Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i CAR UK

Smart, the maligned city car brand that’s circled the drain for the past few years, has a new future. Now a joint venture between Geely and Daimler Group, Smart is laying a new path to small-car greatness starting with a production version of the Concept #1 in the first half of 2022. Global sales and marketing head Daniel Lescow outlines the plan. 1. Change the perception of the brand ‘Smart is well known, but only associated with one vehicle,’ says Lescow. ‘We want to broaden that brand to a much bigger audience. There’ll be additional products coming into the Smart brand,’ he adds, including stepping into ‘high growth’ segments like small SUVs, as well as reinventing the tiny city car that got the ball rolling in the first place. 2.…

Illustration: Chris Rathbone As one of the most iconic designers in British history, Sir Paul Smith’s career has spanned decades. His work includes high fashion and formalwear, regular seasonal looks and handmade tailoring, with patterns like his trademark stripe motif featuring heavily in an ever-changing range. He’s long been at the cutting edge of fashion, growing his label from a small shop in Nottingham in 1970 into a global clothing business encompassing clothing, watches, fragrances and more. On top of his illustrious career in the fashion industry, Smith has also dabbled in collaborations with (mostly British) automotive marques. The first was a 1997 Rover Mini painted in that most familiar of his striped patterns. After designs with Jaguar’s X-Type, a classic 911 and a Land Rover Defender, Smith once again…

The battery-electric car is becoming many things – commonplace, almost affordable, practical, indecently quick – but still it struggles to trigger drive lust: that urge to jump in, lay thick black arcs of rubber on the road and just drive for the indulgent, hedonistic thrill of driving. A 911 GT3 has this. The Taycan, for all its merit, does not. The Mission R? Electric, and yet there’s drive lust. Officially the R is a concept: a study into what Porsche customer racing might look like in the nascent electric age. But Stuttgart’s track record for turning electric concepts into road cars is second to none. (Think Mission E and Mission E Cross Turismo, both of which debuted as show cars and are now on sale.) And Porsche is not being…

The Porsche 911 will go electric – in two giant leaps. We unveil Porsche’s plan to save its defining model. First we’ll see the hybrid 911, the 994, then the full-electric 998-gen car before the end of the decade. Porsche’s plan for the 911’s electrification is a bold transformation strategy – with plenty of imponderables. Like which type of battery to use, how to package it, and what shape to choose for minimum drag with maximum 911-ness. This story is a work in progress – progress that began in the last decade. While we tapped a variety of sources to shed light on the means and the end, a lot can change between now and 2028. But the wheels are in motion – as they must be. As Michael Steiner,…

Joining the CAR team for Sports Car Giant Test 2021 is reigning W Series champion and Williams F1 development driver Jamie Chadwick. She’s here because, apart from having the talent to hot-lap each car on the limit and to pass the kind of unflinching judgement only a hard-nosed pro racing driver can, she also has a limitless enthusiasm for driving and appreciates what makes a well-rounded road car as well as an uncompromising track car. Since Jamie last joined CAR, to co-judge our Track Car of the Year 2020 test, she’s returned to defend her title in W Series, the international single-seater championship for female drivers on the F1 support bill. At the time of writing she’s tied for first place in the championship, with two rounds remaining. She’s been…

Do not adjust your page (or iPhone). You’re right: something about this feels awfully familiar. Three years ago, when only polite Japanese on tube trains wore masks, the 2018 Sports Car Giant Test grand finale pitted Porsche’s 911 GT2 RS against the Ferrari 488 Pista. On that occasion the Ferrari prevailed, and this SF90 is 276bhp more powerful than the Pista. It’s got to be a sho0-in, surely. To find out, we’re leaving the track and keeping our shoe in as much as we dare, heading south-west into Snowdonia. Much as we like melting away hours and tyres on track, for our hypothetical money even circuit-focused supercars need to be able to entertain on real roads far below the grip limits you can explore around playgrounds like Anglesey. Neither of…

Driving something that isn’t my S60 has given me a much better appreciation of what my Volvo is, and what’s so good about it. The other car in question was the Polestar 2, the full-electric five-door from what has become a more or less separate company from Volvo. Their designs are not unrelated, and they both have nice cabins, but the driving experience is completely different. The Polestar feels a bit remote and muffled, whereas the S60 offers a much more direct connection between driver and road. My saloon feels alive and engaged with the whole driving process, in a way the Polestar doesn’t. In both cases, the ride quality isn’t great, but you cut the S60 some slack because of its sporting ambitions; there’s a trade-off between comfort and…

How’s your 2021 been? I’ve not taken a flight for nearly two years and my travel patterns have become hyper-local since life slowed to a dawdle. But as restrictions have eased in the second half of the year we’ve at least managed a few trips away and the Cupra had a chance to stretch its legs. On a trip up to Northumbria and the beautiful Bamburgh Castle we found the Formentor’s 420-litre boot a practical shape, managed to stow plenty under the floor in the (space-saver) spare wheel well and poked a long paddle through the ski hatch. The rear seats are accommodating even for six-footers and a quartet of USB-C charge ports means everyone’s digital life is kept topped up even on the longest of journeys. The Cupra is…

You’d expect something costing just an Ayrton short of 50 grand to be fairly comprehensively kiited out This is basically a new version of Audi’s hugely popular mid-sized SUV involving the payment of a little bit more for a little bit less. The little bit more is about £2500 for the lazier tailgate attitude that begets the Sportback moniker, and the little bit less is the resultant loss of some 40 litres of luggage space. As Basil Fawlty once told Sybil: ‘You wouldn’t understand dear; it’s called style.’ Dubious marketing dealt with, I can also reveal that this particular specimen is a first-class example of how to specify a car for a missus short on sleep yet impressively long on the expletives attendant to the hot fidgety fuss of screen…

THE MONTH ACCORDING TO CAR Five years ago, car lovers would have scoffed at the dream of Lotus introducing five all-new cars in five years. But that’s the emphatic statement of intent from Lotus Cars and its parent company Geely Holdings, with key details outlined by managing director Matt Windle in an interview with CAR. Since car number one of the new model offensive – the mid-engined, petrol-powered Emira coupe – was revealed in CAR’s August issue, a wave of transformative developments has broken. There’s a £900m investment in a Lotus Technology R&D campus in Wuhan, China, also including a purpose-built Lotus factory. Lotus Cars has shown its lightweight electric sports car architecture, sharing key technical details. And Peter Horbury, a grandee of car design who transformed Volvo and Ford’s…

Factfile POWERTRAIN 52kWh battery, single e-motor, 250-mile range (est) CHASSIS Steel and aluminium monocoque DUE 2025 1 BACK TO THE FUTURE Renault is looking forward as well as back when it comes to its new-generation EVs. While the VW ID.3-rivalling Megane E-Tech Electric is a thoroughly modern car, the planned 5 EV and the new 4Ever are distinctly retro in their design, aiming to draw in those who fondly remember what the originals looked like. 2 LOFTY GOALS Leaked patent images of the new Renault 4 show a crossover-like shape with a tall rear end, while the ‘face’ that comprises the headlights and grille-like panel has been compared to the Honda E’s. Chunky design cues and similar wheels to the Renault 5’s are expected, too. 3 MAKING IT COUNT Renault’s…

Kimi’s retirement has prompted a cascade of driver moves, including the first change at Mercedes in five years. Valtteri Bottas replaces his fellow Finn in a three-year deal with Alfa Romeo, thereby ending his partnership with Lewis Hamilton. The outlandishly talented George Russell will join the Mercedes team from Williams, replaced by F1 returnee Alex Albon. For the team at least, Bottas’s stint has been productive; since 2017 he’s helped them secure four constructors’ and four drivers’ world championships – though none of the latter went to the Finn. Bottas’s career – or the Mercedes part of it – will go down as being in the right place at the wrong time. Or, more specifically, with the ‘wrong’ team-mate. His qualifying record against Hamilton was nearly as good as that of…

It’s been in Formula E since the sport’s inception, created a Nürburgring lap record-smashing electric hypercar and has been working hard to become China’s answer to Tesla, with considerable success. Now, though, Nio faces a new set of challenges as it enters the European market, where buyers will settle for nothing less than massive battery range, futureproofed tech, clean design and ease of use. Nio has done its homework. ‘Europeans are a picky bunch, but what we’ve learned is that our Chinese customers are also picky,’ Nio’s VP for design, Kris Tomasson, tells CAR. ‘The world is getting smaller, so when we started this company, we wanted to give our brand and its products global appeal.’ Nio has gained the necessary type approval to sell cars across the EU, but…

Ever tried to visit somewhere that has a huge acreage but only one postcode? Do you find using super-accurate coordinates to nail down a precise location far too fiddly? Mapping service What3Words might have the answer. What3Words claims that 70 per cent of addresses don’t take you to the front door, and 74 per cent of 3000 people surveyed across the UK, US and Germany admitted they struggled to find locations because of wonky addresses. So What3Words has cut up the entire planet into 3m2 squares, each of which is given a name consisting of three random words. So the front door of 10 Downing Street is ‘indoor.myself.rather’; the front door of our office is ‘feel.dose.expert’. What3Words says it’s used by businesses that deliver and can help the emergency services…

The GTS shrugs off late ABS-assisted braking, ambitious turn-in speeds and frivolous throttle ‘events’ If you’re in the market for a new 911 it’s a fair assumption you don’t have to watch every penny. Porsche certainly assumes this, with stiff pricing to which most buyers duly add a Sandero or two in options. If there’s a value-for-money 911 it’d be the base car at £85k, and not the new GTS, which carries a £25k premium. Over the Carrera S the GTS surcharge is £15k, and it nets you a power hike to 473bhp, a bespoke GTS chassis tune, upgraded brakes, a sports exhaust and exterior design tweaks including a unique GTS front bumper/splitter and tinted headlights. A GT3 for the people? Let’s find out, first on track. The Franciacorta circuit…

The iX may have a face like a digitised owl and a body like a fractal hippo, but you should prepare yourself to see these things hassling your mirrors very soon. For they also have the unexpectedly deft handling of a slightly over-stimulated ballet dancer, a truth made all the more incongruous by interior decor like an oligarch’s boudoir. Full of faceted crystal, matt wood, curious angles and big quilted chairs, it’s as if BMW has weaponised a luxury hotel room. Which, in a sense, it has. This is BMW’s flagship for its latest electric vehicle technology, comprising not just its fifth generation of batteries and e-motors but a bespoke EV platform for the first time since the i3. The target here is luxury buyers, hence the SUV form-factor and…

Porsche’s engines will keep running for a good few years yet, helped by a Porsche/Siemens project to produce synthetic fuel – which they call eFuel – that isn’t based on fossils and produces negligible CO2. Work has begun on a plant in Chile that by 2030 will produce 550 million litres of eFuel a year. Initially it will be used in the Porsche Supercup race series, and at Porsche Experience Centres. It might be made available to other manufacturers, and even F1, depending on the details of a distribution system yet to be mapped out. Chile is particularly well suited to the creation of eFuel thanks to its strong, consistent winds, which provide a CO2-neutral way of powering the process in which usable hydrogen is extracted from water for conversion…

Aged 25 in 2000, Jamie Shaw was king of the modifying scene. His business, Carisma Automotive, specialised in leather re-trims and created several cover cars. The combination of craftsmanship and creativity fed the scene, but it didn’t last… ‘When they asked me to come here I said, “Nah, I’m not interested.” And then I thought, “What would a Reunion be without my car?” It’s probably responsible for thousands of Renault 5 GT Turbos being butchered or scrapped! ‘It’s the only car I ever kept, and every bit of it is a bit of me. The design was in my head. I’d get styling foam from the boat-building industry, stick the blocks on, cut bits off, sand it, then fibreglass it. ‘Back in the day we’d charge £1500 for a basic…

One of the UK’s most beautiful circuits, Anglesey has it all: high-speed straights, technical direction changes, epic sweepers and camber changes galore. It’s not a track for the faint of heart, so remember to pack bags of commitment and bravery as well as your helmet and driving licence for that trackday. Yes, this place is an absolute trek from almost everywhere in the UK. But your route there can take in some of the world’s best driving roads, and Anglesey’s location on the cliff’s edge high above the Irish Sea means the views are always breathtaking, whatever the weather (and there’s always plenty of weather).…

‘IT’S BEAUTIFUL ON A CLEAR DAY, AND LENDS ITSELF EQUALLY WELL TO CHASING LAP TIMES OR GOING SIDEWAYS ROUND THE WIDE HAIRPINS. I LOVE THE PLACE’SIR CHRIS HOY You’ve seen Anglesey Circuit in all its glory – you can very easily drive it too. There’s nowhere quite like Trac Môn, to give the circuit its native name. Perched upon the cliffs next to the Irish Sea, with the mountain peaks of Snowdonia visible beyond on a clear day, the circuit’s layout is a match for its location: cambered corners, corkscrew plunges and an incredibly smooth surface courtesy of £4.2m of funding back in 2008. Think of it as Great Britain’s Laguna Seca. You can experience Anglesey for yourself in a range of performance driving courses offered by the circuit in…

It’s not a cliched sump guard ’n’ snorkel kind of 4x4, but the Kia Sorento really does have genuine all-road ability. It feels so strong and secure, and has decent ground clearance and suspension travel, so if the road surface turns from tarmac to gravel to grass to mud, the Sorento just takes it all in its amiable, competent stride. It has a choice of drive modes and chassis settings primed for all sorts of surface, but the defaults are fine. The same ‘sure, why not?’ feel applies to its on-road vibe, too. It’s comfortable, so it’s never nagging you to take the direct route home. It has an easy 500-mile range between fills, thanks to a combination of 67-litre tank and reasonable fuel consumption, so you don’t worry about…

Alex Tapley By the time you read this the pritty car will have gone. I’ve spent six months and over 6000 miles with the Alfa Giulia Veloce, and already I know I’ll miss the flair – both visual and dynamic – it’s brought to the increasingly unfashionable saloon segment. In fact, the Veloce is so sporting it’s easy to think of it as an outright sports saloon, not a direct rival to the less overtly sporting four-cylinder German execs. After half a year onboard, I’m slightly puzzled that you don’t see more of them about. We got off on the right foot thanks to an alluring design that makes the Germans look more forced and certainly less beautiful, especially with our car’s Visconti Green paint complemented by yellow brake calipers…

Until now, most of the Kuga’s journeys have been short enough for it to complete them either entirely on battery power, or for the true 30-mile EV range (versus a claimed 36) to make a real difference to the overall mpg. But what happens when that EV range is only a small portion of the journey? On a 370-mile journey from Devon to Cumbria, the battery is toast before Exeter, meaning you’re relying on a 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine, and you’re lugging around a battery and an e-motor, plus four people and luggage. That sounds like a recipe for 30mpg economy, but when I arrived in the Lakes and crunched the numbers, I was pleasantly surprised with the 46mpg average, and how close the car’s trip computer came to predicting it.…

‘The thing about EVs is they’re not light,’ wryly notes Lotus head of vehicle concepts Richard Rackham. But with Lotus’s forthcoming electric sports car architecture, they have to be. Rackham’s team have painstakingly finessed LEVA to get weight out. ‘Biomesh’ computer modelling the rear suspension enables sections to be scooped out to reduce mass, while calculations ensure the material still has sufficient rigidity. It leaves a beautiful aluminium structure with a finish resembling Swiss cheese. The rear electric motors don’t have their own subframe, but are bolted directly onto the cradle. Similarly the modular battery has no enclosure – that’s provided by the vehicle, once the battery tray is slid into place. The die-cast rear structure, made from a special alloy developed with help from Brunel University, is designed to…

Mercedes Concept EQG It was inevitable – even Merc’s G-Class is going electric. This one’s a preview, and is from the school of concept-car thought that reckons every electric car needs to look like it’s fresh from the set of some classic Star Trek. A glowing animated grille, blue touches everywhere and monobloc wheels all feature, as do illuminated beltlines. Merc says it’ll be good off-road but, as our European editor says, the weight of the ladder-framed G might limit range to around 150 miles. NEED TO KNOW What is it? A look at an electric G-Class Tech specs LED lighting EVERYWHERE, electric all-wheel drive Aimed at? Taking the rugged G ethos into the electric age When can I get one? It’s just a concept for now, but a production…

Erstwhile AMG boss Tobias Moers left a big hole when he departed last spring to run Aston Martin, not least because he held two roles: CEO and CTO. Moers’ successors – chief executive Philipp Schiemer and new chief tech officer Jochen Hermann – have plenty on their plate. They need to steer AMG into the electric age without alienating its petrolhead fanbase, keep the finances in the black despite the R&D investment required to make that shift, and finally deliver the awesome but troublesome F1-engined AMG One hypercar to customers without compromise. The 2021 IAA motor show in Munich saw AMG kick off its new era with two new electrified machines: its first purely battery-electric production car, and a mega-powerful plug-in hybrid. The former is the new AMG EQS 53.…

WASN’T BROKE, WASN’T FIXED Thankfully, Ford has resisted the temptation to play around with the chassis and (more or less) the engines. It’s dropped the weedy 1.1 from the basic range, leaving only mild hybrids, and the ST keeps the same firecracker 197bhp turbocharged 1.5-litre triple and optional Quaife diff. Hurrah. WAS BROKE, ISN’T FIXED Unfortunately, Ford has done little to boost interior quality, which has long been a black mark on an otherwise ace little car. The cockpit lags behind the Peugeot 208, Renault Clio and its big UK sales rival, the Vauxhall Corsa, in terms of fit and finish. Functional? Yes. Feelgood? No. WASN’T BROKE, FIXED ANYWAY Only the nose has really changed design-wise, with Ford moving the front end’s shapes around to give it a fatter snout…

This month, three just-launched watches from three very different watch makers which will all appeal to drivers (or bikers), even if only one of them makes overt reference to a car. What makes a watch a driver’s watch? It isn’t a paid-for marketing tie-up and a logo on the dial, but more a design ethos: slimmer than a diver’s watch but equally legible; maybe with a chronograph function; and ideally leather-trimmed, comfortable and mechanical, like cars used to be. Despite their differences, these three all qualify. 01 | Breitling Top Time Shelby Cobra £4360 Launched in ’64, Breitling’s Top Time range spawned some bonkers period designs which are now hugely collectible. The recently reborn line-up now includes three special editions inspired by ’60s US musclecars. This Cobra-logo’d watch is our…

THE WORLD’S BEST WRITERS IN THE NEW CARS THAT MATTER NEW CAR MEETS REAL WORLD Given a good sweeping road, the GV70 slips easily into a steady gallop This morning is both drizzly and misty, but the bright red SUV still manages to stand out. It needs to. The GV70 is the car most likely to do the business for Hyundai as it reintroduces Genesis to the UK, now as a multi-model sub-brand, where previously it was the name of an attempt at a flagship saloon. But in order to do the business, it needs to get itself noticed in this highly competitive part of the market, and to offer something to woo image-obsessed BMW X3, Audi Q5 and Mercedes GLC buyers. A real challenge for a relatively unknown name…

Fortune favours the brave As my very first car was a new Fiat Panda (acquired in 1981, at the same time I became a CAR regular) and I now own a 1972 Fiat 500 and a 500 TwinAir, I was drawn to Gavin Green’s article in the September issue. As always, Gavin was spot-on. I agree the new 500 Electric is an appealing car but not one destined to be a motoring landmark like some of its predecessors. Gavin bemoans the fact that, to date, no car maker has grasped the opportunity offered by electricity to build a boldly styled and brilliantly packaged small car. What about BMW’s brilliant and still futuristic looking i3 from 2013? One more point. Where has GBU gone? Hopefully it’s just taking a break.Paul Eaton…

PORSCHE 911 GT3 Walking the tightrope between track prowess and road usability isn’t easy, but Porsche’s latest GT3 would appear to have both covered. Still with a shrieking naturally-aspirated flat-six and, here, still with a manual gearbox too. Hopelessly outgunned by the turbocharged, battery-boosted hybrid SF90? Price | £123,100 (£137,709 as tested) Powertrain | 3996cc 24v flat-six, six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Performance | 503bhp @ 8400rpm, 347lb ft @ 6100rpm, 3.9sec 0-62mph, 199mph, 22.8mpg, 294g/km CO2 Weight | 1418kg ALFA ROMEO GIULIA GTAm The GTA is the Alfa we didn’t know we needed. Take one Giulia QF, rip out 100kg, fit a titanium exhaust, race-spec splitter and wing, boost power. This GTAm version is a further 40kg lighter, with Sabelt carbonfibre seats and a half-cage replacing the rear bench. One…

Eeek! Fourth gear through Anglesey circuit’s dare-you-quick first corner and the BMW M4’s bootlid makes a sudden bid to overtake its infamous nose. Whoa! Banked hairpin behind us, the rear wheels are still spinning down the straight, revs soaring. Ulp. Over the kerb into the blindentry hilltop left-hander, the M4 slews sideways under power and its fat wheel begins racking itself towards the lock-stops. With the 10-step traction control system turned almost all the way down, M Division’s super-coupe is A Bit of a Handful. Maybe BMW had second thoughts about the grille after sign-off and asked the chassis engineers to ensure that the car only ever comes into view side-on. One important caveat, however: at this moment, Anglesey is wet. On a clear day, this clifftop track perched on…

HELLO MAZDA MX-30, AUDI Q5 SPORTBACK, PEUGEOT 508 SE AND RANGE ROVER VELAR + GOODBYE KIA SORENTO AND ALFA GIULIA Alex Tapley I like Mazda a great deal. I admire and appreciate its unconventional automotive approach. It behaves like a leftfield independent car maker in an industry characterised by same-again unoriginality and bloated inertia. It is the definitive automotive underdog. Over the last 100 years it has resolutely – often stubbornly – forged its own largely successful path. Its first vehicle, the Mazda-Go commercial trike, was launched in 1931. Three decades later it was producing the bewitching Cosmo Sport 110S, the world’s first rotary-engined production model. It single-handedly revived the affordable roadster market with the million-seller MX-5. It was the first Japanese marque to win at Le Mans, and still…

By the bottom of our road on day one I am nonplussed by the Flying Spur. The low-profile tyres mean it doesn’t ride quite as well as the just-departed e-Tron (on wheels with the same 21-inch diameter). And after the serenity of a pure-electric Audi, the V8 rumble and the changing of actual gears – no matter how smooth – makes the Bentley feel unrefined by comparison. Before setting off we have an issue, too. Most cars have obvious access points to their Isofix mounts, via little plastic flaps or zips in the seats. Not so the Flying Spur (because that would rather spoil the aesthetics of the plush rear accommodation – accommodation that most owners are unlikely ever to put small kids in). Instead, you need to part base…

Alex Tapley I’m suspicious that plug-in hybrids are better at reducing tax than CO2 emissions This should be interesting. I remain a big fan of the recently departed 308 GTI hot hatch produced by Peugeot Sport, and I’ve also been impressed by the current 508. My new long-term test car basically rolls the two together – it’s a 508 produced by Peugeot Sport – and adds in a plug-in hybrid electric drivetrain. While I’ve tested EVs and plug-ins previously, I’ve never run one long-term. Peugeot 508 Peugeot Sport Engineered is the official mouthful, and it’s history’s most powerful Peugeot production car with 355bhp and 384lb ft. The chassis gets wider tracks front and rear, and a more focused suspension tune, plus there are 20-inch alloys wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport…