Table of contents for June 2016 in CAR UK

INTERVIEW: CJ HUBBARD 01 Pre-flight checks ‘There are certain rallies where [jumping] happens more often. You know from doing your recce beforehand where there’s going to be a jump – but there are some that catch you by surprise, and they’re the ones that probably give you the biggest fright. The big thing is knowing what speed you can hit the jump at and get away with it.’ 02 Approach ‘The biggest adrenaline rush is that split-second before you take off, because it’s completely blind, you’re jumping into fresh air. You hope you’ve positioned the car correctly – because obviously the steering doesn’t work in midair. So once you’ve committed to it, that’s it, you have to stick to what your ambition has said you can do.’ 03 Take-off ‘You…

Volkswagen T-Prime Concept GTE Sounds like a fancy German steak, is actually a preview of the next VW Touareg. As the super massive elongated proportions probably make plain, it’s based on the same MLB platform as the Audi Q7, while the GTE tag reveals the T-Prime is also a plug-in hybrid. Combining a 2.0-litre TSI turbo with an e-motor it boasts 370bhp, a 30-mile emissions-free range, 0-62mph in 6.0sec and 139mph top speed. Before you go totally ‘so what?’ on us, the most interesting thing about this concept is the Curved Interaction Area interior. Taking tips from the XC90 and E-class, this delivers a button-free digital dial and infotainment experience collated under a single pane of curving glass. Fancy indeed. NEED TO KNOW › What it is The next Touareg,…

ULLSTEIN BILT/GETTY IMAGES ‘CARS HAVE A talismanic quality,’ says Bayley. ‘No other manufactured object has the same disturbing allure. More emotions are involved in cars than in anything else we make or use: vanity, cupidity, greed, aggression, social competitiveness, desire and fear. But when all this mixed bag of perverse promise and certain threat ends in the catastrophe of a fatal collision, these same talismanic qualities acquire an extra dimension. ‘How the car crash has acquired cultural respectability, even glamour, is the subject of the book. It is not intended to be macabre, rather to survey how man’s most wonderful and most terrible everyday invention played its part in creating some of the enduring personal myths of the 20th century.’ The critically acclaimed book details 20 crashes, looking not just…

ILLUSTRATION: AERIFORM 1 SOLID-STATE BATTERY Although based on lithium-ion tech, the pressurised liquid electrolyte is replaced by a thin layer of non-flammable material that acts as both the separator (keeping positive and negative electrodes from coming into contact) and the electrolyte (allowing ion transfer to happen) 2 SAFER THAN LIQUID Lithium-ion batteries typically run at 35°C, demanding complex cooling for EVs, and both Tesla and GM’s batteries have suffered fires. To extend their service life, the batteries should never be fully charged or discharged. Solid-state batteries don’t suffer from these problems 3 CLEVER MOTORS Dyson’s digital ‘switched reluctance’ motors benefit from excellent packaging and mechanical design, says Wilson. They offer good cooling and thermal performance – which is key – while aerodynamically efficient rotors, that are quiet and cool, minimise…

> CARS ARE different to mobile phones. Your car’s like an astronaut’s spacesuit; home, work environment and life support. It’s your personal space, and humans value personal space. People talk about car sharing, and for certain populations that might be fine, but not for everyone. And brand differentiation will come into it. We’re working to develop a control system that’ll make the car drive smoothly and human-like. We’ll differentiate with a beautiful user experience. > AT NASA our division developed the first autonomous spacecraft – if you’re going to fly to Mars you want to do as much of the work as possible autonomously. We looked at the interaction between humans and robots. A good interface is about putting people at the centre, not putting the tech first and hoping…

AFTER DECADES TRUMPETING the advantages of all-wheel drive, Audi is quietly revealing a downside: extra driven wheels cut mpg. The solution is called ‘quattro with ultra’. Designed for Audis with longitudinal engines and dual-clutch or manual ’boxes, it activates all-wheel drive only when required. Audi tests showed the deficit to fwd economy dropped by almost 50%. The new A4 Allroad Quattro debuts the tech with a 2.0-litre TFSI petrol, Audi no doubt eyeing the US market. All but the hottest 3.0-litre diesels (mit torque convertor) will graduate from quattro without ultra later in life. It works by analysing sensors – steering, throttle, yaw etc – adapting to driver behaviour and, sometimes, reacting to surprise surface conditions. It’s impossible to detect the system engaging. Accelerate hard through a corner and you…

THE OUTGOING TIGUAN is so comprehensively anonymous that you might not believe it’s VW UK’s third best-selling model after Golf and Polo. But look keenly and they’re everywhere, making friends and influencing people by virtue of the magic combination that is our apparently relentless appetite for SUVs and the Volkswagen brand image. Not even Dieselgate could dent this appeal, as the outgoing model had its best ever sales year in 2015 – an unprecedented testament to the public’s demand for such a beast, almost regardless of its base mediocrity in the face of capable rivals such as Kuga and CX-5, let alone the ever onwards march of crossovers such as Qashqai and Kadjar (though presumably a few end-of-season deals also helped). Lest you’re concerned I’m alone in this accusatory damning…

I COULD KISS Andy Palmer, I really could. And Ian Minards too. Seriously, the Aston boss and his product guru sidekick had better watch out next time I’m in Gaydon, or it’ll be portly hugs all round. This embarrassing outpouring is down to what they’ve done with the Vantage S and, by extension, to my faith in the future of driving. Not content with squeezing a V12 into a V8’s shoes and thus making the under-bonnet area more overcrowded than the Central Line, these guys have dropped another improbable doozie: a manual gearbox. A seven-speed manual gearbox. With a dogleg first. Didn’t they get the memo about manuals being yesterday’s news? Yes, they got it alright – it’s in the bin over there. It’s hard to figure which sound is…

MARK RICCIONI Mitsubishi Shogun Can we put an age on it? Has been around since Charles and Di were happily married, although this one’s based on the ’99 version, upgraded last year. It’s an SUV you find in places where the only other signs of Western civilisation are Man U shirts. Is it growing old gracefully? Now inhabiting a no-nonsense, big, sturdy, SUV space that Land Rover looks down its nose at, the chrome trinketry of the most recent facelift gives it a bit of a ‘farmer wearing lippy’ vibe. But it’s not an SUV people sneer at: it’s clearly here to get mucky. Still life in the old dog off-road? It might not have the fancy off-road electronic modes of other SUVs, but it will go anywhere, and never,…

Alfa’s serious about doing its badge, its heritage and its long-suffering fans justice ALFA ROMEO GIULIA QUADRIFOGLIO Engine 2891cc twin-turbo V6, 506bhp @ 6500rpm, 443lb ft @ 2500-5500rpm Transmission Eight-speed auto, rear-wheel drive Performance 3.9sec 0-62mph, 191mph, 33.2mpg, 198g/km CO2 Weight 1624kg (est) Price £60,000 (est) On Sale Autumn ALFA ROMEO’S GIULIA Quadrifoglio is a story of a race against time. A race to get a brand new car from drawing board to market in less than three years. A race to get it round the Nürburgring Nordschleife faster than any other production saloon car on the planet. A race for me to vaporise a brand new set of Pirelli P Zero Corsas in the best Alfa I’ve ever tried before I’m dragged kicking and screaming from the driver’s seat.…

PORSCHE 919 What makes it tick? Porsche’s powertrain is built around a 2.0-litre turbocharged V4 petrol engine and two energy recovery systems: one reclaiming power from the front axle under braking and a second scavenging energy from the exhaust. When the whole lot chimes in the 919’s a 900bhp+ all-wheel-drive tool. The 919 runs in the 8-megajoule class, its efficient and powerful hybrid powertrain meaning the car must run on less fuel than the Audi over a lap. Pedigree? Porsche sits at the top of the all-time Le Mans winners pile, won Le Mans last year with the 919 and took both the drivers’ and constructors’ WEC titles in 2015. We say: It’s costing a fortune but with Audi and Porsche the VW board has at least ensured it’ll win…

BMW i8 (2014-on) Save £35k! SCIENCE FICTION MEETS COMMON SENSE Four good reasons to fall for BMW’s electric revolutionary 1 IT’S A HYBRID THAT DOESN’T DRIVE LIKE ONE Given the car’s modest tyres (195/50 20 and 215/45 20) and equally unassuming on-paper performance (a combined 357bhp) you might be forgiven for thinking the i8’s not really a sports car, more a Prius-esque lifestyle statement riding beneath a fuselage from Interstellar . After all, looking like a renegade concept car is enough, isn’t it? But get the i8 moving and it’s an inspired thing, flowing down the road with balance, agility and a really likeable lightness of touch. There’s speed too – don’t forget the speed. To an extent the car’s carbon composite construction cancels out the battery’s weight penalty, so…

SO YOU’RE LOOKING for a little luxury? How about a lot, in the form of the previous generation Mercedes S-class, which could be on your drive for less than the price of a new 3-series, or the current Lexus GS450h, which delivers hybrid karma, 155mph performance and an interior so nice you’ll be asking to work from your car. Just think: you might be perfectly happy with a 320d, but might you not be happier still in the biggest Benz for considerably less money? (Even though some of the savings are almosy certainly best put aside for the day Something Significant goes wrong…). For the W221 (Mercedes’ official designation for the 2006-2013 S-class) the Stuttgart limo company had a point to prove. The preceding W220 might have looked every inch…

WITH THANKS TO GRAYPAUL NOTTINGHAM BACK IN THE 1930s, when Ferrari sports cars were just a twinkle in Enzo’s lid-heavy boggle eye, musicologists John and Alan Lomax were trawling the United States in a car fitted out with a portable recording studio amassing a huge archive of blues and folk music. Thanks to the Lomax duo thousands of recordings of previously undocumented African American singers and songs that would have disappeared, taking a huge slice of US cultural history with them, have been preserved. Well it’s time to dust off that microphone, John. The naturally aspirated supercar needs you. Nine thousand rpm in a 458 is a special place. By 6800rpm a Focus RS would be banging off its limiter and demanding another cog. At 7800rpm Porsche’s Cayman GT4 is…

>IN 2009 Ian Callum and his team really pushed out the boat with the XJ, and have been furiously paddling it back to Anodyne Harbour ever since. While the lines of the new XE and XF are disappointingly safe, the flagship XJ still possesses the ability to turns heads – and stomachs. >THE MORE YOU LOOK at the sleek and voluptuous Jaguar, the more you’ll like it. Those imposing and muscular proportions are complemented by the finest cabin of any current Jag – a fresh, modern command centre for the driver, and acres of lounging room for the passengers. A dozen cabinet ministers can’t be wrong. >HELPED BY ITS lightweight aluminium-intensive chassis and crisp steering and honed suspension, the XJ’s ride and handling makes its rivals feel flat-footed and frumpy.…

STUART COLLINS Hidden boot release of joy It’s a small detail, and not that unusual in the grand scheme of things, but the hidden boot release in the corner of the number plate recess brings me joy every time I have to show someone how to use it. Too much Gone in Sixty Seconds in my youth, I fear… Tight packaging is tight Not a car for the generously proportioned, taller occupants will find themselves locked in a battle between compromised seating ergonomics and keeping their head out of the air stream. Mazda has pushed the packaging so far in pursuit of weight reduction the sun visor clips the rear view mirror whenever you lower it. So long A14, it was never nice knowing you I bang on about this…

1 Happy birthday – the Golf GTI is 40 years old, and to celebrate VW has pulled out all of the stops and lit the fuse on the detonator. The resulting GTI Clubsport S has claimed the Nürburgring fwd lap record with a time of 7min 49:21sec, over 5sec faster than the Renaultsport Megane Trophy-R and over 1sec faster than the Civic Type R. 2 Max power – to achieve this, VW has boosted the 2.0-litre turbo to a permanent 305bhp and 280lb ft – up from the 290bhp the regular Clubsport makes on overboost. 3 If it’s not nailed down – unladen weight is also reduced to 1285kg, via ejection of the rear seats, parcel shelf, variable boot floor, mats, bonnet lifters and some sound insulation. The front subframe…

DOESN’T SOUND LIKE much, 2.65 degrees. There’s 360 of the blighters in a full circle, after all. Yet this is the maximum amount the recently revised Mercedes SL can lean into corners, like a tilting Pendolino train, using the new ‘curve tilting’ function built into the optional Active Body Control suspension system. And although it can be difficult to spot the difference in a photo, on the inside you can definitely tell there’s something sneaky going on. The SL is only the second Mercedes to get curve tilting capability after the 2014 S-class Coupe. It’s intended primarily as an aid to comfort (hence it isn’t offered on AMG variants) and in the S-class it feels decidedly weird, the sensation that the car should be rolling – but isn’t – serving…

Setsuna? Sounds fruity… The citrus-y name is the least of this Toyota concept’s curiosities. Created for the Japanese manufacturer’s first appearance at Milan Design Week, the Setsuna is like a posh children’s push-about toy, in that it’s primarily made out of wood. Wood? Has Toyota suddenly decided to take on Morgan? Maybe a little bit of that. The idea is that compared to the cold-steel disposable inhumanity of a modern high-tech motor, a simplistic warm wooden roadster could become something for a family to treasure and cherish over generations. What – like an heirloom? Exactly! The theory goes that the Setsuna’s wooden elements will age over time, shaped by the presence and experiences of the people who own, interact with and love it. It even has a ‘100-year clock’, which…

The former SLK wasn’t quite a Boxster and neither is the new SLC that replaces it. But the Porsche has changed, and this game is truly on THE PREVIOUS MERCEDES SLK 55 AMG was a bit of a blunt instrument – Daniel Craig to the Porsche Boxster’s smooth, precise Roger Moore. Although dynamically it didn’t hold a candle to the Porsche it was undeniably effective, in a ‘hammer down the straights on a rowdy V8 wave before standing on the brakes’ kind of way. AMG’s roadster wears an SLC badge now thanks to Stuttgart’s freshly confusing naming structure, and features stiffer engine and suspension mounts, plus upgraded steering, brakes and axles to help sharpen it up. It’s less lumpen in the engine department – gone is the 5.4-litre V8, replaced…

THE MINI JOHN Cooper Works makes a lot of good noises – a purposeful burble at low revs, a raspy top end, and all manner of turbo whistles and flutters in between. Once the exhaust has warmed up it comes alive, crackling and banging like a box of fireworks on a barbecue. In the hatchback it felt like everyone outside got a better listen than you. In the convertible, which can drop its roof in 18 seconds, you get the best seat in the house. Plus, park it roof-down and the car keeps an eye on the weather, sending a message to your smartphone if it senses impending rain. Under the bonnet is an uprated 2.0-litre Cooper S unit with a boostier turbo and stronger pistons for an additional 38bhp.…

IT IS NOT A machine of surprises, the RS6 Performance. Given the hardly shy styling, the numbers pertinent to – and generated by – its engine (597bhp and 553lb ft from the 4.0-litre biturbo V8) and the mildly terrifying cacophony with which it waves goodbye to all that it leaves behind, there is nothing surprising about its performance, whether witnessed from within or without. This is a Q-car in the Espace F1 mould: kidding no one. The addition of Performance to the RS6 Avant’s name (and the RS7 Sportback’s) would suggest more speed than before and so it proves: the RS6’s 0-62mph time drops 0.2sec to 3.7sec, with a 1.4sec advantage over the standard RS6 from rest to 124mph (12.1sec). There are few surprises inside. How would you expect to…

So, the Focus RS sees off not just a BMW M-car, but a Porsche! What a revealing comparison ( CAR , May). Your judgement of the 718 Boxster and its left-of-field competitors was fascinating and challenging. Setting an example to the rest of us petrolheads, you showed how we must all be prepared to embrace the new order of things, the changing priorities driven by concerns about (perceived) efficiency, fuel consumption and emissions. However. Even if I could afford to part-exchange my three-year-old 981 for a new 718 Boxster, I reckon I’d be in my grave before the ‘on-paper parsimony’ of the new car cancelled out the emissions created in its manufacture. It’s a guess, I admit. It would be so interesting to see a calculation by someone who understands…

ALFA ROMEO GIULIA 2.2D Engine 2200cc turbodiesel 4cyl, 178bhp @ 3750rpm, 332lb ft @ 1750rpm Transmission Eight-speed auto, rear-wheel drive Performance 7.1sec 0-62mph, 143mph, 67.3mpg, 109g/km CO2 Weight 1449kg Price £30,000 (est) On Sale Autumn THE QUADRIFOGLIO proves to the world that Alfa still has the ability to make a proper driver’s car, but it won’t do Alfa’s bottom line any good. That’s the job of the ordinary Giulia. We’re not expecting QF-style fireworks from a fleet car, but does some of that DNA carry over? The UK-market range consists of just two engines, a 2.0 petrol with 197bhp and the brand new 2.2 diesel, in 148bhp or 178bhp tune. We tried the latter. The entry-level car is called simply Giulia and comes with 16-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone climate, cruise…

You get the sense the E-class is of the opinion it’s better at this driving thing than you are JUDGING BY THE way the seat belt keeps snapping at my shoulder, like a nervous passenger flailing away in the back seat, the new Mercedes E-class doesn’t approve of my driving. The sudden tightening of the restraint is an early warning symptom of the E220d’s ‘pre-crash’ safety systems, designed to lock the occupants back against the protective shell of the seat in case of evasive manoeuvre or impact. I strongly suspect the Mercedes is casting aspersions on my roundabout approach velocity, as the belt slapping occurs in the vicinity of several such pieces of road furniture in a row, but such are the number of Pre-Safe™ technologies bundled within the optional…

Peugeot RCZ-R (2014-2015) Save £15k! Can’t take front-drive sports cars seriously? Believe Really? Is this a good idea? Sure is – a fast and involving two-door Pug with the cross-country speed to make a 2.7 Boxster blush. The gulf between standard-issue RCZs and the R can be encapsulated in just two words: Peugeot Sport. No sticker-’n’-big wheels job, the R is a thorough overhaul: stiffer springs (44% at the rear – boing!), tweaked anti-roll bars and a limited-slip diff. Oh, and then there’s the 1.6-litre turbo four, wound up to 266bhp. That’s 166bhp-per-litre. The 488 GTB’s V8 is good for 169bhp-per-litre. Can’t take front-wheel-drive sports cars seriously? This will change your mind. Sniper’s rifle or blunderbuss? The R’s a sniper rifle, though the physical experience of driving the livewire Pug…

‘I PURCHASED my first W124 estate in the early 1990s. A friend wanted a safe car for his wife and I suggested the Merc. He bought an E250TD, but she loathed it so I bought it off them. I had it 12 years and it had 235,000 on the clock. It was used primarily as a support vehicle – I was racing my Triumph TR4 and needed something tough and reliable. I sold it and purchased a gruntier 300D estate for towing and realised then just how obsessed I was with W124 estates. I began to buy and sell them and it grew into a second business.’ ’WHEN I started out I was surprised there was – and still is – real demand for these cars. It’s a steady business,…

OLGUN KORDAL OPTIONAL AIR SPRINGS Can be raised for off-roading, lower at speed for stability MATRIX LED HEADLIGHTS Optional, probably the cleverest lights available SEVEN SEATS Electrically operated, decent room and ISOFIX mounts DAYTONA GREY PEARL PAINT Best of a dull bunch. Cool name, but it’s still grey 20-INCH RIMS Standard on S-line, 21s are an option.SE comes on 19s HELLO MONTH 1 AUDI Q7 THE NEW BENTLEY Bentayga has only just gone on sale and the replacements for the VW Touareg and Porsche Cayenne have yet to be revealed, but we’re living with them all already, channelled through our new Audi Q7. All will share the VW Group’s MLB-Evo platform, which here uses its aluminium and thinner high-strength steel to cut 300kg from the weight of the old Q7.…

ALEX TAPLEY Who’d want such a small car with 4wd? Actually, anyone who lived within sight of the Alps MONTH 9 FIAT 500X WE MOTORING JOURNALISTS love our ‘old versus new’ comparisons, yet where’s the current Panda 4x4 to sit alongside the original in this test? Well, that’s not the story here. Rather, I’m more interested in seeing just how far Fiat has come since it built that iconic four-wheel-drive runabout in the ’80s and, by way of comparison, whether the pseudo-4x4 Fiat 500X I drive on a daily basis is all show and no go. But a little history first. The Panda went on sale in 1980, and as was (and is) the Fiat way, offered a cheap, no-frills set of wheels to move the Italian masses, with practical…

WAYNE LENNON EXTREME CARBON PACK, BRILLIANT PAINT Carbon pack lobs the now firmly passé ‘performance’ finish at the grille bar, wing mirrors and, weirdly, the rear-view mirror. £275? I’d go for a trackday instead. Cost paint options range from £275 to £545. I’d go Forget About Grey with the I’ll Be Black roof… James Blonde no longer available on the Adam S. Good news. WINTER PACK £215 of must-have warming for bum and hands, or free in a bundle with the Recaros. The joy of snuggling into the bear-hug chairs at 4am, firing up the toasty heated wheel and seats and being able to run with the heater more or less off, is a great thing. TECHNICAL PACK £495 anti-hassle bundle brings Intellilink infotainment, rear parking sensors and tyre pressure…

MARK RICCIONI Renault knows how to make a car for the people. And we people will miss it. COUNT THE COST Cost new £10,585 (including £590 of options) Dealer sale price £6633 Private sale price £6133 Part-exchange price £5738 Cost per mile 12p Cost per mile including depreciation 76p GOODBYE MONTH 13 RENAULT TWINGO MY DAD USED to have a Renault Avantime, the weird coupé Espace, and though it was a car with *merits* (I’m being generous for his sake) it was not a big seller. Likewise the Vel Satis luxury saloon that went on sale at the same time. Combined, there are about 700 of them left in the UK. As well as the quirky styling and the questionable market positioning, Renault was also up against a fundamental prejudice…

Still quite the looker! ‘Porsche may have blinked on powertrain but it’s held its nerve on design, the Cayman’s perfect lines helped by the mid-engine, rear-drive layout, which also makes a gift of those mega side intakes What’s German for subtle? Those fat oval tailpipes look mean as you like, and you can adjust their volume via a switch on the centre console. Choose between fixed rear wing or active spoiler THE VERY SAME day? Somebody at Audi has a mischievous streak a mile wide. Knowing that Porsche’s downsizing crusade has caused disquiet in petrolhead quarters, they waited for the official reveal of the latest, rather muted four-pot 718 Cayman S, and then pounced. The TT RS would be a true red-blooded sports car, they said. With 395bhp and a…

STARING INTO THAT digital binnacle, you see crisp blue navigation arrows drawing you through a 3D animation of the cityscape outside your car’s windows. It’s high-tech stuff, surely from Audi or Merc? Nope, this is the human-machine interface that’ll be standard on this autumn’s new Peugeot 3008. It’s the third generation of Peugeot’s i-Cockpit theme, and a game-changer that builds on earlier iterations’ principles of a small steering wheel and purging switches for an omnipotent touchscreen. Trouble was, the touchscreen’s tiny buttons were more distant than your estranged wife, and about as speedy in responding to your demands. Here’s how v3 moves the game on. 1 DIGITAL BINNACLE: IT’S ALIVE! The 3008’s 12.3-inch binnacle is divided into three areas, with drivers able to configure how and what info is displayed…

THE FIRST ASTON Martin DB11 will be delivered in the final quarter of 2016, but it will not be an immaculate conception. New cars progress from rudimentary mules through to increasingly mature prototypes that are almost entirely representative of the finished article. They are often covered in hypnotic swirly wraps to attract spy photographers. Occasionally, journalists are granted passenger rides in these cars; only rarely do they drive them. But Aston Martin has invited us to Bridgestone’s test track near Rome to do just that. The idea is we’ll get a first taste of Gaydon’s crucial new model, and provide feedback to chief engineer Matt Becker, he of Lotus chassis wizardry fame. Yes, we are under-qualified. As replacement for the 2003 DB9, the £155k DB11 is critical for Aston Martin…

McLAREN DIDN’T PLAN to make this car. The 675LT story was supposed to begin and end with last year’s sublime coupe (CAR, October 2015). But sheer customer demand for an open-air Spider version has added this rather special postscript. And that demand has easily outstripped supply; little more than two weeks after the 675LT Spider was announced, the entire 500-off production run was already sold out. If you don’t ask, etc… ‘LT’, of course, means ‘Longtail’, McLaren’s new label of choice for its most hardcore road models and a tenuous link to the old F1 GTR’s dramatic Le Mans racer evolution of the same name. The 675LT Spider does what it says on the (carbon) tin, exchanging the 675LT coupe’s fixed head for a folding roof mechanism. It’s ever so…

IT WOULD APPEAR that the Audi SQ7 is to ordinary SUVs what the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building is to your average garden shed. Only the second Audi Q-series model to receive S designation (after the SQ5; the RSQ3 doesn’t count), it features the world’s first production electric supercharger, while the optional ‘driving dynamics package’ adds four-wheel steering, a torque vectoring sport differential at the back and an electro-mechanical active anti-roll system (as per the platform-sharing Bentley Bentayga) – much of which is only made possible by the new 48v electrics that at once supplement and surpass the usual 12v juice. It rides on standard air suspension and is powered by a new 4.0-litre TDI V8 with sequential twin turbocharging and the first diesel application of Audi valvelift technology. Compared to…

BLAME THEIR BRILLIANCE but so impressive are the i3 and i8 that when you climb aboard any other hybrid-electric BMW, expectations are high: impossibly high for anything of more conventional breeding. Thanks to their gutsy, well resolved powertrains and no-expense-spared carbon composite construction, both i cars are capable of silent flight, launching with the alacrity of a startled hawk and the gentle whine of a hard-working Nutribullet. The X5 xDrive 40e is not like this. It’s an X5, so its body is a knuckle-dragging effort in metal. Remember that stuff? And where the i8 is all-wheel drive by virtue of its twin power sources (a 1.5-litre turbo triple drives the rear axle, the electric motor the front) the X5 drives all four corners via mechanical xDrive, complete with prop-shafts, driveshafts…

WITH THANKS TO JOHN TAPLEY FOR HIS BOXSTER S NEED A TWO-SEAT sports car to remind you why you fell in love with driving in the first place? Of course you do – that’s the easy bit. The hard bit is deciding between these two, both now a Ford Fiesta less expensive than they were new. Jaguar’s still-beautiful, still-wonderful F-type comes in a multitude of guises but the big divide is cylinder count: supercharged V6 (in 335bhp or 375bhp states of tune) or supercharged V8 (488bhp or 542bhp). Both have their fans, the V6 enthusiasts citing better balance and a marginally lighter nose as the less powerful car’s key strengths, while the V8 acolytes just laugh, light up the rear axle on a breath of throttle and make for the…

YOU COULD ARGUE that we’re in a golden age of hot hatches right now. The spread is wide and the going is good, with few genuine duffers. Take this trio, of Suzuki Swift Sport, Peugeot 208 GTi and Ford Focus ST; with power outputs ranging from around 134bhp to 247bhp and pricing from £4k, there’s something here for everybody. The Swift Sport is more korma than jalfrezi but it’s got personality to burn and one of those rarest of commodities in 2016: a rev-hungry naturally-aspirated petrol engine. That £4k price will only buy you a previous generation, 2006-2012 example (in fact, you can get one for half that, if you’re prepared to gamble on it having been thrashed) but since the formula and the foundations are largely the same, both…

Why Dawn? ‘Dawn is the world coming to light from the ethereal dark of the night,’ says Rolls Boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös. ‘The chill of dawn provides an erotic tingle on the skin.’ Well, quite No noise ’n’ the hood Six-layer fabric hood has French seams for lower wind noise. Despite vast size and weight it operates almost silently in 20sec at up to 30mph. It’s designed to produce a smooth profile with no concave sections or visible rails Ghost-like power Twin-turbo V12 makes the same power as a Ghost (563bhp), not a Wraith (623bhp). ‘Black Badge’ hasn’t been confirmed for Dawn, but expect it to happen, and expect a power uplift, as with Ghost, to match tauter chassis A view of the lady Front end has been made…

£12k-£18k, 2006-2007 Mk5 GTI Edition 30 1984cc 4-cyl, 232bhp, 6.8sec 0-62mph, 152mph > Is this a good idea? ‘Oh yeah. The Mk5 Golf GTI Edition 30 was the first Anniversary model to use an engine that wasn’t shared with the standard GTI – a detuned 232bhp version of the strengthened 266bhp lump used in the Golf R and Audi S3. Coupled with the standard Mk5 Golf GTI chassis this produced a genuinely rapid and agile hot hatch with all the refinement and quality expected of the VW brand.’ > How much? ‘A decade ago the Edition 30, limited to 1500 in the UK, weighed in at £22,795. Today a meticulously maintained low-mileage model will nudge £18,000. That’s depreciation with a ‘d’ tiny enough to make a Leon Cupra driver cry.’…

MARK RICCIONI MONTH 4 BMW 730d M SPORT YOU’D SWEAR IT was a smaller car. Hard to credit, when you fling it ill-advisedly at a tightening corner, that the back wheels currently defying physics in applying 457lb ft of torque to the road are so far away. This 7-series feels like you’ve got it in your pocket, like it’s part of you. There’s none of the S-class’s squat or dive, none of the A8’s waft or wallow, just a clinical approach to the business of ground-covering without drama. Stick the adaptive suspension in Sport and the car drops by 10mm on its self-levelling air suspension, beginning a conjuring trick that encourages fast but imprecise locomotion through corners without either understeer or breakaway (you wouldn’t want the latter – despite weight-saving…

MONTH 4 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R I LOVE IT. I hate it. I adore it. I despise it. One minute I want to rush back home and lavish Meguiars wax over every inch of the Civic’s nasty plastic bodykit. The next I want to rush home and put the same kind of distance between me and the Civic that we collectively put between us and that wimpy Cooper S last night. Life is never meh with the Civic Type R. Plonk me in that bucket seat in the middle of nowhere and I can’t get enough of the way it carves up A and B roads. I’ve grown quite fond of the turbo engine and accepting of the lag, stopped getting annoyed at the wayward wet-road torque steer and never…

THE JAAAG HAS been wounded in action. An atrociously large and deep pothole on a road – or what West Sussex Council sees fit to call a road – a few miles from home completely destroyed the driver’s side front tyre. It had been one of those Fridays where everything that could have gone wrong did. One catastrophic traffic jam after another while driving halfway across the country for a meeting that was then cancelled at the last minute. Wallet-wiltingly expensive motorway lunch fodder and crappy Costa coffee. More stationary traffic on the return journey caused by mouth-breathers rubbernecking at an accident on the opposite carriageway. Endless lashing rain. And then, just when hot pizza and cold gin and tonic were tantalisingly within reach, another traffic diversion that added a…