Table of contents for August 10, 2022 in Autocar

An all-new ‘no limits’ track-day car, intended literally to be “the fastest car on earth”, has been revealed by start-up Rodin Cars – and a road version is planned to follow. Powered by a bespoke, mid-mounted 4.0-litre V10 turbo petrol hybrid engine, the enclosed single-seater FZero weighs around 50kg less than a current Formula 1 car and has been developed “without the limitations of road or racing regulations” for customers who can afford £1.8 million for the privilege. Company boss David Dicker, an Australian computer billionaire, said first deliveries could arrive as early as next summer, with the first batch limited to 27 examples. Speaking from Rodin’s newly opened UK base at Donington Park circuit, Dicker added that he expects the initial prototype to be running by Christmas. Dicker, who…

FURTHER DETAILS OF MG’s upcoming Cyberster electric roadster have been revealed, suggesting that an unveiling of the firm’s affordable halo car is finally on the horizon. The Chinese brand has released a video showing off a number of unknown features about the roadster, which is due on sale ‘before 2024’, as well as previewing its sleek, long-nosed silhouette. These features include an electric folding canvas roof, a yoke-style steering wheel, two-tone sports seats and distinctive LED headlights. Other distinctive design cues visible at this early stage include a subtle ‘ducktail’ rear spoiler and a rear lighting design modelled on the Union Jack, in a nod to MG’s British roots. Tellingly, MG captioned the video ‘Return of the Legend’, which strongly suggests that the final production car will resurrect a sporting…

Mini’s flagship three-door hatchback will return with petrol power for its fourth generation, before it bows out in line with the brand’s ambition to go all-electric by the early 2030s. New spy shots showing a prototype testing in heavy camouflage give some indication of how Mini is updating the current three-door hatchback, which has undergone two facelifts, in line with its newer electrified cars. The new Fiat 500 rival will arrive more than a decade after the outgoing car first went on sale. The new petrol-engined Mini hatchback will be sold alongside a visually similar but mechanically unrelated electric version, which is being built in China and will arrive next year. Mini’s final combustion-engined car, launching in 2025, is expected to be the next-generation Convertible. That car will be based…

BMW is resetting its supply-chain and factory operations in pursuit of a huge 60% CO2 reduction by 2030 to compensate for the environmental impact of BEV battery production. At odds with their capacity to emit no CO2 in use, BEVs are actually increasing CO2 production in manufacturing, due to the considerable energy consumption of the mining and refining processes for the rare-earth metals inside the battery cells. BMW’s analysis suggests that the switch to battery-electric powertrains for its yearly output of 2.5 million cars will increase its manufacturing carbon footprint by 40%, demanding dramatic action throughout its operation to maintain progress towards net-zero-carbon by 2050. “Manufacturing of batteries is a significant consumer of energy, because of processing the cell materials, and is now one quarter of all the CO2 in…

AS MANUFACTURERS publish their sales figures and financial results for the first half of 2022, Lamborghini stands out for recording its “best six months ever”. The Sant’Agata factory built 5090 cars between January and June (some 61% of which were Urus SUVs), leading to the Italian firm posting turnover of €1.33 billion (£1.11bn) and profit of €425 million (£356m), the latter a near-70% year-on-year increase. Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann said this uptick came “despite ongoing uncertainty caused by the geopolitical situation” and added that “the outlook is equally positive, with orders taken already covering the whole of 2023 production”. There was positive news elsewhere in the car industry, as manufacturers continue to tackle supply-chain shortages, soaring production costs and drops in demand. Bentley In the first six months of 2022,…

You probably remember Le Mans ’66, the 2019 Matt Damon film in which Ford and Carroll Shelby come across the Atlantic to duff up Ferrari on its home turf. Before that race, Ferraris had won seven of the previous eight Le Mans 24 Hours races. It hasn’t won another ever since, but that’s another story. What you won’t remember is the film Daytona ’67, because it hasn’t been made yet. Because what Ford tends not to crow about quite so much is that Ferrari returned the compliment the very next time the two teams met to race twice around the clock, at the aforementioned race track the following year. Two works 4.0-litre Ferrari P4s (well, one was actually technically a P3 modified to P4 specification) faced six factory Ford GT40…

While Californian Porsche tuners get bags of attention, British specialist Paul Stephens has long been quietly going about buying, selling, maintaining and, under the Autoart banner, tweaking old 911s at his site near the Essex-Suffolk border. Recently a customer asked him to take a 993-generation 911 and turn it all up a bit – about 25% all round, please, Paul – and this is the result. They’ve called it the 993R, and while we have here a development car, it will become generally available. It’s based on the basic Carrera 2, so unlike the hotter 993s, which had wider bodies, this car is as narrow as it can be. I quite like that idea. Then a lot of weight has come out of it, much from the interior but also…

MODEL TESTED TURBO S Price £168,900 • Power 641bhp • Torque 590lb ft • 0-60mph 2.5sec • 30-70mph in fourth 4.9sec • Fuel economy 24.8mpg • CO2 emissions 271g/km • 70-0mph 38.3m There’s an unusual symmetry at play with the subject of this week’s road test. Since 1974, the distinguishing element of any Porsche 911 Turbo had been its forced-induction flat six, but this changed in 2016 when the regular 911 Carrera and its scions sprouted turbochargers. At a stroke, every 911 except the mesmerising GT3 went turbo, and because of this the real McCoy lost some originality. Simply, events beyond its control meant the 911 Turbo became much more akin to the basic 911 Carrera but no less expensive. Not great. Bear this in mind when you consider that, for…

VERDICT You might feel a pang of sympathy for the Turbo. Its role has always been to marry the usability of the garden 911 with supercar-matching performance. Yet, in 2022, so rapid is any PDK-equipped Carrera S that the (true) Turbo seems more than ever the rebel without any cause. Neither, at least compared with its mid- and front-engined rivals at this price, does it have much in the way of outright glamour to fall back on and distance it from range-mates. Conversely, this should serve only to make the remarkable 992 Turbo S an even rarer and more special sight than it might otherwise be, and what a proposition it offers to those charmed enough to splash out. For one thing, know that this is probably the quickest any-weather…

Platts Garage has been in Marlow since 1925, when Reg Platt founded it. The recently qualified engineering apprentice was only 22 but quickly made a success of the place. An old picture from the time shows him dispensing fuel from an overhead pump. In 1949, his son Jim, born in 1934, began serving fuel, too, when a gallon cost 2s 1d. Jim, an engineering graduate and former navy officer and now the chairman, remembers 1960, when profit margins on new cars were 19% and service intervals just 1000 miles. “We would see customers once a month,” he recalls wistfully. In around 1985, the garage took on a Ford franchise, which it has held ever since. The company’s allegiance to the brand extends to having immaculate examples of Models A and…

IN AUGUST 1996, we printed our first ever images of the baby Land Rover that was then known as the Highlander. Codenamed CB40, it was billed as “the first Land Rover to be engineered like a regular car, with a unitary monocoque construction and not the separate chassis and body of the Range Rover, Discovery and Defender”. There was no sign of the beam axles partly responsible for the offroad ability of the Discovery and Defender, the saving in unsprung weight yielding a much better ride. Another example of on-road manners being prioritised was the steering. The sensitive rack-and-pinion set-up was an unwelcome hindrance off road but expected to “make for good feel” on it. In regards to its immediate rivals, we were told by an insider that it had…

How will car design and engineering change as sustainability becomes more important? “The entire logic of how to design a car for sustainability is a different story.” In what way? “For the ICE car, it’s all about saving CO2 at the pump, but if you talk about saving CO2 in the making, you really have to have a completely different calculation logic.” How does that filter through to the cars themselves? “For ICE cars, it’s all about weight-saving, meaning less combustion on the road. So we had this big competition for lightweight [materials], like aluminium, composite and high-strength steel.” Is that different for BEVs? “If you look at a car that has much less CO2 in the use phase but a much higher CO2 footprint in the making, like a…

JAKE DENNIS CLAIMED a win and a second place on home soil as Formula E returned to London for a pair of races in and around the Excel centre in Docklands. The victory on Saturday marked a first of the year for Dennis, whose Avalanche Andretti team is running as an independent entry this season after BMW pulled out at the end of 2021. The 27-year-old, who last year won twice in his rookie campaign, looked set to complete a double on Sunday, only for series veteran Lucas di Grassi to get the better of him through the Venturi team’s superior Attack Mode strategy. The victory was di Grassi’s 13th in Formula E, pulling the Brazilian level with Sébastien Buemi as the equal most successful driver in the series in…

How highly you rate the new EQE is likely to depend on what it is that you want from your mid-ranking Mercedes-Benz saloon. Traditionally, the role has been sharply defined and played dependably well by the E-Class. The hallmarks are space, comfort and best-in-class isolation, all in an elegant but understated design and one with handling that, if not outright engaging, feels quietly thoroughbred. All in, a class act. So to the EQE, which in terms of both style and technology is much the shrunk-down EQS, and is tested here for the first time on British roads. What is there for the E-Class owner who wants to go electric? Probably not an overwhelming sense of value for money. The entry-level, rear-driven EQE 300 offers roughly the same performance as the…

1 FERRARI ROMA Modern Ferrari at its very best, combining deep GT capabilities with dynamics that almost always delight. Untouchable at this price. 2 PORSCHE 911 TURBO S Lacks the fluidity and grace of the Roma but is quicker, more sure-footed and very nearly as engaging on the right road. Truly versatile. 3 AUDI R8 V10 QUATTRO Superlative engine and a surprisingly pliant ride mean the R8 has strengths in the right places, but it still lacks the feel of the others. 4 ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE F1 EDITION Notably sharper than the standard car and so rich in character. Feels its age inside, mind. 5 BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 Does opulence better than anything else, and by some margin. Not the sharpest tool in this company, but still has dynamic chops.…

I’ve just read Felix Page’s review of the Ford Puma ST Gold Edition (Our Cars, 13 July). I particularly enjoyed his openness to the idea that some people buy taller cars just because they want or need to. Both he and Matt Prior seem open-minded about this. I accept that hot hatches are generally more fun, but some are impractical. In my case, it has to do with disability. I used to own a BMW 335i, bought new in 2008. I loved it and intended to keep it forever. However, a stroke left my wife with disabilities, making it difficult and painful for her to get in and out of the car. So the BMW had to go. What I needed was a car with a seat just high enough…

“For me, the joy of the Disco is always going to be the driving” FIRST REPORT WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover if the Land Rover world still has room for a full-sized family SUV Over five distinct models since 1989 (but only three different generations), the Discovery has played a surprising number of different roles in Land Rover’s line-up. The first edition presented Landie lovers for the first time with a family-oriented model they could drive every day. It was pricey but not prohibitive. However, the coming of the smaller Freelander (now the Discovery Sport) and then the Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque complicated things. Sophisticated, capable Land Rovers positioned below the top-price flagship became common currency. The Discovery started running into own-brand competition. The situation was…

Some saloons shout about their four-wheel-drive traction and performance, but others offer a more muted way to enjoy the all-weather benefits of this set-up. Audi was the pioneer in this class, and many other manufacturers have since joined in. Here are some great four-wheeldrive saloons that you might well have forgotten about. Volkswagen Phaeton Born out of Volkswagen boss Ferdinand Piëch’s desire to build the ultimate luxury saloon, the Phaeton was a brilliant car in many ways. However, the VW badge couldn’t compete with rivals from sibling firm Audi, nor BMW, Jaguar, Lexus or Mercedes-Benz, so sales were always sluggish. Most were sold with the 4Motion system, whether customers chose the 3.0-litre V6 diesel, 3.6-litre V6, 4.2-litre V8 or 6.0-litre W12. Only the base 3.2-litre V6 made do with front-wheel…

“With a 0-62mph time of 2.0sec, the EV would be one of the fastest yet produced” A track-only version of the 805bhp DS E-Tense Performance prototype could be on the cards, but it would be sold in limited numbers and for a “very high” price, DS CEO Béatrice Foucher has told Autocar. With a 0-62mph time of just 2.0sec, the EV would be one of the fastest yet produced, and it would come packed with Formula E racing tech. The hyper-quick E-Tense Performance coupé, which is an update of the 402bhp E-Tense concept, has a 335bhp motor at the front and a 469bhp motor at the rear, which combine to make 805bhp and 5900lb ft. It was revealed earlier this year as part of a project with engineers from Formula…

LIGNIN IS A sustainable material that exists between the cell walls of woody plants, and it’s a by-product of the paper industry. This little-known material has been the subject of research for some time as a potential substitute for carbon-based products, including carbonfibre and battery anodes. On the sustainability front, it could turn out to be a game-changer. Last year, we looked at lignin and the work being done by Finnish company Stora Enso and, separately, Imperial College London. The story has since moved on, with the news that Stora Enso has formed a partnership with European battery cells and systems supplier Northvolt. Northvolt will use Stora Enso’s lignin-based hard carbon anode material, Lignode, to produce battery cells and ultimately a sustainable battery made from raw materials sourced from Nordic…

In a factory unit in the Munich suburb of Lohhof, BMW is perfecting the age-old art of dismantling cars. The grimy nature of the Recycling and Dismantling Centre (RDZ) building and the clanking of mechanical diggers inside make it hard to see this as the cutting edge in the fight to keep global warming to 1.5deg C, but BMW is very proud of this facility, which it claims as the biggest of its type in Germany, having capacity for 10,000 cars a year and an annual haul of 13,000 tonnes of recycled materials. The monetary rewards are scrap metal prices in the thousands of euros. A tonne of copper can fetch as much as €8000 (£6700), aluminium €1000 (£840). However, the rewards are more than just money. “If we can…

Don’t call it a saloon: call it a streamliner, said Hyundai. We will just stick with saloon, but call it what you will; at least the Ioniq 6 isn’t another SUV. To create it, Hyundai took the E-GMP underpinnings from its Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6 – two of our favourite large electric cars – and draped a lower, sleeker body over them. In this new world of EVs, Hyundai doesn’t shout about the handling benefits of a lower car, because the centre of gravity is already pretty low in any car with a skateboard-style platform. The headline figures here instead concern the efficiency. The first is a drag coefficient of 0.21 Cd, making the Ioniq 6 one of the slipperiest production cars around, and that pays dividends for…

If you’ve seen the new Jurassic World blockbuster, Chris Pratt’s 1989 Jeep Grand Wagoneer might have caught your eye. Like the dinosaurs that star in the movie, the Wagoneer name has been brought back from extinction, newly adorning body-on-frame SUVs in what Jeep parent company Stellantis describes as a “premium extension” of the brand. You won’t find many Wagoneers on the Rubicon Trail, but its 10in of ground clearance still lets it ford two feet of water. There are two versions: the regular Wagoneer, which competes in the North American market with ‘full-size’ SUVs like the Chevrolet Tahoe and Ford Explorer, and the upmarket Grand Wagoneer, which rivals the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator, with its price edging into Range Rover territory. Jeep will stop selling pure-ICE cars in Europe…

The Turbo S produced a dry lap time that matched the 911 GT3, despite being some 225kg heavier and wearing not semi-slick Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres but Pirelli P Zeros intended only for road use. So great is the Turbo S’s traction potential that it allows the engine to unload almost all of its incredible reserves throughout much of the lap. Indefatigable brakes that can be punched hard help, but it’s the car’s ability to exit second- and third-gear corners with slingshot intensity that makes it so fast. Body control is also excellent, and this allows you to hold the throttle wide open through committed direction changes in the middle gears. That said, the Turbo S still doesn’t rotate as easily as some other 911s and sometimes requires…

“It’s a totally unhinged version of a car that was already well short of having enough sandwiches for a lunch buffet” This 982 generation of Porsche’s Boxster and Cayman sports car siblings was supposed to be all about engine downsizing and efficiency. Remember that? How have we ended up here, you might well wonder, having started somewhere so different? When these cars arrived in 2016, they did so with those much-derided four-cylinder engines. And now the Cayman is going out with the very maddest, fieriest, fastest-revving flat six that Weissach could possibly squeeze into it, before switching to electric power in its next generation. That’s what you call a balanced powertrain strategy. Either that or a “let’s just chuck the kitchen sink at it and see what sticks” approach. The…

FEATURE Farewell to the Pagani Huayra The Italian V12 fanatics are readying an all-new supercar. We bring you a reminder of what it needs to live up to DEEP DIVE Audi’s high-tech plant Behind the scenes at Audi Sport HQ, which buildsboththeV10R8 and electric E-tron GT FEATURE Sebastian Vettel We consider the Formula 1 legend’s legacy as he heads for racing retirement EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Porsche Macan Can Porsche’s biggest seller get even better? USED GUIDE Volkswagen ID3 How to buy yourself an electric family hatchback second-hand SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p6…

Fancy a smart, four-seat two-door with a premium badge? Cop a load of the classy Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupé, then, a car so handsome that if it were a person, it could audition for BTS. Underneath the make-up, it’s pure E-Class and none the worse for it. There’s a good range of variants to seek out. The base petrol is the 242bhp four-pot E300. Then there’s the E400 (upgraded in 2020 to the 362bhp E450), which has a twin-turbocharged V6 and four-wheel drive as standard. The diesel range starts with the 191bhp E220d, moves up to the 241bhp E300d, the 254bhp E350d (with a V6 and 4Matic) and ends with the 335bhp E400d. There’s also the hot E53 from AMG. It has a twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre petrol straight six that makes a…

Glance casually out of your window today and the chances are some rootin’ tootin’ high-performance hybrid car will flash by, whether in huge SUV form, practical estate shape or some sort of lithe and expensive executive saloon. It wasn’t always thus. In the early days of the hybrid car, the Toyota Prius reigned supreme, and only the original and wonderfully clever Honda Insight provided any sparks of joy for the enthusiast still not sure if this newfangled mode of motion was the way we actually wanted to go. In a bid to appeal to more mainstream buyers, Honda’s second stab at the Insight was a five-door hatchback almost as anodyne to the petrolhead as the Prius. To placate them, in 2011 it used the Insight’s platform to produce this tiny…