Table of contents for January 22, 2025 in Autocar

An electric version of the Land RoverDefender is unlikely to appear until the end of the decade, when the model emerges in next-generation form using a new platform. JLR’s chief operating officer, Lennard Hoornik, confirmed to Autocar that the British manufacturer’s investigations into the potential for electrification of the current premium SUV have revealed packaging difficulties that may prove to be insurmountable. “Electrifying the current ‘L663’ car, on its D7x platform, is not what we want,” said Hoornik. “The L663 is brilliant at what it does and we do have a [four-cylinder] plug-in hybrid version already, but it’s not easy to find the extra space you need within that chassis for batteries, given the axle packaging and capability that it needs.” Even switching the Defender to JLR’s biggerbattery, six-cylinder plug-in…

A NEW FACTORY will be built at Nissan’s site in Sunderland to produce powertrains for the firm’s next-generation Leaf, Juke and Qashqai EVs. To be run by Japan Automatic Transmission Company (Jatco), which is majority-owned by Nissan, the plant will directly create 183 jobs. The UK government will pump £50 million into the project as part of a push “to build a globally competitive electric vehicle supply chain”, said business secretary Jonathan Reynolds. Alan Johnson, Nissan’s senior vice-president of manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing, said: “This is a fantastic step forward. Welcoming a key supplier to the north-east of England provides a big boost to the efficiency of our supply chain.” The new cash injection comes in addition to the £2 billion that Nissan is spending on upgrading Sunderland to…

JEEP WILL REMOVE the Grand Cherokee from sale in Europe this year – and the Wrangler could also be in the firing line. This comes as the Stellantis-owned SUV brand continues its EV push, with the Wagoneer S – a similar size to the Grand Cherokee – due next, at the end of 2025. Eric Laforge, who has led Jeep in Europe for the past two years, confirmed to Autocar that a switch in its range will take place when the Wagoneer S arrives. Such a move makes commercial sense given Jeep’s volume in Europe comes mostly from smaller cars such as the Avenger. This suggests offering two large SUVs is unnecessary, and of those two, the Wagoneer S will better contribute to CO 2 emissions and EV sales targets.…

Volkswagen has eked a whopping 584 miles of range out of a standard ID 7 electric saloon – albeit at an average speed of just 18mph at the Nardò proving ground in Italy. A Pro S version with an 86kWh battery (usable capacity) and a WLTP-rated range of 441 miles was used for the test, during which it also achieved a record economy figure of 6.8 miles per kWh, a vast improvement on the model’s official 5.1mpkWh. Volkswagen attributed the results to the ID 7’s new APP550 motor, which is designed to maximise efficiency, and the car’s low drag coefficient of 0.23. The test was deliberately conducted in optimal conditions on a day when local temperatures ranged between 5deg C and 15deg C.…

ALPINA HAS REVEALED the B8 GT, its final model as an independent entity. The company formally known as Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH + Co KG will cease to exist after 31 December 2025, with ownership of the Alpina brand transferring to BMW. The B8 GT is what some will regard as the final ‘proper’ Alpina and follows the similarly conceived B3 GT and B4 GT. Based on the BMW 8 Series, it represents the culmination of Alpina’s engineering capabilities and packs the most powerful engine it has fitted in a production car. Its 4.4-litre twinturbocharged V8 (shared with the B5 GT) is fettled to put out 625bhp and 627lb ft, yielding a 0-62mph time of just 3.3sec. It will hit 124mph a mere 7.2sec later and go on to a…

Councils across the UK are plotting higher parking charges as they come under pressure to achieve clean-air targets and plug gaps in their tightening finances. Planned changes also include premiums for larger vehicles, tougher parking controls, possible reductions in the numbers of on-street spaces and the introduction of parking charges in free-to-park areas in many major towns and cities. These developments aren’t surprising, given that on- and off-street parking charges generated more than £1 billion for local authorities last year – an increase of 8% on 2023. Among the latest to announce changes to its car parking charges is Haringey Council in London. It is consulting on plans to replace the daily parking permit for visitors that costs £5 with an hourly charge of £1.20, meaning that motorists parking in…

OFF-ROADER SPECIAL ULTIMATE 4x4 TEST A Land Rover Defender, a new Toyota Land Cruiser, an Ineos Grenadier and a new Dacia Duster have a wrestling match in a mudbath LOVE LETTER MATT PRIOR’S ODE TO OFF-ROADING JOY Why our resident Defender owner loves living life off the beaten track BARGAIN BUYS DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP From the obvious to the obscure: Fiat Panda, Jeep Cherokee… VW Iltis? EVERY WEEK ROAD TEST BMW M5 What will this newly hybridised super-saloon reveal under our road test microscope? USED GUIDE SUZUKI JIMNY Top tips for buying a pint-sized 4x4 modern classic killed long before its time…

HERE IT IS then, folks: the most expensive car Renault makes. Its name may need some dissecting. The Rafale is Renault’s flagship and the sixth SUV in its line-up. It’s a bit like a big, posh Austral with a sloping roofline. This top-whack model is called the Atelier Alpine, which is only available with this powertrain. It gets bespoke 21in wheels and little Atelier badges and the £1700 matt blue paint seen here is unique to this spec. Alpine makes sports cars, of course, but its name is also used as a trim level for sporty-ish Renaults. Oh, and when the word Atelier is plonked in front of it, it’s the most luxurious spec choice. A bit confused? The powertrain is too. When juggling electricity and dino juice, it can…

The growth of the MG brand in the UK has been so fast over the past five years that it has outstripped the rate at which the car maker has been able to spread its wings. There are many market segments in which MG remains unrepresented, so having spent 2024 renewing its established line-up, the next few years will be about plugging gaps in the firm’s showroom range. But given that it is already one of the UK’s 10 most popular car brands – in 2024 outselling Peugeot, Skoda, Renault and even one-time UK favourite Vauxhall – who knows where that process could take it. Times have changed, clearly, since the days when MG could grab handfuls of market share by introducing value EVs, and its biggest-selling model currently is…

IT IS BY no means a given that a racing driver will be into road cars. Some aren’t interested, because driving incredibly fast around circuits gives them a thrill that they can never replicate on the road in something slower and more boring. Going fast for them is everything. Dario Franchitti, four-time Indycar Series champion and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner, is not that kind of racing driver. “I love my road cars,” says the Scot as we walk towards a GMA T50 supercar, in which he will be driving me around some of Surrey’s most pockmarked and flooded roads. “Some would say I’m obsessed with road cars. I love everything about the automobile. I’ve been that way since I was five years old.” As a bloke who knocks about in…

“The Quadrifoglio is a supremely special thing” WHY WE RAN IT If you’re in the market for a 500bhp super-saloon, should you be thinking of going Italian? Right, then, strap in: we have a lot to get through here. I’ll address the question you see just above these words shortly but first let’s run through a rough chronology of the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio’s time at Autocar. It arrived. It was summer. The sun was shining and the V6 was singing. Life was good. Before long, deputy road test editor Richard Lane needed the car to be in Wales for a feature that also involved an Alpine A110 and a Maserati MC20 (Autocar, 30 October 2024) and I obliged happily. The drive west to Wales was magnificent – especially when…

AN OWNER’S VIEW PHILLIP VASSALLO “My family originally chose this 208 because of its low mileage and bought it so I could learn to drive an automatic. Over time, I’ve created lots of wonderful memories driving it, including many country road trips. It still has those little luxuries like leather heated seats, which now I could never give up in the wintertime. There was one frustrating point when the car spent months in the workshop because they misdiagnosed it, which ended up being spark plugs misfiring – plus a coil pack – costing around £220.” BUYER BEWARE… ■ ENGINE A warning light, knocking sound or fluctuating engine temperature could be a sign of engine thermostat failure. The Puretech petrol engine’s wet timing belt can fail, resulting in major engine damage.…

“The A310 will adopt a trimotor set-up - one at the front and two at the rear” Alpine will crown its electric sports carline-up with the A310 – a 2+2 tourer that will put the French firm toe to toe with the likes of Porsche, Maserati and Lotus. Tipped by the marque to be “an icon of future sports cars”, the new EV will arrive in 2028 and serve as a flagship for an expanded all-electric Alpine line-up. The firm’s new range will include the recently launched A290 hot hatch, the upcoming Tesla Model Y-sized A390 and coupé and drop-top versions of the next-generation electric A110 – a car that will replace its acclaimed lightweight combustion sibling, which will bow out of production later this year. The line-up will be…

THE NEW POLESTAR 7 will be a Range Rover Evoquesized premium electric SUV and the first Polestar model produced in Europe. Early details of the new EV were confirmed by the Geely-owned Swedish firm as part of a revised strategy that includes a target to grow sales by 30-35% in the next three years. The 7’s launch date remains unknown. Polestar previously announced it would arrive in 2027 but has since backtracked on that. The model will essentially serve as a successor to the 2 liftback, but this latest announcement suggests that it won’t be a direct replacement, taking more of an overtly SUV-like form. New Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller said the 7 will sit in the “biggest and fastestgrowing” market segment for EVs, making it a key model in…

DS aspires to one day rival Bentley Dand Rolls-Royce as it targets a move from the premium segment into the luxury sphere. That’s according to design director Thierry Métroz, who said the Stellantis-owned French brand’s “dream is to be the Louis Vuitton of the automotive industry”. Speaking to Autocar at the Brussels motor show debut of its all-new N°8 (pronounced ‘number eight’) flagship, Métroz said: “We are premium [now] but our mission is to be more than premium. We would like to try to touch the luxury feeling.” However, Métroz cautioned that this “takes time; it’s a lot of work” and said that despite it being a long-term goal for DS, the brand may never get there. “We need to be very focused on the quality of the details” He…

Stellantis’s new Chinese EV brand, Leapmotor, believes the addition of a range-extender (REx) powertrain to its C10 SUV will be an important factor in both its growth and the adoption of EVs in Europe. Leapmotor International is a joint venture set up to sell cars in Europe, owned 51% by Stellantis and 49% by Leapmotor itself. In the coming months, it will launch a trio of EVs in the UK: the T03 city car, B10 crossover and C10 SUV – to which a petrol-engined REx option will soon be added. Speaking to Autocar at the Brussels motor show, Leapmotor International CEO Tianshu Xin acknowledged that Leapmotor is coming to Europe at a time when uptake of EVs is wavering but forecasted a “tipping point” for EV adoption in three years’…

WORK IS PROGRESSING on a new electric motor concept that promises to extend the range of EVs without relying so much on larger batteries. In December 2023, we looked at how German start-up Deepdrive and components supplier and tyre maker Continental were creating a revolutionary dual-rotor hub motor combined with an equally advanced ‘dry’ integrated electric drum brake. BMW recently announced that it had been working with Deepdrive since 2021 through its venture client programme, BMW Startup Garage, and was poised to test the new tech. The Deepdrive motor is a radial flux type. Normally that would mean it has a rotor either inside or outside of the stator, but in this case there are two rotors, one revolving inside the stator and the other outside it. It’s one of…

THE DS 4 WILL gain an electric option and a new name when it is facelifted this year. The car is likely to receive the same EV powertrains as the twinned Citroën ë-C4: a 134bhp motor and 50kWh battery for a range of 223 miles and a 154bhp motor and 54kWh pack that yields a 260-mile range. Autocar understands that the combustion model may be offered exclusively with a hybrid powertrain, centred on a 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol, with the diesel option axed. DS is also believed to be debating whether there is still a place for the plug-in hybrid model. Expected to arrive in September, the hatch will be renamed Nº4, aligning with the brand’s new naming strategy, which started with the recently revealed DS Nº8 flagship. Spy pictures taken…

WRITE TO autocar@haymarket.com DRIVING ME SPARE Could you please advise which 4x4s or SUVs come with a spare wheel? I have a Toyota RAV4 hybrid, which is excellent, but I was left stranded twice last year, due to its lack of a spare wheel, so it has to go. Nigel Hammill Via email Oddly, the Suzuki Across, a rebadged Toyota RAV4 PHEV, comes with a spacesaver spare wheel as standard. Recommendable SUVs similar to yours that offer one as an option are the Audi Q3, Citroën C5 Aircross, Dacia Duster, Ford Kuga, Land Rover Discovery Sport, Renault Austral, Seat Ateca, Skoda Kodiaq and VW Tiguan – KC SORE POINT Reading your news about the new Sony-Honda car made me chuckle. I thought of a conversation between two people: ‘Hi, how…

On a rutted, unsealed gravel road about 200 miles north of Cape Town, South Africa, a very special new Land Rover is doing its thing. It’s been doing it all day, to be honest – over rock, sand, mud and on asphalt. But right now it’s hitting a truly spectacular and unbelievably composed stride. There is very little besides us on this dead-straight, bumpy stretch that beams out towards a horizon wonderfully broad and invitingly mountain-spiked. Local speed limits on minor roads like these are “surprisingly high”, say our guides and, led by them, our convoy soon finds itself approaching UK motorway speeds – on surfaces on which you simply wouldn’t contemplate going nearly so quickly unless utterly confident that you were driving a very rare and particular kind of…

FEW CARS COCK a snook at the current automotive climate (and the actual global one) quite like the Mercedes-AMG G63. This blufffronted and bombastic German offroader remains an excess-all-areas outlier, even among the realms of conspicuous-consumption SUVs such as the Aston Martin DBX 707. Still, Mercedes is making an effort to ensure its most gluttonous Geländewagen is in step with the times, because it’s now a hybrid. That said, the addition of little more than a 48V starter-generator means the G63’s carbon footprint remains more BFG than HEV. Perhaps more importantly for the expected clientele, the electric assistance brings an extra 21bhp to the familiar twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 for a barely believable 603bhp total. As you would expect, the engine dominates the driving experience, from the ludicrous, deep-chested performance (0-62mph…

GMG CEO PHILLIP Lee belongs to an extremely rare group of people in the car creation chain: he’s a bean-counter who loves cars. Lee trained as an accountant and joined a global accountancy group early on but soon transferred to cars and worked at restructuring and improving businesses in China, Europe, the US and South America. About a decade ago, he returned to the UK to join Chinese giant Geely, first at taxi maker LEVC and then Lotus, before landing happily at GMG about five years ago, following an introduction by company director Carl-Peter Forster. “I was also very keen to do whatever I could to progress the true British sports car, and it seemed to me that Gordon and his operation were the embodiment of that,” says Lee. He…

HARMAN The Samsung subsidiary originally focused on audio electronics but in recent years has been diversifying. At CES, it showcased a new suite of in-car tech, including Luna, a voice-chat avatar that works with an augmented reality head-up display, and the Ready Link Marketplace, a framework for an app store allowing in-car payments. GARMIN Best known for its sat-nav tech, Garmin is now aiming to claim a piece of the car infotainment market. Its big unveiling at CES was Unified Cabin, a suite of technologies based on a single control module. As well as a 3D interface, generative AI voice assistance and child presence detection, it can power six screen displays. AMAZON You can already buy a car on Amazon’s retail site in the US, but that’s not the end…

WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT Is there still room for a fashion-focused premium offering in the shrinking supermini segment? Heartbreak and elation in equal measure this week as my jolly Sunnyside Yellow Mini Cooper 3dr is snatched away and a rather more sinister Cooper S 5dr in Legend Grey is shuffled in to fill its space – and a little more besides. The pang of sadness as YB24 HYJ departs is short-lived, because I’m technically moving up in the world: after a few months in the purest of modern Minis, the entry Cooper C, I’m swapping into the roomier and racier range-topper, all 201bhp, five doors and £34,500 of it. Punchy. Of course, as well as having more kit and costing more money, this car can move more stuff around more…

When you and your wife have agreed you need a new car big enough for the family and the pet dog and one week later you present her with a 54-year-old, two-seat British sports car, you’re either very brave or very foolish and probably both. “As instructed by my wife, I had been looking for our next family car when I was sent a link to a Marcos GT 3 Litre advertised on Facebook,” explains Mark Edwards. “I told her I was going to look at it simply out of curiosity, because I’d not seen one before, and the next thing I’d put down a deposit on it and the following week went to the West Country from our home in London to pick it up. When I arrived back…

ALPINE A110 PURE 2019, 5000 miles, £36,995 Few cars are more of a delight to pilot down a B-road, the A110’s light weight and mid-engined layout giving it supreme poise and balance. With low mileage, a full dealer service history, a dealer warranty and only one former keeper, this Pure is ideal. MAZDA MX-5 RF 2.0 SPORT NAV 2017, 35,000 miles, £13,995 We don’t need to tell you how good the Mk4 MX-5 is to drive, especially with the larger of the two engine options in its nose. The RF version is a little more refined, too, thanks to its Targa top. Its mileage is low for its age and it’s packed full of useful kit like cruise control and sat-nav. JAGUAR XK 5.0 V8 2010, 90,000 miles, £8450 Less…

Citroën is considering reviving the legendary 2CV more than three decades after the no-frills classic went out of production, Autocar can exclusively reveal. Preliminary design work on a successor to the car that is widely credited with mobilising post-war France is under way, a senior source has confirmed, although the project is currently at an early stage. The news signals a change of heart from Citroën, which has previously denied any plans to bring this famous model back. The firm’s rethink is understood to have been prompted by the retroinspired Renault 5 – and its low starting price of £22,995. The hatchback has been an immediate hit in France, with 9973 examples having left showrooms last month. That’s 1721 more units than Citroën sold of the new ë-C3. In November…

The relaunch of Jaguar caused “a lot of kerfuffle” but showed that “so many people truly care” about the brand, according to JLR COO Lennard Hoornik. He told Autocar that while social media “extrapolated” the negative feedback to both the colourful brand-reinvention advert and the radical Type 00 concept car, the “attention that we got was better than we anticipated”. He added: “It really shows how people deeply care about Jaguar and [how] it’s part of people’s identity. But the problem is, of course, that doesn’t sell cars, right? But we are humbled by so many people truly caring about whether they have a positive or negative opinion.” Asked if he would change anything in how JLR presented the brand’s reinvention, Hoornik replied: “I think that the results that we…

TOYOTA WILL RAID more of its back catalogue for names of future EVs, rather than continue the alphanumerical naming convention that it started with the bZ4X. The bZ4X arrived in 2022 as Toyota’s first EV, with ‘bZ’ standing for ‘beyond zero’ (emissions), ‘4’ being the size of the car in Toyota lexicon and ‘X’ referring to it being a crossover. However, the firm’s second European EV, the Urban Cruiser, ditched that naming convention in favour of a moniker from Toyota’s past. Andrea Carlucci, Toyota Europe’s director of marketing and product development, confirmed to Autocar that he expected the bZ4X name to “remain a bit isolated” in the Toyota range as the firm works to electrify its line-up. The desire to return to names was the result of “a clear request…

OPEL-VAUXHALL IS reconsidering its plan to go all-electric from 2028, in recognition that the European EV market is very different from how it had predicted when setting its transition timeline. The Stellantis-owned company announced in 2022 that it would launch its final ICE car in 2024 and was committed to that objective as recently as 2023, but CEO Florian Huettl has now told Autocar that the firm will maintain a flexible powertrain offering for the foreseeable future. He said: “Going forward, it is fair to say that if we re-evaluate and look at today’s reality in comparison to the hypothesis we, the European Union and many actors made a couple of years back, the reality does not live up to that.” Asked if he was rethinking Opel-Vauxhall’s EV transition as…

Slovenian firm Elaphe Propulsion Technologies has revealed what it claims is the first in-wheel electric motor to be compatible with high-performance brakes – and the technology has been previewed on a wild 2000bhp supercar concept. The new Sonic 1 is a thin electric motor capable of producing 268bhp and 737lb ft and it is mounted within the rim of a 21in wheel. It is designed to be used on both electric and hybrid vehicles. Unlike other in-wheel motors (see Next big thing, p13), the thin design of the motor means there is still room for a brake disc of up to 400mm in size, making it suitable for use on race tracks. Each unit adds 40kg of unsprung weight. The Elaphe technology has been showcased in the Italdesign Quintessenza, a…

WHEN RENAULT CEO Fabrice Cambolive and Alpine counterpart Philippe Krief lifted the 2025 Car of the Year trophy for the 5 and related A290 at the recent Brussels motor show, it was the end of an exhaustive process, rather than simply a photocall they had turned up to. Car of the Year (COTY) is just that - a 61-year-old competition to find the very best car launched each year - and the time invested in it by car company bosses shows this is a trophy they all truly desire. CEOs are available to the 60 COTY jurors from 23 countries at regular events throughout the year, but once the shortlist of seven cars is published, CEOs clear their diaries for it. For the 2025 award, postshortlist press conferences were arranged…

I found your article ‘EV battery health now much easier to check’ (News, 8 January) both fascinating and frustrating. It’s encouraging to see independent businesses and organisations like Clearwatt and British Car Auctions stepping up to improve consumer understanding of EV battery health, but I firmly believe that this responsibility should fall on the manufacturers. There are many compelling reasons for manufacturers to take ownership of this. Transparency builds trust – a critical factor as the automotive world transitions to electric. Providing detailed battery health data also fosters a more circular economy, as it empowers consumers to make informed decisions about second-life applications or recycling. Beyond this, Gen Z and future generations of car buyers will be far more discerning than previous ones. They won’t be dazzled by headline-grabbing figures…

There was a time not that long ago when it looked like the MPV was dead and buried. Despite offering unrivalled space and practicality, these big buses had, like almost every other mainstream offering, lost the fight against the unstoppable rise of the SUV. However, it now appears that MPVs have simply shifted their focus, moving away from their utilitarian roots to offer club class accommodation to well-heeled buyers who want to transport more friends, family or business acquaintances than traditional limousines will allow. The most obvious example of this is the new Lexus LM, while even the opulent Ford Tourneo Custom Titanium X Luxe has a list of kit almost as long as its name. But it was the Mercedes V-Class that got there first. Based on the Vito…

Jot down a list of its various attributes and it becomes clear that the subject of this road test is one of the most ambitious cars we will assess in 2025. It’s a car that promises pedigree handling and dynamism when you want it but limousine-grade rolling refinement when you don’t. There is also the prospect of minuscule fuel bills, at least when it comes to everyday driving, as well as practicality, not to mention any-weather security, courtesy of having four-wheel drive. So while the 4 E-Hybrid occupies rather a modest position in the broader Porsche Panamera line-up, its remit is perhaps the greatest. Too great? Just how well all this translates into real life is something we’re about to discover, with what is our first fully instrumented test of…

The day’s second big surprise comes when Gordon Murray strolls in. Although his name is on the building, Murray isn’t the person we’ve been expecting. We’re relaxing in The Engine Room – a spacious waiting room adorned with V12 murals and displays off the reception area of the magnificent new Gordon Murray Group (GMG) headquarters, near Windlesham in Surrey – soon to begin interviews with CEO Phillip Lee and chief test driver Dario Franchitti. The initial big surprise had been the first sight of the building itself: large, modern, glassy and extremely imposing. Unlike most visitors, we saw the full frontal aspect by cheekily following ‘VIP parking’ signs and thus alighting on a wide apron right out front, eyeballing through the glass a pair of Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) supercars,…

So, you want to start a car museum. You will need some cars and a place to put them. You will also need deep pockets. Above all, you will need a vision and a cast-iron determination to achieve your goal. In short, you will need to be like Pat Hawkins. The 62-year-old has a light in his eyes that not even a brush with death could extinguish. It was six years ago. He had been rushed to hospital, suffering a rare heart condition. At the last moment, a specialist from Chicago agreed to operate. A few weeks later, as his strength returned, Hawkins vowed to give back to his home town of Taunton. He had just the idea… Since he was a boy, Hawkins had dreamed of owning his own…

The Peugeot 208 sparked a revival for the French marque in the supermini class, where it had failed to capture the attention of European buyers with its drab and dreary 207 predecessor. Finally, here was a small Peugeot that majored on style, space and economy while also exuding a sense of desirability. It signalled a return to form for the brand whose eradefining 205 and popular 206 had historically given it the, ahem, lion’s share of the small car market. But why opt for a Mk1 208 when there are clear class leaders in the shape of the Ford Fiesta and Volkswagen Polo? Well, start with the fact that you can pick one up for the bargain price of £800… While the 208’s skin, cabin and engines were all-new, it…

The Channel Tunnel’s Le Shuttle service is a marvel, saving drivers hassle and several hours on a ferry, and even after 30 years it’s still something of a novelty to drive your car onto a train carriage. But did you know that such services used to be available across the UK? As far back as the 1930s, drivers could arrange to have their cars loaded onto flat-bed wagons as part of sleeper trains between London and Scotland. Then, in 1955, British Rail (BR) introduced a scheduled service called the Car-Sleeper Limited that proved an instant hit. Autocar tried it in 1957, when the service had been extended to continue through the winter. We were pleased to find there was no queue when we arrived at the loading platform at King’s…