Table of contents for January 26, 2022 in Autocar

MG’S PUSH TO establish itself in new markets will extend to the introduction of an electric hatchback to challenge seasoned segment leaders such as the Renault Zoe and newcomers like the Ora Cat from SAIC’s Chinese rival Great Wall Motors. It is due to be launched before the Cyberster and is already undergoing testing in production bodywork. Autocar understands that it will be presented in concept form at the Beijing motor show in April before a full launch later this year. Right-hand-drive cars are due in the UK in 2023. Chinese media reports have suggested the new hatchback could replace the second-generation 3 supermini, which has been in production at MG’s plant in Nanjing, China, since 2011, and will offer the choice of both petrol and electric drivetrains, like the…

Ford has given a first look at what is expected to be the most radically reinvented iteration of the Ford Mustang since its launch in 1964, as road testing for the company’s seventh-generation four-seat sports car gets under way. Given the bulky camouflage of a prototype spotted in Michigan and the fact that the current car is only just turning seven, a launch is some way off and could be tied into the Mustang’s 60th anniversary celebrations in 2024. But it is clear that Ford will seek to evolve, rather than overhaul, the Mustang’s characteristic cab-backward silhouette and muscular design cues. Visible details include new lights at the front and rear and a sharper front grille, but it will be the changes underneath the skin that most tangibly differentiate the…

RISING LEVELS OF CO2 might be the biggest threat to life on Earth, but it’s by no means the only man-made environmental problem the planet faces. Waste plastic is constantly in the news and many argue that instead of shovelling it into landfill sites, why not recycle it into clean hydrogen fuel that’s so pure it can be used to power road transport, including cars? According to Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI), 368 million tonnes of plastic is produced annually. A relatively small amount of that is recycled or disposed of in a responsible way and production is expected to double by 2030 and increase by a factor of five by 2050. Enter British company Powerhouse Energy Group International and its DMG (Distributed Modular Generation) technology, which HUI has licensed for…

CHASSIS GURU MATT BECKER JOINS JLR Ex-Aston Martin chassis guru Matt Becker arrives at Jaguar Land Rover’s engineering department with a hefty to-do list to get through. Having guided the development of such pivotal Aston Martin models as the Vantage, DBS and DBX SUV, he will now play a core role in the electrification of the Land Rover brand – beginning with the Range Rover EV in 2024 – and the ground-up rebirth of Jaguar, in which it will go all-electric in just three years. Before his role at Aston Martin, Becker was chief test and development engineer at Lotus, which is surely a welcome indication of his priorities for any Jaguar fans worried about the brand preserving its sporting heritage. TOYOTA GIVES CLOSER LOOK AT bZ LARGE SUV Nearly…

When the government suddenly reduced its Plug-in Car Grant even further late last year, the automotive industry was frustrated by the surprise move, given that the UK has set itself the goal of being net zero by 2050. However, Kia UK boss Paul Philpott said: “None of our EVs currently qualify for the grant, and we’re not seeing demand decrease. “I believe the grant has served its purpose, and while I think incentives are really important, infrastructure is more important than incentives for take-up of electrified vehicles. “The government must continue to invest in rapid implementation of charging infrastructure to give people confidence that their next car can be a plug-in car.”…

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Aremarkable thing happened to the Citroën ë-Berlingo while we had it on test. On the third day, without warning, it changed from being an expensive EV outlier in a range of piston-powered people carriers into the mainstream model. Stellantis issued a terse release explaining that, henceforth, petrol and diesel versions of its van-based MPVs (including the Berlingo, Opel/Vauxhall Combo and Peugeot Rifter triplets) would be electric-only in the UK and EU. Combustion would still power the commercial versions, but the family-oriented ones were goners. The idea was “to ensure the future viability of these models”, which at first seemed a contradiction in terms. You had to read further to get the true gist: van-based MPVs are heavy and have a big frontal area so use more fuel than svelter ones;…

MODEL TESTED ICON 42KWH Price £26,995* Power 117bhp Torque 162lb ft 0-60mph 8.1sec 30-70mph in fourth na Fuel economy 3.8mpkWh CO2 emissions 0g/km 70-0mph 45.3m Fiat has become a car maker a critic might compare to one of those greying musical acts that keeps touring but hasn’t come up with any new material worth listening to in yonks, and is simply milking its back catalogue for all it’s worth. The Mazda MX-5-based 124 Spider was a likeable but ultimately forgettable cover album; the Tipo – which is still on sale – was an old name for an old-fashioned car, even when it was new; and the 500X and 500L are unimaginative and somewhat cynical reinterpretations of old material. Meanwhile, endless new variations on the 500 city car – and, to a…

What does a V12 mean to you? Is it the pinnacle of combustion-powered brilliance; a multicylindered masterpiece that’s among the smoothest and most sweetly balanced engines found in any car? Or is it just the final bastion of automotive profligacy, the antithesis of all that’s clean and green, awaiting its inevitable death knell from legislators the world over? Ferrari should know better than most. Of the four manufacturers in the UK that still sell V12-powered cars (Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce being the others, if you ignore the odd niche luxury car), it has by far the longest back catalogue of road-going V12 models. In fact, you could argue that it’s a continuous one, too, given that Maranello’s flat-12 engines from the 1970s to the 1990s were actually wide-angled vees…

I owned a Toyota Land Cruiser. It was functional but basic, so I wondered whether I was missing out. Keen to sample what science could offer, I replaced it with a Volkswagen Passat GTE. I love the adaptive cruise control, even if it does encourage naps. I admire the LED running lights, despite being able to see them only in shop windows. It looks great for an estate. That’s it. That’s what I like. On the other side of the equation, it has LEDs to light up the front upper third of the door (why?), yet not in the charging socket, so I have to piston around for that. Then I must press a button, ‘charge later’ (I’ve never worked out how that’s done) or ‘charge now’, which charges it…

To many, Mercedes-Benz offers the ideal blend of performance, comfort, style and efficiency. And the second-generation CLA, introduced in 2019, certainly lives up to that ‘something for everyone’ billing, offering fastback and shooting brake bodystyles and a wide variety of powertrains. Opening proceedings is the CLA 180, which is propelled by a turbocharged 1.3-litre fourcylinder petrol engine making 134bhp and arguably the most attractive choice of the lot, for its yin and yang of power and efficiency. The next-step-up CLA 200 boosts that unit’s output to 161bhp and thus can do 0-62mph in just under 9.0sec. The CLA 220 ups the ante with a 2.0-litre turbo petrol four-pot producing 187bhp, a top speed of 150mph and a 0-62mph time shaved down to 7.0sec. And then there’s the 221bhp CLA 250,…

A road test in any other magazine might well be a short, subjective summary of a new car produced under almost any circumstances, but the Autocar road test is different. Specific, rigorous and detailed, it’s the closest examination we can give of any new model. It appears over at least eight pages and is close to 50 man-hours in the making every week. Most of what the road test process entails is designed to be strictly repeatable and fair. We benchmark standing-start and in-gear acceleration at a purpose-built test facility every week. We carry out both subjective and objective handling tests on both road and track, on the latter up to and beyond the limit of grip, so as to fully assess stability, drivability and limit handling appeal. And while…

Sony’s new electric SUV concept grabbed headlines as a car produced by a firm that had made its name in other fields, but it’s far from the first to attempt the difficult transition. From backgrounds of space exploration, weapons, aircraft and much else, here are some of the makers that branched out into cars – and mostly quickly retreated back to their comfort zones. Sony Japanese technology giant Sony unveiled a convincing-looking Tesla rival named Vision-S in 2020. It said at the time that it had no plans to go any further with cars but a few weeks ago unveiled the Vision-S 02, an SUV based on the earlier saloon. The new seven-seater has two electric motors, each good for 268bhp, although no target range has yet been mentioned. Intriguingly,…

MG is looking to significantly expand its product portfolio as the marque approaches its centenary in 2024, with the aim of attracting new buyers in new segments and continuing on its steep growth trajectory. In the 16 years since being acquired by the Chinese state-owned SAIC, MG has established itself as a leading maker of value-oriented yet well-equipped and safe family cars, selling more than 52,000 across Europe in 2021 – far more than half of which were in the UK, its spiritual home. It plans to triple that figure in 2022 on its way to reaching one million sales across 100 global markets by 2024. Crucial to this goal will be the introduction of new cars. The 5 SW EV estate and ZS EV crossover are already among the…

Mercedes-Benz’s EQ electric car family will soon grow once again with the launches of the EQS SUV and EQE SUV, the third and fourth models to be based on the German car maker’s EV-dedicated EVA platform. Confirmed by Mercedes boss Ola Källenius in 2020, the EQS SUV is expected to cost from around £90,000 in the UK, while the smaller EQE SUV will sit closer to the £75,000 mark when sales begin later this year. Eventually, the EQS SUV will provide the basis for a more potent and yet more lavishly appointed Maybach, as previewed by a concept at the 2021 Munich motor show. The technically similar EQS SUV and EQE SUV are being developed together in a joint engineering programme that aims to get them launched within six months…

According to Ford’s patent, an EV motor will drive each front wheel through its own reduction gearbox, forming part of a four-wheel drive system that will “increase wheel traction with a ground surface on which the vehicle sits to increase acceleration and decrease wheel slippage”. The ‘pancake’ motors in this scenario will not be “rotationally coupled to the engine”. Their power will be supplied by an integrated starter-generator (similar to a conventional mild-hybrid drivetrain), which would itself be powered by the V8’s crankshaft, doing away with the need for a weighty and space-consuming traction battery. Mounting the EV motors directly to opposing sides of the engine’s oil pan would save space, according to the patent filing, and allow for each to operate independently, thereby offering torque vectoring across the front…

As car makers announce their sales volumes and financial results for 2021, the importance of range-topping SUVs as revenue and growth drivers, particularly for luxury and performance brands, becomes increasingly evident. Super-SUVs now generally account for the majority of sales for sports car and luxury brands, and their high profit margins and flexibility of purpose will help fund the development of crucial new EVs and more enthusiast-oriented traditional sports cars. Here’s how a selection of SUV flagships performed in relation to their more traditional stablemates in 2021 and a look at how these models will evolve in the near future. ASTON MARTIN Aston Martin issued a warning to the stock exchange that it would miss its 2021 earnings targets by £15 million ahead of revealing its full-year results in February.…

Mini has launched a new in-house programme dedicated to electrifying its older models as the latest step in a wide-reaching campaign to promote the car maker’s sustainability credentials. The new Mini Recharged project – developed by a team of workers at the firm’s Oxford factory, following a positive reaction to the one-off electrified Mini shown in 2018 – has been devised as a means of “telling the story of the classic Mini in the 21st century, in a sustainable way”. According to the brand, the concept was conceived even before the launch of the series-production Mini Electric hatch. Owners of the original-shape Mini – produced under various nameplates from 1959 until 2000 – will eventually be able to have their car’s four-cylinder A-series engine swapped for a 121bhp electric motor.…

As ‘decent days at work’ go, cold-weather testing the Lamborghini Sterrato must be right up there. This Huracán-based supercar with rally car-like features first appeared in 2019 as a concept. ‘Sterrato’ loosely translates as ‘dirt road’, which gives you an idea of the thinking behind it. With 43mm more ground clearance than the Huracán, a wider track, balloon tyres, damage-resistant cladding and a four-wheel drive system giving increased rear bias, it was a wild concept. But just a concept? Apparently not. The fact that it’s undergoing cold-weather testing, as our spy shot above shows, suggests that a production run is imminent. Word is they could make 500-1000 Sterratos. Certainly an extensive cold-testing programme would be extreme if they were going to make only a few, destined to be locked up…

HE HAD WON the Dakar Rally three times before, but Qatari off-road racer Nasser Al-Attiyah’s fourth was extra special, given that it was his first since the event relocated to the deserts of Saudi Arabia in his home region. The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver dominated the epic event in his Hilux, winning just two of the 12 stages but leading nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb – who was driving a Prodrive-built BRZ Hunter – by 27min 46sec at the finish. Audi endured mixed fortunes on its Dakar debut with its new hybrid-powered RS Q E-tron. Stéphane Peterhansel, a 14-time Dakar winner, was out of contention after crashing on the very first stage and team-mates Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekström lost lots of time to navigational errors. But the Audi…

“This is a car with a low tolerance for inexperience” Sorry to start on a downer, but George Orwell’s gloomy admonition in Nineteen Eighty-Four that “who controls the past controls the future” has gained an unlikely relevance when it comes to famous cars. That’s why the Ecurie Ecosse LM-C definitely isn’t a Jaguar C-Type, even though it looks like one. Jaguar has confirmed that it will be building 16 C-Type Continuations, each a near-perfect copy of the sports racer that won the 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours. While the LM-C, built by a company that takes its name from a famous old privateer racing outfit, is without official sanction or any hint of Jaguar branding. Given that Jaguar successfully sued the maker of another C-Type replica on copyright grounds, the…

For many people, owning a car means modifying it and making it their own. Few cars cater to this better than fast Fords, so if you have a Fiesta ST and want to uprate it, you’re not short of choice. Ford-sanctioned fettler Mountune offers various plug-and-play kits to boost the 197bhp three-cylinder turbo engine with few downsides, but if you want even more than the 256bhp offered by its M260 kit, you will need some hardware changes. This is where Turbo Technics comes in. The Northampton-based firm has been offering turbo kits for various cars, from Ford Capris to the Nissan Figaro and the Volkswagen Golf R (easily capable of 550bhp, apparently), since the 1980s. For £1140, it will take the Fiesta ST’s turbo and gut most of it, uprating…

Blur. Not the band; the effect. The car world is changing so fast that even if you devour every road test report, read every analysis of investor calls with CEOs and tune into every press conference, things can still get a little blurry. Some totemic examples of how unpredictable the industry has become. Only seven years ago, Audi won Le Mans using diesel, but today most manufacturers can’t ditch the stuff quickly enough. Five years ago, the late Sergio Marchionne told us that no Ferrari SUV would be forthcoming and the company would need to be sufficiently disciplined not to bastardise the brand; yet mere months from now, the Purosangue will arrive. And four years ago, you couldn’t lay hands on anything that could even loosely be called a driver’s…

Revolutionary Britishdesigned premium car audio technology with the potential to bring huge improvements to both on-the-move listening experiences and overall car efficiency is soon to be launched by a Midlands company that was spun out of Warwick University’s engineering department 20 years ago. The company, Warwick Acoustics (WA), has headquarters at the MIRA Technology Park near Nuneaton and it bases its revolutionary business on the development of electrostatic speakers that are smaller, lighter, higher performing and easier to package than any existing conventional speakers for cars. In addition, WA – which also develops accompanying software for its systems – claims powerful advantages in sustainability for the trailblazing new products, due to be revealed in a prototype vehicle soon. WA’s managing director is Mike Grant, who was drafted in by the…

DRIVEN New Maserati MC20 This mid-engined sports car kick-starts a whole new era for Maserati. Matt Prior delivers our extensive first UK verdict FEATURE Alfa vs Europe We’re handed the keys to a Giulia GTAm in Italy and told to deliver it to the UK INSIGHT Styling the future Design legend Frank Stephenson on the next big trends in car design EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST DS 9 French luxury brand’s new plug-in hybrid saloon meets our road testers CULT HERO Nissan GT-R Thirteen years of supercar slaying revisited SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p22…

MILEAGE 3085 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if this family EV has the versatility to be Volkswagen’s new people’s car In my experience, running an electric car becomes a lot easier if it can cover at least 200 real-world miles between charges. That sort of range means I can pretty much go where I like whenever I like. And that’s what my Volkswagen ID 3 was giving me in the early days, happily dispatching around 220 miles before needing a top-up. But now, with the weather having turned colder, its efficiency has dropped from 3.8 miles per kWh hour to barely 3.0, reducing the indicated range to around 190 miles and the actual distance I can cover between charges to 175 miles at best. To be fair, most EVs…

When you are one of the world’s largest and most successful manufacturers of road and racing cars and motorcycles, known for your innovative thinking and unimpeachable engineering and splendid engines, and you want to produce a new model to celebrate a special birthday, what do you come up with? The S2000, that’s what. You see, the Honda Motor Company was officially formed in 1949 and, to mark the firm’s golden jubilee, it gave the world this low-slung, rear-wheel-drive, two-seat drop-top sports car of prodigious performance, perfect 50:50 weight distribution and impressively low polar moments of inertia. And there’s more. For starters, there was a wonderful 2.0-litre 16-valve VTEC engine that produced 237bhp at 8300rpm and could rev to 9000rpm. It was a vivid screamer that could potter all day like…

Few cars have had bigger shoes to fill than the RS4 Avant: those of the RS2 Avant, the hot estate with Porsche genes that cemented Audi’s performance credentials. The first RS4 hit the road in 1999, four years after production of the original RS road car ended. Like the regular A4, it was based on the Volkswagen Group’s B5 platform, but its design was considerably different. The RS2’s wrap-around rear lights were ditched for a more traditional arrangement, while wider arches, bulkier bumpers and a rear spoiler came from the more restrained S4. On paper, the RS4 certainly had what it took to improve on its predecessor. A twin-turbocharged 2.7-litre V6 (developed and built in the UK by Cosworth and mated to a six-speed manual gearbox) made a staggering 375bhp,…

LEE NOBLE, THE designer and engineer who founded sports car manufacturer Noble, is making a bold return to the low-volume industry with a production version of the lightweight, 500bhp-plus track-focused test mule he demonstrated five years ago. Named the Exile (as is Noble’s new business), the road-legal mid-engined two-seat coupé combines a motorsport-bred chassis with supercar-quick acceleration. Now powered by a 504bhp twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre Ford Ecoboost V6 (replacing the mule’s Cadillac V6), the Exile should accelerate from 0-60mph in 3.5sec and on to a top speed of 165mph, according to its maker. “The only changes we’ve made have been a dry sump for better track performance and bespoke mapping of the ECU,” said Noble. “Durability and simplicity were key here – and making it pretty quick, too.” Drive is delivered…

AS FORD REINVENTS the Mustang coupé and prepares to electrify its Puma ST hot crossover, the manufacturer could soon bring back several other historic nameplates to its portfolio. Last year, Ford’s Europe design chief, Murat Gueler, told Autocar that reviving old monikers could be a shrewd marketing ploy for the firm. “I think we have the unique asset of having nameplates from the past that we can tap into to emotionalise our product,” he said, “and to tell stories no other brand can tell.” At the time, he refused to be drawn on which would make a comeback, but Ford recently filed to trademark a selection of names linked to some of its best-selling European models: Cortina, Granada, Escort, Capri and Orion. This could be a move purely to stop…

BMW HAS UPDATED the 8 Series line-up ahead of a public debut at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in the US in early March. Set for UK sale in the coming months, priced from £81,725, the revised 8 Series receives the performance-inspired M Sport styling package as standard. It imbues the trio of regular models with a number of signature M design elements, including a more heavily structured front bumper and rear diffuser, plus new-look 19in wheels and upgraded brakes with blue calipers on the six-cylinder models. The more powerful V8 cars receive a similar treatment but with an added splitter element up front, M8-style exterior mirrors, a rear spoiler and a diffuser in a colour that BMW describes as Dark Shadow Metallic. Also included are new 20in wheels and…

Mini sold 302,144 cars worldwide in 2021 – a 3.3% year-on-year increase – of which 53,243, or 18%, were electrified. The brand, which will launch its final combustion model in just three years’ time, recorded a near 100% increase in demand for the fully electric Cooper SE, which, with 34,851 examples sold, accounted for a tenth of its total global sales. Britain, Mini’s spiritual home country, remains its core market and accounted for 46,211 sales, compared with 43,004 in Germany.…

“In terms of passenger vehicles, I don’t see fuel cells as being a significant opportunity, honestly” Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) should be making their big stage entrance right about now. Petrol and diesel cars are under fire as the UK government pushes harder for zero emissions ahead of its ban on new ICE vehicles from 2030. Meanwhile, hydrogen is a key part of emissions reduction from British power generation (plans were announced last year to produce 5GW worth annually by 2030 – roughly the output of two nuclear plants). And FCEVs eliminate much of the range and charging anxiety prompted by the move from ICE cars. So where are they? Brits can buy just two FCEVs from mainstream car makers: the Hyundai Nexo and Toyota Mirai. Last year,…

Kia is one of a handful of car makers that beat the odds in 2021 amid Covid-19 and the semiconductor crisis, reporting significantly improved fortunes. It sold 90,817 new cars in the UK, a year-on-year rise of 29.75%. We asked long-standing UK CEO Paul Philpott how Kia achieved this and what’s next for the South Korean brand. Kia has doubled its UK market share in the past 10 years to 5.5%. How? “We’ve had a really good run for 10 to 15 years. Looking back over our history, there’s not been a sudden boom year, apart from scrappage [the government scheme of 2009 to 2010]. We’ve consistently grown our volume and market share off the back of, first and foremost, very strong progression in our product range and, latterly, through…

MONDAY What will automotive life be like in 2030? I spent the evening with my nose in our digital archive (see p36), looking back eight years for guidance about the situation eight years forward. Beyond obvious stuff (we will be chest-high in EVs and chargers and plug-in hybrids will need far longer electric-only ranges), I found no nuggets. There will be surprises about how EV motoring is paid for, but for now it’s in the authorities’ interests to avoid specifics about that (if they have any). One thing I did notice, though, is how much we talked about body and chassis rigidity back then, as if it were something special, like a swanky hi-fi. Nowadays, all cars have unimpeachable rigidity, which makes it amusing to recall when they didn’t. With…

The original Ecurie Ecosse (French for ‘Team Scotland’) was more a privateer collective than a team. It competed in many disciplines with a rotating cast of star drivers and cars. Its crowning achievement was victory in the 1956 and 1957 Le Mans 24 Hours with Jaguar D-Types, but it won no fewer than 59 podiums with seven Jaguar C-Types, all of which still exist. Like those cars, each new LM-C has its body and chassis made in Coventry, with welded steel spaceframe chassis and handformed thin-gauge aluminium bodywork. It’s then trimmed and has its engine fitted at Ecurie Ecosse’s workshop in Henley. The C-Type uses carburettors, but the LM-C uses multi-point fuel injection through a completely new inlet manifold. This works with a Life Racing F88 ECU, a lambda probe…

The AC Schnitzer recipe usually goes like this: tease some extra power from a BMW’s engine, cut some flab from the chassis and add a bit of glitz inside. But the transformation from M135i to ACS1 35i is rather timid. The problem is the hot hatch’s eight-speed automatic gearbox: the 2.0-litre turbo four’s 302bhp output is pretty much all it can cope with, so AC Schnitzer hasn’t added any more power. Instead, it has fitted its own carbon-tipped exhaust (£1736), which includes an ECU-controlled valve, just like the factory system; its own flow-formed 20in wheels (£4406); and coilovers (£2457). The suspension is also AC Schnitzer’s, and although its height, bump and rebound are adjustable, it comes with the German firm’s preferred settings. A front splitter (£831), spoiler addon (£313), metal…

At the beginning of the first lockdown, I went into the basement at Haymarket Media Group and looked through the entire run of Autocar from 1895 to the present to see what the magazine did during moments of national crises. It turns out that it was not the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler that stopped production but industrial action. You might remember that I wrote a story about it. Anyway, after it was published, we received an email from a reader called E Dean Butler, who said that he had a full collection of Autocar from day one and reckoned that there were only six complete sets left in the world. You will also be aware that the entire Autocar back catalogue has just been digitised. Shortly after it was announced,…

The basis of WA’s automotive sound revolution – the electrostatic transducer – looks almost too simple and small to be a disruptor, especially against a conventional cone speaker with its relatively heavy central magnet and fragile diaphragm. But just by handling one, you can appreciate WA’s claim for light weight and easy mounting. The examples we saw were about the size of a large, oval biscuit, and similar in thickness. They are encased in an extremely light two-piece plastic frame with a honeycomb-shape web to protect the all-important membrane and a small set of connectors at one end. Although electrostatic speakers were fragile when the technology was first discovered around 70 years ago, WA says its products’ simplicity and robust design make them impervious to temperature and humidity variations, stable…

Fitting tribute I thoroughly enjoyed Steve Cropley’s recent article on impressions and experiences from driving the Lotus Evora (‘Forever and Evora, amen’, 27 October 2021), which became all the more poignant in light of the sad passing of Hazel Chapman. Might I humbly suggest that Lotus consider renaming its famous shade of green ‘Hazel’ in her honour? Neil Donald Via email Most practical estate I read with interest your comparison of the BMW 5 Series, Jaguar XF and Skoda Superb estates (‘Sticking to conventions’, 1 December 2021). Two years ago, I was making a similar choice but with the added complexity of needing the car to accommodate a powered wheelchair and hoist. I wanted a BMW 530d Touring, but the boot was too small. I thought a SUV would take…

Tipo to the top IN REPLACING THE badly ageing Strada, Fiat tried not to rewrite the family car formula but to exploit it to the maximum, creating the Tipo and the world’s most automated car plant to manufacture it, with European domination in sight. Autocar therefore arrived at its much-hyped unveiling in Britain’s favourite such car, the Ford Escort, and Europe’s, the Volkswagen Golf. Despite Fiat’s carburetted 1.6 being newer and more potent, the Tipo was slower to 60mph, partly as it was 45kg overweight. Still, the four-pot easily held its own. Fully independent, long-travel suspension gave a loping, almost French ride to the Italian that was “significantly more comfortable” than its rivals’. However, handling was a flaw, with torque steer and lots of body roll in evidence. It was…

MILEAGE 1872 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if the reborn 500 is just as charming to live with as it is to look at When your daily trip to work and back is a little over 20 miles and ‘the new normal’ means going in only a few times a week, it’s easy to see an EV with a giant battery as overkill. One of only 42kWh has so far proven more than sufficient for our little Fiat 500, often letting me go multiple weeks between charges when used purely as a commuter car. That’s despite the fact that its estimated range still refuses to climb higher than 160 miles on a full charge – a significant 20% down on the 199 promised by WLTP testing. Temperatures have…

An owner’s view SAM SNODDY, S2KUK OWNERS CLUB MEMBER “I bought my first one in 2007, a GT model on an 04-plate. I love these cars and I’ve had three. It’s all about driver input. The driving experience is analogue and primal. It really grabs you by the lapels. It’s durable and bullet-proof, and also practical, with a large boot, and it handles driving trips and weekends away with ease. I help organise meetings for enthusiasts through the owners club. We meet up at least a couple of times a year.” Buyer beware… ▪ BODYWORK Solidly built with excellent all-round quality but check the body carefully because the panels are expensive to replace. Many examples have had relatively minor accident damage and some repairs are better than others. ▪ BRAKES…