Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i CAR UK

The Mazda MX-30 has not gone well. The Japanese brand’s first foray into electric cars may look the part inside and out, but its tiny 35.5kWh battery, giving a paltry 124-mile range, has gone down like a lithium-ion balloon. The figures tell the story: since its 2022 launch, Mazda has sold just 6127 MX-30s in the UK. That’s bad compared to the 28,429 Mazdas sold here overall in 2024, and a disaster compared to the 32,862 Model Ys Tesla sold in the UK last year alone. It’s still bad compared to the 17,622 Q4 e-Trons shifted by Audi or even the 8927 VW I.D 4s. We’ll stop there. But now Mazda is back with the 6e, a svelte EV that fuses Mazda DNA with the tech, powertrain and range of…

The Defender Octa is not a car to watch yourself driving. As you explore its capabilities – not least the velvety vigour of its V8 acceleration – you’ll wear all the usual expressions, of course: fierce concentration, child-like happiness, bewildered admiration. But you’ll also do a lot of contorted grimacing. For this is a car, given the right kind of landscape as a canvas for its art, capable of real ultra-violence. Rest assured the car can soak up the punishment (the Octa’s body-in-white is unchanged from that of the core car), breezing through moments of ’shell-twisting catastrophe like a plucky street cat haemorrhaging lives. But it takes a while to recalibrate your brain – and your face will be picture as you do so. Three examples. Speeding along an empty…

If this page didn’t say ‘Xpeng’ at the top, I’d have tried to get you to guess just what this is. It could be so many things. A new version of the Tesla Model Y. A Hyundai or Kia. A BYD. Hell, even a Ford if its sudden enthusiasm for selling several electric crossovers all at once is anything to go by. The frustrating thing about its anonymity is that the Xpeng G6 is actually quite good. So, what is Xpeng? It’s a company from China founded in 2014 that bills itself as a properly serious technology business that manufactures cars, as well as having its hand in areas including software, robotics and even flying vehicles. The G6 we’ve driven here is the first of five new models to launch…

It feels harsh to put in last position a car I enjoyed driving this much, but something has to come third, and in this case it’s the AMG. Every drive is quite an event, thanks to its agile chassis and brawny V8 engine – and a recent drive on track in the Pro version proved it to be both capable and highly engaging even in those extremes. The Mercedes also has a useful boot and plus-two seats that make it better than the others for road trips, its all-wheel drive better harnesses performance in all conditions and its clever suspension is superior to the Aston’s as well as a match for the Porsche over tricky surfaces. Then again, it can’t string together corners as naturally as the others; it’s the…

Remember the six-cylinder super hatch of the 1990s, when BMW transformed its 3-series into the Compact and VW slotted a VR6 engine into the Golf? The new BMW M135, VW Golf R and – a later addition to the niche – Mercedes-AMG A35 we’re pedalling over a damp North York Moors might be those cars’ much-altered descendants, but they’re no longer the quirky premium curios the 323ti Compact and Golf VR6 once were. Today they’re three of the last petrol hot hatches standing, and they’re so similar on paper (if not to drive) that they could’ve been built to an FIA rulebook. All get transverse 2.0-litre turbo fours with all-wheel drive and a DCT transmission, churn out around 300bhp, sprint from zero to 62mph in under five seconds, officially return…

Want to ride in the nearest thing currently available to the Raptor T1+, the Bronco DR? Of course you do. It’s an off-the-shelf desert racer, yours for $300k or so, built for Ford by Multimatic. It has the same 5.0-litre V8 Coyote engine as the T1+, but about 50bhp more than the 359bhp limit imposed on the T1+ by Dakar rules. It has the same 17-inch wheels and 37-inch BF Goodrich tyres, but different gearing and braking. And it has no windshield, because they don’t believe in them in US desert racing. My driver is Brad Lovell, a legend in US desert-race circles, who helped develop the car. When he takes CAR on a four-mile loop through the desert near Hail, he’s not hanging around. Through soft sand, over hard…

What a weird car. And yes, I mean that in a good way. These days, when we’re surrounded by lookalike SUVs and Chinese electric cars so vanilla they’re an insult to custard, it’s refreshing to drive something that wilfully swerves left. Mazda (which is 68 per cent owned by Mazda, giving it more freedom than most) seems to answer to no one in its product line-up, and while the MX-5 remains the jewel in the crown, this MX-30 is surely the car that says the most about the company’s obstinate independence. Were any corporate beancounters involved in the MX- 30’s conception? Any focus groups? I mean, who else would build a hatchback-coupe-SUV-thingy with a battery and electric motor plus a rotary-engined range extender? A car with pillarless doors and an…

As a sign of how competitive the supermini market is, it’s telling that Suzuki invested in a nine-inch infotainment screen with sat-nav, reversing camera and CarPlay/Android Auto for even the most basic Swifts. People want this stuff and Suzuki’s mostly works fine, although the sub-menus on the central screen can be baffling, and the process for turning off the annoying speed-limit warning bong is convoluted. When winter arrived, the tyre-pressure warning began to flash and I struggled to re-set it, even after pressing the ‘turn off tyre pressure warning’ button. Only inflating the tyres to factory specs did it, but I wanted them softer to improve the ride. Sometimes smartphone intuitive, at others Nokia idiosyncratic, the Swift’s infotainment is a funny mix. Suzuki Swift 1.2 Hybrid Ultra Month 6 The…

Isn’t it nice to see Alfa Romeo back on form? Sales are up, the brand’s past quality issues seem to be resolved and it’s building cars that get both critics (Giulia) and customers (Tonale) excited. It’s the sort of good-news story that we all need at the moment. Mini has had fewer ups and downs than Alfa, more consistently delivering returns across the duration of BMW’s ownership. But with both brands preparing to give up on years of petrol-engined heritage as they bring in more electric versions, it feels like a good time to see which might be best able to pay homage to the past while offering a clear way forward. Not since the Mito has Mini had a natural Alfa rival. And even in the Junior you could…

After 30 golden years Porsche suddenly finds itself at a busy crossroads littered with massive challenges. At the heart of the problem is relatively poor sales for Porsche EVs, prompting a rethink of the strategy of switching to an all-electric line-up. Sales in China were down 30 per cent in 2024, the return on investment is veering away from the targeted 20 per cent, the Macan E and the facelifted Taycan are performing below target, with resale values plummeting, and the VW Group’s electric-only SSP architecture is already three years late. Porsche is not only struggling to convince its predominantly conservative fan base with electric products – it’s are simultaneously facing fundamental productivity, cost, technology and infrastructure issues. On 10 November CFO Lutz Meschke stated in an investors’ call that…

The small electric tech-fest BYD’s smallest crossover yet, the Atto 2, has all the brand’s hallmarks but in a dinky package. Clean, if a little boring, design? Yup. Silly rotating screen inside? Definitely. Durable battery technology? Naturally. For the UK, the Atto 2 features a 45.1kWh battery pack and 174bhp e-motor, claiming a relatively piddly 194-mile range for now before a larger battery pack launches later in 2025. BYD claims ‘padded surfaces in all key areas’ inside, which seems like code for something, and the brand promises plenty of space for stuff and things. Unlike other BYDs, this could be a proper cheapie, too. The large electric tech fest What do you get when two Japanese industrial giants come together to make a car? Something so utterly anonymous it wouldn’t…

Outside it’s overwhelmingly familiar, but get in and you’re struck by the differences This is an A4. Except it’s not. It’s an A5. But different to the old A5. You what? This conversation will be doing the rounds for a while as people get used to Audi’s recent burst of name rejigging, making all of its combustion cars odd-numbered, leaving even numbers free for EVs. It’s a new car, and not just a new badge, but in many ways it’s similar to the outgoing A4 it replaces. I mean, just look at it. Frowny face. Big catfish grille. A couple of cuts and creases up the side and big wheels with some tyre rubber smeared around the edges. And, because this is 2025, the potential for the lights to be…

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The M135 bowled into this test with the hype of the new and a snazzy Frozen Blue paintjob, but it’s hard not to feel a little underwhelmed by BMW M’s cheapest current model and only hatchback. To its credit the M135 is the most affordable car on test, comes with a great cabin and infotainment, and is refined at speed. It’s also mostly nicely sorted thanks to punchy steering, a solidly connected rear axle that can live with enthusiastic direction changes and composed body control complemented by sure-footed traction. It can be a lot of fun. But its isolated chassis, aloof steering and the curious adaptive suspension that becomes less compliant the harder you drive – even on terrible surfaces – all help relegate the M135 to the back of…

This isn’t Beatrix Potter’s Cumbria of woodland paths, chatty rabbits and tourist coaches grinding by like plate tectonics. We’re exploring the county’s harder, more remote north-eastern corner, where peaty moors devour men whole if they stop to take in the view, and where a typical two-vehicle combination would be a quad bike and a battle-scarred old Land Rover Defender. The Bentley Continental GTC Speed and Maserati GranCabrio Trofeo might be conspicuously out of context in these wilds, but each has its own unique take on the hedonistic indulgence of the luxury convertible, and both feel utterly majestic. Pre-dawn, the Bentley storms over this epic rolling landscape, exhaling into compressions on its plush air suspension before powering on as if squeezed from giant bellows. The Maserati’s up ahead and courses over…

We’ve all become accustomed to electric cars suffering to some extent in winter, right? Chemistry is chemistry, and batteries simply don’t perform as well in the cold. It’s unavoidable, but it seems the best hedge when the mercury plummets is to have a large enough energy capacity that you don’t notice the lower cold-weather range. We’re expecting to get no more than 260 miles between charges at the moment, compared with nearer 300 in the summer, but we can live with that. The rest of the ID. 7’s cold-weather gear impresses, not least the clever matrix LED headlamps, which give a very clear view at night, without blinding oncoming drivers. Also very welcome is rapid warming for all four seats and the ability to heat the cabin remotely via an…

Recently I was able to fully experience first hand the total lack of respect some drivers have for other drivers. A trip to Milan to drive the Lynk & Co 02 meant I left the S3 in an airport car park, and I returned to find it with a huge dent on the rear of the driver’s side. No note left, so no apology let alone any details of who I should claim against. On closer inspection, it looked as though a white car had slammed its door open directly on to one of those stylish creases so carefully sketched on Ingolstadt’s drawing boards. It missed the fuel cap by inches, which is a small mercy – any damage there would have made the repair even trickier. The car is…

You might be fortunate enough to have a pronky car you pull out of the garage on special occasions. Several friends of mine own older 911s, mostly 997s. Two of them are GT3s. I’m delighted for them. If I had the garage space and the spare cash, it’d be a Renault Megane R26.R. In cars like that every drive is memorable, just as pretty much every ride on my increasingly idle motorcycles is memorable. The E-2008, it won’t surprise you to learn, is not like that. It is not a car with any of the tactility or stand-out sensory stimulation to lay down memories. I can’t recall any individual drive. Instead, like looking back fondly on the years you spent in a certain house, or on a good summer as…

We’ve done it. We’ve reached the point where car manufacturers are running out of space to put yet more information screens in a car’s interior. The digital instruments, the central infotainment screen(s), the head-up display – all that real estate is spoken for. BMW, however, has a cunning workaround. Welcome to the latest BMW Operating System X with Panoramic iDrive. The main event is the Panoramic Vision display, a reflection from a screen embedded in the dashboard, sitting right at the base of the windscreen. Replacing the traditional instrument display, it’s formed of six customisable widgets. The essential stuff (speed, gear, range) is right in front of you. Other widgets can take the form of weather forecasts, Spotify, air quality, incoming phone calls and, when in Sport mode, read-outs on…

In the words of architect Heinrich Tessenow, ‘The best is always simple but the simple is not always the best.’ Take the Audi A2, 25 this year and still superb. In some versions it was capable of 94mpg and had the lowest drag of any production car ever. Aluminium construction meant it weighed just 900kg. Yet it was a sales disaster, reaching only a quarter of the numbers of the contemporary (but in every way inferior) Mercedes A-Class. It’s an example of the German mastery not of efficiency itself, but the symbolism of it. All that sans serif public signage looks modern, but disguises systems of Kaiser-era antiquity. The deception is beautiful and mostly convincing. The A2 appears simple, but it is layered with layer after layer of meaning. Not…

Three directly comparable sports cars are rarely refreshed in such quick succession as this, but the Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, Mercedes-AMG GT 63 and Aston Martin Vantage have all come rumbling up like vastly more appealing alternatives to double-decker buses. And we’re first to get all three together. The 911 GTS is the newest car in the test. Like other GTS models, it’s a Carrera S with a greatest-hits options package. But what’s new, and separates it from the original 992-generation 911 that debuted for 2018, is a significant powertrain update: the T-Hybrid system that’s exclusive to the GTS, at least for now. At its core lies a new single-turbo 3.6 flat-six engine that alone produces 478bhp, but a permanently excited synchronous motor in the dual-clutch gearbox adds 53bhp and…

So, Matthew, just how much swearing was there? Pause. ‘Lots. A lot of swearing, from both sides.’ Matthew Wilson, principal of the Ford/M-Sport team at the Dakar Rally, is reliving the moment, just a couple of days into this year’s event, when Carlos Sainz, last year’s winner, overturned in the desert. Accidents happen all the time in the 4800-mile, 14-day challenge around Saudi Arabia, and don’t have to mean your race is over. Wilson explains that in the team HQ, there’s one satellite phone for each of the four race cars, and it’s only for use when something’s gone badly wrong. ‘When the sat phone rang in the office, we knew it was not good. From the tracking, we knew he’d been stopped for a while, so we knew something…

HAPPY VALLEY This ticked every cliche. Late summer sun dappled across the hills of northern Italy; V6 engines reverberating off rock faces as the scenery swept past, the sound waves trying to escape and simply being flung up and over into the cabin of each car, a glorious cacophony of echoes. The Ferrari 296 GTS sometimes broke the flow by dropping into stealth hybrid mode while the Maserati MC20 Cielo never bothered, all old-school V6 and fluoro paint. My abiding memory is the contrast between the two, of the Maserati’s pugil stick to the Ferrari’s scalpel. Crucially, though, the Cielo is a redemption for Maserati, a car that can take on one of Maranello’s finest. Italy has never felt so joyous. PW ARCTIC BENTLEY When Bentley gave us a £225,000…

A busy month, with the regular local trips punctuated by longer journeys to Oxford, Birmingham, Leicester, Heathrow, Plymouth and Eastbourne. The i5 feels like it was made for these excursions. Its rolling refinement is exceptional, with road rumble and wind rustle all but absent, and flying-carpet ride quality. Add decent lounging space, excellent four-way climate control, sparkling Bowers & Wilkins audio and a vast boot, and you have a consummate family mover. A few of these trips were undertaken during nasty weather, and the i5 shrugged off the wind, rain and resulting slimy roads with disdain. The only significant downside remains the i5’s uncompetitive 220-mile real-world range, when you know Polestars and Porsches can do better. BMW i5 eDrive40 M Sport Pro Touring Month 5 The story so far An…

Your closest car dealer could soon well be one selling BYDs. The Chinese brand’s expansion across Europe and the UK is showing no signs of slowing down, helped by spending big on raising its profile by being a primary sponsor of the Euro 2024 football competition. Even with incoming tariffs and rival EVs hitting the market from all corners, BYD is confident it will keep growing. BYD’s launched four EVs (the Dolphin, Atto 3, Seal and Sealion) and a PHEV (the Seal U DM-i) in less than two years, looking to hit the most popular car-buying segments. Bono Ge, BYD’s UK director, says: ‘We definitely want to grow our network. By the end of Q1 2025, we should have 80 dealers and by the end of the year we should…

HOW DOES GBU WORK? CAR’s road testers highlight what’s so good about the best cars in every class… and what could be better TOP 5 HOT HATCHES 1 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R THE GOOD: Feel, feedback, focus: a phenomenal full-sized hot hatch THE BAD: Now £50,050 for a frontdrive 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; £459 a month on a three-year PCP with an £11k deposit 2 TOYOTA GR YARIS THE GOOD: A modern-day rally homologation special that’s thrilling to drive THE BAD: Road noise like a death-metal gig; joke rear seats THE UGLY: Long waiting list, even with some versions priced at £60,000,…