Table of contents for October 29, 2025 in Autocar

Alpine will have two convertibles in its line-up by 2030, with plans for drop-top versions of both its next-generation A110 sports car and its forthcoming Porsche 911-rivalling fastback GT. The Renault Group’s performance brand is in the process of building a line-up of seven electriconly models by 2030. To that end it has already launched the A290 hot hatch and the A390 crossover. The second-generation A110 will arrive next year as an electric successor to the current eight-yearold petrol-engined model, sitting on the new Alpine Performance Platform (APP) and offering both coupé and roadster bodystyles. That bespoke sports car architecture allows the two new Alpine EVs to employ in-wheel motors, similar to those seen on the Renault 5 Turbo 3E mega-hatch, but the French firm hasn’t yet confirmed plans to…

Rolls-Royce has unveiled a special-Phantom edition described as the “most technically extraordinary car ever built” by the Goodwood maker, to mark the model’s centenary. Limited to 25 examples, the £2.5 million Phantom Centenary Private Collection has been created to showcase defining moments from the model’s past 100 years. While it retains the same technical specifications as a standard eighth-generation Phantom, including a twin-turbo 6.75-litre V12, the limited model is distinguished by its appearance both inside and out. The exterior design has “a strong reference to [Rolls-Royce’s] past”, according to its designer, Matt Denton, using two-tone paint inspired by the 1930 Phantom II Continental. There is a new gold-flake crystal overpaint applied on top of both the white and black to create a metallic shimmer, a unique Spirit of Ecstasy…

FORMER McLAREN CEO Michael Leiters has been named the new boss of Porsche. He will replace Oliver Blume, who remains in his other role as head of the Volkswagen Group. Leiters, who will begin on 1 January, left McLaren earlier this year after a three-year tenure as CEO, following the British company’s merger with EV start-up Forseven. Porsche chairman Wolfgang Porsche said Leiters’ “leadership style and in-depth expertise are ideal prerequisites for successfully chairing” the brand. Blume will step back from heading Porsche to focus on leading the Volkswagen Group, which he will do until at least 2030 after signing a new contract, the company confirmed. The move follows mounting pressure over the 57-year-old German’s dual leadership position. His split responsibilities between the Volkswagen Group and Porsche for the past…

Seat will launch a heavily updated Leon in 2029 as it doubles down on its existing combustion line-up and rides out the uncertainty surrounding the industry’s transition to electric cars. The updated Leon will follow the launch of refreshed versions of the Ibiza and Arona next year, new mild-hybrid engines for those models in 2027 and a full-hybrid powertrain for the Leon in 2028. Details of the 2029 Leon remain under wraps, but it is likely to be tied to updates to its Volkswagen Golf platform-mate. The Golf is understood to be in line for a heavy update at around the same time to keep it on sale alongside an exclusively electric new-generation Golf, which is due before the turn of the decade. The Cupra-badged Leon will go electric for…

PORSCHE IS STEERING ITS WAY TO BETTER RECYCLING PORSCHE HAS CREATED some of the most thrilling performance cars of all time but, behind the scenes, it’s also using its engineering expertise to perfect better methods of recycling. Working with German chemical giant BASF SE and technology partner BEST (Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies), Porsche has recently completed a joint project for recycling troublesome mixed waste from end-of-life vehicles into a form that can be used to make new high-grade components. One of the difficulties in automotive recycling is dealing with fragmented leftover waste material once all the metals are removed. After dismantling into individual parts, some of which can be recycled relatively easily, what remains is shredded to produce automotive shredder residue (ASR). This can include textiles, glass, foam, plastics, dust…

Alfa Romeo will keep selling the current-generation Giulia and Stelvio through to 2027 – including the 513bhp Quadrifoglio range-toppers – as it rethinks its plan to replace them with pure-electric successors. Based on the then new Giorgio platform, the saloon and SUV siblings were introduced in 2015 and have been only lightly updated since then. This makes them among the market’s oldest cars, raising questions about their ongoing viability, particularly given the need for Alfa to comply with strict new European emissions and safety regulations. But UK boss Jules Tilstone confirmed to Autocar that the pure-petrol Giulia and Stelvio can continue, alongside the electrified Junior crossover and updated Tonale SUV. “Eighty per cent of the [UK] market is still ICE,” he said. “People are looking for fun-to-drive performance ICE cars,…

ROAD TO RUIN I am currently facing a dilemma, as I am pretty much being compelled to change my vehicle. I have had the car for many years and it has suited me perfectly. Good performance, equivalent to Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, and excellent handling, due to lowered, stiffened suspension and low-profile tyres. A super Porsche, Audi, BMW etc? Nope, it is a Skoda Fabia vRS. However, it cannot cope with A-roads in my county. Recently I have suffered broken suspension, damaged steering and a blown tyre, all on A-roads, not on side streets. Driving at night and/or in heavy rain is out of the question. Therefore I am facing the prospect of buying something that I do not want, merely to go out unrestricted. No doubt it will have…

There are facts the first time 296 Speciale pilot needs to consider. One is that this car has the lowest polar moment of inertia of any current Ferrari. Another is that it is the most powerful purely rear-driven model the company makes. It doesn’t take Adrian Newey-level intelligence to realise this combination could result in something profoundly thrilling – or just frightening. Chief test driver Raffaele de Simone assures me it’s the former, but suspicion lingers. The night before my drive of the 868bhp Speciale at Fiorano and in the Apennines, I ask if it’s all getting, y’know, out of hand. Remember that the regular 296 GTB makes 49bhp less, weighs 60kg more and is set up more conservatively yet will light up its rears in fourth gear corners. Fifth,…

It’s no coincidence that Seat chose David Guetta’s Forever Young to soundtrack the ad campaign for this updated Ibiza. The fifth-generation supermini celebrated its eighth birthday earlier this year and the Spanish brand is hoping that a carefully considered nip and tuck will be enough to keep it feeling fresh. The exterior changes amount to slightly sharper contours around the front and rear bumpers and new LED lights at either end. Inside, it gets some new soft-touch materials and, in the range-topping FR trim tested, a set of supportive, well-cushioned bucket seats. While the changes are restrained, in this case that’s not cause for criticism. The Ibiza’s old-school feel means it’s among the most intuitive cars around, with clicky buttons and dials for the climate controls and on the steering…

Vauxhall wants to be one of the UK’s three best-selling car brands again, and the new Frontera is key to that ambition. An Astra-sized crossover available with either hybrid or electric power, it’s being thrust right into one of the hottest battlegrounds in today’s market. The ace up the Frontera’s sleeve is its bargain price: the EV starts at just £22,995 (after a £1500 government grant) and the hybrid at £24,885. Although punchy, it’s a few grand more than the closely related Citroën C3 Aircross’s £21,105 entry price (which is due to that car being available as a pure petrol with a manual gearbox) and on par with the notably larger Dacia Bigster. Step inside the Frontera and the concessions needed to hit its aggressive price point are revealed. The…

You dream about the chance to live out your racing driver fantasies, and mine is about to be realised. The venue for my debut track experience: Silverstone. This is like kicking a football for the first time at Wembley. McLaren is hosting one of its exclusive Pure owners’ experience days, and I’ve been invited. To prepare, I spent the day before studying videos of races at the circuit and driving it virtually. But any veneer of confidence this may have given me evaporates as I arrive at the track. The car park is full of McLarens and the attendees are buzzing – although that could be nerves given they’re all driving their own cars on track. I’m having to borrow one, for the record. The Silverstone Wing is our base…

MILEAGE 11,307 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To discover if Renault’s retro-infused EV hit is as good to live with as it is to look at It wasn’t the most sensible or logical thing I’ve ever done, entering my Renault 5 long-termer in the Watergate Bay Sprint, a Cornish motorsport event on a closed public road between Newquay and Watergate Bay, about a month ago. I mean, how well could a brand-new, bog-standard baby EV be expected to do in a proper, Motorsport UK-approved competitive event against 70-odd conventional cars, many of them developed over years for this very purpose? Three reasons. First, this is the big-battery, 148bhp version. Its acceleration off the mark is much more impressive than that of a similar-power petrol car, because its generous maximum torque of…

Volvo’s crucial EX60 will be unveiled in January next year as a key model for growing its electric sales, while also introducing a raft of important new technology for the company. Set to rival the recently revealed BMW iX3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC EQ, the electric family SUV will be the first Volvo to use a highly scalable EV-only platform – developed in-house – that will be adapted for all future Volvo and Polestar EVs. Volvo boss Håkan Samuelsson said the EX60 has been “designed and developed in Gothenburg” and “can’t get much more Swedish”. It will be the second model launched since he retook control of the Geely-owned car maker in April, following previous CEO Jim Rowan’s departure, and is integral to the next stage of its electric push. As…

TOYOTA HAS REVIVED the historic FJ model name for a long-awaited baby version of its flagship Land Cruiser 4x4, revealed in production form ahead of a launch in Japan next year. The Land Rover Defender 90-sized off-roader has been created as a new entry point to the Land Cruiser range and has been designed to open it up to a wider range of buyers and a “new generation” of customers, said Simon Humphries, Toyota’s chief branding officer. The Land Cruiser FJ (which now stands for ‘Freedom and Joy’, according to Toyota) is based on the same platform as the full-sized Land Cruiser, but its wheelbase is 270mm shorter. Overall, it stands 4575mm long, 1855mm wide and 1960mm tall – a close match for the Defender 90. Full specifications have yet…

Porsche has launched the Macan GTS Electric, a new driver-focused variant of its latest SUV. Positioned between the 4S and Turbo, the GTS Electric is priced from £89,000. Its dual-motor powertrain delivers 509bhp but boosts to 563bhp and 704lb ft with launch control (129bhp and 299lb ft more than the petrol Macan) to achieve 0-62mph in 3.8sec. To enhance driver engagement, it features an electronic rear differential, a 48:52 rear-biased weight distribution, bespoke dampers and a 10mm-lower ride height to improve its centre of gravity. The GTS Electric uses the same 100kWh battery as other models and offers up to 363 miles of range. Distinctive black detailing, wider side skirts and new front and rear aprons set the model apart visually.…

VOLKSWAGEN IS SET to suspend Golf production at its Wolfsburg plant from today (29 October) due to a renewed microchip crisis triggered by the US-China trade dispute. The pause in output of one of Europe’s best-selling cars might extend to other models, including the Tiguan, Touran and Tayron. The new chip shortage stems from a supply freeze by Nexperia after the Dutch government – under pressure from the US – seized the Chinese-owned company, prompting Beijing to ban chip exports. With no alternative suppliers ready, Volkswagen faces possible wider stoppages and is in talks with the German government over schemes to avoid mass layoffs.…

Ford is not the force it once was in Europe. In Fthe past 10 years, the American giant has gone from being the second-biggest car brand in Europe (after Volkswagen), with sales of just over one million, all the way down to 12th last year after sales halved. Its market share dropped from 7.0% to 3.7%, according to European automotive industry group ACEA. Arresting the slide is the immediate task of newly appointed Ford of Europe president Jim Baumbick. An American development engineer who did a stint overseeing the Focus and Kuga in Germany, Baumbick is the first to hold that title since Briton Stuart Rowley departed in 2022, signifying a renewed focus on Ford’s European product strategy. In Ford’s largest European market, the UK, the change in the Blue…

FIRST DRIVE ALPINE A390 Has Dieppe succeeded in its mission to transform the Renault Megane into an electric A110 for five? We find out INSIGHT HOW KIA PLANS TO SHAKE UP THE VAN MARKET The inside line on its radical new range of electric commercial vehicles ROAD TEST PEUGEOT 208 Health check on this ageing yet still incredibly popular ICE supermini EVERY WEEK LIVING WITH… MAZDA CX-80 We say goodbye to this left-field seven-seat plug-in hybrid USED GUIDE FORD MUSTANG MACH-E It may not be a ‘real’ Mustang, but is this hyped EV a good used buy?…

When Honda announced that it was going to make a new Prelude, you would have been forgiven for assuming it was going to be another crossover and not taking much notice, just to avoid disappointment. Such things do happen. Yet even though SUVs have replaced coupés for many as the moderately fashionable daily driver, Honda really was going to breathe new life into the mainstream two-door. Picking up the tradition from the early 2000s as if nothing had changed, Honda’s new coupé is based on a mid-sized hatchback. Given the Accord has long been absent from Europe, the Civic was the starting point. As a hatchback, it’s already an understatedly handsome car that’s pretty good to drive, which is promising. The coupé then gets a shorter wheelbase and suspension that…

Fewer than 3000 Tonales have found homes in the UK since the crossover’s 2022 launch. In the same period, Audi has sold more than 45,000 Q3s and even the ageing Range Rover Evoque and Volvo XC40 have outpaced the Alfa Romeo by a factor of at least 10 to one. So it’s no surprise the firm hasn’t waited longer to release a facelifted version. Visually, this update centres on bringing the Tonale into line with its new little brother, the Junior. There’s an aggressive new front end with a centrally mounted numberplate, bigger air intakes inspired by the snorting Giulia GTA super-saloon (pizzico di sale etc), a shorter front overhang and a new monochrome badge. Alfa has also added a raft of new colours, there’s a funky new ‘cannelloni’ ribbed…

Get the least powerful ‘ one.’ My younger self would have baulked at such mature counsel and perhaps not recognised the person doling it out. But in the everwidening world of electric SUVs, it’s the advice du jour – the scintillating, five-star Hyundai Ioniq 5 N being the exception that proves the rule. So it goes with the Smart #5. A 4.7m-long, 2.2-tonne SUV that could swallow the brand’s pioneering late-1990s city car in its wheelbase (with room to spare) is already a leap into the absurd for us enthusiasts who have feverishly followed the automotive industry all our lives. The fact our first drive was of the range-topping 637bhp Brabus model compounded the madness. We found it likeable amid the chaos, though, and a car with clear roots of…

The first time Audi boss Gernot Döllner drove the Concept C was for about 30 metres onto a stage in Milan for the pivotal prototype’s unveiling in September. The second time, it turns out, is today, on a bright but fresh morning high in the Italian Dolomites – and I’m along for the ride. Given this will be his first time driving the radical concept car that previews the Ingolstadt firm’s future on public roads, Döllner is sporting a predictably bright grin as he settles into the driver’s seat. “This will be a fun day at work,” he says. It’s a pretty surreal one too. Surrounding the Concept C in which we’re now sitting is an incredible four-ringed guard of honour formed of the machines that inspired it: the first-generation…

“It’s not dynamic, but it’s comfortable and well equipped” WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out if Volkswagen’s anonymous seven-seater SUV deserves its place in the line-up Volkswagen has a host of very well-known cars – Golf, Passat, Tiguan, ID 3 – but our new longtermer isn’t one of them. Since it’s arrived on our fleet, not a single person I’ve come across has known what the model is. Perhaps that’s why VW has kindly leant it to us… This is the Tayron, then, described by more than one colleague as ‘a bigger Tiguan’. It is indeed an indirect replacement for the Tiguan Allspace, and it sits between the Tiguan and Touareg. If it sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because the Tayron did exist already as a Chinese-built model…

MILEAGE 4721 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if the clever design of this small EV can win us over in extended use I wish I’d chosen an EX30 “ now,” said my friend Soph, owner of an EX40. “It just felt a bit out-there without the instrument display, but I think next time I might go for it.” Such was our chat when I told her that colleague James Attwood had leant me his long-termer. I was excited to give the EX30 a try, given there have been a lot of things said about it, positive and otherwise. I like its looks and I enjoyed driving it too. No, it’s not the most dynamic car out there, but broadly it’s hard to fault given how effortless it is to…

HONDA WILL LAUNCH a new electric city car next year, designed to appeal to driving enthusiasts with a simulated gearshift system – and it will be offered in the UK. The Renault Twingo rival has been closely previewed at the Tokyo motor show by the new Super-N prototype, which is a development of the Super EV Concept that was demonstrated at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer. The Super-N prototype is built on one of Honda’s N-Series kei car platforms and bears close relation to the Japanese market N-One E – although the Super-N features a wider stance, beefed-up bumpers and aero ducts and a small lip spoiler. While Honda has yet to reveal any of the Super-N’s technical details, it should be one of the smallest electric city…

Porsche is working on a more extreme, track-focused derivative of the Panamera saloon. The most hardcore version to date has been the 760bhp Turbo S E-Hybrid, which still closely resembles the standard 348bhp Panamera despite the high output of its V8-centred PHEV powertrain. But new prototypes spotted by Autocar spy photographers reveal that something more serious is in the works – and it could potentially take the Turbo GT badge. Spied at the Nürburgring, this test mule has been fitted with a number of high-performance bodywork modifications, including new vents in the front wings, a small Gurney flap, a fixed spoiler, a reworked diffuser and circular tailpipes. It also has a pair of stickers referencing the Nordschleife and another German circuit, Bilster Berg, hinting at its track focus. Autocar’s photographers…

CHERY HAS ADDED a new seven-seat plug-in hybrid SUV to its UK range. Called the Tiggo 9, it touts performance and range figures that eclipse those of most rivals while beating nearly all of them on price. Chery launched in the UK earlier this year with two mid-sized SUVs – the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 – after sibling brands Omoda and Jaecoo had rapidly built up a sizeable market share in their first year here. Priced from £43,105, the 4.8m-long Tiggo 9 undercuts PHEV versions of the similarly sized Volkswagen Tayron and Kia Sorento to become one of the UK’s cheapest seven-seat plug-in hybrids – although the slightly smaller Tiggo 8 is cheaper still. The Tiggo 9 uses an evolution of Chery’s ‘Super Hybrid’ PHEV drivetrain, which combines a…

IN DECEMBER LAST year, then Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo made it clear that he was happy to take questions on anything over dinner – so long as they didn’t concern the top job at Stellantis, vacated 24 hours earlier by Carlos Tavares. I found a way to ask him anyway, and he certainly had prepared an answer. He took it well – much better than what I thought was a more innocuous question about whether retro design was a strategy Renault would be continuing with. De Meo firmly rejected my suggestion that the new 4, 5 and Twingo were retro, insisting they were instead what those cars would have looked like had they stayed in continuous production. If they were retro, he said, then “the Golf is a…

Will Rimell’s recent report on his long-term Volkswagen Golf GTE (8 October) spoke of some parallels I see with my own Volkswagen, a 2014 Polo BlueGT. Lack of ultimate excitement is one comment Autocar noted in its original road test of the car (13 February 2013), and it’s here I stand firmly behind Rimell’s riposte about his car’s level of engagement to the ‘average’ driver. The same thoughts apply to my BlueGT. A contemporary Polo GTI still might be ultimately more fun (particularly in facelifted Mk5 1.8-litre turbo guise, and even then hot Polos are dialled back compared with the Golf GTI), but the BlueGT’s punch straight off the line and when overtaking on motorways is very pleasing indeed. Its 184lb ft of torque is exactly the same as the…

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This is the latest Porsche 911 Turbo S: the facelift of the 992 generation, or the 992.2 in Porsche speak. But with it has come such a raft of mechanical changes that it might as well be a new-generation car – and just about the most complete all-round supercar there has perhaps ever been at that. Is the 911 a supercar? A definition for another time, perhaps. We tend to think of those as mid-engined, more exotically constructed and lower to the ground than the 911, which can even be had with two rear seats. But what else would you call a car that makes 701bhp, can do 0-62mph in 2.5sec, can hit 200mph and costs all but £200,000? “Some have previously found it a little cold, a little too…

The M division’s modern approach to conjuring mid-life interest in its products could easily rouse the cynic in you. Now that we’ve had CS and in some cases even CSL versions of just about all the really core M cars of the past decade or so, the pattern is so well set that we might wonder if it’s beginning to make its regular ones a little less special, in order for enough weight-saving, powerboosting and driveline-enhancing fairy dust to be kept back for the Competition Sport specials. Frankly, how could it not be? However, when the latest bit of that strategy is made manifest in a car like the M2 CS, cynicism becomes rather harder to maintain. By ‘harder’ I mean impossible, quite honestly. There’s just an abiding sense of…

China’s best-known automotive export brand, MG, is now unashamedly gunning for the UK car market’s big fish. Right now, our shores typically support between five and eight manufacturers with 5% market share or more. As 2025’s year-to-date sales chart has it, none of Renault, Toyota, Land Rover, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan or Peugeot is among them. But MG clearly wants to be, and 20% more growth for the brand – not a figure beyond the bounds of credibility, given its performance to date – will do the trick. It will be looking to the subject of this road test to get it part of the way there. The MG IM6 is one half of a two-pronged attack from its maker on the lower reaches of the market for premium electric cars.…

“Whenever we say to people we work at Dennis Eagle, they say: ‘Dennis? Oh, the fire engines.’” As reputations go, you could do worse than be associated with producing emergency response vehicles, but if you haven’t actually had anything to do with them for more than two decades, and have since become a market leader in quite another area, the misconception is probably a bit frustrating. “It wasn’t us that manufactured the fire engine. We manufactured the cabin at our plant in Blackpool, yes, but it was in 2004 they stopped manufacturing it,” explains the company’s managing director, Keith Day. “We’ve got thousands of these driving around the streets now that seem to be invisible,” he says, gesturing out of the window of the firm’s Warwickshire factory at the ranks…

MILEAGE 1968 WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To find out why newcomer Jaecoo is one of the UK’s fastest-growing brands I’ve got a confession. In my previous report, I said the Jaecoo had no auto-hold function, having scrolled through various settings in an effort to find it (following the growing scourge of dashboard design, there are very few actual buttons). It turns out I’m wrong, but I only found out by chance when I was swiping on the main screen to get rid of one menu, when another – one I hadn’t seen before – suddenly appeared. This one housed a series of shortcuts for major functions, and there, praise be, was an auto-hold option. The start/stop restarting is still frustratingly slow, but at least I’m not rolling backwards down inclines…

Good news: you can now have a Dacia Sandero for less than the cost of an annual railway season ticket. The Sandero was designed to rival budget superminis such as the Fiat Panda and Kia Rio but it also represents a compelling alternative to the bus and train. And used prices now start from around £1000. When the Mk2 version (2013-2020) was launched, it made headlines for all the right reasons. Here was a car with five seats, Isofix mountings, four airbags and a three-year warranty for as little as £5995 – more than £2000 cheaper than a Skoda Citigo. Today, you can get one for a sixth of that. Now well into its third generation and heading for a fourth, the Sandero is so popular that it consistently ranks…

Motor shows are where dreams are made, and at the 1976 British International Motor Show, a young Brian Attfield saw a car he dreamed of owning one day. “I went to the show with Dad and couldn’t take my eyes off the Stags on the Triumph stand,” he says. “I cried because he wouldn’t buy one. He bought a Ford Granada instead.” Tears dried, Brian left the show determined to buy a Stag when he was older and could afford to. Some 15 years later, long after the Stag had ceased production, he was in a position to start looking. “I had always wanted a yellow Stag with a manual gearbox, and I viewed 13 pretty average ones,” he recalls. “Then in 1993 a more promising example came up for…