Table of contents for August 24, 2022 in Autocar

Bentley’s coachbuilding arm, Mulliner, which is making the latest Batur and the even rarer Bacalar, has been experiencing “exponential” growth in recent years despite the intervention of Covid-19. According to Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark, Mulliner’s bespoke business for the first five months of this year was five times greater than that for the whole of 2019, the most recent full year against which the latest results can be judged. The business has lately matured into three arms. There’s the coachbuilding side, which makes the Batur and Bacalar, plus the continuation Blower and Speed Six models. There’s the ‘created by Mulliner’ business, which offers buyers special features to personalise their production models. And there’s the Mulliner Bespoke business that will take your personal commission for a car, if you can’t find…

New McLaren CEO Michael Leiters has given his first interview in the role exclusively to Autocar. In this extensive Q&A, the ex-Ferrari technical chief outlines his plans for the Woking firm and how he has found the role and life at the company so far. Why did you want to come to McLaren? “First of all, I see a big potential in the brand and in the company. Seeing where McLaren is today, thinking about what it could be and then driving this change, that is something that really motivates me. I like to work as an entrepreneur, and this feels like an entrepreneurial space.” How did you assess McLaren from afar while at Ferrari? “How can we beat them?! I would say McLaren was the most important competitor for…

AMERICAN START-UP Czinger has revealed a 1233bhp grand tourer to join its record-breaking 21C hypercar as it strives to become an established brand with “a portfolio like Lamborghini”. Named the Hyper GT, the two-door, four-seat coupé concept has the same twin-turbocharged 2.9-litre hybridised V8 engine as the 21C, mounted at the front. Complete with gullwing doors, 3D-printed wheels and camera-operated side mirrors, it commands a hefty price of between $750,000 (£613,260) and $1 million (£817,680), but it will be much higher volume than the 21C, as Czinger plans to build 1000 examples at its headquarters in Los Angeles. Dubbed “functional art”, the Hyper GT sits in a “new category”, according to boss Kevin Czinger who, along with son and company co-founder Lukas Czinger, revealed it at Monterey Car Week. LEDs…

The spectre of Toyota’s manufacturing leaving the UK if the government includes hybrids in its ICE car ban has been raised again. The Japanese firm has long been unhappy with the speed at which the UK is ending the sale of new combustion-engined cars, starting in 2030 for nonelectrified cars with a five-year grace period for some hybrids. We don’t know yet which hybrids, but the stipulation that they be capable of travelling a “significant distance” as an EV seems to rule out Toyota’s ‘self-charging’ hybrids, which can’t be plugged in. The company will pull out entirely if it doesn’t win that concession, The Sunday Telegraph has reported. When contacted by Autocar, Toyota didn’t refute the report but said it was “ready to sell 100% of our vehicles with zero…

Indian automotive giant Mahindra has embarked on a landmark electrification drive with the unveiling of five new electric SUVs. Three of the quintet have been designed at the firm’s new European design headquarters in the UK and all use a new platform derived from the Volkswagen Group’s MEB architecture. Notably, company bosses have expressed their desire to export the cars to European countries – including the UK – if market conditions are right. While it’s not yet guaranteed that Mahindra cars will be sold in the UK (India is the priority at first), the Mahindra Advanced Design Europe (MADE) centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire, will play a fundamental role in the realisation of this strategy. Mahindra chairman Anand Mahindra said at the launch of the EVs that he recognises the UK…

Yes, another week, another Porsche 911 that’s not as you knew it. Last week, a Ruf 3.4 RSR review crossed these pages, I recently drove a 993 tweaked by Paul Stephens and there’s news this week of a Singer that looks like a 930 Turbo with a cabriolet roof – less up my Straße than a coupé but still cool. So to the car pictured above. It’s by Gunther Werks, whose 993 Speedster I drove in April. It focuses on widening the front track, cutting some weight and moving other weight forwards to make the handling less traditional 911 (light nose, wayward tail) but still exhilarating and more mid-engined in character. To good effect. I liked it a lot. Gunther Werks has made a run of 25 coupés, is well…

COLIN TURKINGTON SHONE on a Norfolk weekend in which he notched up his 500th start in the British Touring Car Championship and scored a brace of wins for Team BMW. The Northern Irishman nabbed pole position on Saturday from team-mate Jake Hill, then took a lights-toflag victory in race one, despite a pair of safety car restarts keeping him on his toes. In race two, Hill ran side by side with Turkington through the opening corners, but the latter asserted his place at the front to lead an identical podium, the BMW men joined by Hyundai’s Tom Ingram. But it was a different story in race three, as reigning champion Ash Sutton scored his second win in successive BTCC weekends for Napa Ford. Dan Rowbottom’s Dynamics Honda took the lead…

“The Performante felt immediately keener thanks to its recalibrated engine” Its name might cause some raised eyebrows given the branding was last applied to a lightweight, trackfocused Huracán, but it is hard to fault the marketing logic behind the Urus Performante. This is a more senior version of Lamborghini’s hugely fast SUV, one intended to keep on terms with turned-up rivals like the Aston Martin DBX 707 and Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT – plus the Ferrari Purosangue, which we will see in production form soon. As with the Huracán Performante, the Urus gets more power and less mass, although the changes over the existing car are modest. The 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 now makes 657bhp – a diabolical 666 metric horsepower – which represents a 16bhp increase over the standard Urus.…

People will always want sporty styling, even if they don’t want a car that’s remotely exciting to drive. Volvo sells R-Design cars by the bucketload, Audi buyers love an S Line and now the Skoda Fabia, perhaps the least sporting supermini in Europe, is following suit. If you can remember when Citroën made the Saxo VTR, this idea will be familiar. The Fabia Monte Carlo gets 17in wheels (although our test car wore an optional 18in set), beefed-up bumpers and some black body trim. If you go for the range-topping 1.5 TSI (a 1.0 TSI is also offered), you get special front-wing badging, too, and you can add a black roof as an option. But while this is the only 1.5 Fabia you can buy, there’s no special suspension or…

Ding, ding, ding. Yes, it’s round three of Range Rover versus Bentley Bentayga and the score stands at one-all. And this time, the head-to-head tussle between these two towering Brits is more pertinent than ever because it’s the brand-new Range Rover and its price has inflated, and indeed escalated, well into Bentayga territory. The latest Range Rover has stepped up the luxury, in part to compensate for its Jaguar XJ stablemate not being replaced. Where it originally started as a glorified farm vehicle that you could drive into town, today it’s very much the ultraluxury car that will still go off road. It’s more closely matched to the Bentayga than ever, so to make this as fair a fight as possible, we’ve got a high-spec V8 example of each. So…

The last time I veered right at junction three of the M25 and bombed down the M20 to Dover, with the aim of passing Valence by tea time, I was in a 1993 Audi 80 1.9 TDI – already a quarter of a century old and no doubt missing a fair few of its original 89bhp. No air-con, manual windows, a rattly turbocharger and onesided braking were its defining features, but I wasn’t worried. It had about 150,000 miles on the clock and the next 1000-ish weren’t going to kill it. This time, however – as I left London with my girlfriend to meet family near St Tropez in the south of France – I was bricking it, and not because of the car, which had worn its numberplate for…

The Austin Seven was raced comprehensively and successfully during the 1920s, setting records at Brooklands to keep publicising the car, whose side-valve engine was gradually improved, blown and given pressure-fed lubrication. As opposition gradually increased, though, into the 1930s the Seven began to get outpaced, and so Austin developed its twincam single-seaters, which were winning races right up until 1939. After the war, Brooklands was gone and competition between the major British car makers changed immeasurably, them backing bigcapacity coupés into the 1960s. But at that point, the Seven came into its own with the creation of the 750 Formula and the brilliance of small-scale engineering geniuses who got the most they could out of the most modest mechanicals. Arthur Mallock, Bruce McLaren, Mike Costin (of Cosworth) and Eric Broadley…

DRIVEN MG 4 The fastest-growing car maker in the UK pushes on with an electric family hatchback to rival the Volkswagen ID 3 FEATURE Airbnb for cars How you can earn money from your car when you’re not using it DRIVEN Alfa Romeo Tonale Brand’s vital new plug-in hybrid compact SUV arrives in the UK EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Caterham Seven 420 Cup Claimed to be Caterham’s “bestever track-day Seven”. Is it? USED GUIDE Volkswagen Up GTI How to get your hands on this popular pocket rocket SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p42…

MILEAGE 5221 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the hot version of Volkswagen’s electric SUV lives up to its GT ambitions My girlfriend and I were due to drive to Manchester recently, and it left us with a decision: which car should we take? My ID 4 or her Seat Ibiza? The ID 4 is more refined on the motorway, but I love the Ibiza, with its excellent levels of frugality and character. It’s also far more fun to drive, and it wasn’t like we needed to lug about a tonne of luggage for our one-night stay, either. Another major sticking point was the length of our 395-mile round trip, but we went with the ID 4 because we thought it would be a good time to experience just…

The classic car market has remained buoyant over the past few years. We’ve even seen Ford Sierra Cosworths sell for over £100,000. But if that seems eye-watering, the top end of the market is another world, with millions of pounds, dollars or euros changing hands. So here are the most expensive cars yet sold at auction. Suddenly those old Fords seem like a bargain… Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé €135,000,000 In May, this SLR became by far the most valuable car ever sold, at a private auction held by RM Sotheby’s. Just two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupés were made by Mercedes-Benz, taking their name from the firm’s chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut. The car was designed as a road-going version of the W196R grand prix car (see below), with a 3.0-litre…

“Powered by Bentley’s punchiest W12 ever, it will be the firm’s most potent road car yet” Bentley has launched a new, ultra-low-volume Mulliner coupé, the Batur, which previews how its future electric models will look. The launch of the limitedrun car also signals the end of production for the ubiquitous 6.0-litre Crewe-built W12 engine that has powered its cars for 20 years. The Batur, revealed this week in front of a 500-strong contingent of Bentley owners as part of Monterey Car Week in California, has been designed over the past year and will reach its first customer in mid-2023. It is a two-door fixedhead coupé based on the underpinnings of the latest, longer-wheelbase Continental GT launched in 2018 and is powered by the punchiest W12 ever, still under development but…

“The 5.2-litre V10 revs all the way to 10,000rpm and pushes out more than 830bhp and 479lb ft” McLaren has revealed a limited-run, single-seat track car derived from a virtual video game concept and powered by a naturally aspirated V10 with more than 830bhp. Named the Solus GT, it has been created with speed, downforce and lap records in mind, with a striking carbonfibre cockpit-style design alongside wide-set, enclosed wheels and a huge rear wing. Built around a unique monocoque chassis, the car itself weighs less than 1000kg yet it produces 1200kg of downforce at full tilt. The track machine was originally created in concept guise for the Gran Turismo Sport video game in 2017 and it has now been revealed in production form at Monterey Car Week in California.…

Bugatti’s iconic W16 engine will bow out with the Mistral, a roadster based on the Chiron hypercar, as the firm heads towards a hybridised and electric future. The Mistral is not simply a Chiron with the top cut off, insists Bugatti, but a new car with a revised monocoque and a fresh design that takes cues from the one-off La Voiture Noire, and the Bolide and Divo concepts. It is priced at €5 million (£4.2m) and limited to 99 models, all of which are already sold. Officially called the Bugatti W16 Mistral, it is a swansong for the 8.0-litre W16 and uses the 1578bhp version that powered the Chiron Super Sport 300+ to a record-breaking 304.773mph in 2019. Bugatti has indicated that it intends the Mistral to become the world’s…

New Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schäfer aims to “make VW a loved brand again” while also fixing the software problems that have plagued the launch of its ID range of electric vehicles and forging closer relationships with its sibling manufacturers. Schäfer, speaking to Autocar at the launch of the ID Buzz, outlined the three main goals he has set for the brand since assuming the CEO position on 1 July, just three months after he joined Volkswagen as chief operating officer from his previous role as Skoda CEO. The first goal is to make the brand loved again. On this topic, Schäfer said: “VW is a phenomenal global brand, and it deserves to go back to where it used to be. It needs investment in this in products and in substance,…

Nissan’s reaction to Toyota’s leadership in hybrid tech with the Prius was to look even further ahead to battery tech, beginning with the electric Leaf. Competition with its Japanese rival drove the development, former Nissan executive Andy Palmer, one of the car’s key champions, told the Automotive News Europe Congress in July. “Development of the Leaf started 16 to 17 years ago,” said Palmer. “I wish I could say we were trying to save the world, but really were just trying to kick the arse of Toyota, because they were kicking ours with Prius.” But the cost was high. “We were paying $1000 per kWh for the battery,” said Palmer. “Now it’s around $150. We weren’t even covering material costs.” Nissan found that it had jumped too early with electric…

“My story about sprinting in a Tesla has grown legs” MONDAY Back from a week’s holiday, which as usual turned out to be of the busman’s variety. Travelled quite a bit with the Steering Committee and Disco, and practically every day we spotted at least one unusual car, something you simply wouldn’t expect. There was a fine left-handed Porsche 912 at a Somerset farm shop, a 40-year-old Merc SL in an Oxfordshire high street, an immaculate Opel Monza in a favourite pub car park, a shabby but serviceable Piaggio pick-up at a National Trust place near home in Gloucestershire, a fine red Mustang in lower Wiltshire and (my favourite) a petite Fiat 500 Giardinetta in the main drag through Burford, Oxfordshire. All appeared to be on routine outings, used for…

Formula 1 returns this weekend after its summer break for what should be an annual highlight. Spa-Francorchamps remains one of motorsport’s greatest tests, even if muchneeded safety improvements have diluted it. This year, the daunting Eau Rouge and Raidillon sequence will look rather different, owing to a heavily revised and increased run-off, while the highest priority will be for the race to actually run properly. Last year’s farce won’t have helped Spa’s cause to remain a beloved fixture on the F1 calendar. But let’s not pretend the serious doubts that weigh heavily over the Belgian GP’s future have anything to do with weather or safety concerns. Increasing competition for space on an already congested schedule is creating pressures on traditional races whose promoters struggle to justify eye-watering hosting fees. Spa…

In what could be the unlikeliest comeback story since Kate Bush topping the charts a few weeks ago with her 1985 song Running Up That Hill, diesel is enjoying a bit of a resurgence in the new car market. Even after years of demonisation, diesel still just about stands proud as the most affordable and timeefficient means of covering large distances at a constant pace. Until the advent of solid-state batteries and the proliferation of EV chargers across Europe, there will surely remain a place in certain product line-ups for a variant that sups from black pumps. That’s why the new Vauxhall Astra (like the Citroën C4 and Peugeot 308 to which it’s closely related) is offered with a diesel engine as well as petrol, plug-in hybrid and electric power.…

MODEL TESTED SPORT PLUS Price £65,405 • Power 483bhp • Torque 516lb ft • 0-60mph 3.8sec • 30-70mph in fourth na • Economy 2.9mpkWh • CO2 emissions 0g/km • 70-0mph 46.5m The Genesis brand has been (back) in Europe for about a year now, and so far its models have been fairly conventional. They are good looking and decent to drive, but the range has been wanting for something to truly distinguish it. It would have made sense for Genesis to launch as an electric brand. Instead, it has offered only petrol and diesel engines until now. It does plan to go electric-only by 2030 and the new GV60 electric crossover is the first step towards that goal. The fundamentals immediately look good. The GV60 uses the same E-GMP platform as…

RANGE ROVER The L322 generation was a turning point in the Range Rover’s history. Developed entirely under BMW, it received a big uplift in quality and luxury. The best ones with the later TDV8 and supercharged V8 engines have gone up in price, but you can pick up an early BMW-powered car for about £4000 and a heavy dose of bravery. RAYTON-FISSORE MAGNUM In the 1980s, there were some attempts to compete with the Range Rover: they just weren’t all that successful. The Rayton-Fissore Magnum tried, with an Iveco chassis and various engines. US versions even got a Ford V8. This one, with a 2.5 Alfa V6, is up for €18,000 (roughly £15k) at a dealer in Portugal. BENTLEY BENTAYGA It was introduced in 2015, so there are plenty of…

A sceptic writes The return of TVR is looking more like yet another automotive great idea that crashed and burned. Producing an aspirational design said to have outstanding abilities? Check – although the new Griffith, even on its public debut, lacked the wow factor of the Peter Wheeler days, and the interior was poorly resolved, and now, seven years after ‘rebirth’, is comprehensively outdated. Constant money problems? Check. A marked inability to actually produce any cars? Check. In fact, the company still hasn’t even finalised a site for a factory. But this is apparently no bar to releasing further grand plans (News, 10 August), this time pushing the marque into new areas, with at least two new cars, before it has even managed to produce and sell one. On top…

Military lets us loose at Longcross PRESUMABLY PIGGYBACKING off the Longcross unveiling of the Mini, we tested the latest from the Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment. These were the Austin Champ jeep, Daimler’s Ferret scout car and Alvis’s six-wheelers, the Saladin armoured car, Salamander fire tender and Saracen troop carrier. Apart from the Saracen having a forward engine, they shared an “ingenious layout, including independent suspension for each wheel, four-wheel power steering and 6WD through one differential”. A 5.7-litre Rolls-Royce straight eight gave the Saracen and Saladin 136bhp, while a 6.5-litre relation upped the Salamander to 211bhp. “The Saladin is fascinating to handle, rocking and swaying gently over atrocious going with the graceful movements of a small ship in a light swell; and on a road, it gives the…

MILEAGE 13,010 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a hybrid-only mini-SUV can be an efficient long-distance commuter car Nissan has just launched its first-ever hybrid Juke. We recently had one in to test, and it would have been remiss of me not to borrow the keys for a night, as the custodian of Autocar’s Honda HR-V e:HEV – a similar car of similar propulsion. “It’s good to suffer for your art,” quipped a colleague, and indeed it would have been suffering in a Mk1 Juke, but the Mk2 has taken great strides forward, as I found out last year when it arrived with a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine. Just how similar are the HR-V and the Juke? The Honda is a tad longer, at 4340mm versus 4210mm, but…

With such a rich, extensive heritage of fast Fords here in Britain, there are so many stories that can be shared and traced through the generations. My father used to drive a 1985 Escort RS Turbo, and many other people of his age would have done the same. Perhaps they once bought an XR3i or even stole a Sierra RS Cosworth… More recently, the Blue Oval has continued to inject its go-faster DNA into cars such as the humble Fiesta. The Fiesta ST proved immensely popular when it arrived back in 2013 and remains so today – even considering the new-generation model has been out since 2018. Why do people flock to this particular hot hatchback? Well, as with the ST’s ancestors, you know exactly where your money has and…

New McLaren Automotive boss Michael Leiters is open to launching an SUV and the firm is actively investigating what form such a model may take. Speaking exclusively to Autocar in his first interview since joining McLaren on 1 July (full interview overleaf), Leiters said he is keen to evolve the firm’s offering beyond purely mid-engined supercars. Autocar first revealed plans were under way for a McLaren SUV back in June before Leiters officially joined the company. Leiters’ most recent role was as technical chief at Ferrari, where he led the development of the upcoming Purosangue SUV. Before that, he was at Porsche, where he helped develop the Cayenne. “I developed an SUV at Ferrari,” he said. “I developed an SUV at Porsche, so I love SUVs. But we won’t do…

BUGATTI’S NEXT ALL-NEW car will be fitted with a hybrid powertrain that will be smaller than the outgoing W16 engine and be launched in 2027, Autocar can reveal. It will look “different” from current Bugattis but retain the essence of the brand and have an aerodynamic focus, the marque’s top designers have confirmed. The model will also sit on a new chassis and is expected to be leaner than the Mistral roadster due to the smaller powerplant. Speaking about the hybrid engine, Bugatti design director Achim Anscheidt said: “There are opportunities to get just a bit more athletic for the shape of Bugatti in the future, without losing the general gesture of generosity or sovereignty.” The firm is saying little about its forthcoming model, revealing nothing about the design apart…

The new Porsche 911 GT3 RS has been revealed as a hardcore, motorsportinspired range-topper, said to be the “most trackfocused and aerodynamically optimised” 911 to date. The 992-generation 911 GT3 RS uses the largest, 4.0-litre version of Porsche’s naturally aspirated flat six, which produces 517bhp and shoots it from 0-62mph in 3.2sec and on to a top speed of 184mph. It will be fitted exclusively with an enhanced PDK seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox that has shorter drive ratios than in the standard 911. It has three driving modes, too: Normal, Sport and Track. Thanks to several changes around the car, the 911 GT3 RS makes double the downforce of its 991.2-era predecessor and three times as much as the current 911 GT3. The 911 GT3 RS also gains a drag…

HUMAN NATURE (TAKE the easiest route) and financial considerations (take the most profitable route) are arguably the two things that drive society forward. That’s especially true when solving the world’s problems, such as global warming. Electrification of cars ticks both boxes but raises the question of whether the early decision to abandon combustion engines misses a trick. The world’s biggest oil producers potentially stand to lose the most because alternatives might rule them out. While they may have a grip on the expertise and resources to drill for and produce petroleum products, the same isn’t true for other energy sources. Yet they are well placed to invest more in ‘drop-in’ carbon-neutral synthetic fuels, which can be dispensed using existing filling station forecourts without the need to create an entirely new…

FORD PROJECTIONS Ford has begun trialling a new headlight technology that can project important information onto the road, such as a guide for safely passing a cyclist, sat-nav directions, speed limits and even weather information, to “keep the driver’s gaze fixed on the way ahead”. The project has been created and tested by Ford of Europe in a bid to make driving at night safer. Other firms have been pursuing similar ideas, including Audi, which is working on the projection of various warning symbols onto the road. However, it says it has been held up by complex homologation laws around the globe – something with which Ford is also battling. NEXT-GENERATION EV Think cars are getting too big? So does British company YDMC, which has just launched a new small…

The new Civic, the 11th iteration of Honda’s staple family hatchback, has arrived in the UK ahead of customer deliveries beginning in October. It’s priced from £29,595 up to £32,995, depending which of the three trim levels you go for. At 4.55m, it’s the longest car in its class, and at 1.41m, it’s the lowest, too. In a segment coming under increased pressure from crossovers and SUVs (to the extent that Ford is canning the Focus), the Civic looks like a very conventional old-school hatchback. It’s made for the world but designed primarily within Europe and to our demands, because they’re the highest around the globe. Anyway, it’s so old-school that it has a petrol engine and even what Honda calls an e-CVT. But not so fast. “I’m not very…

The upper middle class’s go-to family car is rapidly becoming a plug-in hybrid, mid-size SUV, so it makes sense that Volvo – having cleverly branded itself as the sustainable car maker of choice – has revised its XC60 Recharge T6 and T8 PHEVs to stay competitive. The crux of the update is an improved powertrain that includes a new battery with capacity increased from 11.6kWh to 18.8kWh and a more powerful (145bhp) rear electric motor, resulting in a total output of 345bhp in the T6. Plus, crucially, electric-only range increases from 33 to 48 miles. One-pedal driving has come in, too. During our test, the predicted electric range was a fair reflection of real usage. Plus, with the sat-nav set, the system accurately plans ahead to most efficiently use the…

The new Range Rover’s 4.4-litre V8 comes out of the warehouses of BMW. Of course, it’s not the first time a Range Rover has been powered by a BMW V8. Land Rover was briefly owned by BMW, so the L322 Range Rover of 2001 came with a choice of a 3.0-litre diesel or a 4.4-litre V8 from Munich. That lasted for only a few years, because BMW quickly got rid of Land Rover, selling it to Ford, which merged it with Jaguar, which inserted its own V8. The Volkswagen Group has enough powerful engines of its own to not need the services of a rival German conglomerate, but in the 1990s Bentley also had an episode where its engineers had to scramble to expunge BMW parts from its cars. Bentley…

I doubt there’s another car in history that has influenced motorsport as much as the Austin Seven. Yet the little Austin was never designed to be a racing car, nor even a sports car. When it made its debut 100 years ago, it was billed as a small and affordable family car – a simple car for the masses. “What other car gives so much at this price?” asked one early advert. Modified Sevens did win races before production finished in 1939, but it was in the late 1940s, when plenty of pre-war cars were being scrapped and forgotten, that the Seven really took on a racing life. Its compactness, lightness and simplicity – all things that made it a great budget family car – were seized on by those…

I’ve been running a Toyota RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid for around 10 weeks and 7000 miles now, and according to the car, it’s running 82% in EV mode. Economy is currently averaging 3.2 miles per kWh and it gives an indicated 56 miles of electric range from a full charge. I have a 120-mile commute each day, and I plug my PHEV in at home (using a 7.2kW charger provided free by Toyota/Centrica) and again when I get to work. Contrast this with a colleague who has a fuel card and has never plugged in his BMW 330e even once! The problem isn’t the cars, it’s the flawed taxation system. If you have fuel provided and are paying a set amount of tax for it every month, irrespective of whether or…

Family estates can be as dull as a loaf of sliced white, but this bargainbustin’ Leon packs some serious intent beneath its yeasty, muscular wheel arches. It’s not just good-looking, either. It’s also sharp, well rounded and efficient, and this wagon bests the hatch for practicality and spaciousness for very little extra outlay on the used car forecourts. The base engine is a 1.0-litre petrol, badged 1.0 TSI 110, and don’t rule it out. It pulls well enough from low revs and can keep up with faster-moving traffic. That said, you’re likely to appreciate the extra punch of the 128bhp 1.5-litre petrol, badged 1.5 TSI 130. It’s a lovely engine. There’s also a 148bhp version of the same 1.5-litre engine, badged 1.5 TSI 150, and a 187bhp 2.0-litre, badged 2.0…

An expert’s view STEPHEN VINCENT, HENDY PERFORMANCE “I bought a Fiesta ST200 about three years ago. The main draw was that it was a sub-£15,000 car at the time, and you can affordably modify and maintain it. I got mine up to 350bhp and, with daily driving, still saw upwards of 40mpg. We run a 320bhp Fiesta ST as a courtesy car as well. It has a hybrid turbo and the engine still has the standard internals, and it has done the best part of 55,000 miles now. Even straight out of the box the Fiesta ST is fantastic, and the chassis is phenomenal.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE Listen for a rattle from the cam bucket, which can fail due to fuelpump pressure. The engine will run badly as it…