Autocar December 23, 2020

SO, THIS YEAR was… different. In keeping with things not quite being the same in 2020, welcome to the second double issue of Autocar of the month, something we hope will give you plenty more to read and enjoy over the Christmas holidays. At Autocar, we’ve been incredibly grateful for and humbled by your support throughout a year in which we’ve tried to make the magazine feel as ‘normal’ as possible, even when we lost the ability to go out and test new cars. That so much warm correspondence has come our way from you has been lovely to read, and I know how much many of you have enjoyed your weekly copy of Autocar as a welcome dose of normality and escapism. Thank you once again for your support: we couldn’t…

“Jaguar’s designers have used it to display themes likely to affect showroom models of the future” Jaguar has revealed a new 1900bhp electric endurance racer concept, displaying themes that are likely to affect production models of the future, such as the successor to the F-Type. Although the Vision Gran Turismo SV was created for the hugely popular Gran Turismo video game (it has 83 million users worldwide), Jaguar has underscored its importance by building a full-scale model to display around the world. Other manufacturers have previously designed cars for Gran Turismo (Bugatti, Maserati, Peugeot and Jaguar itself among them), but what’s significant here is that the firm has gone much further, creating a 3D model, involving its road car engineers and putting the finished design on public display. It denies any specific production…

Why take such trouble with a car you’ll never build? “Because it’s still very important. This project is as serious as anything we’re aiming at for production. It will be ‘driven’ by many more people than will ever get the chance to drive one of our production cars.” How do you decide how much heritage to use in a radical design like this? “It’s a wonderful resource, but you don’t want too much of it. Some people are mesmerised by classic shapes – the D-Type and C-Type in particular – but a modern Jaguar can’t just be a pastiche of 1958 to suit the traditionalists. There aren’t enough of those. You want younger buyers for Jaguar, and you especially want female buyers. Fine if people respond to the heritage, but also fine if…

“Despite its performance, it has been designed to stay drivable at lesser speeds” Long-established US tuning company Hennessey has launched its first fully bespoke hypercar, with which it aims to break the road car speed record, thanks to a maximum in excess of 311mph. First previewed with a styling model in 2018, the carbonfibre-bodied F5 Venom is differentiated from 2011’s ultra-low-volume Venom GT by utilising an in-house platform instead of a heavily modified Lotus chassis. Autocar has seen the first fully constructed car in the UK ahead of its dispatch to the US. Hennessey claims the combination of an 1817bhp twin-turbocharged V8 petrol engine and a 1360kg dry weight help make it one of the fastest road-legal cars in the world – possibly even the fastest. The company also predicts a 2.6sec 0-62mph time, a…

John Hennessey is adamant that the F5 Venom will be “considerably faster” than the old Venom GT, which recorded a 270.49mph two-way average at the Kennedy Space Center in 2014. His plan is to prove its performance with what he hopes will be a recognised production car speed record. The issue, he admits, is the limited space available on the Nasa runway. He said: “From end to end, from the grass to the swamp, it’s 3.4 miles. The GT was still accelerating when it had to brake. I reckon with the F5, in ideal conditions, we will be approaching the 300mph range there, but I don’t know if we have enough room to beat Bugatti’s number [304.77mph] down there. I think if we’re going to try for absolute v-max, we’re…

Chinese electric car start-up Xpeng will launch in Europe this month as part of a long-term plan to establish itself in the Western EV market. One hundred examples of its G3 electric crossover will arrive in Norway in December before the company introduces the model to other major EV markets in Europe during 2021. The G3 is promised to have a WLTP-certified range of 280 miles from a 66kWh battery pack and can charge its battery from 30% to 80% in 30 minutes. It has also been awarded five stars in China’s C-NCAP crash tests. Moreover, the promised price point of around £30,000 for this model would mark out Xpeng as especially competitive. Xpeng, which sold its first car in 2018 and is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange, currently builds…