Table of contents for July 27, 2022 in Autocar

What is Ensorcia Automotive? “A leading green lithium company, with rights to lithium around the world and a patented method of extracting lithium that is cheaper, easier and less environmentally damaging.” Do you have the funds for automotive? “I made my money in petrochemicals, and then got out mainly to focus on greener technology some time ago. The company today can be measured in billions, not millions. To date we have put an eight-figure sum into TVR, which is enough to get it up and running. If we need to do the rest we will, but it might be better to bring on some more investors.” Why TVR? “Many companies approached us to access our lithium supplies, but our focus was not on supplying the automotive industry. TVR was different,…

ALPINE HAS REVEALED the battery-powered A110 E-ternité as an intriguing glimpse of the marque’s all-electric future. The one-off is not only the brand’s first electric car but also its first drop-top, featuring a removable roof section that has minimal impact on the car’s rigidity and silhouette. Based on the same chassis as the current production car, it uses battery packs from the Renault Mégane E-Tech but houses them in bespoke casings and spreads them around the chassis for optimum weight distribution: there are four at the front and eight at the rear, in a bid to maintain the A110’s characteristic mid-engined handling characteristics. The cells weigh 392kg, but Alpine claims to have increased the prototype’s kerb weight by a total of only 258kg, putting the E-ternité at 1378kg at the…

Industry insiders will have been startled by the recent news that Volvo high-flyer Matt Galvin had suddenly departed the company. Commercial director Galvin, six years at Volvo UK and a key influence on the brand’s recent business renaissance as well as the likely successor to managing director Kristian Elvefors, was lured away by an even better offer from Chinese electric car maker Nio. He has been tasked with establishing from scratch a new brand in the UK with a sales, parts and service operation. It’s the sort of career-defining offer that comes rarely to a car executive. There are power politics at play here, of course. Volvo is owned by Chinese company Geely, and Galvin’s departure to an ambitious Chinese rival shines a light on a challenge confronting Chinese automotive…

CATALYTIC CONVERTER and hydrogen technology specialist Johnson Matthey is to develop an £80 million hydrogen fuel cell components facility at its Royston plant near Cambridge. The site will be repurposed from its current role making catalytic converters to produce proton exchange membranes for fuel cells. The plant will make enough membranes to build 3GW’s worth of fuel cells annually when running at maximum capacity, although that capacity could be tripled to meet future demand. The facility will be operational by the first half of 2024. “The fuel cell market has now reached a pivotal moment with the increasing urgency to decarbonise transportation,” Johnson Matthey CEO Liam Condon said in a statement. “Fuel cells will be a crucial part of the energy transition.” Investment in the facility was backed by the…

I magine an electric car that would allow you to get from the centre of London to the car park at the UK’s northernmost point at Dunnet Head, near John O’Groats, on a single battery charge – almost 700 miles – with absolutely no compromise in speed, comfort or, most important of all, driving enjoyment. Not possible? Mercedes-Benz is convinced it is and has created the Vision EQXX concept to prove it. The rear-wheel-drive saloon acts as a showcase for the sort of electric driveline technology, aerodynamic developments and lightweight construction Mercedes says it is pursuing for future production models. Unlike most concepts, it is fully road legal. The new four-door is claimed to achieve 7.5 miles per kWh – twice as efficient as the recently introduced EQE 350. With…

The Xceed has been, ahem, exceedingly successful for Kia. Since its debut in 2019, the SUV-like hatch has notched up 120,000 European sales, while in the UK it makes up 10% of the brand’s volume. It also represents half of all Ceed sales, which, following the recent demise of the Renault Mégane and imminent death of the Ford Focus, feels like another nail in the coffin of the compact family hatch. Given its success, Kia has played fairly safe with the Xceed’s mid-life nip and tuck. For now, there’s a 158bhp 1.5-litre petrol, which is the most popular with retail buyers here, and a 139bhp 1.6-litre PHEV, the fleet favourite. There’s a fancy new GT-Line trim to match other Ceed variants, plus there are new LED headlights, and a tweaked…

MODEL TESTED 2.0 TSI 245 VZ2 Price £34,415 • Power 241bhp • Torque 273lb ft • 0-60mph 5.9sec • 30-70mph in fourth • 7.8sec Fuel economy • 34.0mpg CO2 emissions • 163g/km 70-0mph 43.8m While we’re still waiting for a credible electric contender, the traditional hot hatch segment has changed beyond all recognition. A lot of the big players of old have abandoned it completely: Renault, Peugeot and Vauxhall have decided they can’t make the sums work, so they’re concentrating on SUVs and hybrids. In their place have come manufacturers that only 10 years ago you would never have associated with hot hatchbacks: Hyundai has emerged as the defender of the performance hatch, BMW wants us to forget all of that advertising about front-wheel drive being wrong, and Cupra is its own brand now.…

FEATURE Improving on perfection? These three British tuning firms reckon they’ve improved some of our favourite affordable sports cars. Which does it best? DEEP DIVE The future of Alpina We find out what BMW’s buyout means for the Buchloe brand by meeting its CEO TESTED Ferrari 296 GTB Biblically quick V6 hybrid lands in the UK. So is it still a five-star car? EVERY WEEK FIRST DRIVE Kia EV6 GT One of our favourite EVs gains Taycan-beating performance stats HOW TO BUY Fiat Barchetta The thinking man’s MX-5? Maybe not. But, for £4k, who’s quibbling? SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p4…

MILEAGE 9035 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Have a new platform and PHEV power made Jaguar’s cub fully fighting fit? It’s the perennial modernage question: should I buy an electrified car or stick with what I know? We’ve been running the plug-in hybrid E-Pace for a couple of months now, but while it’s back at Jaguar with some as yet undiagnosed electrical problems, we’ve borrowed an E-Pace D200, the mild-hybrid diesel offering in the compact SUV range. In fact, for the moment, it’s the only other E-Pace currently available to order alongside the PHEV, because of the semi-conductor shortage. We’re in the D200 R-Dynamic SE, one trim above our R-Dynamic S PHEV, but to compare like for like, in S trim the diesel costs £42,840 and the plug-in hybrid is £48,795…

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

The UK had an automotive industry established as early as the 1890s. Since then, the nation has made cars to varying degrees of quality, and the same applies to engines. Some were easily forgettable, while others stood comparison with the best made anywhere in the world. Here, we present seven engines that happen to be British but of which any car-building country would be proud. Rolls-Royce L-series After producing a V8 engine in tiny numbers in 1905, Rolls-Royce returned to the configuration with the 6.25-litre L-series, which made its debut in the 1959 Silver Cloud and Phantom V. It was also fitted to the Bentley S2. The engine was expanded to 6.75 litres in 1968 and would eventually have its power output boosted from an initial 172bhp to 530bhp. Further…

Legendary British sports car firm TVR will relaunch in 2024, with the Griffith V8 finally making production and a Griffith EV scheduled to be on sale just six months later. Thereafter, two more cars, believed to be an electric saloon and SUV, are planned for production, although the timeline for their launches has yet to be confirmed. The long-awaited revival project – revealed exclusively to Autocar by owner Les Edgar, major investor and chairman of green lithium firm Ensorcia Automotive Daniel Layton and CEO Jim Berriman – will kick-start a longer-term plan to seize the opportunities of electrification and turn TVR into a global luxury car maker. Responding to questions about the long gestation of TVR’s relaunch to this point – having acquired the brand in 2013, started development of…

SEATING MAY NOT be the first thing that springs to mind when pondering car tech, but unlike living room sofas, car seats can be highly sophisticated pieces of equipment. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the opposite was true until some car companies, notably Saab and Volvo, started making dramatic improvements. Prompted by freezing Scandinavian winters, both firms started to look at the value of seat comfort and its effect on the well-being of drivers. They employed orthopaedic specialists to design seats and added seat heating not just for cosiness but also because warmth is healthy for a driver’s back and reduces fatigue. At the time it was advanced thinking, so how have things evolved since then? These days, the role seats play in reducing fatigue means that technical improvements…

GIVING IT THE BEANS If you ever feel tired in town, you can always pop into the nearest Costa or Starbucks for a pick-me-up. But what if you’re so tired you can’t even lift the cup? Step forward Bugatti’s new carbonfibre espresso cup. Yes, from the brand that brought you the 8.0-litre W16 comes an ultra-light 0.059-litre vessel for your morning fix. To try it for yourself, head to the new coffee shop in HR Owen’s Mayfair dealership, take a seat on a chair from the Bugatti Home Collection, order a £50 ‘Ettore Shot’ and peruse a wide array of Bugatti-themed merchandise. JUST LET ’EM RACE Formula 1 can sometimes feel more ‘Contrive to Deprive’ than ‘Drive to Survive’ from a fan’s point of view, with the stewards’ decisions often…

The flow of automotive executives from the UK and mainland Europe to China might be slowing down, which is another post-Covid and skills gap development, according to Ennis & Co’s Lynda Ennis (pictured). The shine has been taken off oversees postings, with many expat staff struggling with extensive periods of lockdown in China, and two years of erratic air travel preventing visits home. With recruitment more difficult, the cost of employing foreign talent in China has gone up: high-quality housing, travel and fees at private international schools can easily add 50% or more to the near six-figure salaries a top European car exec can command in China. The rewards are certainly there, however, for those expats with a top pedigree who are willing to take on the challenge. “There’s not…

KALLE ROVANPERA TOOK another step towards his first World Rally Championship title with his fifth win from seven rounds for Toyota. Just 21 years old, the Finn put in what is now becoming a standard masterclass performance, in tricky mixed conditions. Team-mate Elfyn Evans led for most of the opening day, before a downpour on the final stage caused a degree of chaos. Running first on the road as championship leader, Rovanperä overturned his deficit to take a lead he would not lose – despite Evans’ best efforts. The rally winner was a full minute up the road at the finish, having conquered 14 of the event’s 24 special stages to extend his title advantage over Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville to an impressive 83 points. Belgian Neuville finished a relatively quiet…

This will sound like tone-deaf blasphemy but the towering, 2.2-tonne DBX 707 is the best car Aston Martin makes. Aston clearly knows this, and wants us to know it, too, which is why our first taste of this 697bhp crossover on British roads follows a substantial test in Sardinia and, before that, a Pirelli-smoking go behind the wheel of a validation prototype at Aston’s Stowe Circuit test track at Silverstone. In general, you don’t trail a duffer this assiduously. Bluntly, neither can the 707 afford to be anything of that sort. Despite the £190,000 asking price, £18,000 more than the regular model, Aston hopes the car will make up as much as half of DBX sales. And because the DBX already accounts for roughly half of Aston’s total annual sales,…

London-based importer and tuner Clive Sutton has been at work on the Mustang again – something at which it is quite adept – to produce this spirited road/trackfocused version of Ford’s muscle car. It’s the CS850 R, to sit alongside the softer (these things are relative) CS850 GT we’ve previously driven. The number roughly references the power, which sits at 847bhp from a supercharged 5.0 V8, with torque running at 665lb ft. It drives the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox, but it’s at the back where the differences start. It runs a shorter final drive to promote ferocious acceleration and has a torque-sensing limited-slip differential to give it more cornering adjustability. Suspension is no longer magnetorheological dampers as on the 850 GT but trick ‘pro action’ dampers and…

The story of 2 Win is told mainly from Cesare Fiorio’s perspective, but when it comes to the cast of fantastic drivers in the 1983 WRC, the film makers struck gold with the character of Walter Röhrl. The German, now 75, remains one of rallying’s greatest exponents – and one of its most notorious oddballs. Röhrl scored 14 WRC rally wins and two titles, first in Fiat’s 131 Abarth in 1980 and then in Opel’s Ascona in 1982. But his career numbers would surely have been greater had he been motivated by such trinkets. He absolutely wasn’t, as he told me when I interviewed him a dozen years ago. “I wanted to show that I was the best and then stop,” he said. “After 1980, [co-driver] Christian [Geistdörfer] said to…

What the beep? We were excited to pick up our new Hyundai Kona Electric recently. It’s a lovely car, although we’re ‘alarmed’ at the noise that Hyundai has chosen to alert people when it’s reversing. We live in a quiet suburban street and are embarrassed every time we reverse the car from our driveway, as it sounds like a delivery lorry beeping. I’m not sure why Hyundai decided the beeping needed to be so loud. It will mean that if we return home late at night or early in the morning, we will need to park elsewhere to avoid waking the whole street. It seems that part of the problem is the speaker for the reversing noise being placed at the front of the car. Our neighbour has a new…

Lancia presents the Car of the Year THE HF AND Integrale sporting versions of the Lancia Delta have earned such a cult following that the everyday hatchback has been virtually forgotten about, despite being good enough to be voted the European Car of the Year for 1980. That summer, we fully evaluated the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed, front-driven family five-door in 1.5-litre form, its 85bhp petrol fourpot coming from the Fiat Ritmo. “The abiding impression given by the engine is of a delightful smoothness with an eagerness. “The Delta is very nearly among the top in its class in steering (having ‘excellent feel’), falling short only because of too slow gearing: 3.8 turns lock to lock. “This is offset by the car’s marked reluctance to roll much. It corners very tautly for…

MILEAGE 3561 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the hot version of Volkswagen’s electric SUV lives up to its GT ambitions Stop the presses: my family actually likes a car I’ve brought home! This truly is a revelation. With my previous longterm test cars, they have variously complained about a shortage of leg room in the back and stingy boot capacities, and have even shared their disappointment about the lack of sizeable storage bins. It’s all smiles this time, though, because the ID 4 is brilliantly packaged and great in terms of practicality. Let’s start with the boot. The GTX’s measures 543 litres and has plenty of room for several suitcases (nine carry-ons under the parcel shelf, according to our friends at What Car?), a full family shop or…

Just when you get used to each succeeding generation of 911 and can’t see how such a thing can be improved on or stir the senses more, Porsche seems to answer the question with its own GT3 variants. The GT3 nameplate was first introduced on a race-focused variant of the ‘996’ 911 road car in 1999. Now, make no mistake, the true purpose of the GT3 has always been to provide a platform for Porsche’s lucrative Clubsport sporting activities, but by gum, it’s also as a corollary produced some superb road cars. Take this 997 version. On its arrival in 2006, the GT3 made itself clear as a weapon of choice for driving purists: those of us who live and breathe naturally aspirated engines, manual gearboxes and engaging handling. Early…

Would you agree that the Aceman concept is quite a departure from the Mini as BMW has defined the brand over the past 21 years? “The design target was to give this concept some edge, not try to make it too cute. I wanted something fresh and bold, within certain boundaries.” What does the Aceman tell us about the future Mini family? “Each member of the Mini family will have its own character. There will be a new [design] step for the hatchback and the Countryman will be remade for the third generation. I wanted to extend the [design] bandwidth of the Mini brand. “There’s no grille on this EV and other traditional details such as the standout door handles have gone. There will be new iconic elements [for the future…

Why the delay? “Principally, the approvals needed by the Welsh government to start the factory renovation followed by the pandemic. But the former is necessarily thorough and – in truth – it saved us. If it had gone through quickly and we’d launched prior to the pandemic, then we’d likely be dead now.” Do you have the money to launch now? “We wouldn’t have repaid the government loan with substantial interest this year if we didn’t. This isn’t a hobby; we have the funding and we have a long-term plan to build a sustainable business.” Isn’t the Griffith V8 a bit old now? “What would we have done to it today if it had launched three years ago? Changed the bumper and added some chrome? It was designed right and,…

The new Civic Type R has been revealed – and it’s set to be the most pulsating iteration of Honda’s hot hatch yet. The performance model enters its sixth generation with redesigned bodywork based on that of the recently renewed Honda Civic, and it features a raft of significant mechanical upgrades and improved aerodynamics. After much speculation about the powertrain, it has been revealed that the new Type R will be propelled by an ‘evolved’ version of the 2.0-litre turbocharged 17YM engine used by the outgoing model, mated to an improved six-speed manual gearbox. Honda’s ‘mainstream’ models have already shifted to hybrid-only powertrains in Europe, and this is likely to be the last purely combustion-engined car the brand launches here. Honda says the uprated engine, which gains a revised turbocharger…

Porsche has revealed plans for a new luxury SUV based on a ‘Sport’ variant of the Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform (SSP). The SUV will share the new SSP architecture with the upcoming third-generation Panamera – confirmed as an EV (see box, right) – and second-generation Porsche Taycan. The new SUV is likely to be priced above the Macan and Cayenne when it is launched during the latter half of the decade, and suggestions are that it could be the unidentified car shown as a design model to North American Porsche dealers last year. At the time, dealers described it as being “wider and larger than the Cayenne”, and said it featured a “flat rear design, not anything like the Macan and Cayenne”. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said: “We plan…

It’s the halfway point of the 2022 Australian Supercars championship, my favourite race series because the cars are powerful and noisy and extremely closely matched. Better than that, its organisers know that spectators are central to the show, so a new-generation race car will arrive next year aimed at making the racing closer than ever. These ‘Gen 3’ cars have reduced downforce to put the premium back on mechanical grip and reduce the adverse aerodynamic effects of following another car closely. Development Gen 3 cars are making regular track appearances now. Test and guest race drivers are already complaining about how wild they feel, which is probably a good thing. There’s loads of power and not enough grip to tame it easily. Supercars has also insisted they keep it old-school…

AS CHINESE BRANDS reach outwards into Europe and expand their footprint abroad, back in China the lure of foreign talent remains of great interest across a variety of roles, from engineering right through to marketing and communications. For the time being, talent for China-based roles must largely be found within the country itself because the approval of business visas has been highly restricted since the start of the pandemic. There are examples of European-based workers, accepted for a role in China, waiting more than a year without being granted a working Z-visa. This has not stopped companies trying, though, with Angela Tian, a visa consultant at Hired China, confirming that her company has recently been helping car firms hire foreigners for positions in China, “mostly for roles managing production lines…

SUNDAY Great motoring morning: took the Alpine to Goodwood for the GRRC’s breakfast club, and I enjoyed it more than any I’ve attended, mainly because of the variety of cars on hand. You had to register to display your car and someone, somewhere, had cleverly curated the attending motors for variety. How often can you see an early Mini Moke parked a few yards away from a late-1940s Triumph Renown saloon, with a slammed Chevrolet pick-up parked opposite and a beautiful vintage Invicta just a few yards away? Breakfast clubs have become common since the Duke of Richmond first launched the idea – and these days the smaller ones tend to be best. But this was special. MONDAY The air is full of Aston Martin talk. They’re raising £653m partly…

“This is a car that tends to shrink around you” Not so long ago, when French autoroutes were paragons of motoring freedom and stories of biker-gendarmes marching errant motorists to cashpoints were non-existent, another glorious automotive phenomenon was common on the motorways of France. It was the Big Citroën, a low and graceful conveyance with decisively different styling from the executive car norm. It never seemed to travel at less than three-figure speeds (in MPH) and carried its serene occupants with a supple stability that eluded everything else on the road, especially the pricier, brasher Germans. There was a 60-year run of these big Citroëns – DS, CX, XM, C6 to name four – all with unique technology and very different driving characteristics. Sadly, it ended with the last C6,…

As is the way with electric cars, the normal rules don’t apply. If you want the fastestac-celerating Cupra Born, you don’t actually want this, the most expensive version. Instead, you need the 228bhp e-Boost version with the smaller battery. Less weight, you see. Still, with the biggest battery (77kWh usable), this particular Born e-Boost is the one with the longest range. The theory is 305-340 miles and in the real world that bears out as high-200s, so ever so slightly ahead of cars like the Kia e-Niro. Being ‘the schporty one’, the Cupra gets more power than its Volkswagen ID 3 sibling. With 228bhp and 229lb ft, it’ll accelerate from 0-62mph in 7.0sec (7.3sec for the ID 3, 6.6sec for the 58kWh e-Boost Born). Our test car is the top-spec…

I’m an extremely professional car reviewer. My colleagues always say as much when they’re waiting for my overdue copy to be filed, or for me to arrive late to a photoshoot. Yup. There’s nothing I won’t drive and no job I won’t undertake. But oh dear, today I almost wish there was. On my driveway is a car that makes the vehicle next to it – an Audi Q7 V12 – look discreet. It is a Mammoth Ram 1500 TRX, a pick-up modified by American tuner Hennessey. And right now, I’d rather it was a Hyundai i10. I’ve never felt so conspicuous. Partly it’s the size – well over two metres wide and five metres long. Then it’s the hardware. In front, the TRX has a 6.2-litre supercharged V8 engine…

I thought long and hard about which car should replace my Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloce, a car that had all the bits from the Giulia Quadrifoglio – sport seats, 19in teledial wheels, switchable suspension and limited-slip differential – but not the glorious Ferrari-based V6. Was it time to go electric? I nearly bought a Jaguar I-Pace, but due to the ridiculous shortage of public chargers and general range anxiety, I decided to not take the plunge. After all, I’m a petrolhead; the inevitable can wait a few years yet. BMW has totally lost its design direction: its cars all look poorly proportioned and ugly, as though one designer designed the front, another the rear, and they had a fight in the middle. Don’t even talk about the grilles. Maybe I…

I magine developing a car for three years and then having to start over because your employer has been bought by another company. That’s exactly what happened to the engineers and designers of the Mk5 Corsa when General Motors sold Vauxhall to the PSA Group (since subsumed into Stellantis) in 2017. Rather than become despondent, though, the team buckled down and got the job done in record time. The Mk5 Corsa was launched in 2019 and swiftly became one of the UK’s bestselling cars, as its forebears had been. Nowadays, you can pick up a used Mk5 Corsa for around £11,500 – a saving of nearly £6000 over a new one. Even nearly new examples can be found for just £15,000. Is it worth the price, though, and does it…

An expert’s view DANNY KAYE, REVOLUTION PORSCHE “The GT3 and GT3 RS are absolutely amazing cars. They tick all the boxes. My favourite aspect is the handling, and on track they come alive and they’re phenomenal. It’s one of those cars that should be on everybody’s tick list to drive. As far as I can see, prices are only going one way and they’re not going down. The engines are pretty bombproof, although one thing I always notice with these cars – whenever we’re doing inspection work – is coolant leaks. They’re heavy on brakes and tyres, too. Always get a pre-purchase inspection, because so many cars have been used as track toys.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE Watch out and monitor for coolant leaks. The front coolant pipes are known…