Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i CAR UK

Nova SR/Corsa GT (A generation) As well as air ducts inspired by Star Wars, and Manta GSe details in the augmented-reality tech, Adams has taken inspiration from the three-spoke wheels of the spicy Vauxhall Nova SR/Opel Corsa GT from the ’80s for the Experimental’s dramatic-looking active-aero wheels. Corsa (F generation) The car that kicked off Vauxhall’s rebirth under post-GM ownership. The car was already halfway through devel-opment under GM, then PSA bought the brand six years ago – prompting a complete platform and powertrain rewrite. It quickly became a bestseller. GTX Experimental The five-door electric SUV concept set out Vauxhall’s design direction from 2018. It heavily previewed what is now the current Mokka, and planted the seed for Vauxhall’s current design renaissance after years of bland, forgettable looks.…

FIRST CAR VOLVO C40 ‘I’ve been at Volvo for six and a half years now. I had only just star ted at Volvo and got straight into this not long after joining. It was a great project to work on.’ MOST IMPORTANT CAR VOLVO EX30 ‘The idea was to make it like an espresso shot – all the good things from our larger SUVs in a smaller package. The biggest challenge? Finding the right roof height.’ FAVOURITE DESIGN DETAIL EX30’S FRONT OVERHANGS ‘It’s been really impor tant to keep the brand identit y with the “Thor’s hammer” headlight designs. It feels like much more of a premium product.’…

Dacia customers are not all about the fiv-estar VIP luxury experience. So it makes sense that if it’s going to be offering accesso-ries, the brand should tap into their enthusi-asm for enjoying the great outdoors on a modest budget. The Sleep Pack is exclusive to the Jogger, and is part of a set of InNature accessories. Order the Sleep Pack when you’re buying your new Jogger and it’s £1325; as an addition later it will cost you £1566. When folded away, the Sleep Pack is a well-finished wooden box, weighing about 50kg, that is anchored into the boot space of the Jogger, replacing the third row of seats and taking up most of the car’s luggage-car-rying ability (although Dacia also has a very neat roof box in its accessories list).…

Reaganomics. Monsters Inc. The MRI scanner. Southwest Airlines. These seemingly unconnected things all have one detail in common: they were conceived on a napkin. And so was the plan for the Bentley Continental GT – the super-coupe that transformed a stuffy British marque circling the drain in the late ’90s into the luxury-car power-house it is today. ‘It was legendary!’ smiles Adrian Hallmark, Bentley’s CEO, as we get talking in his office – a third-floor, modestly-sized work space in a building so new you can still smell the paint, located the other side of the road from Bentley’s factory in Crewe. The view out of his window is essentially a construction site. Many would bristle at the constant noise and less-than-lovely view, but not Hallmark – for him, it shows…

1. Fully charged Preparation prevents poor performance. My trusty Indra wallbox hoiks our operating range up to just north of 240 miles overnight, and for a pittance. 2. Your turn Two mates who are mostly happy to sit back and let me do the driving both take their turn. Simon drives a 17-year-old diesel Jaguar with a manual gearbox and isn’t convinced the Audi’s superior. A valid view, of course. But not much of one. 3. A Costa and a charge From Stamford, Lincolnshire, we’re west to Ashbourne to pick up the third man before forging north through the Peaks and around Manchester. Weather’s abysmal, the Audi imperious. We do the maths. Getting home tomorrow without a stop means pumping in a 100-mile top-up now. An Ionity at Darwen services…

BMW i7 xDrive 60 M Sport Month 2 The story so far The i7 marks a decade’s EV progress at BMW + Long range; comfort: amazing techfest interior - This is a BIG car – it pokes out of most parking bays Logbook Price £111,900 (£125,705 as tested) Performance 102kWh battery, twin e-motors, 537bhp, 4.7sec 0-62mph, 149mph Efficiency 3.2-3.4 miles per kWh (official), 2.7 miles per kWh (tested), 0g/km CO2 Range 387 miles (official), 350 miles (tested) Energy cost 9.8p per mile Miles this month 1278 Total miles 3048 Cast your mind back a decade. Britain was basking in a post-Olympic glow, Brexit was a mere twinkle in Nigel Farage’s eye and BMW was busy rolling out the first fruits of Project i. CAR watched developments of the proposed Megacity…

The real value of these long-term reports is the detail of living with a car. Here goes. Let’s start at the front. The frunk is useful for carrying stuff you don’t want in the cabin, such as the remains of a whole leg of Iberian ham, complete with hoof. It does get warm so shouldn’t remain there for long. But why do I still have to release it like a bonnet with a double pull on a lever in the footwell when I’m opening it way more often than the boot, which opens with a plip of the key? And why is the charging port in the front wing? This might suit some perfectly, but given that most chargers require you to park perpendicular rather than parallel, you’re generally left…

GIANT TEST WINNER 1 PORSCHE 911 THE GOOD: Style, like 911s, never goes out of fashion THE BAD: The base Carrera now costs more than £97k – yet that’s not enough to stop it being a clear class winner; road noise now up to 11 THE UGLY: To some, it’s now more comfy GT than sports car; canny options list pushes you to spend like a lottery winner THE ONE TO BUY: Carrera S with the PDK gearbox for £110k on the nose; the Sport Chrono package is bundled in, but you’ll still pay for the Porsche badges on the wheels to be coloured in GIANT TEST WINNER 2 ARIEL ATOM THE GOOD: A beautiful object as well as a thrilling drive; think of it as a modernised Lotus Seven…

GIANT TEST WINNER 1 LAND ROVER DEFENDER THE GOOD: All-new reboot brings untold dynamic improvements on road and off it THE BAD: Second-row access is a pain in the 90; expensive; 130 in particular is very big, so parking can be tricky THE UGLY: Alternatives to white steel wheels are offered. Why? THE ONE TO BUY: Range spans 90, 110 and 130 bodies, with significantly different dimensions but remarkably similar character and the genuine off-road ability that Land Rover always delivers so convincingly. Heart says petrol V8 90, head/wallet say diesel-six D250 110 GIANT TEST WINNER 2 PORSCHE MACAN THE GOOD: Handles better than any other SUV. And some hot hatches THE BAD: Hardly an original choice – but then there’s good reason for that THE UGLY: People might think…

IN THE SPOTLIGHT Have we seen a better turnaround in the car industry than Opel/ Vauxhall’s? Constantly losing money and making very average cars under GM Europe, it’s flourished since it was bought by PSA (and then brought into the Stellantis fold). It now makes a profit, for which some of the credit must go to design head Mark Adams and his team, who have come up with a series of impactful, modern and forward-thinking cars. The latest manifestation of that approach is this new concept car: the Experimental. It’s Vauxhall’s vision for the mid-to long-term future, reflecting both the company’s position of strength within Stellantis and its confidence in its design direction. The hardest part is over, according to Adams, who likens having to think again about the part-developed…

WHEN IT’S RIGHT Being part of the Renault family means there’s not huge pressure on Dacia to go electric, as the many EVs offered by other brands in the group keep the company-wide emissions average down. According to Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot: ‘It means we can wait for the right moment, which is with the next Sandero.’ BABY STEPS Le Vot says most makers are ‘putting out their top solutions’ with their EVs, meaning they’re prohibitively expensive to Dacia’s core audience. ‘We have a social role here – our job is accessible mobility – and that’s why we started with the Spring.’ Dacia has confirmed the cheap, simple Spring will be coming to the UK in 2024. FACTFILE POWERTRAIN 40kWh battery (est), single 134bhp e-motor (est), front-wheel drive CHASSIS…

THE PAST PILFERER The Triumph TR25 created by London design house Makkina ticks all the concept-car boxes. Daft doors? Suitable anniversary? Modern propulsion? Based on a semblance of reality? Yes, yes, yes and yes: scissor doors; 100 years since Triumph built its first car and 70 since it broke the 2.0-litre speed record; EV gear from a BMW i3 S. NEED TO KNOW What is it? Electric nod to the Triumph TR2 record car I Tech specs BMW i3 S platform, minimalist cockpit, passengers unwelcome I Aimed at? Rose-tinted-spectacle wearers I When can I get one? Probably never – although BMW does own the rights to Triumph, so there’s an outside chance THE CAN-AM REBOOT Steve Nichols, the highly regarded ex-McLaren engineer who helped pioneer composites in Formula 1, still…

One of the world’s best car design-ers, Peter Horbury, died on 29 June, aged 73. The talented, pragmatic and amiable Brit enjoyed a career spanning almost 50 years, starting with the Chrysler Horizon (1979 European Car of the Year), followed by two stints at Ford, three at Volvo (including two as design boss), then head of design for the Geely Group and finally Group Lotus. The breadth of his design output, in terms of body style, price point and global reach – including bikes, buses and vans while at the MGA design studio – was extraordinary, and his enthusiasm for the industry and longevity within it remarkable. He continued to work as executive VP of design at Group Lotus right up until his death in China, as a crucial communication…

The 300-mile test NEW CAR MEETS REAL WORLD It’s no reflection on the perfectly decent sat-nav in the Spectre that it takes me a while to find the road I’m looking for. I could get lost on a merry-go-round. Today I’m getting lost in the first production electric Rolls-Royce. All the nav system’s polite but insistent encouragement that I should ‘please per-form a legal U-turn’ and all my apologetic shrugs of ‘sorry, not from round here’ as I turn around in another driveway are worth it when, close to the end of my day with the lux-ury sports coupe, I find myself on Trinity Road, which turns out to be very much not where I think it should be. Changing names a couple of times, to Dry Creek Road and…

THE DEFINITIVE VERDICT If the back story to the Porsche 911 GT3 RS tested here is unfamiliar, then I hope you’re enjoying your first issue of CAR magazine. But the Corvette Z06? Even most long-time (British) subscribers will have big gaps in their knowledge – previous generations were left-hand drive, after all. The two have more in common than first impressions suggest. Both RS and Z06 were born from motorsport, celebrate big anniver-saries in 2023 and are now more technically comparable than ever. Plus the new eighth-generation C8 Z06 is officially UK-bound in right-hand drive. Prices are still to be confirmed, but the Z06’s $105,300 domestic retail price could easily balloon to around £140k for British buyers, though even that represents a big saving over a GT3 RS’s £192,600. The…

DS 4 Rivoli E-Tense 225 Month 3 The story so far The jury’s out on the 4’s pop-out door handles + Makes the 4 look sleek; feel good to use - Some find them an annoying gimmick Logbook Price £43,650 (£44,545 as tested) Performance 12.4kWh battery plus 1598cc four-cylinder, PHEV, 222bhp, 7.7sec 0-62mph, 145mph Efficiency 176.6-235.4mpg (official), 39.7mpg (tested), 27-35g/km CO2 Energy cost 16.2p per mile Miles this month 1059 Total miles 2968 It’s all about the details with the 4. Its specialities include chromed pop-out door handles – something rarely seen this side of a Range Rover. There are claims of aerodynamic benefits, but I think they’re mostly there to maintain the showiness of the exterior look. They pop open as you ap-proach (thanks to the proximi-ty-sensor keyless tech)…

Citroën C5X Hybrid 225 Shine Plus Month 6 The story so far Bye bye big Citroën plug-in hybrid + Economy; comfort; refinement - Hooked me rationally, not emotionally Logbook Price £40,210 (tested £43,310) Performance 12.4kWh battery, 1598cc four-cylinder plus e-motor, PHEV, 222bhp, 7.9sec 0-62mph, 145mph Efficiency 186.2mpg (official), 97.2mpg (tested), 30g/km CO2 Energy cost 3.0p a mile Miles this month 151 Total miles 11,253 During six months in the fla-gship Citroën, I’ve seen fuel economy going from good to very good. Leaving home fully charged, the X would average high-50s mpg on a wintry office commute; come spring, it could top 75mpg on that 65-mile jour-ney. It’s the batteries that make the difference: 14 miles of elec-tric-only running in deepest winter, 22 miles in spring. At the outset I thought…

Volkswagen Multivan Month 5 The story so far VW helps the MPV live on, masquerading as a van + Trifling running costs after a month close to home… - … but home appears to be as hot as the French Riviera Logbook Price £59,035 (£63,979 as tested) Performance 13kWh battery, 1395cc turbo four-cyl plus e-motor, PHEV, 218bhp, 9.0sec 0-62mph, 120mph Efficiency 156.9mpg (official), 64.5mpg (tested), 41g/km CO2 Energy cost 12.1p per mile Miles this month 521  Total miles 7654 There’s a lot of the Multivan, and thus a lot of glass too. But while it’s nice to see out and stuff, you can have too much of a good thing. Like the split A-pillar, which its California predecessor didn’t have. It doesn’t work, with too little glass to be useful…

TODDINGTON HARPER, GRIDSERVE CEO Public charging is the critical front line in the battle to convert people to electric cars. Toddington Harper is reassuringly calm and collected for someone at that sharp end: as CEO of Gridserve, his company operates chargers at 80 per cent of UK motor-way sites. But there’s more to Gridserve than that. It builds its own charging hubs (or Electric Forecourts), runs two so-lar farms and even leases electric cars and vans. But it’s motorway charging that will make or break Gridserve’s reputation, having bought out Ecotricity’s monopoly network two years ago. That was plagued by relia-bility issues and its 50kW units of-fered at best half the potency of true ultra-rapid chargers. ‘When we got handed the baton, we’d raised a lot of money to fix…

It employs a giddying amount of processing power to make driver and passengers feel that little bit special Don’t be fooled by the wood and leather. Al-though those traditional signifiers of class, elegance, luxury and other prized Mercedes values continue to loom large in the cabin, and although the bodywork still says E-Class at a glance, there is a lot that’s new and different going on under the skin. There’s a significantly revised engine line-up that, for now, involves all the engines be-ing mild hybrids or plug-in hybrids, all with four cylinders. And there’s much more emphasis on the digital: controls, infotainment, comfort and safety all employ a giddying amount of pro-cessing power in the course of making the driver and passengers feel relaxed, protected and that little bit special.…

Range Rover D350 HSE Month 1 The story so far Every decade we get a new Rangie. This one majors on luxury and dynamics + Massive; hushed; comfortable - 207g/km of CO2! Logbook Price £113,120 (£128,180 as tested) Performance 2997cc turbodiesel six-cylinder, 345bhp, 516lb ft, 6.1sec 0-62mph, 145mph Efficiency 37.2mpg (official), 35.8mpg (tested), 207g/km CO2 Energy cost 18.0p per mile Miles this month 1741 Total miles 13,460 Is this peak Range Rover? There’s a lot of love for the L322 Rangie developed on BMW’s watch; I ran a V8 in 2003. The first aluminium model’s CAR tour of duty took in my 2013 wedding; our L405 was a TDV6. Now, 10 years on, the fifth-ge-neration L460 has joined the fleet. Tip this model into its first brisk corner and you…

Huge boot! Terrible nav system! Fantastic seats! Awful ride! When I think back on all of the long-term test cars we’ve run during my almost 20 years at CAR, most seem to have dis-tilled in my brain to just one or two stand-out characteristics, often unfairly pushing other traits from view. The CX-60 seems almost certain to be re-membered for the hybrid pow- ertrain’s driveline shunt. I’ve mentioned the jerkiness coming on and off the throttle at least once before, but since I was told at last month’s service that there was no software fix, I decided to spend every minute this month trying to nail down when, and maybe why, it hap-pens, and whether it’s possible to drive round it. My daily ur-ban driving route is almost al- ways…

There’s so much this car does very well indeed, and so very little it doesn’t. The intelligent manner in which the XC40 combines its performance, packag-ing, technology and de-sign makes it such an ap-pealing daily driver. Flicking through my notebook, it takes a while to find anything that’s neutral let alone negative. Rocket-sled performance may be just a foot-flex away, but enjoying that pace is best done when driving the Volvo smooth-ly and building up a flo-wing rhythm. Drive it like it’s a tall two-tonne car and it rewards as a fast and refined point-to-pointer. Door-handle it like a stolen hot hatch and you’ll quickly find your-self smearing in to Under-steer City. While some might find a real-world 220-mile range cause for concern, it’s not prevented us from undertaking long…

HOW DOES NEW GBU WORK? Fewer classes, more frequent updates and all the sass you’ve come to expect from GBU GIANT TEST WINNER 1 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R THE GOOD: Feel, feedback, focus: a phenomenal full-sized hot hatch THE BAD: Nearly £50k for a front-drive hatchback with barely any more power than before THE UGLY: Probably the last of its kind; good job it’s one of the best THE ONE TO BUY: There’s just the one model; expect to pay around £550 on a PCP with an £11k deposit GROUP TEST WINNER 2 TOYOTA GR YARIS THE GOOD: A modern-day rally homologation special THE BAD: Road noise like a death-metal gig; joke rear seats THE UGLY: Limited supply makes finding one tricky; high chairs THE ONE TO BUY: Opt for…

GIANT TEST WINNER 1 PORSCHE TAYCAN THE GOOD: Interstellar acceleration; stellar handling; agreeably tactile; roomier than a 911 THE BAD: Empty interior; ferociously expensive; not a 911 THE UGLY: Begs to be thrashed, but thrashing it clobbers the range THE ONE TO BUY: Choose your body style from saloon, estate or the borderline SUV-ish Cross Turismo. Get the Taycan 4S for £91k if you’re sensible, sharper GTS is tempting and Turbo just bonkers; top models cost £149,300 GIANT TEST WINNER 2 TESLA MODEL 3 THE GOOD: Sceptic-confoundingly good to drive, easy to live with; massive price cuts have made it even more appealing THE BAD: Giant touchscreen may be genius when you’re stationary but it can be hugely distracting when you’re moving THE UGLY: Panel gaps to swallow a SpaceX…

1 BMW M3/M4 COMPETITION THE GOOD: Mighty straight-six; front axle’s never-give-up attitude; dreamy chassis balance THE BAD: No manual; nearly 911 money now THE UGLY: M3 Touring £85k new but changing hands for six figures THE ONE TO BUY: From £80k (Comp saloon) with rear drive; adding xDrive AWD costs £2800. Now available as an estate: rejoice! GIANT TEST WINNER 2 BMW M5 COMPETITION THE GOOD: An animal when you want it to be; reasonably urbane family transport when you don’t THE BAD: Hard ride on Competition suspension; priced above £100k THE UGLY: CS version has already gone off sale THE ONE TO BUY: Just one – brilliant – model now, the Competition: £1300pcm 3 MERCEDES- AMG S63 THE GOOD: V8 plus e-motor shows AMG can do a great performance…