Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i CAR UK

The Audi RS3 Avant has always been a rival to the Merc. But now there's another, the BMW M3 Touring. We get it only in Competition spec (3.0-litre twin-turbo straight-six, 503bhp and 479lb ft, 0-62mph in 3.7sec). There's no rear-wheel-drive version, but BMW's xDrive system can go rear-only. Luggage space is 500 litres with the rear seats up, 1510 with them down. It's priced from £80,550. But perhaps the most persuasive figure is the weight: 1755kg. mak you batt put out, all-w car the wou of a wer…

New Astra GSe VXR is dead. Long live GSe. Every warm Vauxhall will be electrified, starting with this Astra plug-in hybrid. Modest bodykit and radical wheels hide an equally modest 222bhp of grunt. Not spicy, but it’s something. 5/10 Back with a spark Monaro VXR One of the few times the GM parts bin came good. Vauxhall slapped a griffin badge on the V8-powered Holden Monaro in the Noughties, then the VXR team supercharged it. 8/10 A mighty bargain VX220 Turbo Opel/Vauxhall effectively part-funded Lotus Elise Series 2 development by ordering an allocation with its own (much better) look and engine. Turbo model from 2004 was a hoot. 8/10 Better than Lotus Astra GTE 16v Looked futuristic (digital dials!), and its sporting engine (with red flash) revived interest in ’88…

When he wasn’t unlocking the se-crets of the universe, Einstein clearly loved nothing more than to kick back after a long day at the blackboard and knock out a great quote or two, thereby ensuring – were it in any doubt – that his legacy would endure forever. I mean, ‘Adversity introduces a man to himself.’ Great stuff, Albert. If Missoni didn’t already know himself, he certainly would within a year in his first job, at VW… Born to architect parents, the young Maximilian developed an ob-session with boats. ‘I liked everything that was fast, and my parents were architects. Boats were a kind of dy-namic house.’ Missoni began de-vouring boat magazines and, in one, found sketches of the Pininfarina Mythos. ‘They got me thinking…’ A degree in industrial design…

The 300-mile test NEW CAR MEETS REAL WORLD The regular M4 has phenomenal front-end grip but the CSL is something else Aburly swell of torque swooshes the M4 down the road, a big fat steering wheel points its king-size grilles at an apex, the front tyres grip like the road’s made of velcro and the rears smear subtly wide on the exit like butter on toast. So far, so good. And so… M4. Also good – the regular BMW M4 Com-petition is a brilliant driver’s car. But this is no ordinary M4: this is a CSL. Only 1000 will be built, 100 in right-hand drive for the UK, all of which are spoken for. For our first hundred-odd miles cutting across Midlands A- and B-roads, however, it feels an awful…

I’d make a killing as an EV sound composer. If BMW’s eDrive aural accompaniment, curated by Hollywood legend Hans Zim-mer, is anything to go by then given half an hour with a synth I could whip up a set of equally worthwhile sounds. The latest car to host these ‘IconicSounds’ – ugh – is the iX1. Like its iX3 big brother, it’s designed to look and feel almost identical to the combustion-powered and plug-in hy-brid versions it shares a production line with. Although those petrol versions don’t get the iX1’s hums and whooshes soundtrack an ’80s arcade machine could only dream of. Like the iX1, the latest X1 is actually quite decent to look at. Ditto the interior: not blow-your-wig-off fantastic, but a nicely judged combination of materials, thought-fully laid-out…

Every one of the aero fins and flicks has a purpose; none of it’s for show When CAR first drove the current 911 GT3 in prototype form in 2020 with Porsche’s director of GT cars, Andreas Preuninger, he described how his team is challenged to find ways of ‘upping the ante’ with each new GT3. Consequently every new iteration of the regular-series 911 GT3 becomes a bit more RS-ish. Couldn’t help but wonder: how on earth will they up the ante when it comes to the RS version? After all, the regular – if that’s the right word – GT3 is about as sharp as cars come. And Preuninger and his team don’t wish to achieve more speed simply by piling on more horsepower. That’s not what the GT3 is…

Maserati is rolling out a high-profile motorsport return to support its latest reinvention – Formula E to tell the electrification story, MC20 GT2 racing to say internal combustion isn’t dead – so it’s ironic that Maserati quitting motorsport in 1957 was the catalyst that allowed its road cars to flourish. Today, at Autodromo di Modena where Maserati racecars once roared, we’re celebrating key road-car milestones in a yarn that dovetails with CAR’s own six decades – innovations, turning points, changes of ownership, it’s all bound up in the seven cars that make other Italian brands look either one-dimensional or more coherent. A combination of events triggered Maserati’s motorsport exit only months after Fangio had clinched the 1957 Formula 1 title – anew Argentine government reneging on a machine-tools contract; revised…

The story so far… In 1931 Toyo Kogyo Co comes up with a cargo trike and names it the Mazda-go. The name sticks. Fascination with rotary engines begins in the ’60s and is ongoing. MX-5 becomes the world’s favourite roadster in 1989. Today, Mazda’s a wilfully different brand with its own ideas about engines, styling and product mix. Explain the ranking… Not always relevant but always different, and interesting. Mazda in three words… Near the mainstream. Best car… The rotary-engined 787B won Le Mans as an underdog in 1991. One of the all-time great Le Mans stories, although driver Volker Weidler’s hearing was so badly damaged by the shrieking engine note it ended his career. Darkest hour… Mazda’s Hiroshima factory survived the 1945 atomic bombblastasitwasshieldedbyamountain;ittemporarily housed the Hiroshima prefectural government.…

RIVALS SHOULD FEAR THE SCALE AND SPEED OF HYUNDAI’S ROLL-OUT. IT PLANS 17 NEW ELECTRIC VEHICLES BEFORE 2030 If even Elon Musk is prepared to acknowledge your success as an electric vehicle maker, you must be doing something very right. ‘Hyundai is doing pretty well,’ Musk tweeted in June, in response to a chart showing that the Korean group’s share of the US EV market was nine per cent in the first half of this year. That’s somewhat shy of Tesla’s 76 per cent, but twice that of VW or Ford, and 50 per cent more than all its remaining competitors put together. Globally Hyundai (with Kia) was the world’s third largest EV maker in the first half of 2022 after Tesla and China’s BYD. Its lead over VW around…

1 The first Jaguar Jaguar’s roots lie in the Swallow Sidecar company launched by William Lyons in Blackpool in 1922 – but the first car to bear the name was the 1935 SS Jaguar 2.5 Saloon. The template for flowing design and sporting intent was set, though the SS name didn’t work after the Second World War. ‘Jaguar’ became the main brand in 1945. 2 The graceful one We could have picked the C-Type that won at Le Mans in 1953, but the D-Type steamrollered the competition in 1955-’57. For that track domination it’s our pick of the brand’s ’50s racers. Penned by Malcolm Sayer, the D-Type innovated on the grid, broke new technical ground and looked sensational. Racing pedigrees come no finer… 3 The beautiful one The first car…

Once the fun of biffing about in a van with windows wears off – and, trust me, it will – you begin to consider what a similarly priced car gives you that a van with windows does not. For that money, any alterna-tive will inevitably be smaller. But just how much space do you need? Especially since every ef-fort to take anything in your shed that has failed the six-month test to the local tip will be rebuffed by your failure to have ‘booked a slot’. Make an appointment to offload an old mattress? No wonder the hedgerows are full of crap… Moreover, we haven’t used the overhead parcel shelf at all. However, given the relentless inhalation of food that most families on the move seem to major in these…

Cupra Leon VZ2 2.0 TSI Month 10 The story so far Cupra’s 296bhp version of the VW Golf GTI + The fast and comfy Cupra seems to do it all… - …but is it a bit too polite? Logbook Price £36,130 (£37,195 as tested) Performance 1984cc turbocharged four-cylinder, 296bhp, 5.7sec 0-62mph, 155mph Efficiency 35.8- 37.2mpg (official), 32.3mpg (tested), 171g/km CO2 Energy cost 27.1p per mile Miles this month 727 Total miles 6169 I hear it before I see it; my new Cupra Born arrives with an otherworldly whir, creeping up on me and the departing Leon. Today we photograph them to-gether before the Leon goes for good, and I’m more bothered about this moment than I was expecting. Over the last few months, I’ve come to admire the Cupra Leon…

My Octopus Go contract (including four hours of EV home charging at 5p a kilo-watt-hour) has ended, with my rate now 28p per kWh. So pumping 60kWh into the iX will jump from £6.20 to £16.80, for circa 185 miles. Good value compared to fossil fuels, but it will soon rise again. And charging on the go? We loaded the spacious iX and cruised to see the West Country inlaws. The sports seats have a design flaw for smaller people: my wife’s head rests on an uncomfortable plastic-clad hole. But we all benefitted from the glass roof’s £3500 electrochro-mic shade: it transforms from clear to opaque when you trigger an electric current to reconfigure its liquid crystal particles to block light. Out west, the iX needed a top-up: BP Pulse…

The 718 Cayman is not an old car. Doesn’t look like one; doesn’t feel like one. But it does sound like an old car – entirely diffe-rent from today’s turbo-charged, electrified norm. There is little torque, but there is near-instan-taneous response, outra-geous power, an appar-ently endless supply of revs and the most sensual racket. So rapidly does the GT4 cover ground shift-ing at 6000rpm that not going for an instinctive upshift takes effort. ‘Stick with me,’ the flat-six seems to shriek, ‘and I’ll make it worth your while.’ Other good ways in which the GT4 feels old? There’s no lane-keep as-sist, so you don’t have to turn it off every time you drive it, and the cruise control isn’t adaptive, so it doesn’t drive you mad slowing for no reason.…

11 No. The CAR Hall of Fame immortalises the people, the ideas and the cars that changed – or are changing – the game. Submit your nominees to ben.miller@bauermedia.co.uk He did great work before, and great work after, but to get an understanding of Giorgetto Giugiaro’s genius you just need to look at the period from 1973 to 1983. His work in that magical decade included the VW Golf, Scirocco and Passat, the Hyundai Pony, the Lotus Esprit, BMW M1, Fiat Panda and Uno, the DeLorean and the Lancia Delta. That’s not a comprehensive list of cars he designed in those years – it’s just some of the most interesting produc-tion cars. There were also concept cars and variants on existing models. No wonder Giugiaro’s is a name that keeps…

CARS I PEOPLE I SCOOPS I MOTORSPORT I ANALYSIS – THE MONTH ACCORDING TO CAR IT’S HEAVY, BUT FRONT- REAR WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION IS BETTER THAN BEFORE The story of the new Mercedes-AMG C63 is the story of three badges. On the nose, above the big Mercedes star on the grille, is an AMG badge. This is the first time the Mercedes badge has been knocked off the bonnet of a car from the tuning division at Affa-lterbach. The message is clear: this car makes a statement about AMG and its future within the Mercedes empire. On the side, replacing the previous C63’s V8 badge, is Turbo E Perfor-mance. E Performance is AMG-speak for fast hybrid. AMG is not embarrassed about dropping the V8 from the hot C-Class; instead, it’s proudly…

Three key memories from our half-hour passenger ride in the C63 S E Performance. One, starting off in Comfort mode, which at modest speeds uses electric power only, with the option of strange spaceship noises piped into the cabin. An AMG! But it makes the point that as well as being an AMG, this is a C-Class, with proper rear seats and a boot – albeit one diminished by the big battery and inverter. The suspension feels able to cope with bumps in a way you don’t expect from AMGs. That said, we’re at the Immendingen test track, which is mostly very smoothly surfaced, and clearly Mercedes wants to portray the car in its best light. Two, the development driver who is taking me around Immendingen has just strung a…

This is the time of the budget retailer. Discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are gaining market share; Zara and H&M rule high street fashion. Will the cost of living crisis do the same for Renault’s value brand, Dacia? ‘Yes,’ shoots back Dacia’s CEO, Denis Le Vot. Naturally he targets the price-sensitive: ‘If you are looking for the lowest-priced cars, you will find a Dacia.’ Certainly, £12,595 for a Sandero supermini looks good value when Ford’s cheapest Fiesta is £18,655. But there’s an emotional strand too. Dacia’s outdoors image has a rugged charm; the Duster is the Skoda Yeti of 2022. ‘Look at the [European] figures. Dacia plus six, market minus 12.’ In mainland Europe, Dacia is the third biggest brand for retail sales. There’s another trend that might attract eco-conscious…

Alpine has turned up the wick on its A110 to create a track-focused R positioned above the S. There’s no extra power, weight saving is mini-mal and pricing shoots up to circa £80k, but Alpine programme direc-tor Xavier Sommer outlines how the detail changes stack up… THE BRIEF ‘The A110 R is tuned to be incredible on track, but usable on the road – the S is incredible on road and usable on track. It’s not a limited series but all will be numbered [an Alonso edition limited to 32 units is still in the plan].’ THE CHASSIS ‘Wheels and tyres are the same size as the S but we have carbonfibre wheels that save 3kg each and are more open at the front for 20 per cent better brake…

Tells us about your first car? ‘It was a VW Lupo. A very safe bet; low risk.’ Which achievement makes you most proud? ‘I always dreamt of doing a show car once in my career. When I joined VW we had this massive competition. Every designer contributed because the brief was for a mid-engined roadster, which obviously had everybody drooling. They picked my sketches.’ Tell us about a time you screwed up… ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but I put chrome tape on that Lupo. In my defence I was only 24. And it was only on the grille – it wasn’t on the side or around the windows. That would have been terribly cheesy…’ What’s the best thing you’ve ever done in a car? ‘Riding in the Bugatti Veyron…

Electric cars might be all the rage, but have you ever stopped to consider how expensive they are? How compli-cated? Frequently tall, lumbering and heavy? EV engineer-ing doesn’t always feel like progress to purists. If any manufacturer could challenge the status quo, it would be Citroën. And here is the Oli, a big brother to the pared-back Ami – alarger, more car-like EV designed to keep the quadricycle’s spirit alive in a package better equipped for daily duty. There’s no production intent; it’s rather a ‘laboratory of ideas’ according to design chief Pierre Leclercq, who admits some of the details will be seen on next year’s new C3. The Oli’s purpose is to reverse the excess of electric cars: to make them lighter, simpler and more affordable. Get past the…

You really don’t think you’re going to like a seven-seat electric crossover very much. But behold the oddly impressive 536bhp Mercedes EQS580 4Matic. It’s good at a great many things. You’re in Range Rover territory, in that when the electric Rangie arrives it will have to be better than this surprisingly good-to-drive Benz. Its 215kg weight penalty over the EQS saloon helps give it the same five-star ride comfort – and, despite being taller than the saloon, there are no trade-offs like ex-cessive roll, yaw or pitch. There’s improved headroom front and rear, and the rear seats are higher, giving passengers a better view. Asked nicely, the 580 will howl in 4.6sec from 0-62mph and on to a top speed of 131mph – that’s only half a second less brisk…

60 glorious years In the April 2012 issue you published a letter from me saying that I’d been buying CAR for 50 years. The first one was from a bookstall on Clapham Junction station, and I bought every copy since. And now, 10 years later, I still con-tinue to read each edition of CAR. My first car was a Mini, followed by a series of Renaults, VW Golfs, Audis, then Land Rover Freelanders for towing boats. I don’t tow boats any more, but I need the extra height and drive a Land Rover Discovery Sport hybrid, my 18th car in 57 years. My best car ever was a cosmic green three-door Mk4 Golf V5 auto. A Golf Mk5 should have been better on every objective count, but sadly it just…

The story so far… Starting in 1909, Ettore Bugatti builds GP racers and luxurious touring cars in Molsheim, France. After he dies in 1947, the company grinds to a halt. In 1987 Romano Artioli fires up a new Bugatti, but it doesn’t last. In 1998 VW takes over and attempts to deliver CEO Ferdinand Piëch’s dream of an 18-cylinder luxury supercar. Several concepts later, the Veyron arrives, with 16 cylinders, then the Chiron. And in 2021 Rimac takes a controlling stake. Explain the ranking… So much effort expended in search of unusable performance – 300mph in a Chiron! – at exorbitant cost. Bugatti in three words... Money no object. Best car... The Type 35 from a century ago. Technically innovative, it wins more than 2000 races between 1924 and 1930.…

THE GREAT STRETCH RUNS BIG SUR TO RAGGED POINT – 50 MILES TO VALIDATE THE IDEA THAT, REALLY, THE SPORTS CAR IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL M ONTEREY, CALIFORNIA With multi-million-dollar auctions and six-figure impulse buys, Monterey in August is automotive bacchanalia. And after the excess, the hangover. Early on the morning after the Car Week before, mist shrouds the peninsula. The place feels more Clydebank than California, and the thin, impotent hotel coffee is not working. Then a $50,000 Nissan wins valet parking and suddenly I’m awake. Outside the hotel, owners have tipped heavily to leave their rides in pride of place. A wrapped 720S sits between an unsilenced Aventador and a two-door G Landaulet, and yet the whole place turns to watch a candy red Japanese two-seater…

Change the game In 2000, once-ridiculed Skoda was less than a decade into VW partnership and only just reaching reputation take-off. The Mk1 Octavia vRS switched the afterburners on. Here was an entertaining, capable and practical three-box hot hatch, beloved of dads and motorway cops alike. More Golf GTI for your money Much of the Octavia vRS’s genetic code came from the VW Golf GTI. It shared its 1.8-litre four-cylinder turbo engine and many of the same underpinnings but the Octavia was vastly more practical, cheaper and blessed with class-above luggage space. You’ve spelled ‘RS’ wrong… If you’re wondering what the ‘v’ in vRS is all about, and why it’s in lower-case, it’s a nod to the accent above the ‘Š’ in Škoda when written in Czech – pronounced Shkoda…

Likeall the best stories, there’s more than one version and no one can quite agree which one’s true. The most popular version of how the Lamborghini Countach got its name is that a technician saw the original show car for the first time in all its impossibly low, impossibly wide origami glory as it was being hurriedly prepped for its debut at the ’71 Geneva show and blurted countach! It’s an exclamation in the local Piedmontese dialect for which there’s no direct translation in English. The Lamborghini Cor Blimey wouldn’t really have the same ring to it. True or not, the new supercar codenamed LP500 didn’t yet have a name, and this one stuck. And it is a great name. Countach! And now the name is back on the Aventador-based…

It’s big on beauty Car museums are patchy at best, not least because, as machines, cars must be run to be understood. But Alfa’s Museo Storico is different, and a powerful reminder of the marque’s almost peerless back catalogue. There are the pre-war racers in their brutal physicality, the delicate ’52 Disco Volante and ’54 2000 Sportiva, the Montreal, the ultra-wedge Carabo… Alfa, you realise, must go on. Saloon kings The original Giulia was created as family transport but, when modified with Alfa’s racing DNA, it became a weapon on track. The reboot, still on sale, is every bit as special. Hurried into production, it’s both stellar to drive and disarmingly pretty. Sporting DNA Alfa won the first world championship for Grand Prix cars (1925) and the first F1 title…

We like to think that these long-term tests influence your buying decisions, but seldom has the evidence been so clear. I’ve loaned my cars to friend, stand-up comedian and car guy Stephen Grant in the past to get a second (and hopefully funni-er) opinion on them, but this time there was a more serious purpose. His BMW 2-series plug-in hybrid (I know, he did it without consulting me) was coming to the end of its lease and he really wanted an EV6. A few days driving mine convinced him to order one, despite the fact that he’d wasted five minutes look-ing for the rear wash-wipe but-ton (there isn’t one), and longer contemplating how to fashion some sort of artificial hand to fool the very competent steer-ing-assist function into think-ing there…

It’s difficult to resist breaking into a grin every time I start the Mustang’s 5.0-litre V8 but it’s becoming harder to shake off a nagging twinge of guilt. When I took part in a trackday recently – not in the Mustang, but using new company Hype Motorsport’s fleet of Alpines, BMWs and Porsches – Ilearned they’d worked with a company called Climate Positive for a certification to offset their track days’ emissions. I was convinced enough by the com-pany’s approach to do the same for the Mustang, paying a small annual fee based on an estimated aggregate of a car’s typical emissions, which goes to-wards projects such as solar centres in Malawi and wind power in India. I know deep down it’s not going to unmelt any ice caps or…

LOW-KEY VISUALS The regular MG4’s a striking looker, a generic shape jazzed up by some insectoid detailing. With the high-performance model, MG product and planning head David Allison tells CAR, there will be ‘some subtle exterior enhancements’ such as 18-inch wheels, as well as an alcantara-trimmed interior rather than the current plastic. SIMPLE INSIDE MG’s scalable EV platform – its equivalent to VW’s versatile MEB underpinnings – provides the freedom to play around with drivetrain layouts, suspension set-ups, motor placement and body style. The ‘skateboard’ battery pack is just 110mm thick, contributing to the low centre of gravity and an uncluttered interior. SERIOUS POWER The high-performance MG4 will utilise a motor on each axle for a combined 443bhp – more than double the current model’s power output. Expect 0-62mph in…

THE HYBRID HEATHEN Yes, yes – blah, blah, blah big nose etc. We knew it was coming after the concept, and the production-spec XM is as excessive as promised. It’s M division’s first bespoke car since the M1 and comes with M’s first hybrid powertrain, too. The interior’s what would result if there was an explosion at a fabric warehouse. NEED TO KNOW What is it? BMW’s ugly, heavy and complicated M division flagship Tech specs 644bhp M Hybrid powertrain, coil (not air) springs with 48-volt anti-roll tech Aimed at? Being the ultimate troll on social media When can I get one? Order it now, from £144,980 in the UK THE CYBERPUNK DRIFTER Renault’s got its hype machine on overdrive, even letting the designers craft some sort of retro-futuristic Ken…

The new all-electric Hummer introduces a raft of big numbers, extreme statistics and clever new technology not even thought possible not too long ago. But, as the ex-treme (and extremely heavy) new 4x4 rolls off the production line and into the hands of customers in North America, it also debuts a new kind of all-wheel-steering functional-ity called Crab Walk mode, and the name kind of gives away what the technology is designed to do. It’s available on Hummer EV pick-ups and SUVs from the 2X trim and above, with prices starting from $94,650 (around £82,500 converted). We’ve tried the tech on a Hummer EV First Edition at GM’s Milford Proving Ground. As well as what’s considered conventional rear-wheel steering – in this case allowing the rear wheels to steer up…

For two years in a row, the GLC has been the top-selling Benz worldwide. If Mercedes was pondering going full electric with the new version, it managed to resist that temp-tation, instead contenting itself with losing the six- and eight-cylinder options of the previous line-up, and heading in only a marginally more electrified direction. No surprises there; why mess with suc-cess? But, away from the conservative ap-proach to powertrains, there are some wel-come surprises in terms of significantly improved ride, handling and refinement. The new GLC is 60mm longer than the 2.6-million-selling predecessor, with a big-ger boot, stiffer body and the latest genera-tion of the MBUX infotainment set-up. The engine line-up involves petrol and diesel mild and plug-in hybrids. There are pros and cons to all variants, but a good…

No matter what the promotional material might say, most Range Rovers never leave tarmac. Plenty of them never leave the con-fines of the M25. The plug-in Range Rover is for those owners who, in theory, would be perfectly served by a low-range electric car but find themselves unable to give up a diet of strict hedonism. It’s a new powertrain with both a larger battery pack (38.2kWh) and a larger engine (a 3.0-litre inline-six) than the sys-tem fitted to this car’s predecessor. It’s available in either the halo P510e form tested here or a P440e. The numbers look good – 70 miles of WLTP range on a full charge works out to around 50 real miles, though it’s the 20g/km of CO2 emissions that’ll really get the accountant’s ears prick-ing…

PART TWO 60 YEARS, ONE LIST CAR turns 60 this year, and to celebrate we’ve ranked our 60 favourite car makers. From bold EV start-ups to legacy giants adjusting to the new world order, the brands that excite, intrigue and inspire us most are all here. Our power list runs over three issues, starting this month. The countdown concludes in the December issue, on sale 9 November, when we will reveal the final 15. DEFINING ‘GREATEST’ We’re looking for an elusive mix of qualities. Consistent brilliance – because we’re judging brands, not single models. Innovation – the game changers. Cultural significance – a brand’s reach beyond units shifted. Motorsport success – not on the agenda for some. Current health and future prospects – because car makers aren’t just casting magic…

Thesilence out here is overwhelming. No background noise, no human activity. Just the faint sploshing of water lapping at glacier silently standing sentinel in front of us. Then a faint rumbling; indistinct crackles and groans from within the ice. We watch and wait, rapt, the boat’s sides, and the hulking and then it happens: huge chunks of the glacier’s leading edge crumble and collapse into the water. We’re at one of the many edges of Svalbard, the archipelago in the Arctic Ocean closer to the North Pole than Land’s End is to John o’Groats. On the other side of this body of water, where the sea cuts deepest into Svalbard’s largest land mass, is the world’s northernmost town, Longyearbyen. At its dock, the quickest ever Kia production car is being…

NEED TO KNOW I The story so far Founded in 1913, but takes off from 1946 under tractor magnate David Brown. DB sports cars become legendary, helped by Bond. Now owned by a Lawrence Stroll-led consortium, plus Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund and Mercedes I Explain the ranking A century of changing fortunes, but some great cars I Aston in three words Elegant, muscular, British I Best car DB5 cemented the legend; DB7 restored it; DB9 continued it I Darkest hour 2018’s stock flotation didn’t go well I The future looks Tough. Stroll and his new management have a lot on their plates…

The story so far… Engineer Henry Royce makes his first car in 1904 and teams up with car dealer Charles Rolls. Early Silver Ghosts and Phantoms set the template, although it’s not until 1949’s Silver Dawn that the factory makes its own bodies. After voluntary liquidation and a couple of changes of ownership, BMW gets Rolls-Royce and builds a factory at Goodwood, which makes its first car in 2003. Explain the ranking… Rolls-Royce’s great strength is also its weakness: entirely focused on big, luxurious cars for the wealthy. Rolls-Royce in three words... Aiming for perfection. Best car... Most important is the first Goodwood Phantom. It would have been so easy to get it wrong, but BMW struck just the right balance between past, present and future. That said, best to…

The 1 00 of 1982 was the first modern Audi. Before that sleek big saloon, VW’s premium brand produced tinselled Volkswagens. After the 100, it made Vorsprung Audis. Of course, it took another decade, and more, before Audi reached the sunny uplands of profitable premium-priced prestige enjoyed by Mercedes and BMW. The 100 of 1982 (or the C3 to Audi nerds) began the long trek: it was the first Audi that was as good as – or better than – its German rivals. It looked Vorsprung sleek, pioneering a smooth, fuss-free design language whose continuity and appeal has served Audi well to this day. The 1982 100 was the technical brainchild of Ferdinand Piëch, who joined Audi in 1972 and guided it from a VW orphan brand to a premium…

HELLO DACIA JOGGER & CUPRA BORN + GOODBYE CUPRA LEON & VW CADDY LIFE + OFF-ROADING IN A WRANGLER Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Month 6 The story so far Our Wrangler shines in its natural habitat as we get some off-road training + Learning just how much punishment the Wrangler can shrug off - Learning how complicated the four-wheel-drive system really is Logbook Price £53,800 (£55,800 as tested) Performance 1995cc turbocharged four-cylinder, 268bhp, 7.3sec 0-62mph, 99mph Efficiency 24.4mpg (official), 22.2mpg (tested), 260g/km CO2 Energy cost 38.7p per mile Miles this month 532 Total miles 8220 My Wrangler’s put up with long motorway runs and town driv-ing for long enough. Now, it’s time to bring it to a challenging off-road course so I can get some in-depth training. Among the many services…

After driving 250 miles to north Wales, my main takeaways from the first long journey in the Defender were that there was a surprising amount of wind noise at motorway speeds, and that there were an aston-ishing number of bugs splat-tered on the windscreen. Per-haps something to do with the massive wing mirrors and up-right design, respectively? Over the next couple of days it didn’t get much attention, largely because we were in Wales testing a bunch of sports cars, but it was perfect for mov-ing people from location to lo-cation, and for fetching takea-way curry. We could use it with confidence on just about any terrain in Snowdonia, and when trying to keep up with a Porsche RS its van-high sight lines were rather useful. The real revelation came…

RS3 reviews mention underwhelming interior quality at some point, and with our First Edition weighing in at £60k there’s quite the expectation. Glass half empty, there are hard plas-tics used even on the upper reaches of the door casings, and we reach the epi-centre of disappointment in the centre console, with a plasticky surround for the horrible little shift-by-wire gear controller (give me a gearstick I can knock to manual mode any day) and the iPod-like volume control that makes the multi-function steering wheel essential. Glass half full? The crisp dash archi-tecture, the flashy tech, the squishy dash top and the sports seats – with their stitched honeycomb centres, top-notch leather and the way they hold you so comfortably in place – are all fabulous. Yes, the RS3 could be…

I love this car already. Now you’re going to think I have a kind of blanket love for all es-tate cars, given I also said I loved our VW Arteon Shooting Brake last month. But the Jogger and the Arteon are very different cars, and I love this cheap and cheerful Dacia for completely different reasons. So pipe down and let me explain. The Jogger is Dacia’s new boxy estate with seven seats. There’s only one powertrain on offer, a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine with a six-speed manual and front-wheel drive. There are three trim levels: the Essential model, starting at a mind-boggling £16,645; the Ex-pression, which gets you an eight-inch screen and automat-ic air-con; and then ours, the Extreme SE. I have to say, that’s a slightly extreme name…

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