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E
Bashing deserts
E X
U
CL ST
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S IV
in Aston’s DBX
FI UP Rides like an S-Class, drifts like a dream
O
GR ST!
TE

vs BMW & Ford

1 4 N E W C A R S TE S TE D !
AU D I R S Q3 V S P O R S C H E M AC A N , M E R C
G LE CO U P E , J E E P G L A D I ATO R , H Y B R I D
S KO DA S U P E R B , AU D I R S Q 8 & M O R E

ISSUE 691
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70 YEARS OF F1: THE GREATEST CARS

U P C L O S E W I T H T H E C A R S T H AT D E F I N E D T H E I R D E C A D E
 ISSUE 691 | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0

102
Seven decades
of F1, seven
era-defining
cars shot
exclusively
for CAR

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Insider
8 Hot Peugeot road and race cars for the EV age
11 Scoop! VW Group looks to 2050
12 Ferrari’s ‘thoroughbred’ crossover takes shape
14 Mercedes GLA: now less frumpy, larger of boot
15 Why F1 is embracing virtual racing
16 Review of the year, in all its hectic glory
22 Inquisition Patrick Marinoff, Alpine’s new boss
22
26
Toyota GR Yaris – a
WRC car for the road
Tech
24 GR Yaris: next best thing to a Toyota WRC car
26 Does it work? Audi’s psychic suspension
28 Why petrol and diesel are in for the long haul
162 Retro tech Stop! A short history of disc brakes
First drives
32 300-mile test Audi RS Q3 to North Yorkshire
42 Skoda Superb iV – a very sensible hybrid
48 Ford Puma morphs from coupe to crossover
52 Grand California: VW’s house on wheels for hols
58 Jeep Gladiator, Audi A1 Citycarver, Alfa Giulia…
Opinion
62 Letters: Q-cars, BMW grilles, Mk1 Discovery
66 Gavin Green: slumming it to report on 1970s F1
68 Mark Walton on calorie counting and SUVs
145 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Four years
of car development dismissed in five lines at best
70 The biggie: Mk8 Golf meets
Ford Focus and BMW 1-series
82 Maserati: the end of one
era, the start of another
118 Gordon Murray: how his T.50
picks up where McLaren F1 left off
92 Aston Martin DBX
Enough hype – what’s Aston’s DBX actually
like to, you know, drive?
102 70 years of Formula 1
Racing cars that defined F1’s first seven
decades, from Alfa’s dominant 158 to that Merc
118 Coffee with Gordon Murray
As he readies his McLaren F1 successor for
lift-off (or not, given the downforce)
Our Cars
126 All hail the brown Mercedes G-Class
Plus goodbye S60, Z4, R8 and Duster, reader
focus group tests our Focus, Touareg gets a flat
142 One year in an Aston DB11
V12 oomph, sexy looks, one happy owner
32
RS Q3 driven. Fish 126 Everyday life just got
very interesting…
and chips eaten
The big reads
70 New Golf vs 1-series and Focus
Eighth version of VW’s hatch stress-tested
by BMW’s front-driver and sharp-handling Ford
82 Inside Maserati
A glorious past, plus a new mid-engined sports
car to kickstart a hopefully more glorious future
 on the road this winter

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 Welcome
‘And so, like that
old Guinness
advert, we wait –
and put entries
into diaries’
It’s the worst, no? That bit after Christmas
and New Year but months before the respite of
spring – just awful.
True, the pleasures of January and February
in the UK are not obvious. It’s easy to wonder
why, with shots of balmy LA afternoons all
over our Instagram feeds, we all haven’t sold
up, loaded the few things we couldn’t live
without onto a boat and started new lives
under the unfailing California sun. Those
canyon roads! A quick surf before work! The
kind of long-lead, considered tan that takes
years off you! Wonderful.
But California offers no light and shade.
(Figuratively speaking – in terms of actual light
and shade it’s a paradise; just ask any of CAR’s
freelance photographers.) When every day’s
warm, dry and sunny, the wonder of a warm,
dry and sunny day is diminished.
So, like that old Guinness advert, we
wait – and put furtive entries into diaries.
And count down the days until winter’s grip is
released, the roads cease to be long skid-pans
between frozen verges and things actually start
happening again.
First into my 2020 diary is the launch of the
revised Jaguar F-Type, as detailed in the last
issue (CAR, January 2020). A day or two in a
new sports car, in southern Europe, in January?
A pretty exciting prospect, and that’s before
you consider just how good a new, prettier
F-Type with a (sorely needed) new interior
could be.
Just a few weeks later, the Formula 1 season
gets underway. And while an invitation to
WE’RE ALSO PUBLISHED IN:
CHINA SPAIN INDIA
Melbourne has yet to appear, just soaking up
every moment of every session at home will be
magical after these empty months. 2019 was a
fine season of stunning rookie performances,
engrossing intra-team turmoil at Ferrari and
some of Lewis Hamilton’s finest drives. Before
the all-change of 2021, 2020 promises more of
Star
contributors
the same.
Then, come May, it’s Mugello, and a trip with
two friends to what could be Valentino Rossi’s
last Italian MotoGP. To say I’m excited about
this one would be an understatement. My
riding’s lacked any kind of ambition in recent
years. A 2000-mile round trip on a sports
bike capable of carrying nothing but me and
a rucksack will put that right, as will another
chance to ride the fabulous Route Napoleon
and a second visit to one of the world’s finest
racetracks, one I last rode to (and – terrifyingly
– around) in 2004.
An all-new Golf, keen to prove that the world
Just a few weeks after Mugello comes Le still needs a Golf? Time for a Giant Test, from
Mans, for the 24 Hour (not the 24 Hour, with the discerning James Taylor (p70).
the new hypercars – that’s Le Mans 2021). But
as important as these motorsport dates will be
the cars I’m desperate to drive this year. High
on that list are Audi’s Taycan-derived e-Tron
GT (the best looking Audi since, er, the new
RS6), the new RS6, Land Rover’s new Defender
(Gavin Green will drive it for CAR long before
I do, which is only right and proper) Peugeot’s
208, the new Mini GP, VW’s ID3 and, last but
not least, two cars that promise to knock the
LaFerrari from the top of my all-time top 10.
One’s a Ferrari and a hybrid, albeit a V8 – the
SF90. And the other’s an Aston, the long-await-
Maserati has it all, not least the name and the
ed V12 Valkyrie. If that thing can’t make 2020 a heritage. Now it needs the new cars for its
year to remember, I’m off to California. new dawn – Ben Barry has the story (p82).
Enjoy the issue.
Ben
Miller
Editor
How to celebrate 70 years of F1? Rope in
the likes of Tom Clarkson and Sam Smith to
ITALY TURKEY GREECE write, and John Wycherley to shoot – magic.
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 7
 Insider Cars, people , sCoops, motorsport,
analysis – the month aCCording to CAR

8 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | February 2020

 gti is dead.
long live
Peugeot sPort
New car
debrief

Peugeot enters a new decade with a clean-slate

performance-car plan. EV hot hatches, punchy hybrids and that
Le Mans hypercar – it’s all happening. By Phil McNamara

E
lectrification will unlock the firepower for the next
generation of Peugeot hot hatches, performance cars
and even hypercars, vows brand chief Jean-Philippe
Imparato. This bold statement of intent will become
reality in 2020, with the roll-out of electrified Peugeot Sport
road cars and intense development of the company’s Le Mans
endurance-racing hypercar.
It’s not long before Christmas, and Peugeot’s expressive leader
is detailing his world view to CAR at a Provence hotel. The
big question: is electrification the sole route to performance
Peugeots in future?
‘There is absolutely no alternative. Absolutely not,’ fires back
the 53-year-old executive vice-president. ‘If you chose any other
alternative, my friend, you are making a trade-off between
pollution and profit, between health and being compliant.
‘Are you ready to explain to the world: “I have a car that is
producing 300g/km of CO2 because I have two guys willing to
pay [for] that at £300,000, and I will allow them to do that by
throwing to the market two or three or 10 more EVs in order to
finance their right to pollute?” I’m not sure you will be successful.
‘But at the same time you can have fun…’

Flagship 508, the first electrified performance Peugeot

Peugeot’s first electrified performance model will be an
overhauled 508, previewed as the Peugeot Sport Engineered
concept at 2019’s Geneva motor show. Think of it as a new take
on second-tier performance saloons such as the Audi S4 and
Mercedes-AMG C43.
Engineers from Peugeot’s racing division modified the
chassis with bigger brakes and a lower and stiffer suspension,
Illustration Chris Rathbone

and fitted a new drag-reducing bodykit in the model line’s

distinctive grey and ‘Kryptonite’ green colour scheme.
This hot 508 concept runs a 200hp version of the 1.6-litre
turbocharged petrol engine, working in tandem with an
electric motor to turn the front wheels. The rear axle is also ⊲

february 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 9


Petrol-electric
508 will be first to
receive Peugeot
Sport treatment
electrified, giving all-wheel-drive capability – and Peugeot
Sport engineers the chance to tune torque delivery for a rear-
drive bias. Imparato confirms the production car will have
355bhp but – crucially – CO2 emissions below 50g/km, due to
its ability to run on electric power alone.
And this is the crux of why future hot Peugeots must
use electrification to boost performance: the company, like
all car makers operating in Europe, must ensure the average
emissions of all the cars it sells from 2020 don’t exceed 95g/km.
A hard task for the likes of BMW’s M Division or AMG, with
some of their cars emitting around 220g/km of CO2.
‘Everybody is fighting to understand how they will compen-
sate their big thermic cars with the big litres, how they reconcile
their sporty line because they cannot afford that [level of CO2],’
muses Imparato. ‘I have absolutely no risk not to be compliant
on day one. If you’re not compliant day one, you are in big sh*t.’
Indeed – the EU’s fines are outlandishly huge. If Peugeot
missed its target by just 1g/km, for example, it would face a fine
in excess of €85 million. And that’s why volume car makers must
embrace electrification in multiple ways, engineering pure EVs
with zero emissions and hybridising performance cars to lower
their fleet’s CO2 average.
What next from Peugeot Sport?
It’s not BMW M, Audi Sport or Volkswagen R that’s the first
brand to lay out a unified, electrified vision across road and
track, it’s Peugeot.
Imparato leans forward to reveal what’s on his smartphone
– an artist’s impression of the Peugeot hypercar due to
compete at Le Mans 2022, which appears part-LMP1
racer, part Batmobile. He continues flicking through
what looks to be an internal presentation for Peugeot
Sport’s plans; the 3008, 208 and the aforementioned
508 all present, their hot versions either confirmed or
with seemingly-logical business cases.
10 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
L750R concept
from Gran Turismo
provides some
hypercar inspiration
‘GTI is nonsense for me!
There is one way to say it
simply: Peugeot Sport’
J E A N - P H I L I P P E I M PA R ATO
GTI may be dormant, but Imparato is determined enthusi-
asts can still have exciting, performance Peugeots, with a twist.
Peugeot is already offering the Hybrid4 drivetrain in the 3008,
detuned to 297bhp, but it will inevitably be extended to the
go-faster, 355bhp version, offering a more ecological alternative
to the high-performance, solely-combustion-engined cross-
overs from the VW Group, the Cupra Ateca and VW T-Roc R.
Any successor to the 208 GTI will be a very different beast
however. ‘If I offer a B-segment performance car it will be full
EV, that’s obvious,’ says Imparato.
The electric 208 is already the punchiest and fastest model in
the line-up, but its 8.1sec sprint to 62mph lags the benchmark
Ford Fiesta ST’s by 1.6sec. Peugeot Sport will be walking a
tightrope to boost performance without compromising range,
and upsizing the 50kWh battery pack will have significant cost,
weight and potentially packaging implications.
One thing’s for sure, Peugeot will be retiring its GTI badge
for these performance models. ‘GTI is nonsense for me!’ insists
the brand’s boss. ‘There is one way to say it simply: 208 Peugeot
Sport. 308 Peugeot Sport. 508 Peugeot Sport. Something like
that.’ By the time you read this, the board should have taken
the naming decision.
Also resolved is whether a Sport version of the next
308 hatchback, arriving in 2021, will be hybrid or
pure EV. But Imparato won’t be drawn. The last 308
used Peugeot’s EMP platform, which is conceived
for hybrid drivetrains; the smaller CMP platform
offers pure electric solutions. Whether the latest
 Insider

PEUGEOT SPORT’S
POWERFUL PIONEERS
All future hot Peugeots will wear Peugeot Sport badging,
but it’s not the generic tag it might appear. Its origins Georg
date to the early 1980s, when Jean Todt (then rally Kacher’s
co-driver, now FIA boss) and Guy Fréquelin (then rally inside line
driver, later Citroën WRC team boss during some of the
Loeb era) founded Peugeot Talbot Sport. Its first car set
the bar high in 1984, the mid-engined 205 T16 Group
B rally weapon. Later just Peugeot Sport, it has seen
success in WRC, sports car racing and F1 (as an engine
supplier), and triumphed on the Dakar and at Pikes Peak.
VW eyes the end of ICE…
It last won Le Mans in 2009, with the 908, and in ’92 and
’93 with the 905 (below). The sell is that the motorsport
Dacia doubles down...
team already worked its magic on previous road-car hits
the RCZ R, 208 GTI 30th Anniversary and 308 GTI.
Renault joins coupe race
VW is war-gaming its 2030- City K-ZE could be badged
2050 line-up – which should Dacia if and when it makes
include the final generation of it to Europe in electric form.
combustion engines. Based on the hugely popular
A key idea is K1: a totally Indian-market Renault Kwid,
flexible components set with it could be Europeanised
EMP2 platform becomes pure electric in due course remains one lead R&D team and a with a choice of small petrol
to be seen, but Imparato hints that C-segment drivers’ higher single production site. It could or modest electric motor.
mileages may swing the balance towards hybrid. be used by Porsches, Audis Watch out also for a larger
and Bentleys using internal vehicle built on the same
New dawn, new motorsport plans combustion, plug-in hybrid, Renault-Nissan CMF-A+
The Peugeot Sport racing division will be tasked with battery electric and fuel-cell underpinnings. The
engineering the performance models. This team is also electric powertrains. Indian-built Renault Triber is
working on Peugeot’s return to some form of motorsport; its An early manifestation of a seven-seat compact MPV
World Endurance Championship re-entry will offset the brand this thinking was a seven-seat that looks more modern than
pulling out of Dakar and World Rallycross. Those decisions Cayenne, but it was heavy, Dacia’s Lodgy seven-seater,
were taken in 2018, as an instant response to the EU imposing ungainly and deemed likely to which isn’t sold in the UK.
dramatically tighter new-car emissions limits from 2030. damage the Porsche brand.
‘How can we explain we are putting money in only-thermic Thinking has now switched Parent Renault is lining up
motorsport, that’s completely inconsistent with how the to a replacement for the a next-gen Kangoo, again
business will have to change in the coming months?’ asks long-wheelbase Panamera co-developed with Mercedes,
Imparato. ‘So I said we will not invest any more in motorsport Executive. Meanwhile, Audi plus a Zoe Evo with a bigger
until the budget is reasonable: €200m, with 400 guys working is thinking laterally for its A8 battery, and a Twingo EV.
on the engine, are we mad?’ replacement. Bentley and Bear in mind that Renault’s
That was the cost of LMP1 prototype racing, but the new even Lamborghini are likely to strategy sometimes means
Hypercar class – where homologated road cars such as Aston’s get in on the K1 act. that what’s a Dacia in one
Valkyrie will compete with a Toyota prototype racer and now market is a Renault in another.
Peugeot – should cost a quarter of that. ‘I will not tell you the Dacia looks like it’s got a The badges may change, but
level, but it becomes completely human,’ ventures Imparato. busy couple of years ahead. the cars are coming.
‘[WEC can be] electrified based on plug-in hybrid, thermic The big-selling Sandero is One car that definitely
petrol and KERS. So it becomes consistent with my neo- due for replacement, and won’t be badged as a Dacia
performance line. We will show that there is a common could well be joined by a is the Renault Arkana, a sleek
cross-message and it gives us a possibility to work on the car that’s even smaller: coupe-crossover. Previously
reliability of the plug-in hybrid technology. the Chinese-built Renault Russia-only, where it’s been
‘Peugeot Sport means high performance, low emission, new sold with a 148bhp petrol
sensation,’ he concludes. ‘If we don’t find a way around that, engine and four-wheel drive,
there is no future because nobody can [afford] to put on stage it’s going global in 2020.
only thermic cars, nobody.
Arkana: Renault’s
‘But I want my fun – below 50g/km,’ says Imparato. ‘The beast from
solution is electrified, that’s it.’ the east

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 11

 Insider

‘Thoroughbred’ SUV
Future
scoop plugs in for Ferrari
It’s been a long time coming, but the finishing touches are being
applied to Maranello’s first SUV. By Jake Groves and Ben Miller Factfile
POWERTR AIN
4.0-litre V8 plus e-motors,
700bhp (est), all-wheel drive
CHASSIS
Aluminium and carbonfibre
monocoque
DUE
2022

2 4
GENTLY IT’S
BREWED ELECTRIFYING!
An SUV has been on First came LaFerrari,
the table for years then the jaw-
at Maranello, ever dropping SF90
1 since the late Sergio (below) in the
THE NAMING Marchionne was in rather short line of
GAME charge. Requests
3 electrified cars from Flavio Manzoni
for more time from Maranello. CTO Senior vice-
Ferrari has been
investors at the 2019 ARCHITECT’S Michael Leiters wants
explicitly avoiding DREAM president, design
Capital Markets Day 60 per cent of the
calling its first high-
allowed Ferrari to brand’s cars to have ‘It’s so exciting. The
roader an SUV, Like the rest of the
get the formula right. electric assistance soul is immediately
instead nicknaming car industry, Ferrari is
As the Prancing by 2022. A full EV very deeply into
it an FUV: a Ferrari designing platforms
Horse gears up for its is some way off; the research, in
Utility Vehicle. that can span multiple
debut, expect interior Ferrari cites sound search of authentic
‘Purosangue’ means models. The front-mid
cues first seen in (or the lack thereof) and innovative
‘thoroughbred’ in engine one used for its
the SF90 (below) and weight for why solutions. There are
Italian, a confident new SUV can use V6,
and performance it’s not focusing on always technical
name for a car that V8 and V12 power, and
specs to rival the making one. elements you have
some devout Ferrari will also underpin the
Lamborghini Urus. to respect. In a
fanatics might not successor to the GTC4
agree with, given its Lusso (above), with a hybrid, some of
silhouette. The FUV’s low-mounted engine, these elements
design has been dual-clutch gearbox are different, but
Illustration: Avarvarii

signed off and the at the rear, plus hybrid it’s still a matter
team are confident assistance and all- of understanding
it’s a winner. Obvs. wheel-drive options. them and designing
appropriately.’

12 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Supercar-market sweep
Got a shopping list of all the parts to create the ultimate driver’s car?
McLaren has already beaten you to it, and it’s called the 620R. By Ben Miller

M
cLaren’s Sports Series as we know it is on to shine on track. The 620R is a racer (the 570S GT4) made
borrowed time, with a new era just around the barely road-legal and a new Sports Series high watermark.
corner. And what better way to sign out than It’s more powerful than the 600LT coupe (611bhp versus the
with a ‘Best of…’ masterpiece that involves LT’s 592bhp; torque is the same) and, while marginally heavier
mooching around McLaren’s Technology Centre with a big (1282kg to the LT’s 1247kg), the R enjoys a serious aero advan-
trolley cherry-picking all the really good stuff? tage (185kg of downforce at 155mph versus the LT’s pitiful
Be clear, this isn’t McLaren’s 570S-based equivalent of Por- 100kg) thanks to elements derived from the 570S GT4.
sche’s 911 GT2 RS or Ferrari’s Pista. That was the 600LT (sold Back to that big trolley. First in is the Monocell 2 carbon tub
out as a coupe, still available as a Spider), a road car uprated and the GT4’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 in its most potent state
of tune yet, free of racing restrictions. Now grab some light-
weight aluminium wishbones (as used on the LT and GT4),
track-stiff springs and roll bars, and deadly serious two-way
tweakable coil-overs with slack-free steel rather than rubber
top mounts and no fewer than 32 clicks of adjustment in
‘ I r ac e d a 5 7 0 S G T 4 ’ : Ja M e S Tay l o r which to get completely and hopelessly lost – nice. If the LT’s
steering and precision felt high-definition after the standard
Forget the baffling Sports Series family 570S, the R promises a level of clarity to beggar belief.
tree: the 600LT is one the world’s most That trolley’s looking good. Lightweight forged wheels
immersive driving experiences. And the with centre-lock nuts and carbon brakes? Check. Grab that
570S GT4 race car, from which the new
620R is derived, is nothing less than adjustable 570S GT4 rear wing and, while we’re here, let’s
magnificent. I was fortunate enough to knock up a bespoke front end – splitter, bonnet and bumper,
race one at Silverstone. I found myself on with dive planes – heavily inspired by the GT4 car and hellbent
the podium thanks to the car’s vice-free on generating proper downforce and leachy grip (in concert
handling and performance so epic the
with the optional slick tyres). To finish, lob in carbon seats
McLaren’s forced to run bucketloads of
ballast to give the competition a chance. with six-point harnesses, whip out the carpet, stereo and info-
And to think the R will be both more tainment, limit the production run (to 350 units) and charge a
powerful and road-legal… quarter of a million quid. Done.

Complete
shopping
list in action,
just without
the inflatable
banana

february 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 13

 Insider
Time to wake up and
smell the boot space
Previously pointless GLA reborn as a family-friendly,
practical alternative to the GLB. By Jake Groves
F
inally: Mercedes got the memo
about its old GLA. In a field
packed with overpriced, un-
derperforming, low-achieving
crossovers, the GLA managed to be one
of the frumpiest, least practical and
soggiest offerings. Mercedes makes
some brilliant SUVs, but the GLA was
never one of them.
Now, however, the penny seems to
have dropped in Stuttgart. The result
is not sexy or radical, but it does have a
clear purpose, thrown into sharp focus
by the arrival of the chunky, funky
style-led GLB, which mechanically is
not a million miles away from the GLA,
but has the appeal of a mini-G-Class.
The space race gambit
While the GLB is intended to be a
#Lifestyle accessory for surfboarders
and cyclists, the GLA that arrives in the
14 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
spring (at prices yet to be announced)
aims to be a friend to the small
family. Whereas the previous GLA
was ruinously cramped, the new one
makes good use of the current A-Class
platform and benefits from a complete
exterior redesign.
Its clean-surfaced egg shape may
repel hipsters, but its 30mm increases
in width and wheelbase, and a 104mm
increase in height, combine to work
wonders inside.
There’s more headroom, more
legroom (particularly in the rear), a
wider load aperture for the boot and
more space inside it. You can spec
reclining rear seats, and there’s an
adjustable boot floor as standard. While the GLB is a lifestyle
accessory, the GLA is a
friend to the small family
 302bhp AMG 35 is
ideal for parents who
habitually run late
It’s got the power
First up are the GLA 200 and AMG GLA
35. The 200 uses Merc’s 161bhp 1.3-litre
petrol four-cylinder, good for an 8.7sec
0-62mph sprint, a top speed of 130mph
and 47.8mpg economy; transmission
is by seven-speed dual-clutch auto, and
four-wheel drive is an option. The AMG
version makes 302bhp from its 2.0-litre
four, shortening the sprint to 5.1sec and
raising the top speed to 155mph.
The engine range will inevitably grow
to include diesels, an EQ Power plug-in
hybrid and an AMG 45 with the ballistic
415bhp four. After a full electric one?
Merc is bringing out an EQA in 2020
based on the GLA. It will be the entry
point of Stuttgart’s EV explosion, ahead
of Audi’s Q4 e-Tron and VW’s ID4.
Merc has fitted the GLA with its very
clever MBUX infotainment system,
with glossy screens and voice assistance.
Pro Draft kicked
off the 2019 F1
eSports series
It’s car racing without cars
F1-endorsed gaming is feeding back into the real world
Lamborghini’s latest concept is among media – is in on the act. F1 recently
the most extreme things we’ve seen finished its third eSports season, with
from Sant’Agata in recent times – and every team from the real-world grid
that’s saying something. The V12 Vision participating. Ferrari won the drivers’
Gran Turismo (below) is all angles, championship, while Red Bull took the
fighter-jet aero and drama. But it exists constructors’ contest.
only inside the PlayStation 4. ‘We have to find new ways in which
This V12-powered Lambo is on Gran we can actually speak to a new gener-
Turismo Sport, where you will be able to ation of global fans that are digitally
drive it – if you’ve got enough in your active,’ Julian Tan, head of digital busi-
virtual bank balance – or watch other ness and eSports at F1, explains. ‘We
highly skilled competitors racing it. needed to create a product that spoke
It’s not the first bespoke in-game car: to this new generation in a way that
almost every major brand now has one. they understand so that we can build
eSports is massive in the gaming that pipeline of the fanbase for the
world, but is starting to have an effect real-world Formula 1.’
on the real world too, thanks in part
to two key facts: 78 per cent of
eSports viewers are under 35,
while 50 per cent are from Asia.
To car manufacturers, that’s two
routes to new sales.
Even Formula 1 – a sport renowned
for its conservative approach to digital
‘WHY THE HELL SHOULD I CARE?’
⊲ Gran Turismo has ⊲ Winning races at an ⊲ Give a designer a pen
transformed from cult eSports level isn’t just and absolutely no limits
racing game to virtual about bragging rights; and you’ll get an extreme
showroom and racing there’s real money version of some of the
sim. It’s a direct link to a to be had here. The most exotic cars in the
new and impressionable winner of the F1 drivers’ world. Lamborghini’s
audience for car brands championship gets V12 Vision Gran Turismo
but, for drivers, it’s also £500,000 – and two-time is a feast of wings, LEDs
a cheap way into winner Brendon Leigh and diffusers. Gran
competitive now works as a simulator Turismo Sport also
sport… if you tester for the Mercedes- features the X2014, an
have actual AMG F1 team. Quite the F1 car of the future from
talent. career path for a gamer. Adrian Newey.
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 15
Review of
the year

REVIEW
What a year! Stellar cars,
industry turmoil, incredible
turnarounds and best-laid plans

OF THE
collapsing. Here’s our guide to
the tumultuous past 12 months
Words Ben Miller, Ben Barry, Jake Groves,
Georg Kacher & Stephen Bayley

YEAR 2019

THE YEAR… EV DESIGN WENT RETRO
Here comes the era of the gas-less carriage
and, so far as design is concerned, it does not
look an inspiring one. Design packages and
styles technology to make it meaningful.
When Benz’s fuel engine was a thing of
wonder, the first cars still looked like ancient
horse-drawn vehicles. But as the human and
cultural potential of the ‘auto-mobile’ became
understood, designers created sculptural
narratives to tell consumers stories about cars:
travel, prestige, sex, power, speed, beauty.
Because no one quite understands what the
gas-less carriage means, no one knows how
to design one; BMW’s Benoit Jacob made the
most convincing effort so far with the i3 and i8,
but history will see these cars as brave freaks.
In an age of anxiety, people crave security.
Hence Ford offers an electric ‘Mustang’, full
of comforting associations of grumbling V8
muscle. There will be better, or possibly worse,
to come. SB
THE YEAR… PSA
WENT UP A GEAR
Carlos Tavares’ impact
at the Peugeot group is
well known but bears
repeating. Prior to his
arrival, the French
car maker lost £4.45
billion and was close to
Carlos Tavares
bankruptcy. A year after hits the high notes
he joined it was profitable.
In 2017 PSA bought perennial
loss-maker Vauxhall, and repeated
the same loss-to-profit turnaround in just 18
months. And in 2019 Tavares’ PSA monolith
delivered two fine cars: the handsome,
desirable and full-of-flair Peugeot 208 we were
expecting; and a truly desirable new Vauxhall
Corsa we most definitely were not. Oh, and
Tavares will be CEO of the about-to-be-merged
PSA-FCA. BM
THE YEAR… F1’S BIG TEAMS STUCK
TO NATIONAL STEREOTYPES
Previously, Mercedes-AMG dominated by
virtue of having the fastest car on the grid
(except when, very occasionally, Red Bull or
Ferrari had the fastest car on the grid). But
this season, and certainly from the European
mid-season onwards (Spa and Monza), the
SF90 established itself as the most powerful
contemporary F1 car by some margin, and a
machine ready to win race after race.
Only it didn’t happen. With the cool,
clear-thinking professionalism
often associated with Germans,
Mercedes continued to win
with strong strategy, operational
Insider
Ford sugars
electric pill with
EV as Mustang
proficiency and a clear driver hierarchy. Ferrari,
meanwhile, descended into hot-blooded chaos,
sunk by sub-prime calls from the pitwall and a
ferocious intra-team driver feud. The truth is
less about neat national stereotypes and more
about where these two organisations find
themselves. The story of this Mercedes team
is coming to an end. The story of this Ferrari
team, with a brilliant technical department
and Charles Leclerc as the twin pillars of its
future success, is just beginning. BM
THE YEAR… THE WORLD
GOT AN EV REALITY CHECK
As electric vehicles became an
everyday sight in the high street,
worries over their supply-chain
sustainability and ethics went
mainstream. Take cobalt: roughly
6-12kg of the stuff is needed in
every EV to stop battery meltdown.
Problem is, 60 per cent of cobalt is
sourced from the Congo, and a third of that
is hand-mined, sometimes by kids. Then
there are the rare earths like neodymium,
essential to maintaining electric motors’
magnetic properties. China mines 80 per cent
of the world’s rare earths, and those mining
techniques can be extremely toxic.
Sheesh, if it’s not one thing then it’s
another… but the Responsible Cobalt Initiative
is helping to ensure your EV’s cobalt isn’t pulled
from the ground by primary schoolers, and
solid-state batteries will eventually eliminate
it altogether (a decade away, estimates BMW ⊲
The other dirty C word: cobalt. Not just a
problem for VW’s ID 3 electric car
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 17
 Insider
R&D boss Klaus Fröhlich). Meanwhile, Toyota
has developed new magnets containing signifi-
cantly less neodymium. With EV sales ramping
up, we’ll see car makers increasingly vying for
squeaky-clean supply-chain cred. BB
GT: the first McLaren in
years that didn’t truly convince
THE YEAR… MCLAREN’S CUPBOARD
LOOKED TRULY BARE
For eight years, McLaren has applied the
Jamie Oliver five-ingredient philosophy to
its automotive recipe: carbonfibre chassis,
mid-mounted twin-turbo V8, twin-clutch
gearbox, two seats, dihedral doors. Those basics
have evolved and been upgraded,
sure, and the cars have become ever
more accomplished, but every one
James Dyson threw in the
of the 20,000 or so cars Woking has towel on his electric car
produced so far has followed that
recipe. The tipping point was 2019.
More precisely, 2019’s McLaren GT was the
tipping point, a model that took McLaren into
the front-engined two-plus-two arena with…
a mid-engined layout and just the two seats.
Rule-breaker, said McLaren, much like Usain
Bolt would be a rule-breaker in the women’s
100 metres.
Thankfully, Woking seems to be writing
a fresh shopping list: a new hybridised V6 is
imminent, debuting in entry-level Sports Series
models with more poke and better economy,
and there’s talk of more seats too. For now, all
hail the new Elva and 620R. We’ll let you guess
what’s in their pots. BB
THE YEAR… GERMAN CAR MAKERS
CHANGED THE GUARD
At BMW, Oliver Zipse replaced Harald Krüger.
At Mercedes, Ola Kallenius stepped in for
Dieter Zetsche. At Audi, Markus
Duesmann will succeed Bram
Schot; three new CEOs facing
numerous new challenges, not
to mention the legacies of their
predecessors. Krüger failed to
fix the design dilemma, didn’t
push hard enough for more EVs
18 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
Musk
survives,
Zipse arrives,
Zetsche goes
and failed to forge key strategic alliances.
Zetsche’s happy-go-lucky image clashed with
diesel cheating, over-budget planning issues
and nose-diving profits. Schot was the fall guy
who did not have enough time, energy and
foresight to steer Audi back on track.
What about the new guys? Kallenius is
issuing one profit warning after another while
working to straighten the slack strategy he
inherited. Zipse is a numbers man who
needs to make sure the volume models sell.
Duesmann has a powerful friend in VW
Group chairman Herbert Diess, who is going
to provide all the support it takes to brush up
the four rings, make peace with Porsche and
kick-start Lamborghini. GK
THE YEAR… TESLA BLEW HOT AND
COLD; MUSK SURVIVED
Like any snotty teenager, 16-year-old Tesla
gave mixed messages in 2019. In the year that
flawed genius and ‘billionaire bully’ Musk got
away with calling a hero cave diver a ‘pedo
guy’, the covers came off the underwhelming
Model Y. Meanwhile, the Model 3 landed in
the UK and blew us away in the electric Giant
Test in our September issue, became the 11th
Tesla Model Y.
Why indeed
best-selling car in the same month and won THE YEAR… OF THE U-TURN
our sister site Parkers’ Car of the Year award at Politics, power plays and financial pressure
the end of October. resulted in several car makers doing public
But more sensationally, 2019 was also U-turns, abandoning previously prized
the year the angular Cybertruck (right) strategies and sacrificing valuable workforces
was unveiled, drawing gasps of horror and as the challenges involved in large-scale
excitement in equal measure. It has a shape electrification began to bite hard.
that will struggle to meet pedestrian safety Nissan cast doubt over Sunderland, moving
rules and armoured glass that couldn’t planned production of the next-generation
withstand a metal ball thrown by its X-Trail from its UK plant to Japan. ‘The
chief designer in a PR stunt gone bad, yet continued uncertainty around the UK’s
Musk tweeted that the truck had more future relationship with the EU is not helping
than 146,000 orders just one day after the companies like ours plan for the future,’ Europe
unveil. Go figure. JG chairman Gianluca de Ficchy explained.
BMW’s Krüger: out
 Dyson, meanwhile, didn’t just move And fiercely stubborn Mazda, until recently
production but threw in the towel entirely on convinced that continued development would
its electric car project, with James Dyson saying save the combustion engine, announced its
he ‘simply cannot make it commercially first EV. JG
viable’ after three years of
planning and millions in THE YEAR… BMW WOBBLED
investment. Munich’s product planning and
Audi, despite being design direction have – amid some
severely shaken by the great work, such as the latest 3-series
Dieselgate scandal, – offered up some of the hardest pills
decided to make we’ve had to swallow over the last 12
almost all of its S cars months. After years of speculation
drink from the black – and much to the chagrin of car
pump. enthusiasts everywhere – BMW finally ⊲

Tesla Cybertruck:
eclectic electric

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 19

 Insider BMW’s Dukec
unrepentant
after a tough
year for car
design

Now front-driven,
taking away the only
USP the 2-series had

made the switch to a front-wheel-drive

platform for its 1-series hatch and 2-series Gran
Coupe. These, along with the X7 and Concept
4 – previewing 2020’s 4-series – garnered
huge amounts of criticism for their visually
challenging grilles. Not that design
boss Domagoj Dukec was bothered:
‘Social media criticism? This
is normal – if you want to
make recognisable design,
you have to do this, to
polarise.’ BMW is also
starting to look like it’s
lagging behind in the EV
race; Audi’s e-Tron and
Merc’s EQC are as yet
unmatched by Munich,
which is also dithering about
what to do with its next 7-series
while Mercedes shows us the way
with the EQS. JG The WRC reached a thrilling
THE YEAR… WRC TURNED
climax and Tänak triumphed
THE DRAMA UP TO 11 – the first non-French, non-
It should’ve been a dream year for Sébastien champ since 2004
Citroën’s World Rally squad, with
six-time champ Séb Ogier back in
the fold. Victory on the season-opening Monte
Citroën’s
suggested business as usual. Except even the WRC dream
tightly coiled Frenchman couldn’t routinely crashed to
master the tightly coiled C3, and Hyundai’s earth
Thierry Neuville and Toyota’s Ott Tänak
smelt blood – the Estonian denied in 2018 by
mechanical woes, but now full of predatory
speed, knowing Ogier could be beaten. Ogier
was already on the ropes when the season
reached a thrilling (if premature) end
in Spain and Tänak triumphed with
a rally remaining, nonchalantly
flat-out to the end.
If rallying reeled from not due to fires, Ogier’s wife sent her
having a French champion ‘#Shitroen’ tweet while him
named Sébastien for the first indoors left for Toyota. Citroën
time since 2004, there were quit, saying there weren’t any
more twists than the Turini to good rally drivers anyway. And Ott Tänak exiting
Toyota’s orbit, reaching
come: Tanak dramatically switched most of us watched absolutely for Hyundai
to Hyundai, Australia was cancelled none of it… BB

Ogier: #Quitroën

20 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 How was it
for you?
2019 newcomers that blew our socks off, in a word

Porsche 911 (992) ‘Telepathic’ Porsche Taycan ‘Ferocious’

Mercedes A45 S ‘Relentless’ Ford Focus ST ‘Entertaining’

THE YEAR… THE BRITISH CAR

INDUSTRY HAD 12 MONTHS
TO FORGET
Ariel and Caterham still exist, Land Rover’s
new Defender arrived and (equally foreign-
owned) Lotus announced its new dawn with
an electric hypercar named Evija. Clearly it’s an
Toyota Supra ‘Engaging’ Audi RS6 Avant ‘Ludicrous’
electric hypercar, but the jury’s out on whether
it’s also a true Lotus.
But mostly there was bad news: In January,
JLR announced 4500 job cuts. By February it
was clear Aston’s flotation hadn’t gone to plan,
with its public listing costing the company
£136m. And Honda confirmed it will close
Swindon in 2021. BM

Some good UK news: new

Defender looks like a winner Ferrari F8 Tributo ‘Explosive’ Peugeot 208 ‘Eager’

BMW 3-series ‘Agile’ McLaren 600LT Spider ‘Blistering’

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 21

 The CAR
inquisition
Pat r i c k
Marinoff
M a n ag i n g
d i r e c to r , a l p i n e
‘it’s about fun, not top speed’
new alpine boss Patrick Marinoff is braced for a rewrite of the sports car rules of engagement
d
ream job or poisoned chalice? Alpine’s new man-
aging director is certain he’s landed the role of a
lifetime. But after two decades in the auto business
– including being head of Maybach when Daimler
decided to bin it as a standalone brand – he’s well aware of the
way that what looks like a rock-solid route into the future can
turn out to be quicksand.
Running Alpine for Renault really does sound like a great
position, though. The world loves the A110, and there’s a
deep-running affection for Alpine’s heritage. However,
although everyone in France knows what an Alpine is, in
some countries the name means nothing. Then there are the
aftershocks of the Carlos Ghosn affair, with more to come when
the former Renault-Nissan alliance chief’s trial on financial
misconduct charges begins in Japan. And the global sports car
market is shrinking.
There’s also the rather happier problem of the A110 being
such a great product that it could be extremely tricky to follow.
Marinoff, a German who spent all his pre-Alpine career in
the Daimler empire, says: ‘I’ve been in the car industry for 21
years in different jobs, from marketing strategy to running the
22 carMagaZine.co.UK | february 2020
Maybach brand and being head of sales at AMG. When I was
asked to become MD of Alpine I didn’t hesitate, because when
can you ever have the chance to be responsible for such a brand
in your life?
‘We have a lot of options, a lot of routes we could go down.
And we have to find the right timing, and the right direction.
You need to have a portfolio of models. Right now we have a
folio varying within the A110 range, but of course it’s one car. To
cater for more needs and customers, you need more cars. There
will be a new model from Alpine coming up, although I cannot
tell you what and when.’
An Alpine-branded compact SUV has long been rumoured,
and Marinoff is open to exploring new segments: ‘If you look
at what we could do, I think there are two major ways. When
you have a rich history, as we are glad to have, you can look back
and say “This is what the brand has done in the past that has
illustration chris rathbone
worked – there is an anchor we can use for new models”.
‘On the other hand, you have to be aware of what’s going on
in the markets, which segments are financially viable, and see
if there is space for the Alpine brand promise – which is being a
very modern and intelligent interpretation of a sporty car.
 Insider

‘And I think sportiness is not something limited to two-

seater coupes. You can have sportiness in various fields and
various segments.’ Nor does he rule out electrification, so long
as it can be executed in keeping with Alpine’s philosophy of Drop-top Lexus set
lightweight, compact design.
As for the A110 itself, Marinoff hints there is headroom above for the rising sun
the A110S for a harder still version. A 300bhp+ A110 RS, anyone?
Rumours abound too of a potential stripped-out, ultra-light LC Convertible here in time for summer
A110, weighing close to 1000kg – a little like a Lotus Sprint
model. An apt comparison, as reports are circulating of discus-
sions with Lotus about pooling resources. After all, sports car It’s got the look
platforms are expensive to develop for a small market – and
You know how great the Lexus
Lotus’s new owner Geely is a shareholder in Daimler, Marinoff’s
LC coupe looks? Next summer
old home. And Lotus is working on an SUV…
we get a convertible version that,
But that’s conjecture. In the meantime, Alpine has a hit on
miraculously, preserves what’s good
its hands in the lithe A110. ‘I drove the car as a mystery shopper
about the coupe while also looking
before taking the job, and it gave me confidence I would find a
fantastic with the roof down.
team in engineering and marketing that really know their job,’
says Marinoff. ‘All this is baked into that beautiful car, and I
knew it would make sense to come here.’
Although the A110 is a traditional two-seat sports car, Open, wide
Marinoff says it’s also in step with the times: ‘It’s lightweight, it’s
The fabric roof has four layers,
not about numbers. The A110 creates a great experience, but it’s
comes in different hues and folds
not using massive resources to do so. The numbers that matter
with ‘class-leading’ (but unspecified)
in the future might be, let’s say, emotional kicks per second – it
rapidity. To make room to stow the
may no longer be about horsepower or top speed, it might be the
folded roof the boot is higher and
level of fun that the car creates. I think we are very good at this.’
wider than the coupe’s.
And where would Alpine sit should the future be dominated
by autonomous cars? ‘There’s a fantastic quote from Ferry
Porsche, that the last car ever built will probably be a sports car.
I think that’s very true. Maybe, in the far future, driving sports Take that, nature
cars will be a leisure activity on tracks and outside cities, while On a chilly morning you’ll be glad
inside cities we will have autonomous transport. But driving, of the neck heaters in the quilted,
feeling at one with the vehicle and mastering it, I think that will perforated leather seats. It’s part of a
be around forever.’ climate control system programmed
JAMES TAYLOR to compensate automatically for the
roof being down.
Six questions only we would ask
What was your first car?
‘Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9. Starting at a pretty high level! Luckily Sounds like a V8. Is a V8
my parents were into cars, so they understood.’ A digital sound generator hums
‘sensual engine intake sounds’, and
What achievement makes you most proud? there are active exhaust valves to
‘To be made MD for an iconic brand is the biggest reward.’
offer rortiness on demand. In calmer
Tell us about a time you screwed up… moments, active noise cancellation
‘It was a dark moment when Daimler stopped Maybach. promises coupe-like refinement.
Being head of the brand then – yep, that didn’t feel good.’

What’s the best thing you’ve ever done in a car?

‘Driving a Midnight Blue Porsche 964 Turbo-look cabriolet
to our wedding, owned then by my father, now by myself.’

Supercar or classic car?

‘I have to choose?! Supercar; I think it’s important to
respect history and engineers’ achievements in their time,
but you have to be up to date.’

Company curveball: when did Alpine win its last world

championship rally?
‘Well, we only have one world championship, 1973. So the The LC500 Convertible will be available with a 5.0-litre V8, priced
first and last is the same year.’ [Correct] from around £80k to compete with the BMW 8-series Convertible

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 23

 Analogue on
Watches
road and wrist
The ultimate analogue wristwatch for your analogue 911?
Porsche Design says it has the answer. By Ben Oliver

T
he second most expensive option on the Porsche
911 GT3 RS is a £9900 matching watch, below the
£12,626 Weissach package (with rollcage) and above
the £6498 ceramic-composite brakes. As car enthusiasts we
get that the RS is one of the most tactile, analogue, thrilling
cars you can currently buy new, and that the Weissach and
big-brake options will actually make a difference on track.
Ten grand for a watch is harder to justify, but Porsche
bravely sent us both car and watch to test. On paper, it starts
to make sense. Butzi Porsche did the exterior design for the
911 and 904 before founding Porsche Design, initially an
independent business. Its first product was a black chrono-
graph watch intended for Porsche drivers, just like this one.
It went on to become a credible watch maker, pro-
ducing well-regarded military watches and developing
innovative new pieces with Swiss brand IWC. Porsche Design
was brought in-house in 2003, and has started making
limited-run watches to match high-end, low volume 911s.
Quick release They’re only available to those who buy the cars, and can be
strap; alloy-like customised to match an individual car’s specification.
winding rotor The GT3 RS watch is similar to those offered for the GT2
RS and Turbo S Exclusive, but can’t be as highly customised.
The winding rotor visible through the clear caseback is
shaped like the gorgeous RS wheel and can be finished to
match your car’s wheels. And if yours is painted signature
Lizard Green, you can fit a strap in matching alcantara.
But that’s it. The Turbo S watch offered a dial painted the
colour of your car, and Autodromo does a watch for Ford
GT owners with matching dial and serial number. And
while the watch itself has some interesting features, it’s
Porsche Design
Chronograph
911 GT3 RS
£9900
porsche-design.com
not hugely compelling. It’s a fairly plain chronograph with
two sub-dials and a slightly awkward date window. Porsche
Design claims that the Werk 01.200 movement is its own
design and manufacture, but it’s very similar to the Valjoux
7750 movement that powered the first Porsche watch in
the early ’70s, and can be found in watches costing under
a grand. It has a flyback function, in which the chrono
seconds hand can instantly flick back to zero and start a
new count, which is clever but of limited use. And there’s
a quick-release on the inside of the strap where it meets the
case, allowing you to easily swap straps. Nice, but I’d worry
how securely my 10-grand watch was attached to my wrist.
The watch is a wholly discretionary purchase and doesn’t
need to make sense, but I’d guess the majority of discerning
owners will already have a bunch of interesting watches,
maybe with a more subtle motoring link, that they’d rather
wear when they drive their GT3 RS.

24 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 GENERIC
GENERIC
GENERIC
GENERIC
ICONIC

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 Tech THE INNOVATIONS TR ANSFORMING
OUR DRIVING WORLD

All three of Toyota’s 2019 WRC drivers

tested the GR and provided input, into
the structure as well as the drivetrain

26 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020


toyota ’rings the
changes with a
proper hot yaris
We look under the skin of the GR Yaris – a far
cry from the minicab-spec models that make up
most of the Toyota range. By Colin Overland
D
oes… not… compute. This is causing some serious
mental short-circuiting. The supermini that I’m
squealing happily around the Estoril racetrack near
Lisbon is not just a Toyota but a Toyota Yaris, normally a
byword for learner- and granny-friendly functional transport.
It’s a prototype of the GR Yaris, which goes on sale in late
2020 as a regular production model, not a limited edition like
2018’s Yaris GRMN. Prices and precise specification have not
yet been announced, but expect to pay Honda Civic Type R
money (£30k or more) rather than Ford Fiesta ST (starting
below £20k).
t oyo ta’ s h o t h at c h i n D e ta i l
Why noW?
Three reasons, according to chief
engineer Naohiko Saito. To boost
Toyota’s image, to inspire its engineers,
and to forge a closer link between
Toyota’s road cars and its motorsport
programme, which spans endurance
racing, NASCAR, WRC, desert racing
and more. The whole GR programme
is championed by Toyota president
Akio Toyoda, who believes the entire
company benefits from the way
motorsport encourages quick thinking Ott Tänak, who will drive for Hyundai
and a problem-solving mentality. in 2020.) That said, it’s much closer
to the rally equivalent than the Fiesta,
Hyundai i20 and (now departed from
hoW close is it to the
r a l ly c a r ? WRC) Citroën C3.
Not very. The GR is going into
production partly to homologate W h at ’ s i t u p a g a i n s t ?
the 2021 WRC car, but that’s largely Toyota says the power-to-weight ratio,
a matter of dimensions and shape, when it’s revealed, will put the GR Yaris
rather than the technology under the into competition with cars from the
skin. (The 2020 rally car is an update class above, such as the Honda Civic
of the 2019 car, driven to victory by Type R and VW Golf GTI, as well as hot
superminis such as the Ford Fiesta ST.
If it’s priced at £30k, it needs to.
W h at ’ s n e x t f r o m g r ?
Probably a GT86, although that’s not
likely to be such a thorough ground-up
reinvention as the Yaris. Don’t expect
the Corolla to get this treatment; it
would be going head to head with
a crowded field, and would lack the
power-to-weight advantage that gives
the GR Yaris its character.
Suspension is
great on track,
firm on road
It makes around 260bhp and 260lb ft of torque from its
1.6-litre turbocharged petrol triple, and drives all four wheels
through a six-speed manual gearbox.
Based on about 50 on-road miles and 10 laps of the 2.6-mile
former F1 track, plus a couple of laps of a gravel circuit in a
different prototype, it feels like a very promising hot hatch.
Although the outputs aren’t massive, the power-to-weight ratio
feels very good. It’s agile, responsive, and the four-wheel-drive
system is there to help you make the most of the engine. Usable
torque comes in low down the rev range, and keeps on coming
in a smooth, broad spread.
It was created in Japan by Toyota’s GR division, with
input from test drivers in Europe, who drove prototypes on
everything from snow to the Nürburgring, plus some feedback
from Toyota’s own WRC team.
We were talked around the car by GR’s chief engineer,
Naohiko Saito. He explained that it has three jobs to perform:
homologating the 2021 WRC car (which will share its shape
and dimensions, while being largely different mechanically);
boosting Toyota’s image, traditionally light on emotional en-
gagement; and inspiring Toyota’s engineers, some of whom will
get to do a stint at GR.
He said the three-year project paid particular attention to
keeping the weight down and driveability up, meaning good
performance would be possible without a big engine. The 1.6-li-
tre turbocharged triple is all new. Mating the engine to a four-
wheel-drive system involved drawing on the vast experience of
Toyota’s World Rally team, run by Tommi Mäkinen. All three
of the 2019 drivers (all now departed) tested the GR Yaris and
provided input, into the body as well as the drivetrain.
‘The WRC drivers all drove the prototype and told us many
things to help make it a special car. Most of those requests
were for a lightweight body and good aerodynamics. Also we
changed the underbody based on their requests – it’s reshaped
and reinforced,’ said Saito.
‘Ninety per cent of what they asked for has gone in. The 10
per cent is mostly about a more extreme shape at the back, for
directional airflow.’ ⊲
February 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 27
 Tech

SuSpEnSion bRAkES FouR-WhEEl dRivE b o dY EnginE

Macpherson strut front,
tuned for the gR, and a
multi-link rear system. it’s
been designed to make
room for the all-wheel-
drive coupling, but there’s
no room for a battery or
other hybrid hardware –
that’s not on the cards.
The FiA tentatively plans
to switch to hybrid in
2022, but manufacturers
are concerned about
weight and safety.
The bespoke braking
system involves four-
piston calipers at the
front, with two-piston
calipers at the rear. on
our damp test drive they
performed excellently –
lots of power, but easy to
mete out with precision.
At the turn of a dial you
can choose normal,
Sport or Track modes.
Respectively, that gives
60 per cent front and 40
per cent rear distribution
for sensible use; 70 per
cent to the rear for b-road
frolicking; or 50:50 for use
on track, gravel or snow.
Toyota looked at 100 per
cent going to the rear,
says Saito, but didn’t find
any advantage.
With a carbon roof and it’s a 1.6-litre
aluminium doors and turbocharged petrol
bonnet, the three-door- three-cylinder – the most
only gR is significantly compact and powerful 1.6
lighter than the normal ever, claims Toyota. There
car. it also looks very are no precise figures
different, with its roof yet, but expect just over
dropping 95mm at the 260bhp and 260lb ft of
rear and its wider rear torque. The engine is
wheelarches. There are positioned 21mm further
twin exhausts, and the back in the engine
underbody has been bay than on other new
reinforced. Yarises, to improve weight
distribution.

Chief engineer Saito had an Audi S1

shipped to Japan so his team could
study quattro all-wheel drive
To keep weight down, the roof is carbonfibre-reinforced
plastic, while the doors and bonnet are aluminium. Opting
for a three-door body, with a sloping roofline that would not
be possible with a five-door, gave the engineers more scope for
favourable airflow, and on the WRC version they will be able to
employ a big rear wing.
Although Toyota has plenty of all-wheel-drive experience, it’s
not been applied to compact high-performance road cars since
the demise of the all-wheel-drive turbocharged Celica 20 years
ago. So Saito’s team had an Audi S1 shipped to Japan so they
could study its quattro system; they also drew inspiration from
the Ford Focus RS, and older all-wheel-drive hatches including
the Subaru Impreza.
The front suspension involves a retuned version of the
MacPherson strut set-up used on the regular Yaris, but the
rear end is all new. The torsion beam is replaced by a multi-link
system, and the rear track is wider.
The fourth-generation 2020 Yaris is lower and wider than
the third generation, and the GR is wider still, but manages to
retain a nimble, easily-manoeuvrable feel. GR prototype has
The likely high price will keep sales volumes modest, but the disguised interior,
but don’t expect
knock-on effect could spread fresh flair and vitality through the radical departure
Toyota range, which would be no bad thing. on production car

28 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | February 2020


How Audi chased
perfect equilibrium
Does it
work?
Take that, gravity! Audi’s new Predictive Active Suspension
says ‘not today’ to the laws of physics. By Jake Groves
A
ctive suspension isn’t a new concept –
car brands have been experimenting
with the idea for decades, using
hydropneumatics, air suspension and
road-scanning technology to isolate bumps and
increase comfort. However, after our first drive of
the new Audi S8 limousine, we think Ingolstadt
has really cracked it with the super-limo’s as-
standard ‘Predictive Active Suspension.’
Based on an air-suspension set-up, PAS has
familiar air-sprung tricks up its sleeve, including
a quick 50mm ride-height increase when you grab
the door handle, minimising chances of celebrities
making undignified arrivals or getaways from red-
carpet events.
But it also uses an electromechanical actuator on
each suspension arm, with all four controlled by a
central computer. This, in turn, is fed information
from a camera embedded in the windscreen that
keeps an eye on road conditions ahead.
The idea is to minimise body roll and therefore
subject occupants to lower g-forces, keeping them
almost in an artificial equilibrium. Given the kind
of well-heeled folk who’ll sit in the back of this
brawny V8 limousine, comfort and the elimination
of jarring external forces is a top priority – Audi
has even upgraded the normal Comfort setting in
the Drive Select controller to Comfort+ to stress its
extra stress-reducing abilities.
Tech
spOOky springs
How iT workS
1
s tA n d A n d d e L i v e r
Give the door handle a yank and the
S8 rises to attention by 50mm for
easier entry and exit
Most notable is how PAS reacts to speed bumps;
the ride height swiftly raises by 50mm when the
camera system ‘sees’ one coming. The increase
in ride height allows each suspension chamber
to compress while minimising the effects of the
bump for those inside, almost like it’s zapped large
2
LeAn On me
lane-spanning speed bumps with a shrink ray. It’s At a cruise, the system tilts into
corners by up to three degrees
not infallible, though, as the camera needs a set
distance to see the speed bump in the first place.
Braking and acceleration forces are also
counteracted and, between speeds of 50 and
80mph, the S8 will lean into bends by three
degrees like a Pendolino train.
It’s not all about comfort: go full sporty in
Dynamic mode and PAS halves the maximum
roll angle of a normal A8 (five degrees down to
2.5) with a focus on the front axle under hard
cornering. That, along with the standard rear-
wheel steering, means your five metre-long limo
steers like something much smaller.
Does it work?
Definitely. The road scanning works best when
3
you’re not tailgating, and the tilt function can feel
unnatural at first, but Audi has managed to bring
to market a clever suspension system capable of On its tOes
literally defying the laws of physics, all in the name The S8’s party piece: raising the
ride height (again by 50mm) allows
of keeping its occupants comfortable. Quite the big heavy limo to tip-toe over speed
feat of engineering. bumps
february 2020 | CArMAGAZiNE.Co.Uk 29
 Tech
SAM
AKEHURST
UNIVERSITY OF BATH
PROFESSOR OF
ADVANCED
POWERTRAIN
SYSTEMS
‘Petrol and diesel have key
advantages over electrification’
Meeting
of minds
Battery and hybrid propulsion may be rising at the expense of traditional
petrol and diesel, but they’re not going without a fight. By Ian Adcock
I
t’s a classic pincer movement. From one side, rapid advances
in clean-running electric cars have propelled the likes of
the VW ID3 and Jaguar i-Pace onto many buyers’ wish
lists. From the other side, environmental concerns have made
internal combustion engines look dirty and outmoded; the VW
Dieselgate cheating scandal didn’t help one bit.
But, in fact, it’s not so simple. Viewed as part of a bigger
picture, EVs aren’t as clean as you might hope. And the urgent
need for car manufacturers to meet carbon-dioxide limits has
prompted a rethink about low-CO2 diesel.
To guide us through this, two experts whose enthusiasm
for cars is matched by their knowledge of different aspects
of engineering. Bruce Wood is the managing director of the
powertrain division of world-renowned Northampton-based
Cosworth, while Prof Sam Akehurst, from the University
of Bath’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, has over
20 years of automotive research experience, and works with
several major UK-based car makers.
30 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
BRUCE
WOOD
COSWORTH
TECHNICAL
DIRECTOR
Bruce Wood (Cosworth): ‘The combustion engine is likely
to remain a key element in future transport solutions for a long
time to come. In the last few years electrification has come
of age, and is now clearly part of the mainstream present and
future solution. It has key advantages over engines – such
as zero emissions at the point of use – but engines also have
advantages, including the high energy density of fuel.
‘There is every reason to believe that over coming decades
engines and electrification will sit side by side, often combined.’
Sam Akehurst (University of Bath): ‘Yes, the demise of the
combustion engine is being exaggerated. Most predict there’ll
still be 85 per cent engine-powered cars in 2030, without taking
into account heavy-duty vehicles.’
BW (Cosworth): ‘Diesel has suffered a lot of reputational
damage over recent years as a result of the fallout from
Dieselgate, which is unfortunate as it has slowed development.
With the same level of development diesel will always offer
Electric pods not
evil. Who knew?
higher thermal efficiency – and hence economy – over petrol,
and in applications where this is paramount diesel will continue
to have market share.’

SA (University of Bath): ‘Diesel has obviously got a bad Rinspeed reckons it’s close to putting
press of late, but if you look at the latest engines their emissions modular autonomous EVs into production
levels are very low. The demonisation of diesel is particularly
unhelpful when trying to meet CO2 targets. If you look at the
Parcel delivery
2.0; forget ‘it’s
‘Diesel has suffered a lot of behind the bin’

reputational damage, which

has slowed development’
fleet of diesel vehicles on the road they’re up to 10 years old;
replacing those overnight with Euro 6-compliant ones would
have a huge impact on emissions and fuel consumption and
that opportunity has been lost to a degree by poor government
intervention in the system.
‘The bigger split between diesel and petrol will be driven by
cost. When looking at electrification and hybridisation, you’re When it’s not restoring classic
looking at trying to take cost out of the engine and that’s more cars or hot-rodding speed
of a challenge with diesels than petrol. Bigger SUV-type vehicles boats, versatile Swiss engineer-
might be diesel hybrids in the future, smaller cars will be ing operation Rinspeed is busy
predominantly petrol with mild hybridisation.’ inventing the future of urban
transport. The latest version is
BW (Cosworth): ‘Enabling an engine’s ancillaries to run on MetroSnap, and founder Frank
demand can offer a few percentage point improvements in Rinderknecht says: ‘The crucial
thermal efficiency and is a significant area for development. step towards series production
There are options for electronic control of manual drives – such has now been taken.’
as clutching ancillaries in and out – or options for electric drive The aim is to cut down
pumps, and both are already becoming more common.’ traffic congestion through the
deployment of multi-functional
SA (University of Bath): ‘Diesel is pretty much near peak self-driving electric vehicles
efficiency but by hybridising diesel engines they can be helped that are relatively affordable
to operate at maximum efficiency.’ to produce because of their
modular nature.
BW (Cosworth): ‘Come 2030, ’40 and ’50 you’ll most likely Underneath is a skate-
still be able to buy a petrol car. The world’s transport needs will board-style composite platform,
become more diverse under the umbrella of the need to limit housing batteries and an
emissions. The solution will be the most appropriate motive e-motor, plus autonomous
power for each case. The combustion engine has a vital part to technology developed by
play alongside electrification.’ TTTech Auto and lidar sensors
from Hamburg-based Ibeo.
SA (University of Bath): ‘With a hybrid powertrain, we’ll On top, various pods can be
definitely still see petrol engines in 2030, almost certainly in slotted in – an idea Rinspeed
2040, and probably in 2050. They will be different engines to claims it got from the field of
today; as you progress through those decades they will be more aviation, although it also looks a
like a range extender to help a more electrified vehicle.’ lot like the pods that could slot
into Thunderbird 2 in the Gerry
Anderson puppet series.
Diesel SUVs
are no longer Depending on what the
automatically dirty platform has to carry, the Snap
system is capable of a top
speed of 52mph and around 80
miles between charges.
MetroSnap – which has
evolved from Rinspeed’s
earlier Snap and MicroSnap
concepts – can be used as a
short-distance taxi, complete
with seats from a Boeing 737.
Or with a different pod slotted
in it could be a pop-up shop
or post office, perhaps visiting
remote villages.
Or it could be a mobile parcel
service visiting your workplace,
like those Amazon parcel
lockers at supermarkets, but
more convenient; key in a PIN,
open the door and grab your
package, or deposit one for
collection.
Rinspeed highlights the
benefits of removing the
human element: the pod could
work around the clock, for
instance. And being electric, a
MetroSnap service should be
considerably less polluting than
a smoky van idling outside your
house while the driver tries to
find someone who’ll take in a
parcel for number 11.
Rinspeed is not so keen
to focus on the downsides:
delivery drivers losing their
jobs, the loss of human contact,
and the ever more rampant
rise of consumerism. ‘People
desire ever more convenience
and simplicity in their lives, and
we want to make that possible,’
adds Rinderknecht.
Rinspeed is eyeing imminent
production of the modular Snap
series. It’s also filing for patent
protection of its version of the
skateboard platform.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 31

 drives
First

starring skoda supe rb hybrid, Me rce de s gLe coupe ,

Ford puMa , audi rs Q8, Me rce des -aMg cL a 35 & More

Audi RS Q3

Spirito di
Quattro
Yorkshire once reverberated to bellowing Quattros on the RAC
rally. Can the new RS Q3 rekindle that five-cylinder magic?
And topple the benchmark Porsche Macan while it’s at it?
Words Chris Chilton Photography Alex Tapley

32 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 The
300-mile
test
new car meets real world

FEBRUARY 2020 | carmaGaZIne.co.UK 33

 The RS Q3 devours Blakey Ridge,
a hugely fast stretch of tarmac

Honeycomb
grille eats
flotsam, jetsam
and B-roads for
breakfast

Touchscreen
responds best
to firm press,
throttle to a
gentler one

34 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

 First drives 300-mile test

I t’s 1981. You’re standing in a forest at the side

of a gravel track, supping tea decanted from a
thermos into a Charles and Di mug, waiting
excitedly for the marshal’s whistle. It’s RAC
time and last year’s winner Henri Toivonen
doesn’t disappoint, sandblasting you with
rocks as he slews past in his Talbot Sunbeam
Lotus. The next car is quieter, neater, less exciting. There’s no
lurid oversteer, no drama, just a relentless surge forward (quite
literally for some drivers, who struggled with the understeery
handling). Even before Hannu Mikkola has cruised home in
first place having survived a roll on the way, British rally fans
getting their first look at this weapons-grade car are left in no
doubt that rallying’s future is four-wheel drive.
That’s your fairytale and here’s the reality: the original
80-based Quattro’s success was comparatively fleeting. Once
Audi had ironed out the reliability niggles it went on to win
two WRC manufacturers’ championships, but when rival
manufacturers revealed their bespoke mid-engined space-
frame Group B machines, the Quattro, which was based on an
old Group 4 car evolved from a road car, struggled to keep up.
But 40 years after its unveil at the 1980 Geneva motor show
the Quattro’s influence lives on. Apart from changing the
course of rallying, and of performance cars, it helped reinvent
staid Audi as a maker of extremely fast, sophisticated, safe lights, reversing camera or wireless phone charger. Authentic
ür-Quattro
enthusiast machines. And now it wants to make a whole lot Fancy the Audi Sport Edition with a few extra bits of tinsel, understeer in
more of them. Audi’s performance arm, Audi Sport, wants like 21-inch wheels, black exterior detailing, sports exhaust Scarborough’s
to double sales of its S, R and RS models by 2023. And it’s not and panoramic roof? Make that £57,950. Going all in? The ‘simulator’
going to do that by halving the lunch hour on the R8 line. It Vorsprung adds adaptive dampers, adaptive cruise control,
needs more cars, and more affordable cars, just like this RS Q3 carbonfibre mirror caps and Bang & Olufsen hi-fi, but comes
we’re using to sniff out some great roads in North Yorkshire with a Bang & Olufsen price. A £61,500 price. The kind of price
close to the route of the ’81 RAC. that makes you suck air through your teeth like you’ve just sat
Affordable, in this instance, is a relative term. The RS Q3 on your Dyson.
comes from the same MQB transverse layout component You could sacrifice that sexy rear screen rake and go for the
set as the RS3 hatch, itself not cheap, at around £46k on the non-Sportback RS Q3 Audi launched simultaneously. But you
road. But raising the roof raises the price. A standard RS Q3 lose a chunk of visual drama and don’t gain much in terms of
Sportback costs £53,600. And that’s just the start. Although practicality – boot space measured to the load cover height is
you do get 20-inch wheels, Virtual Cockpit digital instruments the same 530 litres for both versions, although the ordinary RS
and a solid suite of safety gadgets, there are no LED matrix Q3 edges ahead by 125 litres if you drop the seats and load it ⊲

PICK-UP: 0 MILES 35 MILES 66 MILES

Early start. It’s pitch black Stop for coffee and a Another stop, this one
but we’ve got £850’s worth rendezvous with a unscheduled, caused by
Porsche Macan. Not Victorian pea-souper.
of LED matrix headlights – the Macan Turbo Audi Visibility down to around
and an illuminated Quattro benchmarked: the more 10 metres, despite the
badge on the dash. affordable, still ace S. piercing LED stare.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 35

 ‘You wish your
Audi Q3s grilles
were bigger? Your
wish is granted’

Togglable
instruments
include Knight
Rider-esque mode

80 MILES 81 MILES 102 MILES

Fog lifts just as we reach the Grip proves to be no Crisscrossing the

moors. Perfect timing. Now
time to see what the 20-inch
summer-spec Contis can do
in winter-tyre weather.
problem. Ride comfort moors. Audi noticeably
does, though, on passive more explosive under
suspension. Adaptive load and makes a great
dampers standard on noise but Porsche rides
posher Vorsprung model. and steers better.

36 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 First drives 300-mile test

is disappointingly brittle, at least without those optional

adaptive dampers. If you’re looking for subtlety, tactility or
If you’re looking for adjustability, you’re in the wrong place. But it’s fun to muscle
through the high-speed transitions thanks to its huge grip
subtlety, tactility or and solid body control, and the six-piston brakes are game for
any kind of abuse.
adjustability, you’re in But is it really £54,000 good? Or £62k, remember, if you go
the wrong place. But it’s for the Vorsprung. The disconnect between the relative sizes
of car and price throws up a red flag that immediately has you
fun to muscle around checking what else you might get for the money.
Like BMW’s X3 M40i, the upcoming Mercedes-AMG GLA,
and, our favourite, the Porsche Macan. Audi references the
435bhp Macan Turbo in comparisons. It gets to 62mph in the
to the roof. And you only save £1150 buying outright, and next same 4.5 seconds the Audi needs, but at £68,530 is considerably
to diddly on a lease. Sportback it is. pricier to buy, and around £120 more per month to lease.
If the thought of paying Cayman GTS money for a compact But what about the Macan S we’ve brought along to
crossover leaves you cold, it’s hard not to thaw a little when stress-test the RS? At £49,300 it’s cheaper than a standard
presented with something with so much road presence. RS Q3, costs almost exactly the same to lease and, because
Walk past the snout on your way to climb in and that gaping it’s based on the same platform as the Q3’s big brother, the
honeycomb mouth looks like it might just devour you whole. Q5, it’s noticeably bigger inside (though strangely, the boot is
Kick the turbocharged motor into life and you know that’s not fractionally smaller). A recent facelift changed almost nothing
all this little ball of muscle wants to eat. at the Macan’s front, but added the new corporate conjoined
Having schlepped patiently up the A1 from CAR’s rear lights, a handsome wide-format touchscreen media
Peterborough office in search of decent roads it’ll start by system in the console, and a new 349bhp twin-turbo V6 under
devouring Blakey Ridge, a hugely fast stretch of tarmac the still-gorgeous clamshell bonnet.
linking Guisborough in the north with Kirkbymoorside to Hmm – 349bhp? More metal and less muscle inevitably The sound of
the south, that goads you into piling on the speed, but is ready means the Porsche is slower than the Audi. It needs 5.1 seagulls, lapping
water and giant,
with a few surprises that could easily see you skating off down seconds to reach 62mph, or 5.3 seconds if you’re too tight to furiously ticking
the grassy hillside if you get things wrong. And today, just like pay for the optional Sport Chrono package, which includes ⊲ exhausts
the ’81 RAC’s special stages, we’re running without pace notes.
As the name suggests it sits on the top of open moorland,
giving great visibility for miles in every direction, though not
this morning, not until the fog has burned off to reveal the
road I remember from my first visit almost 20 years ago. Then
I was driving the new Civic Type R, whose 197bhp seemed like
plenty. The RS Q3 doubles it to 395bhp, up from 335bhp in the
old RS Q3, and if it doesn’t get down the road twice as quickly
as the Honda, it does a good job of making you think it can.
Audi’s numbers say 4.5 seconds to 62mph, but the response
is so urgent in the low- to mid-range it feels even quicker,
easily pulling away from other cars on the longish straight
before the Lion Inn, erupting out of the tighter corners, and
without any of the old Civic’s wheel-fight thanks to the Haldex
four-wheel-drive system. The top speed is 155mph, although it
can be derestricted to 174mph should you be looking to specify
Britain’s most pointless option.
The RS Q3’s ability to over ground obscenely quickly, and
not just in a straight line, is obvious before you’ve slotted
fourth gear in a mandatory twin-clutch ’box that gets most
things right. This RS is fast, but not hugely fluid, biting
aggressively as you twist the wheel without giving much
in the way of sensation through your fingers. And the ride

105 MILES 129 MILES 147 MILES

Twin-clutch ’box Fuel stop. Audi Multimedia messing.

returning around Responsive touchscreen very
hesitant on multiple-gear
28mpg so far, slick but surprising to see
downchanges so we try Porsche closer to AC controlled by old-school
manual shifts. Shame 25. Equal attention rotary dials. Weird combo,
the paddles feel cheap. at the pumps. but works well.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 37

 Porsche Macan
roomier than
RS Q3 inside,
celebrates with
giant touchscreen

The Porsche has an

authenticity the RS Q3
somehow lacks; real feel
that engages at any speed

38 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

 First drives 300-mile test

launch control and an analogue timer. The performance
disparity is most obvious at lower speeds where a stab of gas
hurls the Audi forward with a keenness the Porsche can’t hope
to match.
At higher engine speeds the Porsche works harder,
rewarding revs with a satisfying kick in the back, always
encouraging you to wind it right out. That makes it feel more
sporting, or it should. But it’s a surprisingly tuneless engine,
which is pretty awkward when you’re up against something
as characterful as Audi’s inline five. By pure chance I drove an
original Quattro for another project just days before grabbing
the keys to this RS Q3 (a 10-valve WR, for you ür geeks). And
even that didn’t sound anything like as good as this, despite
the RS Q3 being stymied by a sound-sapping particulate filter.
But the Porsche has an authenticity to it the RS Q3 somehow
lacks. It has much better steering feel; real feel that connects
you and engages you, whatever the number on the speedo. It
turns into corners smoothly and with more balance and rides
vastly better. Every time we pull out of a tight junction in the
Audi we feel the inside front wheel scrabble for grip before the
centre differential sends torque to the back tyres. In theory
the RS Q3 can send up to 85 per cent of its 354lb ft to the rear
wheels and the system can react to things like steering wheel Blue corner
sounds angrier,
angle to shuttle torque rearward to kill understeer when you feels more urgent;
roll into a corner. But the overall feel is still front-wheel-drive. green corner rides
We’re not saying that front-wheel-drive cars can’t be fun. better, handles
more incisively
We love a great front-driver – and a well set-up four-wheel-
drive hatch like the old Golf R can be just as entertaining. But
the RS Q3 feels like an expensive high-rise hot hatch, and the
Macan, which also shares a platform with the Q5, let’s not
forget, manages to feel like a proper grown-up GT in a pair of
platform shoes.
Back in the RS Q3, having waved bye to the Porsche, we head
east along the A170 through Pickering and Thornton Dale to
Scarborough. The road is smoother, the Audi a little happier.
Us, too. And now we’ve dialled back the pace there’s time to
take in the cabin. The low-set centre console makes the front
feel roomier than it is, and though the touchscreen interface
looks smart and works well, we still miss the MMI control
wheel. But, what’s this? Old fashioned rotary controls for
temperature and fan speed? They look slightly incongruous,
but work well. Less so, the back seats. Space is decent up front,
but headroom in particular is tight in the rear.
Much like the gap left by a stranded lorry as we roll into ⊲

152 MILES 155 MILES 300 MILES

Roll into Scarborough. Once Scarborough Back at Peterborough

grand South Bay Pool long foreshore pops with a couple of sticks
gone, but Grand Hotel still like Vegas strip.
towers over the beach. Arcades Pumped-up RS tries of rock to remind us of
just about out-glitz Audi’s LEDs equally hard to grab Scarborough – and the
and Dynamic indicators. attention. It works. Audi’s ride.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 39

 First drives

Sportback spec
sinks roofline to
match winter sun

Scarborough, a town of two bays and characterised by two

distinct cliff-top landmarks: the Grand Hotel and a medieval
castle that was probably grand when new. The Audi’s compact
dimensions and punchy engine make light work of the
town’s hills and twists, but the turning circle could be better.
For a car destined to spend most of its life in town, that’s a
definite drawback.
I haven’t been here for years, but from the look of things I
still know it well. Back when the Audi was making waves on
the RAC I was splashing in the icy waves next to the South
Bay Pool, buying Star Wars figures from Wray’s toy shop and
being dragged along to Alan Ayckbourn plays at the Stephen
Joseph Theatre when I’d much rather watch motorbikes tear
up Oliver’s Mount. Sorry Alan, but I was only seven.
My grandparents are long gone, and so is the pool, which
was denied listed status in the early 2000s and demolished.
But I see the same hybrid of the South Bay’s elegant Victoriana
and the slightly trashy, British seaside glitz off the foreshore
I remember as a kid. I see echoes in the RS Q3, too, in the
restrained elegance of Audi’s materials and the basic silhouette,
set against the brash shoutiness of the RS transformation.
The RS Q3 isn’t the best-value small, fast family car by a
long stretch. And it’s not the best to drive. It’s too expensive for
what can feel like a jumped-up hot hatch. But we can still see
the appeal. For us, that appeal comes largely down to that five-
cylinder motor slung across the nose. It gives the RS Q3 some
real character and a point of differentiation from its rivals,
plus a great soundtrack and enough pace to help offset the The RS Q3’s too expensive
Macan’s vastly better chassis. Enjoy it while you can – because,
like freezing your nuts off in open-air North Sea Victorian for what can feel like a
pools or wandering where you like to get the best spot on the
RAC, it won’t be around forever.
jumped-up hot hatch –
but we still see the appeal
Next month:
new Jaguar F-T ype
wild caT on The loose in porTugal

40 carMagaZine.co.uK | february 2020

 Master Muscle Specsavers
At 395bhp, the 2.5-litre inline For once, our test car didn’t
five makes twice the power come loaded with options
of an original ’80s 10-valve that equated to the GDP of
Quattro. And twice as much an African nation. A standard
Sportback or not?
noise, based on our ears’ car, rather than a Black
The financial difference
findings, though the fitment Edition or Vorsprung, it did
(£1150) between the two
of a particulate filter means have a couple of options,
rooflines is negligible so it
this engine is less vocal including 21-inch wheels,
comes down to personal
than when first unleashed LED matrix headlights, the
preference. We love the way
in the TT a few years ago. Comfort and Sound pack
the Sportback looks and,
It’s backed by a twin- (B&O hi-fi, ambient lighting
because its luggage capacity
clutch transmission that’s pack and reversing camera)
is identical up to the parcel
lightning fast up the ’box and Turbo Blue paint. A
shelf line (only you know
but occasionally leaves you smart spec for a total spend
whether you need more), the
hanging on downchanges. of just over £58,000.
only thing you need to worry
about is rear headroom.
It’s slightly worse in the
Sportback.

Price Powertrain Performance weight efficiency on Sale r at i n g

£53,600 2480cc 20v turbo five- 395bhp @ 5850rpm, 1700kg 28.5mpg, Now HHHHH
(£58,145 cylinder, seven-speed 354lb ft @ 1950rpm, 202g/km CO2
Data as tested) dual-clutch, all-wheel 4.5sec 0-62mph, 155mph
drive (174mph option)

FEBruAry 2020 | get 3 issues of car for just £5! www.greatmagazines.co.uk 41

 The powertrain starts in silence
and is capable of running on
e-power alone for up to 34 miles

42 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 First drives
Drives

S KO DA SU PE RB i V

Anything you can do…

…I can do eventually. Skoda’s hybrid makes sense, obviously
A staggering 82 per cent of Skoda Superb drivers
are company car drivers, such is the car’s impres-
sive breadth of abilities to just get the job done in
comfort and quiet without costing the earth to THE FIRST HOUR
fill it up or maintain. Until now, diesel versions
of the Superb have taken the lion’s share of sales 30 seconds
and registrations – the long-legged and econom- Is it on? E-mode
ical nature of the VW Group’s stable of engines means it starts
lend themselves to the Superb perfectly, but even silently
Skoda can’t avoid the demands to electrify its car
2 minutes
range in some form.
Electric torque
So, here’s the Superb iV. No one really knows makes for handy
what iV stands for (intra-Voltage?) but all you in-town nippiness –
need to know is that it denotes electrification impressive for a big
of some sort. In the case of the Superb, it’s barge
essentially a Passat GTE in a Skoda suit, with
a just-as-nice interior, a lower price and more 9 minutes
room inside (but a slightly smaller boot than The engine cuts
regular models – thank the batteries). in smoothly and is
Unlike the GTE, the Superb iV comes in the actually quieter than
majority of Skoda trims, boosting its appeal other VW Group
to those wanting a bit more choice. There’s Charge goes in here (top), monitored here (above)
petrols
a bum-basic one, a sporty-looking one and a
52 minutes
brown-with-cream leather L&K retirement the time. And if you want to top up the battery
Nope, everything’s
special for those with time on their hands. using the engine, you can do so via the car’s as it should be.
The Superb iV uses the VW Group’s older touchscreen to a predetermined level. Truly, the Superb is
1.4-litre TSI petrol engine in combination with Charging takes about five hours on a normal
an electric motor. Total output is an ample home socket, or about three and a half hours on
215bhp, with the car defaulting to e-mode when a wallbox. You can keep tabs on it via a choice of
you start the car up. It does so in silence, and is apps that will also let you pre-warm the car if it’s
capable of running around like this for up to 34 plugged in, and decide when to start charging
miles if fully charged. (overnight on lower electricity rates).
Demand a little more from the car in Hybrid All in, the Superb iV is nothing more or less
mode and the engine will kick in smoothly (in than a nicely executed plug-in hybrid Superb.
fact, it’s quieter than the regular 1.5-litre TSI) It all just works; familiar, easy, accomplished.
and avoids ever becoming a nuisance. It’s helped And, refreshingly, the iV doesn’t suffer the usual ▲
along by a slick DSG transmission that does its plug-in hybrid compromise of being noticeably PLUS
best to avoid sending the revs skyward. less fun to drive. Job done, then. Still a Superb, plush
A normal range of Superb driving modes TOM GOODLAD cabin, ride comfort
are available, but the iV also throws into the remains
mix a second button to toggle between electric First verdict
MINUS
and hybrid modes. Most of the time, this ▼
The Superb continues as class swot. The iV
being a Superb, Comfort is perfect. As for the pops an effective PHEV powertrain into an Boot space has
powertrain, leave it in E-mode in town, for awesomely comfortable and capable car dropped, so many
zero-emission driving. Hybrid’s fine the rest of ★★★★★ drive modes

I mean, what PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE

does it say about From 1395cc four-cylinder plus 215bhp @ 5000rpm, 1730kg 148mpg, Now
you? What’s that, £31,970 e-motor, six-speed dual- 295lb ft @ 1550rpm, 55g/km CO2
you don’t care? Data clutch, front-wheel drive 7.7sec 0-62mph,
139mph

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 43

 First drives

New wheels
and suspension
improve the
F O R D F I E S TA S T P E R F O R M A N C E E D I T I O N ST’s already
agile handling

Solid gold…
… and almost as expensive, though a serious suspension
upgrade elevates the already exceptional Fiesta ST
What’s the hold-up? An hour into your first
drive in Ford’s most serious ST Fiesta and it
feels like everyone else on the road is dawdling
horribly. Corners are trundled, painfully slowly,
THE FIRST HOUR
and acceleration away from every junction,
roundabout and red-light-gone-green is glacial. 1 minute
It’s as if every car you come across is moving in Fit! Wheels and
slow motion and, somehow, your Ford is not. dampers certainly
So you wait for a suitable gap, parp past in a look the part
choice of at least two gears (remember when hot 12 minutes
hatches had to be in the right gear, with at least Ride quality takes
5000rpm dialled up, at all times? The Ford’s 1.5- no prisoners, but it’s
litre three-cylinder turbo doesn’t…) and claim no worse than the
standard car
for your delectation a clear stretch of road.
At this juncture it’s worth pointing out that 32 minutes
the standard ST, in ST-3 guise (from £23,995, Last time I had this
with the all-important Performance Pack in much fun I was in a
Caterham. At Brands
place), is no slouch. An exceptional hot hatch, it Hatch
claimed silver in our last Hot Hatch Giant Test,
ahead of the then new Renault Megane RS and Cabin is not where the money’s been spent 58 minutes
behind the (£10k more expensive, 120bhp more Turbo triple is
unchanged – and
powerful) Honda Civic Type R. To the ST-3 the handling. There’s stacks of grip, direct and remains a peach.
Performance Edition adds £2500 to the list meaty steering, unwavering body control and Diff works traction
price, a set of very fetching lightweight Ford a deeply rewarding sense of connection with miracles
Performance wheels (at 18 inches in diameter, your tyres. Understeer’s there only if clumsily
no bigger than the ST-3’s stock rims but lighter) provoked – mostly the Fiesta just changes
and a Ford Performance coilover suspension direction like a housefly and offers more
upgrade, which both lowers the car (15mm at adjustability than many rear-drive sports cars.
the front; 10mm at the rear) and brings 12-stage The standard car shares many of these qualities
compression and 16-step rebound adjustment. but the Performance Edition elevates them all to
The damper units, finished in stainless steel another level of ultra-crisp definition.
with blue springs, look the business tucked up Yes, the ride’s tough at low speed on rough
behind those very pretty wheels. tarmac but, as with the standard ST, once you’re
▲
I digress – back to that clear stretch of road. up to speed it soon settles. And the truth that
PLUS
Rev the triple out and it worms its way deeper you could have a sensible new Golf for the same
money will be inconsequential to the kind of Agility; handling;
into your affections. It sounds great, never feels engine; gearbox;
anything but strong and somehow still returns souls this Fiesta will make deliriously happy. noise; sense of
38mpg. The manual ’box is sweet too, if not quite BEN MILLER connection
in Civic Type R territory. Everything else that
MINUS
matters is good – driving position, seats, brakes – First verdict ▼
and there’s much that, while less essential, helps
£26.5k is strong money for a Fiesta (the ST Chassis hates rough
sugar the list price pill, including heated seats, roads at low speed;
Focus starts at £30k…) but this is nothing
wheel and screen and a powerful stereo. less than 2020’s Peugeot 205 GTI – fact infotainment and
But the real juice is the Fiesta’s astonishing ★★★★★ cabin dated

PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE

£26,495 1499cc 12v turbo 197bhp @ 6000rpm, 214lb 1255kg 47.1mpg Now
three-cylinder, six- ft @ 1600rpm, 6.5sec (official), 38mpg
Data speed manual, front- 0-62mph, 144mph (tested), 136g/
wheel drive km CO2

44 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

It changes direction like a house-
fly and offers more adjustability
than many rear-drive sports cars

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 45

 On paper it’s an
odd compromise,
but on the road
it all combines
harmoniously

46 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | February 2020

 First drives
Drives

MERCEDES-AMG GLE 53 COUPE

Bi-polar express
A proper off-roader that’s also a luxury coupe? Sure, why not…
Momentarily I’m confused. ‘Be careful,’ the man
from Mercedes is telling me via walkie-talkie as I
drive his new GLE 53 Coupe up a snowy, icy road
in the Austrian Alps, a wall of hard-packed snow THE FIRST HOUR
on one side, a sheer drop on the other. In the next
breath, though, he’s bellowing: ‘Go faster!’ 1 minute
Well which is it, man? But then the penny Still not pretty, but
drops. This is an AMG SUV. You don’t choose: this time around
you go faster and you get enough fortifications at least it looks
deliberate
and driver-assistance systems to save you from
avalanches, torpedoes and your own stupidity. 7 minutes
Could it save me from my own ridiculously Lots of modes to
high hopes, though? Based on its mild-hybrid Chunky meets techy and gets on extremely well play with. Who’d
straight-six being a fantastic engine in other ever use Slippery,
Mercs, and Merc being on a great run of form touchscreen, augmented-reality sat-nav, voice Trail or Sand?
with its many and various SUVs, I wondered if activation, a panoramic sunroof and question-
this might be the best car in the world ever. able 22-inch wheels. The AMG version gets a 18 minutes
Through town, on to the motorway, then a different steering wheel, exhaust and grille, and A lot like a higher
country road, and a hairpin-heavy mountain AMG Active Ride Control suspension, which has E-Class in here,
climb, it initially felt too wide and too heavy. But electro-mechanical actuators that provide active aside from the grab
then after a stop for coffee, with expectations roll stabilisation. It works well, offering good handles on the
suitably lowered, it all fell into place. I got a feel ride and control on a variety of surfaces, if never transmission tunnel.
In tight turns it feels
for the responsive, smooth 53, and I relaxed quite disguising the size and weight of the car.
wide and heavy
enough to just get on and enjoy it… a lot. A full-fat 63 is expected in late 2020, but the
AMG’s excellent mild-hybrid 53 engine is 53 majors on usable power, responding instantly 58 minutes
a 3.0-litre straight six with a built-in starter- and obediently. If you want a little power, it Actual snow,
generator and a 48-volt electrical system. It can creamily glides in. If you favour ballistic, it’s actual ice. Slippery
soak up surplus braking energy, store it and yours. The nine-speed auto is quick and smooth, mode it is, then
redeploy it to ease the load on the engine and and the drive modes clear and distinct.
to power ancillary systems. For short bursts, On paper, there’s scope for awkward compro-
the electronics can add 22bhp and 184lb ft. But mises: it’s AMG’s version of the coupe version
this is a mild hybrid – don’t mistake it for the of a big SUV, for heaven’s sake. But on the road,
full plug-in hybrid version, the 350de, a 2.0-litre and indeed on the snow, its disparate elements
diesel four with a big battery in the boot, which combine harmoniously.
arrives later. There are also two 3.0-litre diesel So, no, not the best car in the world; not rev-
sixes, first the 400d and later the 350d. olutionary; not a looker; and perhaps not quite
The new Coupe is shorter than the current worth the money. But very, very good. It’s fast.
SUV-shaped GLE, but longer and wider than the And it takes care of you. ▲
previous Coupe. The styling has been tweaked COLIN OVERLAND PLUS
to make it more distinct from the SUV, with Sophisticated, fast
and practical
different lights and bulging haunches. Visually, First verdict
it works better from some angles than others. MINUS
An undeniably excellent execution of a
The UK gets only AMG Line Premium Plus fundamentally odd idea. But just get an ▼
spec, which includes a 12.3-inch instrument E-Class, okay? Heavy and
screen that joins up with a 12.3-inch central ★★★★★ ungainly

Well tuned
traction control PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE
lets you feel that From 2999cc 24v straight-six, 429bhp @ 6100rpm, 2250kg 30.4mpg, Order now,
it’s slippery but £79,000 (est) nine-speed auto, 384lb ft @ 1800rpm, 212g/km CO2 deliveries
keeps you safe Data all-wheel drive 5.3sec 0-62mph, summer
155mph (limited) 2020

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 47

 Ford Puma

Prince among
paupers
Mini SUVs are all about compromise. But Ford’s new
Fiesta-based Puma shows how good they can be

48 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

 First drives
Drives

Design
flair quota
thoroughly
expended on
the outside

It’s the fizzy 999cc engine you notice first,
pulling you forward like a Chihuahua with the
scent of love in its nostrils, bowling you along
THE FIRST HOUR with a broad spread of punch surprising from
one so small. And your ears prick up to the
1 minute effervescent flutter and buzz of three-cylinder
Wow! Hybridisation
has given Ford’s combustion, a far more engaging sound than a
buzzy EcoBoost micro-canine’s yapping. What’s Ford put in this
engine a real shot in small SUV’s feeding bowl?
the pants Currents – and we’re not talking dried grapes.
27 minutes Ford’s venerable 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine
Aha! Subterranean has been modified with 48-volt mild-hybrid
button triggers technology, where a battery-fed starter-gener-
Sport mode: heftier ator can act as a motor and ladle extra torque
steering feels much
better into the driveline. Chiselling the alternator
off the engine and replacing it with the
32 minutes belt-driven integrated starter-generator (BISG)
Sport suspension has multiple benefits, from snappier stop-start
is fairly taut, and
to fuel saving, but the one that will universally
high-intensity bumps
can feel abrupt appeal is the enhanced performance. Yes, this
is Ford’s equivalent of cycling squad Team Sky’s
48 minutes infamous Jiffy bag, though everything is legit.
Extending a You feel the supplemented torque every
tea-drinker’s pinkie
while steering time you flex your right foot. It makes a tiny
triggers rear wiper – three-cylinder engine exhibit the charac-
aargh! teristics of a pushrod V8: it feels sufficiently
tractable at low revs that you could spend all day
driving around in too high a gear without the
engine bogging down. Not that the six-speed
manual gearbox is something that discourages
▲
interaction: shifts are clean, crisp and close. At
PLUS medium revs a larger turbocharger takes over,
Great mild-hybrid providing decent shove until you reach the 6k
update of EcoBoost
triple makes this rev summit.
newcomer the best In Normal mode, the mild-hybrid system’s
baby SUV to drive focus is on recuperating energy, which is
harvested during braking and coasting
MINUS to replenish the 48-volt lithium-ion
▼
battery in the boot. Kick down and
Jordan Butters
taking the strain off the engine.
It’s obvious when the EcoBoost Hybrid is
boosting or hybridising, but Ford of Europe’s
first digital instrument binnacle features a
Jeremy Vine-style swingometer just in case. It
rotates from Tory blue boost (to the right, natu-
rally) back to lefty green when you’re braking or
coasting and harnessing energy.
If you’d like another shot of e-boost steroids,
fumble for the bank of five microscopic switch-
es somewhere around your knees. Use one
button to toggle through the five driving modes
– Slippery and Trail adjust the powertrain and
braking settings to enhance traction in icy or
dicey conditions, Eco optimises economy – and
alight on Sport, whereupon the 12.3-inch digital
instrument cluster glows red and does a jig of
animation.
The revs rise and another mini-slug of over-
boost is there when you punch the throttle, but
it’s the steering tweak that’s most welcome. In
Normal mode, twist the silken leather steering
wheel and the front end reacts responsively,
but the action feels light and therefore a touch
sloppy. The Normal steering map gets better at
speed, but Sport mode irons this out across the
board, adding heft and positivity.
This Puma is an ST-Line X, which costs
from £23,645 – £3100 more than the entry-level
Titanium model. There are no downmarket ⊲
Handling
matches
the curvy
styling

Off-the-pace
interior; nagging the belt whips up a torque overboost of 15lb ft,
feeling that B-SUVs and on average fuel economy is improved by
are the devil’s work almost 2mpg. Thank the electric assistance

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 49

 First drives
Like lower-slung
original Puma, the
swoopy exterior
design takes cues
from coupes
The Puma is a distinguished newcomer in
an undistinguished class. It’s the most fun to
drive, packing a really sweet powertrain
Ford’s hybrid trims at first with the Puma, and your initial
swingometer (top); engine choice is between two versions of the
Megabox boot
recess (bottom) same 1.0-litre mild-hybrid triple – our car, with
its 153bhp, or a 123bhp model.
The base car has good standard safety
equipment: the Puma will automatically brake
if it anticipates a collision with car, cyclist or
pedestrian (or in the aftermath of a crash), and
will sound a warning and countersteer if you
veer out of lane.
The key inches are 17 for wheels and eight
for the central touchscreen, which runs Apple
CarPlay and Android Auto; included luxuries
number massage seats, wireless smartphone
charging and eye-catching DRLs in the
headlamps. Also standard is the Megabox, es-
sentially a rectangular recess beneath the boot
floor. Ford says it’s ideal for carrying tall items
like pot plants or golf bags, or dumping muddy
wellies – it has a plughole through which you
can hose out sediment. That’s the only advance
over Honda’s otherwise identical Ultra Luggage
concept from nigh-on 20 years ago. Megabox
doesn’t foul a twist-beam rear suspension with
bigger shocks and increased stiffness than
PRICE PowERtRaIn PERfoRmanCE wEIght
£23,645 999cc 12v turbocharged 153bhp @ 6000rpm, 1280kg
(ST-Line X 155) three-cylinder, 48V mild- 140lb ft @ 1900rpm,
Data hybrid assist, six-speed 9.0sec 0-62mph,
manual, front-wheel drive 127mph
50 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020
the related Fiesta’s; up front, the Puma’s body
perches on independent MacPherson struts.
The ST-Line X has retuned sports suspension,
and the ride quality feels taut on 18-inch rims
shod with Goodyear Eagle rubber.
Each contact patch acts like a divining rod,
feeding back a deep level of detail on the road
surface: cats’ eyes can cause a spot of turbu-
lence, and the Puma feels well lashed down
over sharp crests. The overall feel is tense but
not harsh, and tyre noise is well contained.
However, the rubber doesn’t always feel at
ease on a cold, damp morning: scythe into a
roundabout, get the power on, and the nose
glides off line. But it all comes together in
one afternoon stretch across the Dunstable
Downs: Normal-mode steering carving sweetly
as the nose dips and grips into corners, the
charismatic e-boosted engine hustling us
along, ride tension dissipated.
Incredibly for a small SUV, it reminds me of a
Porsche 911 – because of the curved front wings
bookending my field of vision, not because I’ve
lost my mind. Talking of Porsches, the design
has a hint of mini-Macan, embellished by an
undulating shoulder line and exaggerated rear
haunch. To these eyes the Puma looks great –
particularly from the rear three-quarter.
But Ford could really do with spending a
few dollars more on its cabins. There’s some
faux-carbon dashboard trim enveloping the
digital screens and a trail of red ST-Line up-
holstery stitching, but otherwise it’s a painfully
sober and dull place, occasionally betrayed by
some hollow and scratchy plastics. But what
you sacrifice in character you gain in spacious-
ness, with sufficient room for six-foot adults
in tandem, thanks to thin seats with space
beneath to poke your Jimmy Choos.
All told, the Puma is a distinguished new-
comer in an undistinguished class. It’s the
most fun to drive, extremely eye-catching and
packing a really sweet powertrain. To me, a
small SUV is a contradiction in terms: either
enjoy the superior agility and frugality of a
supermini, or upgrade to a bigger SUV if you
need genuine spaciousness and versatility. But
if you really must, the Puma is the one to have.
Phil McNaMara
First verdict
Looks good, drives good. Indeed, as good
as it gets in the world of B-SUVs. If only Ford
would make its cabins feel more special
HHHHH
EffICIEnCY on salE
50.4mpg, Now
99g/km CO2
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 It’s so comfortable, so well
sorted, you would be happy
piloting it for weeks on end

Don’t fancy the

high roof? Go for
longer, lower 680
version. Or drive
under a low bridge

52 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 First drives
Drives

VOLKSWAGEN GR AND CALIFORNIA 600

Bog standard
The bathroom is nice, but the way VW’s new camper drives is even better
That Volkswagen’s new factory-built Grand Cal-
ifornia camper van is packed with clever kitchen,
dining, bedding and bathroom solutions is easy
to believe. After all, its well-established baby THE FIRST HOUR
brother, the non-grand California, already
demonstrates the firm’s remarkable flair for 10 minutes
First stop, the
compact and functional interior design. Rather, local HiperDino
the one that’s really going to bake your noodle supermarket chain
is that this big bus is at least as good – probably for some essential
better – than its smaller sibling to drive. supplies – fridge now
correctly stocked with
For something weighing over three tonnes chocolate donuts
and based on a large van it handles extremely
well – very much like a giant Golf, in fact. It’s so 22 minutes
Go steady or that fruit will repaint your walls With 302lb ft of
easy to drive, you forget that it’s over six metres
long. In three days spent fairly hurling it at Gran torque available from
as low as 1500rpm,
Canaria’s mountain roads, it never felt too big find themselves looking upwards at the bottom even three tonnes of
or too heavy. Steep inclines would occasionally of the aircraft-style lockers that surround the camper can get a shift
induce breathlessness from the 175bhp 2.0-litre interior. Still, with an 80mm mattress and on. Passing slower
TDI, but the standard-fit eight-speed auto deftly sprung steel base, it’s otherwise a comfy place traffic uphill’s a breeze
dealt with all that. to catch some zeds. (You get a bigger bed in the 37 minutes
Does this matter, when surely the major longer version of the Grand California, the 680, Keeping the speed
point of this exercise is to provide a home away but that van is more than 6.8 metres nose to tail.) under control coming
from home on wheels? I’d wager yes. Because The kitchen in the 600 features extendable back downhill requires
from where I’m sitting (in the passenger seat, work surfaces, twin gas hobs and a fridge freezer. judicious use of the
gearbox – manual
swivelled round to face the living area, laptop in A pair of gas bottles in the back take care of the shifting is via the stick
front of me, cold beverage from the fridge on the cooking and the heating (although you’ll have only; no paddles
dining room table to my right…), the prospect of to pay extra for air-con that can cool you while
undertaking a multi-country bash in this beastie you’re parked in camping mode). A tank holding 59 minutes
Unlike many camper
requires absolutely no further consideration. 110 litres of clean water should keep you going vans, you don’t spend
Let’s start right now. The Grand California is so for a while. all day impatient to
comfortable, so well sorted, that you would be Up front the dashboard is all Volkswagen reach your destination
happy piloting this for weeks on end. Crafter – which is no bad thing, as that’s just – this one’s a pleasure
I’d be happy living in it for that amount of about the finest large van you can buy, with to drive
time, too. The premier advantage of this versus plenty of car-spec infotainment and safety kit.
the regular California (based on the smaller Options include a secondary sleeping area for
Transporter) is that you won’t need to wonder the kids over the cab, solar panels, wi-fi and a ▲
when the next civilised bathroom break is going satellite dish, while neatly integrated blinds and PLUS
to come along – because you’re carrying your mosquito nets are standard on all the windows. Clever and high
bathroom around with you. With a floor area of CJ HUBBARD quality, comfortable
just 840 x 800mm the bathroom is a small space, and good to drive,
on-board bathroom
but some smart solutions – including a fold-up First verdict
sink with a tap that doubles as the showerhead MINUS
The price may leave you in need of a lie down
– mean it’ll be roomy enough for most. (fortunately the bed is close by), but the Grand ▼
More people may struggle to feel fully at home California is an outstanding upgrade Pricey, not everything
in the main sleeping area, where six-footers will ★★★★★ stores away neatly

PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE

From £68,899 1968cc 16v twin-turbo 175bhp @ 3600rpm, 3015kg 29.0mpg, Now
diesel four-cylinder, 302lb ft @ 1500rpm, 212g/km CO2
Data eight-speed automatic, n/a 0-62mph, 101mph
front-wheel drive

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 53

 Your priority should be getting
somewhere you can flick the
CLA 35 into Sport mode

54 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | February 2020

 First drives
Drives

£38k CLA 35 is
undercut by only
one AMG, the M E R C E D E S - A M G C L A 3 5 4 M AT I C
A35 hatch

A hot hatch with CLAss

Merc-AMG’s most affordable saloon is a hot hatch in a four-door suit
Step in, fire it up and it’s easy enough to forget
this is very nearly the entry point to AMG
ownership. It sounds great, looks great, feels
great – it even smells great. The CLA’s interior THE FIRST HOUR
is already excellent and adding AMG’s huggier
seats and an alcantara wheel makes it even 10 seconds
better. There’s a promising bark from the That sleek roofline
engine to enjoy while you’re taking advantage is like a mini CLS –
just don’t clonk your
of the many opportunities to adjust things
head getting in
in the cabin, from the seat to the lighting. It
certainly doesn’t feel entry-level. 5 minutes
Figuring out the point and purpose of the 64 colours of
Mercedes-AMG CLA 35 takes some doing. ambient lighting
It does the job of a hot hatch, only it’s not a never gets old. But
hatchback. Despite what Mercedes says, it’s purple’s still king
not a coupe either – forget the slinky roofline,
it’s a compact four-door saloon. And even with 15 minutes
302bhp from its turbocharged four, in the great The gearbox and
stop-start system
scheme of things it’s not even that hot – not
make city traffic
when you consider the CLA 45 will offer up to miserable
415 bhp from a similar 2.0-litre engine.
As usual, desirable kit is pricey – the 30 minutes
Premium Plus model we’re driving costs almost The transformation
£46k as standard, and is bumped to a very juicy CLA: like CLS saloon and A35 hatch got randy in Sport mode is
£48,060 (almost C43 territory) by the optional remarkable. Parp,
Driving Assistance package and metallic paint. to get wonderfully noisy, and the throttle fart, pop, repeat
The 302bhp is pumped mainly to the front response tightens markedly.
wheels most of the time, but up to 50 per cent Quick steering and a reassuringly high 1 hour
can be sent rearwards if needed. It’s all driven level of grip were especially welcome on an icy Something less
through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic morning, though the careful progress we were powerful, less firm,
gearbox, which is quick enough to shift when forced to make wasn’t a great deal of fun. It and less than £38k
would be more
you take manual control but doesn’t half emphasised that a simpler, less powerful hot
satisfying
irritate in stop-start traffic. The ride errs on the hatch is more engaging at the sort of speeds
edge of uncomfortable, even with the adaptive you drive at most of the time.
dampers fitted to this test model in their The narrow boot’s a bit compromised, but if
cushiest setting. you miss the hatchback’s versatility then a few
Your priority should be getting somewhere extra quid nets you the CLA 35 Shooting Brake, ▲
you can flick the car into Sport mode, which which looks even better. PLUS
lets the CLA 35 play to its strengths. When TOM WILTSHIRE Good steering and
it comes to life, the childish noises from the grip; great noise;
sports exhaust system will be matched by First verdict outstanding interior
grunting and gurgling from the driver. The MINUS
Very close in price and dynamics to the
transmission’s earlier recalcitrance is replaced A 35, with even more visual drama. A lot of ▼
by rifle-quick shifts and a tendency to hang fun, but shy of dynamic brilliance High price; firm ride;
onto a ratio just long enough for the engine ★★★★★ narrow boot

PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE

From 1991cc 16v turbo four-cylinder, 4.9sec 0-62mph, 1590kg 38.7-39.2mpg, Now
£37,995 302bhp @ 5800rpm, 295lb 155mph (limited) 164-167g/km
Data ft @ 3000rpm, seven-speed CO2
dual-clutch, all-wheel drive

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 55

 First drives

AUDI RS Q8

Fast fashion
The RS Q8 is a rakishly roofed Q7 with a 592bhp kick. Faddy
high-rise coupe SUV? Partly. But its talents run deeper than that
Viktor Underberg, an Audi veteran of 25 years
recently put in charge of R&D at Audi Sport, is
convinced of this RS Q8’s abilities – a car that
shares its basics, after all, with the Lamborghini THE FIRST HOUR
Urus. ‘But,’ he says, ‘I shall cry out if you
overestimate your talent or underestimate a 1 minute
Looks aggro, but far
corner.’ Roger that. But even so, let’s set this from objectionable
thing on fire.
With 592 horses roaming the tight 4.0-litre 3 minutes
V8 corral and 590lb ft of torque rattling its gates, Eight driving modes!
Just dipping in, may
our master stallion instantly parts Tenerife’s
be some time
herd of rental-car ponies. The 2.3-tonner takes Viktor had left the passenger seat some time ago
just 3.8 seconds to hit 62mph, 125mph flashes 10 minutes
up a timewarp 9.9 seconds later, and with Drive driving characteristics between an overkill eight Ride quality
Select in Dynamic, overtaking distances shrink modes that include gentler Comfort, Balanced impresses despite
23-inch alloys –
to half-a-dozen car lengths and are more often and Offroad settings, plus an Individual setting active anti-roll will
than not completed in second or third gear. in which everything can be adjusted in isolation play a part in that
Our car’s optional Dynamic Pack Plus for the full Goldilocks. Handily, your two
deregulates top speed to 190mph from 155mph, favourite blends can then be stored in the RS1 20 minutes
Punchy acceleration,
but it’s not available at launch in the UK and and RS2 shortcut buttons on the steering wheel. though lag still
isn’t so useful on a remote island hours from the Dislikes? Those optional brakes could do with noticeable despite
nearest autobahn (or in Tenerife, boom, boom); more initial bite, less effort under full pressure ‘instant’ electrically
but the carbon-ceramic brakes (unconfirmed and a later ABS interaction. The engine comes assisted charger
for the UK), and quattro sport differential and equipped with an electrically assisted charger to 45 minutes
active anti-roll control system (both standard compensate for initial turbo lag, but despite this RS Q8 can handle,
here) certainly are as we carve up mountainous and other mod cons it doesn’t pick up eagerly full stop, never mind
hillsides. The diff contributes to agility, while enough from 2500rpm in second and third. for a 2.3-tonne,
1.7-metre-tall SUV
the active anti-roll improves the ride in a straight The flow is more flawless in Dynamic, which
line by decoupling the split stabiliser bars (even encourages faster gearchanges, quicker throttle
on 23-inch rims it’s good) while at the same response and more involving steering action –
time reducing roll, yaw and pitch through fast but more fuel-efficient coasting is a no-go with
corners. If you can, do spec these things. the chips locked in this setting.
Throw in a pronounced rear torque bias (up We know Lamborghini will be launching its
to 85 per cent) and standard rear-wheel steering Urus Sport, but could there be a brawnier RS Q8
and the RS Q8 remains flat and composed Plus? Or a lighter one? ‘There’s a thought,’ says ▲
almost irrespective of corner radius, surface and Underberg, smiling broadly and failing to cut PLUS
speed, with just a trace of oversteer evident when the idea dead. Performance, ride,
exiting a bend on heavy throttle. More than GEORG KACHER handling, design not
anything, this car loves quick esses and multi- too abrasive
lane roundabouts built halfway up a mild slope. First verdict MINUS
But it’s not all about fast and furious action: ▼
air springs can raise the ride by 90mm to make A plain-clothes Urus at a near £60k
discount? Not quite. But this is all the V8 more laggy than
navigating off-road tracks easier (though those performance you need in a great package advertised; RS6 less
23s do look vulnerable) and you can shift the ★★★★★ offensive

Having overtaken
every single
PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE vehicle on
£103,750 3996cc turbocharged 592bhp @ 6000rpm, 2315kg 23.3mpg, Now Tenerife, RS Q8
V8, eight-speed auto, 590lb ft @ 2200rpm, 277g/km CO2 ponders what to
Data all-wheel drive 3.8sec 0-62mph, do after lunch
155mph (limited)

56 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 The RS Q8 remains flat and
composed almost irrespective of
corner radius, surface and speed

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 57

 First drives

Inconvenient
avalanche in the
way? Gladiators
barely notice

auto and a naturally aspirated 3.6-litre petrol

J E E P G L A D I AT O R V6 conspiring to make the quoted peak power
output of 278bhp seem like it’s going to be

To the Maximus  caught with fake ID any second.

But this is on-road. Off-road it’s nigh-on
unstoppable. In top-spec Rubicon trim you get
THE FIRST HOUR

1 minute
Styling by Tonka,
What could be more fun than a Jeep not only fully mechanical 4WD – including diff
locks and lever-activated low-range gearing lighting by Star Wars
– someone’s gone
Wrangler? One with more of everything that will only engage properly if you’re rolling mad with the MOPAR
in neutral – but also ‘smart’ solutions such as a catalogue
front anti-roll bar that electronically decouples
▲ If it all goes to hell in post-Brexit Britain – when and a more linear accelerator map that’s 2 minutes
The doors can
PLUS the riots start and we have to forage ever automatically activated when you shift the be unbolted and
Crushing off-road further into the wilderness for food – we’re transmission into manual. removed. Decide to
capability; so hipster all going to wish we were driving one of these. In low range, it can crawl over an outstanding keep them on
it hurts Until then, you may be casually interested to array of obstacles – offset bumps, stepped
learn Jeep now builds a bigger version of the climbs, dead politicians – with barely a tickle of 35 minutes
MINUS Call that an off-road
▼ Wrangler. The Gladiator pick-up doesn’t just throttle. The chassis articulation is utterly nuts, obstacle? Find
Too big; too have a loadbed on the back, it’s got a longer and though its extended length does mean the something that’s
dynamically wheelbase too, taking its total length over 5.5 rear can catch on more aggressive ascents, actually a challenge
compromised metres. It’s larger than a Toyota Hilux. few vehicles come better factory-prepared and get back to me
Good to drive? By most measures, not really. for clumping through the countryside. 45 minutes
But in the wilds of suburban Detroit, where Combine that with carcass-friendly load space Forgetting to re-
the size is unexceptional, it bats away broken and unexpectedly fine attention to detail engage the anti-roll
tarmac with only a moderate amount of throughout an interior you can jetwash, and bar before the first
shudder through its body-on-frame chassis. you can understand the appeal. fast on-road corner is
not to be advised
Humming along on oversized all-terrain CJ HUBBARD
tyres, riding on lifted Fox Racing suspension 1 hour
and equipped with a barking sports exhaust First verdict It ain’t rational, but
– all official accessories from MOPAR, at this point you’ll
Undeniably appealing but of undeniably be begging Jeep to
Fiat-Chrysler’s parts division – this is like import them
niche interest in the UK. And Jeep remains
some kind of Tonka Toy fantasy. The power uncertain about selling it here
delivery is equally juvenile, an eight-speed ★★★★★

PRICE POWERTRAIN PERFORMANCE WEIGHT EFFICIENCY ON SALE

£50,000 3604cc 24v petrol 278bhp @ 6400rpm, 2301kg 24.1mpg, Now – but
(approx) V6, six-speed manual 260lb ft @ 4000rpm, 275g/km CO2 not in the
Data or eight-speed auto, 7.5sec 0-62mph (est), UK (yet)
all-wheel drive 95mph (est)

58 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

A u d i A1 C i t y C A r v e r
Audi carves a turkey
The Citycarver is a mildly crossoverified version
of the A1 that doesn’t entirely make sense
Seems a sound plan. While car buyers flock
to crossovers like moths to candelabras, dip a
brush in the SUV Styling Cues pot and apply it
to the A1 (together with a mildly silly name, in
best crossover tradition), stand back to admire
handiwork, reap possible rewards.
Said handiwork includes an extra 40mm of
ride height, a grille swap from the A1’s usual
hexagon to an octagon (as per Audi’s Q-series
SUVs), and wheelarch cladding – albeit glossily
finished, in keeping with the upmarket A1.
The results are mild, more akin to an
additional trim level than a standalone model.
Other faux-off-road superminis such as the
Ford Fiesta Active and Kia Xceed add roof
rails for added visual height but the Citycarver
disdains that trick. It’s simply a slightly jacked-
up A1 with chunky sills and bumpers.
That’s exactly how it drives, too. There’s
more bodyroll and your head sways a little
more in corners than it does in a regular A1, but
otherwise it’s business as usual. Recompense
for the extra roll is comfier ride quality, like
driving an automotive Air Max trainer.
There’s a choice of two petrol engines: a
Which way to
the prizegiving
for daft names?
This way
148bhp 1.5-litre four-cylinder, or a 114bhp 999cc
three-cylinder, which is what we’ve tested here
with the convenient and swift-shifting (but
£1540) DSG automatic gearbox. That would feel
extravagant in any other city runaround, but it
barely stands out in the A1 Citycarver, because
it’s so pricey to start with.
The entry-level 1.0-litre manual costs
£22,040, around £2295 more than an equivalent
regular A1 and enough to get you into a bigger
crossover such as 1.5-litre VW T-Roc, or a top-
spec Fiesta Active with a chunk of change to
spare. Our optioned-up test car weighed in at
over £28k. At first, the interior feels worthy of
the stiff price with its glossy touchscreen and
digital instruments, but then the novelty wears
off and the low quality of some of the plastics
begins to grate.
James Taylor
First verdict
Rides nicely and has a strong visual
presence but stiff price is hard to justify over
a roomier crossover or cheaper supermini
★★★★★
v o lv o v 6 0 t 8 t w i n e n g i n e
P o l e s tA r e n g i n e e r e d
What are those badges made of – lead, maybe,
or perhaps mercury? It’s a long name for a car
that’s on the heavy side and, at £57,205, on the
pricey side too: over £22k more expensive than
the entry-level V60.
The 2008kg kerbweight is in fact down to
the battery and electric motor that make this a
T8, a plug-in hybrid with 27.3 miles of electric
range, which is great for your overall economy if
you can charge it frequently.
Polestar’s treatment ups the total system
output from 385bhp to 400bhp, and tweaks the
brakes, suspension and cosmetics. It’s mostly
very agreeable to drive, but the weight stops it
feeling as nimble as you might hope given that
‘Polestar Engineered’ should mean more thrills.
First verdict
The best V60, but it’s pricey and the
hybrid element will be more help to some
than others
★★★★★
AlfA romeo giuliA (2020)
The Alfa Giulia: great to drive, not so great to sit
in. Minimal cabin storage, rough-edged plastic
and infotainment from another era are big
problems when your German rivals have honed
their interiors to show-home quality.
The mildly updated 2020 car benefits from
marginal gains – a more modern layout to the
now touch-sensitive infotainment screen, plus
two (two!) cupholders and a space for a wireless
phone charger.
Level 2 autonomy (lane-keep, adaptive
cruise, blind spot monitor and traffic sign
recognition) brings its driver-assist tech in line
with rivals. There’s still no LED headlight option,
and won’t be on this generation of Giulia.
All of this means you’ll be less distracted
while you enjoy the Italian saloon’s agile
handling and divine steering.
First verdict
Alfa hasn’t provided many new reasons
to buy a Giulia but it’s eliminated some of
the old reasons to avoid it
★★★★★
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 59
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Opinion
STE E L W H E E L S + SA A B S + TH A N K H E AV E N S FO R TH E 3 - S E R I E S
Letter
of the
month
Case closed
It felt more than a little tenuous to describe the
Giant Test in the December issue, featuring the
McLaren GT, Ferrari Portofino and Honda NSX,
as a GT comparison. No one is going to consider
a car with the luggage capacity of the Honda for a
grand tour. So your winner has to be eliminated
immediately. Why not just call it ‘Three Different
Ways to Spend £165k on a Fast Car’?
Nicolas Georgiadis
62 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
Wiener!
Following on from Phil Taylor’s letter
in the November issue, may I point out
that the said Rees-Mogg would also no
doubt issue an edict about the use of
Americanisms? I have noticed in recent
issues the use of terms such as fender,
hood, gas and trunk. What is wrong
with using the terms we are all familiar
with such as wing, roof, accelerate and
boot?
To me a fender is a large squashy
thing used to stop a boat getting
battered against something harder; a
hood is something I erect to protect my
convertible’s interior from getting wet;
gas is something elderly relatives suffer
from; and a trunk is what my parents
used to pack me off to school with
so that I could learn, amongst other
subjects, the use of English language!
Michael Peters
A day to remember
Your 2019 Sports Car Giant Test
(October issue) declares the McLaren
600LT the winner based on a sublime
day’s drive in Wales and, almost
parenthetically, the Porsche 911 the
best car in the test. This being CAR, we
can be confident both conclusions are
well-informed. Which do you suppose
is more relevant to your readers?
Pete Kraus
Used to be good
What are BMW playing at with their
new grille designs? Yes, Audi have
developed their grille design over the
last 10 years to make them bolder and
more aggressive. But the basic Audi
grille design suits this development.
This can’t be said for the BMW grille.
All BMWs sport a kidney grille – it’s part
of the design DNA of the marque – but
it just doesn’t do bling well. In CAR
November 2019 there is a preview of
what is probably the ugliest BMW
grille ever on the Concept 4 – which
you describe as ‘drastic’. And now we
have a massive grille on the X6 which
even has an illuminated option (First
S P O N S O R E D BY
drives, December 2019). As the caption
states, it’s a great target for Extinction
Rebellion. It’s the last thing that BMW
should be doing. It just cries out gas
guzzler.£
I know that grilles now house and
hide a lot of tech – but surely this can be
hidden in the lower air intake?£
I have a favourite road I walk down
near my house. I love it because it is
home to a pristine Z3. BMW designers
should take heed of the grille design.
Understated and elegant. So much
better!£
Tim Mein
All aboard
In the December issue your Retro Tech
on hybrids states that after the 1901
Lohner-Porsche ‘everybody ignores the
idea for a very long time’ and you jump
to the Prius in 1997.£
That may be true for cars, but I have
had the privilege of driving the 1914
Tilling-Stevens TS3 bus at Amberley
Museum in West Sussex several times
this year, carrying many members
of the public. Early buses were
often petrol-electric because of the
unreliability of the early gearboxes. A
later TS6 is being recreated from parts
obtained from far and wide. As they
haven’t yet mated body and chassis it is
possible to get a clear view of how the
system works. 
I believe that diesel-electric
technology was widely used in
locomotives for many years before
Peugeot’s 2012 creation. 
Reg Holmes
Nobody wants an ugly car
Am I alone in thinking that car design
has plummeted to an all-time low?
While the cockpit has improved in most
cases, the exteriors are now almost
indescribably bad.
Your January issue recently arrived
and I was appalled at the aggressive but
ugly appearance of most of the grilles.
Even BMW (with the X6) is approaching
the depths of some of the others. Audi,
Aston Martin, Lexus (admittedly only
a concept), Mitsubishi, Toyota, even
Citroën with the DS3 Crossback. If
these are the new cars on offer, no
wonder we are hanging on to our older
models. Whatever happened to style,
simplicity, fluency, etc. With lighting
now reduced in size, why not lower the
fronts of the cars? New designs such as
Honda, Jaguar, VW, Porsche and Volvo
show it can be done.
Geoff Wickes
Not too big, not too small
Your Top 5 in GBU in the January issue,
which highlighted compact estates,
reminded me just what a good style of
car this is for UK roads (and car parks,
and garages). And the list could have
been much longer – various Golfs,
Leons, Astras could have been included.
I think it’s a shame that we don’t
get an estate version of the current
Honda Civic. What are they worried
about – that it would mess up the
styling? I’d much prefer that to a Jazz or
HR-V or whatever Honda considers the
alternative to be.
Mick Adams
30 years of It’s a steel
change, if not Fascinating insights from Ben Oliver in
necessarily
progress his ‘Discovery at 30’ piece in the January
issue. I had no idea that Land Rover
went for the three doors/seven seats/
steel wheels combination in a bid to
stop it stealing Range Rover sales. I’m
no fan of seven seats, but I love a good
steel wheel, and three-door cars tend to
look a lot better than fives.
The hipsters he speaks of (and I’m
pretty sure we don’t have many of those
around my way) are surely missing out
by not snapping them up while they’re
still affordable, before they get banned.
Adam Plott
‘Van’ is not a dirty word
Ben Oliver is unnecessarily sniffy about
the looks of the original Discovery. The
Sherpa and Maestro elements give it a
ruggedness and function-first appeal
that’s long since gone missing. The
closer a 4x4 is to a van or a pick-up truck
or family estate, the better.
Les White
You’d really prefer Who moved the mountains?
a Jazz or an HR-V
to a Civic estate? A CAR reader even before moving to
Honda thinks so France in 1973, I recently revisited
How to have your say:
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@ CAR@bauermedia.co.uk
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CAR, Media House, Lynchwood,
Peterborough, PE2 6EA
my childhood haunts of Chester and
Anglesey. Driving through Snowdonia
I idly tried matching the scenery to the
atmospheric photos in your Giant Tests
and failed miserably.
Capel Curig and overnighting in
Betws-y-Coed creep into your text at
times but the nearby roads do not seem
to match your photos.
Without revealing trade secrets,
which B-road should I be heading for if I
ever get the chance to return ?
David Ling
It doesn’t take long to track down
these roads thanks to the magic of
online maps. There are actually very
few hairpins in Snowdonia: there’s
your starter. BM
My mansion or yours?
In the December edition of CAR the
letter from one Jeremy Davies caught
my eye.
Jeremy needs to consider those people
who live in terraced houses who do
not have any rights to the road space
outside their house and frequently are
forced to park their current internal-
combustion car some distance from
home. That would be some extension
lead for an electric car as per Mr Davies’
home-charge theory.
Our wonderful politicians simply say
you must go electric but then ignore
the details. I can see fights in the streets
looming.
Paul Dyer
Wrong direction
I couldn’t agree more with Ben
Pulman’s observations on touchscreens
(Our Cars, December).
This is true of so many functions on
so many different makes, and even ⊲
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 63
Opinion
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Jonathan Thomas
Hunt the handle
Who is this misguided person or
persons who keep asking the ridiculous
question of car companies: ‘Can you
hide my rear door handle in the C-pillar
so I can pretend my sensible four-door
car is a two-door coupe’?
They are the most awkward thing to
use and never fool anyone. Or is this
another incidence of car manufacturers
64 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
answering questions that nobody
asked?
Richard Gilbert
Wrong sort of customer
I very much enjoyed your article on
the new Aston Martin Vantage AMR
in Issue 689 but chuckled to read
‘Porsche’s Cayman GT4? You could have
two for the same money’.
I’d just returned from my local
Porsche dealer in Cardiff and can
confirm I couldn’t have two for the
same money because they wouldn’t sell
me even one. The salesman helpfully
explained they were reserved for
‘customers who bought 10 new models
from them each year’.
I’m happy to keep my Alfa 4C.
Steve Lewis
Caterham in disguise
Hmm… just reading Tim Pollard’s
review of the BMW M340i (First Drives,
December) and it takes me back,
remembering my first CAR magazine.
My brother-in-law, Tom, was a Saab nut
and I used to love travelling in his two-
stroke 96, with its amazing free-wheel
facility, and waving at the other Saab
drivers we saw (not a lot, to be honest).
I also used to read his CAR magazine
and I remember being introduced to the
idea of the Q-car.
Where are they now – what has
happened to this rare breed? The
prospect of winning the traffic-light
drag race in a cunningly anonymous-
looking no-hoper has always been a big
attraction, but in the flush of youth,
go-faster stripes and an unfeasible
number of Cibie spots on the front
BMW M340i: bumper always provided a more instant
surely all the car
anyone could gratification.
want or need With maturity and a bit more cash
comes an appreciation of the more
subtle joys of motoring, so back to the
Q-car. It’s taken almost 60 years since
that first CAR mag, but I reckon I’ve
got one of the best Q-cars of them all:
my lovely BMW M135i (straight-six and
rear-wheel drive, thank you very much).
In dark blue it’s really not that much
different from a 116d at a distance, but
enjoyably quick away from the lights
(never too old for that) and not bad on
the twisty point-to-point either.
I haven’t smiled as much since I had a
Caterham, but I can take my mother-in-
law home in this one and have a blast on
the way back!
Come on, CAR – more Q-car features
please.
Jon Hughes
Compact, Visa to the real world, please
colourful, full of Great to see CAR out and about in the
character: Paris
gets the cars it real world. Some of the 300-mile tests
deserves you’ve published in recent months have
had a strong local flavour to them, but
the best example is the Clio vs 208 story
in your January issue.
Having driven previous Clios and
208s, and having driven in Paris
on many (usually highly stressful)
occasions, Gavin’s description and Alex
Tapley’s photos were very vivid, and the
whole piece felt relevant. Much more so
than the usual blast round the block in
Spain or track test in Portugal.
Lee Burton
Manifesto
You should put these words in large
type on the front of every issue:
‘Anything bigger is needless excess, a
waste of road space, metal and fuel.’
That’s Gavin Green talking about
Golf-size cars in his Clio vs 208 piece in
the January issue.
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EDITORIAL
Editor
Ben Miller
Editor-in-chief
Phil McNamara
Managing editor
Colin Overland
Deputy features editor
James Taylor
Staff writer
Jake Groves
Digital editorial director
Tim Pollard
Online editor
Brave words. Provocative. I’m not sure Aston Martin that’s like a 911, 911 that’s like a Ferrari, Curtis Moldrich
I’d want to surrender my 3-series in manuals might Aston that’s like a Ford, couple of Art editor
need a bit more Mal Bailey
order to fall into line with Gavin’s edict, work, but they’re cracking superminis… and right at Editors-at-large
but I know he’s right, and that we need worth it the top, some real cars that real people Chris Chilton, Mark Walton,
to change our ways. would be well advised to spend their Ben Barry, Ben Pulman
Contributor-in-chief
And, judging by what he has to say time and money on. Gavin Green
about the new French superminis, As a BMW 3-series man through and European editor
there’s still plenty of driving pleasure to through, it’s reassuring to read that the Georg Kacher
be had from modestly sized cars. latest one still – just about – leads the Contributing editors
Ben Oliver, Ben Whitworth,
Jackie Eaton pack. Anthony ffrench-Constant,
Geoff Ingle Steve Moody, Sam Smith
Put a spring in your step F1 correspondent
Tom Clarkson
Your comments on the manual gearbox Office manager
in the Aston Martin Vantage AMR are INSTANT RE ACTIONS VIA FACEBOOK Leise Enright
interesting (First Drives, December).
I’ve found that most drivers don’t trust
Ford Mustang Mach-E Production controller
Richard Woolley

or understand the spring-loading and ADVERTISING

Commercial director
try and ‘stir’ the gearlever to find the Kelly Millis
next gear instead of letting nature take Digital commercial director
its course. Let the spring-loading do its Jim Burton
work and although the changes will be a Key account manager
Dan Chapman
shade slower you won’t wrong-slot. Account manager
I learnt this many years ago on the ZF Claire Meade-Gore
’box on my old DB5 which was similarly, Regional sales
and perhaps unfairly, criticised. Graham Roby

Jeffrey Box PUBLISHING

Marketing manager
I’ve owned 12 Mustangs since 1984 and Ford pretty Rachael Beesley
3’s still the magic number much just ensured that I’ll never buy another one. Direct marketing manager
Love the January issue front cover. Glenn Branton Julie Spires
That’s a lot of boxes ticked: Ferrari Direct marketing executive
I’m okay Ford building a kickass SUV but why did Amy Dedman
they disgrace the Mustang name? Editorial director
June Smith-Sheppard
David Goll Managing director
Niall Clarkson
First the Charger gets four doors, now the Mustang is Chief financial officer
an SUV. What next – a Camaro hot hatch? Lisa Hayden
Filipe Daniel Costa CEO, Bauer Publishing UK
Rob Munro-Hall
Not too bad - and I think they have to offer cars like
this, if we like it or not. Times are changing.
Florian Brückner

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 ‘I phoned in GP
reports from
a kitchen as
chow mein
was prepared
alongside’

T
his issue celebrates 70
years of F1. Allow me,
however, to take you
back a mere 40 years. It is
halfway through the 1980
season and an underrated
Australian driver called Alan
Jones is leading the title race. He
drives for Williams and will subse-
quently deliver Sir Frank his first world title.
In Australia, a young Sydney newspaper journalist is frustrat-
ed by the lack of publicity Jones is getting in his home country. His
race wins in Argentina, France and Britain get a few measly column inches
below the Sheffield Shield cricket and horse racing from Royal Randwick.
So, sensing an opportunity, the journalist leaves his job, jumps on a
Qantas jet to Europe and makes his way to the Styrian mountains and to
the Österreichring for the Austrian GP, round 10 of the championship.
That is primarily why I came to Europe, never to leave.
My first meeting with Jones did not go well. In those days, it was easy
to get a media pass to cover F1 races. I went to the Williams motorhome in
the paddock after the first day of qualifying to interview Jones. There was
a queue of journalists. Just as I passed the motorhome, the door opened
and Jones appeared. I jumped in, introduced myself, and said I was here to
give him the Australian media support he craved. There was a brief pause.
‘You can f*ck off,’ he replied. As introductions go, it was not a good start.
The rough-and-tumble of Australian newspaper journalism taught me
to stand my ground. I told him I’d just arrived from Australia, how I was
here to help him, and reeled off my Aussie media outlets which included
significant radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
There was a pause. Journalists nearby protested, the PR person was
demanding I join the end of the queue, and Jones looked at me with a mix-
ture of anger and intrigue. ‘Oh all right then,’ he said, and I was ushered in.
I subsequently interviewed Jones after every day of qualifying, and
every race, for the three remaining European races of that season. As I was
reports had to be filed in the evening – early morning Australia time.
In Austria I stayed in a guest house, sharing a room with two race
fans, an American and a Swiss. The elderly owners were happy for me to
disassemble their telephone and attach alligator clips from my cassette
recorder to their phone’s microphone to send Jones’ words, and mine, to
Australia. The written race reports were later sent by telex. This was before
fax machines became popular.
For the next race, at the Dutch seaside resort of Zandvoort, I used the
phone in a Chinese restaurant on both qualifying and race days. I spoke to
Australian radio from a disassembled phone in the kitchen as the chicken
chow mein and sweet-and-sour pork were prepared alongside.
For my final race, the Italian GP at Imola, I spent my first night sleeping
in a grass field next to the circuit. Fortunately, next morning, on the first
day of qualifying, I bumped into a friendly Australian PR man who worked
for Goodyear. He asked me where I was staying and when I motioned to an
adjacent field, he offered me the floor of his hotel room in nearby Bologna.
I soon became adept at pulling apart his room’s telephone.
Jones came second in both the Austrian and Italian GPs, always gave
me interviews and, I think, grew to like me. I liked his bluntness, colourful
language and driving style. He subsequently became the second Australi-
an to win the title after Sir Jack Brabham.
Media interest in Australia grew as the season progressed. My reports
Illustration by Peter Strain

reporting for radio, I would tape Jones’s thoughts on that day’s session,
using a microphone and cassette recorder.
Getting those recordings back to Australia was not easy. I could not
afford hotels and therefore had no convenient room phone from which
to send my reports, including Jones’ words, to the radio stations. These
may have played a small part. More significantly, Jones was homing in on
the world title. Australians like nothing more than sporting champions.
Gavin Green’s dad Evan’s many roles included being the voice of motorsport
on Australian TV, commentating on the Bathurst 1000 for many years

66 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 BE I

The vehicle registration BE 1 was issued by Lincolnshire County Council in 1903

The Heritage Collection

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1944
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1913
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BE
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BV
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CL
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1903
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DL
1903
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1913
I KE
1920
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1947
I VP
1928
I YH
1927
I
FH
1903
I HH
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1922
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1904
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1932
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 ‘We’re inexorably
drawn to gigantic
diesels with
pointless four-
wheel drive and
self-opening boots’

I
’ve been doing the 5:2 diet for two years
now, because I reached middle age and
realised I was going to die soon. For those
of you who haven’t heard of it, the 5:2 diet
means you restrict yourself to 600 calories
for two days of the week, then party on with
double breakfast the remaining five. Those two
fasting days lower your weekly calorie intake and
trick your body into burning fat reserves. (This isn’t
official dietary guidance, by the way, I’m just giving you the gist.)
One of the things this regime has highlighted is just how hard it is to
resist calories in the modern world. Supermarkets are gigantic reservoirs
of sugar and fat, and high street coffee chains harbour thousands upon
thousands of calories on every shelf. On my diet days, those calories call
out to me, hypnotically drawing me in like those deep-sea anglerfish, a
glowing lure above every flapjack and croissant.
This is because I have a Palaeolithic brain. I understand this. Around
two million years ago the human noodle grew bigger and started burning
20 per cent of our energy at rest, compared to just eight per cent for an
ape. We got ravenous for calories, but before agriculture came along
(10,000 years ago) breakfast was never a certainty. Studies of the world’s
remaining hunter-gatherers, like the Hadza tribe in Africa, have shown
that more than half of all hunting trips end in failure. This explains why,
over two million years – over 99 per cent of all human existence – we
were programmed to stuff our faces whenever an opportunity presented
itself. Killed a deer? Eat everything down to the bone marrow. Stumbled
on a beehive? Drain the whole tree trunk of honey ’til you’re sick. It’s easy
to see why, when a Stone Age brain enters Starbucks, it’s so hard to resist
draining the trunk there too.
So why don’t we apply this insight to our other human weaknesses?
Results at the end of 2019 showed that SUVs now represent 40 per cent
of all car sales across Europe. At the very moment we, as a species, have
come to understand the dangers of global warming and our need to
‘They sell lots of them, and make lots of money on them.’
But SUVs are our drug too, and our addiction comes out of the same
instinctive urges of our ancestors. Palaeolithic man sought out high
places with good views that could be easily defended. In a world where
predators prowled and the nights were pitch black, we developed an
instinctive sense of security. And we still respond to that: I’m absolutely
sure, if I were to take a Hadza tribesman out of Tanzania and ask him to
compare a Toyota Aygo with a Mercedes G-Class, he’d choose the Merc.
I’m talking about a people who live with no clocks, no crops, no roads or
houses or government. People who own no livestock and celebrate no
birthdays because they don’t have calendars. I still think he’d choose the
G-Class, because our human response to these cars is instinctive.
Seeing the SUV in parallel to our calorie addiction might help. Lots of
middle aged men like me have taken up the 5:2 diet and started wearing
lycra at the weekends. These aren’t just trends – they’re behaviours based
on improved knowledge and understanding. My grandad had a heart
attack in his forties, but then he smoked and ate chocolate cake every day.
He didn’t know any better, but I do.
So now we know all about the downsides of driving SUVs and we
understand their irresistible appeal, maybe a 5:2 diet could help here too?
But it can’t be two days of fasting and five days of diesel gorging. With
China, Europe and the US all binging, the 5:2 SUV diet will have to be
Illustration by Peter Strain

reduce CO2 emissions, we’re inexorably drawn to gigantic diesels with
pointless four-wheel drive and self-opening boots. Felipe Munoz, an
automotive industry analyst, believes that Europe will eventually follow
the US, and SUVs will make up 50 per cent of our car market. Like the
supermarkets and the coffee chains, the car manufacturers know they’re
on to a good thing. ‘SUVs are like a drug for car makers,’ Munoz says.
more severe: you get two days a week to drive your SUV and five days on a
bicycle as payback. And that leaves you feeling hard done-by? Ninety-nine
per cent of your ancestors would disagree.
Editor-at-large Mark Walton is more sports car than SUV in build. If only
his column didn’t follow the Twizy-thin Gavin Green’s in the magazine…

68 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 F I E S TA
S T- L I N E E D I T I O N

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Figures shown are for comparability purposes; only compare fuel consumption and CO 2 figures with other cars tested to the same technical procedures. These figures may not
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Giant
test
THE DEFINITIVE VERDICT

W
70 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
 NeW VW Golf | BMW 1-series | ford focus

VW’s survived Dieselgate

and returned all guns blazing
with a Mk8 Golf that must
prove two things: that it’s
better than the rest; and that
the world still needs a Golf
Words James Taylor Photography Alex Tapley

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 71

 The Giant
Giant Test
test: new VW Golf
VW GOlf
Back once again
with the master
W
e know a great deal about the new Golf already. Of
course we do – cars this important do not arrive
unheralded. And the new Golf is important. When,
last year, VW’s highest echelons were asked which of
the company’s new-for-2019 hatchbacks, the all-new
Mk8 Golf or the electric ID3, was the more important car, there wasn’t a
moment’s hesitation: Golf.
We know the new Golf is technologically ambitious, beautiful on the
inside and neat but conservative on the outside. But what’s it like to drive?
Because that matters more than ever, when the rivals are this good.
Ford’s Focus is a dynamic masterpiece and, incredibly, the new 1-series
(with Golf-style transverse engine and front-wheel drive) is just as much
fun to drive as its lairy, cramped and sideways rear-drive predecessor;
72 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
just different. To cut to the chase, the Golf is excellent. On a fiendishly
twisty stretch of Portuguese hill road, its corners by turns ultra-grippy or
dew-drenched and slippery, depending on whether they’re in shadow or
not, the Golf gets down to business.
Delve into the Individual driving mode menu on the touchscreen,
swipe the slider to full Sport to tighten the damping and off you go. The
dynamic management system can adjust damping forces individually, to
help quell bodyroll, and like the BMW it applies slight braking to indi-
vidual wheels mid-corner to keep things neutral. Unlike the Ford, which
is happy to swing its rear axle and help you rotate, the VW is unerringly
composed. The standard steering rack has been quickened compared
with the outgoing Mk7.5’s, and the optional progressive rack fitted here
(less effort at low speeds, less lock at high) feels more natural than ever.
Tackling each corner with less braking and more preserved momen-
tum, the Golf refuses to break sweat. You keep expecting it to collapse
into excessive roll and depressing understeer but it never does. Certainly
you’re aware of a layer of insulation from the action, but neither the
BMW nor the Ford can drop the Golf.
And when, inevitably, you hit traffic and normal service is resumed,
the Golf is the place to be. Its ride quality is staggering; just sublime on
the occasionally awful southern European tarmac of our test route.
(Or at least it’s sublime on the optional DCC – VW’s Dynamic Chassis
Control – plus adaptive dampers and 17-inch wheels; the Ford and BMW
ride on 18s as standard, and the VW can be ordered with 18s too.) Option
prices are yet to be confirmed for the UK but reckon on having to find
£1000 for the DCC kit – a lot of cash, but it’s also a lot of ride quality.
In Comfort, the Golf rides better than almost any other mainstream
car you can think of. Potholes simply disappear yet the VW never
relinquishes its body control; never yields to uncomfortable, confi-
dence-sapping wallow. The Ford isn’t far behind, and achieves its bump
isolation through more affordable, lighter and less complex means. The
If this looks like
M Sport 1-series rides the same tarmac like a race car, crashing over an iPhone held
ridges and communicating every lump and bump straight to the seat of landscape, that’s
your long-suffering pants. It boils down to the roads you regularly drive. no coincidence
If they’re smooth and empty, treat yourself to a more communicative,
agile hatchback than VW’s latest, greatest Golf. But if, like most of us,
you need your new car to do it all, from runs into town to motorway Conservative
styling jazzed
days to regular commuting missions, you’d be brave to ignore the VW’s up by entirely
astonishing bandwidth. un-conservative
The new Golf’s engine range stretches from 1.0-litre tiddlers to Lime Yellow paint
2.0-litre diesels, all of them based on the Mk7’s range but evolved for
greater efficiency. There’ll be hybrids too, both plug-ins (including a hot
GTE version) and mild eTSI, pairing petrol engines with a 48-volt starter-
generator and battery. But this one is the hybrid-free 1.5-litre four-
cylinder petrol, with cylinder deactivation and a six-speed manual
gearbox. The shift is light of throw, wide of gate and fine but forgettable
– a means to an end rather than a thing of mechanical joy like a Ford’s.
The 1.5-litre petrol four was a real star of the Mk7 Golf range, and it’s
still great: so quiet you might need to lower a window to hear it running
at idle, and as smooth as pâté. But it feels a touch less eager than it used ⊲

Potholes simply disappear,

and yet the VW never
relinquishes its body control

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 73

 The Giant
Giant Test
test: new VW Golf

Golf an
expensive
brogue to the
Ford’s high-
street trainer

The Golf stuffs the full luxe

Audi A8 limo experience
into a humble £25k hatch

to, and strained at high revs. Its cause isn’t helped by the Golf’s long gear
ratios; twisty roads feel too fast for second gear, too slow for third. In
both cases blame the need to reduce emissions.
But the Golf’s powertrain, and indeed its chassis, are but support acts
for the main event: the interior. If the Mk4 brought executive saloon
levels of finish and refinement to the hatchback, the Mk8 stuffs the full
luxe Audi A8 limo experience into a humble £25k hatch. Strong horizon-
tal design themes give a breathtaking sense of space and pared-back,
boutique-hotel minimalism, helped by the de-cluttering effect of the
touchscreen infotainment. The materials feel impossibly expensive – so
soft-touch you’d worry for their durability were this not a VW.
The primary means of interaction is via the 10-inch touchscreen
(standard in the UK; entry-level German cars have an 8.25-inch screen) or
by chatting to it. ‘Hello Volkswagen’ is the trigger phrase. Follow that up
with ‘My feet are cold’ and you get the response: ‘No problem. Warming
front-left [in our left-hand-drive test car].’ The car knows where you are
and directs the airflow accordingly. Swish.
But as with so many new pieces of consumer technology, the Golf’s ▼
systems are frustrating as often as they’re joyous. For every quick, pre-flight briefing V W golf
clever response, there’s a nonplussed request to repeat the question.
And the touchscreen itself can be recalcitrant and slow to respond. It
Why is it here? adaptive cruise control
has an interface that needs concentrated learning, rather than intuitive can be enabled
menu-hopping on the fly. We might have been saddled with an unusually Since 1974 VW has retrospectively.
latent screen in our pre-production car; we’ve tried another that was far sold 35 million Golfs,
or one every 40 Which version is this?
less laggy. seconds. So a new
But the system can be so obfuscating you wonder if some traditional Golf is a significant There are four trim
waypoint for mankind, levels. Base trim; then
Golf buyers might be put off by a test drive. The modish slider controls not just the business Life; and the joint
used to adjust volume and temperature also don’t illuminate at night, of car making. range-toppers R Line
and are slow to register your inputs, while the navigation map is awkward Mobile Key (you can and Style, as tested
Any clever stuff? use your smartphone here (plusher cabin).
to pinch, swipe and pull about. The Tesla Model 3 just about gets away as the key); We The engine range is an
with its even more button-averse interior because its touchscreen is so Car-to-infrastructure Deliver, currently evolution of the Mk7
capability, to receive undergoing trials, Golf’s, starting with
intuitive and accessible; on the basis of this first meeting, the Golf’s just and share warnings whereby delivery 1.0-litre three-cylinder
isn’t slick enough. Or at least, not yet. Like the Tesla, over-the-air updates of hazards from/ drivers can leave petrols and extending
may be able to smarten its interface over time. with other vehicles parcels in your boot to a 2.0-litre TDI. New
and traffic facilities; via a digital key; and 48-volt mild-hybrid
So, the new Golf’s a much better car than it is giant smartphone. We’d optional LED matrix We Upgrade, where eTSI variants have
far rather that than the other way around. ⊲ headlights (pictured); features such as also joined the range.

74 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Manual gearbox the
only 20th century
thing about the new
Golf’s interior

Mk8 body follows

VW design habit
of not fixing what’s
not broken

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 75

 1-series now
has decent
boot, second-
row space
and front
tyre wear

Massive kidney
grille but massive
ability too. So, you
know, move on

76 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Giant test: new VW Golf

Awesome
seats, fat
steering wheel
rim – home

more underfloor storage space than the Focus). And there’s far more rear
space than before, although with the body’s high beltline pinching the
rear windows and giant C-pillars, it still feels a touch cramped in the back
of the BMW, particularly for tall passengers. All three cars are broadly
similar for roominess, the Focus a smidge ahead for legroom and the Golf
the headroom champ (the Ford’s hope of a win dashed by this particular
car’s space-snaffling glass roof).
BMW 1-sERIEs If the Golf’s interior is like a luxury limo decanted into a hatchback,
the 1-series is bonsai sports saloon. M Sport spec brings deeply bucketed

BMW’s Golf is
leather seats and textured trim, lifted by eye-catching patterned ambient
lighting. The Golf has its own interior light show, trumping the BMW’s
choice of six colours with up to 32 shades to toggle through, depending

still very BMW

on spec. The Golf gets digi-dials as standard while basic 1-series use
analogue dials, but with the appropriate option pack box ticked the bin-
nacle matches the layout of BMW’s bigger cars with symmetrical digital
instruments, although it has just the one main display to the VW’s choice

C
of four. The BMW also adds a crisp head-up display, complete with shift
learly, the Portuguese don’t believe in the concept of lowest lights. Like the VW, it’s projected directly onto the windscreen, while the
common denominator when it comes to pegging their Ford’s HUD is beamed onto a transparent strip of plastic.
motorway speed limits. We’re racing west, into the setting The 1-series cabin is less impressive than the Golf’s (the map graphics
sun, and fading amber light plays across a mountainous in particular look low-rent compared with the Golf’s living, breathing OS
landscape of sawtooth peaks, gut-churning drops and a map) but it’s the best infotainment here. Some mocked BMW’s shotgun
serpentine stretch of dual carriageway. Overloaded Dacias approach on the 7-series and 5-series, as it pursued control via voice,
churn up the climbs, unable to hold anything like the 120km/h limit. On gesture, touch and iDrive, but it now looks like a prescient decision.
the downhill curves, ancient Clios with dampers that no longer damp Traditionalists can iDrive, while the iPhone-trained can play on a screen
squirm at the limits of their equally ancient rubber. more responsive than the Golf’s.
The 118i, by contrast, is imperious. Provided you’re carrying a little You can still crank the seat low, as you should be able to in a BMW,
momentum the 1.5-litre turbocharged triple does a great impression of and like the Golf, the seats are superbly supportive. And while the ride is
something far more powerful, hauling the BMW up each slope without by far the firmest here (not least because M Sport spec includes a 10mm
fuss. And with gravity on your side you’re left wondering just how fast the suspension drop), the 1-series is perfectly tolerable for daily use.
118i could tackle these fiercely three-dimensional curves. Fully double Has nothing been lost, then? Well, the new car hasn’t the unique
the posted limit? Probably. character of the old 1-series, nor its balance. But it is an enjoyable hatch
The BMW carries its weight low, and – in true, er, Mini style – sticks a to drive, with communicative, adjustable handling. So clearly does the
wheel (wearing a broad and grippy tyre) right out into each corner of the BMW tell you what’s going on at each corner, and so unobtrusively do its
car. Steering is meaty and direct, with no real straight-ahead slack, and chassis systems work, that you always feel on top of it. The Golf is more
in combination with the uncompromising set-up (the BMW’s shockingly comfortable. But the 1-series is the one you’ll remember. ⊲
firm after the limo-pliant Golf) – the result is a level of communication
and control that quickly builds confidence. A driver’s car, then, despite
the heresy of front-wheel drive. In truth you wonder why BMW didn’t ▼
make the switch sooner. pre-flight briefing bMW 1-series
Well, what would you do? Say you’re BMW and you’ve been making a
hatchback with a rear-drive USP, with all the packaging disadvantages 1-series is the first
Why is it here?
that entails, but research suggests a significant proportion of existing combustion-engined
1-series owners don’t even realise their car is rear-wheel drive – and by Once curiously BMW to feature it. And
shaped, with a north- it works brilliantly.
staying the way you are platform-sharing opportunities are being missed south powertrain and
by the truckload. And if people didn’t notice which axle did the driving in rear-wheel drive, the Which version is this?
1-series is now a con-
their old 1-series, they certainly noticed that it had less space in the back ventional transverse, The entry-level engine,
and a smaller boot than their neighbour’s Golf. front-drive hatch, on slip controller that BMW’s now-familiar
That’s no longer the case. The three boots here are much of a muchness the same underpin- works directly with 500cc-per-cylinder
nings as the BMW X1, the ECU rather than turbo triple, is badged
for size, shape and usefulness (although the two Germans have a touch X2 and various Minis. further out of the loop 118i here. M Sport trim
in the stability control brings 10mm lower
Any clever stuff? unit. The result is more suspension and a
There’s a level of communication ARB (translating as
controlled wheelspin,
particularly handy for
handsome bodykit. All
1-series get multi-link
and control that quickly builds actuator contiguous
wheel-slip limitation)
reducing power under-
steer for lead-footed
rear suspension where
entry-level VW Golfs
is standard on all
confidence; it’s a driver’s car 1-series. It’s a wheel-
drivers. First seen
on the BMW i3S, the
and Focuses use a
torsion beam.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 77

 The Giant
Giant Test
test: new VW Golf
Ford Focus
People’s car versus people’s car
O
ne corner. That’s all it takes. The slightest turn of the Ford’s
wheel and you’re smiling. Where the Golf’s measured and
the BMW meaty, the Focus feels alert, eager.
This is the Ford’s USP: the ability to make a humdrum
drive fun; every roundabout an arc of apexes to be kissed.
Where the 1-series is all about taut, grippy, flat-stance
cornering, the Focus is big on nailed-down front-end grip and a mobile,
lightly oversteery rear axle. Both are fun, but a lot of the time it’s the Ford
that gives you the bigger kicks.
The downside is that, as you experience them, you’ll be sitting in the
drabbest interior here, by some margin. The inside of the Focus is under-
whelming in isolation, but after the BMW and the VW it feels like a car
from a decade ago. As interior tech increasingly becomes a differentiator
and a key selling point, this deficiency can only put bigger dents in the
Ford’s desirability.
Still, everything’s in the right place, and simplicity itself to operate.
Where in the VW you’re cursing (with or without voice control), the
Ford is on your side. It too has voice control and a prominent touch-
screen, which thanks to fonts bigger than a pensioner’s phone is mostly
straightforward to use. And, like the BMW, the air-con controls are good
78 cArMAGAZINE.co.uK | FEBRUaRY 2020
old-fashioned buttons. If a lorry ahead coughs out a load of carcinogens,
you hit the recirculation button. In the VW, you delve into a menu.
Ride quality on the optional adaptive dampers is agreeable, too. It’s
not as memory-foam supple as the VW, but smoother than the 1-series.
Like the Golf, lowly Focus variants get a torsion beam at the back. More
powerful variants, including this car, feature multi-link rear suspension
(standard on the 1-series). The Ford’s set-up is most masterful, the only
unwanted by-product of that refreshingly pliant tune being a little extra
bobbing through fast, bumpy corners, the movement exacerbated by the
Ford’s quick steering. But on bubblier UK roads, the Focus is outstand-
ingly comfortable.
We’d pick the standard manual gearbox, however. Not just because it’s
sweet (one of the best mainstream shifts around) but because the eight-
speed auto in this test car is as slow-witted as its take-up in stop-start
traffic is abrupt. If you don’t want a manual, don’t buy the Ford.
Gearbox and flair-free interior aside, badge snobbery is the Focus’s
main enemy in this company. Even in faux-hot-hatch ST Line spec and
with bright red paint, the Focus struggles to get noticed next to the
Touring Car 118i and Tate Modern Golf. But you can’t miss its price. Golf
pricing in the UK is yet to be confirmed but expect it to start at around
£22,500 for a 1.0-litre petrol. The 1.5-litre Golf in toppy Style trim tested
here equates to around £26k, but would be more given its options, includ-
The Focus is big on nailed-down
ing DCC and LED matrix headlights (which we’d pass on, given their lack front-end grip and a mobile,
lightly oversteery rear
of urgency to dim for oncoming cars at night during our test). The BMW
starts in the mid-twenties for a 118i or 116d, with M Sport trim taking our
test car to £27,230. (Our car’s option packs – including such goodies as
digi-dials, HUD, heated screen and incredible stereo – take the price way
past £30k, but that £27k is the key figure for a pared-back 118i M Sport.)
The Focus, meanwhile, can be had from £18.5k for a base-trim 1.0-litre,
and a 1.5 in ST Line trim costs less than £24k (plus £800 for the adaptive
dampers, and about a grand for the panoramic roof). Okay, so it’s not a
huge a gulf in price, but it certainly helps give the Ford a handy tailwind.
The Focus also has the strongest engine here. The Ford’s all-alumini-
um triple is much more flexible and stronger to pull from low revs than
the Golf’s, despite its cylinder shortfall. What’s more, its bigger pistons
give it more torque – the Volkswagen and BMW feel a tad weedy by
comparison. The EcoBoost is coarser than the Golf’s smooth four, and it
has a thrummier note than the BMW triple, but you can’t argue with the
in-gear pull from low revs.
So, buy your 1.5 Ford with the manual gearbox, and smile at a chassis
that’s gloriously fluid, fluent and adjustable. Although the interior falls
behind the others on design and quality, Ford’s ride/handling genius is
enough to overshadow that at times. (It’s worth bearing in mind that the
chassis of the Focus ST is even better, and the ST is not all that much
more expensive than the BMW without options.) And smile because,
while the Ford’s Sync infotainment feels conspicuously off the pace, This is ST Line as
opposed to ST:
CarPlay sidesteps that neatly. Smile too at what is appreciably the strong- you’ll need £30k
est engine here. That’s a lot of smiling. ⊲ for the hot hatch

Golf looks
far more
expensive.
Is actually
a bit more
expensive

▼
pre-flight briefing ford focus

Why is it here? turbocharged engine,

and it’s a gem: quiet,
The Focus conquered flexible and so much
the Mercedes A-Class punchier than its size
and Kia Ceed to suggests.
become our reigning
family hatch champ. Which version is this?
Now there’s a new Golf
and 1-series to give it This is the sporty-look-
a hard time, just as it ing ST Line trim, Ford’s
was getting comfy on equivalent to M Sport
its throne. It’s the most or R Line. The range
affordable car here by pull-away in traffic, kicks off with 1.0-litre
a handy margin. speed sign recognition EcoBoost petrols
and speed adjust- and torsion-beam
Any clever stuff? ment, and headlamp rear suspension. This
patterns that adjust 1.5-litre EcoBoost gets
Much of the technolo- to bends ahead for multi-link rear suspen-
gy is on a par with the optimum vision. Like sion and the optional
competition, including the BMW, this Focus auto gearbox – which
autonomous halt and uses a three-cylinder we’d avoid.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 79


NEW GOLF & RIVALS
THE DETAIL
V W GOLF 1.5 TSI
150 STYLE
AFFORDABILIT Y
£ £26,000 (est)
(£28,016 est as tested)
Representative PCP
£225pm (47 payments),
£4750 deposit, 10k miles/yr,
4.9% APR (approx)
Approved used value n/a
(too soon)
POWERTRAIN
Engine 1498cc turbo-
charged 16v four-cylinder
Transmission Six-speed
manual, front-wheel drive
PERFORMANCE
Power 148bhp @
5000rpm
Torque 184lb ft @
1500rpm
Top speed 139mph
0-62mph 8.5sec
B O D Y/ C H A S S I S
Structure Steel
Weight 1315kg
Suspension MacPherson
strut front, multi-link rear
(torsion beam on sub-
148bhp versions)
Length/width/height
4284/1789/1456mm
Boot capacity 380 litres
EFFICIENCY
Fuel capacity 50 litres
Official economy
53.3mpg (approx)
During test 29.7mpg
Range 586 miles (327
miles on test)
CO2 121g/km
80 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
The Focus
finds its
German
counterparts
in reflective
moods
BMW 118i FORD FOCUS 1.5
M SPORT ECOBOOST ST LINE
£27,230
(£34,090 as tested)
Representative PCP
£23,895
(£25,345 as tested)
Representative PCP
£399pm (36 payments), £307pm (36 payments),
£500 deposit, 10k miles/yr, £2500 deposit, 9k miles/yr,
4.9% APR 0% APR
Approved used value Approved used value
£20,590 (auto, 10k miles) £16,795 (auto, 10k miles)
Engine 1499cc turbo- Engine 1497cc turbo-
charged 12v three-cylinder charged 12v three-cylinder
Transmission Seven- Transmission Eight-speed
speed dual clutch, auto, front-wheel drive
front-wheel drive
Power 138bhp @ Power 148bhp @
4200rpm 6000rpm
Torque 162lb ft @ Torque 177lb ft @
1480rpm 1600rpm
Top speed 132mph Top speed 129mph
0-62mph 8.5sec 0-62mph 8.9sec
Structure Steel Structure Steel
Weight 1365kg Weight 1329kg
Suspension MacPherson Suspension MacPherson
strut front, multi-link rear strut front, multi-link rear
Length/width/height
4319/1799/1434mm
(torsion beam on entry-
level cars)
FINAL RECKONING
Boot capacity 380 litres Length/width/height
4378/1979/1461mm
Boot capacity 375 litres
Eighth
Fuel capacity 42 litres Fuel capacity 55 litres
time
Official economy
49.6-56.5mpg
During test 33.5mpg
Official economy
45.6mpg
During test 31.7mpg
lucky?
Well, no
Range 520 miles (309 Range 552 miles (384
miles on test) miles on test)
CO2 129-114g/km CO2 138g/km
 Giant test: new VW Golf

1st
Bmw 1-series
Doesn’t re-write any rulebooks – it’s
just a fun, practical and desirable
hatch… like a Golf, but better
HHHHH

2nd VolkswaGen Golf

Infotainment is not a roaring
success but just about everything
else is. Refined and desirable
HHHHH

3rd ford focus

Great to drive and the 1.5 petrol
engine is a star. Just lacks gloss
and premium appeal
HHHHH

T
he Focus is more fun to drive than any mainstream hatch
since, well, the first Focus, and the Peugeot 205 before it. It’s
the most affordable car of these three, the least pretentious,
its engine is a peach, it’s practical and, for some, its incred-
ibly fluid and adjustable handling make it the winner. But
for the rest of us the Ford is lacking in this company; its
interior feels a generation behind, and it’s short of the gotta-have-one
appeal the Germans have bestowed upon their new-generation hatches.
The Golf is laudably ambitious, democratising the kind of design and
technology previously reserved for cars four times its price. It is by some
margin the most comfortable car here, and it drives beautifully – not as
involving or lively as the 1-series or the Focus, sure, but with an endlessly
pleasing balance of agility, composure and refinement.
But for the first time in ages there are a couple of reasons why you
might not buy a Golf. One of them, paradoxically, is its show-stopping
interior. It’s beautifully put together, stunning to behold and a timely
reminder of the fundamentals the Golf has always got right: great visi-
bility, superbly supportive seats with plenty of adjustment, and a sense of
space at odds with the car’s size. But the new interface just isn’t intuitive
enough. Even if you’re a digital native, fluency will take some soak time.
Volkswagen should be applauded for taking a risk on the new Golf’s cabin
(particularly since the exterior is so safe) and, had it been more cautious,
it would be weathering criticism for being dull. But the truth is the other
cars are easier to gel with.
The other reason is the 1-series. It blends much of the fun of the Focus
with the premium sheen of the Golf, and has a more memorable charac-
ter than either. Its cabin is less attractive than the Volkswagen’s but more
intuitive to operate, and more expressive than the Ford’s. In the BMW’s
migration to a Golf-esque engineering layout, it’s a shame that the hatch
world has lost one of its few iconoclasts in favour of a more homogenised
design. But the reality is that going transverse and front-drive has made
the 1-series a more well-rounded car than ever – just as a new Golf turns
up hoping the BMW’s still brilliantly weird. It isn’t: now it’s just brilliant.
And it wins.

february 2020 | Get 3 issues of car for just £5! www.GreatmaGazines.co.uk 81

 Inside
Accessing All AreAs

82 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | February 2020

Tri, tri
again
With heritage to die for but sales
in the doldrums, Maserati is about
to hit the reset button. Peek
inside a company about to go
on the offensive once again
Words Ben Barry Photography Jordan Butters

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 83

 Inside Maserati

G reat metaphor, terrible paint job.

The mirror-finish bluey purple on
the Maserati GranTurismo Zeda’s
shapely nose bleeds to near black
and anthracite and silver before
finally there appears to be no paint
at all, just the scratchiness of bare
metal. The unkind might liken it
to watching a nasty bruise healing in stop-motion, but the GranTurismo
Zeda – zeda meaning Z in the Modenese dialect – parked symbolically at
the end of the Viale Ciro Menotti production line in Modena is a one-off to
mark the end of the model’s epic 12-year run, and there’s something of the
struggle of a space shuttle scorching back into Earth’s orbit to that paint, a
transition between two worlds that’s not entirely painless.
Viewed in the context in which Maserati finds itself today, I can see what
they’re driving at: the GranTurismo almost bridges the chasm between the
simpler times of its launch in 2007 to an all-new era that will banish diesel,
leave behind today’s Ferrari-made engines, embrace full electrification and
Bologna council
won’t be hurried introduce more SUVs, hands-off Level 3 autonomy and – best ’til last – a
with that blue new sports car built on a new platform that we’re assured will pop petrol in
plaque its cylinders, even if electrification is eventually inevitable too.
That sports car will be the long-awaited Alfieri, albeit significantly
evolved from the concept first teased during Maserati’s centenary in 2014.
And so the Zeda’s rump is unfinished, much work still to be done, the
results of which the GranTurismo won’t live to see. Apt.
We’ve come to Modena to learn more about the future, but it seems
appropriate to begin our journey where Maserati itself began life, not in
Modena, but 25 miles east in Bologna, on Via de Pepoli. The trident and
the blue and red on the badge reference the statue of Neptune in Piazza
Maggiore and Bologna’s colours respectively.
We hop in a Levante Trofeo SUV – currently Maserati’s most expensive
and powerful model at £125k, and with 572bhp from its Ferrari-derived
3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 – and strike out from Modena to Bologna.
The Trofeo initially feels an easy-going companion, with a compliant ride,
comfortable seats, generous space and mid-weighted steering. Accelerate
Zeda meets casually off a slip road and there’s an effortlessness and silkiness to both
the world for
the first time the eight-speed automatic and the V8 – here with a smoother cross-plane
crank, not Ferrari’s fizzier flat-plane version. With all-wheel drive and
lofty visibility it’s a relaxing, reassuring drive during the early-afternoon
downpour. But mash throttle to carpet and the Trofeo freefalls through
gear ratios and fires explosively forwards, viciously even. It’s so startlingly
rapid and responsive that I switch to manual mode to soothe its anger.
Through the depressing sprawl of Bologna’s busy, unremarkable ⊲

We’ve come to Modena to learn

about the future but it seems
appropriate to start our journey
where Maserati began life
84 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2019
Restored Birdcage
among the stars
of the Panini
collection

Latest SUV
outside original
garage business

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 85

 What a grid! At the
front, 6C/34 racer
and the A6GCS
that inspired the
Alfieri concept

86 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Inside Maserati

When de Tomaso sold the

business to Fiat he insisted his
collection be part of the deal

periphery, flattened during WW2 Allied aerial bombing, we thread into

the old town with its faded pastel yellows and reds, shuttered windows
and pretty archways and porticoes. Via de Pepoli is a hard left off Via
Castiglione, and the narrow old cobbled street triggers the 1.9-metre-wide
Levante’s parking sensors as we swing in.
CAR’s Ben Barry
You’d barely get a Levante out of a garage here, let alone knock one has one question
together inside, but it’s on this quiet street that Alfieri, Ettore and Ernesto for Matteo Panini:
what’s for lunch?
Maserati founded Societa’ Anonima Officine Alfieri Maserati in 1914. It was
initially a car-repair business, then after the First World War the brothers
focused on motorsport. Their first car, the Diatto-based Maserati Tipo 26,
won the 1926 Targa Florio.
The Maserati family sold up to Italian industrialist Adolpho Orsi in 1937.
He moved Maserati to Modena, before ownership switched to Citroën
in 1968. The turbulence of the de Tomaso years followed from 1975, and
when Alejandro de Tomaso sold the business to Fiat in 1993, he insisted his
collection of Maseratis be part of the deal.
Umberto Panini, Modenese owner of that sticker empire, ultimately
purchased the entire collection in 1996. A man who appropriately began
his career with a Maserati apprenticeship in the ’50s, he later became a test
rider for Maserati motorcycles.
The sticker business was sold in 1990, Umberto died five years back, and
sons Matteo and Giovanni run a 330-hectare dairy farm these days, but
they’ve kept the cars together on-site. The collection now totals 23 vehicles,
all on display and open for visitors (get in touch first), and unofficially this is
the Maserati collection – the factory maintains a close relationship, having
no back catalogue of its own.
Matteo contested the 1996 Italian GT championship in a mint green
Ghibli (from the de Tomaso years, boxy like a Sport Quattro) that’s parked the driver and new independent rear suspension. Maserati didn’t have the
among the other Maseratis, and he takes us on a tour of the collection, budget to develop it properly.’
starting with the oldest, the 6C/34. ‘It was designed for grand prix racing Thankfully the Paninis had the budget to restore it properly in 2001. ‘We
in 1934, when the rules said cars should weigh no more than 750 kilos and used all the old mechanics – Bietolini for the engine, Gentilini for the body,
have engines no larger than 4.0 litres, that was all,’ he explains. Martinelli for the mechanics,’ explains Matteo. And then it went to Good-
Given such free rein, the Maseratis’ talent for innovation flourished. A wood in 2003 and was driven by Nino Vacarella, who’d shared a Birdcage
straight-six of 3.7 litres, with the head and block cast in one piece, produced with Umberto Maglioli on the 1960 Targa Florio.
305bhp (modern hot-hatch power, half the weight) and it used independent A full-time mechanic usually exercises these cars, but today we get the
front suspension, not a solid axle like its rivals. gig, and are treated to a drive in a gorgeous black ’60s Ghibli coupe. I settle
Elsewhere there’s the beautiful 1953 A6GCS berlinetta that inspired the in to the laid-back leather seat, work the big-lunged V8 through its rev
Alfieri concept, the ’60s 5000 GT that inspired Joe Walsh to sing ‘My Mase- range, marvel at the clean, direct punch of the gearshifts and ease the nicely
rati does 185, I lost my licence and now I don’t drive’ (though it’s not Walsh’s weighted steering this way and that. With its generous torque and supple
car, Eagles fans), even Gandini’s Chubasco, a Countach-esque mid-engined compliance this remains a fabulous GT, and one that still encapsulates the
concept from 1990. subtle elegance that should define all Maseratis.
Pressed to name his favourites, Matteo first leads me to the 1961 Type 63 Matteo reveals the Paninis won’t maintain the collection indefinitely,
racer, an evolution of the legendary 730kg, 320bhp, 194mph Birdcage, and so hopefully someone can keep it together and complete the set. Anyone
one of only four V12 variants. ‘It probably is the worst to drive,’ he deadpans, who’s ever tried to finish a Panini football album will surely relate to that.
‘because really it was the front-engined Birdcage with the engine behind Monday evening and we head to the Modena production plant, the start
of the final week of production for the GranTurismo and closely related
Test mule for
Maserati’s new mid- GranCabrio, and also the beautiful if disappointing Alfa Romeo 4C. The
engined sports car shells are brought in from the Grugliasco plant and painted in Maranello,
then carried along the first line of work stations by a yellow claw that can
rotate the cars round by 85º like a pig on a spit. The claw holds the bodies
steady as the entire drivetrain is manoeuvred into place on an autonomous
dolly, two workers per station seamlessly integrating with the mechanical
ballet. With the bigger picture complete, the cars are rolled from the ⊲

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 87

 Inside Maserati

Sales rose to 50,000

by 2017, but fell to
35,000 in ’18 and have
continued to slide

Final batch of four-cylinder engines destined for the Alfa 4C: it’s a wrap

first line, turned through 180º, and sent down a second line for trim and
finishing work.
The very final GranTurismo will be completed this Friday, reserved for
a Japanese customer. After that, the electric future is impatiently calling.
The Modena factory will undergo refurbishment to build the ‘Alfieri’ – the
name is so far unconfirmed – in 2020. There’s also an €800m investment
for Maserati’s Mirafiori and Grugliasco plants in Turin that manufacture
the Levante and Quattroporte/Ghibli respectively, and another €800m
set aside for Cassino, currently manufacturing Alfa Romeos including the
Stelvio SUV, and where Maserati will build its mid-size SUV.
This good news is tempered by déjà vu caution – the last time I was here,
to celebrate Maserati’s centenary in 2014, CEO Harald Wester announced
plans to boost sales from the 30,000 cars sold that year to 75,000 units on
the back of the new Ghibli, Maserati’s 5-series rival, a new Quattroporte
limo, the Levante SUV and the introduction of a V6 diesel.
Sales did rise to 50,000 by 2017, but fell back to 35,000 in 2018, and have
continued to slide as surely as a hit single exits the Top 40. So it’s a surprise
Maserati is inquisitively prodding a toe at the same trap, this time targeting
a more ambitious total of 100,000 vehicles a year by 2022. At least there is a
rush of new product.
This year we’ll see the remaining line-up refreshed, with the Ghibli the
first step towards electrification, if only as a mild hybrid. It’ll take some
careful PR planning if that news isn’t swamped by the new mid-engined
sports car rolling from the Modena line also in 2020, its first in-house design
since the Boras and Meraks of the 1970s (or the Enzo-based MC12 of 2004).
Maserati has so far teased this new car as a disguised powertrain test
mule apparently based on Alfa 4C underpinnings – a model until recently
built on Maserati’s line in Modena. However, the production car will be ⊲

Trident’s
high
points ▲ Blinding grace
A6GCS 1954
▲ Hitting the big time
3500 GT 1957
▲ A mighty wind
Mistral 1963
▲ The epic grand tourer ▲The fast four-seater
Ghibli 1966 Indy 1966
Maserati’s Rome dealer Maserati’s first GT to Mistral uses a shorter Penned by Giugiaro Named as a nod to
Maserati’s hit a gets four bare 2000 be built in significant chassis than the 3500 while at Ghia, Ghibli Maserati being the only
few duff notes Sport chassis clothed in numbers. A body by GT, made this time with uses a quad-cam V8. Italian maker to win the
in its time but its berlinetta bodywork by Carrozzeria Touring square tubes. The first 1149 coupes are made Indy 500, the Vignale-
highest points Pininfarina. The A6GCS Superleggera, plus Maserati named after a but only 145 spyders. designed four-seater
have touched inspired the 2014 Alfieri the road-car debut of wind is the last to use a Plenty of converted has a Quattroporte-
the sky sports car. Maserati’s 3.5-litre six. twin-spark dohc six. coupes, mind. based chassis.

88 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Zeda is a loud,
proud way to
end GranTurismo
production

▲ The ’70s smasher ▲ The budget Dino ▲ Back-to-front Bora ▲ Block-rocking feats ▲ Modern-era Maser ▲ Long-running athlete
Bora 1971 Merak 1972 Khamsin 1973 Biturbo 1985 3200 GT 1998 GranTurismo 2007
The first mid-engined Based on the Bora’s Gandini-evolved Bora Notchback coupes The first new car under GranTurismo takes the
Maserati has a structure and looks, but design, but this time aplenty in the de Fiat ownership. Steel Quattroporte platform
310bhp V8, plus a smaller V6 from the the V8’s up front. The Tomaso era, starting monocoque is new, with double wishbones
hydropneumatic brakes Citroën SM cut costs engine’s from the Ghibli with the Biturbo, named but the V8 is evolved and 4.2 V8, then adds
by Citroën, wedginess and frees up space for SS engine, but here with after its twin-turbo V6. from Shamal’s. Loses a timeless Pininfarina
by Giugiaro. A less +2 rear seats. The less double wishbones and Ghibli, Karif and V8 its boomerang lights to body. Good job; it sticks
wealthy man’s Miura. wealthy man’s Dino. disc brakes all-round. Shamal all follow. become the Coupe. around until late 2019.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 89

 Very familiar
if you’ve also
visited Ferrari
at Maranello

Simulator tests driver

assistance systems,
doesn’t tell jokes

90 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Inside Maserati

Not an Audi
A1 tribute
bonnet; it’s
The simulator’s controlled by a just not shut

human test driver, not virtual

hardware tested by algorithms
based on all-new underpinnings, and its twin-turbocharged and hybrid-
ised V6 will be the first of a new generation of Maserati engines as its supply
deal with Ferrari comes to an end. Expect circa 600bhp and a price just shy
of £200k. A wind-in-the-hair version arrives in 2021.
Its name is TBC, but this new mid-engined sports car in effect fills the
slot for which 2014’s gorgeous front-engined Alfieri concept was once des-
tined. So will that concept’s design radically evolve for this new ‘Alfieri’, or
could it inform the next-gen GranTurismo and GranCabrio?
What we know for sure is the GranTurismo returns in 2021, and the
cabrio in 2022, the first Maseratis to be offered as battery-electric vehicles
(BEVs) – at least since the EC20 truck that kept the company occupied
during WW2. They’ll be based on a modular aluminium spaceframe, and
offered in front-engined petrol, plug-in hybrid and pure electric versions –
the latter using 800-volt battery technology, three-motor all-wheel drive
and performance in the 186mph/sub-2.0sec to 62mph bracket.
The new mid-size, Cassino-built SUV will slot below the Levante in 2021,
and all-new versions of the Quattroporte (2022) and Levante (2023) round
out what we know so far, both offered as pure BEVs.
Maserati clearly appreciates this sounds at best ambitious given it’s only
just stopped hawking a naturally-aspirated V8 that debuted when Tony
Blair was in office, so it invites us to take a tour of its previously off-limits
Innovation Lab, set up only three prime ministers ago in 2015 by the late
FCA boss Sergio Marchionne on Via Emilia Ovest.
Around 1100 (mostly) engineers work in these anonymous 14,000 square It’s a vibrant place. We watch engineers examine dismembered car parts
metre premises, and it’s here that Maserati (and Alfa too) has embraced and intestinal tangles of internal wiring, like automotive animal testing. A
the virtual age like so many of its peers, simulating interior architectures Levante appears to relax on a sunbed, but it’s actually a skylight simulator
with no need to build physical prototypes, and fast-tracking development to replicate light conditions at all times of day, any date, any latitude.
schedules by virtually testing everything from ECUs to driver-assistance Computers simulate the efficacy of imaginary windscreen wipers and
and infotainment systems. analyse wind noise from non-existent wing mirrors, and we’re shown the
psycho-acoustics lab, which virtually develops the engine sound of future
models, seatbelt warning pings and parking sensors too.
Racing driver Andrea Bertolini does his nine-to-five in the darkroom
claustrophobia of the Dynamic Simulator, where a curved cinema-like
screen wraps around from floor to ceiling and a half-car roams the large
room ahead. It stands high on a hexapod so it can pitch and roll and jiggle
about realistically, and zooms back and forth on a tripod laid out on the
ground to convey acceleration and deceleration as Bertolini blitzes Mugello.
The nine-time GT champ says the simulator is 90 per cent realistic and
that he can test 40 different set-ups in a day, measuring even tyre temper-
atures. ‘We feel traction and understeer, even how predictable the car is
on the limit,’ Bertolini says. The simulator helps reduce the use of physical
prototypes by 40 per cent, and halves the time taken to bring cars to market.
The real win has been putting both hardware and human drivers ‘in the
loop’ – so electric motors can be linked from a test rig to a simulator con-
trolled by a human test driver, not virtual hardware tested by constantly
repeated algorithms. Cash, time, mistakes, emissions – it’s all reduced.
Not that real-world testing’s now obsolete, because it remains essential,
with claims of 1.8-million-mile schedules conducted everywhere from
New Zealand to the US and generating 40 terabytes of data along the way.
Two days poking about and it’s clear Maserati has travelled a dizzyingly
long way from Via de Pepoli 105 years ago. There remains a long schlep to
Ermanno Cozza, 86, come, and yet it’s still just down the road on Via Emilia, still building cars in
started working at
Maserati in the ’50s Italy too. Fingers crossed the new sports car does more than just put a new
twist on that story with another wacky paintjob.

FEBRUARY 2020 | get 3 issues of car for just £5! www.greatmagazines.co.uk 91

 Driven: Aston Martin DBX

Aston
Martian The DBX is the alien in Aston’s range
– it has never built a 4x4 before.
Should it have bothered? We drive
it in otherwordly Oman to find out
Words James Taylor Photography Dean Smith

92 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 93
 Driven: Aston Martin DBX
Another day, another
stickered-up prototype
hot-weather testing
– camel’s seen it all
before
94 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
W e turn off the road, onto a dusty trail
that looks like it’s about to peter out into
a dead end but suddenly opens into a
spectacular vista, like a stage from the
Dakar rally crossed with a scene from
The Martian.
Climbing out of the DBX to marvel at
the view, the heat hits you like opening
an oven door. It’s winter here in the hills south-east of Muscat in Oman,
but the air is a toasty 28ºC. The dusty, craggy landscape is both alien and
empty. There’s neither a soul in sight nor a sound on the broiling air, save
for whirring fans cooling the twin turbos within the engine’s vee, its cylin-
ders switched off for the first time in hours.
The Aston Martin DBX is caked with dust, its sticker-clad paintwork
long turned matte beneath countless layers of sand and grit. It’s been out
here for 12 days straight, racking up unflinching test miles. For today’s
stint, CAR has been behind the wheel of Aston’s first SUV for the first time,
following last month’s passenger ride at Silverstone with chief engineer
Matt Becker.
This feels a very long way from dank Northamptonshire. You half expect
to spot a lunar rover whirring across the horizon, but the only traffic we
get is the occasional hard-charging Kia Sportage or Toyota Land Cruiser.
Otherwise we’ve got the place to ourselves. A 542bhp all-wheel-drive Aston
Martin and an improvised special stage: it’s as much fun as it sounds.
Before we get to the off-roading, we experience the DBX in city traffic –
where the premium SUV customer will expect it to excel just as much as its
Range Rover, Bentley, Porsche and Lamborghini rivals.
The car I’m driving, with Becker in the passenger seat, is one of 70 or so
pre-production prototypes running around the globe, in baking deserts
and freezing snowscapes and into crash-test barriers, as Aston readies
the DBX for its first customers’ eager clutches this spring. Becker tells me
this particular example is ‘about 80 per cent representative’ as we burble
out of Muscat. Further, more advanced test cars are on the way, before the
definitive production machines roll out of Aston’s new St Athan factory in
the Vale of Glamorgan, hence the label O Gymru – from Wales.
We sit in plump, supportive sports seats, behind a digital instrument
panel which will be configurable in the production car but is fixed in this
car. Various active safety systems are also not yet connected, the display
scrolling through a Rolodex of warning messages for active cruise, lane-
keep assist and the like that are currently being tested on other prototypes.
What matters today is the way this car drives.
Clear of the city we pick up speed and the steering gets a chance to
shine. As the roads get twistier it’s keenly responsive off-centre, yet still
measured, and well insulated from bumps while giving you a decent
report on the front tyres’ findings. There are two steering weights to
choose from: Comfort and Sport. Sport is, Becker says, ‘about there’ in this
prototype, and feels good – the right mix of heft and feel. Comfort will
be made slightly lighter in production DBXs for a little less resistance at
parking speeds, based on feedback from female drivers. More so than pre-
vious Aston Martins, the DBX is being designed to target women just as ⊲
 A 542bhp all-wheel-
drive Aston and an
improvised special
stage: it’s as much
fun as it sounds

In a hurry to get to
that Bond baddie’s
desert lair?
Choose a DBX

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 95

 The way the DBX behaves
beyond its limits on low-grip
surface mirrors its high-speed
handling: benign and predictable

96 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Driven: Aston Martin DBX

Merc-derived
infotainment isn’t a
DBX selling point –
AMG V8 very much is

much as men. Further to which, the floating centre console incorporates a

stowage area beneath with space to keep a small-ish handbag out of sight
next to its wireless smartphone charging pad.
The infotainment system isn’t fully up and running in this car but will
use a clickwheel and touchpad combo, with similar MBUX software to the
current Mercedes E-Class – which is not as advanced as the system fitted to
newer Mercs. There is undoubtedly a danger this interface will feel off the
pace when the DBX joins the fray in a market heaving with buyers hungry
for the latest and fanciest.
Visibility is spot-on. With the driver’s seat motored all the way down
to its runners, you feel properly embedded in the car, almost like you’re
driving a GT, yet you can still see the end of the contoured bonnet over
the curved dashboard, putting you at ease with the DBX’s bulk. A driving
position that’s all things to all men and women is a tough brief but the DBX
nails it.
Visibility past the big D-pillars and through the shallow skylight of a rear
screen is trickier, but so well positioned are the large, unusually pentagonal
mirrors and so clear the reversing camera that manoeuvring is no more
taxing than in any other SUV.
Throttle response – from the same AMG 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 we
know and love from the Vantage, DB11 and various Mercedes-AMGs – feels
smoother than ever, and the gearbox likewise. That too is Daimler-sourced,
a nine-speed 9G-Tronic auto. ‘A torque converter like this is much better for
off-road use than a dual-clutch transmission or wet clutch, and for towing
too,’ explains Becker. ‘The DBX is rated to tow 2700kg – with a wet clutch
you can take 1000kg off that.’
As we leave the tarmac to experience the full breadth of the new Aston’s
abilities, the long wheelbase brings predictability and the fast steering
means you rarely need move your hands from quarter-to-three regardless
of the car’s angle. And, best of all, so accurate is the throttle response that
the engine feels almost naturally-aspirated, long a priority at AMG.
On these loose but fairly smooth surfaces it’s child’s play to incite and
maintain a powerslide, holding third gear on the responsive manual
paddles from corner to corner and dipping into the eagerly responsive
engine’s 516lb ft reserves. In steady-state driving the DBX is 100 per cent
rear-wheel-drive, but can bundle 47 per cent of its torque to the front when
required, via an active centre diff similar to that found in the Merc-AMG
E63, from which a carbon propshaft links to an electronically controlled
locking diff at the rear.
‘We don’t have a Drift Mode like the E63, but you can slide the car,’ Becker
says, encouragingly. That you can. The balance is benign and predictable,
and Becker suggests the way the DBX behaves beyond its limits at low-ish
speeds on a low-grip surface mirrors its high-speed handling on tarmac.
We’ll find out for sure in a moment, but first there’s some rockier terrain
to get across. The floating centre console’s gloss-black surface isn’t short of
buttons, among them a pair of drive-mode switches, one marked with an
up arrow, one down. Prodding from GT mode to Terrain or Terrain Plus
raises the car on its standard three-chamber air springs; pushing the down
button for Sport and Sport Plus hunkers the DBX’s springs accordingly.
Altogether there’s 95mm of ride-height adjustment (higher by 45mm, or
lower by 50mm) for the air springs, which are paired with adaptive dampers
and mounted to double wishbones at the front and a multi-link set-up at
the rear.
Ahead of us are some wicked-looking ruts and rocks to traverse but ⊲

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 97

 Driven: Aston Martin DBX

The front spring rates are

As Aston
continues to flirt
with F1, why not
do the Dakar first?
the DBX sweeps over them. That’s thanks to both a stiff structure and
eARC, Aston’s take on electronic roll control. Electric motors allow the car
to optimise the roll bars on the fly, relaxing for effortless wheel travel on
rough ground and increasing the bars’ anti-roll control at speed on smooth
surfaces. The Bentley Bentayga and Porsche Cayenne, among others, have
similar systems but the DBX’s system is particularly powerful – as much
as 1033lb ft of force can be applied to each axle. Thus equipped the Aston
makes light work of the tough going, almost like a proper bushy-beard-
and-combat-trousers off-roader. Almost. It’s no Land Rover, but the DBX
can look after itself when the road runs out.
Rocks behind us, we lower the DBX into Sport Plus and devour the
remainder of the gravel trail at speed, the eARC system keeping the body
spookily composed over the rolling, rucked-up track. That same compo-
sure is evident when we return to tarmac. On a fast, undulating road that
could be a section of the Nordschleife, the eARC system once again comes
into its own, allowing the DBX to corner flatter than a Vantage.
And in a straight line? Here the DBX has speed in abundance. The
quoted maximum of 181mph is entirely believable given the way the Aston
accelerates through its gears – not too shabby for a 2.2-tonne car, and a
great soundtrack to match. The superb AMG V8 sounds purposeful when
you’re trying and sublime when the taps are fully open but settles to an
unobtrusive burble at a cruise. All courtesy of exhaust valves; you’ll find no
too soft – Aston promises
it’ll be sorted for production
speaker synthesis here.
There’s one dynamic flaw at the moment, which Aston Martin promises
will be sorted for production cars. The front spring rates are currently
slightly too soft. When turning into a corner at high speed, there’s more
roll than is ideal and a rather abrupt sensation of rebound in the first phase
of a corner, which can rob you of a little confidence at speed. There’s also a
subtle nodding motion to the front suspension at a cruise on bumpy roads.
Aston’s engineers have already devised a cure for the air springs, which will
be rolled out shortly. And otherwise the DBX feels good – very good.
The body control is unimpeachable; in fact, Aston has deliberately
engineered some roll in, so that the DBX doesn’t feel disconcertingly flat
in cornering. Motorway refinement is excellent. The window seals are
still being finalised, and Aston Martin says there will be less wind noise on
production cars – although I reckon it’s fine as it is – and there’s very little
road roar from this car’s all-season tyres.
Fundamental to all this is the immense rigidity of the DBX’s all-new
aluminium platform. Its 3.06 metre wheelbase is claimed to be the longest
in the class, but the overall length is 100mm shorter than a Bentley Bentay-
ga, and maximising rear legroom the goal. While the rear door apertures
are relatively narrow, once you’re inside there really is a huge amount of
space: I’m nearly 6ft tall and with the driver’s seat positioned for me there’s
very generous kneeroom behind. Headroom in the back is decent too
despite the standard-fit glass roof eating into it.
It’s hard not to be impressed by this hard-working prototype, heat
spilling from its brakes into the still-warm evening air as darkness draws
in over the hills (its water temperature gauge hasn’t budged all day…). And
it’s therefore hard not to be full of admiration for the engineers working
to meet – and in some cases exceed – the toughest brief in Aston’s history.
There are still some rivers to cross between now and March, but in the
development of arguably its most important car yet, they are leaving no
stone unturned. And raising plenty of dust.

DBX: THIS IS YOUR PLACE IN THE WORLD

DYNAMIC COMFORT

Porsche BMW X6 M Bentley

Cayenne Turbo We drive the Bentayga
The benchmark. new one soon. Less precise
Transmission Previous hot X5s than the Aston
quicker-witted and X6s have and can feel like
Lamborghini than the DBX Aston Martin impressed with Maserati a VW Group Range Rover
Urus and handling DBX searing speed Levante product. Refined Sport SVR
More focused, more polished Still being fettled and unlikely Handsome, though, and Cushy comfort,
edgier and than the Aston in but already agility. Comfy properly quick, with undeniable epic off-road
wilder than the its current state. brimming too. great to drive and quality. ability and a
DBX, but pays with promise. compact on the soundtrack like
the price in a far Prototypes strike road but interior a Goodwood
firmer set-up – a deft balance and quality off Revival grid, but
in-keeping with between comfort the pace. Still, can’t out-handle
the brand, then. and handling. so desirable. DBX.

98 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

No Drift mode
but with great
throttle response
and deft chassis
tune, DBX is
happy to dance

Aston MArtin DBX

P r i c e £158,000
P o w e r t r A i n 3982cc
32v twin-turbocharged V8,
nine-speed auto,
all-wheel drive
PerforMAnce
542bhp @ 6500rpm, 516lb
ft @ 2200rpm, 4.5sec
0-62mph, 181mph
e f f i c i e n c y 19.7mpg,
269g/km CO2
w e i g h t 2245kg
o n s A l e Now

FEBRUARY 2020 | get 3 issues of car for just £5! www.greatmagazines.co.uk 99

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 70 years of Formula 1

102 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Photography John Wycherley

YE AR S
OF
FOR MULA 1
2020 marks the 70th
anniversary of mankind’s
greatest achievement.
We celebrate with a
standout car from each
glittering decade

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 103

 70 years of Formula 1

the 1950s alfa romeo 159

The end of the beginning

Four Alfa Romeo 158s ran in the first-ever F1 world championship race.
Silverstone, 13 May 1950. A Saturday. Three of those cars finished one-two-
three, the closest challenger two laps behind. Not by coincidence did the
first season of one of the world’s most tech-centric sports kick off behind
one of the most technologically superior and successful GP cars in history.  engine. Pre-war, a Roots blower gave around 17psi of boost; 190bhp helped
Alfetta means ‘little Alfa’ in Italian. In 1950, the 158 was more than a
decade old. The Alfa was originally designed for pre-war Voiturette racing
– a ‘step-down’ class with displacement limited to 1.5 litres. By the late ’30s,
Hitler’s state-backed Silver Arrows had dominated Grands Prix for several
seasons. Italy didn’t have Hitler’s money, but it did have genius engineers.
And so the best of those men decided to drop down to Voiturette, where the
Germans weren’t playing, and where Alfa had a shot at winning.
The car crafted for that purpose was designed by Gioacchino Colombo
in Milan. The ‘15’ in its name stood for 1500cc, the ‘8’ for the number of cyl-
inders in its under-square, twin-cam, methanol-fed, magnesium-blocked
motivate wire wheels, a transaxle, a centre throttle, a 98-inch wheelbase,
and transverse leaf springs. The straight-eight looked a lot like Alfa’s
pre-war 8C motors, baroque and tall and blatty. It lived in a cigar body
much the day’s fashion, resembling later Maseratis or earlier Mercedes.
But Voiturette success wasn’t easy; Germans soon ran there as well.
When the war ended, the surviving cars were dragged into daylight and

alfa romeo
158/159 alfetta Italy didn’t have Hitler’s money
Pre-war survivor that briefly dominated
but it did have genius engineers
F1’s front-engined early days
r a c e d 1950-1951
P o w e r t r a i n 1.5-litre supercharged
straight-eight, four-speed manual,
rear-wheel drive
Performance
350bhp @ 8500rpm (1950),
425bhp @ 9300rpm (1951)
s u c c e s s Six wins from six starts in
1950, four wins from seven starts in 1951,
two drivers’ titles

104 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

cleaned up; free of the Germans, they dominated, eons ahead of anything
like competition. At that first F1 race, the marque’s driver roster included
the three ‘Fa’ virtuosos – Giuseppe Farina, Luigi Fagioli, Juan Manuel
Fangio. Wins came as easy as breathing, and not slowly. (Fangio saw
192mph at Pescara.) Farina was champion, Fangio and Fagioli just behind.
The 159 was the next-season attempt to stay in front. To the 158’s profile
it added a stiffer frame and a two-stage supercharger – a mad set-up with
one large blower priming a smaller one – and a more predictable de Dion
tube instead of the old rear swing axle. There were also larger fuel tanks,
because the engine now saw around 40(!)psi of boost in pursuit of some
425bhp at 9300rpm. (The car’s purpose-built, triple-choke Weber carburet-
tor had two 3.9mm main jets – small fire hoses in brass.) One of the greatest
drawbacks was the resultant fuel consumption and the huge tanks (near 50
gallons in total) and frequent fuel stops needed to sate that thirst.  working. F1 cars won’t make Alfetta
A 159 took Fangio to his first world championship, in 1951, against
heady competition from a rising Ferrari, but it was the end of an era. F1
was moving faster now. The British were waking to the full depth of their
talents, and though no one yet knew it, the front-engine single-seater was
a dead man walking. A door was beginning to close, and not everyone on
that first 1950 grid would walk through it. The future was on the other side. 
SAM SMITH
THE STORY OF
THE DECADE
The cliche is that the ’50s is the era of fat
drivers and skinny tires. Perhaps. But more
than anything, the decade is the apex of the
old-world masters. Juan Fangio chases four
world titles in a row in little more than street
clothes, all while being hounded by geni-
uses like Stirling Moss and Alberto Ascari
(pictured). Their cars evolve quickly, closing
the door on the front-engine era, but also
the era of driver as visible artisan, arms
and upper body exposed and visibly
levels of power again until the engines
are behind the driver and slicks and
wings are the norm. The human
in the car will get smaller, better
trained (and thinner), but never
more romantic.

The throttle
pedal’s in the
middle; Fangio
kept his foot in
and saw 190mph+

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 105

 the 1960s Lotus 25

Sweetness
and extending rearwards to create a cradle for the 1.5-litre Climax V8.
Three bulkheads and an alloy floor connected these pontoons, creating a
single, fully-stressed structure. It became known as F1’s first monocoque

and light
All the best ideas start as a sketch on a napkin. In the summer of 1961,
Lotus founder Colin Chapman held a meeting at a pub called the Maple
Leaf Inn. The company was developing the Elan, due to be launched the
following year. The new sports car was based around a backbone chassis –
a strong steel box-tube running down the middle of the car, with an engine
attached to one end. Over a pie and pint Chapman’s purchasing director,
John Standen, made a simple but startling suggestion: imagine an F1 car
with two box-tubes, one each side of the driver, connected by bulkheads.
Chapman immediately leapt on the idea and started sketching.
A few months later, in May 1962, Team Lotus arrived at the Dutch
Grand Prix with one of the most pivotal cars in F1 history: the Lotus 25.
All Formula 1 cars at that time were built around spaceframe chassis, a
complex latticework of welded pipes. And that includes Chapman’s other
new car for the 1962 season, the Lotus 24. To the dismay of Chapman’s cus-
tomers – who thought they’d bought the very latest technology – the new
25 turned up in Zandvoort and immediately made everything else obsolete.
Chapman had taken Standen’s basic idea and created a hollow, alloy
sled that formed the lower half of the car, with fibreglass upper panels.
A box ran down each side of the reclined driver, doubling as fuel tanks
single-seater, though Chapman called it – more precisely – a ‘twin-tube
ladder-frame’. It was quickly nicknamed ‘the bathtub’.
Incredibly, Chapman’s tub was almost 14kg lighter than the 24’s space-
frame, and much stiffer. This torsional rigidity allowed Chapman to soften
the car’s suspension, improving grip in slower corners. That other great
innovator, John Cooper, wandered over to see Chapman’s new car in the
Zandvoort paddock and asked laconically, ‘Where did you hide the chassis?’
He knew the game had changed.
The Lotus 25’s internal dimensions were all measured precisely around
Jim Clark. At the start of 1962 Chapman’s rising star had yet to win a Grand
Prix, though he soon put that right in the Lotus 25. That season Clark won
three races, finishing second in the championship; the following year he
won seven more to take his first world title. The 25 was then modified for
wider tyres, and – renamed the 33 – continued winning in 1964, taking
Clark to a second world title in 1965.
No other driver won in the 25 or the 33, and the car and the man will
be forever linked; but the 25’s impact went well beyond Clark’s two world
titles. Although the other teams took a season or two to catch up, eventual-
ly everyone developed bathtubs for their cars; and when McLaren replaced
alloy with carbon in 1981, the modern F1 car was born.
Mark Walton

Lotus 25
Introduced the monocoque,
helped build the Chapman/Clark
legend, impossibly pretty
R a c e d 1962-1967
P o w e R t R a i n 1.5-litre V8,
five-speed manual,
rear-wheel drive
PeRFoRMance
195bhp @ 8200rpm
s u c c e s s 14 wins from 49
races, two drivers’ titles, two
constructors’ titles

106 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

 70 years of Formula 1

THE STORY OF
THE DECADE
Bored with modern, looky-likey F1
cars? Then you need the ’60s: at the
start of the decade, front-engined
cars race mid-engined, and
straight-sixes battle flat-fours and
V6s. By the end of the decade, it’s
V8s versus V12s – and even an H16.
Engine capacity drops from 2.5
litres to 1.5, and then goes back up
to 3.0 litres. Teams experiment with
four-wheel drive and aero. With Colin
Chapman, John Cooper and Bruce
McLaren (below) all tinkering away
in their sheds, barely a week goes
The Lotus 25 was by without someone coming up with
designed around a gas-turbine engine or anti-gravity
– and to barely fit
– the awesomely paint. But the pace of change also
talented Jim Clark brings tragedy: speeds increase,
experiments fail and F1 drivers die
at an average of one per
year. Which is why it’s
John Cooper asked laconically, in the ’60s that safety
becomes an issue
‘Where did you hide the chassis?’ for the first time.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 107

 T H E 1 9 7 0 s B R A B H A M B T4 4 B

Formula 1 by
Ecclestone and designer Gordon Murray – would revolutionise Formula 1.
Ecclestone already had an eye on controlling the entire sport, not merely a
team within it, and Murray introduced so many game-changing ideas (un-

Wacky Races
F1 engineering Yoda Adrian Newey famously schooled himself in the art
and science of racing car design by building a 1:12 scale Tamiya model kit
of a Lotus 49. As a kid I tried to do the same, spending long summer days
building a Brabham BT44B, but enormous wealth, more trophies than
Guardiola’s downstairs loo and a career at the pointy end of Formula 1
continue to elude me.
I remember that Brabham in extraordinary detail. I recall piecing
together the DFV V8, picking out the Ford script on its cam covers in silver
with a very small paintbrush. (The BT44, as did most every other ’70s F1 car
engineered in the UK, used Ford’s all-conquering engine, hooked up to a
bombproof five-speed Hewland gearbox – the V8 helped democratise the
sport in a way current owners Liberty would dearly love to repeat.) And I
remember the way rear hubs, wheels and enormous Goodyears were
tethered to the car by nothing more than a couple of impossibly dainty
links. But most vividly I remember the incredible silhouette: that pointy
front wing with built-in radiators; the implicitly rigid Toblerone-shaped
monocoque; that high-rise airbox like a cartoon submarine’s periscope.
There have been more successful Formula 1 cars than Brabham’s BT44
and BT44B (the BT44 evolved into the 44B for ’75). But they’re significant for
several reasons. The two men behind them – Brabham team owner Bernie
der-body aero, in-race refuelling, reclined drivers) that his would become
F1’s most sought-after brain.
Through the ’70s the F1 car’s evolution accelerated wildly, and
the Brabham neatly straddles two eras. Since the very beginning
F1 cars had carried their radiators up front and the BT44 did the
same, not in sidepods as would become the norm. The Brabham also
portended the future in its rigid angularity and its management of air.
‘Virtually all racing cars were this bluff body, with a lot of air going under
the car, creating lift,’ says Gordon Murray. ‘The 44 was the shape of an
upturned saucer, so that the stagnation point [the point at which the onrush-
ing air meets the car] was moved closer to the road and more of the air went
over the top. Sure enough we found we could run less conventional front
and rear wing than other teams. I took it further at a test in Kyalami, with a
sacrificial vee shape in fibreglass under the car. The thinking was, let’s try
to scrape away yet more of the air that’s gone under the car. That generated
another 100lb of downforce. We ran that for two-thirds of the season,
baffling people who wondered how we could get away with such a small
amount of wing. It was the first crude ground effect…’
And ground effect – as much as television, sponsorship, improved safety
or turbocharging – would define the spectacle of modern Formula 1.
BEN MILLER

THE STORY OF
THE DECADE
Jack Brabham winning the 1970
South African Grand Prix opens
a decade of tumultuous change.
Bernie Ecclestone begins the
decade as a team owner but quickly
builds influence and control, recog-
nising both the power of the teams
within a sport that’s nothing without
them and the immense wealth
television can pump into F1 and
his own wallet. The cars begin the
decade wearing crude wings, end it
as low-flying aircraft. Turbocharging
will win races before the decade’s
out – a taster of the insane power to
come. And myriad narratives make
the ’70s unforgettable: Ferrari’s
renaissance, Hunt versus Lauda, the
emergence of Williams and McLaren
as powerhouses, and Sid
Watkins’ tireless work to rid
the carnival of carnage.

108 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 70 years of Formula 1

The men behind the Plug ’n’ play: solid

BT44, Ecclestone and powerful DFV

engine let British
teams focus on
and Murray, would chassis and aero

revolutionise F1

brabham bt44b
A successful car concealing some
of the ideas that would later
transform the sport
r a c e d 1974-1976
P o w e r t r a i n 3.0-litre V8,
five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Performance
460bhp @ 10,500rpm
s u c c e s s Three wins in ’74
(BT44), two wins in ’75 (BT44B)

february 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 109

 the 1980s Williams FW11
It was a man’s world
Fittingly, given the ’80s was the decade of excess, F1 cars in the ’80s were
fast; outrageously so. In fact, the turbo cars of the mid-’80s remain the
most powerful F1 cars ever built.
The Williams FW11 epitomised the era. It was, quite simply, a beast. In
the hands of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet it won the 1986 constructors’
title, and the secret to its success was the potency of its Honda twin-turbo
V6. The engine first caught people’s attention the previous year, when Keke
Rosberg recorded the sport’s first ever 160mph lap of Silverstone. A more
refined, more driveable and more fuel-efficient engine for ’86 raised the bar
even further.
In qualifying trim the RA166-E produced more than 1300bhp – in a car
that weighed just 540kg… It had a power-to-weight ratio of 2500bhp-per-
tonne, and all that grunt was delivered via a manual six-speed gearbox.
‘It was a beast to drive,’ says Nigel Mansell. ‘Wheelspin in sixth gear. It
was hard to keep the car on the circuit. But it was also very rewarding to
drive; it was very physical and a real racer’s race car.’
The FW11 won nine of the 16 races in the ’86 season; five with Mansell
and four with Nelson Piquet. The car’s dominance in race conditions
reflected not only the power of its engine, but its fuel efficiency. The
governing body had reduced the fuel allowance from 220 litres in 1985 to
110 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020
195 litres in ’86, and Honda were leagues ahead of their rivals. You might
remember Alain Prost pushing his McLaren-TAG Porsche over the line
at the German Grand Prix after running out of fuel; there were no such
problems at Williams.
But the FW11’s appeal was greater than the sum of its mechanical parts
because there was an incredible human story going on in the background.
Frank Williams suffered a horrendous car accident prior to the season’s
start, and the team attended the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix with
its boss fighting for his life in hospital. When Piquet won at Jacarepagua,
there wasn’t a dry eye in the pitlane.
There was less sentimentality after the title-decider in Adelaide, scene
of the tyre blow-out. Mansell’s title hopes were left in tatters when his left-
rear let go at 180mph (if you were a tyre, you’d probably throw in the towel
at sustained abuse from Honda and Mansell’s right foot…) and the images
of him wrestling his car to a halt summed up the season.
Williams developed a B-spec version of the FW11 for 1987. It featured
active suspension from the Italian Grand Prix onwards, but it was less
outrageous than the ’86 car. Less of a beast. Boost restrictors limited the
power of the engines and the cars became a bit tamer, a bit less ’80s.
Tom Clarkson
 70 years of Formula 1

THE STORY OF The key word

THE DECADE here is Honda

A decade of change. With Bernie at

the helm, the sport’s global reach
grows exponentially. It’s the norm
for races to be broadcast live on
television and the calendar expands
to new territories. There are three
races in the USA (Long Beach,
Dallas and Detroit); Australia closes
the season and the Japanese GP is
reintroduced at Honda’s insistence.
There are also huge improvements
in safety, first with the banning of
ground-effect skirts in 1983, then
the outlawing of turbo power in
1989. Even crash barriers are given
a prescribed minimum height for the
first time. But when you think of the
’80s, you also think of quality drivers.
Champions Jones, Scheckter, Prost,
Lauda, Senna, Mansell, Piquet
and Rosberg all go head-to-head,
alongside such talents as Villeneuve,
Pironi, Berger and Tambay. Has there
ever been a more talented grid?

The secret to the FW11’s success was the

potency of its Honda twin-turbo V6

WILLIAMS FW11
An awe-inspiring collaboration between
Williams, Honda and Mansell
R A C E D 1986
P O W E R T R A I N 1.5-litre turbo V6,
six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
PERFORMANCE
1300bhp @ 12,000rpm
S U C C E S S Nine wins, constructors’ title

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 111

 70 years of Formula 1

mcLaren mP4/13
New regs mean new
opportunities – and this
Adrian Newey McLaren
nailed it
r a c e d 1998
P o w e r t r a i n 3.0-litre
V10, six-speed semi-auto,
rear-wheel drive
Performance
760bhp @ 16,000rpm
s u c c e s s Nine wins
from 16 races, drivers’ and
constructors’ titles

112 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

THE 1990s MCLAREN MP4/13

New rules,
new ruler
Think of this car as a monument to the power of the humble HB pencil.
And Hobnobs. Design virtuoso Adrian Newey sketched the original
layout of the MP4/13 on his trusty drawing board in his spare bedroom
while on gardening leave from his previous team, Williams. Working in
sustained bouts of epic concentration, breaking only for coffee and bis-
cuits, he shaped the car that would dominate the 1998 season, scooping
the constructors’ title and the first of Mika Häkkinen’s back-to-back
drivers’ crowns.
The term ‘clean-sheet design’ is as overused in F1 as ‘for sure’ and
‘incident under investigation by the stewards’, but the MP4/13 was just
that; clean-sheet. New regulations were ushered in for 1998 in an effort
to make the cars slower and (in theory) safer, with dramatically narrower
track widths (a full 20cm slimmer than before) and grooved tyres, to
reduce grip and cornering speeds – which ironically served to make the
cars knife-edge twitchy and difficult to drive. While other designers
opted for a shorter wheelbase in a bid to win back agility, one of Newey’s
masterstrokes was to go long, extending the MP4-13’s axles past those of
the previous season to imbue the car with extra stability, particularly in
long, fast corners.
After the wide, slick-shod cars of 1997, the ’98 McLaren’s stretched,
slimline proportions looked odd, maybe even a touch awkward when it
first appeared. But today it looks clean, elegant, uncluttered. Crouching
down behind its silver rear wing you see the neatly packaged intricacy at Designed
play beneath, a latticework lasagne of wishbones, ducts, diffuser fins and while on
gardening
quad exhausts exiting among it all. Imagining the sound of that 3.0-litre leave – hang
Ilmor-Mercedes V10 shrieking from them, the reflex is to step back to a on, is that THE STORY OF
safe distance. Its 760bhp peak was developed at 16,000rpm. allowed? THE DECADE
The MP4/13 scored a one-two first time out in Melbourne, Häkkinen The ’90s begins and ends with McLaren
taking the win after David Coulthard sportingly let him back into the glory – Ayrton Senna bags two titles at the
lead after a bungled pitstop. Only the supreme speed of Michael Schu- start of the decade, and Häkkinen takes
macher could keep the McLarens honest, the Ferrari driver remaining another McLaren double to conclude the
in the hunt until the final round at Suzuka, whereupon a stall and a millennium. In between there’s a golden age
puncture finally put him out of contention. for Williams, with Nigel Mansell dominating
One more feather remained for the MP4/13’s cap: the following year it the ’92 season in the active-everything
obliterated the outright record up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of FW14B, the first Adrian Newey-designed car
Speed, Nick Heidfeld wrestled the shrieking, twitching McLaren from to win a title. (Williams win again in ’93, with
Prost at the wheel.) The one challenge to
leafy start line to glory in just 41.6 seconds after a pre-run pep talk from
Williams’ technical supremacy is the preco-
Ron Dennis. The record would stand for 20 years, finally beaten in 2019 cious rise of Michael Schumacher (pictured)
by VW’s ID R – a car virtually unconstrained by regulations. Which only at Benetton, before his switch to a resurgent
serves to make the MP4/13’s performance all the more remarkable. Maranello. Schumacher sets new standards
JAMES TAYLOR for fitness, dedication and sheer speed,
but he’s also keen on the professional
foul, a ’90s staple. The 1990 title is
sealed when Senna’s McLaren spears
into Alain Prost’s Ferrari at Suzuka.
Schumacher collides with Damon
Hill’s Williams at Adelaide in ’94, and
again (less successfully) with Jacques
Villeneuve at Jerez in ’97.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 113

 70 years of Formula 1

the 2000s ferrari f2002 I remember getting quite bored with F1 in 2002. It wasn’t Ferrari’s fault –
they were just doing their job – but after the new F2002 arrived in Brazil
(making a late debut in the third round) Michael Schumacher and team-
mate Rubens Barrichello went on to finish one-two nine times in the

One car
next 14 races. Between them they won every race bar one after Brazil, and
Ferrari’s constructors’ points total was equal to that of the other 10 teams
combined. It was a truly miserable season to be driving anything except
this Ferrari.

to rule
The F2002 was designed by South African Rory Byrne, whose motto was
‘evolution not revolution’. Clearly Byrne ignored his own advice in 2002,
because – despite winning titles in 1999, 2000 and 2001 – the F2002 was

them all
a risky, radical departure. The biggest change was the ultra lightweight
new gearbox made from titanium, reducing weight and lowering the
centre of gravity. This gearbox was somehow ‘fused’ directly to the engine,

ferrari f2002
Remember the Schumacher/Ferrari
winning machine? This was its epitome
r a c e d 2002-2003 (replaced by
F2003-GA after four rounds in 2003)
P o w e r t r a i n 3.0-litre V10, seven-
speed semi-auto, rear-wheel drive
Performance
899bhp @ 19,000rpm
s u c c e s s 15 wins from 19 races,
two drivers’ and constructors’ titles
(2002 and 2003)

114 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | february 2020

without any bellhousing. I have no idea how they did that (superglue?) but
it meant fewer parts, a lower centre of gravity and lower sidepods for better
2002 was a truly miserable
aero. The F2002 also introduced exhaust ‘chimneys’, the suspension and season to be driving
anything except this Ferrari
steering were new, and the uprights were cast in a new carbon-alloy matrix,
replacing the titanium uprights found on the F2001. Apparently they were
double the price but saved 200 grammes.
The car was quick straight away. ‘I had a good feeling the first moment
I was driving the F2002,’ Schumacher told the press, ominously, after
breaking the lap record at Fiorano at his first attempt. A week later he tested
the car again at Mugello, alongside the new Ferrari-engined Saubers. Schu-
macher was over two seconds quicker than Heidfeld and Massa. Not two
seconds at the end of the session – I mean two seconds per lap.
Once the season got into its stride, the records tumbled. Altogether
Schumacher won a record 11 races in one season, finishing on the podium
in every single race. He secured the world title in France with six races to
go – the earliest conclusion ever – with a record 67-point margin over his
team-mate. His fifth title also tied him with Juan Manuel Fangio as the
most successful driver in history.
One of the very few things that spiced up that predictable season was
the controversy over team orders. Early in the year, in Austria, Barrichello
was asked to relinquish the lead and let Schumacher win for the sake of his
title bid. Rubens did it blatantly, after the last corner of the last lap. On the
podium Schumacher pulled Barrichello onto the top step and gave him his
trophy – it was embarrassing, and the FIA fined the team.
Then, in the penultimate race in Indianapolis, Schumacher decided to
repay Barrichello with equal clumsiness, slowing at the chequered flag to
let Barrichello win by a 0.011-second whisker. They were toying with us.
The F2002 was that good.
MARK WALTON

THE STORY OF
THE DECADE
This is Ross Brawn’s decade as much as
Michael Schumacher’s. After joining Ferrari
late in 1996, Brawn is in place to oversee
Schumacher’s unprecedented run of cham-
pionships, 1999-2004; and while he departs
shortly before Kimi Räikkönen’s title-winning
year in 2007, it’s Brawn’s technical team that
gets Kimi’s Ferrari on the grid too. Then,
after a couple of wilderness years with
Honda, there comes the fairytale of 2009.
Brawn saves the team after Honda’s abrupt
withdrawal, and – with the help of Mercedes
engines and a dayglo marker-pen livery –
Jenson Button (pictured) wins the title in a
Brawn-badged car. And if this decade is to
be remembered for anything else, it’s surely
Lewis Hamilton’s F1 debut in Melbourne,
Australia, in 2007. It’s the first Grand Prix
after Michael Schumacher’s retirement,
and the German’s precocious young heir is
already leading a race…

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 115

 70 years of Formula 1
the 2010s Mercedes-AMG W05
Hybrid, like a Prius…
Familiarity breeds complacency, contempt even. And if you’ve grown a
little tired of silver Mercedes-AMGs securing poles and fastest laps with
grinding regularity, you are not alone.
But fortunately there’s YouTube, so fire it up. Now search ‘F1 2014 Ham-
ilton pole lap Australia’ and escort from within earshot anyone who might
be offended by spontaneous swearing.
With the first couple of corners you notice two things. One: the track’s
soaked and Hamilton’s on wets. Two: the noise. This, you’ll recall, was the
first race of the so-called hybrid era (we’d seen KERS e-boosting previously)
and fans raged at the passing of the old V8s and their banshee scream. The
Merc’s hybrid V6 is more muted, less insanely extreme, but it’s only when
you watch it being spanked again now, with the volume cranked, that you
116 get 3 issues of car for just £5! www.greatmagazines.co.uk | february 2020
appreciate how evil the thing sounds – the combustion engine’s guttural,
tyre-wilting potency overlaid with the eerie, almost alien machinations of
the electrical system.
Hamilton’s pole lap is one of two halves: surreally neat and tidy bar a few
oopsie-daisy moments of huge low-speed understeer, then 20-odd seconds
of terrifying power oversteer as the rear wets, already punch-drunk from
the power unit’s epic torque, crash to the canvas in the face of Hamilton’s
ever-greedier right foot.
In Australia, as was the case in the first four Grands Prix of the season,
the Mercedes-AMG W05 took pole, the win and fastest lap – a scarcely
credible run of dominance that came to an end in Spain only because Vettel
was able to steal fastest lap in his Red Bull.
 Clues that Mercedes had a brilliant car were there at the first pre-season
test. After three days’ running they’d completed 309 laps to reigning cham-
pions Red Bull’s 21. With distance and hindsight we see the W05’s PU106A
power unit for what it was: a towering technical achievement up there with
the Saturn rocket and Concorde.
The history of F1 is punctuated by moments of big-bang brilliance;
elegant solutions to fiendishly complex problems. The first hybrid AMG
power unit – and it really was a unit; the engine is but part of its eco-system
– neatly squared countless contradictory circles. The 600bhp V6 was light-
weight and compact but also rugged enough to hold together in the face
of combustion chamber pressures twice that of the naturally-aspirated
V8s. The crank-driven regen motor is tucked deep in the car, for improved
weight distribution, but so effectively cooled it was reliable despite temper-
atures four times that of the old and very flaky KERS units. And crucially,
where rivals engineered their turbos traditionally, with the turbine and
compressor together in a single unit, AMG separated the two, linked by a
shaft between the V6’s cylinder banks. Why? Because turbines are hot and
compressors more powerful when they’re cool: the two are happier apart.
The W05’s majesty comes not from any specific detail but from the
seamless integration of those details. It was an R&D lab hidden inside a
beautifully balanced and exploitable racing car. The proof’s on YouTube.
BEN MILLER

Hybrid era
upped driver
workload

MERCEDES-AMG W05
Effortless success in the face of the
biggest rulebook upheaval in F1 history
R A C E D 2014
P O W E R T R A I N 1.6-litre turbo V6,
eight-speed semi-auto, rear-wheel drive
PERFORMANCE
850bhp @ 15,000rpm
S U C C E S S 16 wins from 19 races,
drivers’ title, constructors’ title
THE STORY OF
THE DECADE
After the movie-script story of Brawn’s
against-the-odds 2009 glory, the 2010s get
underway with four predictable years of
Red Bull dominance and Sebastian Vettel’s
annoying finger (pictured). Red Bull has
built its credibility block by block, and the
acquisition of Adrian Newey elevates the
team from pitlane party jocks – a kind of
21st century Hesketh – to genuine threat. In
2014 the pendulum swings to hybrid power
and AMG success – since Brawn no team
but Red Bull or Mercedes has won a title.
Hamilton matures from youthful sensation to
F1 elder statesman, Fernando Alonso sinks
his career with poor decision-making, the
drag reduction system makes overtaking
at once more prevalent and less
exciting, and Bernie bows out,
ceding control of the sport
(and it remains a sport, for
now at least) to Liberty
Media. F1’s critical next
chapter opens in 2020.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 117

 G O R D O N M U R R AY I E N G I N E E R & D E s I G N E R

‘I’m building the

last great analogue
supercar’ His work here is not done: an
heir to the McLaren F1 is just one
of many projects being hatched
by the visionary Gordon Murray
Words Gavin Green Photography Jordan Butters

118 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 Coffee
with CAR
DRIVING wIth a majoR playeR

FEBRuARY 2020 | CaRmaGaZINe.Co.UK 119

 Coffee with CAR

At 73, Murray has several lifetimes of achievement under his belt

T he man who gave us the world’s greatest

supercar is ready to raise the bar higher.
Gordon Murray’s T.50 is a new sports
car from a new sports car company
called Gordon Murray Automotive.
It’s the spiritual successor to Murray’s
marvellous McLaren F1. ‘It’s everything
you like about the McLaren F1 but
slightly better,’ says Gordon. ‘It may well
be the last great analogue supercar.’
So we go to Gordon’s home in leafy rural Surrey, ‘the only house in
‘You just don’t get that
engagement or satisfaction
from modern supercars’
Surrey that has one bedroom and 22 garages’, to talk T.50. We also discuss
the past, the present, the future, and go for a drive in one of his many cars, G O R D O N M U R R AY
all lightweight and all driver-focused. He’s chosen his Lotus Elan today.
We get a guided tour through those 22 garages and then go to the only
drive-in cinema in Surrey. It’s certainly the only one where you can watch We start talking T.50. It uses most of the core technology and design
movies from inside a 1959 Cadillac flat-top sedan, starlit sky twinkling flourishes that made the McLaren F1 great. Note the central driving
seductively above. In fact, they’re 120 fibre optic ‘stars’ embedded in a position and the two passenger seats aft and outboard, the high-revving
black ceiling. Gordon’s drive-in is actually in a big loft above one of his V12, the all-carbon construction and an absolute emphasis on light
garages. But it feels like Happy Days circa 1959. weight – just 980kg. There is a clutch-and-stick manual six-speed ’box
Gordon is wearing a colourful patterned shirt, as always, sports a in a deliciously old-fashioned H-pattern. Gordon wants the car to feel
neatly trimmed ’tache, as always, and does not look or behave anything mechanical and paddleshifts do not.
like his 73 years. His CV is extraordinary. Design boss of Brabham from Note also that the 3.9-litre V12 engine, designed and built by Cosworth,
the mid ’70s to mid ’80s, technical director of McLaren’s GP team during is naturally aspirated. Gordon does not like turbos. ‘No matter what the
the dominant Senna and Prost years, designer and mastermind of the manufacturers tell you, they always have lag.’ And lag is not conducive
McLaren F1 road car, owner of a successful design consultancy business, to offering the greatest possible driving experience, Gordon’s priority for
creator of a potentially revolutionary new car manufacturing process the T.50. ‘The V12 is all-new and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the
(iStream), champion of eco-friendly lightweight design and now – as if all Valkyrie’s engine. It’s also much lighter than the Valkyrie’s V12. It’s likely
that is not enough – founder of a new car company making the spiritual to be the last great V12. It will also be the lightest, the highest revving – to
successor to the McLaren F1 in a new factory at Dunsfold in Surrey. 12,400rpm –and have the fastest engine response.’ The T.50 is, naturally,
rear-drive. Four-wheel drive adds weight and dulls steering feel.
Top speed, record levels of power, Nürburgring lap times? All irrelevant,
Gordon says. Although 700bhp is not exactly anaemic. Plus, there are
THE MAN, THE CAR, THE COFFEE many non-McLaren F1 touches, not least the 400mm electrically driven
rear-mounted fan that works interactively with the lower and upper body
surfaces. This boosts downforce when you want it (at 60-100mph, says
Gordon) and sheds big downforce when you don’t, especially at very high
speed when a fixed-aero car puts enormous pressure on the suspension
and ruins comfort. The fan can also fill the trailing wake of air, improving
the streamlining and stability. The active fan and the clever underbody
surfacing mean there is no need for big wings. The upper surfacing is
▲ ▲ ▲
clean and uncluttered.
‘Fan’ cars are a Murray signature, of course. Remember the Brabham
Gordon Murray The T.50 Decaf cappucciono
BT46B which debuted at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, won convincingly
Legendary F1 designer A 21st century reboot ‘A decaf cappuccino,
responsible for world of many of the ideas no sugar.’ Gordon driven by Niki Lauda, and was then promptly banned?
championship-winning that made the McLaren even drinks milky Gordon is not impressed with the state of modern supercars. ‘The
Brabhams and F1 the automotive cappuccino in the McLaren 720S is probably the most competent car I’ve ever driven, and
McLarens, the McLaren equivalent of the moon afternoon, which is it’s amazing how it adapts itself to a narrow, bumpy B-road or the track.
F1 road car, and now landings – plus a fan very un-Italian. He’s
set to launch another pinched from Murray’s clearly never worked It’s the best of the bunch. However, none of them really get the juices
supercar, the T.50. controversial Brabham. for Ferrari. going from driving perspective. ⊲

120 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

With his bikes, as
with his cars, Murray
likes them light and
in mint condition

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 121

 Coffee with CAR

‘You’ll never get a turbo

to have the throttle response
of a good non-turbo’
G O R D O N M U R R AY

‘I have a ’59 Austin Healey-Sprite [the Frogeye] which has 43 horsepower

and that just puts a smile on your face. The little burble it makes on
overrun, the oversteer you get every time you touch the throttle, looking
HOW I GOT HERE
down the bonnet at the fantastic shape, the rifle-bolt gearchange.
‘The lack of engagement of modern supercars has happened for a few GORDON’S FIRST CAR
reasons. First, they’re nearly all turbocharged and I don’t think you’ll ‘I grew up loving speed.
ever get a turbo to have the throttle response of a good non-turbo. Then I wanted to race cars.
there’s size and weight. Since ’92 I’ve been watching everything get bigger, When I was in technical
college at Durban I
heavier and turbocharged. You add hybridisation and electric motors to
designed and built my
fill torque gaps and the resultant battery weight, and the complexity you own car and engine and
have with all that. That compounds all the other problems. raced it in ’67 and ’68.
‘Car makers are obsessed by horsepower, top speed and 0-60 times. It’s That was my first car [the
not for me. On the F1, we just tried to do the best engineered and best T.1, below]. It looked like a
driver’s car, ever. What gives you the thrill and the sense of speed is the Seven but was lighter and
response time and the noise. It’s not speed per se and it’s not the linear stiffer.’
push from electric motors.
‘While I can, I want to enjoy driving cars. And that’s why most of the
summer I drive my classic cars. You just don’t get that engagement or the
satisfaction from driving with modern supercars.’
To fix that, Gordon now brings us the T.50. Deliveries commence
in January 2022. It’s his 50th new car design (racing and road) and it
coincides nicely with Gordon’s 50 years as a car designer. One hundred
will be built, priced at £2.36 million plus taxes.
But why bother when, at 73 years old, he has behind him a string of MOVING INTO DESIGN
F1 world championships, accolades and palpable wealth? This includes ‘In building the car, I got
homes in Scotland and France, as well as Surrey, and a collection of 45 into suspension design,
classic cars – 35 of which, he proudly recites, ‘weigh under 800 kilos’. spaceframe stress
‘I’d like another arm to the business. Part of it is to grow the Gordon analysis, bump steer…
Murray brand. What better way than to do another halo product? One In my second season, I
last pure driver’s car to put a smile on your face.’ realised South Africa was
a dead end. The other
And after that? ‘We will carry on making bespoke, special cars. We
50 per cent of my love is
won’t be a full-fledged car company making volume cars. The line is set music. In the winter of ’69,
up to make up to 100 cars a year, and no more. The T.50 is the flagship. A London was the centre
subsequent car might have to be electric. But I promise, if it is, it will be of the universe, so that’s
the lightest, best engineered electric car out there.’ when I came to the UK.’
While Gordon Murray Automotive is in its infancy, Gordon Murray
Design is well established. Its major goal is to license the iStream process, STARTING IN F1
the biggest single jump in car manufacturing since Henry Ford’s moving ‘I got an interview with
production line of 100 years ago, says Gordon. It’s more flexible, more Brabham and joined
eco-friendly, cheaper and more compact than the traditional car-making in 1970. I started as a
model used by all big car companies today. Gordon says iStream cars will design draftsman. Bernie
also be safer and lighter. [Ecclestone] made me
‘Yamaha was on board, before a management change when they chief designer in 1972.
decided not to make motor cars. It would have been a perfect start I was technical director
for us. Had they gone ahead, their little sports car would have been in at 26. After 17 years in F1
production for 16 months and I would have been driving one – 850 kilos, I’d had enough but then
Ron [Dennis] courted me.
1.0 litre, three cylinders.
I wanted complete control
‘We thought the first would be TVR but we’re still waiting for the over everything technical.
funding to be put in place. I hope they go ahead. It’s a fantastic all-British Ron agreed.’
project. I’ve only driven the car once. We’d done zero vehicle dynamics
work and the car felt perfectly balanced.’ Murray and his team did the ⊲

122 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 T.50: YOUR GUIDED TOUR OF MURRAY’S NEW SUPERCAR

SHARING THE NEED FOR SPEED

Like the McLaren F1, the T.50 uses
Murray’s favoured three-seat layout, with
central ‘jet fighter’ driving position. A six-
speed H-gate manual transmission will
be used, to boost the analogue driving
experience. A sequential manual shift
was originally planned, but customers DE-CLUTTERED DESIGN
demanded an ‘old-fashioned’ H-gate.
The 400mm rear fan creates so much
downforce that big wings and cavernous
ducts are unnecessary. It’s a beautifully
clean design, as was Murray’s McLaren
F1. Final aero tuning is being done in the
wind tunnel of F1 team Racing Point (the
artists formerly known as Force India).

LIGHTEST V12 EVER
The T.50 is powered by a new and
specially developed 3.9-litre Cosworth
V12, which Murray says is completely
different from the Aston Martin Valkyrie’s
Cosworth-developed V12. It’s naturally-
aspirated – Murray hates turbos – and
revs to 12,400rpm. It will, he says, be the
lightest V12 ever and have the fastest
engine response.
VIRTUAL LONG-TAIL
The T.50’s rear-mounted fan is much
more sophisticated than the ‘fan car’
Murray did before – the Brabham BT46B
that won the 1978 Swedish GP before
being banned. It can even fill the trailing
wake of air at very high speed, essentially
giving the streamlining and stability of a
long-tail design.
DEGREES OF DOWNFORCE
The fan not only rapidly accelerates
air passing under the car, creating
downforce, it can also reduce downforce
at very high speed, when fixed-aero cars
frequently have too much drag. The fan,
working interactively with the upper
and lower body surfaces, automatically
controls and optimises downforce as the
speed varies.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 123

 Not every car needs
a V12, even if there’s
room for one

124 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020


‘Up until the Alpine, the
best ride and handling
compromise was the Lotus
Evora. The A110 is better’
G O R D O N M U R R AY
styling of the new Griffith, the engineering, business plan and factory
design. Murray continues to work on little electric-powered city car
projects, which he believes have a long-term future (‘like a Twizy but
much more grown up’). There’s also a small sports car, the T.43, that has
a 1.5-litre three-cylinder Ford engine and weighs 845kg. ‘I’ll move heaven
and earth to get someone to make that.’
Another sign of the breadth of Gordon’s design imagination is the OX,
his lightweight small truck for Africa, designed to transport food, water,
medicine and other supplies. ‘It’s a third the price of comparable vehicles,
the ride quality is astonishing, and so are its capability and load-carrying
capacity. It’s 1000 kilos lighter than all the opposition which means it can
carry 1000 kilos more.’
The chassis uses iStream technology although the composite
panels bonded to it are inexpensive plywood rather than the usual
honeycomb. The body is built from a flatpack, reducing costs and ease of
transportation. ‘It could change the lives of tens of thousands of people.’
His everyday drive is a new Alpine A110. ‘It’s a fantastic car. For 16 years I
tried to find a replacement for my Smart Roadster and this is it. Relatively
light, relatively small and engaging, although the DSG and turbo hurt it.
If that was a manual and naturally aspirated, even with 100 horsepower
less, it would be more engaging. The suspension set-up, too, is excellent.
Up until the Alpine, the best ride and handling compromise I’d driven
was the Lotus Evora. The A110 is better. It’s so good we benchmarked it
before we started T.50.’
The Alpine is the first car we see when we tour Gordon’s garages.
Here, 15 of his 45 classic cars are kept. Most of the others are at Dunsfold.
Alongside the A110 is a pistachio green Lotus Europa, his most recently
purchased Lotus. He also owns an S2 ’61 Lotus Seven, a 1960 Elite S2 –
‘600 kilos, a Coventry Climax engine, a beautiful little car’ – plus two
FEBRUARY 2020 | GET 3 ISSUES OF CAR FOR JUST £5! WWW.GREATMAGAZINES.CO.UK 125
Coffee with CAR
Murray aimed for
Elan steering feel
with the F1 but, he
admits, missed
Elans and a Lotus 11. Murray is not a Ferrari man, so I was surprised to
see a 308 GT4 2+2. ‘I’ve never lusted after a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. I was
looking for a classic car with a nice throaty V8 that was practical to go
away in for a weekend, with luggage. This is incredibly practical and the
engine is lovely. It weighs 1100 kilos and I do like driving it.’
And there’s a ’57 Ford Thunderbird. ‘I love the whole Americana
nostalgia. It has a 5.1-litre V8 and it weighs 1400 kilos, which is not bad.’
We see his Alfa Spider, Honda S800, Cortina GT, Frogeye and more. In
the room above the T-bird in Gordon’s Americana section, we find his
drive-in cinema, chop-roofed Cadillac flat-top sedan facing the screen,
4500 watt seven-channel surroundsound pumping out the noise.
Some of the garages are decorated with immaculate classic motorcycles
hung from the walls. He has 22 of them.
‘These are my works of art. The Italians in the late ’50s and early ’60s
were masters at making a 16-year-old feel like Agostini. Three and a
half horsepower but who cares when you can look like that.’ In among
the Moto Morinis, Malancas, Demms and Moto Guzzis we find a few
Hondas, including its first 50cc four-stroke.
We finish our afternoon with Gordon doing what Gordon likes best,
driving. He’s chosen his 1970 S4 Elan, and says: ‘The Elan is the best
sports car I’ve ever driven. I spent the whole of the ’60s lusting after one
and when I arrived in England in ’69 I bought a battered S3 with all the
money I had. The feedback from an Elan is fantastic. I tried to get the
steering feel from the Elan in the F1 but I missed it. The F1’s steering is
good. But it’s not as good as an Elan’s.’ Gordon also raves about the space
efficiency of his S4. He can easily fit his 6ft 4in frame in it. Of course, he
recites the weight, ‘just 700 kilos’.
His enthusiasm for great cars is infectious. ‘Creatively, I think I’m in
the best period of my life. With iStream, I can take all my learnings from
Formula 1 and try to give it back to the everyday motorist, with all the
safety and lightweight benefits it offers. At this period in my life, most
people want to put their feet up. Instead, I’m working as hard as ever. I’m
even about to start making my own cars again.’
Next month:
COFFEE WITH MATE RIMAC
MEET THE ELECTRIC SUPERCAR MAKER OTHER
ELECTRIC SUPERCAR MAKERS BOW DOWN TO
 Our cars H E LLO M E RC G - C L A S S + G O O D BY E DAC I A DUSTE R ,
VO LVO S9 0 & B M W Z4 + 11 M O R E CA RS

H E AT- I N S U L ATI N G
DARK-TINTE D G L A SS
£345
Adding to the G’s rugged good looks,
our car’s optional extras include
tinted glass. It creates a dark,
cocooned atmosphere in the rear
seats, and helps our daughter watch
iPad movies on a sunny day.

Tempting fate
Whatever you’ve got, the G-Class is ready for it.
Hell? High water? Bring it on. By Mark Walton

Let’s deal with the colour right
away, shall we? It has been
suggested, by the less charitable
members of the CAR office, that
Hello our new Mercedes-Benz long-term
test car is finished in a shade of
‘chocolate brown’ or even ‘poo
brown’. Mercedes says it’s actually
Designo Mystic Brown – of course.
But I’m going to refer to it,
now and forever, as ’70s Brown.
That’s because brown was one
of the original launch colours
of the G-Wagen back in 1979
(Colorado Beige, to be precise); and
because, well, just look at this car.
A retro colour for one of the most
wonderfully, unashamedly retro

126 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020

 M E TA LLI C PA I NT
£2850
There are two flat and nine standard
metallic finishes; five optional
metallics (£1750 – including my
favourite, the farm-spec Olive);
three more expensive ‘bright
metallics’ (£2850 – Mystic Blue,
Diamond White, and our car’s Mystic
Brown); and four matt-finish ‘magno’
paints for £4285.

cars you can buy today.
Regular readers will know we
drove the new AMG G63 back
in the July 2019 issue – a £146k,
578bhp, twin-turbo V8 brute. I’m
pleased to say our new long-term
test car isn’t a G63: pleased, because
the G63 is a noisy, pumped-up,
pimped-out extravaganza of a car,
with a ride so stiff it’ll untie your
shoelaces. Also pleased because a
real-world 15mpg might be fun for
a weekend, but not for six months.
Like the V8, the 350 is huge
and over-the-top, but as a daily
driver it’s more friendly than the
AMG V8. The only other model
in the reborn G-Class range, the
G350d is all new, of course, despite
the back-to-boxy looks. Under
the new alloy body there’s a new
ladder chassis, new suspension and
steering and a full suite of modern
electronics inside.
Powering the 350 is the latest
Mercedes 3.0-litre inline six, also
found in top-end S- and E-Classes.
In the G it’s good for 286hp and
443lb ft of torque, available from
a barely dribbling 1200rpm and
driving all four wheels through
a nine-speed auto gearbox. This
straight-six is an incredibly refined
and gutsy diesel, and within the
car’s double-glazed cockpit you can
barely hear it when you’re drifting
along a B road.
The interior is enormous,
though it’s only a five-seater.
Everything is unusually upright in
here, compared to any other SUV
on the road: the seating position is
like a van’s, the base of the (almost
vertical) windscreen is within
arm’s reach from the driver’s seat
(think about that), and above you
there’s enough headroom to wear a
top hat (or a military steel helmet).
This utilitarian architecture
contrasts with the high-end luxury
of the dashboard and switchgear.
Everything is beautifully finished,
from the extra-wide colour
screen that blends the instrument
binnacle into the sat-nav/media
screen, to the delicate air vents
that click deliciously when ⊲
Mercedes-Benz G350d
AMG Line
Month 1
The story so far
Our new G-Class diesel hides
a surprisingly modern family
car behind its retro looks
+The looks; the driving
position: feeling unstoppable
- Not a car for shy people; fuel
economy is a bit ’70s
Logbook
Price £94,065 (£106,300 as
tested) Performance 2925cc
turbodiesel inline six, 282bhp,
7.4sec 0-62mph, 124mph
Efficiency 25.9mpg (official),
24.7mpg (tested), 252g/km
CO2 Energy cost 23.6p per
mile Miles this month 1262
Total miles 5652

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 127

 you twist to open them. Our
car features the standard AMG
Line leather trim with optional
open-pore ash wood inserts (£640).
Altogether, it’s plush, tactile, and
everything you’d expect for a
£94,065 base price.
I’ll admit, for the first day or two
I felt a little self-conscious driving
this car. It feels ostentatious to
navigate the little market town
where I live in what feels like a
stadium monster truck. Thank
God it doesn’t have NASCAR-style
side exhausts, like the G63 V8…
PREMIUM EQUIPMENT
LINE £5995
These days, cars have so
many options it’s common for
manufacturers to bundle them.
This pack is a big one: it includes
more ambient lighting options,
an upgraded Burmester surround
sound system, electric sunroof,
‘active’ multi-beam LED headlights,
360° parking cameras and
adaptive damping.
128 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
You have to really climb up into
this car – I mean, it’s like stepping
I’ve been surprised at how refined
up into a fire engine or a combine the 350d is, compared to the G63
harvester. Once in, the view over
the flat bonnet is magnificent,
those wing-top indicators or so… and now I’m totally won
marking the corners of the car. over. I love the way it looks, its big
You look down on Range Rovers. arches and flat glasswork. I love
At almost two metres tall and 2.2 getting in, using the pushbutton
metres wide, threading it through door handles that make a loud
narrow streets and car parks is ‘clack’. The driving position is
intimidating at first, and people absolutely magisterial, with great
stare – a lot. views over traffic; and best of all,
But to be honest the feeling of I’ve been surprised at how refined
overt flashiness only lasted a day it is, compared to the G63. The
WINTER PACK AGE
£1750
This includes a heated windscreen
and an auxiliary heater, which uses
diesel to fuel a small burner that
heats the cabin. You get a digital
remote timer, so you can set it to
warm the car at 5am. A real bonus in
the depths of winter.
smooth diesel six, combined with
a much more relaxed ride on the
standard 20-inch alloys, makes this
a surprisingly peaceful car to spend
time in. I’ve done a couple of long
journeys in it so far, and apart from
the slightly scary fuel economy
(24.7mpg) I find I’m looking
forward to the next one. Ideally in a
blizzard, please.
UNDERGUARD £255
This is no namby-pamby soft-roader,
with its ladder chassis, lockable diffs
and a low-range gearbox. Despite
a ground clearance of 241mm, our
car is also fitted with a thick metal
underguard between the bumper
and the engine, in case we decide
to climb a mountain in it.
Matty Graham
 Our cars

Voyage of
The textbook hybrid drive:
discovery
from the sticks to the smoke
Smugly switching to battery power when you enter London? Priceless. By Ben Miller

1
2

1 ALL ABOARD
Two of us, slinking off to London 2 COOL OR CRUSTY?
for a night in a hotel so far outside The interior is divisive: classy, or
our budget that the cost per night like drowning in ’80s hi-fi. I like it, 3 TO THE TWISTIES!
The brief run from home to the A1
sounds like a mortgage payment. even the touch-pointer interface
South is superb, including a
First job, luggage. The RC is more thing, and the easy-to-turn-off
wicked stretch of rural B-road that
than big enough for our purposes. main screen is a nice touch at
rollercoasters between fields and
Hooks for a suit on a coathanger night. Twisting the drive mode to
forests like a mini-Nürburgring. As
above the rear seats are handy. Sport is essential – the throttle
the Lexus’s regular keeper James
Hopeless door bins, mind. response in anything less is torpid
Taylor noted last month, the RC’s
to the point of insanity.
chassis is much better than its
hybrid powertrain.

The throttle response in

anything less than Sport is
torpid to the point of insanity
4 CITY SLICKER
Many plug-in hybrids are never
plugged in, and the weight blunts
performance and efficiency. The non
plug-in RC doesn’t have the electric
range of a plug-in, but at least the
battery is never totally empty, and
gliding silently into London on
EV power is soothing and it takes the Lexus RC 300h F Sport
stress out of queuing. Leaves the Month 2
line like a departing SpaceX rocket
when the lights change, too. The story so far
Esoteric two-door first launched
2014, facelifted 2018. This one
is the hybrid 300h version, in
F Sport trim – not be confused
with the 5.0 V8 RC F
+ Stop-you-in-your-tracks styling
- Put-you-to-sleep driving
4
Logbook
5 GETTING THE NO
D
‘Handsome car, sir, very Price £42,305 (£43,725 tested)
nice.’ Sure, it’s
the doorman’s job to be 5 Performance 2494cc hybrid
charming, but four-cylinder, 220bhp, 8.6sec
the Lexus does feel right
at home pulling 0-62mph, 118mph Efficiency
up outside The Lanesb
orough. One 40.8-47.6mpg (official), 34.4mpg
high-pressure parallel pa (tested), 114g/km CO2 Energy
rk later
(between two S-Class Me cost 17.3p per mile Miles this
rcs, naturally)
and we’ve arrived, relax month 982 Total miles 3800
ed and on time.

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 129

 Parenting made
easy, the Volvo way
Goodbye
Baby’s first words: ‘Don’t you dare take our S90 away.’ Sorry.
Time to let go of some fabulous family transport. By Ben Pulman
Volvo S90 T5
R-Design Pro
Month 12
The story so far
Brilliant family saloon – and
more practical than the estate
+ Literally everything. A
calming presence in our lives
- It’s gone
Logbook
Price £44,920 (£49,370 as
tested) Performance 1969cc
turbo four-cyl, 247bhp, 6.8sec
0-62mph, 140mph Efficiency
42.2mpg (official), 31.2mpg
(tested), 156g/km CO2 Energy
cost 18.6p per mile Miles this
month 251 Total miles 5617
130 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
After 12 months with the S90, I’m
a Volvo convert. It joined us just
after the arrival of our first child, at
a time when steps, buses and just
about anything beyond our front
door was suddenly fraught and
immensely frustrating. By contrast
the Volvo made our lives easier.
Only when you have children
(specifically your child in one arm,
flailing, and her toys, changing
bag and beaker in the other) is the
full worth of keyless go apparent.
Ditto the ability to waggle your
foot under the bumper to open the
boot. We will sorely miss, too, the
standard rear window blinds that
block out motorway lights at night.
And while my sleep deprivation has
ended, I can still never remember
where I’ve parked – but the Volvo
On Call app knows.
Besides being useful, so much
of the S90 just works. The auto
electronic parking brake never
suddenly yanks you to a stop if
you’ve paused for a split second in
traffic (our previous VW Arteon
had that fault). The fabulous
heated seats and steering wheel are
warm in seconds. The touchscreen,
which initially seems overly simple,
really gives you all you ever need.
The S90 combines it all
seamlessly into a package where
the exterior styling, interior
ambience and badge cachet
are now at least on par with
the Germans. As for our exact
car, in retrospect did we spec it
correctly? In R-Design Pro guise
it was understated, the ride good,
the engine quiet. When you
have to park nose-in to a space
to be able to access the buggy in
the boot – and when you’re in a
saloon and everyone else is in a tall
SUV – £500 for the Cross Traffic
Styling, ambience and
badge cachet are now all at
least on par with the Germans
Alert system (which spots if you’re
about to reverse into the path of
an oncoming vehicle, cyclist or
pedestrian) is worth the money.
Equally good is the optional
360º around-view camera. So
good in fact that I never used the
Volvo’s Park Assist Pilot that can
do parallel and 90º parking; I’d
recommend spending £525 just
on the camera, rather than three
times that on the Xenium Pack
that bundles it all together.
I wondered if the T8 plug-in
petrol-hybrid powertrain would’ve
been better for London than our
2.0-litre petrol. But while there’s
charge enough to run around the
capital on e-power, every long
journey is less economical because
of the batteries you’re also lugging.
Even if localised emissions are
worse, gut feel is we’re not better
off doing one electric journey a
week to and from a swimming
class and then inferior petrol
consumption on a 500-mile round
motorway trip.
So, if we had our time again with
the Volvo, it’d still be a 2.0-litre
petrol in much the same spec.
Count the cost
Cost new £49,370 Private sale
Alex Tapley
£29,085 Part exchange £27,525
Energy cost 18.6p per mile Cost per
mile including depreciation £3.70

The wheel’s off the bus
It’s that time again: puncture! By Chris Chilton
When was the last time you had a
puncture? According to tyre maker
Continental, they hit the average
European driver once every five
years, or 44,000 miles. And since I
do around 30,000 a year, I suppose
I can’t grumble about falling victim
to my second in 18 months.
My last blow-out debacle,
Mercedes-Benz
X350d 4Matic
Month 8
The story so far
Winter comes, X keeps going
+Yet to find terrain it can’t travel
over, or through
- Those Duellers might be
defeated if snow turns up
Logbook
Price £47,405 (£59,834 as
tested) Performance 2987cc
turbodiesel V6, 253bhp, 7.9sec
0-62mph, 127mph Efficiency
31.3mpg (official), 27.4mpg
(tested), 237g/km CO2 Energy
cost 21.5p per mile Miles this
month 1305 Total miles 8838
Somewhere
there’s an Up
owner with a
21-inch spare
driving our long-term-test Skoda
Octavia vRS 245, resulted in a five-
hour wait in the car for the AA to
fetch a new tyre because we didn’t
have a spare and the patrolman’s
universal spare wouldn’t fit over
the 245’s big brake kit. Since then
I’ve always opted for a spare wheel
whenever possible. And there it
Dampness
on the edge
of town
Glorious in mud.
By Steve Moody
It’s been raining pretty solidly for
six months now and the vale where
we live is awash with mud, leaves,
standing water and bedraggled
ducks. You know it’s bad when even
they’ve had enough of it.
But thanks to our car’s off-road
throttle and gear setting, the
low-range ratios, locking rear diff,
hill descent control and optional
extra ground clearance I’ve yet to
encounter anything it can’t beast.
was, a black rubbery rescue beacon
beaming back at me from beneath
the boot carpet.
It started off well. The jack made
light work of the Touareg’s 2070kg
heft, though to be honest I would
have welcomed another one to
help hike the mammoth, now
redundant, 21-inch alloy up high
enough get it into the boot to take
home. But the real problem came
when I tried to inflate the spare.
It’s one of those collapsible
spares that looks flat when stored,
like you’ve got a Pirelli P7 from a
mid-1970s Countach inexplicably
stored under your SUV’s boot floor.
To make it useable you need the
supplied air compressor. To make
that work, you need electricity.
But we had none. No power
from any of the three on-board 12v
sockets. I’d never noticed before
because I use the wireless charging
tray to juice my phone. I turned
the car on and off, tried locking it
and restarting it, even dropping it
down off the jack in case there was
some weird anti-tilt thing going on.
Nothing.
So it was another wait for the
AA, whose compressor wouldn’t
work off the VW’s sockets either,
meaning there’s some kind of
Ideal for one
of the wettest
years ever
That said, it’s on Bridgestone
Duelers, which are tyres for SUVs
with delusions of grandeur, and
no more. If this was going to be
an everyday off-road workhorse
I’d at least swap to winter tyres
for the coldest months. They do
cut through the acres of standing
water pretty well, but that might
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 131
Our cars
circuit issue, possibly just a blown
fuse. I blame the kids. Probably
trying to play hairdryer badminton
or something equally daft and
fuse-unfriendly. Whatever it is, it
needs investigating – I’ve only got
another 44k ’til the next one…
Volkswagen Touareg
R-Line Tech
Month 2
The story so far
VW’s biggest, most expensive SUV
is going down really well, just like
its rear tyre
+ Great road presence; huge shiny
grille grabs everybody’s attention
- Or maybe it was bright yellow AA
van parked next to it; £260 for a
new hoop
Logbook
Price £52,235 (£72,005 as tested)
Performance 2967cc turbodiesel
V6, 282bhp, 6.2sec 0-62mph,
146mph Efficiency 33.6mpg
(official), 32.5mpg (tested), 173g/
km CO2 Energy cost 18p per mile
Miles this month 1430 Total miles
1690
be because they’ve got 2.5 tonnes
pressing them into the road.
Small annoyance: my thumbs
always look like I’ve been
fingerprinted, because chucked-up
mud covers the reversing cameras,
so I’m constantly wiping them off.
If only it had a retracting cover, like
those posh Merc cars.
 Misunderstood hero
Goodbye BMW’s sports car hasn’t set every enthusiast’s soul on fire, but living with it
every day has James Taylor convinced we should give it another chance
Part of the point of a long-term test
is to see if a car can change your
mind – for better or worse. A car
that shines on first acquaintance
can become an irksome bag of
niggles to live with every day, while
a car that initially underwhelms
can worm its way into your
affections and convert you. This is
one of the latter cases.
Winding back to the Z4’s first
appearance in CAR six months ago,
the question was whether or not it
could convince as a desirable sports
car after a lukewarm reaction
at launch. It was a perfectly nice
car, sure, but a memorable one, a
thrilling one? Nah, not really.
But now the Z4’s gone, I really
miss it. It’s been a great companion.
It’s not one stand-out quality
that’s made the difference
132 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
(although the 335bhp/369lb ft
straight-six certainly helped), more
a cumulative total of small, very
likeable attributes. The quick-draw
roof, the balanced handling (helped
by an excellent limited-slip diff),
the refinement, the way it’s just so
easy to jump in and go anywhere,
any time, any weather. The styling,
which I initially thought awkward,
has grown on me too.
It’s a shame the
ride quality is so
busy. There’s a
constant, gentle
jostle. It never
settles down
It’s just a shame the ride quality
is so busy. The 19-inch wheels
and adaptive dampers handle big
bumps well, but there’s a constant,
gentle jostle on anything other
than millpond-smooth roads. On
an average dual carriageway it
never quite settles down.
Otherwise it would be a near-
perfect long-distance car. With
plush seats, unstinting equipment
(though you’d hope so for £50k) and
a news-anchor-smooth manner,
the Z4 feels very much like a grand
tourer in miniature. It even has a
decent boot (one that’s carried all
sorts, from musical instruments
to garden rubbish, during its time
on the CAR fleet). Other than a
few absent seats, you could almost
be driving a 3-series. Which is
a double-edged compliment. I
drove a Porsche 718 Boxster, the
Z4’s express benchmark, not
long before the end of the BMW’s
time with us, and the Porsche is
unquestionably more involving
and rewarding – more of a sports
car to the Z4’s roadster. But the Z4
isn’t as far behind it for enjoyment
as I’d thought it would be in
isolation. And driven back-to-back,
the BMW’s engine makes the 718’s
four-pot feel particularly lacking.
Any niggles? A few. Keyless
entry wasn’t a policy that always
applied to the boot, which would
occasionally sound the alarm if you
opened it without first plipping the
keyfob; the sat-nav frequently lost
track of the Z4’s position, believing
it to be ploughing through fields
and buildings a quarter of a mile
or so to the side of its actual
 Our cars

co-ordinates; and the moulding
around the drive mode switch
would expand in hot weather and
get stuck down when depressed,
needing to be freed up again by
hand. This seemingly fixed itself
over time (that or nature fixed it via
the onset of autumn). And there
was the recalcitrant windscreen
wiper connection mentioned in
Month 2. But I still really enjoyed
life with the Z4, mostly because it
fitted in so neatly. The first time I
pulled onto my drive in something
else I felt an odd pang of pining. So
it’s done its job.
I understand why people aren’t
struck by the Z4 initially, because
I was one of them. It’s not a car
you’d set an early alarm to take
the long way to work for, and
other sports cars (718, A110 and the
platform-cousin Supra too, for my
money) are more exciting. But it is
good fun, it’s remarkably easy to
live with and driving one every day
can make you feel, if not thrilled,
then quietly contented. And there’s
plenty to be said for that.
@JamesTaylorCAR
High street
In bits
hardcore
BMW Z4 M40i
Month 6 Fast, furious, tacky. By Ben Barry
EMBARRASSING EMBR ACING
The story so far
Red revcounter is your clue Recaro seats remain a £1500
Short-wheelbase soft-top with that Sport mode’s engaged. option, even on the Trophy.
turbo’d straight-six and clever diff. It peps up throttle response Love the look, the grippy
We didn’t love it at the launch but and gives a much more fabric and how the contour
guttural soundtrack. But the of the seatback cups your
it’s grown on us since
+ All-round usability; great engine; gunfire from the exhaust on torso so naturally. I’d prefer
easy-open roof the over-run is too much, with if they dropped a bit lower,
- Stiff price; other sports cars offer pops even when you back off though they’re 20mm lower
more focused thrills from modest throttle and low than standard and for me a
speed. must-spec.
Logbook
Price £49,185 (£53,865 as tested)
Performance 2998cc turbo
six-cylinder, 335bhp, 4.6sec
0-62mph, 155mph (limited)
Efficiency 33.2mpg (official),
28.8mpg (tested), 165g/km CO2
Energy cost 20.5p per mile Miles
this month 657 Total miles 10,413
Count the cost
Cost new £53,865 Private sale
£34,215 Part-exchange £32,570
Cost per mile 17.5p Cost per mile
including depreciation £4.46

BR ACING
The Trophy’s rear-wheel
steering felt odd at first,
but I get on with it now. The
steering is very firm at the
top, but the Megane starts
to pivot around its middle
the moment you move it
off-centre. I tend to ease it
in to turns very gently and
progressively as a result.
GRIPPING
The 19-inch alloys with red
flashes continue the theme
of the last generation –
though that car’s didn’t look
this tacky. On a positive, they
save 2kg per corner and get
Bridgestone Potenza tyres.
Nice crisp turn-in and bite,
complemented by excellent
Brembo brake set-up.

Renault Megane
RS 300 Trophy
Month 6
The story so far
We’re exploring how well this hardcore hatch balances road
and track, driving pleasure and daily practicality
+ Great hot-hatch chassis, at its best on the track
- Passenger-hostile ride

Logbook
Price £31,835 (£36,085 as tested) Performance 1798cc
turbocharged four-cylinder, 296bhp, 5.7sec 0-62mph,
162mph Efficiency 34.4mpg (official), 30.6mpg (tested),
183g/km CO2 Energy cost 19.1p per mile Miles this
Alex Tapley

month 1334 Total miles 9649

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 133

You drive
The estate
our cars
of the nation
Britain’s enthusiasm for Fords may be dwindling along
with its appetite for estate cars. Which is a shame if it
means missing out on a car this good. By Tim Pollard

TH E E S TATE C A R FA N
Hockey coach Mike Yeoman is a fan
of wagons for lugging sports kit and
family clobber. Owns a Volvo V70.

THE FOCUS FOLK

Tim Pollard is CAR’s digital
editorial director and a family man
who prefers estate cars to SUVs.

134 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020


Ford Focus 1.5 T
Titanium X
Month 5
The story so far
The Focus Estate is a pragmatic
choice – but can it stir desire
among our reader test clinic?
+ Capable, comfortable,
affordable
- Lacks a little X factor and sizzle
Logbook
Price £24,755 (£26,905 as
tested) Performance 1497cc
turbo four-cyl, 148bhp, 9.0sec
0-62mph, 129mph Efficiency
51.4mpg (official), 39.4mpg
(tested), 125g/km CO2 Energy
cost 14.7p per mile Miles this
month 1102 Total miles 5893
Ford’s biggest problem is arguably
image. In a brand-obsessed age, the
Blue Oval can offer all the steering
response, gadgetry and dynamic
fizz it likes, but if the badge puts
people off then they’ll never get to
enjoy those fine qualities.
CAR readers are a knowledgeable
bunch – and one not backwards
in coming forwards. After an
appeal on these pages, our first
respondent, Tim Nicholson,
expressed an interest in our Ford
Focus as he’s considering one to
replace his Audi A3. ‘This size of
car suits my life at present, now the
children have left home,’ he muses.
‘We do need occasional space for
longer holidays and trips, but most
THE PREMIUM
POACHER
Reader Tim Nicholson is an Audi A3
owner who’s actively considering
swapping into a cheaper Focus.
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 135
Our cars
of the time a car like the A3 or
Focus is all we need.’
Our second reader is Mike
Yeoman, a serial wagon owner who
knows his estate-of-the-art onions.
‘As a full-time hockey coach, I need
the space of an estate car – there’s
a lot of clobber to carry around for
my work, and I now have a young
grandchild to entertain too.’
Both are impressed by the Ford’s
graceful design and Tim reckons
it’s actually better-looking than
the hatchback. ‘It looks longer, too,’
he notes. That’s no illusion: the
load-lugger is stretched by 290mm
(nearly 12 inches) over the regular
hatch, enough to give it a decent-
sized loadbay.
Neither is convinced by the
waggle-foot-to-open tailgate (a
£450 option on our car) and we
enjoy a glorious chilly winter
moment where Cambridgeshire’s
bystanders must’ve wondered what
this strange daytime dance party
was up to, as we wiggled and jiggled
our feet in unison under the rear
bumper. It’s a hit-and-miss affair
and none us could reliably master
the movement required to trigger
the tailgate. Get it right, and it’s a
handy aid.
‘This would be particularly
useful if I had my grandchild’s
pushchair and car seat in my
hands,’ admits Mike. ‘I can see
why Ford offers it, but it’s quite
annoying if it doesn’t work properly
every time. I’d get frustrated with
it. What’s wrong with opening the
bootlid by hand?’
Magic feet enabled, the tailgate
lifts to reveal a generously sized ⊲
‘Well I make
it five.’ ‘Yup,
five it is…’

‘It’s not quite as
refined but it’s more
nimble than my Audi’
TIM NICHOLSON
boot and both readers give the flat
loadbay the thumbs-up. There’s
no annoying lip over which to lug
goalkeeper bags or holiday luggage
and it’s a decent size, stretching
to a metre deep and 115cm wide,
justifying that stretched bodyshell.
‘I love the fold-down seats,’ says
Mike, flipping the rear backrest
down by remote levers near the
bootlid. ‘I’ve not seen that before.’
They automatically swivel down
flat, swelling bootspace from a
generous 575 litres to a cavernous
1620 litres, numbers that will be
familiar to Volvo-owning Mike.
The 12-volt charging point draws
praise, but the seemingly sealed
rear light units are an annoyance
to Tim, who points out that he
doesn’t want to pay through the
nose to replace lightbulbs.
Our rendezvous is in daytime,
so I don’t get a chance to show off
our Focus’s LED headlamps, a £750
option. It’s a shame, as I’m enjoying
them during this dark, dank time
of year; on full beam, they light
up the road ahead impressively
The bottom
line: the Ford
drives very well
136 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
well, although they lack the active
shuttering and corner-bending
lenses of rival systems (you need to
step up to Ford’s top-spec Dynamic
LED headlamps for this tech).
Clambering on board, both
testers are impressed by the
roominess of the cabin, especially
in the back seats, but there’s
recognition that some cabin
components are built down to a
price compared with our owners’
Swedish and German cars. ‘It’s
nice and uncomplicated in here
– it’s not too bling and the simple
heating controls are good,’ says
Tim, a retired civil engineer. ‘I’d
need to play with the touchscreen
more to see if I could live with it,
but at first glance it seems simple
and straightforward to use.’
The front seats attract praise,
especially for their wide range of
adjustment (our Titanium X has
electric operation for the driver’s
seat only) and heating (‘vital
for cold training sessions at the
hockey pitch’). Everyone can see
out easily enough, too. The start
button tucked away behind the
‘It’s much lighter
and easier to hustle
along a back road’
MIKE YEOMAN
steering wheel raises an eyebrow
(‘I can understand this on a sports
car, but on a Ford Focus?’) but the
four-cylinder 1.5 EcoBoost engine
impresses both members of our
Focus Group. It’s remarkably
refined for a downsized motor but
our typical 40mpg doesn’t feel like
huge progress to either reader.
These are men who like their
cars, as confirmed by their
automotive CVs. Mike likes fast,
practical cars and has owned a VW
Golf R32, Lancia Delta HF Turbo
and BMW 330i, while Tim spent a
happy five years with a Caterham
Seven and used to drive a Ford
Escort Twin Cam.
He’s dabbled in rallying, too,
navigating at club races and even
helping run the Safari Rally during
an assignment building bridges in
Kenya, where he rubbed shoulders
with Hannu Mikkola and was
spellbound by the works Audi
Good seat,
good visibility,
gratuitous
start button
Quattros. In his retirement, Tim
prefers more comfortable cars.
‘The Focus feels slower than my
180bhp A3 1.8 TFSI, but this is a
nice engine,’ he says. ‘It’s maybe
not quite as refined and the ride is
a little choppier, but this is more
nimble than my Audi. It’s one of
those cars you can get in and drive
really easily.’
Mike rates the Focus decently,
too. ‘I like something with a bit
of go, and I do like my toys and
gadgets in a car. Apart from the
grabby brakes, I rate this Focus to
drive – it’s much lighter and easier
to hustle along a back road. It feels
lively and sweet to drive for quite a
roomy estate car.’
It’s fair to say that both punters
were pleasantly surprised by
the Focus Estate, whose ability
outreaches its more humble
kerbside appeal. Even on this
brief encounter, reader Tim feels
encouraged to consider a purchase.
‘For me, it’s a straight fight between
the new Audi A3 coming in 2020
and this Ford Focus,’ he says.
‘Money will play an important
part in my decision, and I expect
the Ford will be cheaper to buy. I’d
like a premium brand, but I’m not
prepared to pay too much more for
it – I just want the best car at a fair
price. The badge on the front is not
a deal-breaker for me.’
@TimPollardCars
FANCY A DRIVE?
IF YOU’RE CURIOUS
ABOUT OUR MERCEDES
G-CLASS,
Matty Graham
GET IN TOUCH
CAR@BAUERMEDIA .CO.UK

Hate filling up,
loving the C5
This is not a drill! Team Aircross
(me and my C5) have just smashed
400 miles from a tank! Regular
readers will have monitored my
conversion from driving as if in a
James Bond car chase to pootling
around as if James Blunt was
permaloop on the stereo, to savour
the benefit of the C5’s comfy nature.
So I’ve been building up
to some economy runs. The
winning formula? Eco button on
to anaesthetise the accelerator,
air-con mostly off, progress at a
pace that enables me to check out
the countryside and hum You’re
Beautiful. The result: 440 miles
from 50-odd litres, at 40mpg. That’s
better than the official mpg figure,
and no fluke: Team Aircross scored
420 miles again a few weeks later.
PHIL McNAMARA
Citroën C5 Aircross
PureTech 180 Flair+
Month 4
The story so far
Wafty, practical SUV turning
its sceptical custodian into a
cheerleader
+ Splendid economy; great
refinement; versatile cabin
- Glacially slow infotainment; the
odd clunky downshift at low speed
Logbook
Price £31,330 (£32,125 as tested)
Performance 1598cc turbo four-cyl,
178bhp, 8.2sec 0-62mph, 134mph
Efficiency 38.2mpg (official),
36.0mpg (tested), 129g/km CO2
Energy cost 16p per mile Miles this
month 1922 Total miles 8638
Is this thing
switched on?
I recently voiced doubts that the
CR-V’s steering wheel paddles
actually perform any function.
Honda insists they adjust the
engine’s regenerative braking. But I
find the effect imperceptible.
As you lift off the accelerator
simply blip the ‘-’ on the left side to
increase the resistance. There’s four
levels of resistance, changing with
each pull. Blip the ‘+’ on the right
hand side to decrease the resistance.  Honda engine yourself; honestly…
Today, on a long trip, I make a
conscious effort to use them and
monitor their effect. In vain. To
make worthwhile use of them on
your daily drive would take some
serious adjustment, as they reset
to the default after a few seconds,
which means you’re constantly
flapping around.
ALEX TAPLEY
Honda CR-V i-MMD
Hybrid SR AWD eCVT
Month 7
The story so far
More of a gimmick than a real-
world application, but just in case...
+ This is the one that decreases
the resistance
- This is the one that increases
resistance!
Logbook
Price £34,470 (£35,320 as tested)
Performance 1993cc hybrid
four-cyl, 144bhp, 9.2sec 0-62mph,
112mph Efficiency 51.4mpg (official),
36.1mpg (tested), 126g/km CO2
Energy cost 16.4p per mile Miles
this month 379 Total miles 9252
Caffeine and
machine
So profound is my addiction that
not having an extra-hot triple-shot
cappuccino on hand as I cover the
miles simply isn’t an option, even in
the door-less, roof-less, lane-keep-
assist-less, cupholder-less Ariel
Nomad. Ordering’s easy enough,
though with no engine stop-start
(just one of the great things about
this pretty great car) you’ve no
option but to kill and re-start the
Back into gear, roll around to
the booth, answer all the guy’s
questions about what you’re driving,
who makes it and what it might
be for, wince as the giant whippy
aerial (illuminated at night like a
6ft floppy lightsabre) clatters off the
roof, and you’re done – ready re-join
the bemused motorway traffic.
BEN MILLER
Ariel Nomad
Month 6
The story so far
Wild, Honda-engined on-/off-road
weapon is ours to enjoy and try to
break for a few months. Truly, we
are blessed
+ Goes anywhere; fast; drifty; does
anything…
- …except keep you dry, store
much, or in any way drive itself
Logbook
Price £33,996 (£55,677 as tested)
Performance 2354cc four-cylinder,
235bhp, 221lb ft, 3.4sec 0-60mph,
124mph Efficiency n/a mpg
(official), 26.2mpg (tested) Energy
cost 23.4p per mile Miles this
month 176 Total miles 1223
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 137
Our cars
Chasing
supercars
You can learn a lot about a car
when you’re looking the other way.
More specifically, when you’re
using a familiar car as a support
vehicle on a supercar photo shoot,
you discover previously hidden
qualities. Or rather, your colleague
Adam Binnie does.
Here’s what he said after an
intense couple of days chasing the
McLaren GT, Ferrari Portofino and
Honda NSX around Wales: ‘It was
super comfy on the drive up and
surprisingly capable on that Bala
road too when I was driving behind
the fast stuff.
‘It was a stable and large enough
platform for photographer John
Wycherley, but able to catch up or
accelerate out of the way too. It’s
just a pity about the noisy wipers.’
COLIN OVERLAND
Seat Tarraco Xcellence Lux
2.0 TDI 4Drive 190PS DSG
Month 4
The story so far
Seat’s seven-seat SUV in top spec,
with the more powerful of the
diesel engines and all-wheel drive
+ Practical and engaging all-round
package
- Hard ride; laggy throttle; noisy
wipers
Logbook
Price £38,055 Performance
1968cc turbodiesel four-cylinder,
188bhp, 8.0sec 0-62mph, 130mph
Efficiency 37.2-38.2mpg (official),
35.3mpg (tested), 147g/km CO2
Energy cost 17.1p per mile Miles this
month 1197 Total miles 4990
 My First Supercar™
Goodbye It might not have won over everyone who drove it but
Jake Groves is sold on life with an Audi R8
Audi R8 Spyder
Performance
Month 7
The story so far
Punching well above his weight,
staff writer Jake Groves still
can’t quite believe he spent the
summer in an R8
+ Incredible engine; topless
thrills; ride in Comfort mode
- Too safe for some; thirsty
(duh); hearty depreciation
Logbook
Price £152,645 (£169,120 as
tested) Performance 5204cc
V10, 612bhp, 3.2sec 0-62mph,
204mph Efficiency 20.9-21.1mpg
(official), 17.6mpg (tested), 302g/
km CO2 Energy cost 37.2p per
mile Miles this month 462 Total
miles 13,571
And just like that, our Audi R8
vanishes as fast as it arrived. Feels
like minutes since I got the bulky,
tracker-equipped key to the 612bhp
soft-top, and it almost feels like a
death in the family now it’s gone.
I’m not kidding – several people
have come up to me since the R8’s
departure and said something
along the lines of: ‘Won’t be the
same without the R8, will it?’
Indeed. It’s been quite an
experience: eye-opening, expensive
and a great deal of enjoyment.
One of the biggest revelations
has been the strongly tribal
reactions to the R8. For some, it’s
their dream car, or at least the one
they’d like to own, due to its innate
accessibility and the assumption
that, since it’s an Audi, it’ll be
bombproof.
Then there’s the hostile camp
– those who just don’t get it. They
say it’s too soft, too sanitised and
138 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
dynamically blunt compared with
the likes of Porsche, Ferrari or
McLaren. There seem to be very
few who don’t align themselves
with one camp or the other. But I
think I’m one of them.
It really is a dream car for
me, and has been since I was
13. But I also understand some
of the criticisms. The steering
in particular, although decent
in isolation, is nowhere near as
precise as a Porsche 911 or McLaren
600LT, nor as alert as the updated
Lamborghini Huracan.
That said, throughout our
months with the R8 the ride was
stellar, aided by optional adaptive
dampers, the grip near-infallible,
launch control an addictive
kick in the back, and the rolling
acceleration never got old.
I’ve put almost 11,000 miles onto
the clock, none of them boring.
I couldn’t stop smiling cruising
to and from Le Mans, blasting
music with the roof down on
autoroutes or childishly letting the
engine howl through long tunnels.
Congested A1 drives to visit family
and friends in Newcastle were
more of an event than ever before.
Even my short commutes acquired
a sprinkling of magic.
Downsides? Well, it’s wide, so
Jake, pretending to be lost
again, taking a massive
detour on the way in to work
you have to be conscious of where
you’re trying to park it; multi-
storeys are pretty much a no-go
area as a precaution. Happily, it was
largely unfazed by speedbumps
– despite the lack of a nose-lift
system – but I still winced driving
over every single one.
Naturally, running a V10
supercar is heinously expensive
– I spent around £3300 on super
unleaded, and the depreciation
is brutal. Or, looked at more
positively, there are some great
pre-owned R8 deals to be had.
There may be sharper, fiercer,
brasher supercars but there’s
an allure to an R8 that’s hard to
ignore. It’s crazy fast and dramatic,
without being threatening; capable
of carrying a weekend’s worth
of camping kit and yet looks just
at home at a concours event. For
a supercar beginner like myself,
it’s been quite the baptism. Like
the 911 Turbo, the R8 has always
been seen as an ‘everyday supercar’
– after living with one, I finally
understand why.
@_jakegroves
Count the cost
Cost new £169,120 Private sale
£118,365 Part-exchange £110,500
Cost per mile 30.7p Cost per mile
including depreciation £4.32
Chris Teagles
 Our cars

There may be sharper,

fiercer, brasher supercars
but there’s an allure to an
R8 that’s hard to ignore

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 139

 It’s behind you Got to ask
(apparently)
Dirt. By Anthony ffrench-Constant
Goodbye
myself one
A very high-tech
question: Do I
feel sensible?
way for the car
to tell you the
weather’s filthy

Well do I? Actually no, not sensible enough

to love the Dacia Duster. By Curtis Moldrich

When I first got the keys to my months ago – is more of a ‘yes’.

It strikes me as somewhat
optimistic to scroll the
words ‘Please Check
Surroundings For Safety’
across the bottom of the
CX-5’s rear-view camera
screen. Just five minutes of
post-jetwash Mudfordshire
motoring is more than
enough to re-transform
the image from just about
perfect to Jackson Pollock
so comprehensively that
you wonder why more car
makers don’t hide the lens,
VW-style, under the badge.
I guess it comes down to
prioritising where to spend
the dosh. Mazda’s recent
drive is towards a new
generation of technologies
that, by harnessing our
natural ability to balance
Duster, I began longing for the day Without getting too
I could return them; eight months philosophical, the key to
our heads atop our on, that feeling hasn’t really appreciating the Duster is
shoulders, purport to make subsided. Did I grow attached to understanding its purpose. This
it even easier for a mounted the Romanian heavyweight? Did involves acquiring the mindset
bowman to hit the bullseye I enjoy driving it? The meagre of someone for whom rewarding
at full gallop… Laudable mileage says that’s mostly a ‘no’. car ownership isn’t about how
indeed to wish to create But do I respect it? That – much high the redline is, but rather how
a decent-sized SUV that’s to the surprise of the me of eight high the boot sill is (vital, it turns
good to drive. But the CX-5
hasn’t yet benefitted from
this latest deployment of
engineering cunningnesses,
and is already good to drive.
When it does, though, I’ll
wager that the dog will be
puking aplenty long before
the driver feels he may have
ascended to a new plateau of
driving pleasure.
Which is why I really hope
that, along with whatever
other new talents the next
CX-5 is armed, it also boasts
a mud-free rear camera.

Mazda CX-5 2.2D 150PS

2WD Sport Nav+
Month 7
The story so far
How quickly we have come to rely on gadgets which, a few
years ago, we never even knew we wanted
+ Like the rear-view camera
- Which gets dirty so fast it’s only good for reversing out of
the jet wash
Logbook
Lack of fun aside, the
Price £29,900 (as tested £30,460) Performance 2191cc
turbocharged 4-cylinder, 148bhp, 9.9sec 0-62mph, 127mph Duster is a masterclass
Efficiency 49.6mpg (official), 44.5mpg (tested) 128g/km
CO2 Energy cost 15.6p per mile Miles this month in subtle and sensible
817 Total miles 4842

140 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020


out, when you’re doing a big shop).
Look around the Duster and
you’ll find it laden with features
that make perfect sense from
this practicality-first perspective
– features like the countless
cubbyholes and the moveable
armrests. Combine that with a
bargain price, and it’s no wonder
the Duster is doing absolute
numbers for Renault UK.
Over the last eight months,
the Duster has certainly been
useful. But, for me at least, its
combo of super-quick steering
and trifle-like suspension hasn’t
made it particularly engaging
to drive. While I don’t want to
exit every corner with a ‘dab
of oppo’ – and most customers
would rather drive with the
wheels in line, anyway – it still
wasn’t as much fun at speed as
its (more expensive) competitors.
Something I do really need
to point out in an enthusiast
magazine review.
This lack of fun aside, the
Duster is a masterclass in subtle
and sensible. It’s cheap enough
new to compete with used cars.
And when bought used – not a
daft idea, given how well Dacia
owners tend to look after their
cars – the Duster is shockingly
good value.
There are other cars that deliver
this level of practicality – the
VW T-Cross, for example. But
that’s within touching distance
of £30k, which seems laughably
expensive, even when you account
for its superb infotainment or VW
badge. Simply put, the Duster is
a fantastic piece of cost-cutting
and internal penny pinching: a
flagship for thriftiness.
The interior is refreshingly/
sadly void of Level 3 autonomous
driving or an HUD, but caters
to a customer who would
rather pay less and do without.
There’s nothing experimental or
half-baked like BMW’s gesture
control here; it’s not pretty, but the
Duster’s interior just works, and
contains everything you need.
The Duster is a car with an
ignition you have to physically
turn – which means it’s also a
car that doesn’t make you panic
about leaving the keys somewhere
mid-drive – a constant worry in
our mainly keyless test fleet.
All this makes the Duster sound
like a dull but impressive car –
only that’s not the case either.
Although it never captured me, my
recent visit to Daciafest revealed
a healthy and enthusiastic
community of Dacia owners –
many of whom have modded or
tweaked their cars in some way.
Think more third-party aerials
and roof racks and less Liberty
Walk side skirts and spoilers, but
it’s still an example of how a car
can capture the imagination.
Would I want to buy a Duster
with my own money? No. But if I
had a particular set of needs and
a particular budget, it’d be an
absolute no-brainer. The Dacia
may not cater to the sexiest corner
of the car market, but it absolutely
dominates its niche.
@Khurtizz
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 141
Our cars
Dacia Duster
Comfort TCe
Month 8
The story so far
We’ve spent two-thirds of a year
trying to discover if charm and
practicality can win over a thrill-
seeking millennial
+ Practical, well priced and better
than the last Duster
- Feels cheap; uncomfortable
Logbook
Price £14,400 (£15,045 as
tested) Performance 1333cc
turbocharged four-cylinder,
128bhp, 11.1sec 0-62mph, 118mph
Efficiency 39.2-41.5mpg (official),
36.6mpg (tested), 136g/km CO2
Energy cost 15.9p per mile Miles
this month 362 Total miles 5298
Count the cost
Cost new £15,045 Private sale
Tom Chapman
£12,127 Part-exchange £11,357
Cost per mile 15.9p Cost
per mile including
depreciation 85.9p
 David Collins and
DB11 at Goodwood
race track: actually
flying the flag

‘The V12 is quick when

you want it to be, but
it feels like it’s ticking
over most of the time’

142 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020


‘The colour hooked
me – then I drove it’
One
year on
Aston Martin first-timer David Collins wasn’t sure – but now has
absolutely no regrets about splashing out on an ex-demo DB11
IT’ S A CAR TO FALL
I N LOVE WITH
I’d previously owned a couple
of Porsche Boxsters, and then
in 2017 bought a new McLaren
570GT. However, I had reliability
issues with it, so I rejected it. I then
looked at a Mercedes C63 S and
the AMG GT, but my step daughter
said why not an Aston Martin?
I hadn’t really considered an
Aston before because of their
previous Ford ownership, using
Ford and Volvo parts, perceived
reliability issues and an ageing
model line. In April 2018 I visited
my local dealer in Chichester to
test drive the V8 version of the
DB11, which was impressive, and
then saw their 66-plate, 2017-
model year demonstrator V12
Launch Edition on the forecourt.
It’s the Shanghai Fashionista
spec in Frosted Glass Blue (from
Aston’s ‘Q’ personalisation
service) with the contrasting black
roof, B&O sound system, heated
and ventilated seats and blue and
ivory leather interior. The colour
hooked me, and once I’d driven it,
I knew it was the car. My wife also
fell in love with it, not having been
a fan of the McLaren.
SO FAR B E YO N D
E XPE C TATI O N S
Having had the car for 16 months
now, I’m still really pleased with
it. We’ve been on extensive
trips around the UK, and it is so
comfortable and effortless to
drive. The V12 sounds lovely, it’s
quick when you want it to be,
especially when you’re in Sport
mode, but feels like it’s ticking
Matty Graham
over most of the time. Around
town I get 20-25mpg, and up to
30 on a long run. It draws a lot of
FEBRUARY 2020 | GET 3 ISSUES OF CAR FOR JUST £5! WWW.GREATMAGAZINES.CO.UK 143
Your cars
attention as well. THIS
Not that it’s been completely MUCH I’VE
fault-free. The day after I collected LEARNED
1
it, the engine management light
came on, which turned out to be a
failed catalytic converter; I thought
they lasted the life of the car. One
of the soft-close bonnet latches
failed twice. The service from
Aston Martin has been excellent The passenger mirror
to date, and an Aston courtesy car can’t be made to dip
for reversing. Or if it
was provided each time.
can, I can’t figure out
how; there’s nothing
FO R AN E XPE N S IVE CAR, in the manual
IT’ S CH E AP I N PL ACE S
2
I wasn’t a fan of the tablet-style
infotainment screen when I first
saw it. I much prefer integrated
ones. Although it works very well,
I’m aware it’s last-gen tech from
Mercedes. For a car that costs
£170k new, I’m surprised there Washing the car can
is no auto high beam, traffic sign easily activate the
engine management
recognition, or Apple CarPlay.
light. A quick
My Fiesta runabout has all these
drive will normally
as standard. The chrome-effect evaporate the water
control knobs on the air vents feel
3
very cheap and are plastic. A bit
of cost-saving there, I think. The
rest of the interior seems well put
together, though.
Insurance and road tax are
around £500 each. The first five
years servicing are included in the The warranty has
cost of the car from new, so I have just expired. Instead
three more free services. As the of extending the
car is only used as a weekend car warranty I’ll put some
money aside just in
and for occasional long trips, I’ve
case
done only 6000 miles.
CO LOU R M E CO N VE RTE D
The retail values for early DB11s
is now around £100k, and I would ONE YEAR INTO
probably lose about £50k if I A BEAUTIFUL
traded it in now, so the gap to a R E L ATI O N S H I P ?
new model is growing. But I enjoy SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES
WITH CAR READERS –
driving it so much that this one EMAIL COLIN.OVERLAND@
BAUERMEDIA.CO.UK
would be a keeper anyway.
Get on
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GBU
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
ABARTH
595 ★★★★★
NEW IN THIS MONTH
All-wheel drive, three ways
Totally unique
guide to EVERY
car on sale in
the UK, with a
punchy view
on all of them –
yours included

ALPINE
A110 ★★★★★

  
> Pricey pocket rocket with divine details, dodgy > Desirable, cleverly packaged and dynamics to
dynamics and a choice of 1.4-litre turbocharged die for. A bit pricey and the interior lacks wow but
engines in various stages of steroidal over- Mercedes GLB the Cayman should be seriously worried
compensation > VERDICT Like a small yappy dog: > VERDICT Reborn Alpine has smashed it clean
noisy, excitable and likely to give you a headache
Seven seats in a out of the park
footprint smaller
124 SPIDER ★★★★★ footprint than a ARIEL
> Tuning division’s take on Fiat’s take on the Mazda Skodiaq’s
MX-5, with tweaked brakes, engine, steering and Page 150
suspension > VERDICT A delight to drive, but the ATOM ★★★★★
rational decision is to go for a better-value Mazda > Only the Pope’s lips get more up close and
personal with the tarmac than an Atom driver, but
ALFA ROMEO there’s zero protection when the heavens open
> VERDICT Spectacular toy. Great on track, barmy
on road
GIULIETTA ★★★★★
> Looked like a credible Golf rival for a while but NOMAD ★★★★★
now the game has moved on. Keen prices, but > Not content with terrifying on tarmac, Ariel
several alternatives are roomier, classier and more Audi RS6 also offers the off-road Nomad. Gains a roll-over
fun to drive > VERDICT Miles better than a Mito. Audi’s ultimate structure but, like the Atom, still no doors
Miles better than a 4C, even. But, unfortunately, estate car steps > VERDICT Remember to put the hot water on –
miles behind a Golf – the old one, let alone Mk8 up to the plate, you’ll need a long, hot bath when you get home
4C/4C SPIDER ★★★★★ swings, scores a ASTON MARTIN
> Sexy carbon two-seater over-promises and home run
under-delivers on a double-your-dong-length Page 146
web-scam scale. Spider a step in right direction VANTAGE ★★★★★

> VERDICT Shoots for the moon, hits itself in the
foot. Lotus Elise more fun, Porsche Cayman a
better bet
GIULIA ★★★★★
> Good grief – an Alfa Romeo we can finally
recommend that you buy. Auto-only 3-series rival
has sharp steering, sultry looks, great driving
position and a choice of diesels and petrols.
Bellissimo! > VERDICT Note to dealers: don’t
cock it up
STELVIO ★★★★★
> Either we’ve collectively entered another
dimension or Alfa Romeo has just built two excellent
cars in a row. Now we just need everyone to start
buying them again > VERDICT Worth the risk at least
once in your life
GIULIA QUADRIFOGLIO ★★★★★
> Make that three in a row. Like a regular Giulia
doped up by Lance Armstrong, this 191mph, 503bhp
rocket is a quadruple shot of espresso for Alfa’s
long lamented soul. At last > VERDICT The closest
you can currently get to a four-door Ferrari. Really.
That good
ALPINA
D3/B3 ★★★★★
> 3-series derivatives with twin-turbo petrol and
diesel stonk and smooth auto ’boxes mated
Use “CAR50” for £50 off car warranty protection at MotorEasy.com
to a quality chassis, but watch out for some
questionable OAP-spec interior finishes
> VERDICT Try an xDrive D3 Touring – it’s what
the last-generation BMW M3 wants to be when it
grows up
D4/B4 ★★★★★
> Same blend of fast and frugal as the above but
slotted into the slinkier 4-series shell. ZF automatic
transmission is not as snappy as M4’s twin-clutch
set-up, but much smoother > VERDICT 53mpg
and 62mph in 4.6sec? And you’re alright with
this, BMW?
Polestar 1
Concept-
car looks,
vast power,
supernatural
handling,
Bentley pricing
Page 152
D5/B5 ★★★★★
> Twin-turbo B5 petrol V8’s 590lb ft could de-forest
the Amazon while the planet-loving D5 doesn’t let
a relatively meagre 155g/km prevent 174mph max
> VERDICT You can’t have a real M5 Touring, but
this comes close
B7 ★★★★★
> BMW doesn’t make an M7, but Alpina does. Twin-
blown petrol V8 delivers vast luxury couple with
autobahn-busting performance that’s best enjoyed
in Germany > VERDICT Niche Mercedes-AMG S63
alternative hamstrung by the ugliness of the raw
materials
XD3 ★★★★★
> A torquey straight-six diesel X3 with more cows
inside than a tannery. Fast, fun and leftfield in the
good kind of way > VERDICT Now actually quite
good, this is one of the best-handling SUVs you’ll
ever drive, but it’s flanked by cheaper rivals
> A truly convincing 911 rival that’s impressively
aggressive and thrillingly quick. Interior is
pleasingly solid but lacks fizz > VERDICT A stunner
to look at and rewarding to drive
DB11 ★★★★★
> Slick aero slinkiness, belting V12 turbo and,
crucially, Merc help with wiring > VERDICT Finally
the right blend of new stuff and classic Aston charm
results in a cut-above GT
DBS SUPERLEGGERA ★★★★★
> Superlight it isn’t, and can’t match the spine
tingle of a Ferrari Superfast, but stunning to look at,
incredibly quick and dripping with prestige
> VERDICT A proper flagship GT, but softer-edged
than a Ferrari 812
RAPIDE AMR ★★★★★
> Glorious final outing for Aston’s old-school V12.
Forget the limo pretensions, though: it’s a cramped
four-door 2+2 > VERDICT Pretty and still very fun
to drive, but the interior is more dated than a New
York socialite and almost as hard on your wallet
AUDI
A1 ★★★★★
> Second-generation Mini rival is five-door only and
ups the dimensions, tech and maturity on the first
gen, although you can spec it in brash two-tone
colour combos. Best at its simplest > VERDICT The
Evoque of superminis: stylish, posh and will sell
like hot cakes
A3 SPORTBACK/SALOON ★★★★★
> King of quality, but adrenalin isn’t specified
among the standard kit, although S versions are
generally livelier all round > VERDICT Classy five-
door hatch and four-door saloon, and not much of a
financial gulf to a Golf

FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 145

 AUDI > HONDA
A3 CABRIOLET ★★★★★
> Premium sun-grabber without macho sports-car
posturing. A bit tight in the back, but pretty tight
in the bends too. Try a 1.8 TFSI Sport > VERDICT
Definitely worth the £2k premium over a VW Golf
RS3 ★★★★★
> The superhatch/saloon for those lacking in
imagination and/or driving talent, RS3 struts its
stuff best in a straight line > VERDICT Only feel a
little bit ashamed for wanting one in preference to
something more nimble
A4 SALOON/AVANT/ALLROAD
★★★★★
> Lighter, smarter, better to drive than the last one –
and only microscopically different to look at
> VERDICT As you were, except inside, where tech
obsession offs elegance. Rivals remaining calm
RS4 ★★★★★
> Estate-only hot A4 ditches free-revving V8 for
RS5’s twin-turbo V6. Covers ground with impressive
pace and ease and just a tiny bit of proper driver
involvement > VERDICT An RS5 in a parka and
Timberland boots
A5 SPORTBACK ★★★★★
> More tech and even better quality doesn’t
compensate for a lack of personality. Better
looking, but so is Dorking after eight pints. You
could buy worse, but you’ll definitely get bored
> VERDICT It’s better to live in than to drive
A5 COUPE/CABRIO ★★★★★
> Deceptive bunny boiler – looks normal until you
realise it’s killed a TT and is wearing its face. Cue
B-road mayhem. Not really > VERDICT Even more
of an A4 in a frock than the last one, but still better
to drive, especially the S
RS5 ★★★★★
> Like a bouncer in a tailored suit, the hot A5’s
power bulges through the creases in its bodywork.
Twin-turbo V6 has full-bodied soundtrack; quattro
provides grip > VERDICT Four-seat express with
power to spare, but it’s not the most involving
A6 ★★★★★
> BMW 5-series still edges it in the driving
department, but the gap is much slimmer.
Well-appointed, super comfortable, clever and
handsome. Still a bit dull, mind > VERDICT A cruise
missile for the outside lane of the M4
RS6 ★★★★★
> Audi’s ultimate estate car steps up to
NEW the plate, swings and scores a home
ENTRY
run. Fast, practical, imposing and
impressively built, as ever. It’s also now fun to drive
> VERDICT Five-star rival for the non-existent BMW
M5 Touring
A7 SPORTBACK ★★★★★
> Think a more stylish A8 rather than A6 spin-off.
Capable of incredible wafting ability and grippier
than Spider-Man covered in superglue. Petrol
properly refined but diesel will make better sense in
the UK > VERDICT Stylish GT with sensible engines
RS7 ★★★★★
> An Audi RS with communicative steering? Light
the beacons! The fact it’s an imposing, stupidly fast
and technology-overladen sports car killer should
come as less of a surprise > VERDICT Menacing
A8 ★★★★★
> Packs enough tech to worry Skynet and avoids
being wooden behind the wheel so convincingly
you’d think it had a different badge on the front
> VERDICT New king in the exec tech arms race
146 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
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Q2 ★★★★★
> Odd-looking small crossover is like a Mini
Countryman that’s lost a battle with a set square
> VERDICT Nice enough to drive but still a nerd to
the Mini’s prom queen
Q3 ★★★★★
> Practical, comfy, handsome, well-built
> VERDICT Shame it’s a bit bland
Q5 ★★★★★
> Textbook Audi: calm and sophisticated, pleasing
to have on your drive > VERDICT An extremely
polished performer that’s a considerable cut above
so many other premium SUVs
Q7 ★★★★★
> German heavy metal turns techno as Mk2 Q7
sheds weight despite megaload of extra gizmos
> VERDICT Everything but the charm
Q8 ★★★★★
> First coupe-SUV from Ingolstadt is as sound as you
would expect. The cabin might be different, and the
grille fresh, but is that enough to steer you away from
the formidable Q7? > VERDICT The glitziest car Audi
makes, with a limited choice of engines
E-TRON ★★★★★
> A bit tubby and plain when sat next to a Jaguar
i-Pace but Audi’s first all-electric car has all the
usual tech and refinement. It’s potentially one of
the most commercially important Audis ever, hence
the risk-averse approach > VERDICT Vorsprung
durch Elektrisch
TT COUPE/ROADSTER ★★★★★
> Brilliant coupe gets virtual dash and sharper
handling. Try 2.0 TFSI. Boot big, but the rear seat’s
for handbags only > VERDICT A proper real-world
sports car – but the same money buys an early
secondhand R8
TT RS ★★★★★
> At the outer limits of the TT’s dynamic envelope, a
17 per cent power hike ekes 395bhp from five pots
and targets wounded Cayman > VERDICT Audi
springs the offside trap, rounds the keeper, but hits
the bar. So close!
R8 ★★★★★
> V10 is one of today’s most engaging engines
and delivers more spine tingles at the top end
than a McLaren Sports Series. All versions now hit
200mph > VERDICT Brilliant daily supercar with a
hint of wildness; and this from the same company
that’s played it so safe with the e-Tron
BAC
MONO ★★★★★
> Single-seat racer that took a wrong turn out of
the pits. Pushrod suspension, Cosworth-tuned 2.3
Duratec and bath-like driving position > VERDICT
Sublime track-orientated tool with a six-figure price
BENTLEY
BENTAYGA ★★★★★
> The World’s Fastest SUV matches 187mph top
speed with superb chassis. We flambéed the
brakes, btw. The diesel is dead, but a hybrid version
fills the ranks > VERDICT Super-luxurious options
include £110,000 Breitling clock. Or you could
spend the same on a two-bed semi in Crewe
CONTINENTAL GT ★★★★★
> Still heavy and thirsty, but few GTs can match its
interior, ride quality and performance > VERDICT
VISIT
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Used to be essentially a pricey Volkswagen; now a
great GT in its own right
CONTI GT CONVERTIBLE ★★★★★
> How many convertibles could get away with a
tweed roof? Cue shock and awe at the country
club. Shame it loses so much luggage space
> VERDICT Gorgeous, swift, built like a
Chesterfield sofa
FLYING SPUR ★★★★★
> What do you get when you cross an M5
Competition with Chatsworth House? A luxo-limo
that really can do both ends of the motoring
spectrum > VERDICT No longer the Continental
GT’s shunned ugly sister
MULSANNE ★★★★★
> Huge, hand-built anachronism, with twin-
turbo V8 born in the ’50s, buffed to perfection,
and a field of cows sacrificed > VERDICT Buy
the Speed – any less outrageous display of
consumption is just poor form
BMW
1-SERIES ★★★★★
> While undergoing powertrain reconstructive
surgery it had a nose job too, and now manages
to look like a twin of the 2-series MPV > VERDICT
118d buyers won’t miss rwd; M135i fans might
2-SERIES COUPE/CABRIO ★★★★★
> Boot-faced booted 1-series is a Mustang with
a couple of A-levels. 218d is 8.9 to 62mph and
63mpg; four-cylinder 228i a cut-price, cut-down
M235i > VERDICT To look at it’s plainer than a
margarine sarnie, but TT and RCZ can’t touch its
space/pace combo
M240i ★★★★★
> Still hard to look at without squinting but sweet
six-cylinder is even more grunty. The perfect
2-series if you pretend the M2 doesn’t exist
> VERDICT Ignore the Golf R temptation
M2 COMPETITION ★★★★★
> The M2 turned up a notch, and now your only
option. M3 engine, new barkier exhaust and
tweaked dynamics > VERDICT An already great
package now even better
2-SERIES ACTIVE TOURER ★★★★★
> Decent drive, great interior. Need to cart OAP
relatives around? Get the seven-seat Gran Tourer.
Boom boom! > VERDICT The ultimate driving (to
the park/crèche/post office) machine
i3 ★★★★★
> One of BMW’s best cars is home to its finest
cabin. Electric version has short range; hybrid
is noisy and has a fuel tank like a flea’s hip flask
> VERDICT Carbon-chassis supermini, electric
power and £30k price. Did we wake up in 2045?
3-SERIES ★★★★★
> G20 isn’t the wildest upgrade but there’s a lot
going on under the skin. Chassis is so good on
M340i version we have high hopes for the next M3
> VERDICT Still the dynamic benchmark
3-SERIES TOURING ★★★★★
> As usual, the estate is prettier than the saloon.
Still comes with the independently-opening rear
window, still drives well, still handles family life >
VERDICT It’s a cliché, but this really is all the car
you need
4-SERIES COUPE/CABRIO ★★★★★
> 3-series in a shellsuit is subtly better to drive than
the saloon, but same great engine choices and
ONLINE
almost as practical > VERDICT Crushes Audi’s A5.
Folding hardtop cabrio weighty but worth it if you
favour fresh air
4-SERIES GRAN COUPE ★★★★★
> Pretty and practical, like a bikini car wash,
hatchback GC costs £3k more than 3-series but has
standard leather. Five belts but four seats
> VERDICT Smart and useful, much more than a
niche exercise. But why isn’t this the 3-series?
M3 CS ★★★★★
> Way more of a thriller (in a good way) than the
regular, now defunct M3. Better sorted dynamically
and epic road feedback. But £86k?! That’s a lot
of money > VERDICT Finally, we get the version it
should have been all along
5-SERIES ★★★★★
> Smart, semi-autonomous and still the best in class
> VERDICT Spirit-crushingly good
M5 ★★★★★
> G30-generation V8 bruiser sends shove to all
four wheels but you can still drift it like Ken Block.
A sharp-suited and refined yet ballistically quick
autobahn prowler > VERDICT All-wheel drive hasn’t
ruined the M5
7-SERIES ★★★★★
> So high-tech, BMW must have ram-raided
Google’s R&D bunker, confident the ‘carbon core’
construction would enable it to drive back out
> VERDICT Gesture control, remote parking, active
anti-roll – it’s got it all. But not quite the kudos of the
Mercedes-Benz S-Class…
8-SERIES ★★★★★
> Not quite the dramatic sports car we hoped for. Still, it’s
an incredibly impressive piece of kit, and you can really
hustle it on track. M8 monsters everything else but
misses the point > VERDICT Just be thankful a big V8
coupe like this exists at all
X1 ★★★★★
> Ugly old one sold by the bucket load; all-new
replacement is miles better to look at and to drive.
It’s a proper mini-SUV now > VERDICT It’s even
based on the front-drive Mini platform. Swallow that
bile, because it works well
X2 ★★★★★
> Sportier, arguably more stylish coupe-ish version
of the X1. Avoid the M Sport X if you don’t want your
SUV to look like Bond villain Jaws > VERDICT Great
to drive and well-built inside, although not the most
rational choice
X3 ★★★★★
> Studiously un-gangsta SUV offers a sweet blend
of handling and handiness > VERDICT The BMW
SUV we don’t hate ourselves for liking
X4 ★★★★★
> Blame the Evoque and people who bought the
X6 for this carbuncle. Priced at £4k-£5k more than
an X3, but better equipped and not terrible to drive
> VERDICT Depressing X3 spin-off for grown-ups
who still dream of being a professional footballer
X5 ★★★★★
> Luxurious, capable and very much at the forefront
of good handling in the posh SUV stakes. Even
bigger X7 is heading this way > VERDICT We’d still
take a 5-series Touring
X6 ★★★★★
> All the impracticality of a coupe and all the
wasteful high-centred mass of an SUV. Genius. If
you must, X40d gives best price/punch/parsimony
> VERDICT Pointless pimp wagon. Buy a Porsche
Cayenne or an X5

X7 HHHHH
> Gah! Avert your eyes! Gaudy full-size SUV for
well-to-do folk who consider a Range Rover a bit too
subtle. We challenge you to spec one that doesn’t
instantly make babies cry at the sight of it > Verdict
Big, comfy and excessive – just what a luxo-SUV
should be. May be a bad idea, but it’s nicely done
Z4 HHHHH
> The uglier of the BMW/Toyota siblings shines
more for its refinement and comfort than its
ability to set your hair on fire. Accomplished and
robust – the Smeg fridge of the sports car world
> Verdict Sweet, but more could have been done
to make it thrilling
i8 HHHHH
> Carbonfibre-constructed three-cylinder hybrid
supercar that’s fun for four, as fast as an M3 and
does 40 real mpg. Minor demerit: looks like it’s
crimping off a 911 > Verdict Fascinating futuristic
sports car that’s big on the wow factor
BUGATTI
cHirON HHHHH
> ‘The Veyron was okay but why couldn’t it have
30 per cent bigger turbos and 300bhp more
power?’ Bugatti answers the question absolutely
nobody asked – and answers it loud > Verdict
A £2.5m riot
CATERHAM
SeVeN HHHHH
> For bobble-hatted Terry-Thomas wannabes and
the track-curious, the Seven comes in flavours from
160 triple to mental road racers > Verdict 80bhp
160 is underpowered, 310bhp 620R verges on
lethal, 180bhp 360 model is just right
CHEVROLET
cOrVette HHHHH
> Farm machinery meets Spacelab in 460bhp V8
symphony of composite materials, leaf springs and
pushrods. Shame it’s left-hook only > Verdict
£60k for a butch bargain berserker. £20k more
gets you the even berserker 650bhp Z06, and if
you’re feeling brave import yourself the ZR1. Mid-
engined version is on its way
CITROEN
c1 HHHHH
> Trying hard to escape the clutches of its sister
cars from Toyota and Peugeot, the C1 can have
a funky Airscape cloth roof and half-hearted
personalisation options. 1.0-litre has most pep
> Verdict Good, solid urban fare – of a kind that
won’t be around for much longer
c3 HHHHH
> Citroën produces a great small car by looking up
its own Wikipedia entry and remembering what it’s
good at; spacy, compliant and different
> Verdict Are Citroëns cool again? They’re
certainly getting there
c3 AircrOSS HHHHH
> Funky mattress on wheels takes C3’s style and
puts it on stilts. Thankfully retains C3 Picasso’s
super-spacious interior and flexi seats > Verdict
The Vauxhall Crossland X’s much more characterful
Gallic sibling
c4 cActUS HHHHH
> Comfy, roomy, slightly sloppy family car, now
Airbump-free. Citroën claims it’s a hatch; it’s in fact
just as much a crossover as the previous one
> Verdict A proper Citroën, with all the pros
and cons that involves
c4 SpAcetOUrer HHHHH
> Defiantly anti-cool family shifter, with five or (in
Grand form) seven seats. Parents go weak at the
knees for its peace-and-bloody-quiet ambience
> Verdict Drives like a shed, but at least it makes
Satan’s brood shut up
c5 AircrOSS HHHHH
> The biggest of all Citroën’s sofas on wheels, yet
capable of a smidge of off-roading. A family car
that works just as much for the driver as it does for
the passengers, so long as you don’t come here
looking for dynamic brilliance > Verdict Have we
mentioned comfortable enough times yet?
BerLiNGO MULtiSpAce HHHHH
> A wipe-clean tin lifeboat for cagoule-wearing
Thermos-sipping birdwatchers. Recently updated,
but still rattles and drives like a van. Is a van
> Verdict Dogging cheap seats for aspiring
Bill Oddies
CUPRA
AtecA HHHHH
> Seat spices up its stylish Ateca with powertrain
from a VW Golf R and chunky body kit. Then ruins
it by slapping on a copper badge with the style of
a tribal tattoo students got in Magaluf > Verdict
It’s good but offers no reason to avoid the obvious
Golf R
LeON HHHHH
> Much to the amusement of tyre manufacturers
everywhere, the front-wheel-drive Leon Cupra now
has 297bhp. GTI who? > Verdict Ballistic, and
best bought with a manual transmission
DACIA
SANderO HHHHH
> Cheapest new car on sale, not the worst. Yoghurt-
pot plastics and pre-Glasnost styling can’t detract
from a spacious sub-six-grand runabout with
Renault engines, if that’s where your priorities rest
> Verdict Austerity rocks. Right, Greece?
LOGAN HHHHH
> Estate looks like a Sandero that’s reversed into
a phone box. Cavernous boot, but dreadfully
unrefined thanks to all the brittle plastic and tin
> Verdict You put things in it. It will carry them
for you. You can take them out. Job done, at a
very low price
dUSter HHHHH
> It’s just had a major overhaul, which in
Dacia terms is akin to creosoting the shed and
tacking the roof felt down, but still a hardy 4x4 for
low-budget mud-pluggers and family folk; front-
wheel-drive versions keep costs ridiculously low
> Verdict Like Crocs but way, WAY cooler
DS
3 crOSSBAck HHHHH
> This might be a case of imposter syndrome. Chic
and desirable hatch has turned into a crossover
shaped to new DS styling values. Kitsch interior of
its larger sibling adds some zest to an otherwise
lukewarm package > Verdict We’re not convinced
this is an improvement; electric version also falls
short of genius
7 crOSSBAck HHHHH
> France’s idea of a premium SUV. Sharp-looking
interior and plenty of technology fitted as standard,
but from some angles it looks like an Audi Q5 in
half-baked drag > Verdict Neatly done, but not
quite there. Expect plenty more from DS very soon,
all of it electrified
ELEMENTAL
rp1 HHHHH
> As expensive as a used Porsche Cayman GT4,
more refined than any Caterham – and a weapon on
track > Verdict Crazy, but worth it
FERRARI
FerrAri F8 triBUtO HHHHH
> Pista-hearted 488 replacement treads fine line
between hardcore power and GT driving with
aplomb. Pista might have the dynamic edge but
it’s mission accomplished > Verdict Ferrari’s V8
world domination continues
488 piStA HHHHH
> So clever even Ferrari’s own test drivers
recommend leaving the traction control switched
on. Every bit as good to drive as it is to look at,
which is saying something > Verdict The ultimate
Ferrari road car right now, and it’s a V8
pOrtOFiNO HHHHH
> The transformation from California to Portofino
works a treat. It’s sweeter, sharper and more
practical as a great everyday road car, if ultimately
lacking focus > Verdict Measurably better than
the California in every way
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
812 SUperFASt HHHHH
> Proof that Ferrari can still make truly epic GT
cars that fly the naturally aspirated V12 flag with
pride. The screaming 800hp engine is matched by
laser-guided handling > Verdict GT? Supercar?
Astounding
Gtc4 LUSSO/t HHHHH
> Two-door shooting brake looks like a Z3 M
Coupe battered by a giant spatula but thoroughly
capable all-wheel drive machine. V8-powered
Lusso T nudges price below distressing £200k
barrier > Verdict Closest Ferrari has got to an SUV
(but not for long)
FIAT
tipO HHHHH
> Dull, but good value and the best Fiat hatch since
the last Tipo – and that dates from 1988
> Verdict Only consider buying Fiats with
numbers, not names
124 HHHHH
> Mazda MX-5’s step-sister, seemingly intent on
undermining said darling hairdresser’s star turn
with its punchier 1.4 turbo blow-dryer. Awkward
style, for an Italian > Verdict To drive, this is the
MX-5 you’ve been waiting for
pANdA HHHHH
> Spacious city car with ‘squircle’ obsession, as roly-
poly as its blobby looks suggest. Two-pot TwinAir
willing but thirsty > Verdict Baggier than the VW
Up but more charming too
500/c HHHHH
> Delicate job, modernising a retro cash cow.
Fiat’s approach pairs a korma-grade facelift with
updated tech and even more colour palette kitsch
> Verdict Fashion victims rejoice! The cupholders
actually work now
500L HHHHH
> Bloated supermini-sized people carrier,
desperately attempting to cash in on city car’s chic.
Seldom has the point been so massively missed
> Verdict In-car coffee machine option the only
purchase excuse
500X HHHHH
> Compact crossover is the Arnie of the 500 range
– limited in its range of abilities, but rather likeable
> Verdict Worthy Nissan Juke alternative works
the 500 thing well, especially after recent facelift,
new engines and cabin tech upgrade
QUBO/dOBLO HHHHH
> Postman Pat’s wheels? No. Pat’s long since
retired to the Caribbean, where he’s living off the
royalties and drives a red Bentley > Verdict Van-
based MPVs. Practicality first, people second
FORD
kA+ HHHHH
> Ahead of its time, and overshadowed by newer
arrivals > Verdict Still pretty good
FieStA HHHHH
> Still a peach to drive and now has an interior that
isn’t from the Dark Ages, even if material quality is
still a bit iffy. ST-Line version is suitably sporty but
Vignale too expensive to justify > Verdict You can
thank the heavens they haven’t ruined it
FieStA St HHHHH
> Less mad to look at than before and one cylinder
down, but one of the biggest hot hatch bargains.
Fast, fun to drive and won’t wind you up something
fierce > Verdict Buy one. You won’t regret it
FOcUS HHHHH
> Looks derivative but under the skin lies a compact
family car that’s great to drive. Ford is still throwing
plenty of chips the hatchback’s way > Verdict The
spirit of the Mk1 is almost back
FOcUS St HHHHH
> Takes everything that made the Fiesta ST so
good and ups the scale, yet leaves room for
a punchy new RS to come > Verdict Shame
it looks plain now and costs as much as the
(better) Honda Civic Type R
MONdeO HAtcH/eStAte HHHHH
> Huge space and you can even have the plucky
little 1.0 EcoBoost engine > Verdict Everybody
wants them new-fangled SUVs these days, but
february 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 147
this is a fine family car. Best avoid the half-hearted
hybrid, though – it eats up boot space and doesn’t
do much for economy in the real world
ecOSpOrt HHHHH
> Ford’s half-arsed stab at a crossover sold in droves
despite being crap first time round. Current version
looks half decent and isn’t built out of melted wheelie
bins > Verdict Better, but still lags behind most of
the increasingly crowded field
kUGA HHHHH
> The best-handling mid-sized crossover, but
French and Swedish interiors are leagues ahead
> Verdict You could do a lot worse, but it’s
missing the magic of the Fiesta and Focus
edGe HHHHH
> Looks good and drives like a Ford – a big,
ponderous Ford, hamstrung by 2.0 diesels and
slower than continental drift > Verdict Comfy,
refined, irrelevant amid premium rivals
S-MAX HHHHH
> Exploits latest Mondeo’s undercrackers to full
effect. Pricey, but still the best of the seven-seaters
to drive. Toys include electric everything and
speed-correcting cruise control > Verdict Harder
to beat than FC Barcelona
MUStANG HHHHH
> Sub-optimal interior quality and still thirsty, but the
crash ratings are no longer embarrassing. Sounds
great, bags of character, and a lot of fun to drive
> Verdict Go manual V8 with sports exhaust
GALAXY HHHHH
> Based on the same Mondeo-derived platform as
the S-Max. Just as high-tech, but more spacious
> Verdict Great if you need a seven-seater that
doesn’t feel like a mini bus – fits adults in all rows
with no human rights violations
Gt HHHHH
> Very expensive hardcore supercar from Detroit
that proves a global mega-seller can cut it against
Ferrari when it wants to > Verdict ‘Race car for the
road’ translates into ‘Brilliant fun but a bit coarse’
rANGer/rAptOr HHHHH
> One of the less swanky pick-ups but you can doll it
up with all kinds of chrome. Great value but crude from
behind the wheel. Raptor injects some fun but engine is
weak > Verdict Tough workhorse, proud about it
GINETTA
G40 HHHHH
> Pint-sized road-legal racer. Two models: G40R
(civilised version, with carpets) and GRDC (a race
car with number plates) > Verdict Tiny, twitchy
and top fun. Pick the £35k GRDC and get free entry
to a Ginetta race series
HONDA
JAZZ HHHHH
> Brilliantly packaged supermini with ordinary
performance, but more refined than before
> Verdict If the otherwise sharper Skoda Fabia
had a seating system this smart, other superminis
would call it a day
ciVic HHHHH
> The might of Honda’s engineering prowess
delivers more space, clever engines and an
exterior – four or five doors, but no estate this time
around – that looks like it was drawn on a bus on
the way into school > Verdict Easy to admire, but
loving requires heavy use of recreational drugs
ciVic tYpe r HHHHH
> Its many angles hide a rounded hot hatch with a
wonderful gearbox. Driving one day to day much
easier now but its speed and agility can still take
your head off > Verdict Fast, practical, agile and
easy to live with
Hr-V HHHHH
> After 10 years, an underwhelming second HR-V.
A sort-of crossover thing, up against a lot of much
better defined sort-of crossover things > Verdict
Sport version is fun but pricey
cr-V HHHHH
> Design revisions so minor you’d barely notice, or
care. Roomy interior, petrol or hybrid power, two- or
all-wheel drive, five or seven seats. Libido optional,
crumbs in rear footwells standard > Verdict Not
exciting – just gets on with the job
 HONDA > MERCEDES
NSX ★★★★★
> ‘We’ve blown all our development cash on an
insanely complex hybrid drivetrain. Do you think
anyone will notice if we fit an interior from a Civic?’
> VERDICT Like a Porsche 918 for half a million
pounds less – mind-blowing to drive, crap to sit in
HYUNDAI
i10 ★★★★★
> Five-door city car that balances mature driving
experience with strong value – even if it’s not
as cheap as it once was. Comes with a five-year
warranty, too > VERDICT Basic motoring done
not just well but with a dash of style. The 1.0-litre
engine’s fine, but go for mid-spec trim if you can
i20 HATCH/COUPE/ACTIVE ★★★★★
> Update adds Active crossover to five-door hatch
and three-door ‘coupe’; suitable for somnambulant
warranty fiends only > VERDICT Fur-lined tartan
slippers, Horlicks and early to bed; repeat
i30 HATCH/TOURER ★★★★★
> Where the current crop of Hyundais got serious
– which means it’s now in need of a facelift as the
established mainstream moves ahead again
> VERDICT Tries hard but lacks imagination
i30 N ★★★★★
> Korea’s first proper hot hatch is very good indeed
– no ifs, no buts – and cheaper than a VW Golf
GTI > VERDICT An intergalactic leap ahead of any
previous Hyundai
i40 SALOON/TOURER ★★★★★
> Vast Mondeo rival with cavernous boot
and lots of kit > VERDICT Nearly-but-not-quite
mainstream alternative plays value card well
iX20 ★★★★★
> Compact MPV and Kia Venga’s ugly
step-sister; roomy but ultimately forgettable
> VERDICT Sorry, what were we talking about?
KONA ★★★★★
> Forgettable crossover, over-styled. Rear space
and boot are tight but the occupants get plenty of
kit to fiddle with > VERDICT You’d have to like the
looks to pick it over its rivals
TUCSON ★★★★★
> Promising initial impressions of shiny-looking ix35
replacement tarnish quickly > VERDICT Dull to drive,
duller inside, unrefined. An N version is on the way,
which could fix some of those shortcomings
SANTA FE ★★★★★
> Biggish SUV has always led Hyundai’s assault on
the European market from the front. Comfortable,
self-assured and easy to live with > VERDICT A
Hyundai you can choose without shame. Looks
fresher than Waitrose parsnips
NEXO ★★★★★
> Hardly a dynamic benchmark but this hydrogen
crossover has a fantastic interior and loads of tech.
But it’s expensive to buy and only makes sense if
you live near a hydrogen filling station, which you
probably don’t > VERDICT Guilt-free motoring for
pioneers
i800 ★★★★★
> Massive van-based people carrier that’ll seat
eight and still have space for their luggage. Ideal for
part-time airport minicabbers > VERDICT It is what
it is: a van with seats in. But it’s a nice van
IONIQ ★★★★★
> Korean take on the Toyota Prius. Hybrid, EV
and plug-in hybrid – something in all shades of
green > VERDICT Challenges neither pulse nor
helmsmanship, but the numbers stack up if you’re
ready for a cleaner future
JAGUAR
XE ★★★★★
> Facelifted to look angrier and now with i-Pace
interior tech. It’s charismatic but slightly let down by
hit-and-miss engines > VERDICT There’s life in the
small saloon yet
XF ★★★★★
> Bigger inside, smaller outside, still a great steer
> VERDICT Diddy diesels moo more than a dairy
XJ ★★★★★
> Questionable styling but unquestionably an
148 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
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excellent steer – although passengers may mutiny.
Interior looks luxurious but lacks intelligence, even
if it’s fitted with the latest infotainment > VERDICT
Hollywood baddies’ limo of choice. Flawed
F-TYPE COUPE/ROADSTER
★★★★★
> Posh pauper’s Aston Martin sounds
REPLACED superb, and goes well too. Forget the
SOON
basic V6 and choose from V6S and
mental V8S. Now with manual and 4wd options >
VERDICT So nearly sublime, but Cayman/Boxster
duo cost less, entertain more
F-TYPE R ★★★★★
> Supercharged 543bhp almost too
REPLACED
SOON much fun in rear-wheel-drive form (but
still less knife-edge than V8S); 4wd
available if you’ve lost bravery pills > VERDICT All
this drama or spend similar money on an ‘ordinary’
911? Tough choice…
F-TYPE SVR ★★★★★
> JLR’s SVO black-ops division delivers a 567bhp
all-wheel-drive F-Type that goes and sounds like an
elephant on MDMA > VERDICT Quilted leather and
200mph – but terrible hi-fi for a car that costs twice
the entry V6
E-PACE ★★★★★
> Jaguar’s compact SUV wears the Evoque’s
undercrackers and can be had with same four-pot
engine as the F-Type – both very good things.
Top-spec version is incredibly expensive > VERDICT
Handsome, filled with technology, lacks polish
F-PACE ★★★★★
> Porsche Macan botherer. Built light to be nimble;
body control brilliance and pokey engines prove
family DNA. SVR model hilarious fun > VERDICT
Macan remains most sporting choice, but more
rounded F-Pace has plenty of bite
i-PACE ★★★★★
> One of the best-handling electric cars, as you’d
hope from a Jaguar. Cab-forward design strikes
lustful feelings, and whooshing noises as you hurtle
into the distance will make you giggle like a toddler
> VERDICT A watershed moment for 21st century
Jaguar; and it’s been judged Car of the Year
JEEP
RENEGADE ★★★★★
> Strange but true: junior Jeep is built in Italy
alongside Fiat 500X that donates its platform. Even
stranger: it’s not terrible > VERDICT Only the top
Trailhawk cuts it in the rough
COMPASS ★★★★★
> Qashqai rival misses the mark. Looks imposing,
and the Trailhawk version is very good off road, but
Jeep’s own smaller Renegade is more charming
> VERDICT Almost as forgettable as the previous
Compass
CHEROKEE ★★★★★
> Less ugly to stare at than some recent
Cherokees, but with an engine configuration
choice that’s clear as mud. Classic Jeep off-road
traits and actually half decent to drive
> VERDICT Chunky all-rounder, but high price
pitches it against some excellent competitors
GRAND CHEROKEE ★★★★★
> Proper off-road cred, but feels cheap inside.
Ludicrous Trackhawk demolishes 0-62mph in 3.7
seconds > VERDICT Makes sense at $30k in the
US, but doesn’t drive or feel like a premium car
when pitched against German and British rivals
WRANGLER ★★★★★
> Much better on road than before, but still an
acquired taste on-road. Nigh on indestructible,
and now at least a bit modern. Available in various
body shapes, even catering for those not keen on
doors > VERDICT Authentic and likeable, but if you
weren’t a fan before, you won’t be now
GLADIATOR ★★★★★
> Its name is Jeepus Maximus Meridius and it shall
have its off-roading vengeance in this life or the
next. Jeep’s pick-up is super-capable > VERDICT
Who doesn’t like the idea of stripping the doors off
their pick-up truck?
KOËNIGSEGG
AGERA ★★★★★
> Evolution of Lex Luthor’s original CC8S supercar
features carbonfibre wheels and twin-turbo 5.0
V8. The R version even runs on E85 biofuel
> VERDICT Yin to Volvo’s yang keeps Sweden’s car
output balanced
KIA
PICANTO ★★★★★
> Now has an angry face and there’s a feisty turbo
triple. GT Line brings amped-up looks > VERDICT
Accomplished, and great value
RIO ★★★★★
> Long on space, short on enjoyment, life with a Rio
is no carnival > VERDICT White-goods car gets the
basics right but there are many better rivals
STONIC ★★★★★
> Her name is Rio and she’s put on a bit of weight.
Kia’s first go at building a Juke rival has a hard ride
but is more practical than the Nissan > VERDICT
Looks good but forgettable to drive
CEED ★★★★★
> Golf wannabe is big on equipment and not bad
to drive. Range-topping GT is an enjoyable if costly
warm hatch > VERDICT Now with downsized turbo
engines. Europe still ahead. But only by a whisker
PROCEED ★★★★★
> Nope, not a three-door hatch any more. Slick
shooting brake styling and solid interior hide
uncharismatic engines and indecisive auto
> VERDICT Style/substance balance are a little off
NIRO ★★★★★
> Hybrid, plug-in and full EV that dodges
pigeonholes. SUV? Tall crossover? Regardless, it’s
inoffensive as a hybrid and quite good as an electric
car > VERDICT None of the Jaguar i-Pace’s glamour,
but an awful lot of its forward-looking efficiency
SOUL ★★★★★
> Improved second-gen chunky spunky SUV better
to drive but ride and noise suppression poor. Petrol
version rubbish, but much cheaper > VERDICT
Characterful but other SUVs are more rounded
OPTIMA ★★★★★
> Sexless Mondeo clone cobbles together some
mojo via the addition of sharp-suited Sportswagon
and a plug-in hybrid > VERDICT All the car you’ll ever
need, but not the car you want
VENGA ★★★★★
> Weird sit-up supermini-cum-MPV packs Focus
space into near-city-car dimensions. Hard to get
comfy, though. Best engine is the 1.4 petrol
> VERDICT Too pricey and too ordinary to drive,
although the looks are neatly individual
CARENS ★★★★★
> Big, versatile, value-packed seven-seater. Go
diesel – 1.6 petrol is wheezy > VERDICT For all its
pseudo-premium Euro aspirations, this is the stuff
Kia still does best
SPORTAGE ★★★★★
> All-new, all-turbo SUV truly handles and rides but
somehow a picture of Mr Potato Head’s face got
mixed up with the blueprints > VERDICT Improved
in just about every way – except to look at
SORENTO ★★★★★
> Ambitious new flagship SUV reckons it’s a real
Land Rover rival. Bigger than ever, as is the price:
up to a salty £40k. Only engine is a 2.2 diesel
> VERDICT Impressive, but lacks badge and
performance of premium off-roaders
STINGER ★★★★★
> Handsome four-door GT has a mountain to climb
to win over German exec buyers but it’s comfy and
a head-turner. Interior not as well-finished or techy
as rivals > VERDICT An impressively solid first
effort; V6 GT-S is playful
KTM
X-BOW ★★★★★
> 22nd century Ariel Atom mixes carbonfibre
construction with hardy Audi turbocharged 2.0
four-pot > VERDICT Big money, big grins, but
single-seat BAC Mono is more racecar-like to drive
LAMBORGHINI
HURACAN EVO ★★★★★
> Spine-tingling V10 engine, beguiling looks and
enhanced dynamic ability make the Evo a proper
performance contender > VERDICT Almost
unbearably charismatic and achingly desirable.
And we should mention fast
AVENTADOR S ★★★★★
> Aventador hits the sweet spot: it’s now old
enough for Lamborghini to have sorted out the
gripes associated with early versions and young
enough to not yet be the subject of 31 run-out
limited editions. Semi life-affirming > VERDICT
Pose-to-talent ratio heading in the right direction
URUS ★★★★★
> Fast, capable SUV that sounds good, looks like
it’s in a movie and is full of Audi bits > VERDICT
Precisely halfway between armageddon on wheels
and a family-friendly five-door Lambo
LAND ROVER
DISCOVERY SPORT ★★★★★
> Comfy, handsome and good off road, but Land
Rover’s awkward middle child is outshone by the
more desirable Range Rover Evoque and countless
other SUVs that are cheaper to run, better built
and/or more interesting to sit in > VERDICT Decent
4x4 is tremendously overshadowed
DISCOVERY ★★★★★
> Gen-5 Disco can climb mountains and social
strata with equal equanimity. Worryingly close to
Range Rover, slightly frustrating engine choice
> VERDICT The best seven-seat party wagon
money can buy
RANGE ROVER EVOQUE ★★★★★
> Posh mum’s SUV is five-door only in its current
form, but still visually very strong and now better
than ever to drive, with a good engine line-up.
Even in its most basic form this makes most
other compact SUVs feel frumpy, ungainly or
compromised > VERDICT Pricey, but perfectly
pitched
RANGE ROVER VELAR ★★★★★
> Sport-lite or Evoque-plus? Either way, Land Rover’s
centrally placed SUV is handsome, capable, well
finished and worthy of its name > VERDICT The new
benchmark Range Rover
RANGE ROVER SPORT ★★★★★
> As luxurious as a Rangie, as practical as a Disco,
better looking than an Evoque and could follow a
Defender cross country > VERDICT Very good at
just about everything
RANGE ROVER ★★★★★
> Still the benchmark luxury SUV. V6 diesel
acceptable, supercharged V8 petrol hilarious,
PHEV pointless > VERDICT The perfect car for
smuggling cash to Switzerland, skiing, turning up at
a ball, game shooting and being smug
LEXUS
CT ★★★★★
> Pig-ugly premium Prius a mix of decent handling,
woeful performance and a ride so poor it makes a
black cab feel like an S-Class > VERDICT Wouldn’t
merit a single sale if company car tax bills were less
CO2-focused
IS ★★★★★
> Sharp-suited, well-spec’d 3-series rival finally
gets decent rear space. Good chassis, but the 250
V6 is irrelevant, and the frugal hybrid is hobbled by
a nasty CVT > VERDICT So close. Needs a proper
automatic gearbox
ES ★★★★★
> Lexus changes tack in exec saloon fistfight by
removing samurai-styled, hybrid-powered GS and
replacing it with samurai-styled, hybrid powered
ES. No, we don’t know why they went to the effort
either > VERDICT Smooth and quiet, with well built
if awkward interior. Sound familiar?
LS ★★★★★
> Interior materials are to die for, but hybrid
powertrain less than convincing > VERDICT With
alternatives as good as the S-Class and 7-series,
you’d have to REALLY want to be different
UX ★★★★★
> Baby crossover that’s striking, quiet and
a bit hybrid-y, like every Lexus that isn’t a coupe
or the LS > VERDICT Efficient urban-focused
feelgood transport for those who value comfort
over ruggedness

NX ★★★★★
> Trumps even the Audi Q5 with a fabulous interior
and arrest-me (for persecuting curves) exterior
design. Fwd or 4wd with electric motor at rear
> VERDICT Doesn’t work as a driver’s car, so take the
NX300h hybrid over faster, costlier NX200t
RX ★★★★★
> Looks like Lord Vader’s helmet with wheels on,
which isn’t everyone’s idea of a good look, but
interior opulence and general tranquillity make up
for idiosyncratic infotainment issues > VERDICT
Build quality and refinement to save the galaxy,
even if the hybrid tech won’t
RC/RCF ★★★★★
> RCF’s old-school unblown V8 completes
charismatic package that shocked M4 in our Giant
Test. Elegance of regular range can’t overcome
lack of diesel option > VERDICT Deserve more
success than they’ll likely get
LC500 ★★★★★
> A serious sports car from the most serious of
makers gets a clever hybrid or a tasty V8, 10-speed
auto and less bovine acoustics. It’s quite sexy
> VERDICT Proof that Lexus is no longer the
Japanese Mercedes. In fact, it’s much better when
it doesn’t even try to be
LOTUS
ELISE ★★★★★
> Reminds you just how connected cars used to
be, and still can be, for a while at least. Slothful 1.6
reminds how they used to go, too, so pick the 1.8
instead > VERDICT A 10-year-old example does the
same job for half the price
EXIGE ★★★★★
> Gym-bunny Elise with supercharged V6 retains
beautifully unassisted steering. Superb 350 Sport
turns up the wick > VERDICT The Lotus our tyre-
frying Ben Barry would buy
EVORA 400 ★★★★★
> Lost its looks but gained a supercharged 400bhp
engine. Probably a decent trade, all told > VERDICT
The chassis and steering are Lotus at its sparkling
best. Sublime. This is the heritage that the electric
Evija must live up to
MASERATI
GHIBLI ★★★★★
> Small exec drives great, looks the business,
doesn’t have the four-cylinder diesel that will get
it on your shopping list. A shame > VERDICT An
alcohol-free Quattroporte
QUATTROPORTE GTS ★★★★★
> A brilliant blend of Maranello turbo V8 wrapped in
some gracefully ageing Maserati bits. Dynamically
outshines most other saloons, and remains the
coolest four-door car money can buy, if you’re
worried about your saloon being cool > VERDICT It
won’t let you in unless you’re in a suit or chinos
GRAN TURISMO/GRAN
CABRIO ★★★★★
> Four genuine seats a rarity in this class, but fill
them and you’ll regret choosing the weedy 4.2 over
the 4.7 at the first sniff of a hill > VERDICT Podgy,
pretty, practical GT for folk who hate four-door faux
coupes. And luggage
LEVANTE ★★★★★
> Accomplished SUV that holds its own against the
Porsche Cayenne and Jaguar F-Pace, with all the
charm you expect from a Maserati and not much of
the quirkiness > VERDICT Far from flawless but it’ll
show you a good time
MAZDA
2 ★★★★★
> Shot-in-the-arm supermini packs good value,
handling and looks, leaving sweat marks on the
shirts of the VW Polo marketing team > VERDICT
Under-radar Fiesta threatener gatecrashes the
top table
3 ★★★★★
> Most stylish family hatch on the market right
now? It’s also great to drive. Generally weak
engine range, including clever Skyactiv-X, the only
significant flaw > VERDICT A hatch you should pay
attention to – it’s good
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
6 SALOON/TOURER ★★★★★
> Boss won’t let you have a BMW 3-series? This
makes an impressive alternative. Handles well but TOP 5
THREE-DOOR HATCHBACKS
rides like the tyres have DTs > VERDICT Swoopily
styled, tax friendly, entertaining alternative to
po-faced VW Passat, although not anyone’s idea of
the ultimate driving machine Not so many left these days – but the survivors are a glorious bunch
CX-3 ★★★★★
> Late arrival to compact crossover party is worth
1
a look thanks to smart cabin and crisp drive. Pity
about the firm ride > VERDICT Pricey, but better
than most rivals and well equipped
CX-30 ★★★★★ FORD FIESTA
> Not called CX-4, which is odd. Stellar interior and Generations of Brits got
chassis lifted from the 3 hatch; engines just as limp a taste for the thrill of
> VERDICT Does everything the 3 does but for driving thanks to early
more money exposure to a Fiesta,
CX-5 ★★★★★ the nation’s all-time
> How an SUV should drive. Better than ever, and best-seller. Even in its
yet it’s still unfairly ignored in favour of inferior purest small-engined,
rivals > VERDICT It’s the closest you’ll ever get to a three-door form it’s a
five-seat MX-5 very rewarding steer.
The range starts at £14k, but
MX-5 ★★★★★
2
try to find the extra £4k for the 123bhp
> Shorter than the ’89 original, and in real terms half
the price. The 1.5 is sweet but a little slow; 158bhp
1.0-litre EcoBoost triple.
2.0 is quicker but charismatically challenged
> VERDICT Brilliantly uncomplicated budget
MINI
sports car That old thing? Yes, absolutely.
MX-5 RF ★★★★★ The three-door has the looks long
since jettisoned by the five-door
> When a folding fabric roof is just too common to
contemplate, pay more for the heavier and more
variants, and no-nonsense ride
complicated RF and never fold the bloody roof and handling to make every
down anyway > VERDICT Right car, wrong spec drive an experience. The
three-door line-up starts at
MCLAREN £16,195 for the One, with
a 1.5-litre three-cylinder
petrol engine making
540C ★★★★★
> The world’s first decontented supercar. Entry
101bhp, and stretches up to
level doesn’t get any better > VERDICT The work the unhinged 228bhp JCW.
of a very focused company somewhere near the
top of its game
3
570S/570GT ★★★★★
> Base McLaren ditches carbon body and
trick suspension, but keeps carbon MonoCell and
twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8. Now available with glass SUZUKI JIMNY
hatch, too > VERDICT S and GT performance near
identical; both make 911 Turbo S feel too normal The latest version’s looks still raise a
smile even now the novelty’s worn
600LT ★★★★★ off, but can’t disguise its limitations:
> The Sports Series gets its LT; more power, a minimal luggage space, modest
comprehensive track-focused re-engineering and
performance from the naturally
high-mounted LT exhausts > VERDICT The most
thrilling McLaren this side of the Senna. (And let’s aspirated 1.5-litre petrol four, and
face it: everything’s this side of the Senna) crosswind-catching slabby sides.
But the pluses are huge: great
GT ★★★★★ manoeuvrability in town and on
> The first McLaren where boot space and comfort narrow lanes, and proper off-
4
take centre stage. The entire world shouts: ‘What?!’ road ability. It starts at £15,999.
> VERDICT Supercar trying to be something it isn’t
doesn’t do great job
720S ★★★★★ ABARTH 595 PISTA
> 650S replacement turns the wick up and is Not. Everyone’s. Cup. Of. Tea. The
measurably better in every way than a 488. latest version of Abarth’s version of
Maranello won’t be pleased > VERDICT Obscenely the Fiat 500 is a wild mix of 163bhp
fast and engaging – we just wish it was louder engine, four tailpipes, trick Koni
SENNA ★★★★★ rear suspension, upgraded
> As happy breaking lap records as it is nipping to brakes, sports seats and cute-
the shops. Astounding engineering achievement gone-bad styling that brings
that makes the P1 feel slow > VERDICT Named after to mind Chucky from Child’s
a hero – but you don’t need to be one Play. Hopeless for many
things, but at less than
MERCEDES £20k it’s a glorious way
to just about hang on to your
A-CLASS ★★★★★ driving licence.
5
> Sharp looks and an interior swish enough to put
higher-class cars to shame – even if most of the
best kit is optional. Dynamically still a bit slushy
> VERDICT Finally, a compact hatchback worthy SMART EG FORTWO
of being called a Mercedes, and a fine saloon It does one thing exceptionally: it’s
version too
small. The engine was never the
A45 AMG ★★★★★ good bit, so the switch to electric
> Smallest AMG is winning the hot hatch power makes perfect sense, and
horsepower arms race and can drift like a Focus RS for this most city of city cars the
> VERDICT It’s quite the weapon – we like it a lot 70-mile range is fine unless the
voices in your head are telling you
CLA ★★★★★
to drive one from Lands End to John
> Drives like an A-Class, has near-useless rear
O’Groats. On the pricey side to buy,
seats, but exudes a fantastic laptop-on-wheels
vibe that will draw in the affluent kids > VERDICT from £17,695, but peanuts to run.
Slick tech powerhouse for considerable wedge
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 149
 MERCEDES > PEUGEOT
B-CLASS ★★★★★
> Hatchback handling and fancy interior. Oddly
short of useful cubbies > VERDICT Like an A-Class,
but taller. Who knew?
C-CLASS SALOON/ESTATE ★★★★★
> Mini-S-Class styling and almost all the same
cutting-edge on-board technology > VERDICT
BMW is still better to drive, but if you want a
relaxing techno cocoon, this is it
C-CLASS COUPE ★★★★★
> Sexpot C-Class 10cm longer and available with air
suspension. Still tight in the back for those with legs
> VERDICT Much more of an event than the BMW
4-series, but the latest Audi A5 is right back in the
game; a nice problem
C63 AMG ★★★★★
> Madder than ever with bi-turbo 4.0 V8; coupe
gets unique 12-link rear suspension for sharper
responses > VERDICT Mega traction and one of
the best turbo engines ever
E-CLASS SALOON/ESTATE ★★★★★
> It may look like a fat C-Class but this techno
tour-de-force thinks it can drive better than you.
Exceptional interior out-luxes all comers
> VERDICT New four-cylinder diesel is so smooth it
churns motorway miles into butter
E-CLASS COUPE ★★★★★
> Swish, clever and satisfyingly capable, as long
as there’s six cylinders up front. Like coupes used
to be before everyone decided they needed to be
‘Ring-meisters > VERDICT Middle age has never
been so appealing
AMG E63 ★★★★★
> Complete with all-wheel-drive system that you
can switch off in Drift Mode (on the S version).
Which is exactly why you should buy one, and
possibly open an account at Kwik Fit at the same
time > VERDICT Go S or go home
CLS ★★★★★
> Comfy four-door coupe has great interior and
loads of tech, although it can’t match the original for
visual drama. AMG 53 is punchy > VERDICT Slick
S-CLASS ★★★★★
> Enormously accomplished, with camera-guided
ride quality and stacks of safety kit > VERDICT
Makes 7-series and A8 seem like under-specified
toys, although the latest 7 has upped its dynamic
game nicely
S-CLASS COUPE/CABRIOLET
★★★★★
> Over five metres of barking mad indulgence;
Coupe carries it off like Errol Flynn on a bender
> VERDICT Howard Hughes would approve, but he
went crazy in the end
S63/S65 AMG ★★★★★
> Twin-turbo 577bhp V8 and 621bhp V12 S-Class
variants, because being richer than the world isn’t
enough and you need to out-drag it, too
> VERDICT S63 V8 is bonkers, S65 V12 utterly
certifiable. Does your chauffeur deserve it?
GLA ★★★★★
> Confused A-Class on stilts with lifestyle
pretensions and a surplus of interior vents. GLA45
AMG is entertaining but unnecessary > VERDICT
An A-Class for the bewildered
GLB ★★★★★
> Seven seats in a footprint smaller
NEW footprint than a Skodiaq’s, a Mercedes
ENTRY badge on the nose and MBUX tech.
150 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
What’s the catch? So-so handling and passive
dampers only in the UK > VERDICT G-Class +
shrink ray = this
GLC ★★★★★
> Dull on paper, but benefits from a touch of Merc
magic, especially the AMG versions > VERDICT
Rivals are cheaper and better to drive but GLC
makes you feel special inside
EQC ★★★★★
> The GLC’s battery-only cousin is an unchallenging
way to wean yourself off fossil fuels. If you want an
electric car that’s as much like a combustion car
as possible, this works a treat > VERDICT Like an
electric comfort blanket, cosy and relaxing
G-CLASS ★★★★★
> Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks,
so long as you completely overhaul its entire
personality and physical structure. W464 still OTT
but now isn’t a pig to drive or sit in > VERDICT A
dinosaur that has evolved to avoid extinction. AMG
and diesel both excellent
GLE ★★★★★
> Seven-seat SUV dials up the refinement and
gadgets. Active air springs can make it tilt like a
Pendolino at speed or hop like a baller’s low-rider
> VERDICT No longer an also-ran plush-UV
GLS ★★★★★
> Luxo-monster seven-seater lacks Range Rover
panache but it’s comfy and refined, and the
infotainment doesn’t come from Poundland
> VERDICT A brilliant bus
SLC ★★★★★
> Buy the SLC43 AMG and it’s like an uglier but
cheaper F-Type with a nicer interior. Buy any other
SLC and you’ve lost your mind > VERDICT Come
back 718 Boxster, all is forgiven
SL ★★★★★
> The plastic surgeon was worth every penny.
Turning up the sporty makes the most of the super-
stiff structure, too > VERDICT Brilliant execution of
a particular version of the European GT dream
AMG GT ★★★★★
> GT C is the very tasty sweet spot, GT R is track-
bred lunatic and ‘Ring fast-lapper. Whichever you
pick, it’s blessed with a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 and
jaw-dropping looks > VERDICT Got muscle, maybe
lacks finesse
AMG GT 4-DOOR ★★★★★
> Yes, it looks like a steroidal CLS and, yes, it’s a
tried-and-tested formula, but boy does it work.
Pricey, mind > VERDICT Mercedes already had one
M5 rival in the shape of the E63 S; now it has two –
both very good
X-CLASS ★★★★★
> Car nerds (like us) will point out all of the Nissan
Navara bits inside and out, but Merc have made
an effort. Four-pot is slow and expensive, but this
is one comfy truck > VERDICT If you’re paying big
bucks anyway, get the V6
MG
MG 3 ★★★★★
> Tough-looking, spacious supermini has handling
that lives up to the promise of that once-British
badge. As does the woeful build, crap engine and
concrete ride > VERDICT The Chinese are coming!
But so far they’ve only got to Tajikistan
GS ★★★★★
> Spacious, duck-faced SUV hamstrung by coarse
1.5 turbo petrol, shonky gearboxes and shoddy
interior. Actually handles okay, if you can hack the
firm ride > VERDICT Dacia will sleep well tonight
ZS ★★★★★
> Looks like a bootleg Mazda CX-3 and has
knock-off driving dynamics, build quality and
price > VERDICT Stone dead last in an extremely
competitive sector, but it would still be last in
easier company
MINI
HATCH/CONVERTIBLE ★★★★★
> Bigger and less charming, but comes with choice
of smooth and peppy engines, while ride has
improved without ruining handling. Britpop rear
lights a thorny issue for some > VERDICT Better
than ever to own, even if you love it slightly less
COOPER S/JCW ★★★★★
> BMW 2.0-litre four-pot-powered 228bhp JCW
most powerful Mini ever. Terrific fun, if a tad
synthetic > VERDICT Beware the options list
CLUBMAN ★★★★★
> Replace circus-freakery of old one with full
complement of portals, add longer wheelbase,
bigger boot; now bake > VERDICT Loaf-alike maxi-
Mini freshness, the grown-ups’ choice
COUNTRYMAN ★★★★★
> A Mini SUV that drives like the hatch. Spacious,
solid inside and just funky enough, but expensive
> VERDICT A respectable family car now, rather
than just a chubby brand extension
MITSUBISHI
MIRAGE ★★★★★
> Catastrophic lack of style or charm, given how
good many of its rivals are. As well suited to the
small-car segment as a Sopwith Camel is to
executive short-haul flights > VERDICT Want your
kids to stay off the roads? Buy them one
ASX ★★★★★
> Box-ticking small SUV feels like it was designed
on a spreadsheet > VERDICT At least it’s cheap
and well kitted
ECLIPSE CROSS ★★★★★
> Genuine off-road ability like a traditional
Mitsubishi, but cushy ride and interior quality show
influence of Renault-Nissan partnership > VERDICT
Petrol-CVT combo sounds wrong but it’s civilised
and looks sharp
OUTLANDER ★★★★★
> Midlife overhaul brings sleeker looks and
lifts cabin ambience by miles. Diesel still a bit
of a tractor but PHEV comfy and refined
> VERDICT The UK’s best-selling plug-in hybrid
L200 ★★★★★
> Mitsubishi’s farmhand/building site runabout is
not as decent to drive as older generations. Many
trim and cab-size variations available > VERDICT
Dependable, but not much else to get the motor
running
MORGAN
3-WHEELER ★★★★★
> As comfortable as riding over Niagara Falls in a
barrel and equally sane. Not as quick as it feels, but
quick enough for a three-wheeler on bike tyres
> VERDICT Brilliant Caterham alternative without
the macho trackday posturing
GET
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FOUR FOUR/PLUS 4 ★★★★★
> Entry-level Mogs still have ‘traditional’ ash
frame and ‘traditional’ (ie awful) dynamics. 4/4 a
surprise eco champ at 44mpg > VERDICT Cheap
considering the extensive craftsmanship
ROADSTER ★★★★★
> Roadster uses Ford V6 and looks much sportier
but some won’t be able to tell > VERDICT It’s this or
the new Plus Six for your pokiest Morgan thrills
PLUS SIX ★★★★★
> Despite its BMW-sourced powertrain this
is still a Morgan. Just one that’s leapt into the
current century > VERDICT Fun in a way that you
wouldn’t think still possible
NISSAN
MICRA ★★★★★
> So much better than the old car, the current
Micra is on Wikipedia right now deleting all
mention of its predecessor. Proves that a car
designed by Europeans will appeal to Europeans
> VERDICT Bigger and better, although not all
versions are equally good
JUKE ★★★★★
> Crossover that’s exchanged one sort of ugly
for another, and become less interesting in the
process > VERDICT One step forward, one step
back
LEAF ★★★★★
> Less gawky than pioneering first-gen Leaf, and
promises better range, and single-pedal driving.
Shame about the dull interior > VERDICT Version
2.0 of people’s EV now far more… normal
QASHQAI ★★★★★
> Crossover for the masses gets more luxury and
a facelift > VERDICT It’s no Volvo XC but still has
huge family appeal
X-TRAIL ★★★★★
> Used to be a rough, tough off-roader designed on
an Etch-a-Sketch. Now it’s a Qashqai put through
a photocopier at +10% > VERDICT Still not exciting,
but does the job
GT-R ★★★★★
> Now with a slightly thicker veneer of luxury (and
another 20bhp) but still basically a hardcase,
moments from rage > VERDICT Drivetrain sounds
like a drum kit falling down the stairs; leaves your
brain feeling much the same
NAVARA ★★★★★
> One of the most sophisticated pick-up trucks out,
with interior bits from the X-Trail SUV. Perfectly fine
on and off-road > VERDICT If you own one, you can
now gloat that Mercedes has borrowed bits of it
PAGANI
HYUARA ★★★★★
> Spectacular cottage-industry supercar with
active aero, AMG-built 720bhp twin-turbo V12
and a wondrously decadent interior > VERDICT
Obviously we want one but they’re all sold
PEUGEOT
108 ★★★★★
> Pug-faced city car. Go for 82bhp 1.2: the 68bhp
1.0 is so slow we were all monkeys when it set off
and it still hasn’t hit 60mph > VERDICT No-frills city
car; boot and rear space tight
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 PEUGEOT > TOYOTA
208 ★★★★★
> Dramatic looks and a swanky interior might be
enough for many. Available in petrol, diesel and
electric flavours. Oh, and light-up fangs > VERDICT
It’s no Fiesta to drive
308 HATCH/SW ESTATE ★★★★★
> Hushed 308 is at its best when eating motorway
miles, or when you’re watching it out of the window
of your Golf. Fiddly touchscreen > VERDICT
Non-GTi hatch isn’t up to scratch, but SW wagon is
worth a look
308 GTi ★★★★★
> Discreet styling hides playful proclivities; Limited-
slip diff keeps things tight up front while fantastic
chassis delivers entertainingly lively rear
> VERDICT 250 and 270 variants both great, but
270 gets more kit
508 ★★★★★
> Best-looking mainstream exec? Quite possibly.
Likeable and civil, and the cockpit is a knockout.
Estate equally handsome and there’s a hybrid too
> VERDICT For the discerning iconoclast
PARTNER TEPEE ★★★★★
> Spacious, versatile, more practical than a regular
MPV, drives okay if you keep your ambitious
modest > VERDICT Make your own clothes? Live in
a yurt? This is the car/van for you
2008 ★★★★★
> Welly-wearing 208 gets a facelift which hits
on the idea of actually resembling an SUV, and
at a stroke makes a decent car more credible
> VERDICT Not so much leaping on the SUV
bandwagon as hitching a ride
3008 ★★★★★
> Tell your friends you’ve bought one and they’ll
laugh – until they see it. Sharp to look at, surprisingly
good fun to drive and not too weird > VERDICT Just
make it clear you’ve not bought the old one
5008 ★★★★★
> Edgy design inside and out hides genuine
practicality, comfort and seven seats. Looks quirky,
but easy to live with and pleasurable to drive
> VERDICT Not the German approach to premium,
but just as effective
POLESTAR
1 ★★★★★
NEW
> Concept car looks, vast power,
supernatural handling, Bentley pricing
ENTRY
> VERDICT Quite the way to start a
new marque… with a supercharger and a turbo and
two electric motors
PORSCHE
718 BOXSTER ★★★★★
> The turbo revolution continues as Boxster bins
the six for a brace of faster forced-induction fours
> VERDICT Whole lotta lag; chassis still a stairway
to heaven
718 CAYMAN ★★★★★
> Choral flat-six ditched for punchy but industrial
turbocharged four. Uglier than before, still handles
like you wish all cars would > VERDICT Know any
nice 981s for sale?
911 ★★★★★
> 992-generation could have been phoned in and
still been fantastic, but Porsche has done it again.
The 911 continues to be trackday hero, athletic GT
and surprisingly adept family transport rolled into
one > VERDICT Unrivalled do-anything sports car
152 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
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911 GT2 RS ★★★★★
> As close to a racing-spec 911 you can get: raw,
blisteringly quick and sounds truly evil > VERDICT Is
it REALLY worth £100k more than the GT3?
911 GT3 ★★★★★
> Yes, another brilliant 911, but you didn’t really
think Porsche would get this one wrong, did you?
Optional manual ‘box makes car nerds everywhere
weak at the knees > VERDICT More accessible,
more fun and more GT3-ish
MACAN ★★★★★
> Baby Cayenne is even better than dad – and
better than the rival Evoque too. Base car with Golf
GTI 2.0 makes no sense when S is pennies more
> VERDICT GT3 RS for trackdays, Cayman GT4 for
weekends, this for everything else. Sorted
CAYENNE ★★★★★
> A masterclass in how to make a big SUV handle.
Slick Panamera-derived interior is great. Turbo
is brutally fast, too, but whole thing feels anally
retentive > VERDICT Impressively capable but
Macan is more engaging
PANAMERA ★★★★★
> The Mk1 was just throat-clearing; this Mk2 is
the opera. Ripe with tech, innovation and better
dynamics – and it looks nigh on perfect > VERDICT
A lesson in making nonsensical niches make
perfect sense
PORSCHE TAYCAN ★★★★★
> Way pricier than a Tesla and real-world charging
still suspect but Porsche’s first EV is, naturally, a
technological marvel > VERDICT Supernatural pace
and body control housed in a concept-car body
RADICAL
SR3 SL ★★★★★
> Properly street-legal SR3 gets a 300bhp blown
Ford 2.0 instead of a motorcycle engine, a heater
and even a 12v socket. It’s almost lavish > VERDICT
Toned down for occasional road use but still hairier
than a cave man with hypertrichosis
RXC TURBO ★★★★★
> Play out those Le Mans fantasies on the commute
with this Peterborough-built headcase. Sequential
gearbox welcome in town like an EDL demo
> VERDICT When you’ve outgrown your
Caterhams and 911 GT3s, here’s the answer
RENAULT
TWIZY ★★★★★
> Part electric scooter, part social experiment,
it’s easy to love the doorless Twizy, especially on
balmy evenings along La Croisette. Grimy days
in Doncaster a tougher ask > VERDICT Transport
of the future, if it’s never wet in the future and you
like chatting with other drivers at traffic lights. And
when we say chatting, we mean having abuse
hurled your way
ZOE ★★★★★
> Popular French EV has been polished so much
it blinds passers-by in the sun. No, but seriously,
while the old Zoe was good, the latest much
longer-ranged, more attractive and refined model
is enough to convince supermini buyers > VERDICT
A mainstream EV tipping point
CLIO ★★★★★
> Smaller and lighter? That’s not how new
generations work, Renault! Interior quality is
now up with the best in the class, tidy handling,
familiar face > VERDICT The same but different,
and a bit better
CAPTUR ★★★★★
> Clio’s cockpit inside, actually quite decent to
look at outside. Renault also manages to make the
toppy ones cheaper than most of its competitors.
There’s little to disagree with here > VERDICT
Much improved compact crossover
MEGANE ★★★★★
> All-new French Golf looks like a foie-grased
Clio outside and a low-rent Tesla inside. Is thus an
instant improvement over the old one
> VERDICT Renault Sport-fettled GT with rear-
wheel steering a keen drive, too. Sacré bleu!
MEGANE RS ★★★★★
> Sport is a credible hot hatch all-rounder but it
doesn’t thrill like the pokier Cup. Go for a manual
Cup version and you have a properly sorted Civic
Type R rival > VERDICT Hurrah! They haven’t ruined
it like they ruined the Clio RS.
SCENIC ★★★★★
> Compact MPV trades practicality for a sharper
exterior > VERDICT Console your manhood with the
fact that 20s are standard
KADJAR ★★★★★
> Nissan may rue the day it left the parts store
door ‘Kadjar’, as Renault’s take on the Qashqai
bests the original in every way (including ‘Is that an
anagram?’ name) > VERDICT Aggressive pricing,
smooth ride, great refinement, squishy seats
KOLEOS ★★★★★
> A five-seat X-Trail that took a gap year living at
a French vineyard and has come back with an
accent, more stylish clothes and an avant-garde
view on life. Façade doesn’t hide its Nissan roots
> VERDICT Neither great nor rubbish – c’est bof
ROLLS-ROYCE
GHOST ★★★★★
> A Phantom for millionaires not billionaires. Its
BMW 7-series undercrackers are barely visible,
but very well deployed to make this remarkably
easy to manage > VERDICT Perfectly built, highly
individual
WRAITH ★★★★★
> A 624bhp twin-turbo V12 sporting vehicle that
drives like no other. Dismisses distance but would
never lower itself to squealing through bends
> VERDICT Whisper it, but Rolls has produced an
amazing driver’s car
PHANTOM ★★★★★
> Enough opulence to make Blenheim Palace look
like an abandoned warehouse yet just the right
amount of tech to keep start-up billionaires happy.
Comes with built-in art gallery > VERDICT By far the
world’s best luxury car
DAWN ★★★★★
> Wraith with the roof cut off – although actually 80
per cent of the exterior panels are new. Rides like a
liner and costs more than a VW software decision
> VERDICT Starry
CULLINAN ★★★★★
> Redefines off-road plushness. But it costs £100k
more than a Bentayga and weighs more than the
moon > VERDICT Almost as comfy as a Phantom,
but a Rangie is a better off-road
SEAT
MII ★★★★★
> Tedious-looking city-box is far less
REPLACED
SOON funky than Renault’s Twingo but
roomier and good to drive > VERDICT
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VW Up is more desirable, pretty Skoda Citigo is
cheaper, but it’s still okay
IBIZA ★★★★★
> Angular Spanish supermini nabs A0 platform
before VW, thoroughly grows up in the process. FR
versions irritatingly don’t look that sporty any more
> VERDICT Ibiza by name only
LEON HATCH/ESTATE ★★★★★
> The estate in particular is a bit of an overlooked
gem, all too often dismissed as a rebadged Golf
when in reality it’s got a significantly different feel
and spec levels, and can be very good value
> VERDICT Likeable, and just that bit different from
an actual Golf
ARONA ★★★★★
> Normal-ish VW Group baby crossover but a
good one. Practical and easygoing with simple
trim structure – pick a spec and get a jazzy colour.
Piece of cake > VERDICT A sensible daily driver,
but then so is an Ibiza...
ATECA ★★★★★
> Latecomer to the SUV party gets the dress code
right, isn’t the life and soul but neither will it bore
you into leaving early. Another sangria please!
> VERDICT Go SE, petrol, manual
TARRACO ★★★★★
> Generic VW Group crossover alert! Seat takes
a Kodiaq and gives it a Spanish nose job. Then
spends the afternoon in the pub > VERDICT
No improvement over its very good Skoda and
VW Tiguan Allspace siblings; harder ride is of
questionable merit
ALHAMBRA ★★★★★
> A big box with slidey doors and seven proper seats;
its puts family first, but also drives well > VERDICT
Genetically identical to the VW Sharan, but nearly
£2k less
SKODA
CITIGO ★★★★★
> Skoda’s all but identical version of
REPLACED
SOON the VW Up and Seat Mii. Well
packaged but ultimately too noisy and
slow to feel terribly rewarding > VERDICT Cheaper
than the Up, but not by much. See page 147 for
more on where this fits into the bigger picture
FABIA HATCH/ESTATE ★★★★★
> Mature supermini that’s best on small wheels
and modest petrol engine. Estate version ideal
for Jack Russells > VERDICT Roomy, well made
and dynamically well sorted – like the low-rent
VW Polo it is
SCALA ★★★★★
> Oddball Rapid twins have been killed off to make
way for this more conventional hatch. A bargain
next to its rivals, and good level of standard kit, but
it’s not exactly brimming with charisma > VERDICT
Skoda may have overshot the mark in trying to
make it more conventional than the Rapid. But it’s
very sensible: Golf space on a tighter budget
OCTAVIA HATCH/ESTATE ★★★★★
> Like a Golf but bigger, cheaper and more
functional. Hot vRS versions old-school ballistic
fun. 4x4s practical > VERDICT A lot for the money
SUPERB SALOON/ESTATE ★★★★★
REPLACED
> So vast inside it echoes. Sharp lines,
SOON stacks of kit, double the number of
umbrellas. Shame about the dull
interior and the stiff price, especially for
bigger-powered and higher-spec versions
> VERDICT All the family car you’ll ever need. Only
bigger

SPEC EXPERT
BUILD THE PERFECT
JAGUAR F-PACE SVR
Any spec you want – so long as it’s loud
Jaguar’s F-Pace SVR
is loud, proud and fun
to drive. Its bombastic
supercharged V8 makes
542bhp, for a 0-62mph
sprint of just 4.1sec and a
top speed of 176mph. The
chassis makes extensive
use of aluminium and
gives an impressive level
of agility.
Starting price: £73,145
We’ve started with no-
cost Ultra Blue paintwork
– a lightly-metallic hue
– and spec’d the larger
22-inch Style 5081
wheels (£840), a solar
attenuating windscreen
to help with sun glare
(£470) and privacy glass
at the rear (£395).
Running total: £74,850
The sports seats and
dash are upholstered in
no-cost Sienna Tan and
Ebony quilted leather for
a properly posh Jaguar
feel, mixing traditional
and modern. To keep it
light and airy, a fixed-glass
panoramic roof has been
added (£1250). The Driver
Assist Pack, for £3100,
features adaptive cruise
control, a 360º camera
system and blind spot
monitoring. Add your taxes
and on-the-road costs
(£2190) and you’re all set.
Total price: £81,390
TOTAL PRICE: £81,390
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
KAMIQ ★★★★★
> A Czech drop in a baby crossover ocean. Like
its VW Group compadres, it’s absolutely fine at
everything it does but has even less pizazz than
the T-Cross and Arona > VERDICT Wake us up
when it’s interesting
KAROQ ★★★★★
> A miniature Kodiaq: practical, sharply styled and
comfortable. Shame it’s just not as likeable as its
predecessor, even in more rugged Scout spec
> VERDICT RIP Yeti
KODIAQ ★★★★★
> Vast SUV takes the Octavia approach by bulking
out on a shared platform, but doesn’t share its
dazzling personality. Hot vRS version expensive
overkill > VERDICT The most comfortable place to
die a little inside
SMART
FORTWO ★★★★★
> Wider than the last one, with a much better ride,
higher quality cabin and slicker auto > VERDICT A
brilliant city runabout, with an electric version that
makes sense
FORFOUR ★★★★★
> Renault/Merc tie-up means ForFour is
accomplished, with a classy cabin, although
ludicrous pricing seem at odds with targeted city
car buyers > VERDICT Its sister car, the Twingo, is
more than two grand cheaper. Work that out
SSANGYONG
KORANDO ★★★★★
> Most well-behaved SY on the road, which isn’t
saying much, and still great off road, which is. Price
for a decent one squares it up against so many
other good SUVs now, though > VERDICT Getting
rather big for its boots
REXTON ★★★★★
> SY’s poshest SUV yet, which admittedly isn’t
saying a huge amount. Think old Discovery and
you’re not actually that far off > VERDICT Far less
rubbish than the last one
TURISMO ★★★★★
> Less odious than the old Rodius, but every bit as
practical, this giant seven-seater is slower than the
Crossrail boring machine > VERDICT Has minicab
written all over it, or soon will, which will handily
help disguise the ugliness
TIVOLI ★★★★★
> There’s no getting away from it: Korea’s
also-ran car maker has finally built a contender.
Great value, spacious and – get this – well-
finished inside > VERDICT If they do this again
the dross heritage is under threat
MUSSO ★★★★★
> Mega cheap with trim levels that have silly names.
Ponderous diesel and incredibly bouncy ride
when empty doesn’t endear it with road manners
> VERDICT ‘Good… for the money’ should be
SsangYong’s slogan
SUBARU
IMPREZA ★★★★★
> Yes, it still exists beyond the WRX and STi of
legend. No, you don’t want one. Boggo Impreza is
now reduced to a 1.6 or 2.0 petrol hatchback only
with optional CVT. Shudder > VERDICT Have you
got a brand new combine harvester? It’s probably
a better drive
LEVORG ★★★★★
> Impreza estate with a silly name. Single choice of
2.0 petrol with CVT auto and 4wd means it’s got
a silly drivetrain too > VERDICT Niche, as is all too
common with Subaru
XV ★★★★★
> Admirable engineering but you have to pay
through the nose for it and you’re limited to a petrol,
all-wheel-drive and CVT powertrain that dims the
pleasure > VERDICT Another very niche Subaru
FORESTER ★★★★★
> Functional square-rigger is the kind of crossover
that existed before we had ‘lifestyles’. Good on
road, great off it, not cheap > VERDICT A solid
Subaru. Tweed cap, pipe, sheep flock optional
FEBRUARY 2020 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 153
OUTBACK ★★★★★
> The unloved last-generation Legacy’s only UK
legacy is this Allroad-style crossover. It’s huge
inside and the 4x4 look isn’t all for show > VERDICT
Dependable, not desirable
BRZ ★★★★★
> Pure and simple but under-nourished rear-wheel-
drive boxer coupe, crying out for a supercharger.
Toyota GT86 twin marginally more fun > VERDICT
Loveable car we wanted them to make but you
don’t want to buy
SUZUKI
CELERIO ★★★★★
> Braking-phobic city car is otherwise spacious,
full of kit and cheap. Three-cylinder petrol engine
only, plus all the handling vigour of a B&Q Value
wheelbarrow > VERDICT Dowdy and rowdy. Stop
complaining and be grateful you’ve got DAB and
a cupholder
SWIFT ★★★★★
> An unsung hero, and not just the excellent
134bhp Sport. Handles well, spacious and cheap.
Upgraded Dualjet motor sweet > VERDICT Buy one
and challenge anyone who questions your choice
to a fistfight
IGNIS ★★★★★
> Cute. Might look tiny but Ignis has more room
inside than most other cars this cheap. Shame the
stodgy dynamics don’t match the adorable ’70s
Suzuki Whizzkid-inspired looks > VERDICT Good
mix of cheap and cheerful, if not exactly fun
BALENO ★★★★★
> The biggest of Suzuki’s small cars, but not a Focus
rival by a long shot. Brand traits come through
here: hollow interior, bargain price but fun to
drive if you’re prepared to work with it > VERDICT
Practical, unpretentious, almost entirely forgettable
SX4 S-CROSS ★★★★★
> The cheap way to clone a Nissan Qashqai. Won’t
score any points for style – in fact you might be
encouraged by your kids (and everybody else’s
kids) to hide it at the back of the school car park.
Diesel is the best bet, if not an attractive one
> VERDICT A crossover to be cross over
JIMNY ★★★★★
> It’s a mini Tonka toy! Still supreme off road and,
now, there’s few else like it on sale. It’s slow, still
not great on road, but we know what we’d have
in a zombie apocalypse > VERDICT So incredibly
loveable we forgive its road manners
VITARA ★★★★★
> Two-tone cross-dresser to rival the Nissan Juke,
with handsome body and economical diesel
engine or a lively petrol, and genuine all-wheel-
drive ability. Cabin could do with some work,
though > VERDICT Rutting rhinos and pink paint a
thing of the past: it’s a serious family car now, but
still good value
TESLA
MODEL 3 ★★★★★
> An affordable electric vehicle you actually want
to drive? Say it ain’t so. Impressive performance,
taut but spine-breaking dynamics, clean interior
> VERDICT Musk’s watershed moment – if only he
could build them at anything approaching the rate
needed to meet global demand
MODEL S ★★★★★
> Electro-rocket covers ground like little else on the
planet, and in P100D guise is capable of delivering
kidney-thumping acceleration. The future, with
a cabin from the recent past > VERDICT Crush
supercars, emit nothing
MODEL X ★★★★★
> You can scare the bejeezus out of your six
passengers by reaching 62mph in 3.1 seconds. It’s
effective, albeit in one dimension. Looks like an
SUV holding its breath > VERDICT Musky
TOYOTA
AYGO ★★★★★
> City car with a characterful three-pot motor,
sharing its fundamentals with the Citroën C1 and
Peugeot 108 > VERDICT Great to have the choice of
this trio or the VW/Seat/Skoda alternatives
TOYOTA > VOLVO
YARIS/GRMN ★★★★★
> Standard hatch is soulless, while costly hybrid
cuts fuel bills (and boot space). Feisty GRMN limited
edition is fun but ludicrously expensive – and sold
out in any case > VERDICT GRMN is the only one
that makes any kind of sense
COROLLA ★★★★★
> Like the RAV4, it combines nondescript
powertrains with oodles of room for your
passengers, paying or otherwise. Half decent to
drive, too > VERDICT The Uber in front is a Toyota
CAMRY ★★★★★
> The humdrum saloon is back, now sharing
underpants with the Lexus ES. It’s a lot of room
for your money, allied to decent comfort and the
reasonable assumption that it will be super reliable
for approximately ever > VERDICT Would make an
excellent taxi
PRIUS ★★★★★
> Prius v4.0 boasts entirely new structure
compared to all previous Priuses, improved
suspension, and is no longer totally joyless to drive
> VERDICT A Toyota hybrid that handles. Electric-
only range still pathetic
MIRAI ★★★★★
> Weird on the outside, Star Trek on the inside and
a hydrogen fuel-cell underneath. Drives just like
a very refined regular car > VERDICT The tech is
right, but there’s nowhere to refuel it yet
C-HR ★★★★★
> Compact crossover that’s stylish outside, huge
fun and kooky inside too > VERDICT The start of a
more interesting new phase for Toyota
RAV4 ★★★★★
> Styling like an 8-bit Space Invader on wheels
is the only element of sparkle in a package that’s
otherwise all about practicality and safety tech.
Ho-hum powertrain and sub-par infotainment don’t
help > VERDICT At least it looks interesting now
LAND CRUISER ★★★★★
> Bare-knuckle ladder-frame brawler that wouldn’t
know a latte if you spilt one on its rigger’s boots
> VERDICT Rough, but if we were stranded in the
desert we’d trust one of these over a Rangie
GT86 ★★★★★
> The slowest fast car you can buy. B-road heaven,
like its Subaru twin > VERDICT As pure as Jon
Snow. Both of them
SUPRA ★★★★★
> New coupe relies heavily on BMW Z4 hardware,
which seems to be a sticking point for some, but it
drives really well > VERDICT Be very glad Toyota
made the effort
HILUX ★★★★★
> Not the most efficient or cheapest pick-up
currently available, but it has durability like little else
and it does all of the things a pick-up should do well,
excellently > VERDICT There’s a reason there’s a
trim level called ‘Invincible’
LEASE ACADEMY NEW SMALL CARS
VAUXHALL CORSA
1.2 SRi NAV
£228pm
Vauxhall’s new supermini at its best
Spec 1.2-litre three-cylinder, front-
wheel drive, 113bhp, 96g/km CO2
List price £19,200
Initial payment £1750; then
£228/month for 36 months
Mileage allowance 10,000
Via zen.auto
154 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | FEBRUARY 2020
VAUXHALL
CORSA ★★★★★
> If Vauxhall’s supermini was a huge
NEW
ENTRY seller before, new owner PSA’s help
will keep that trend going. Flexible, tidy
design, useful interior and thrifty engines
> VERDICT It’s like someone improved vanilla ice
cream
ASTRA HATCH/ESTATE ★★★★★
> Massive step forward compared to previous
generation in terms of driving dynamics and
interior design, plus added techno-charm
> VERDICT In hatchback grandmother’s
footsteps, Focus and Golf turn round to find
Astra standing right behind them. You really
should try one if you’re in the market
INSIGNIA ★★★★★
> Uninspired, but usefully big. The Sports Tourer
estate and its rugged Country Tourer variant
were the best versions, and best value – and then
Vauxhall binned them > VERDICT Too close to
how you’d hope an Insignia isn’t, but fine if you’re
given one
CROSSLAND X ★★★★★
> Practical Meriva replacement sits beside
the Mokka X for size. Designed to be the more
pragmatic choice > VERDICT Genuinely practical if
as dull as Luton’s skyline to drive
GRANDLAND X ★★★★★
> A Peugeot 3008 in disguise, but different enough
to appeal in its own right, and with the benefit of
Vauxhall’s vast dealer network. Not exciting, but a
very good family crossover > VERDICT Up there
with the Astra as Vauxhall’s top current car
MOKKA X ★★★★★
> Mokka gets a better cabin, some new engines
and pointless suffix. Driving misery reduced by half
> VERDICT X marks the spot where the ball was –
about five years ago
VOLKSWAGEN
UP ★★★★★
> Charming box on wheels is the kind of city
car the Japanese have been building for years,
except this is better built. EV has a Yorkshire name
but doesn’t kill off the petrol just yet. > VERDICT
Spacious small car with a strong, appealing image
UP GTI ★★★★★
> Pokey 113bhp engine, dynamics that come close
to delivering on the dream of roadgoing go-kart,
and great value for money. And fun by the skipload
on every journey > VERDICT Compelling mini hot
hatch package
POLO ★★★★★
> Mini-Golf isn’t that mini any more. It’s practical,
has a sharp interior and well built… but so’s the
Seat Ibiza > VERDICT Accomplished but lacking
the fun factor
Deals on a raft of fresh city slickers
PEUGEOT 208 GT LINE
PURETECH 130 EAT8
£284pm
Go all out on this top spec
Spec 1.2-litre three-cylinder, front-
wheel drive, 128bhp, 103g/km CO2
List price £23,350
Initial payment £2250; then
£284/month for 36 months
Mileage allowance 10,000
Via zen.auto
POLO GTI ★★★★★
> A proper junior GTI right down to the tartan seats.
Responsive engine, sorted chassis, OTT electronic
aids. Manual gearbox adds a sorely-needed bit
of zest > VERDICT The latest Fiesta ST should be
nervous
GOLF HATCH/ESTATE ★★★★★
REPLACED > What every rival would like to be if
SOON only it could get away with charging
this much > VERDICT Never knowingly
underpriced
GOLF GTD/GTI/R ★★★★★
> GTD is your dad in running shoes.
REPLACED
SOON GTI is your dad when he was wild,
young and free. R is your dad having a
midlife crisis. All are ace , like your dad > VERDICT
VW has this hot-hatch thing nailed
GOLF SV ★★★★★
> The artist formerly known as the Golf Plus. And
by ‘artist’ we mean medium-sized MPV. The car you
always knew the Golf would grow up to be
> VERDICT Not a bad choice, but now the BMW
2-series Active Tourer is breathing down its neck
PASSAT SALOON/ESTATE ★★★★★
> Interior design and refinement so good it shames
some limos, cutting-edge kit and elegant looks.
If only most versions weren’t so dull to drive >
VERDICT Mile-muncher for the undemanding
ARTEON ★★★★★
> Here we go again: VW tries to be properly
premium, almost pulls it off. Great interior, huge boot
and there’s standard safety tech aplenty, but it’s a bit
dull > VERDICT For SUV-resistant saloon fans… or
those who can’t afford a BMW
TOURAN ★★★★★
> It’s still more Millets than John Lewis, but the
current Touran does family stuff well > VERDICT
MPV meets MQB, nearly goes VIP while retaining
whiff of OAP
SHARAN ★★★★★
> Large seven-seater sliding-door people carrier
> VERDICT Nice enough but made to look silly by
all-but-identical and cheaper Seat Alhambra
T-CROSS ★★★★★
> Wait, which one is this? Smaller than a T-Roc.
Polo-size, not Golf-size. Like the Seat Arona and
some Skoda or other. Probably > VERDICT Exactly
right for today. Definitely.
T-ROC ★★★★★
> Golf-sized SUV aimed at hashtagging
millennials. Massive tech options list and scope
for personalisation make up for brittle interior and
hefty price > VERDICT The funkiest VW, at least
until the ID arrives
TIGUAN ★★★★★
> Accomplished but unexciting, with no real
innovations, and Allspace seven-seater has an
awkwardly packaged boot > VERDICT No sex
please, we’re VW
AUDI A1 CITYCARVER
30 TFSI
£291pm
The fakest crossover on Earth
Spec 1.0-litre three-cylinder, front-
wheel drive, 113bhp, 139g/km CO2
List price £22,040
Initial payment £2250; then
£291/month for 36 months
Mileage allowance 10,000
Via zen.auto
TOUAREG ★★★★★
> Less low-key than previous generations, especially
that glittery grille, but still not as charismatic as the
smaller T-Roc. Composed to drive, and space-age
dash is very clever > VERDICT The SUV choice for
those who don’t like drama
AMAROK ★★★★★
> Vying with the Mercedes X-Class to be about
as car-like as a pick-up truck can be, for better or
worse. V6 power makes it stupid fast, and saying
it has a cockpit like a Mk6 Golf is, in this context, a
compliment. Relies on electronics for its off-roading
skills > VERDICT A hot hatch of the pick-up world
VOLVO
V40 ★★★★★
> Smart Swede in a sector dominated by good
Germans. Efficient D4 engine and impressive kit,
but it’s a fraction bloated in seat, suspension and
steering feel > VERDICT Sitting uncomfortably
between Golf and A3. A rock and hard place
S60 ★★★★★
> Imposing mid-size saloon is the first Volvo to ditch
diesel, instead offering us a 400bhp Polestar-
tweaked point-and-squirt weapon > VERDICT
Needs a dynamic edge
V60 ★★★★★
> Can now once again reign supreme in the mid-size
estate space race – take that, Germans. Otherwise
standard modern Volvo; handsome, refined and
safer than a fallout shelter > VERDICT We’ve got the
need for Swede
V90 ★★★★★
> Sacrilegiously abandons the boot-space race for
style while prioritising comfort and refinement over
German machismo. Lovely inside. A genuine rival
to the 5-series, E-Class and A6 > VERDICT If there’s
such a thing as Swedish zen, this is it
S90 ★★★★★
> Smart, well-crafted and adept-handling exec
saloon dances a merry jig on the grave of unloved
S80 > VERDICT Loudly purring Swedish cat enters
5-series/E-class pigeon enclosure
XC40 ★★★★★
> No thriller to steer but posh crossover has sharp
look, practical interior and charming personality
> VERDICT Feels good , and it’ll look after you
XC60 ★★★★★
> A shrunken XC90, and more middle class than a
book club morning at an organic farm shop cafe,
sponsored by Boden > VERDICT Good to drive
and super safe, and benefits from the mild hybrids
spreading rapidly through the Volvo line-up
XC90 ★★★★★
> Luxurious seven-seater, clever safety tech, choice
of efficient drivetrains, refined drive > VERDICT
One of the most complete cars on sale, of any style,
at any price. Drive it and you soon stop questioning
its size and its image
All prices inclusive of VAT and correct at time of going to press
RENAULT CAPTUR
GT LINE TCE 90
£161pm
Clio’s crossover sibling is a bargain
Spec 0.9-litre three-cylinder, front-
wheel drive, 89bhp, 125g/km CO2
List price £18,730
Initial payment £1250; then
£161/month for 36 months
Mileage allowance 10,000
Via zen.auto

GP BATTERIES M-SERIES POWERBANKS
From £19.99
These slim and sleek aluminium powerbanks
come in a choice of colours and three
capacities: 5000mAh (£19.99), 10,000mAh
(£29.99) and 15,000mAh (£34.99). They’re
light enough to carry around in a pocket or
bag, while the anti-slip rubber-coated edges
provide excellent grip. The ‘pass-through
charging’ feature lets you recharge your
devices and the powerbank at the same time.  litres and petrol engines up to 4.5 litres.
uk.gpbatteries.com
CLASSIC ADDITIONS CAR COVERS
Prices vary
Classic Additions supplies a range of
high-quality indoor and outdoor car covers.
The standard-fit range includes the best-
selling Super Soft Stretch indoor (pictured)
and Ultimate outdoor covers. If you would
prefer something bespoke, Classic Additions
also offers custom-made indoor and outdoor
covers that are fully tailored to the shape of
the car and hand-made in the UK.
classicadditions.com
To advertise on this page please contact Claire Meade-Gore
01733 366310 claire.meade-gore@bauermedia.co.uk
MULTI-FUNCTION JUMP STARTER
£179.83
An efficient, compact emergency engine-
starting powerpack from Laser Tools. It
takes only three hours to charge and is
packed full of additional features, including
an LED to illuminate the workspace, two USB
outputs (for charging mobile phones, etc), a
Type-C input/output port and digital voltage
display. It can start diesel engines of up to 3.5
lasertools.co.uk
ALLOYGATOR KERB PROTECTION
Prices vary
Are you a kerb magnet? AlloyGators are
designed to help the most enthusiastic
kerb lovers from scratching their wheels
by providing a robust barrier between road
hazards and your alloys. They’re available in
14 colours, and suit just about all cars. You can
install them yourself or have them fitted by an
AlloyGator installer. Use the code AMCARS1 to
get 10 per cent off your order.
alloygator.com
Aftermarket extras
HAYNES LOLA T70 MANUAL
£25
Fifty years since the last variation of the
T70, the MkIII B, raced competitively in
international sports car events, Haynes’ latest
motorsport book, the Lola T70 Manual, tells
the fascinating story of this legendary sports
racing car. Featuring insights from leading
T70 drivers, team owners and designers, the
book delves into the history of Lola and the
evolution and anatomy of the T70.
haynes.com/motorsport
LEATHER ART HOLDALLS
Prices vary
Designed in Britain and hand-made in Italy,
Jordan Bespoke have been designing and
manufacturing detailed leather goods and
accessories for the worlds of automotive,
motorsport, superyachts and fashion since
2005. The man behind Jordan Bespoke
is the multi-talented Simon Jordan, a life-long
car enthusiast. Pictured is the bespoke black
Ford GT40 lining.
jordanbespoke.com
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 The car cover people

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E: sales@classicadditions.co.uk
Reader discount code: CA-CAR
www.classicadditions.co.uk *Discount applies to standard ft car covers & accessories only

THE ULTIMATE IN
PROTECTION & PRESERVATION
For almost 40 years, we’ve been the market
leader in supplying innovative solutions in car
protection. British designed and manufactured
we’re proud of our heritage and it shows in the
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Savings code: CAR-2019

T: 01943 864 646
E: info@specialisedcovers.com
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PROTECT ALL
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Tyres can be changed with AlloyGators in place
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“I MotorEasy “...and with stress-free motoring,
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PROTECT | MAINTAIN | REPAIR | BUY & SELL | SUPPORT

*11% discount will applied to your GAP Insurance at checkout when you use code CAR11. **If you make
a GAP Insurance claim and there is no gap to cover MotorEasy will refund you the cost of your policy. Excellent: 4.7/5
MotorEasy Ltd, Company No. 08423198 and MotorEasy Services Ltd, Company No. 10109424 are
registered in the UK at Staverton Court, Staverton, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. GL51 0UX. MotorEasy Ltd
is an Introducer Appointed Representative of Motoreasy Services Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by
the Financial Conduct Authority, Register No. 747890 Based on over 2,500 reviews
 High power LED
NEW! headlight upgrade
for the Jaguar XJS

5 Years warranty + Money-

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All 12v classics also catered for
See our full range of powerful &
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01789 576119
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applies to permanent residents in the UK, excluding the Channel Islands. We reserve the right to request proof of, and validate, alternate quotes as well as proof of the information you provided to obtain the quotes (e.g. copy
of driving licence or utility bill) before our guarantee is honoured. mustard.co.uk is a trading name of the H Bauer Publishing Limited Partnership which for general insurance distribution is an Appointed Representative of Vast
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Retro
Brakes: a discography The UK’s Best Used Car Warranty

IN ASSOCIATION WITH
WWW.WARRANTYWISE.CO.UK
0800 121 4801

tech As engines grew more powerful, drum brakes wilted.

Praise be for the powerful, responsive disc brake. By Ben Miller
Blower Bentley
had great drums –
but they were still
drums. Panic!
1887 What’s that smell?
Karl Benz, father of the motor car, releases his second three-
1887
wheeled Motorwagen. With faultless logic, he calls it the model
number 2. The first car
had no brakes. Number 2
boasts leather brake shoes
on the rear wheels. On the
downside, they barely
work; on the upside,

1929
any cobbler can
service them.
Handy.
1929 Bentley’s ‘self-wrappers’
Drums being drums (generally awful), Bentley works tirelessly
to coax some power and bite from its brakes, motivated by
the unarguable truth that its cars are significantly heavier and
1942 Easy Tiger more powerful than most. The Blower racer, with its 4.5-litre
supercharged engine, gets Bentley’s self-wrapping drums –
The Tiger rolls out of Nazi factories and onto the battlefields
of the Second World War. Terrifying to behold, let alone fight,
it boasts so many unfair advantages
1942 under braking the axles roll on their springs, pulling the brakes
on harder. They’re good: for drums.

it’s a blessing fewer than 1400 are

built. The disc brakes are foot-
operated and
they both slow
the 50-tonne
behemoth and, with each
disc brake able to work
independently, function as
emergency steering system. 1946
1951 We’re gonna need a bigger brake 1946 Patently a good idea
BRM rolls out the Type 15 – a machine to have even the Dunlop, having accelerated its brake technology via
bravest drivers reaching for their teddy bears. the catalyst of war, files a patent on a meaty disc brake
The engine, a supercharged 1.5-litre V16 (more for automotive use. It then sets about developing the
power than the sun; filthy noise) demands concept, subsequently jumping into bed with Jaguar,
equally potent brakes, so BRM
trades the missile’s three- 1951 whose new straight-six engine (developed during the
mid-’40s) is so powerful it renders even decent drums
shoes-per- obsolete. Jaguar’s evolved disc brakes will arrive in style
corner Girling on the Le Mans-winning C-Type in 1953, the first time the
drums for race is won at an average speed north of 100mph.
discs – a first
on a Formula
1 car.

1955
2019 Porsche ushers in next-gen regen
For decades it was simple: engine makes you go, brakes
help you stop. Then electrification means imperceptibly
blending hydraulic braking with regenerative charging
– challenging, to say the least. Honda 1955 The DS, naturally
spends years getting it right on the
hybrid NSX, then Porsche
takes EV braking to the next
2019 A decade after the end of the war and, bejewelled with
many technologies the conflict had accelerated, Citroën
level with the Taycan: the defines the modern automobile with the incomparably
regen system’s so powerful beautiful DS. Production disc brakes are but a fraction
90 per cent of braking’s of its engineering wonder, the calipers squeezed by
achieved without the discs. pressure from the car’s onboard hydraulic system.

US postal information: CAR magazine, ISSN 0140-4547 (USPS 9287), is published monthly by H Bauer Publishing Ltd. The US annual subscription price is $123.86. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named WN
Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to CAR magazine, WN Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue,
2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at Bauer Media Subscriptions, CDS Global, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, Leics, LE16 9EF, UK. Air Business Ltd
is acting as our mailing agent. H Bauer Publishing is registered in England and Wales, company number LP003328. Registered address: Academic House, 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DT.
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