats up, against 480 litres for a saloon. You also get a standard electric tailgate (optional on saloon, if pointless), that brilliant opening rear window and four rubberised longitudinal ribs in the loadbay, which actually rise up slightly when you close the tailgate, so shopping doesn’t slip when rear tyres do. Subjectively, I prefer the design too. A Touring is £1500 costlier and 125kg heavier, with the weight impacting fuel economy by 1mpg and the 0-62mph by a tenth. I feel the effect on midrange urgency more than I notice the altered handling. The Touring’s bodyshell can’t be as rigid as the saloon’s, but it…

Audi SQ8 Vorsprung TDI Quattro Month 3 The story so far Ben’s convinced of the SQ8’s dynamic qualities, if not its visual ones. But can he find anyone who’d pay £106k for one? + Performance; clever chassis and drivetrain; quality - Questionable looks; compromised practicality; price Logbook Price £104,240 (£106,640 as tested) Performance 3956cc twin-turbo V8, 429bhp, 665lb ft, 4.8sec 0-62mph, 155mph Efficiency 36.2mpg (official), 27.0mpg (tested) 240g/km CO2 Energy cost 22.0p per mile Miles this month 789 Total miles 4159 Audi has never made an SQ8 before, and its big, premium, SUV-coupe rivals are rare and offer little to match the Audi’s monstrous twin-turbo, 429bhp diesel V8. So assembling a panel of readers with direct prior experience of such cars to test my long-term SQ8 would have been tricky.…

Back in the days before we realised we were simply running a crèche with someone we used to go out with, the missus and I booked a restaurant table on the strict understanding that said eatery made no concessions to Valentine’s day. ‘Oh no, sir. Absolutely none,’ we were reassured. We turned up to find a six-foot-high neon love-heart installed in the window and an accordion player mangling Bright Eyes. On this Valentine’s day someone went one better and rubbed what looks suspiciously like a white van amorously against the front wheelarch of the CX-5. Ever since I returned to my beloved Scirocco GTI Mk1 to find a mangled front wing and a note reading: ‘IM SORRY I HIT YOR CAR BUT YOU WERE PARCKED IN A ARKWARD POSITON’, this…

Oliver Brookwell ‘An A200 would have been a non-event. My friends would have wondered what I was playing at’ BRINGING THE FUN BACK My first car was a hand-me-down Nissan Micra, but then I changed to something more exciting, a Vauxhall Corsa VXR. I really enjoyed it. That would have been an ’07 car, a 1.6, 192bhp. And then I went all sensible because I thought I was getting older. I had a 2.0-litre petrol Ford Focus. Then I got a bit more money and moved on to an Audi A4 2.0-litre petrol, 190bhp. That was in 2016. I had that for three years. Although I really liked the interior, and it was quite luxurious, I lost my passion for driving a little bit with that car. Cruising on the…

RIMBLADES ULTRA £39.99 Rimblades is launching a new alloy wheel rim protector called Rimblades Ultra to celebrate the company’s 10-year anniversary. Ultra is designed to add a colour trim to wheels, cover up existing damage and prevent kerb damage happening. The universal-fitting trims suit all wheels up to 22 inches in diameter, available in 10 different colours, priced at only £39.99 a set of four. www.rimblades.com CLASSIC ADDITIONS CAR COVERS Prices vary Classic Additions supplies a range of high-quality indoor and outdoor car covers. The standard-fit range includes the best selling Super Soft Stretch indoor (pictured) and Ultimate outdoor covers. If you would prefer something bespoke, Classic Additions also offers custom-made indoor and outdoor covers that are fully tailored to the shape of the car and hand-made in the UK.…

Being ‘too big to fail’ is a myth of the modern corporate world. No one is safe from drastic changes to public sentiment, buying habits and supply issues. The Stuttgart behemoth that is Mercedes-Benz is looking wobbly at present, as years of unnecessary spending and a lack of clear-cut preparedness for the EV future are starting to hit home. But 2020 is the year one of the biggest names in the premium car market pulls up its socks and gets real, with a vision to return itself to the glory years of the ’70s and ’80s – decades in which it built cars that lasted for generations and stood clear of the pack when it came to luxury and innovation. The updated E-Class is an auspicious start; the mid-size exec…

Illustration: Avarvarii Factfile POWERTR AIN 4395cc V8 plus e-motors, 750bhp, all-wheel drive CHASSIS Aluminium/steel monocoque DUE 2022 1 ROCKING AND ROLLING At this point, BMW’s M division is still a completely electric-free environment. But, in the short-to mid-term, ‘power PHEVs’ are the answer. The X8 M, known as Project Rockstar, is the exciting cream-of-the-crop neo-SUV. It’s a cross between the X6 M and M5 Competition; expect on-demand rear-wheel drive. 2 POWER APLENTY The M team are putting together a dedicated high-performance crossover that will, in its most extreme hybrid form, unleash 750bhp. What makes all the difference here is, of course, a 200bhp e-motor supporting the V8. Together they make 737lb ft of torque; enough for random burn-outs and wild slides. 3 THE iNEXT GENERATION Fifth-gen electric motor technology derived…

Where does Bugatti go after smashing through the 300mph barrier with its Chiron Super Sport 300+? It goes for the corners, that’s where. This lighter, firmer, more driver-focused Chiron Pur Sport is the car that showcases Bugatti’s new interest in swinging for apexes. Power from the 8.0-litre W16 engine is unchanged at a highly sufficient 1479bhp and 1180lb ft, but a new fixed rear spoiler caps top speed at just the 217mph, down from the regular Chiron’s 261mph. The 1.9-metre-wide wing not only improves downforce as part of a re-worked aero package (no figures, mind), it’s also 10kg lighter than the active one. Combined with a fresh magnesium wheel design, liberal use of alcantara inside and a few other tweaks, it helps save 50kg. Yes, this is a drop in…

Illustration Chris Rathbone PORSCHE CEO For a sports car company that has wrought some of the world’s finest combustion engines, Porsche is embracing the electrified future with almighty zeal. And the figurehead of this push is Oliver Blume, coming up for five years as company CEO, a towering, silver-haired 51-year-old engineer who introduces himself with an informal ‘Call me Oliver’. There’s a progressive and youthful feel about Porsche, and not just because the board are more Generation X than Baby Boomers. Porsche has launched a Digital division, with outposts in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, investing €1 billion in future tech for connected and ‘highly-automated’ cars, start-ups and online services. But that’s dwarfed by the €9 billion (£8bn) being poured into pure electric and hybrid powertrains, with the goal of…

Good old road markings. With us for the past 102 years, they took on a whole new dimension a decade ago when in-car safety tech started scanning for those moments when a car strays across lanes. But what if there are no road markings? That’s when a typical lane-departure system gives up, indicated by a greying-out of the icon on the dash. And what if the most useful safety information you could receive comes not from road markings but from further up the road; what if a car 30 seconds ahead of you could tell you about an imminent hazard? Those challenges are being met by tech that’s fitted as standard to some mainstream newcomers. New Fords such as the Puma and Kuga – both featured in this issue –…

Working the engine harder results in petrol-electric transitions becoming less slick Don’t be fooled. This, being an XC40, looks great, feels great and even smells great. Being a Volvo, it’s well equipped and has a grown-up modernity to it that’s highly appealing. And being a latest-generation hybrid it can do some clever green things. But then, this being the real world, there’s a whole bunch of ifs and buts that actually add up to this being a disappointing, frustrating car that you really wouldn’t recommend anyone spend £40,000 or more on owning. Hybrid and full-electric were both part of the XC40 plan from the off, so the battery and electric motor slot in seamlessly – with no compromises to design or ease of use – as doubtless will also be…

The old Defender had no creature comforts. That was part of its perverse charm. The new Defender has many. That will be part of its broad appeal. The cabin feels spacious (unlike the old Defender), has an excellent driving position (unlike the old Defender) and good visibility (like the old Defender). The chunky square styling makes parking and car positioning a cinch. All-round cameras make the task even easier. This includes 3D surround-view, 360º park aid and an external camera that appears to be tracking the car. Most surprising is the in-car tech. At its heart is JLR’s new infotainment system. There’s also a camera for a rear-view mirror. Old Landie owners may think these the devil’s work, but they’ll prove popular in SoCal, Soho and Shanghai, important markets all.…

Unless you’ve been stranded off-road with no phone signal, you’ll know the Land Rover Defender has just returned, very much modernised, after production of the old model ended at Solihull in 2016. But the off-road icon’s updated design and monocoque construction aren’t the only radical shake-ups with which its loyal fanbase must grapple: the new model’s manufacturing also breaks with a tradition that dates back to 1948, as it switches from Solihull to Slovakia. Solihull has not closed: it continues to produce the Jaguar F-Pace, and all Range Rovers bar the Evoque. Jaguar Land Rover has also invested in building ‘the next generation of flagship Range Rover and Land Rover models’ there. Still, removing all Defender production from the UK is a big deal. Ahead of Gavin Green’s drive of…

It’s like a baby Porsche Macan!’ Maybe it’s the early start. Maybe it’s the mind-scrambling effects of both an early start and a Skegness McDonald’s breakfast. Whatever, I definitely just uttered those words. The visual similarities between Ford’s new B-segment SUV and Porsche’s oh-so-capable sports SUV don’t exactly slap you around the face. You’re not going to confuse the two in a car park, let alone on the road. But there are echoes of the Porsche in the Ford. Both have, with no little success, spliced a few sports-car chromosomes into the crossover aesthetic’s existing DNA. And both aim to do the same with the way they drive. Body control, steering precision, taut damping – must these qualities be strangers to the high-rise hatch? First thing this morning I jumped…

You’re a suspension engineer, tasked with setting up the new T-Cross, little brother to VW’s T-Roc and effectively a high-rise Polo. Given the car’s likely usage and buying demographic, you’d plump for something fairly, well, plump, no? Some barely-there spring rates to soak up the urban lumps and damping like an old sofa? Perfect. Apparently not. Instead the T-Cross prizes body control above all else – hang the crashy ride! – and loves being flung at lumpy, bump-riddled byways like a WRC car. And if the boot full of hardy perennials ends up looking like a scale model of the Somme, well, so be it. Weird. This firm, almost unyielding suspension calibration feels accidental (the big 18-inch wheels on this car surely don’t help the T-Cross’s paucity of pliancy) –…

First and foremost, an Aston Martin must be irresistible. Think DB4, DB7, even Valkyrie. And now think new Vantage Volante and V12 Speedster. The timing of these two open-top sports cars is coincidental – the Speedster’s gestation was a little over a year, the Roadster in the Vantage plan from the beginning – but it is also apposite. When your back’s against the wall, your press coverage distracted by poor financials and the questions about your continued existence unending, the last thing you need is an apologetic new car. There is nothing meek or apologetic about the V12 Speedster. Beneath, it is a happy hybrid of Vantage and DBS/DB11 chassis parts. Up front we find Aston’s spectacular twin-turbo V12 pushed to 690bhp and 555lb ft of torque. The noise, via…

Alex Tapley Citroën C5 Aircross PureTech 180 Flair+ Month 7 The story so far Striking and practical mid-size SUV determined to cosset its occupants from noise and discomfort + No major Achilles’ heel uncovered in seven months of trying - Roly-poly cornering; inconsistent steering response Logbook Price £31,330 (£32,125 as tested) Performance 1598cc turbo four-cyl, 178bhp, 8.2sec 0-62mph, 134mph Efficiency 38.2mpg (official), 34.0mpg (tested), 129g/km CO2 Energy cost 16.0p per mile Miles this month 2083 Total miles 12,818 Imagine if you will a young, male executive, resplendent in Zegna suit, trapped on a budget airline flight. He’s discomfited that he can’t recline his seat, by the paucity of legroom and the borderline claustrophobia. His ears are assailed by babies screaming. And stag-dos screaming. Eventually he lands, to find his baggage…

So I handed the X-Class keys to the chap from Mercedes picking it up, did that sigh I always do when a long-term test car I really like goes back, and returned to my computer. An email had pinged in while I had been outside, announcing that Mercedes had decided to discontinue the X-Class. Well, there’s timing for you. There had been rumours for a while, especially that the V6 we had wouldn’t pass muster under WLTP regulations, and that sales had been slower than anticipated. All of this is a shame for a car/van I grew very fond of, but after 11 months in the X I can also see why. It was hard to miss, and people wanted to talk to me about it. Some loved the fact…

Matty Graham Who remembers the crossovers before the crossover? Volvo does. Seems there’s still room for cars from the original crossover mould. Cars like the V70 XC Volvo introduced at the Frankfurt motor show way back in 1997 before we’d caught the SUV bug. The idea behind that car – take a standard estate, whack some big springs in it and some utilitarian cladding – is the same one it’s used to create this one, our new V60 Cross Country. Essentially this is a V60 estate, Volvo’s rival to the Audi A4 Avant, but with a sprinkling of off-road style, and the merest hint of off-road ability. There’s no air suspension to raise the car’s body over rough ground, just regular steel coils up front and a composite transverse leaf…

Dwindling sales of the 500L and Tipo, together with the withdrawal from sale of the 124 Spider, could be seen as indicators of tough times at Fiat. Not so, says Fiat global CEO (and FCA marketing chief) Olivier François. Here he tackles four myths about the new electric 500 and what it says about Fiat’s plans for the next decade. THE CHARGE: THE ELECTRIC 500 IS HALF-BAKED THE DEFENCE: ‘The new electric 500 is a revolution, not an evolution,’ insists François. ‘We consider it a pocket-sized Tesla. This is thanks to the fact that this is not a plan B; a platform that we tweaked. It’s all new. With this all-new platform comes a new electric architecture that also enables Level 2 autonomous driving – a true first in the…

1 WASN’T THIS DEAD? If you were going to Land Rover for one, then yes. The Range Rover SV Coupe was a two-door, four-seat version of the luxury SUV, but JLR’s accounts weren’t looking too great when the project was ongoing, so SVO swiftly canned it. Now, prompted by customer demand, Dutch designer Niels van Roij and coachbuilder Bas van Roomen have come to the rescue. 2 WHAT’S THE DONOR CAR? A full-size Rangie with the supercharged 5.0-litre V8. While van Roij penned the cleaner-looking shape, van Roomen has hand-beaten panels of aluminium from the A-to C-pillar, redesigned the front doors and removed the side gills. Only the bonnet, front wheelarches and tailgate are carried over from the regular car. ‘Making the clean body by hand was a lot of work,’ van…

At one extreme: ground-up, clean-sheet, blue-sky electric cars like the BMW i3 or any Tesla. At the other extreme: this. It looks like a familiar rugged 4x4 because that’s what it is… up to a point. The regular Jeep engine and transmission have been replaced by a demonstration of what GKN can do. And it’s remarkably effective, in two ways. First, because it functions well at a demanding Swedish winter testing ground. And second, because it shows that car makers don’t all need to invest billions in inventing their own electric propulsion systems from scratch. Instead they can buy all the tricky bits from a supplier such as GKN – an Anglo-German company that’s been serving the world’s automotive manufacturers since the 1950s with everything from CV joints to clever…

Impervious to rain, the Evora is happy to be flung ever-faster through trenches of standing water This should be terrifying. It’s raining cats and pitchforks, dogs and stair-rods, and this is a mid-engined car with 410bhp. But the Evora GT410 is impervious to rain, happy to be flung ever-faster through trenches of standing water and to dance through cross-track rivulets like Gene Kelly in a really great mood. I’m on a closed circuit, I should add. We’re at Lotus’s Hethel test circuit to meet the latest in the long line of Evoras, a model with a family tree complex enough to warrant an ancestry. co.uk subscription. This latest iteration is pitched as a more refined, everyday-usable car. By chasing lap times and performance targets, the Evora had been getting steadily…

Remember the 1993 Ford Maverick? It was an awkward-looking 4x4 that few bought and even fewer missed. And yet traces of its DNA have lingered on in Ford’s SUV line-up over the decades – a clumsy bit of cladding here, some curious proportions there. But I’m delighted to be able to report that the new Kuga is an entirely Maverick-free zone. Ford has moved the Kuga on by de-SUV-ing it and instead making it part of the Focus family in all but name. It looks a lot like a Focus, and it sits on Focus underpinnings. And it works a treat. Compared to the very successful last Kuga, this new one has a longer wheelbase, a sleeker silhouette and cleaner panels. Inside it’s roomier, with sliding rear seats and a…

The badge says Defender but this is hardly a like-for-like replacement, as we’re discovering on a three-day, 420-mile expedition through Namibia. Engineering boss Nick Rogers, who’s joined us on the journey, spells out how difficult it’s been to replace the Defender: about 15 different serious proposals were investigated over the past few decades, he says, and all were rejected. The problem, of course, is that the SUV market has changed since early Land Rovers ventured forth into Africa. A tough working vehicle has turned mainstream. SUVs are now family cars, rather than go-anywhere transport for explorers, adventurers, farmers and the military. So the new Defender has to blend refinement with ruggedness. Its envelope of capability has to be even broader than the usually expansive Land Rover norm. We do hundreds…

No. The old Defender was a totally analogue off-roader that needed judgment, sympathy, skill and intense human interaction. It was a deeply involving 4x4 and that was a big part of its appeal. The new one is a part-digital, go-anywhere marvel that can sometimes even drive itself. You are isolated from the action, thanks to those supple air springs, the sophisticated 4x4 electronic controls, the stiff body and the much greater mechanical refinement. You’re cushioned from the rocks and sand and gravel. In old Land Rovers, you rode them bareback. It isn’t so much the extra capability, as the ease with which it’s accessed. Land Rover’s latest Terrain Response system makes conquering the wilderness even easier. On top of rock crawl, sand, grass/gravel/snow, and mud/ruts, there is a new wade…

1 Solihull, UK What do they make? Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Velar and Jaguar F-Pace Why here? Originally a WW2 ‘shadow’ factory, aiding the aircraft industry 2 Castle Bromwich, UK What do they make? Jaguar XE, XF, F-Type Why here? Another WW2 shadow factory, later car body pressings, bought by Jaguar – then part of BL – in 1977 3 Wolverhampton, UK What do they make? Engine plant builds petrol and diesel fours and sixes Why here? Set up to end JLR’s reliance on Ford/PSA developed engines 4 Halewood, UK What do they make? Transverse-engined, steel-bodied Discovery Sport, Range Rover Evoque Why here? Opened by Ford in the ’60s to make Anglias 5 Nitra, Slovakia What do they make? Home to Defender and Discovery production Why here? Extends JLR’s global footprint using a relatively…

Grabbing the key to the Juke, staff writer Jake Groves’s long-term test car, you have to hand it to Nissan – it looks like nothing else on the road, eye-stingingly bright winter sunshine pinging off the car’s deep metallic red paint and handsome 19-inch rims. The first Juke looked like nothing else on the road but – problematically given how popular it would be – also looked nothing like a handsome example of modern automotive design. Juke 2 puts that right; this thing’s cool. Sneaking off for a drive up the coast while the others neck flat whites, first impressions are all good: great bucket-style seat, snugly comfortable cockpit, plush feel to the fabrics. Ducking past the odd dawdling Jazz, picnic rug proudly in place, there’s something old-school about the…

In essence, the compact crossover is a very practical proposition. The three-door RAV4s (generations one and two), while hardly pulse-spikers, remain the used car of choice among gardening-obsessed retirees because they make so much sense:compact enough to be easy to drive and park, ergonomically suited to high-mileage bodies, and with a boot to swallow a hard day’s hedge trimmings. But the compact crossover’s gone mainstream, and the mainstream demands a decent wedge of desirability with its practicality. Most desirable here is the Peugeot, its knockout design inside and out enough to snare hearts before you’ve so much as put it in gear. Do that and you’ll find a car that, while not ultimately as good to drive as the Ford, offers a capable chassis together with tonnes of character. Peugeot…

Aston Martin DB11 AMR Month 1 The story so far Unspeakably handsome V12 GT joins us for six months or 10,000 miles – the latter will undoubtedly call time on this daydream + Gorgeous; vaguely practical; sensationally fast; tweaked chassis over original V12 DB11 - Expensive; expensive to run; vintage infotainment Logbook Price £178,495 (£209,350 as tested) Performance 5204cc twin-turbo V12, 630bhp, 3.7sec 0-62mph, 208mph Efficiency 24.8mpg (official), 17mpg (tested) Energy cost 41p per mile Miles this month 445 Total miles 2577 ‘I’d rather be in Leicestershire’ is not a slogan long overdue its own T-shirt but, when it comes to roads on which to really get to know a new car, it’s a truth with few exceptions. Tuscany, California, the south of France – they greedily hoard more than…

Everyone’s talking about EVs right now. Except Touareg salesmen. There’s no hybrid or EV in the Touareg line-up (the 456bhp hybrid V6 Touareg R is on its way), meaning it’s still a straight fight between petrol and diesel. On the petrol side there’s a 335bhp 3.0 turbo V6, while diesel fans get the choice of 228bhp or 282bhp 3.0-litre V6 engines. We went for a diesel when choosing this test car because, despite the exodus from diesel in smaller cars, it still makes more sense in jumbo SUVs. Or does it? We borrowed a petrol Touareg to find out. The 53bhp-beefier petrol is quicker on paper, 5.9sec versus 6.1sec to 62mph for our diesel. And it feels quick, too, when you throw some revs at it. Both use the same…

The heated steering wheel: discuss. Until recently reserved for Scandi-spec Volvos and lumberjacks’ pick-ups, the option of a warm rim has recently spread to mainstream cars. That includes my Superb, where a multi-function heated leather steering wheel is a £240 option. It would be easy to be unaware of the feature, as there’s no physical switch to operate it. Instead you turn it on and off using the central touchscreen, where it shares an icon with the heated seats. On a winter’s day spent hopping in and out of the car in Snowdonia, with a harsh wind whipping in off the Irish Sea, that steering wheel made a world of difference to my hands and their ability to operate a camera and indeed a car. It is, if anything, a…

Life with an electric car and without a home wallbox requires compromises. Here’s the workday routine: draw 7kW of charge for nine hours at the office, insufficient time to fully replenish the i-Pace’s 90kWh battery. And in wintry weather, every 65-mile commute drains 90-odd miles. So after every trip and top-up, I start with less charge than yesterday. So I cut back on fripperies, such as driving at the speed limit. Or heating. Range anxiety infiltrates my chilling commutes, eyes flicking between predicted range and mileage to destination. I’d bite my nails, but I daren’t take off my gloves. My home bodge is to stick it on the mains for around eight hours, which generates 20 miles. Thankfully my wallbox will be fitted in a few days – but not…

1 PEUGEOT 208 Essentially the same as the much-improved new Vauxhallll Corsa, but better in every way: fresher styling, neater cabin, more engaging ride and handling. It still can’t quite match the Fiesta for driving pleasure or the Polo for refinement, but overall it’sa gem. The range starts at £16,250, but go for the 99bhp 1.2-litre petrol with six-speed auto in Allure trim for £18,850. 2 RENAULT CLIO Great days: a new 208 and a new Clio arrive at the same time, and they’re both fab.Previous Clio was fine, butthis has a far better interioramong many improvements. The range starts at £14,695, and there’s not much to begained by splashing out; the sweet spot is the 99bhp1.0 turbo triple with its five-speed manual for £17,295. A hybrid is on its way. 3 FORD…