Table of contents for August 3, 2022 in Autocar

IN 2019, BMW showed off the outlandish Vision M hybrid supercar concept as an indication of what to expect from its electrified sports cars – and at the time, it was tipped to enter production as a spiritual successor to the first bespoke M car, the M1. Shortly after, reports began to circulate that the project had been cancelled over concerns about R&D costs and low sales potential. The division later revealed the Concept XM SUV as a preview of its actual next stand-alone M car. However, BMW bosses remain receptive to the prospect of more bespoke M models, which potentially opens the door for revisiting the supercar concept. Frank van Meel said: “It’s always something we can look at. As car guys, we are always dreaming of making such…

Secure factory premises It has an option on a facility in Ebbw Vale, South Wales, but isn’t certain to take it up. If not, it needs to move fast to confirm an alternative. Sign a development deal with Gordon Murray Design This will allow TVR to begin work on bringing the iStream production method to reality for the Griffith, training its team with the required skills. Source investors Daniel Layton says he has the resources to make TVR happen, but building a three-car company could swallow hundreds of millions or more, and even he has hinted at his preferred route being to bring in additional support. Build the brand A 2024 deadline is perilously tight, and the challenges will only mount as it approaches. TVR needs a flow of credible…

HOT ON THE heels of both the Ocean and Pear will be the 2024 Ronin, a four-seat drop-top supercar being developed at the firm’s UKbased ‘Magic Works’ facility. Its tri-motor powertrain is intended to send it from 0-62mph in less than 2.0sec and Fisker is targeting a range of more than 600 miles. More importantly, it will serve as a test bed and a showcase for features of future high-volume cars. Henrik Fisker said: “The benefit [of a supercar] is being able to explore new technologies that we normally wouldn’t be able to do on a high-volume car. For example, we are working on a very large integrated battery pack solution. “We are also looking at expanding the use of luxurious recycled materials in the interior, which is probably too…

The car industry has so far ridden out the shocks of Covid and subsequent supply chain disruption surprisingly successfully, at least as far as profits show. But the greatest shock might yet be around the corner and prove far harder to overcome: a collapse in demand. The consumer’s desire for new cars has so far outstripped the limited supply, allowing car makers to pare back marketing costs, including discounts, and focus on the pricier cars making the most profits. Car makers have even been able to pass on the cost of rising raw materials without worrying too much about orders. However, a new survey from Autocar sibling What Car? that canvassed the opinion of those in the market for a new car showed that 37% had decided to delay their…

For consumers, the most obvious consequence of the shortage of rental cars is higher rental prices. For example, the typical weekly rental in 2019 was £339 but today that figure is £675. However, if the prices of cars have risen 15%, how do rental firms justify a rise in rates of 100%? “Like everyone else, rental firms are facing increases in business costs, including the cost of decarbonisation,” said Toby Poston, director of corporate affairs at the BVRLA. “Increasingly, customers are asking to rent electric cars. This means the rental company has to invest in the infrastructure to recharge a car within an hour of its return from the previous renter. Typically, that investment is a six-figure sum.” Mark Kendall of Kendall Cars, a Surrey-based rental firm, expects rental rates…

Can certain supercar makers get away with offering an engine that isn’t an event in its own right? Undoubtedly, but Ferrari isn’t one of them. You might therefore have reservations about the 296 GTB, driven here for the first time in the UK. This is a car whose hybridisation and 250 LM-inspired design are big talking points but not the really big talking point, which is the engine: never before has a mere V6 found a home inside a Ferrari road car. In cold terms, it represents something of a downgrade from the V8 configuration the company has used for its mid-engined mainstays since 1973. More to the point, when was the last time anyone gave us an outstanding V6, Alfa Romeo’s Busso aside? There are other non-trivial concerns. Compared…

Ford claims its new Evos is Chinaonly, but don’t bet on that. The new slope-backed crossover slots into the range roughly where the soon-to-be-discontinued Mondeo sits in Europe. Matching current public tastes, the Evos is also a crossover rather than a traditional saloon or hatchback, built on the same excellent C2 platform as the Focus. In many ways, Europe makes sense. The Evos is striking, too. Not only due to the silhouette but also because dominating the front is Changan Ford’s dragon-scale grille, the scales of which flutter when you lock and unlock the car. The interior is equally arresting. From the driver’s seat, you’re greeted by a 1.1m-wide expanse of glass made up of a 12.3in instrument readout and a 27in infotainment touchscreen. The latter can be split into…

It was the first time that BMW had approached the owners of Alpina to ask them if they would like to sell the brand, but the timing was astute. “The risks for small manufacturers are going up massively,” says Andreas Bovensiepen, who with his brother Florian runs Alpina, the company their father founded to tune BMWs back in 1965. “But the opportunities aren’t increasing in the same way.” Over an hour with Autocar, Bovensiepen outlines the dilemma facing Alpina, which from its modest tuning and racing roots has become an independent manufacturer in its own right, making fast, luxurious and discreet cars that are 80% finished in BMW factories, owing to a close partnership with the Munich firm. There’s a burgeoning order book: Alpina sold a record 2000 cars last…

Jim Holder’s article about his friend’s unreliable Land Rover Defender reminded me how much I’m looking forward to getting a Toyota Hilux. My Land Rover ownership began with a Defender in 2009. It was a great vehicle, but it was addicted to spending time with the AA and back home at the dealership. On one occasion, my Discovery loan vehicle went wrong within a day and also required a call-out from the AA. When I complained, Land Rover gave me a discount of £2000 over and above the dealer discount to persuade me to have another of its cars. My second one had some paint issues on delivery but was very reliable for 60,000 miles. The next 80,000 have been more testing. Some bits have been replaced two or three…

In the TV show Friends, Phoebe once said: “Load up the Volvo. I want to be a soccer mom” – and this essentially sums up the manufacturer’s past image. Particularly with its estates, you often found yourself buying one purely because of its sensible, practical qualities that worked for your everyday family life. Travel to the present, though, and it’s a somewhat different story. The Volvo V90 we’re featuring here is a far cry from its boxes-on-wheels predecessors. Sure, it remains spacious and easy to live with, but now there’s much more style and luxury mixed in. Designer Thomas Ingenlath managed to keep the family-friendly interior but mix it with a healthy dose of Scandi-cool. The materials used throughout the interior look and feel expensive, while a 9.0in portrait touchscreen…

An expert’s view PAUL DE TURRIS, DTR SPORTS CARS “We now rarely sell any but the best low-mileage cars. We still work on lots of them and hold many new and used parts, including body panels. Values have changed. The pre-facelift (2003) cars command much higher prices now, but the emphasis is on mileage and condition. Garaged cars can be spotted a mile off when underneath. Early mint cars have gone up north of £10k now, but the majority are higher mileage and it’s essential to check for history and corrosion. It’s a good fun investment and great for the continent.” Buyer beware… ■ ENGINE The valve timing variator is a known Barchetta weak spot. In early models, the variator tended to seize because it couldn’t cope with a build-up…

“They will be so groundbreaking that you will say: ‘This is crazy. I didn’t see that coming’” BMW’s M performance division is preparing to launch its final purecombustion sports car in its 50th year, before embarking on a rapid-fire electrification programme that will bring the most powerful M5 yet, a Lamborghini Urusbaiting SUV and, ultimately, an electric successor to the M3. It has been a busy year so far for BMW’s performance arm, which has already revealed the stripped-back M4 CSL, the M3 Touring estate and its first endurance racer in 23 years, the V8 Hybrid LMDh. But still to come is the production version of the 740bhp XM hybrid SUV and long-awaited second-generation M2 Coupé. The upcoming M2 Coupé will be the final ‘full-fat’ M car to go without…

Styling images of a TVR SUV and a TVR saloon have been revealed, giving the first visual indications of how the reborn brand hopes to expand beyond its traditional core of sports cars and build a three-model line-up towards the end of the decade. The images back up the strategy outlined exclusively to Autocar last week, when CEO Jim Berriman confirmed that TVR was in “advanced talks” with a third-party EV platform provider to develop the vehicles for production. Berriman described the potential partner as “highly established, world-leading”. The ambitious plan was created by Berriman and TVR co-owners Daniel Layton, owner of Ensorcia Automotive, a division of a global lithium extraction company, and Les Edgar, who initiated the rebirth of TVR back in 2013. Their aim is to build TVR…

GENERAL MOTORS is gearing up to return to the European market with a range of electric vehicles, with the new Cadillac Lyriq expected to lead the charge. The US giant essentially withdrew from Europe after selling Opel and Vauxhall to the PSA Group in 2017, retaining just a limited import operation for Cadillac and the Chevrolet Corvette. However, it established a new European arm last year and is now preparing for a return with an all-electric lineup. It is expected to announce its plans early next year. While he wouldn’t discuss targets or expected sales volumes, GM Europe boss Mahmoud Samara said “we feel very confident that we will be a substantial player” in the market. GM has committed to having a fully electric line-up worldwide by 2035 and has…

FOUR DECADES AGO, a technology that would eventually have a massive impact on the drivability of cars today was born. The dual-clutch transmission (DCT), now a common feature in most cars to the point of exclusivity in some, was dreamed up by a small team of engineers at Porsche who by their own admission were probably punching above their weight at the time. The Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK transmission) almost proved a bridge too far in the early 1980s. Computing power was a fraction of what it is today, yet the engineers managed to make it work well enough to gain big advantages in Group C racing with the Porsche 962 and in rallying with the Audi Quattro S1. So now, when the technology has not only been perfected but evolved…

CHROME IS HOT AIR DS is bucking the industry’s growing obsession with chrome, ditching the shiny finish for its new 7 SUV, because its production creates too much CO2. Design director Thierry Métroz said that it’s in fact “more premium” to use less chrome, rather than more. Plus, not using it helps in DS’s drive to become a netcarbon-zero firm by 2050. “It’s more premium and more luxurious to have less chrome, because in fact now when you’re looking at the mainstream brands, there’s a lot of chrome, because they want to be premium,” he told Autocar. “But for DS, we try [to reverse] this trend and would like to be more sophisticated and more refined, because all the chrome finish causes a lot of CO2 [to produce].” MEETINGS IN…

BRITAIN BUILT ALMOST a fifth fewer cars in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2021 as car makers continue to suffer what industry lobby group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders describes as the equivalent of long Covid, referring to the after-effects of the pandemic. The figures did show a small uptick in June, suggesting the semiconductor shortage might be easing slightly, the SMMT said. However, the first-half production of 403,131 cars is 19% down, year on year. The numbers were depressed by a turbulent first half for Jaguar Land Rover, which vies with Nissan for the title of Britain’s largest car manufacturer by volume. JLR last Wednesday posted a loss of over half a billion pounds for the quarter ending in June.…

TWO MONTHS AFTER Goodyear tyre failures forced the World Touring Car Cup to cancel its races on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, more turmoil hit the series at Vallelunga in Italy. The Cyan Racing-run Lynk&Cos, top dogs in this series, couldn’t complete a race distance safely on the spec tyre, according to the Swedish team. Balance of Performance compensation weight made them by far the heaviest on the grid, which Cyan claimed was the source of the problem. And when the FIA and series promoter refused to change the rules, the team followed through on its threat to withdraw its five cars – but only after they had completed the formation laps for both races. Cue an awful mountain of bad feeling. As the Lynk&Co quintet departed, the other teams found their…

“Silly or not, a drift mode allows it to oversteer keenly and predictably” While we review new EVs as individual cars, some are also transforming the companies that create them. The Kia EV6 is already a fine example of this trend, with its combination of technology, design and pricing leapfrogging many rivals that would until recently have been regarded as sitting higher in the brand prestige hierarchy. Here’s some bad news for those rivals: the new EV6 GT moves the game on considerably further. The range-topper’s performance has been boosted by an extent that takes it out of the mainstream and into very distinguished company. Its 77.4kWh battery (the same as in the standard EV6) is relatively small compared with posher EVs’ and its 263-mile range is unexceptional. But 800V…

The Volkswagen Group brands have a habit of offering strangely powerful non-hybridised petrol engines in cars with relatively little sporting intent. So while most examples of the Skoda Karoq, the Czech manufacturer’s small crossover, will be fitted with a 148bhp 1.5 TSI, you can also get one with a 187bhp 2.0 TSI engine and four-wheel drive. That version, in top-spec Sportline trim, is what we have here. We’re in a Karoq again because it has just been facelifted. You would be forgiven for having missed that news, because the changes are pretty minor. On the outside, the bumpers have been given the usual nip and tuck, there’s a longer spoiler and two new paint colours, and the headlights are slimmer than before, with the option of LED matrix units. Inside,…

Car manufacturers like Ford, Toyota and Mazda spend billions and employ small armies of highly trained engineers to create polished products through years of development and millions of miles of testing. It would be hubris to think that some people on an industrial estate can improve on those cars, wouldn’t it? Well, there are plenty of smaller but wellestablished companies that disagree, with thousands of customers to back them up. After all, the car manufacturers always leave something on the table because, while their adverts are populated by suave, wellmannered people, they know some of their cars will end up in the hands of less genteel enthusiasts who don’t rate the concepts of mechanical sympathy or regular servicing. Meeting emissions targets and needing to make a profit aren’t conducive to…

COMPARISON Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS vs legends It’s unique today but not the first of its ilk, so how does the GT4 RS fare against the BMW M3 GTS and Mercedes-AMG SLS Black Series? FEATURE Modified Teslas Tuners are turning their hands to EVs. Steve Cropley meets some Tesla tweakers DRIVEN Ferrari SP3 Daytona Stunning V12 droptop salutes legendary domination of 1967 Daytona 24 Hours EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST Porsche 911 Turbo S Fireworks come as standard and road test records come under threat FIRST DRIVE Jeep Wagoneer We meet the SUV specialist’s plush new range-topper SUBSCRIBE autocar.co.uk/subscribe or see p42…

MILEAGE 3105 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see whether the Cupra is a new EV contender or just a gussied-up VW ID 3 Not everyone has the ability to charge an electric vehicle at home, and although I’m lucky enough to have a driveway on which to park our Cupra Born, I don’t yet have a proper charger installed. As a result, life with an EV takes a bit of forward planning to ensure I always have the charge I need before I next get an opportunity to plug it in. I’m fortunate to have access to 11kW chargers at work, and one of my closest friends is a true EV-angelist who lets me leave the Born on his driveway for a few hours when I’m running low. He has…

“ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE” for the future of the Honda Civic Type R, according to Ko Yamamoto, technical advisor for Honda Motor Europe. Honda has just revealed the new-generation hot hatchback, which gets a heavily modified version of the previous ‘FK8’ car’s platform and 2.0-litre turbo petrol four-pot engine. “I wouldn’t exclude electrification,” said Yamamoto. “We can’t do an electric powertrain on this platform, but I imagine it can take up to a certain level of plug-in hybrid.” He didn’t confirm if future Civic Type Rs will retain this platform, but the model has typically had a short shelf life of only two or three years. With Honda set to launch a range of new EVs from 2023 as it pushes forward with its plan to phase out combustion engines, it…

New safety regulations introduced last month have made at least 20 technologies standard on all new cars sold in the EU and the UK – and will legislate some out of existence. The new arsenal of standard safety equipment, brought in under the anonymously titled General Safety Regulations 2 (GSR2), will also add more costs to cheaper cars, most likely increasing their prices. The changes had been in discussion at the UN and the EU for a decade before the EU finalised its proposals in 2019. They are being introduced in two main phases. The first went live on 6 July and the second will come in 2024, although some technologies are on a slightly different timetable. That means all new cars launched after 6 July 2022, regardless of price…

American electric vehicle start-up Fisker is shifting attention from its Ocean SUV to the development of the US-built Pear city car – which, the firm says, is crucial to its ambitious growth plans. The Fisker Ocean is a Tesla Model 3 rival due to enter production in Austria in early 2023 and land in the UK in around a year’s time, having made its public debut at this summer’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Meanwhile, the Pear (Personal Electric Automotive Revolution) is a much more compact and affordable proposition. A starting price of less than £28,000 has been mooted. Company boss Henrik Fisker told Autocar the Pear “is the vehicle that ultimately will take us to a million vehicles – we hope – per year, in 2027”. It will be built…

I’m not much of a golfer these days, but I am aware of something called LIV Golf, which is currently upsetting the ball-thwacking world. It has arrived in competition to the existing major tours and is backed by Saudi Arabia – sportswashing according to its critics but not so to Greg Norman, the Australian golfing hero who is fronting it. But away from various controversies that threaten to split golf like the Indycar breakaway in the 1990s is a particular triviality that irks me. The location of LIV’s first tournament earlier this year was the Centurion Club, a course variously described in marketing and media as “in Hertfordshire” or “north of London” or “near St Albans”. Which is odd, because I used to live in St Albans, and while it…

In a dramatic change of fortunes, vehicle rental companies – once the darlings of a motor industry desperate to shift metal and boost registrations – are now being shunned by car makers grappling with production shortages and focused on more profitable business. Until the Covid pandemic struck in 2019, manufacturers and rental firms had been locked in a self-serving embrace: car makers supplied thousands of vehicles to rental companies at huge discounts, only for the rental firms to dispose of the cars at auction, often for a profit, just six months later, in the process distorting the used car market and weakening residual values. How things have changed. Now rental firms, anxious to replace the cars they sold off during Covid when there was no consumer demand, are at the…

MONDAY New cars are the bread of life for us, but some create such a frenzy that we fight every day to be first with the latest. One prime target lately has been Prodrive’s P25, the £500,000-plus, 25-off, all-sold iteration of the famous 1990s Subaru Impreza 22B homologation special, based on rare genuine bits but optimised with new materials and technology so that it’s lighter (1100kg) and more powerful (400bhp) than before. After some polite hounding from me, Prodrive boss David Richards sent a note to say that while official drives aren’t yet on the agenda, I was welcome to drop into the company’s Banbury headquarters to hear the latest. The prototype is being enthusiastically beaten up on various UK test tracks by David Lapworth, Prodrive’s resident 22B guru. Richards…

There are a whopping 84% fewer derivatives on this latest Vauxhall Astra line compared with the previous model. And that’s despite Vauxhall offering five different powerplants (two petrol, one diesel, a plug-in hybrid and a forthcoming electric) and two gearboxes, all spread across three trim levels. If nothing else, it makes you realise how unbelievably complicated the last Astra range must have been. On top of that, there are just six options: upgraded on-board charger for the PHEV (7kW and £500), metallic paint (£600), premium metallic paint (£700), towbar (£605), diamond-cut alloy wheels (£300) and nappa leather with vented/heated seats (£2100). Two minutes on the configurator and you’ll be done. In this simplified new world, the 1.2 turbo on test here will be the big seller (60%), as will the…

MODEL TESTED SPORTBACK TDI QUATTRO Price £61,945 • Power 337bhp • Torque 516lb ft • 0-60mph 5.1sec • 30-70mph in fourth 5.0sec • Fuel economy 29.0mpg • CO2 emissions 215g/km • 70-0mph 47.8m Bring to mind one of Audi’s S-model fast executive cars and you are likely to picture a more traditional example – an S8 limousine, perhaps, or an S4 Avant performance estate. Quite understandably, since they are among the ones we have known for longest. But in 2022, Audi’s more familiar go-faster options are being commercially outperformed by its newer-groove models, one of which is in our road test crosshairs this week. The SQ5 Sportback entered Audi’s UK showrooms in early 2021, along with the rest of the Q5 Sportback model line-up. It has since become one of the…

I suspect Alfie and Olive have seen it all before. The two powerfully built Belgian Draft horses stand at a gate like those critics on the Muppet Show, peering down on another star-struck visitor gawping at their owner’s 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera ‘RS 3.0’ (in quotation marks because it’s not all it appears). It’s one of three RSs and near-RSs of this era that Josh Sadler keeps in his outbuildings. This October will be 50 years since the first 911 Carrera RS was unveiled at the 1972 Paris motor show. By the end of the model’s production run, one year later, almost 1600 examples had been built and a legend born – one that would inspire ever more powerful successors, albeit none quite so special as the original. We’re accustomed…

Consistently appalling I’ve just read Jim Holder’s article on Land Rover’s reliability and dealers (Inside Information, 6 July). I’ve had four Land Rovers, each chosen because it was a great car. The dealerships have been totally consistent: appalling. Surely Jaguar Land Rover must have noticed that it has a problem by now. So what has it done about it? It would seem not a lot. What is it going to do about it? Perhaps it would care to comment. Derek Redfern Fleet, Hampshire Only two hours? Damien Smith commented on it taking two hours to escape from the car park to the A43 after the British Grand Prix as if it was a criticism. With a crowd of around 140,000, I think that’s remarkably quick. A few months ago, it…

BMW develops V10 Ferrari fighter AT THE TURN of the millennium, BMW was no stranger to massive numbers, the M5 and M6 having spec sheets comparable to the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini. It’s therefore unsurprising to learn that in 2005 we caught wind of the firm developing a replacement for the ill-fated Z8, also meant to serve as a spiritual successor to the M1. Dubbed the Z10, it was meant to employ ‘intelligent’ means of outsmarting the opposition. Its aluminium spaceframe was allied to a modified S85 V10 producing 550bhp. Add to the equation active aerodynamics, a venturi underside and carbonfibre bodywork and you got an impressive power-to-weight ratio of 459bhp per tonne. Prices for the Z10 were expected to start at around £90,000, making it a veritable bargain…

MILEAGE 12,020 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if a hybrid-only mini-SUV can be an efficient long-distance commuter car “The new HR-V e:HEV achieves a distinctive SUV presence in a compact coupéinspired design. It embodies the seamless, clean, modern design philosophy seen in other recent new Honda models that follows the key concepts of function and beauty.” So said Honda when it unveiled the third iteration of its compact crossover in February 2021. This was nothing unique: makers always make such statements about their new cars, ranging from the apt to often the laughable. However, the more time that I spend looking at the HR-V, the more I come to appreciate its understatedly handsome styling. I can see the coupé influence, very slightly, in the shape of the rear. Shades…

In the pantheon of diminutive roadsters, the Mazda MX-5 strides large like a four-generation colossus, swishing all in its path aside with its agility and affordability. But it has a fault, and that is it’s just a little bit too common. After all, they’ve made over a million of the things. Much better instead to get yourself behind the wheel of one of these: the Fiat Barchetta. With a more niche appeal than the little Mazda and a much shorter lifespan, there are far fewer of them. You are unlikely to suffer that slight annoyance of arriving in the car park at Silverstone or Shelsley Walsh to find half a dozen similar already there. Okay, so in this country you will be slightly limited by this car being left-hand drive…

The summer holidays are here, and what better way to spend them than by going on a road trip? Here are seven of the best, taking you down seemingly mythical routes laid down in most cases decades ago, delivering spectacle and adventure in equal measure, and some are on your doorstep. You don’t need a special car in which to enjoy these epic journeys – but having one sure does help. North Coast 500 Scotland Scotland isn’t short of great driving roads, and the North Coast 500 – formally conceived in 2015 – brings together many of them into a single coastal route around the top of the country. Covering 516 miles, there’s every type of road and scenery along the way, making it an adventure whether you choose to…