Sommaire pour July 2017 de CAR UK

We’ll miss you, Bernie Sometimes deliberately awkward and obstructive, interviewing Bernie Ecclestone is as intimidating/thrilling as it gets when you’re an F1 journalist, even one as known to Bernie as our man Tom Clarkso. ‘The joy of a Bernie interview is the unpredictability of it. You can’t presume anything, which is rare in the bland world of F1 celebrity. That’s what makes him such a loss to F1. He’ll be remembered as much for what he said as for what he did.’ For the love of Swift She’s hugely biased but that’s okay because she didn’t write the test. Instead designer and Suzuki Swift owner (2013 Z2, in white) Rebecca Wilshere (not pictured) worked with photographer Alex (pictured) to create a great looking Giant Test; new Swift vs new in…

FERRARI ISN’T A car maker, according to investors. Neither is Tesla. The only two car brands to have floated in recent years now boast share prices which bear no relation to those of their more humdrum fellow manufacturers. Tesla’s value has headed for the stratosphere faster than one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets. After launching at $17 in 2010, a share is now worth around $300 after an eight-month surge. This spring Tesla, which made 76,000 cars last year, briefly exceeded GM’s $50 billion market capitalisation, before settling at around the same value. GM made nearly 10m cars. Even Musk claims to be perplexed: ‘We’re a money-losing company.’ But investors are unconcerned by Tesla’s current performance. They are treating it as a tech stock, and betting on it becoming the…

GETTY IMAGES TIMO MÄKINEN WAS one of the Flying Finns who came to prominence in rallying in the early 1960s. Rallying was only just getting itself organised back then – a proper world championship was still a decade away. There was a European title, but what really counted in those days were individual wins. Mäkinen rose with fellow Finns including Rauno Aaltonen, Simo Lampinen, Pauli Toivonen and Hannu Mikkola, and between them they won every 1000 Lakes (or Rally Finland) event between 1961 and 1975, barring one (the Swede, Stig Blomqvist, won in 1971). Timo won three in a row, 1965-67. After home success, the Finns started migrating to win other rallies too, notably the RAC here in the UK (Timo won three times, driving Escorts in the 1970s) and…

ILLUSTRATION: AERIFORM 1 HAVING A BALL Goodyear has shown two spherical concept tyres, connected to a car by magnetism. Plus points of spherical tyres include longer life; if part of the tyre gets worn or damaged, it rotates automatically to put a different part in contact with the road. And no need for space-consuming suspension. Could lead to… cars that drive themselves to KwikFit. 2 GENERATING ELECTRICITY The BH03 concept was created to spark debate about tyres generating electricity. The tread is designed to absorb light and the heat created by the movement of the tyre over the road, then converted into electricity – not enough to power a car, but it would extend the range. Could lead to… smaller engines. 3 SHARING THE NEWS In-tyre sensors and computers can…

• THE DISHWASHER is one of the best inventions of the 20th century, but you don’t drag your neighbour into the kitchen to tell him about the colour and the new design of the basket for the knives. The car is a white canvas, a psychological object. You project dreams and desires on to it. • BENTLEY IS the biggest luxury car brand, selling 12,000 cars. It’s our centenary in 2019. We want to get new customers into the brand. Make it younger. Millennials say they love the car, love the brand, but feel a bit too young. We need a new definition of luxury. Nobody is doing diamonds and champagne any more. • GENERATION Z is growing up in a completely different environment. In 30 years, 80% of the…

NO ANAESTHETIC was required for the Skoda Rapid Spaceback’s 2017 model-year facelift, a nip and tuck so mild that even an owner of the old model may struggle to spot the difference. The whole Rapid range has, despite appearances, been refreshed to include a more generous kit list and tweaked engine range, as well as one of the lightest exterior makeovers ever seen. Rapid sales in the UK are weighted towards the not-quite-an-estate Spaceback you see here, as opposed to the airport minicab-shaped Rapid. Both versions excel at passenger space. The curiously named Spaceback is actually less generous in terms of outright litreage than the regular model, but its 415 litres is still larger than what you get in a Focus or Astra. Neat touches include an umbrella under the…

PORSCHE MADE a mistake, and it’s not afraid to admit it. With the 991 GT3 it binned off the manual transmission in favour of its PDK dual-clutch transmission. The argument was simple. ‘It’s faster,’ said Porsche GT department head Andreas Preuninger. He wasn’t wrong, but for all PDK’s undeniable speed the purists mourned Porsche robbing them of one of the last truly driver-focused cars. With the revised 991 GT3, Porsche has reversed that decision. There’s now a choice of transmissions, a seven-speed PDK for those wanting the very quickest GT3, or, hallelujah, a six-speed manual. The manual GT3 borrows the gearbox from the 911 R, but as with the rest of the new GT3 package, the GT department’s been unable to resist having a bit of a fiddle with it.…

ALTHOUGH THE SQ5 is all-new, it looks uncannily like a replay of the old model, despite Audi having teased its length out by 42mm and made it narrower. An extra 9mm in height doesn’t sound like much but it has released extra rear headroom, although the additional 13mm in the wheelbase doesn’t seem to have bought much extra rear legroom – it’s okay but nothing more. But the new Q5’s bones have helped the SQ5 shed an impressive 130kg in weight, thanks to a matrix of aluminium and lightweight steels in the body and in components such as the steering and suspension. The car’s silhouette is reassuringly familiar to those wedded to the old model, even if the grille has been given the Q7 treatment. And if that disappoints some,…

1 THE MAN WHO MAKES THEM GOOD It’s not every day you see a prototype Land Rover Velar drive into your average National Trust car park, so imagine my surprise when one pulled into our car park at Hare Hill. I was even more surprised to see the chief development engineer Mike Cross climb out of it. PETER MOFFAT 2 ASTON-ISHING Driving through the village of Moira in Northern Ireland one Sunday morning, I spotted this classic Aston Martin DB6. I had to stop and take a photograph. Fabulous car! ROBIN CALVERT 3 WELCOME TO OUR WORLD Meet Zoe, the next generation of petrolhead in our family! At two weeks old she is keen CAR reader, and future subscriber... starting her early on the benefits of horsepower (combined with Isofix).…

IMAGE: ANDREI AVARVARII ‘The 8-series will be the sportiest car in its segment,’ says Fröhlich Traction or fun? New M5’s drivetrain with four- and two-wheel-drive modes means the M8 will be all things to all men; safe or slidey. Heavyweight Carbon panels will work to offset the weight of all that engine and powertrain. The latter should make for 0-62mph in around 3.2sec, despite a hefty kerb weight. Driving the 8-series We’ve driven the 8-series concept (above) and learnt little other than a) big-money concept cars make you drive carefully, b) wheelspin is ever-present on gravel without xDrive and c) we’re excited for the real thing. 8-series concept 90% real The 8-series will look like this next year, and all BMWs will look a little like it in future THE…

FROM ZERO TO minor hero and back again – in almost 35 years of trying, the Nissan Micra hasn’t always merited mention in the same breath as the big hitters in the supermini sector. There was a European Car of the Year win in ’93, and the early-noughties iteration was a genuine highlight. But the last version, clearly built for the Asian market and foisted upon us Europeans rather than designed and engineered here like Nissan’s most successful cars, was so sub-par we barely wasted our breath on it at all. Except to occasionally mutter about how much better the Fiesta and Fabia were. But this time Nissan is serious about superminis. And given the runaway success of the Juke and Qashqai, two cars that revolutionised the bread and butter…

Bernie comes over to our side of the room. ‘What do you want?’ It’s a familiar greeting EVERYTHING ABOUT this interview is surprising. The way Bernie looks, the way he behaves and even the way he organises our meeting is unlike any previous experience I’ve had with the former F1 tsar. ‘Let me know when you’d like to meet up and I’ll be there.’ That was his response, via email, when I put in the interview request. Discombobulating, to say the least. For more than 40 years Bernie called the shots in Formula 1; he told you what was going to happen, and when. Now he’s asking when it suits me. Such are the shifting tides in F1. Liberty Media are now in charge and Bernie has gone. Retired. And…

The F140 V12 V12 power has been a part of Ferrari’s lineup since the 166M of 1947, but the current V12 as used by the F12 only dates back to 2002. When it appeared in the Enzo, it broke with Ferrari halo car tradition: the F40 (blown V8) and F50 (n/a V12) used engines inspired by contemporary F1 cars, but by the time the Enzo arrived Ferrari was using V10 power on the track. Codenamed F140, the all-alloy 5998cc unit featured a 65° vee angle, variable inlet and exhaust valve timing for its belt-driven quad cams, and continuously variable intake runners. Torque was strong: 485lb ft at 5500rpm compared with 347lb ft at 6500rpm for the F50. In the LaFerrari the F140 V12 produces 789bhp – before you factor in…

ALEX TAPLEY ‘I’VE DRIVEN the R8,’ I overheard another journalist say recently. ‘I thought it was a fantastic engine attached to a really boring car.’ Thing is, a week or two into my time with this car I’d have agreed with him. On first acquaintance there is something a bit aloof about the R8; it’s not an event . But give it some soak time and does it ever get under your skin. It’s one of today’s most well-rounded supercars – second only to the 911 Turbo in that regard – and one of the most engaging. It might take a little time to get to know them, but the R8 has a wider range of characters than Mr Benn; around town it’s docile and tractable as a supermini, in…

SIMON THOMPSON THE MAZDA MX-5 RF recently took part in a CAR group test against the BMW 220i and Toyota GT86 (May 2017). It came third out of three, which doesn’t bode well for me, given my last long-term test car was swiftly confiscated when I described it as an ‘awful car’. But hey, don’t worry, because I really love the MX-5 RF. The secret to the RF, I reckon, is approaching it as a car in its own right, rather than comparing it to its roadster sibling all the time. In that group test, Chris Chilton said the RF ‘costs more and looks worse’ than the soft-top, and it ‘fails to deliver a properly resolved convertible experience while not matching the refinement of a proper coupe either’. But then…

Lamborghini Urus Here next year, including hybrid It’s been five long years since Lamborghini floated the idea of an SUV with a concept at Beijing, and now – finally – sales of the Urus are expected to kick off early next year at around £145,000. It will use the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 already put to good use elsewhere in the VW group, as well as borrowing some more tech to offer the Italian firm’s first plug-in hybrid. Much of the hardware is similar to the Audi Q7 and Bentley Bentayga, so expect the Urus to be the most refined and practical Lambo ever. Volvo XC40 Cubed Swede goes fun-size Now selling more SUVs than anything else, Volvo is aiming to cover all the 4x4 bases. The first car on the…

ILLUSTRATION: SENOR SALME PERSUADING MAX SZWAJ to join Aston Martin from arch-rivals Ferrari is quite a coup for chief executive Andy Palmer. Szwaj’s impressive CV is scattered with cars that have become benchmarks within the industry: he was responsible for the design concept of the Porsche Carrera GT, and followed that with the body-in-white for the original Cayman. His time at BMW embraced the i8 project before he was poached by Piero Ferrari and Roberto Fedeli to head south over the Alps to develop new architecture and technology for Ferrari, including the F150 LaFerrari. ‘Six years at Ferrari was an incredible experience, very tough. I was half-way between Ferrari, finishing the new architecture, and bringing some new ideas to Maserati when I got the call. They didn’t want me to…

SIMON THOMPSON CAN YOU REMEMBER a time when you owned things that didn’t need internet access to get the best out of them? We can’t, and e ither can Vauxhall. That’s why every Luton chariot you can buy today has OnStar, complete with a wi fi hotspot, available as an option if not standard. We’ve already tested OnStar on these Does It Work? pages, but that focused specifically on the 24-hour concierge and emergency call service. Now we’re testing the mobile internet part of the package on one of the cheapest cars with the tech. To connect, you just find the active signal on your phone/tablet/laptop/portable games console and sign into the network. We tested how fast the connection process was with an Android phone and an iPad. The phone…

When your factory is making 2000 cars a day, each involving around 1300 parts, there’s a lot that could go wrong Internet of Things diagnostics at Seat’s huge factory in Martorell are cutting the number of production-line problems. They’re able to spot glitches before they happen. Getting a bloke with a spanner to tighten a loose nut is far quicker and cheaper than waiting until it drops into the machine and wreaks havoc. Andreas Tostmann, Seat’s VP responsible for manufacturing, expects that by 2022 60% of such interventions will be based on predictions, not breakdowns. VR can also train staff to work better Seat has created a digital twin of the factory for training with virtual reality and augmented reality. ‘Any abnormal situation can be anticipated,’ Tostmann said. Doesn’t this…

THE FORD F-150 pick-up is to Texas what I expect the Mini Countryman hybrid will soon be to the London Borough of Islington. Compact, reassuringly expensive at £31,585 before options, SUV-shaped, posh inside and with zero emissions outside (sometimes), the Mini Countryman looks like catnip for the middle-class urbanite. Its too-good-to-be-true spec – 49g/km of CO2, official fuel consumption of 134.5mpg and up to 25 miles of pure electric range – is courtesy of an electric drive unit that surrounds the rear axle, with its motor, single-speed transmission and batteries under the back seat. So the Mini PHEV is rear-drive in pure electric Auto eDrive mode, one of three modes accessible by a toggle switch by the starter button. You get all the EV virtues: punchy acceleration accompanied by that…

THE METEORIC RISE of the crossover means that even the humblest small cars have had to grow up and diversify, hence Fiat’s freshly facelifted 500L has now spawned three separate models. Indoctrinated into the family for the first time is the faux 4x4 Cross, the seven-seat Wagon and this – the bread-and-butter Urban version. Fiat claims that 40% of the components are new, yet changes over the pre-facelift model are subtle, with a new infotainment system, a revised cabin and tweaked exterior styling – including a more Fiat 500-like front end – the major updates. What hasn’t changed is the way it drives. Potential customers may not be fussed by the lack of driver enjoyment and abundance of body roll, instead focusing on the safe, predictable handling and well-judged ride…

SIMON THOMPSON Ford Focus RS New much? Now the oldest of the bunch, but what is new is that you might actually be able to find one at a dealer. Possibly. Should I buy some white trainers? You’ve got plenty already. Subtle it ain’t, especially in Undercoat Blue. But you can’t trade on all that rally legacy and be discreet. Is there room for my life? Up to a point. Those front seats, stolen from a WRC Focus and hastily retrimmed in leather, grab your behind heartily enough to trigger a sexual harassment claim, but they do also rob some space in the process. Seat Leon Cupra 300 New much? There’s been hot Leons before, but never this smoking. The 300 means 296bhp in old money, a bit more torque…

An all-wheel-drive M3! Purists, look away now. As if an M3 with turbos wasn’t enough to knot your knickers, the 2020 M3 will likely get a version of the M5’s switchable four-wheel drive. Take solace from the fact the system works brilliantly in the M5. The kitchen sink All-wheel-drive powertrains and turbo engines mean spiralling power outputs. The next M3 will match the current car’s top-spec GTS form, with nearly 500bhp to eclipse the RS5 and C63 S, and all but match Alfa’s Giulia QF. No booted M3 The dream of an M3 Touring remains just that at this stage. While M Division is already busy on the coupe and saloon, with a convertible to follow, the Touring is unlikely to pass through its hallowed workshops. Pity. A more compliant…

THE i8 MAY LOOK like a supercar but it isn’t one. Performance and handling are amazing for a hybrid yet unremarkable compared to a Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini. Why not just tear out the batteries and go turbo V8? Because neither the vehicle architecture nor the suspension were designed for such a radical change. All of which leaves one tantalising option – build a true supercar, and a successor to the M1. And do it using an ally skilled in the art. BMW started talking to McLaren over two years ago. Says an M insider: ‘If the board wants a fast solution, our best option is a deal with McLaren. Trouble is, the straight-six won’t package, and even the 650bhp version of our V8 isn’t different enough.’ Klaus Fröhlich, the…

HELMSMAN Yep, before he ruled race driving, Bernie was a racing driver. He competed on motorcycles and in cars, and had some success at his local track, Brands Hatch. He progressed in cars ‘because it was safer’ as far as Formula 1, trying (and failing) to qualify for the 1958 Monaco and British Grands Prix. The lack of success prompted him to focus on his business interests; a motorcycle dealership and the management of driver Stuart Lewis-Evans. AGENT While racing himself, Bernie managed upcoming talent Stuart Lewis-Evans. When the Englishman was killed following an accident at the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix, Bernie was distraught and left the sport. He was lured back by the sublime talent of Jochen Rindt, for whom he acted as manager and business partner. Rindt died…

The Datsun 240Z took the Japanese sports-car craze beyond Japan PERFORMANCE IMPORTS HAD impressed before, but it was the Datsun 240Z that really took the Japanese sports-car craze beyond its domestic market. Sold in the UK from 1970, the Zed’s compelling blend of elegant European design and nimble rear-drive handling with a reliable and punchy 2.4-litre straight six won us over. That it offered so much for £2288 – the price of the ageing Triumph GT6 – didn’t hurt. Proving its mettle with wins on the gruelling Safari Rally, the 240Z conquered North America, Europe and Australasia, selling more than 150,000 units before production switched to the largely similar 260Z and 280Z. The 240Z started a sports-car dynasty that continues to this day, from those original Zs, to the 280ZX…

THERE’S A WORD in German, one of those funny ones for which there isn’t quite a direct translation: warmduscher . It means, approximately, someone who is only used to taking warm showers, therefore making them a bit spoilt, and rather too settled inside their comfort zone. And I’ve been worried the R8 might turn me into one. If anything’s going to spoil someone rotten to the core, having easy access to a V10 supercar will probably do the trick. But I think I’m okay, because my new long-term test car is a three-cylinder supermini, and I’m more than happy about it. I think the C3 is the most interesting car in its segment today, because it ploughs a furrow all of its own. It doesn’t try to be premium like…

MONTH TWO FOR the Q5 and another 2000 miles added to the odometer, mostly ferrying me to jobs of the very best kind – the ones that involve a supercar waiting for you at the other end. One of those was the McLaren 720S, a plane ride away in Rome, and the other the P1 we borrowed from the McLaren Technology Centre (pictured above), and which you’ll have read about in last month’s issue. I’ve driven the P1 a couple of times before, but seeing it in the company of the Q5 was a perfect reminder of just how tall the Q5 is relative to other cars, if not to other SUVs. And getting there was a perfect reminder of why people are telling me I’m mad to have picked…

WE’VE BEEN LIVING the i life in 2017, as not one but two fruits of BMW’s Project i have graced CAR’s long-term test fleet. It’s made for an intriguing comparison. The i8 recently departed these shores, but I made sure to spend decent time behind the wheel before its svelte, low-slung silhouette went off to its new home. They’re remarkably different cars, but with enough common DNA that you’ll make the connection. My i3 is a boxy, upright car whose silhouette reminds me of its futuristic, pod-like Megacity Vehicle development codename. It looks like nothing else on the road, but those proportions cleverly provide decent accommodation for four passengers in a car no longer than a Nissan Micra. Slab sides do mean you’re buffeted quite a bit during strong winds,…

IMAGE: ANDREI AVARVARII It will appeal to those who once shunned Ferraris as impractical Bespoke luxury cabin With the most spacious cabin ever on a Ferrari, the F16X will avoid a wholesale lift of the next FF’s parts and instead deliver a unique take on the SUV cabin. More luxury than any previous car and with greater emphasis on practicality, it will seat four in comfort – and swallow their luggage. Built for the Alps Sticking with the eight-speed DCT gearbox ensures snappy gearchanges and maximum acceleration, and also retains the mechanical all-wheel-drive system – more than any other Ferrari, the F16X will be required to conquer slippery ski resorts, if not wade through mud. Power sharing F16X will be the first Ferrari to use a new e-module system from…

IF YOU’RE ASPIRING Parisian premium brand DS Automobiles, there can be no finer endorsement than from the new president of the Fifth Republic. Emmanuel Macron waved to his inauguration crowds from a DS7 Crossback, customised with a retractable roof, French badging and presumably a shedload of armour plating. It was a slick stunt to promote the 2018 SUV – one that might have ruffled feathers at PSA group rival Renault, in which the government upped its stake to 20% in 2015 under the then economy minister… Emmanuel Macron. But DS needs more than presidential preference to establish its upmarket brand. Here’s its five-point masterplan. 1 Lavish craftsmanship on the cars… Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Lacroix – France is synonymous with haute couture, and DS aspires to transplant a flavour of this…

THIS IS JOINED-UP thinking at its best. VW has spotted that four driver aids already being fitted to its cars can be combined into a potential lifesaver with minimal cost and complication. Individually, they’re all useful. Adaptive Cruise Control is usually there to keep you at a safe distance from the vehicle in front as well as maintaining a steady speed. Side Assist alerts you to vehicles in your blind spots. Lane Assist is able to steer for you if your car is drifting out of its lane. Park Assist can manoeuvre your car into a tight space. But put them together and you get Emergency Assist 2.0, which is intended to intervene in the not-so-rare event of a driver being incapacitated by a heart problem or other health emergency.…

Many of us still want a BMW saloon with an extra bit on the back, not an SUV UP AGAINST BETTER THAN AUDI A6 AVANT Fine A6 is replaced soon WORSE THAN Mercedes E-Class In terms of pure load-lugging, that is WE’D BUY BMW 530d A one-car dream garage THE BMW ESTATE car is not a pioneer. When the first model arrived in the ’80s, we’d already seen Mercedes estates, and watched the Griswold family trek to Walley World in a station wagon. But in today’s era of forensic product planning, its genesis now seems pleasingly spontaneous and unpretentious. It started when BMW employee Max Reis-bock converted a 3-series saloon into an estate in a friend’s garage, just so he’d have more space to go on holiday with his family.…

A turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol, all-wheel drive and a saloon body may sound more Subaru than Jaguar, but this is the British brand’s latest alternative to the dominant German diesels. It’s a new engine, but if anything it feels less urgent and less at home than the old Ford-sourced unit. Power builds reasonably well at low revs, which is the sort of thing your typical Jag driver tends to favour, and it suits the automatic gearbox well. But the new motor lacks the snarl of its predecessor, and the weight of the all-wheel-drive gubbins means this XF doesn’t feel that fast. There’s a useful amount of overtaking muscle, but this feels like a motor tuned for economy over power. That said, getting anywhere near 30mpg is a challenge, at least judging…

• VIA EMAIL Thinking about the War Against Cars (Insider, May), I’ve just realised how they’ll win it in the end – how they’ll take us out of our fossil-fuelled, combustion-engined cars and make the autonomous electric vehicle universal. Not through a ban. They will simply make driving so boring that even petrolheads will no longer want to take command of the wheel. How? Through insurance. My 18-year-old son has just got his first car and with that his first car insurance – one that keeps the premiums (just about) manageable by having a smart tracking device in the car that monitors his speed, his acceleration, his braking. That’s what they’ll eventually do to all other drivers too, young and old. In the end, the sensation of having a car…

PORSCHE WILL sell you a Cayman GT4. And if you’re into the mid-engined thing, there’s also an eligible McLaren, the 570S GT4. Prefer to work for your lap time, with your engine up front? Then maybe Ford’s Mustang GT4 is the one for you. Or it was. Because now there’s an M4 GT4, so you can pop €169,000 (plus VAT) into BMW Motorsport’s back pocket, pretend you’re Hans Stuck in his 3.0 CSL and go win some races for the blue and white propeller. GT4 racing is mushrooming in popularity, and the M4 GT4 is BMW’s carbon-swathed contender. A BMW Motorsport bodyshell with welded-in rollcage forms the basis of the car, which is then daubed in carbon parts to reduce weight. The M4 GT4 uses CFRP for the roof, doors,…

THE WORDS ‘limited edition’ tend to flick a switch inside sports car buyers’ heads. Porsche has been milking this mild mental disorder to perfection, from the 911 2.7 RS to the latest GT2 RS. BMW also likes fat margins, encouraging M Division to churn out one sought-after special edition after another. Best known for this approach are the E30 M3 Sport Evo, the E46 M3 CSL and the E92 M3 GTS. A year after the sold-out 493bhp M4 GTS, BMW is about to launch its next assault on the bank accounts of dedicated aficionados – the M4 CS. The plan is to build only 3000 CS M4s, priced from a whopping £89,130. That’s nearly £33k more than a regular M4 coupe, and £29k more than an M4 Competition. Worth the…

IMAGES: ANDREI AVARVARII Expect carbon panels, thinner glass and stripped-back seats That’s more like it Standard M2 is no lightweight at 1545kg.CS will drop that by 25kg for sharper responses. Look at me Badging, bespoke wheels and unique aero will let the world know you’ve forked out the extra £8k for the CS. GTS still to come Big-money, small-volume M2 GTS will turn the M2 into an M4-bothering super-coupe with some 444bhp. THE PROJECT CODE is F87, the launch is scheduled for the second quarter of 2018, and the badge on the bootlid reads M2 CS. You guessed it: this is a more extrovert, beefed-up and expensive version of the M2, itself not exactly underpowered at 365bhp. This extension of the M range is part of a broader M Division…

APPLY ENOUGH EFFORT and you can, according to countless toe-curlingly cheesy web memes, achieve anything. So it is with these two; performance cars as far removed from the ‘just add lightness’ ideal of a Lotus as can be. Were you to choose your ideal foundation for a ground-based missile able to lay waste to both endless straights and tricky curves with equal ease, you wouldn’t start with a four-door monster of a ’shell weighing two tonnes. Not unless you had a sense of humour. And not unless you had a proven track record of – and penchant for – fast-car alchemy. AMG’s been rubbing go-faster magic into Mercedes saloons for decades. To celebrate its 50th this year it’s unleashed the E63 S, Merc’s slick and unfeasibly handsome E-Class saloon corrupted…

IF YOU HAD TO actually live in a car, which would you choose? Admittedly an unlikely scenario; few people have ever simultaneously had no place to live and a free choice of motor, but bear with me. It’s all very well choosing something that’s fun to drive, but a car is designed to be the conduit between beginning and end. The idea is at some point you’ll get out. But what if you stay in it all day and into the night – how would it cope? How would you cope? That’s the challenge we’ve put to Volvo’s new baby, the XC60. Already well down the line with its Geely-funded renaissance, Volvo has delivered the wonderful XC90 and the pleasingly alternative S and V90 models to date. Crucial cars of…

Even the 488 is missing that connection you only get with zero lag OVER THE PAST 70 years Ferrari has given us tiny V6s, monster twelves, bent and flat, and screaming eights. But they have almost – though not quite exclusively – shared one trait: until very recently they were all naturally aspirated machines. Turbocharging is rife these days, and we understand why. It makes small engines perform like big ones everywhere except at the pumps. Even Ferrari adopted turbocharging for its 458 successor, the 488 GTB, partly to cut emissions, but mainly because it couldn’t meet its power and performance targets with a driveable naturally aspirated engine. The resulting F154 engine is hugely impressive, but for us even the 488 is missing something that the older cars had, an…

SIMON THOMPSON CAR’S GEORG KACHER is one of the most fearless automotive writers in the game, one rarely found on fences. Back in the January issue he pulled together one of the most important two-car tests of the year; Mercedes-Benz’s handsome, tech-laden E-class and the then brand new 5-series in 530d xDrive guise: 261bhp, 457lb ft, 0-62mph in 5.4sec, 53.3mpg, six cylinders, all-wheel drive and almost all of the 7-series’ toys, including gesture control, semi-autonomous capability and a key the size of a house brick. Very late spoiler alert: the BMW won – ‘The Mercedes comes second in vehicle dynamics and high technology. The BMW wins on merit, and because it has learned to beat its arch-rival at its own game.’ The car Georg drove in Germany was…

AFTER AN agonising wait for paperwork and number plates, the dreamy day that powered me through a winter of lonely self-assembly in the garage finally arrived. You might recall that our Caterham Seven (in the Academy spec required by Caterham’s entry-level, novice-friendly race series) was finished in time for the series’ first official pre-season event at Donington Park, but two admin errors by the DVSA meant road legality eluded it for a further two months. A perfect spring day and a Caterham you can’t use is quite exquisite agony. But yesterday the number plates arrived. Last night I stuck them on and did my pre-event routine: a diagnostic run over the car with the torque wrench, a check of the kitbag and a glance at the tyre pressures, oil level…

Seat Ateca MONTH 3 By Phil McNamara WE NEED TO talk about fuel economy. Because, for once in Our Cars, I’m happy with it. On daily commutes and a weekend trip to Longleat, the Ateca petrol has kept improving to 35.1mpg – and then I found the Eco button mid-April. This could be labelled ‘Emasculation’ in some cars, but it has modest impact in the Ateca: feeling like it restricts the throttle opening without making the pedal feel disconnected, and improving air-con efficiency. Given summer is still around the corner, I’ve further improved air-con efficiency by keeping it off. Throw in more measured driving, plus two cylinders shutting down under light load, and I eked 38mpg out of a tank. That’s 4mpg more than I averaged in the Disco Sport…