Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i CAR UK

What other magazine would dare to take a (briefly) shiny new Ferrari Purosangue to the windblown expanses of the Sahara desert? Or drive a very secondhand Fiat Panda all the way back from Andorra to the UK? It’s these stories – along with our uncompromising road tests, insightful analysis and candid interviews – that make CAR an unmissable package, not only every month but every day, via our various online channels. CAR is home to the world’s greatest motoring journalists and photographers, creating beautifully crafted stories aimed at entertaining, informing and occasionally outraging our loyal and equally opinionated readers around the world. In CAR’s 60-plus years the world has rarely known so much change and uncertainty. Technological developments, challenging legislation, new trends, emerging powers – nothing moves in the automotive…

The days of the Sonderklasse being Mercedes-Benz’s technology pioneer are over. In a major break with tradition, it’s the smallest car in Merc’s new line-up that has become a springboard for a technology revolution. At a star-studded reveal event overlooking Rome, Mercedes spent an entire day telling the world’s media just how significant the new CLA is. ‘This day marks the beginning of a new era for Mercedes, an entirely new digital experience and ultimate evidence that the future is electric,’ says chairman of the board Ola Källenius. The CLA includes several significant technological advances, and signals Merc’s seriousness about making use of the software and engineering learnings from the EQXX concept, which will underpin an enormous overhaul of the model range. Mercedes chief technology officer Markus Schäfer calls it…

Until recently, being a test driver was perhaps the best job in the world: sit in a few meetings, nod a bit, spend the day on the ragged edge, home in time for an ice bath and a calming re-ordering of your sock drawer. It’s suddenly become a far less tempting career, though, and for that we can blame the McLaren W1. Fancy not merely driving the 1258bhp, 988lb ft supercar (an exclusively rear-wheel-drive supercar, you’ll recall) but spanking it sufficiently hard, on the regular, that your tepid telemetry doesn’t get you sacked and you’re able to proffer something like meaningful feedback? Me neither. The new MHP-8 engine – the internal-combustion element of the W1’s hybrid powertrain – will, McLaren hopes, punch the W1 into the public consciousness in the…

Your next RAV4 PHEV or Corolla hybrid will be full of engineering direct from Toyota’s Gazoo Racing division. Why? Because Toyota has left development of its entire new generation of engines to the obsessive engineers who like to build World Endurance racers and rabid hot hatches, while testing everything to destruction along the way. It’s a new perspective, flipping automotive convention on its head. Instead of the performance arm being called in at the end of a project to find some upgrades, here it’s the tuning team who are doing the heavy lifting. It’s also a lot of pressure on Bart Eelen, head of TGR and all Toyota’s many motorsport activities. ‘It goes back to Toyota’s idea of using motorsport as a test bed and as a way to develop…

Growing old is inevitable. Growing up is optional. Need proof? Look no further than my early-’70s Bentley T1. It was love at first sight. Not everyone’s reaction, it’s fair to say. A near-vintage Bentley saloon painted in dark Moss Green over bright Willow Gold metallic violated the concours conventions to such an extent that various petrolhead peers in the Munich area were downright hostile. But I loved it, instantly. Kitted out in supple Dark Pine leather, with finest burr walnut and adorned with plenty of solid chrome inside and out, to me this particular T1 is a true gatefold beauty worthy of a golden staple in the belly button. This being 2013, our first meeting wasn’t online but old-fashioned, analogue and touchy-feely. Six photos plus a lengthy lyrical description presented…

The Toyota GR Supra might seem like the epitome of the PlayStation-generation, midnight-racing Japanese sports coupe, but as a joint venture with BMW it’s actually built in Graz, Austria. Driving a Jeep Renegade is like having a bald eagle tattooed on one arm and a small espresso on the other – this symbol of American freedom and adventure is made in Melfi, Italy. Originally created as a WW2 aero-engine factory, the Solihull plant in the West Midlands built the Land Rover – and Land Rover built Britain! (The current Land Rover Defender is built in Slovakia.) Dacia is proud of its Romanian history, as it represents everything we love about the brand: cheap, pragmatic, resourceful, zero frills. Exactly the same reasons why the Dacia Jogger is made in Morocco. The original…

Not long ago a Porsche 918 Spyder sold for $3.93m (approximately £3m) at auction, a record-breaking figure so far beyond the original £650k that even The Sun reported it. Yet the tabloids missed a more astonishing scoop several years before, when photographer Dan Bathie picked up the Porsche Boxster pictured here for just £3500 on Facebook Marketplace. While those two extremes bookend this Porsche buying guide, the other sports cars, SUVs and EVs in the middle (all sourced from the Porsche Club GB and Porsche GB) sit mostly in the £10k-£90k bracket – meaning they’re the stuff of attainable dreams for many CAR readers. Naturally Dan’s Boxster is not in concours condition. Its headlights are yellowed and the paint rough in places, but his early 2.5-litre example wears the same…

For a powertrain that seems to make so much sense, it’s perhaps surprising that Mercedes-Benz is the only car maker currently offering a plug-in hybrid diesel. The logic runs that an electric powertrain covers most trips, but the super-frugal four-cylinder diesel steps in once battery charge is depleted. In the real world of drivers plugging in much less frequently than in theory they might, it could represent a better solution than a petrol plug-in. This month we’re welcoming the Mercedes-Benz GLC 300de to the CAR fleet, the plug-in diesel version of Mercedes’ midsize SUV and rival to the likes of the BMW X3, Volvo XC60 and Audi Q5. It promises no range anxiety and no need to wait while charging, and with better mpg than an equivalent petrol plugin hybrid…

I’m not using the MX-30 the way Mazda intended, and I’m paying the price. You see, this car would be perfect if (a) you have offroad parking (b) you have a home charger and (c) you commute 10 miles a day and rarely go on long journeys. If this is you, the R-EV range-extender version would be perfect – sadly I meet none of these criteria. So instead of using a stored, overnight charge every day, I end up belting up and down Britain with the rotary-engined range-extender revving its guts out, as it tries to keep the battery from dropping to zero. This is not an efficient way of using the battery – or the 830cc rotary generator – and I’m struggling to get close to 30mpg. And every…

HOW DOES GBU WORK? Our road testers rank the best cars currently available in 12 categories, and highlight the ones to buy TOP 5 HOT HATCHES HONDA CIVIC TYPE R THE GOOD: Feel, feedback, focus: a phenomenal full-sized hot hatch  THE BAD: Now £50,050 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; £429 a month on a three-year PCP with a £10k deposit 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, although it starts…

Volvo’s new ES90 is simultaneously the spiritual successor to the S90 saloon, and the closest thing to an estate Gothenburg has made in years. But it’s neither saloon nor estate, and nor is it a high-riding crossover – that’s the job of the EX90. We might want Volvo to keep building saloon and estates, but Volvo says that’s just not the way the world works any more. Our misty-eyed nostalgia for estates doesn’t materialise where it counts, on the balance sheet. In an increasingly competitive market, Volvo must bank on what works: cars that combine everything we want; that are big on volume but low on cost. ‘It’s expensive to bring different models to the market, and it’s expensive to keep those models in the market,’ Volvo CEO Jim Rowan…

Coffee pods. Jean-Phillipe Launberg has carrier bags full of them in his office at the Gordon Murray Group. They will be recycled and used in the lightweight supercar prototype that’s being created for 2027 by a multi-company project he’s leading. He’s serious: ‘We’ve been using virgin aluminium [in Gordon Murray Automotive cars], because that’s the strongest you can get. But something that started at Innovate UK has been progressing, using consumer scrap. ‘We have all the aluminium we need in the UK – we need to re-use it. So let’s turn recycled consumer scrap into an aluminium that’s actually stronger and better than the virgin one we use today.’ It won’t be easy. After all, just about everything Gordon Murray has put his name to over his decades as a…

Flash back 50 years to 1975. CAR was privately owned, the editor was Mel Nichols, and the team of five was headquarted next to Smithfield meat market. One day in July of that year, an office fire demolished half the typewritten manuscripts exactly one week before the mag was due to go to press. The morning after, ‘a big dark shadow filled the frame of my office door’, Mel would later recall. ‘It was Kacher, who had applied for a job twice before but was denied it for lack of journalistic training.’ In the wake of that fire, however, they needed copy more badly than they needed a qualification; a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. Six weeks later, my first story – a travelogue about driving a used Peugeot 504 from…

Sport, fortunately, is about more than just throwing money at the problem – just ask Toyota. The Japanese giant arrived in F1 in 2002, stuck around for eight seasons and failed to win a single race, let alone a title. The return on its monumental investment amounted to three poles and a handful of podiums. So, what went wrong – and how is ambitious Aston avoiding the pitfalls that sunk Toyota? For one, the target at which Cowell and his crew are aiming is relatively static. The new 2026 regulations are still being fine-tuned (much to everyone’s frustration) but only in detail, and all the teams are in the same boat. Toyota got off to a stuttering start by initially developing a V12 engine the rules then outlawed, requiring the team…

Rivian and Volkswagen. Two car makers bound together by a joint venture and yet separated by far more than the ocean that stretches between their respective headquarters. Compare and contrast their two most significant launch events. For the ID. Every1, a small electric concept that VW desperately needs to succeed to restore its credentials as a maker of people’s cars, VW chose the vast and soulless Merkur-Spiel Arena near Düsseldorf airport; for the R2 and R3 reveal, RJ Scaringe and his crew went for an intimate old theatre near Newport Beach, 20 yards from the surf. The crowd went wild for RJ, whooping and hollering like a group of Swifties; there was polite applause for VW CEO Thomas Schäfer. It’s moments like this that bring into focus the uphill struggle…

991 R What? GT3 RS performance in a body more discreet than a GT3 and manual only (when GT3s were all PDK); if the RS was mostly for the track, the R was a street car  When? 2016 How much? £136,901 (new), £500k (peak), £300k-£350k (now) Dan says: ‘The R was the first of the super-exclusive GT3-type models. Porsche limited supply to 991 units and they hit £500k shortly after launch. Prices fell as “low” as £300k and are now no more than £350k.’ 991.2 GT3 TOURING What? A GT3 without a wing but with a choice of manual or PDK. Strong whiff of R  When? 2017  How much? £127,820 (new), £230,000 (peak), £190k-£210k (now) Dan says: ‘Uptake probably wasn’t quite what Porsche imagined – a 991 Touring is much…

‘Athleisure’ is everywhere, not just gyms. The Defender’s interior might be dubbed ‘luxility’. It shouldn’t work. But it does. The Defender long ago stopped being a couple of seats and a bit of bodywork bolted to a tractor chassis. It’s a luxury car, and this interior, with its ventilated white leather, is no place for hard-working border collies. But there’s just enough Defender stuff in here to differentiate it from Land Rover’s pure-luxe flagship, the Range Rover. And crucially everything just works, with a masterful fix of exemplary ergonomics, slick touchscreen and actual physical controls for a lot of the important stuff, like climate control, quick access to the off-road modes and disabling the annoying stuff (lane-keep assist and the speed-limit bonging) before you’re even off your driveway. JLR’s infotainment…

The mission was to keep an open mind. Before starting my six months as a Seal driver, I’d had mixed experiences with BYD. Some versions of the Dolphin hatchback were much better than others, and the Seal U DM-i plug-in hybrid felt ex tremely soggy and bland. But, on the other hand, the electric Seal had come a close second behind a Tesla Model 3 and ahead of a Polestar 2 in a test conducted by Ben Barry, who’s not easily won over. During the last six months, I’ve run not one but two Seals – a blue all-wheel-drive Excellence and this green rear-wheel-drive Design – and I can safely say both have been among the most impressive EVs I’ve ever spent time with. Those anonymous looks hide a fabulously…

At last, I’ve got my home energy ecosystem all sorted. Like CAR’s equivalent of Martin Lewis, I’m making savings everywhere. Efficiency is my watchword. It’s all thanks to two upgrades. One is from Eon Next, which has joined Octopus and others in offering cheap overnight electricity rates – just 6p per kWh. The other is from Andersen, a British company that offers stylish car chargers at 7kW and, assuming you have a three-phase connection, 22kW speeds, which is rare for domestic chargers. Going for 22kW means you can dump juice into the Mini at its maximum 11kW AC rate, so it’ll fully charge at the cheaper Eon tariff. Cheap tariff and efficient charger combined to allow me to charge the Mini from zero to 100 per cent for less than…

The clever city car Almost echoing Marks and Spencer, Toyota says its FT-Me concept is not just a microcar. It’s seen what Stellantis can do with the Citroën Ami, Fiat Topolino and Opel Rocks-e, and thinks it can do better. FT-Me is a ground-up Toyota project, highly digital, with loads of personalisation options. Legally it’s categorised as a quadricycle, which limits its top speed to 28mph and allows teens to drive it – although Toyota reckons its appeal should be much broader than that. It’s an EV, with a target range of 62 miles. No production date yet but Toyota’s thinking when, not if. The retro-futurist sports car This one’s divided opinion. It’s either a ham-fisted mess of modern features applied to an old design… or it’s exactly everything a…

For a moment the grey clouds of uncertainty part and a blinding shaft of clear thinking breaks through. And to be clear, this is not new clear thinking. BMW may have pulled the covers off its next-gen electric powertrains recently, as it gears up to deliver the first of its Neue Klasse cars, the iX3, later this year. But the broader plan hasn’t changed. And as the world goes to hell in a handcart, that powertrain plan – to do it all, as well as possible, and almost entirely in-house – looks increasingly prescient. ‘We retain our technology-open approach [offer a range of powertrain options and let buyers choose] and our philosophy is the same: production follows the markets, and the supply chain follows the production,’ explains BMW’s Dr Joachim…

Ah, Monaco. Gucci, Ferrari, yachts, caviar, James Bond, champagne… and Dacias. We thought we’d be conducting some kind of fish-out-of-water experiment by taking the keenly priced new Dacia Bigster to one of the most expensive places in Europe, but it turns out there are loads of Dacias around these parts. But not the Bigster – ours is the first, and turns many heads through its combination of unfamiliarity and rugged good looks. The Bigster is Dacia’s largest – and arguably now its most important – car. It’s the Renault-owned Romanian car maker’s first foray into the family-aimed C-segment once dominated by Vauxhall Astras and Ford Focuses, but now filled with the likes of the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage. SUVs of this size are hugely popular, accounting for half the…

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Last year, the morning after Alfa Romeo launched its new Milano, Italy’s industry minister, Adolfo Urso, expressed his outrage. The government had known for months that the car was being built in Poland but Urso pantomimed his full, pearl-clutching horror. ‘A car called Milano cannot be produced in Poland!’ he fumed. ‘This is forbidden by Italian law!’ (He was referring to new EU legislation, designed to prohibit ‘evocative’ or ‘Italian sounding’ products that aren’t actually made in Italy.) ‘A car called Milano must be produced in Italy! Otherwise, it gives a misleading indication!’ This struck me as weird. Arguably, calling it an Alfa Romeo is a pretty big indication that it’s from Italy, and most people probably don’t even realise Milano refers to a city (‘Isn’t that a football club?’).…

ID. 2 The standard 2 hatch (previewed here by the concept ID. 2All) is due in early 2026 and, starting at around £21,000, will be in effect the electric Polo. EV packaging efficiencies mean it will be short but vast inside. ID. 2X The T-Cross equivalent. Just front-wheel drive, it’ll come with a choice of batteries that give a maximum range of 280 miles. Built in Spain alongside the Skoda and Cupra equivalents, it’ll likely be the big seller of the family. ID. 2 GTI The one to get excited about. The latest Golf GTI shows Volkswagen has regained its grasp on what a hot hatch should be, so there’s hope for the electric GTI. VW promises it’ll prioritise excitement over raw power.…

We’ve rightly pilloried Volkswagen for the ergonomic flaws that afflicted the first generation of ID electric cars. Seemingly in the rush to launch EVs, it cut corners – perhaps most famously with the new generation of infotainment lacking illumination for heating and volume controls. These are thankfully fixed on the ID. 7 and all subsequent model launches. But there remain details that grate. The touch-sensitive keyless locking button on the driver’s door handle is hopeless. I’d estimate it works one time in three, so I tend to lock the doors with the key instead. It’s telling that the Blue Oval eschewed the recessed touchpad door handles for the Ford Capri based on this MEB platform, preferring simpler traditional physical handles. It’s a similar story with the electric windows. Many VWs…

The S3 is quick and engaging enough, but the shadow of Audi’s flagship RS3 looms large. At least in theory the RS is dynamically sharper and more engaging, giving the potential to be more rewarding. But then again, it’s also more expensive. Time, then, to get some answers and scratch the itch about Ingolstadt’s hot hatch and saloon. The plan is simple: test the power and comfort of both cars on the autobahn before taking on more challenging Alpine roads around the Austrian-German border. Visually, the RS is in a different league: wide, aggressive and finished in brighter colours. Next to the RS painted in punchy Kyalami Green, it’s as if my S3 in sedate District Green has gone on an acid trip. Get inside and immediately the RS3 feels…

With just over 9000 miles covered in the BMW, I feel I’ve really got under its skin and beyond its £94,995 price tag to see its pros and cons. But what would a trio of readers make of it? Lucy Wilson is head of Chichester-based interior design studio Walnutblue. Her daily drive is a much-loved leased Mazda CX-30 that has to cover both her work and private transport requirements. ‘I really dislike all that black shiny plastic around the grille, and those wheels look like they’ll be a kerbing nightmare.’ Not a good start, and things don’t improve from the driver’s seat. ‘It’s so much smaller in here than I expected. Sure, the boot is a decent size, but I don’t think my three teenagers would find it comfortable in…