Indice dei contenuti per October 5, 2022 in Autocar

The first time you set eyes on the new Hyundai Ioniq 6, all stretched, swooping lines and Porsche 911-esque rear, you find yourself asking: what were its designers thinking? If 2022-spec Hyundai were a more conservative, boring manufacturer, the Ioniq 6 wouldn’t look anything like it does: it would be a reskinned saloon version of the ultra-successful Ioniq 5 SUV. Heck, Hyundai could have just fiddled with the roofline of that car and churned out an Ioniq 5 Coupé. Then again, if Hyundai were a more conservative, boring manufacturer, the Ioniq 5 itself wouldn’t look anything like it does. By ignoring its rulebook and convention for that car, the Korean company produced a cutting-edge EV that fundamentally shifted its brand’s market position upwards. So it probably shouldn’t surprise that Hyundai…

It would be easy for those drunk on the power outputs of today’s hybrid supercars to miss the point of the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS entirely. As a result of its ‘ultra-wide’ body and new technical features, this is one of Porsche’s famously lightweight Rennsport models that is in fact, err, heavier than an equivalent 992-generation GT3. It also develops only marginally more peak power than its little sibling, and marginally less peak torque. Why on earth, some might wonder, would you queue up to pay a £33k premium for that? The most convincing reason, other than because it’s the latest extra-special Porsche GT model, may simply be ‘because downforce’. Porsche’s modern RS models have specialised in uncompromisingly large rear wings but the new 992-gen RS moves Porsche’s wing…

Sibling rivalries might inspire competitive spirit in people, but it’s something that car makers usually try to avoid, because having two of your models court the same buyer isn’t good for business. What to think of Genesis, then, which is launching the Electrified GV70 next to the equally battery-powered, similarly sized and, for equivalent spec, similarly priced GV60? The GV70 is the brand’s mediumsize executive SUV (think BMW X3 and Audi Q5), available with petrol and diesel engines. It has now been electrified, swapping its ICE for a 77.4kWh battery and two electric motors making 483bhp. The other key figures are a 283-mile range, charging rates of up to 240kW and a starting price of £64,405. Which brings us back to the GV60, because those figures are almost exactly the…

The Great Race, they call it, and with good reason. The Bathurst 1000km is the highlight of the Supercars Championship, the Antipodean touring car season that runs through winter in Australia and New Zealand. These days, it’s a 620-mile sprint over six or seven hours around the famous New South Wales road circuit at Mount Panorama. The battles are legendary, and the fans have as much loyalty to the cars as for the drivers. This year will be the last time that great rivals Ford and Holden line up alongside each other, following General Motors’ canning of the Aussie brand. Holden Commodores still race against Ford Mustangs in 2022, but next year’s new-generation cars will be Mustangs versus Chevrolet Camaros. Each car is shared by its usual Supercars driver and…

MILEAGE 4987 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see whether the Cupra is a new EV contender or just a gussied-up VW ID 3 One of the defining characteristics of life with the Cupra Born is its ease of use. Rarely have I spent a prolonged period of time with a car that’s simpler to live with, the tedious intricacies of charging aside. Apart from the manual tailgate operation and having to take the key out of my pocket to unlock it (odd anachronisms in a car with such a strong focus on automation), the Born tries to do everything it can to remove the stresses of the daily grind. I don’t even have to wake it: it detects my backside’s contact with the driver’s seat and is ready before my…

Catch a quick glance at the Range Rover pictured here and you could be forgiven for thinking this was the newly announced version, but it’s actually the Mk4, just recently replaced after nearly a decade of noble service. Smartly styled, wonderfully furnished and better to drive in every mode than the versions that went before it, this SUV was unassailable in its ability to combine on-road waft with true and outstanding off-road capability. Now, with careful shopping, it makes for an arresting used buy. Most early buyers opted for one of the two 3.0-litre diesel V6s and were rewarded with strong performance and adequate economy, while the 4.4-litre petrol V8 upped the speed at the expense of heftier fuel bills. Later on, there was also the option of a petrol-or…

This may well be a car that you buy for the engine, and nothing else. And for good reason. The Formula 1-inspired, naturally aspirated 5.0-litre V10 makes an enormous 500bhp at a euphoric 7750rpm – a rev figure that might sound more likely for a 1990s Honda Type R screamer than an 1830kg executive saloon (and indeed one that is often found in black, looking more like a bank manager’s 520d than a supercar-scaring monster). The M5 is not a car you buy because of its ability to get to 62mph in 4.1sec, a frankly ridiculous figure for the time, but because of how it gets there. The intoxicating noise will encourage a heavy right foot – luckily, the trip computer won’t read below 7mpg, so you never quite know…

The International Engine of the Year Award was created in 1999 and ran until 2019, after which it was suspended due to the pandemic. The judges were an international panel of automotive journalists. In those 20 years, 247 overall and category titles were bestowed on 18 makers, or in some cases combinationsof them. Here, we list the most prolific winners. BMW 63 awards BMW’s awards haul is extraordinary. Its success has been due to a very wide range of units, from the 1.5-litre turbo three-cylinder fitted to the i8 to a 5.4-litre V12 used in the 8 Series. Ten of its awards were for the characterful 5.0-litre V10 (pictured) that powered the M5 and M6. BMW has also dominated the 2.5-3.0-litre and 3.0-4.0-litre categories, with 14 and 13 wins respectively…

The Maserati Granturismo has returned for a second generation, bringing both electric and V6 powertrain options in an effort to shake up the luxury GT segment and reestablish Maserati as a leading sports car manufacturer. The 2+2 electric Granturismo, called Folgore (for lightning), is equipped with more than 745bhp and 997lb ft of torque, can sprint from 0-62mph in just 2.7sec and will be priced at nearly £200,000. It is the Modena company’s long-awaited answer to the Porsche Taycan and will arrive as part of the marque’s rapidfire electrification push, which will phase out combustion power entirely from 2030. The Folgore is powered by a 93kWh (83kWh usable) T-shaped battery, hooked up to three in-house-built motors (one on the front axle and two at the rear), which allow for both…

LAMBORGHINI IS ANOTHER to wave goodbye to one of its icons – and with it the Italian brand’s last pure-V12 car. The final Aventador, a blue LP 780-4 Ultimae Roadster bound for Switzerland, has rolled off the Sant’Agata line, ending an 11-year run. Producing 779bhp from its naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12, the Ultimae was the most powerful road-going Aventador ever produced. Production was limited to 350 coupés and 250 roadsters. Lamborghini is now lining up a hybrid replacement, but the firm has promised that the bulk of its power will still come from a V12, now electrically assisted.…

BENTLEY IS POISED to replace its emblematic W12 engine with an even more powerful plug-in hybrid system – one that Matthias Rabe, the company’s head of engineering, hints is likely to be based around a V8. “I want all of our future plug-in hybrids to be more powerful than today’s 12-cylinder,” Rabe told Autocar at the launch of the Bentayga EWB in Canada. “I don’t want a reduction in power.” Bentley has three existing PHEV powertrains, all using 3.0-litre V6s, but the 443bhp and 456bhp units in the Bentayga and the 536bhp one in the Flying Spur are shy of the output of the venerable W12, which makes 650bhp in the Continental GT Speed and 730bhp in the limited-run Batur. Sibling brand Porsche, meanwhile, uses a PHEV powertrain that combines…

OF ALL THE things that go to make up the personality of a car, ride and handling are right at the top of the list. A good chunk of the way it feels, comforts, thrills and feeds back intentions to the driver are down to those two things. And while drivetrains are changing radically, the basics of what controls suspension have remained fairly constant, with springs of some sort to keep it off the ground and ride the bumps and dampers calming their excitation. Still, there have been plenty of variations on the theme, and one of the latest is Multimatic’s True Active Spool Valve (TASV) system, introduced by the Ferrari Purosangue SUV. Broadly speaking, there are two types of suspension: passive and adaptive. Passive springs are those familiar coils…

The launch of the new Porsche Macan electric SUV has been delayed for a year because of slower than expected software development within the wider Volkswagen Group. The Macan EV will be one of the first production cars to use Porsche and Audi’s Premium Platform Electric (PPE), but Porsche has now confirmed that it won’t be released until 2024. Problems surrounding the production of the E3 1.2 software platform by Cariad, the software division of the Volkswagen Group, are partly to blame for that delay. Porsche confirmed the news in the shares prospectus it issued as part of its IPO last month – when it made 911 million shares available (a nod to its flagship sports car). The flotation valued Porsche at roughly €75 billion. The delay could also knock…

A BRACE OF penalties cost McLaren its first victory in the electric-powered Extreme E off-road racing series. Instead, Sir Lewis Hamilton’s X44 squad picked up the win as Extreme E made its long-awaited first visit to South America for a round on a short (3km) track in Chile’s remote Atacama desert. McLaren only qualified for the final by winning the lastchance Crazy Race – and that was after a rival was penalised for taking out course-marker flags. Then in the climax, Tanner Foust and Emma Gilmour prevailed over X44’s Sébastien Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez, only for their own pair of fivesecond flag penalties to knock them back to fifth and last. Gutiérrez hit a flag too, but she escaped censure, because it hadn’t fallen over… The title for Extreme E’s…

BMW’s M division is returning to its roots rather fittingly with this, its 50th anniversary present to diehard fans: the new M4 CSL. The company is offering another headline new product in this big birthday year, but it’s a curious plug-in hybrid large SUV that, for reasons unfathomable to many of us, appears to have been named after an old Citroën. The reasons that the XM exists at all aren’t so hard to fathom, of course, but the M4 CSL is the real party piece – not least because it’s a CSL. M division was founded in 1972 in order to better run its parent company’s competition efforts (if you don’t know how it happened, Richard Lane’s M anniversary drive story in the 22 June issue is well worth a…

From a dull also-ran to one of the most recommendable family hatchbacks out there, the Toyota Corolla has pulled off some turnaround in this generation. With the wilderness days when it was known as the Auris now firmly behind it, the Corolla, like so many other recent Toyotas, is a compelling car that’s good to look at, good to drive and great to own. Sensing that it’s on to a decent thing with the Corolla, even more spin-offs are coming – although not all of them for the UK. Sadly, we’re being denied the excellent GR Corolla hot hatch (see our 21 September issue), but the Corolla Cross is still up for grabs, with no decision yet taken on a UK launch. The Corolla Cross is billed as an SUV…

The Super Seven 1600 came out a few years ago and was based on the standard 270 model but added retro features such as fixed front wings, classic gauges, a leather dashboard and Minilite-style wheels. It proved popular, but Ford discontinued the 1600 Sigma engine powering it, so Caterham instead applied the Super Seven treatment to the rest of the range. Using the 170 and 360 models with the 600cc Suzuki three-pot and the 2.0-litre Ford Duratec respectively as bases, Caterham has created the Super Seven 600 and 2000. The 2000 version we’re driving starts from £39,990, which is a chunk more than a normal 360, although it does get some otherwise optional equipment as standard. That’s a lot of money for a toy but there isn’t really anything else…

It’s better to have loved and lost, they say, than never to have loved at all. Motoring enthusiasts talk a lot about the cars they shouldn’t have sold back in the day: those that they flogged for £50 in 1980 but now command upwards of £50,000. But more frustrating than missing out on a tidy profit is when sky-high appreciation prevents you from even sampling one of your all-time heroes. “I should’ve snapped one up when I had the chance,” you say, moping into a pint as you watch the bidding on a Mk1 Ford Escort Mexico nudge north of the £35,000 mark. “A mate at work was trading one for milk bottle tops in 1982.” We know the feeling well, having missed out on some true motoring greats by…

Mustang makes a good first impression IT’S DIFFICULT TO overstate the sensation the Mustang’s unveiling caused, as some 22,000 Americans ran to a local Ford dealer to buy the first-ever pony car that very day. Six months later, we first met a car that would become a legend. Three motors were offered: a 2.8-litre straight six, a 4.2-litre V8 and a 4.7-litre V8. Our convertible had the third in tuned-up form, giving it 271bhp (up from 210bhp). Key options fitted included the four-speed manual gearbox (over the usualthree-speed automatic) and the heavy-duty suspension. We found that the gearing was far too low for our still-unlimited motorways, the V8 yelling and burning 12mpg over 90mph, but we were impressed at its flexibility and ability to draw two straight black lines for…

MILEAGE 7642 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the hot version of Volkswagen’s electric SUV lives up to its GT ambitions The ID 4 GTX has an array of driving modes: Eco, Comfort, Traction, Sport and Individual. With that last one, you can loosely customise the weight of the steering, the firmness of the ride and the degree of punch from the powertrain. And having played around with these various settings, I’ve finally landed on my ideal configuration. Each driving mode has its pros and cons. Eco makes the most of the battery’s remaining charge while sacrificing a bit of power. Sport not surprisingly adds more urgency and more weight to the steering, but it also sticks the regenerative braking up to its maximum setting by default, removing any…

Alpine has crowned the A110 line-up with a stripped-back, hardcore variant with weight and performance figures that would usually be the preserve of lightweight, open-wheel track-day cars. Called the A110 R – for ‘radical’ – it has been devised as a no-compromise, circuitoriented plaything heavily inspired by the French brand’s involvement in motorsport. Sitting above the entrylevel A110, mid-rung GT and stiffened S (and thus likely to be priced above £70,000), the R will complete the core A110 family when it goes on sale later this month. However, bosses have not disclosed whether further variants could arrive before the sports car goes electric in 2026. With hot laps at the top of its agenda, it weighs just 1082kg – down 34kg on the “already very light” A110 S and lighter,…

The Oli is a new concept car illustrating Citroën’s renewed commitment to affordability and sustainability and heralding an array of new technologies earmarked for upcoming cars. An adventure-oriented pick-up similar in stature to the C3 Aircross, it doesn’t preview a production car (despite being road legal) but rather serves as an embodiment of Citroën’s new ‘back to right’ philosophy. Design director Pierre Leclercq said the concept shows “the future is bright” and that “making something clever and affordable doesn’t mean that it has to be horrible; it [can] be fun and exciting”. The headlines are a hypothetical price tag of around €25,000 (£22,000), a weight of around 1000kg and a 248-mile range from a relatively small, 40kWh battery and a single electric motor. However, it is the concept’s design and…

As an allegory for the automotive industry in the north of England, Carr Reinforcements is perfect. Based in a historic cotton mill in Burnley, it won a tender in 1962 from the Royal Aerospace Establishment to prove that carbonfibre threads could be woven into sheets, thereby launching a new cutting-edge composite industry for which the aerospace, automotive, motorsport and many other sectors owe a debt of gratitude. Today, Carr Reinforcements is working on new formulations of carbonfibre weave based on basalt, an igneous rock that can withstand temperatures of up to 1500deg C, properties that Mercedes-Benz is testing for light and fireproof battery cases for commercial vehicles. This drive to discover breakthrough technology and develop new manufacturing techniques is very much alive and well in the northwest of England, a…

THE NEW LAMBORGHINI Urus S will arrive next year – and will cost just over £28,000 more than the standard version of the super-SUV it is replacing. Sitting below the new Urus Performante, the Urus S gains more power than the outgoing model and some design tweaks. Priced from £188,000 (the current standard version costs £159,925), the S receives this boost thanks to being fitted with the same 656bhp twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 engine as the Performante. Lamborghini’s most popular model accounted for around 60% of the firm’s total sales last year. CHINESESTART-UPSHOWSELECTRICSPORTSCAR The new unofficial “national sports car” of China has been unveiled by start-up Small Sports Car. Called the SC-01, the small, sleek electric coupé is the company’s first car, and it is set to go on sale in…

“This is a very tidy Renault SUV that has some Alpine feel” Manage your expectations. This is not an Alpine SUV. The Renault Austral is definitely a Renault SUV with some Alpine dressing, but it has still moved things on drastically from the more humble Kadjar that it replaces. The Austral is the first model based on Renault-Nissan’s new CMF-CD platform, which allows for any mix of electrification and/or combustion propulsion. As such, when the Austral arrives in the UK in 2023, it will be offered with a 1.2-litre three-cylinder full-hybrid (HEV) powertrain in a couple of power outputs and with a 1.7kWh battery, or a 1.3-litre four-cylinder mild hybrid, also in two different outputs. But we are starting right at the very top of the Austral range with the…

Mercedes-Benz was a relatively late arrival to the electric car ranks, but after a cautious start, it has firmly established itself among the premium-brand competition and now offers an impressive line-up of EQ-badged cars covering a wide range of segments. This EQS SUV is its eighth EV to date and the third based on its EV-dedicated EVA2 architecture. Shared with the EQS saloon, this aluminium-intensive, skateboardstyle structure has the battery – here a sizeable 108.4kWh unit – mounted within the flat floor for maximum interior packaging benefits and the scope for either five or seven seats. The big SUV now sits at the top of the EQ line-up as an electric alternative to the GLS. At 5125mm long, 1959mm wide and 1718mm tall, it’s 82mm shorter, 3mm wider and 105mm…

MODEL TESTED 1.2T 130 GS LINE Price£27,560 Power129bhp Torque170lb ft 0-60mph9.9sec 30-70mph in fourth11.7sec Fuel economy 45.5mpg CO2 emissions125g/km 70-0mph46.5m The backstory of the Astra tells you much about Vauxhall as a company, as well as the ebb and flow of volume car making on these isles. Having always been what we might now call a platform-engineered vehicle, the Astra was launched in the UK in 1980 as the successor to the popular Viva, but it differed from its predecessor technically in a number of significant respects. Even the Viva shared a floorpan and engines with its European equivalent, the Opel Kadett, but while the Opel’s parts and panels were measured, cut and stamped out in metric millimetres, the Viva was designed, measured and made in imperial feet and inches. Like…

Kids, eh? You nurture them, fuel their passions and help turn their dreams into reality. You tell them “be the best you can”, “believe in yourself”, “find your inner strengths”. And when they do, you’re rightly proud. If it so happens that their interests coincide with yours, you say “ah, yes, chip off the old block”, safe in the knowledge that your offspring could never know more than you. That’s never going to happen… is it? I’m sitting in an eye-burningly orange Lamborghini Aventador in Goodwood Motor Circuit’s pit lane with my 21-year-old son George at my side to test that theory. George took more of a chunk than a chip off this block from an early age, and inevitably it has coloured most things in his life. He spent…

In your 7 September issue, you tested two new MPVs, the Volkswagen ID Buzz and the Ford Grand Tourneo Connect, and were struck both times by the high cost and in the case of the Volkswagen by the lack of a third row of seats. So let me offer an alternative that seems to be growing in popularity in the UK: an imported Japanese MPV. Ours is a Nissan Elgrand, which wears its 18 years like most cars wear three or four years (and isn’t saving old cars instead of building new ones supposed to be quite green?). With fewer than 55,000 miles on the clock, the purchase cost was less than 10% of the selling price of the ID Buzz. On top of that, it has a very luxurious…

MILEAGE 12,568 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Too see if this humble but capable sevenseater is slick enough in day-to-day use My first occasion to actually put passengers in the third row of our Dacia Jogger presented itself recently when driving some friends on a night out. All were fully grown adults (or at least claimed to be), but even those who had to travel in the very back didn’t complain about the space they had, or how easy it was to get in and out, which impressed me. You just expect seven-seaters of this size to effectively cater only to kids in row three. While that’s broadly true of the Jogger, it also seems ready to transport bigger sixth and seventh occupants fairly well on shorter trips. I’ve written previously…