Tabla de contenidos para January 2025 en CAR UK

For a brief period in time in 2023, a man called Bernard, who sells T-shirts, watches and fizzy wine, became the richest person in the world. His conglomerate, LVMH, which owns luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Möet and Fendi, performed so well on the Parisian stock exchange that it pushed its value up at the same speed as the Nasdaq – where shares in Apple, Microsoft and Amazon-trade. Luxury is an irresistible commercial force. This is brilliant news for legacy automotive brands currently worried about China. The brute force of colossal, relatively cheap labour and vertically integrated production – all funded by lakes of state capital – has helped China become the world’s biggest vehicle exporter, its cars heading overseas by the boatload to disrupt the old order. Analysts from…

A Celica GT-Four, but it’s not Because it is, in fact, a GR86 – albeit one with the mutated heart of a GR Corolla. Engineers within Toyota’s North America division have hacked about with the front of a GR86’s chassis to fit in the 300bhp three-cylinder turbo unit from the North American GR hot hatch, fitting all-wheel drive and a WRC-spec rollcage. The cherry on top? A Castrol-spec green, red and white livery complementing a row of rally headlights and a spoiler inspired by the mighty Celica GT-Four. It’s just a one-off, designed to ‘celebrate Toyota’s past achievements and the possibility of WRC making a return to the United States.’ A Merc 190E, but even better This isn’t a restomod. Yes, it may look like a Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Evo…

Letter of the month Rallying cry You’re quite right to be baffled by the lack of public interest in World Rally (November 2024 issue), which seems to be increasingly overshadowed by F1. Personally, I can’t imagine that the much-discussed Drive to Survive effect is universally positive for F1. So many of the people who come into focus on the Netflix programme seem quite whingey and entitled, which I find very unappealing. Whereas the characters in WRC tend to be much more no-nonsense. It’s a bit like when multiple World Super-bike champion Carl Fogarty turned up on I’m a Celebrity… and just coped with all the challenges, making everyone else look very lightweight. The WRC drivers are from that mould, whereas some of the F1 guys seem to be a…

A decadently proportioned design preview and an invitation to ‘live vivid’, ‘break moulds’ and ‘delete ordinary’ Areveal event without jumpy black-and-white period footage, swelling strings and talk of ‘icons reborn’ is so unusual as to be a welcome aberration. Apart from CEO Adrian Mardell getting a little choked up about the moment he first sat in an E-Type, the Type 00 – the first concrete steer yet on the vision JLR has conjured for Land Rover’s less successful sibling – comes into this world naked of history, underlining the point that this is the hardest of hard resets. Type 00 is a decadently proportioned preview of new Jaguar’s design language; the first production car, a four-door GT retaining much of Type 00’s aesthetic, is set to arrive in 2026, and…

Porsche 911 SC ‘I was interested in all things technical as a child, and I remember a lady where we lived had a 911 SC. I would cross the street every day to look at that car – it fascinated me. I was so disappointed when she sold it and bought a grey Mercedes 190E… That helped make my mind up, so I went to technical school at 16, then mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, two years in the army, and then an internship at Porsche. That was more than 29 years ago.’ Porsche 918 Spyder ‘The engineering challenge was tremendous. We did everything in 38 months. Everybody was saying it was impossible. I said we could do it only if we made decisions and we didn’t fool…

Did I tell you about the time an S-Class was used as a luxurious getaway car when our holiday cottage was burgled while we were in the pool, completely unaware? Luckily they didn’t take our towels. We weren’t the only victims of S-Class crime. During the launch of the facelifted W126, the personal 560 SEC of designer Bruno Sacco – dark blue with light blue trim – was stolen in the middle of the night by bandits who splashed the hotel forecourt with liquid soap before silently winching the coveted one-off into a boxed truck, never to be seen again. For a car that’s designed to be serene, rising above the concerns of the workaday world, it’s had quite an eventful history. Look no further than the presentation of the…

I don’t know what I was expecting (a glowing reactor core?) but pop the bonnet to top up the washer fluid and the scene that greets you is reassuringly normal. Hell, some of the orange high-voltage cable routing even resembles exhaust headers. Washer fluid topped up, a weekend away revealed the usefulness of chargers on lamp posts. With three available on a quaint High Street, I was able to get on one of them – combustion cars blocked access to the other two. The posts are close to the kerb, so your cable doesn’t become a trip hazard, and the steady overnight charge from char.gy (£20.18 for 43.85 kWh) was more affordable and convenient than an Ionity splashand-dash on the way home. Peugeot E-2008 GT Electric 54kWh Month 4 The…

BYD’s gimmick across all its UK and European cars is a rotating infotainment screen. There’s a physical button for it on the Seal’s steering wheel. But the reality is that I show it to passengers when they’re new to the car, they make a noise of potentially fake interest, and then I switch it back to widescreen. End of. The portrait view is useful for using the car’s in-built nav, but that’s about it, and it becomes even more useless if you mirror your phone screen – CarPlay and Android Auto will only work in widescreen format. That dedicated button would be better for allowing me to switch regenerative braking modes; something the cheaper Dolphin gets but this doesn’t. BYD Seal Excellence Month 2 The story so far Our Seal…

The Abarth 500e was arguably the first electric hot hatch to arrive on the scene, beating the likes of the larger Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, Mini Cooper S and leftfield MG 4 XPower to market. Even after 18 months on sale it remains a rare sight on our roads, however, and that rarity makes spotting one in traffic a treat. They’re not hard to identify – they tend to come in a colour palette leaked from Stabilo highlighter pens’ R&D department. I love the look of it: a back-tobasics, fun pocket rocket from the old school, but given a modern makeover with our Poison Blue paintwork and the transplant of an electric drivetrain in place of the outgoing Abarth’s 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine. It’s a fun recipe on paper, and…

HOW DOES GBU WORK? CAR’s road testers highlight what’s so good about the best cars in every class… and what could be better TOP 5 HOT HATCHES 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; £459 a month on a three-year PCP with an £11k 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…

You can see why people are sceptical about Audi’s prospects in Formula 1, with some current teams confiding they’re not sure Audi will ever break through as an F1 frontrunner, despite its incredible Le Mans legacy. Rumours of wavering commitment have flared up periodically in Germany – most recently triggered by the news that Audi will shut its Brussels plant in February – but are consistently denied. It seems wrong, say the doubters, for Audi to be investing so much in F1 when its main business, making road cars, is going through a lean spell. But Audi is adamant it is committed to F1. The sport is booming, so the team’s value will only increase. Quitting now would be absurd unless there’s a buyer willing to spend a 10-digit sum.…

Saturn ate his own children. The motor industry does the same, except it also regurgitates them. When Volkswagen took over truck maker Navistar (formerly International Harvester), it acquired the Scout badge. Scout was a utility vehicle made by International Harvester between 1961 and 1980. The concept was ‘replace the horse’, specifically a slow carthorse rather than the fast racehorse which Henry Ford believed his customers yearned for. Designer Ted Ornas created what was essentially a Jeep with softer, more friendly contours. Scout had understated, clean, modern lines and was – you could say – the first SUV. But it did not excite an ungovernable frenzy of consumer hysteria. Nor will VW’s Scout EV duo, due on sale in North America in 2027 as Rivian rivals, both offered as pure EVs…

We’ve been moving for a matter of a few seconds before we learn our first big lesson about the BYD Sealion 7: the brakes are very powerful but also very sudden. Someone steps out in front of us and I have to go straight into an emergency stop. Nobody dies, so that’s good, but the suddenness of the brake action will prove to be a recurring theme of our time in the Sealion 7. It’s a new addition to this Chinese manufacturer’s European line-up, a crossover available in Excellence, Comfort and Design trim, with a choice of 91.3kWh or 82.5kWh battery. BYD UK has yet to confirm exact pricing, but figure on £55,000 for this topspec version with nappa leather, a head-up display and a 4.5sec 0-62mph time and you’re…

Flying west at a very healthy lick, despite the absence of light or dry tarmac, BMW’s new plug-in hybrid M5 is dispatching pre-dawn miles like a pebble skimmed perfectly over a tarn. It compresses rhythmically on its suspension and takes giant strides each time I dip into its 717bhp performance. Slip roads and bridges strobe past as tiny touchpoints on the surface. The M5’s astonishing velocity proves so accessible and its chassis so stoic that, were the M50 a derestricted autobahn, I’d probably settle at 150mph as if it were a gentle canter. As it is I have to exercise serious self-restraint simply to avoid appearing on the news, let alone in the local magistrates’ court. This much you’d expect of a super saloon that’s more powerful than any of…

I get the design, even if I’m not sure that I love it yet. The task set for ‘new’ Jaguar’s design team was to utterly divorce themselves from anything the marque has made in the past, and create something different to anything else on the road. A difficult dissociative task, given that they’ve made and we’ve looked at a lot of four-wheeled closed-cockpit conveyances over the past century and a bit… But they seem to have done it: certainly in Type 00’s extraordinary monolithic surfacing. If its proportions have any precedent – that long hood, shallow glasshouse and fast screen angles – it’s in the bespoke supercars of the ’20s and ’30s, like a Bugatti or a Gurney Nutting-bodied Bentley. That look is old enough to be new again. What I…

This has not started well. I’ve barely left the car park in the Tesla Model Y and already it’s annoyed me. The steering feels artificial, overly fast and heavy. The low-speed ride is unresolved, failing to cope with even modest speed bumps. I’ve driven Model Ys before, but this is my first time in the new Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive, and it just doesn’t feel good. But as we’ve found before, you do find yourself adapting and getting used to its sub-optimal chassis set-up. And of course there are plenty of other reasons to like the Model Y, as its several million buyers have found in the four years since it arrived. It’s keenly priced, practical, efficient, fast, and has the best public charging network currently available. The range has…

Car-connected apps often provide a lot of features you don’t want or need. The Mini app means your phone can double as the key – a classic case of answering a question no one ever asked. When did carrying a key become a pain? But as your phone becomes the one-stop shop for your life, I suppose it makes sense. Plus it bailed me out of a hole recently when I left the actual key somewhere else. The app isn’t quite as all-seeing as Tesla’s: for example, it can’t summon the car out of a parking space. But the design is neat (you can change the background to London’s skyline… a bit odd on a car made in China) and does pretty much all you need, like remote control of…

If you had to make a table listing your car’s good and bad points, how even would the columns be? Glancing through the notebook that lives in the Stelvio’s door pocket it seems to have generated ‘love it!’ and ‘loathe it’ comments in equal measure. Some of those you could learn on a simple test drive with your Alfa dealer before deciding to pull the pin on an order. Or, less neatly, you might discover them on the way back from picking up that order, knowing you’ve made your bed and have to lie in it for three years. But other traits are the sort of thing you only notice after living with a car for several months, as we have. Take the wheels. They’re not the optional 21s, just…

When I began testing the modern crop of electric cars – starting with the Nissan Leaf in 2010 – we saw them as urban runabouts. How things have changed. For months, our Skoda Enyaq vRS barely saw a city centre, and instead it’s been on regular long motorway trips, and down through France to the Massif Central. But a slight change in working routine means the Enyaq is now making weekly trips into central London. It’s aceing these trips too, though that’s mostly down to the refinement shared by all EVs. The Enyaq does add great seat comfort, easy phone integration, and a thoughtful and practical cabin layout with masses of storage, all of which take on disproportionate importance when you’re stuck in traffic for hours. Also, while this might…

‘The number one rule in Dakar is: don’t have a problem. A problem creates more work that means other things might be missed. So many things can cause problems: the length of the event, the heat, the dust, the rocks…’ So says Philip Dunabin, technical director of the Dacia Sandriders project: the Romanian budget car maker’s ambitious three-plan to contest the Dakar rally – the world’s toughest – for three years. He’s the yin of the operation, drawing on his years of Dakar experience to foresee every possible problem, and make sure there’s a solution at hand – a solution that can be implemented by a hot, tired driver and co-driver in a sandstorm, several days into a gruelling two-week race through Saudi Arabia. ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world…

The 300-mile test NEW CAR MEETS REAL WORLD Arrow straight and as smooth as syrup, the sun-drenched strand of tarmac ahead is both a suggestion and a justification all in one. For a performance EV like the Alpine A290, this is its chance to shine, to blow its occupants away with a silent burst of forward motion so instant and ferocious that it defines the entire experience. But maybe, just maybe, this time it will be different. The A290 is, by the warped standards of your average EV, rather slow. With a 0-62mph time of 6.4 seconds, it’s barely any quicker than a Ford Fiesta ST and as such you sure as hell won’t see it ‘slaying’ any mapped Audi RS6s in internet drag-race videos. Whisper it, but perhaps this…

It makes 771bhp – the most Bentley has ever placed in a saloon, besting the 626bhp W12 Appearances can be deceptive. There is little on the outside of this fourth-generation Flying Spur to suggest the extent of the alterations beneath the surface. Just a few subtle amendments to the grille and the lines of the lower bumpers. Different wheels. And this Speed version has dark-tint brightwork that contrasts with the more traditionally shiny elements of the alternative Mulliner specification. Sit in the back if you want, and you’ll find it suitably cosseting, but this Flying Spur lives to be driven. As with the Continental GT, the Flying Spur now packs the all-new 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8. Co-developed with Porsche and built in Zuffenhausen, it might seem strangely retrograde, since it uses…

Pitching a Taycan Turbo against petrol-engined icons was always a stress test, but it comes away with its head held high. It looks superb, feels beautifully built and drives with a fleet-footedness shot through with true Porsche finesse, while improved efficiency, a larger battery and faster charging greatly reduce the Taycan’s biggest weakness. It is not, however, entirely convincing. An output of 872bhp is crushing but leaves us craving more depth, as impeccable handling ultimately runs out of answers in more extreme circumstances. That’s all pretty inconsequential in the context of saving thousands on a company-car scheme – but on a level playing field, the Taycan places third. Given we’re judging these rivals against performance criteria, it’d be perverse to put one that wasn’t as engaging to drive ahead…

Type 41 Royale Designed to be the most luxurious car in the world, the Type 41 was 6.4 metres long with a 12.8-litre straight-eight. But it was launched just before the Great Depression in 1927; even royalty didn’t want to buy the Royale and only seven were made. Type 57S Atlantic Coupe The Type 57 was designed by Ettore’s son, Jean Bugatti, in 1934. Over 700 were made, but a handful got a gorgeous Atlantic Coupe body with a dorsal fin down the tail. It’s now highly sought after; Ralph Lauren’s has been valued at £100 million. Type 57C Tank A single factory car was entered into the 1939 Le Mans, a Type 57 ‘Tank’ with an aero body. Against the odds, drivers Jean-Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron won the…

There’s a clear winner in this test, but third place is a much trickier call. In some ways it should be the Ford Explorer that finishes last. After all, it has the smallest boot and the least appealing interior, it could be more comfortable, and is the priciest by some margin. But then again it steers and rides like a true Ford should, despite the Volkswagen chassis fundamentals it’s built on, and despite the weight. It’s been so well set up, in accordance with Ford tradition, that it’s always a pleasure to drive the Explorer. The Tesla Model Y is far less user-friendly than the Ford, unless you’re fully at ease with a cabin that puts almost all controls in the central touchscreen; some people take to it readily, while…

Carefully manipulated to fit in the space left between the practical A3 and the all-out, full-fat RS3, the S3 has often been labelled with the automotive equivalent of middle-child syndrome. It’s doomed to be too good to be an underdog like a nicely-spec’d A3, and clipped from birth to be one step behind the top-dog RS3. That is until now, apparently. CAR has driven both the prototype and proper production versions of Audi’s warm hatch, and my colleagues tell me this is finally an S3 with its own personality. Better yet, it’s an S3 that offers engagement and feedback rather than numb, well-engineered performance. Certainly my long-term test car gives every impression that it’s trying to carve out a space in the Ingolstadt hierarchy. Audi Sport badges pop up with…

There’s been a lot of talk about the perfect two-car garage around CAR recently, and I’d contend that these two make a great pairing, even without their Tic Tac colouring. The Artura is McLaren’s forgotten supercar, which is a shame – it’s wonderfully communicative and light compared to a modern 911. The Clio is clearly more practical, but it shares a bit of the McLaren’s spirit. They’re both playful and chuckable, and while the Artura is blisteringly fast it’s not just about speed, it’s about feel. The Clio is definitely not about speed, but if you love driving for driving’s sake you’ll appreciate its zingy flavour. I’d be happy with these two. I just need £240,195. Renault Clio TCe 90 Evolution Month 7 The story so far If you had…

In last month’s instalment I noted the Swift’s sub-par ride quality, and promised to experiment with deviations from its high factory-spec tyre pressures this month. Perhaps a small adjustment would smooth off the rough edges, I wondered. Those factory tyre pressures are not crazy high, to be fair, but they are higher than most of the rivals I checked – Suzuki recommends 36psi front and 32psi rear (2.5/2.2 bar) for the Swift’s diddy 185/55 R16 rubber with up to three passengers (rising to 41psi/2.8 bar for the rear fully loaded with passengers and luggage). I thought lowering the pressures by 10 per cent might be a good starting point, but my tyre pressure gauge revealed them to already be in that ballpark when I checked – 32.5psi for both fronts,…

There’s much to enjoy about i5 ownership. It’s utterly intuitive to drive, with superb refinement. The ride quality is impressively relaxed and smooth, with only the worst ruts and ridges disturbing the calm of the cabin. The steering and pedals are perfectly calibrated; the seats delightfully soothing. Whether it’s nosing around town at 20mph or digging deep into its motorway capabilities, you feel protected from the world outside. The cycle-swallowing loadbay makes me wonder why we flocked toward SUVs when estates offer greater versatility and tend to be more engaging to drive. Then there’s the performance. Quick off the mark, married to slingshot in-gear go. And an electro-mechanical brake set-up as adept at lowspeed parking manoeuvres as it is at repeatedly hauling down two-and-a-bit tonnes of fast-moving metal. If you’re…