Two questions today, then: which car is faster - and which car is more fun?

Is it the new Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, the touring-car inspired version of VW’s archetypal hot Golf?

Or is it the current benchmark big hatch, the Honda Civic Type R, which brings more than 300bhp to the track via its front wheels.

The Honda, we already know, is astonishingly capable. How focused is the Golf and can it compete with the Civic? Join us at Llandow circuit as we put the two sports hatches through their paces.

READ MORE

Race-inspired Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR gets 286bhp

Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR review

Honda Civic Type R to be refreshed next year in hot hatch title defence

Warning: the comparison test you’re about to read involves a Land Rover. It therefore includes obligatory photographs taken off-road, in a Welsh limestone quarry known well to staffers of this magazine, for which the Autocar road test desk and photography department send their apologies. In this line of work, some visual clichés are simply too well-worn to resist. 

This particular cliché should certainly be acknowledged for what it is, though: a bit of artistic licence. Because while the second-generation Range Rover Evoque may be all-new and all-important for its creator, it’s every inch a compact SUV and not an ‘off-roader’. As such cars go, the Evoque is capable, rugged and versatile, but it’s very much an everyday road car. You know this. We know this. Yet while picturing it abandoned on double yellows, astride the kerb and hazards ablaze outside a primary school might have been more appropriate, such a photograph wouldn’t have looked half as pretty or been as much fun in the making. 

Our story so far on the new Evoque has brought us through early ride-along and international press launch and, very recently, UK first drive. Now, though, a chance to find out just how good this rather important Evoque is judged against its toughest opponents, two of which we are about to describe and rate it in specific reference to: the second-generation Audi Q3, which – roll up, roll up – is also new this year, and the Volvo XC40, which is Autocar’s incumbent compact SUV class favourite and without which these proceedings would otherwise be largely irrelevant. 

But, well, yes, you’re right: as it happens, there are four cars in the photograph you’ve been glancing at for the past minute or so. For reasons of general usefulness, fairness and accuracy, however, what you’re about to read will actually be a slightly truncated three-car comparison with an addendum on an interesting if unconventional new Lexus– the UX 250h– which, as it turns out, isn’t really a compact SUV at all. It might, though, provide welcome cause to wonder whether you need such a car quite as much as you thought you did. 

Modern compact SUVs remain suspiciously on-trend. Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t have a problem with this. To me, they are increasingly popular for good reasons and are being bought by people who, had they been in the market 25 years ago, would have likely ended up in a biggish, volume-branded family saloon or estate mostly out of a lack of choice. 

We all get to that stage in our lives when a five-door hatchback simply isn’t enough car for us any more. The modern buyer who has reached that point can still buy a biggish, volume-branded family saloon or estate, of course. But why would they when they can have something that looks more stylish and ‘aspirational’ on the driveway; that has greater convenience, versatility and comfort about it; that’s smaller, and feels safer, than a biggish saloon and is easier to get into and see out of and park; and, perhaps most importantly, that has been made so temptingly affordable by the modern finance methods on which the car business is so squarely built in 2019? 

In the absence of other motivating factors, they clearly wouldn’t. That’s how a company such as Land Rover can become an increasingly well-established global car industry player – and the Evoque can outsell the Ford Mondeo across Europe for two years out of the past five, with every chance now of accelerating away from the old-guarder for good. 

This Evoque is pretty much the same size as the original version but for a few millimetres here and there. Opinions differ on exactly how new the ‘PTA’ model platform under the car really is, but it’s new enough to have accommodated a longer wheelbase and better on-board practicality, as well as mixed-metal construction and a whole family of 48V mild-hybrid powertrains. Sounds pretty new to me. 

The resulting car, in likely big-selling 2.0-litre, 178bhp diesel ‘D180 AWD’ form, remains a good 150kg heavier than the average weight of the rest of the cars in this test and is taller and less aerodynamic than most. And yet that mild-hybrid tech and nine-speed automatic gearbox allows it to get within 10% of matching the real-world cruising fuel economy of the most economical car here – which is the Audi, incidentally, which returns a typical 46mpg on a mix of UK motorway and A-road. 

Both the Q3 40 TDI quattro S tronic and XC40 D4 AWD automatic match the Land Rover for driven wheels and transmission spec, and both beat the Brit for peak power. But neither offers quite the same mild-hybrid technology, and neither has quite as much torque. Torque is important in cars like this, as I’m sure you won’t need telling – but we’ll come back to that. 

In order to keep the price points close, we elected to test the Evoque in lower-mid-range S-badged trim, knowing that, being a Range Rover, it’s a car that gets a bit prohibitively expensive in the dressier upper trim levels. As tested, however, you may be surprised to find out how competitively priced the car is – even versus an Audi Q3 in entry-level Sport trim and an upper-mid-level Volvo XC40. 

And even in relatively humble form, the Evoque’s cabin is a cut above those of its opponents. I’ll be honest: I didn’t expect that. When I drove one in Greece six weeks ago, the car’s slightly variable material quality seemed to me to be one of its potential vulnerabilities. But, as it turns out, neither a Q3 nor an XC40 feels nearly as rich, comfortable nor enveloping from within. 

You sit higher in the Evoque than in the Q3, at a similar height as in the XC40 but in a more comfortable, more laid-back and better-supported driving position. The Volvo gives you a less well-padded seat to perch on and makes you adopt a more upright, bent-legged driving position with a less well-placed or adjustable steering wheel. The Audi offers better seat comfort but a lower hip point, so if you do want the more convenient raised vantage point that an SUV typically affords (and I’d say most buyers probably do), you have to fashion one yourself by ratcheting the seat cushion height upwards – which, in turn, makes you run a bit short of leg room. The Evoque gets the primary control ergonomics spot on, no fiddling required. It has a higher-rising bonnet and front bulkhead that its rivals, and that’s one of the reasons why it feels bigger on the road. In this case, though, bigger-feeling and more comfortable definitely go hand in hand. 

On materials quality and luxury ambience I expected both Audi and Volvo to give Land Rover a real test, but neither actually does. The Q3’s cabin looks and feels bolder, more sculptural and more overtly stylized than those of its peers, but the effect is a bit contrived. And the car’s underlying standard on perceived quality is absolutely no better than that of the Evoque. 

The XC40’s cabin, meanwhile, still looks fresh, youthful and appealing a year or so after launch, just like the rest of the car. But it doesn’t quite have the ambient richness of the Evoque’s interior nor the sense of reductive modern style. Neither can either the Volvo or the Audi quite match the Land Rover for practicality as a comfortable, convenient, adult-sized four-seater – although the Audi beats the Land Rover for boot space, we should note. 

What about driving experiences, then? Well, we could, at this point, spend paragraphs telling you which of these cars is the best-handling – but there are more important factors to address first. Factors like comfort, refinement, cabin isolation, driveability, body control and ease of use, all of which are at the heart of an SUV’s dynamic mission statement, and for all of which – against the odds in some cases, I have to say – the Evoque leads its field. 

I’ve never driven a JLR product with a four-cylinder Ingenium diesel engine that impressed me so much in a luxury car. It’s clearly taken a few years, but the signs are that Gaydon’s engineers are really getting to grips with the business of putting manners on this 2.0-litre lump, which is laudably quiet and smooth in the Evoque. It makes both the Q3 and XC40 sound noisy and a touch coarse, although I should add that neither would really bother you too much for general lack of mechanical refinement when judged in isolation. 

The bald performance numbers suggest that both the Audi and Volvo have stronger turns of pace on the road than the Range Rover, and they do have a slight advantage – but not a telling one. True, the Evoque’s weight counts against it a little when you want every bit of speed that its diesel engine can offer. But on part throttle and at middling revs, answering the kind of demands typically made of cars like this in daily motoring, you wouldn’t say it feels any slower than its opponents. The car has got plenty of torque, and working with it, its nine-speed gearbox has good instincts for just the right ratio to make useful, assertive, unstrained progress. Neither the Audi nor the Volvo feels quite as slick, drivable or cleverly tuned in give-and-take motoring. 

The XC40 is slightly lighter, keener and more agile than the Evoque in how it tackles sharper corners. Its ride is noisier, though, and its vertical body control is less progressive and sophisticated than the Evoque’s, making a fuss over choppy surfaces that the Land Rover’s suspension simply smothers. The Q3 is a touch crisper and keener-handling than the Evoque, too, and it has the assured outright grip levels and lateral body control you expect of an Audi. It has a less settled, less absorbent ride than the Land Rover, though, and it steers with a sense of filtered, distant aloofness and little reassuring weight or feel, so it’s harder to place and less satisfying and fluent as a result. 

All of which made it pretty plain to this tester what the winner of this group test ought to be. The new Range Rover Evoque has felt like a car more worthy of the brand on its bonnet than its predecessor at every turn as we’ve got to know it these past few months. By dominating its closest rivals on comfort, refinement, spaciousness, interior richness and driveability, and with its supple, assured good handling, it feels like it has now come of age pretty emphatically. So much so, in fact, that I’d say it could be one of the most luxurious £40,000 cars available in any part of the new car market. I could probably make a convincing argument for having one over a BMW 520d. It’s that good. 

All of which makes life pretty hard for the cheaper, smaller, hybrid-powered Lexus UX 250h that’s out to steal the Evoque’s lunch money. While its ‘compact SUV’ billing leads you to believe that it might, the new UX doesn’t have the practicality, versatility, comfort or convenience to make a serious bid for success among these cars. It is, underneath the marketing smoke screen, a biggish, highish-riding hatchback with back seats and a boot no bigger than those of a Ford Focus – although it can be bought with four-wheel drive, and it does look, as one tester put it, “like an accident involving a Lamborghini Urus and a random hatchback”. 

And there’s a reason for at least some of that: it’s because the UX is only partly an Evoque rival and otherwise a replacement for the slow-selling Lexus CT hybrid hatchback, so it needs to be smaller, cheaper and more ‘hatchbacky’ than you might expect it to be. 

So if you happen to like the ‘Lamborghini-lite’ styling and you’re not sure you need as much versatility and space as an Evoque gives after all, what else is there to like? Firstly, a cabin every bit as rich and even more solidly hewn than the Land Rover’s and which comes with Lexus’s familiar, hard-to-use infotainment system – but you may very well like it anyway. I certainly did. 

It should surprise nobody that the UX is more poised and agile-handling than the rest of our field. It did surprise me that it steered quite so well, though, with fine weight, precision and a bit of feel, and also that its hybrid petrolelectric powertrain performed quite as well as it did. 

Part-throttle response is getting much better from both Toyota and Lexus hybrids like this, and real-world economy remains strong when accounting for urban use as well as touring. The UX still seems a bit strained and tortured when giving that last word in acceleration, and the gearbox’s manual mode remains poor – both of which facts inevitably erode the appeal of the car’s driving experience. 

Would I have one as an alternative to a Range Rover Evoque? Not a chance. But as a replacement for a CT200h – or any other much plainer, less interesting, mid-range premium-branded hatch? Why not? The UX feels alternative and different – and difference should serve it well.

Read more

Range Rover Evoque 2019 review​

Mercedes-Benz targets Audi Q3 with rugged GLB concept​

Volvo XC40 T4 R-Design Pro AWD long-term review​

When Bicester Heritage elbowed its way onto the UK car lover’s list of Most Desirable Destinations four or five years ago, its mission seemed clear: to become an important new Oxfordshire haven for vintage and classic cars, and for those who loved, owned, mended or transacted them. 

The miraculously well-preserved (and sympathetically restored) red-brick buildings of this former RAF base, dating from 1926 and used as a location for Churchillian movie Darkest Hour, set an instant ‘between-the-wars’ scene for anyone who drove through the old-style black-and-white boom gate, especially after a chat with gatekeeper Neil, whose genial manner also seemed to come from another time. 

But as it turns out, Bicester Heritage is only the first stage of a much bigger project called Bicester Motion, designed to establish the UK’s first automotive resort and technology centre across the entire 444-acre airbase site. Heritage is but a small corner of a much larger whole. According to chief executive Dan Geoghegan, Bicester Motion aims to connect car-based businesses and their customers – around a million of them annually, when things are running as planned – together in an entirely new way. Drawing on Bicester Motion’s proximity to the existing race engineering and technology belt, a key part of Geoghegan’s big plan is to equip the site with an all-new R&D hub they’re calling the FAST (for Future Automotive Speed and Technology) Zone, dedicating 20,000 square metres of new build space to automotive innovators of every kind, and supporting them with special test tracks suitable for autonomous and connected cars. 

A car-loving property developer with deep connections in Wales, where his father was a garage owner, Geoghegan has a special interest in helping innovators progress technology with which Britain aims to lead the world. He drove into then-disused RAF Bicester six years ago when the site had already been on Historic England’s ‘at risk’ register for five years, discovering it almost by accident while hunting for a location for his plan. 

“We never imagined we’d find a place as large or as perfectly sited,” he says, “especially given that it’s within minutes of Bicester’s other famous attraction, the Shopping Village. After three years our site was off the at-risk list, and quite soon Historic England was citing us a national exemplar of constructive conservation. That’s something we’re very proud of.” 

Most of Bicester’s original buildings were erected in eye-catching red brick at a time when the revered architect Sir Edwin Lutyens – who loved such buildings – was a member of the council that oversaw such public work. When they studied them, Geoghegan and his team discovered the buildings were fundamentally sound, though there were early problems with graffiti, broken windows and fire damage. The new owners have worked systematically to restore buildings and convert some to modern purposes. Drop in at Bicester now, as we recently did, and your impression is of well-ordered, slightly old-school serenity.

It takes a tour of the whole site, preferably as a passenger to Geoghegan in his trusty long-wheelbase Land Rover or lissom 1920s Alvis two-seater, to appreciate the awesome scale of it and the size of its potential effect on motoring’s future. It is suddenly easy to understand Bicester Motion’s plan to bring 2000 new jobs to the area and to help populate the thousands of new-build homes already planned for the area. 

Bicester’s most prominent buildings, visible from both entrance gate and airfield apron, are four large 1920s hangars built on the edge of the grass Flying Field. These will be preserved more or less as they are, fronted by a wide ‘fast driving’ perimeter track called The Radial. The hangars will be converted internally to events and exhibition spaces capable of housing up to 2000 people. Back in the 1920s, six hangars were planned but only four were built, so Geoghegan plans two more in the same architectural style, using one as a 344-room hotel. 

Follow the perimeter drive in an anticlockwise direction from the hangar apron and you soon reach a clutch of buildings planned as a Centre of Excellence for Historic Motoring, the all-new FAST technology hub, then several rows of blast-proof bomb stores due to be converted into mews garages with accommodation, some of them beside a lake in the site’s bottom corner. 

Keep turning left – the perimeter is a four-mile drive – and you’ll come to 100 acres of country park shown on the map as Bicester Reserve, beyond which there is space for 4x4 driving tracks and a new-build brand experience centre, intended for product launches and fronted by its own network of demonstration tracks. Much of this has yet to be built, though planning work is well advanced. Work will necessarily proceed in stages, but a new collection of outline approvals is expected later this year. The site’s relative protection from new residential areas, and its already-proven ability to handle big events, is helping with planning decisions, Geoghegan believes. 

Of all Bicester’s facets, he seems fondest of FAST, which, as he points out, is completely in character with RAF Bicester’s original purpose. “When this place opened in 1926, the idea was for it to serve as an important technical centre for the nation,” he explains. “We’d done steam, we were developing petrol and we were also moving on to flying. 

“Given that Bicester started as a major R&D hub, why shouldn’t we return it to its roots?” 

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The man behind motoring's newest weekend destination​

The Land Tour: taking on the UK's best off-road courses​

Classics reborn: best cars from the rebuild industry​

This weekend Silverstone will hold the UK’s biggest ever motor race.

Some 100 Citroen C1 race cars will race on Silverstone’s full GP circuit for 24 hours from Saturday at 5:30pm.

The C1 Racing Club, which races near-standard 3dr, 1.0-litre C1s, has proved so popular as an entry-level motorsport - it’s possible to build a race car from around £3000 - that its series of endurance and 24h races races are routinely oversubscribed, so has obtained permission from Motorsport UK for a bumper entry list.

The race will be streamed live, and available to watch here:

Autocar’s editor-at-large Matt Prior will be racing in car number 303 for a story that’ll be in the magazine and online later. For updates through the race, you can follow Matt and Autocar’s social feeds.

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Matt Prior: could cheaper motor racing attract more people to the sport?

How to have fun on four wheels for less

"Please enjoy the pleasant sensation of looseness,” says the car you are driving. Once you’ve stopped smirking, you would be forgiven for concluding that the pursuit of comfort by at least one luxury car manufacturer might be in danger of descending into self-parody. 

The car in question is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the breed that has become almost as synonymous with comfort as Sellotape has with sticky-back plastic. And on this occasion it was giving advice on how best to use its seat massagers. But what is comfort in an automotive context? Is it really just about big chairs and soft springs, or is there more to it? Back in 2005 tests were conducted between an S-Class and its immediate rivals over a 300- mile route that revealed that whoever was driving the Benz had a heart rate on average five beats per minute slower than when they were driving any of the other cars. And that can’t just be squidgy seats. 

Actually, providing a car with what we perceive as true comfort is a science as inexact as the whims of the capricious humans who covet and drive them. We know comfort when we feel it, but what is it and how is it achieved? The first thing to understand is that there is a clear distinction between a car that is comfortable and one that is comforting, but if true comfort is to be achieved, you need to provide both. 

Matt Saunders, road test editor of this parish, reckons it all begins with “a straight, accommodating and adjustable driving position”. Drivers don’t sit still in cars; we’re forever shifting our weight around and moving our arms and legs, so if you have to sit slightly askew because the pedals are not actually directly in front of the steering wheel, your comfort is going to be compromised, if not immediately then certainly after a while. Likewise you need to be able to position yourself relative not only to the pedals but the steering wheel too, so a good range of steering and seat adjustment is important. 

But can you have too much choice? You bet, says editor-at-large Matt Prior. “I find that with wild levels of adjustment I can never get it quite right and end up constantly fiddling with the driving position,” he says. And that’s not comfortable. And what about the seats themselves? The counterintuitive is at play here too, as editor-in-chief Steve Cropley knows very well. “There was once a fashion for French cars – Renaults especially – to have very soft seats, which felt initially luxurious, especially over city ruts. But when Golfs and Passats became numerous with their much firmer seats, we suddenly realised how much better it was to have seats that kept their shape, especially in days when body roll was significant.” 

Seat designers also have to ensure that the natural oscillation frequency of their seats is kept completely out of phase with the suspension. “If this doesn’t happen, the action of one is doubled by the other,” says Cropley. “You bounce up and down as on a trampoline. It’s still an occasional problem in today’s cars, though not of the proportions that it was in the 1970s and 1980s.” 

There are other fundamentals. One of the reasons McLarens seem so comfortable is that they’re so easy to see out of by supercar standards. To me, visibility is a fundamental component of comfort, because if a car has thick pillars, a letterbox rear screen and huge blindspots, you’re never going to be truly at ease driving it, and that means you’ll never be truly comfortable, either. 

Of course many people consider the secret to true comfort lies in the suspension set-up, and to a great extent it does. Just not in the way you might think. To make this point we must disappear briefly into that curious world inhabited only by chassis engineers and road testers. Perhaps the most common misunderstanding of this subject comes from the presumption that the more softly a car is sprung, the more comfortable it must be to travel in. This, emphatically, is not the case. Indeed, the actual spring rate is nothing like as important as the way it is controlled, and that can be influenced by all sorts of things. 

First a car must have a stiff structure. This structure is the platform upon which the suspension is mounted, and if it’s wobbling, vibrating or fizzing, so too will the suspension. If you play a crap recording through the world’s finest audio system, it will still sound like a crap recording, and the relationship between a car’s structure and its suspension is the same. 

Okay, you have a nice, rigid monocoque, so now you can afford those super-soft springs, right? Not really. We divide the way a car rides into two main areas, called primary and secondary. In essence, primary ride is how well the car maintains its ride height over crests, in dips and through corners. Secondary ride is how well it absorbs the lumps and bumps in the road. And while a very softly sprung car might well have a superb secondary ride, if your head hits the roof every time you go over a rise, or it wallows around in the corners like it’s enjoying a mud bath, believe me, you’re not going to be comfortable. Bear in mind, too, that the softer the car is set up, the more sensitive it will be to load: I remember the original Lexus LS400 rode beautifully until you gave it four adults and a bootful of luggage and pointed it down an undulating road, whereupon levels of roll, heave and, in particular, pitch could soon become close to unacceptable. “And pitch,” says Cropley, “is the most upsetting body motion of all.” By contrast, I remember equally clearly a Bentley Continental T with a secondary ride so bad you’d not get a better impression of the road surface if you licked it with your tongue, yet it would dispatch our once notorious, now sadly resurfaced ‘body control road’ at ludicrous speeds with no detectable vertical motion at all. 

The most successful way to achieve a genuinely fine ride today seems to derive from using a quite gentle spring rate in conjunction with a very stiff structure and then control them using damping, a job that has become infinitely easier in these days of electronically controlled shock absorbers: today’s Aston Martin DB11 has the lowest spring rate of any Aston in history, yet it manages its body movements beautifully. 

Steering is another huge yet largely unappreciated factor in how comfortable we feel behind the wheel. If your steering is too quick the car will feel nervous; if it’s too slow you will have to work harder than you’d like to guide it. Variable-ratio racks allow slow steering around the straight-ahead where you want it and quick steering off-centre to make the car feel more agile. That sounds great, but if it’s not expertly executed, the car seems simply to have inconsistent steering. Similarly, most of us will feel comforted by steering that accurately feeds back information about road conditions, just as we will be discomforted if that telegraphed information turns into kickback. 

The bad news for the car designer is that sorting out the structure, suspension, driving position, seats and visibility still doesn’t ensure the comfort of those on board. Not even close. 

Saunders puts “proper isolation from both wind and suspension noise” near the top of his list of priorities for a truly comfortable car, while Cropley goes further: “Noise has a huge effect on comfort. Drive identical roads at identical speeds but using earplugs for one of the runs and the car will seem to be riding more smoothly. For parallel reasons I’ve always felt wind noise and road noise are mortal enemies of comfort – and wondered why Porsche, especially, and several of the German makers don’t deal better with road noise.” 

But even that’s not so simple to sort out, and for the same reason I struggle to sleep on the latest generations of very refined airliners: I’d rather be subjected to a constant level of ambient noise than have to listen to all the farts and snores you hear in a truly quiet cabin. Likewise I can remember hearing all this tyre roar the first time I travelled in a Rolls-Royce Phantom and taking a while to figure out it was actually coming from the other cars with which I was sharing the road… 

Matt Prior is keen to point out another critical component of comfort: “Ergonomics are very important. Pure touchscreens are bad for comfort, overcomplicated electronics systems likewise. I’m driving a Peugeot 508 at the moment and every time I get in I have to switch off the lane-keep assist, so then I’ve got an orange light on the display at all times, too. And the bloody heater controls are on the touchscreen and at least three eye-off-the-road pushes away, so although it’s an automatic car with easy steering and should be good, it’s a tiresome chore.” 

He’s right: the level of electronic complexity shown by today’s even quite ‘normal’ and well-planned cars, like a Volkswagen Golf, can be bewildering. There are so many menus, submenus and ill-defined areas you need to stab at with an inexpertly aimed finger, and you have to do so while safely conducting a tonne or more of metal down the road. Which is why I wonder if grubby fingerprints aren’t the only reason that an ever-increasing acreage of TFT screening may not after all be the future of in-car entertainment, communication and information. 

And we’ve not even mentioned powertrains yet. Torque is a huge determinant of comfort. An instant and accurate response to every prod of the pedal can hugely enhance your sense of well-being behind the wheel, and the absence thereof is one of the few drawbacks of the current generation of small-capacity, highly boosted engines. An engine has also to be well matched to its gear ratios and in harmonious dialogue with the gearbox. If an auto is always hunting around for the right ratio because it’s poorly programmed, the engine lacks torque or both, your comfort is going to suffer. 

There are other issues that might only contribute to your perception of comfort but which are no less important for that. Does the car feel strong and safe? Perpetually wondering if it will protect you in an accident is not going to improve your comfort levels. Is it from a quality brand? There may be no science in this but if you had two identical cars, one wearing the badge of mass manufacturer, the other of an aspirational premium brand, I’m betting you’re going to feel more comfortable in the latter. Which doesn’t make it right, just the way it is. 

Finally there is the little stuff, all those details, any one of which can chip away at your sense of comfort and, taken as a whole, torpedo it altogether. Do you hate dashboard reflections on the windscreen, or sat-nav that will zoom out to your desired dimensions only to zoom back in a few seconds later? Is there enough room next to the clutch to rest your left foot in comfort? Does the digital radio give up the moment you turn onto a B-road? Does the ventilation mean you can have cold feet and a warm face, but not vice-versa, and if you drive a diesel do you hate how long the cabin takes to heat up on a cold morning? Are there enough cup holders, are they the right size and do they dump coffee in your lap if you corner at more than 0.2g? If the car has automatically dimming headlights, do they actually work as you would like or do they just make other road users hate you? Do the wheels stand proud of the tyre sidewalls so you’re terrified of crunching them every time you park? Do you drive the kind of car that brings out the worst in other road users so you spend your life being carved up? 

It all counts. For me, I’d give up all the gimmicks for a sound driving position, clear instruments, simple ergonomics and decent visibility. Such considerations are just as important components of my sense of comfort and well-being on board as the softness of the springs or seats. You need to get all that right before even considering the other stuff, because without it you’re never going to get comfortable, let alone experience “the pleasant sensation of looseness”.

Memories of comfortable cars

Matt Prior:“A couple of years ago I drove a Volkswagen Golf R to Spain, for a Ford Focus RStwin test. I had two days to get there so figured I’d start early and make an overnight stop when I’d had enough. I know Golfs tend to nail everything in the “Want comfort? Look for…” panel (above), but even so, I was surprised I happily sat there for 900 miles.”

Andrew Frankel:“Last year I covered nearly 1400 miles in a new Bentley Continental GT in 24 hours. But it wasn’t the 15 countries we visited, nor the majestic performance or the dazzling technology I remember most vividly. It’s the seats: after a day and a night, mostly behind the wheel, I emerged without the slightest discernible ache. And that’s real comfort.”

Matt Saunders:“In 2008 I went to Hethel for a ride-along story in the new Lotus Evora. Its ride was so supple and damper response so progressive that it made for truly effortless body control. It was before Lotus had even tweaked the suspension for the supercharged version, let alone all of the revisions it would do later. I wish I could have bottled it and taken it away as a reference. It was that good.”

Steve Cropley:“I’ll never forget my first drive in a Citroën GS. Until then I’d presumed pitching was endemic to all cars, but here was a machine that felt it had a 10-metre wheelbase. Chuck in ageless styling (including jewel-like headlights 20 years before anyone else had them) and you had a truly exceptional car.”

Read more

Opinion: ride comfort is the new handling

Matt Prior: has performance suspension hit a bump in the road?​

Top 10 best luxury cars 2019​

If you’re a regular reader of Autocar, you’re probably well-versed in the abbreviation WLTP. Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure is a new way of measuring vehicles’ fuel economy and emissions, and it has appeared on our pages for a number of reasons. 

First, there’s been plenty of related news. For example, Audi sales in the UK fell by a fifth last year, due to WLTP. Porsche has almost halved its sales so far this year, also due to WLTP. Plus, we’ve started to future-proof our first drive reviews and A-Z data pages by quoting only WLTP fuel economy and CO2 figures where possible, rather than those measured under the previous NEDC cycle. 

It’s easy to glaze over this stuff, but it’s important for car buyers because it can affect how much money’s in your pocket. What fuel consumption and CO2 figures should you be looking at to save a few quid or work out your company car tax: NEDC, WLTP, RDE? Confused? Then read on… 

What is WLTP? 

WLTP is a new testing procedure aimed at producing more real-world figures for fuel consumption and emissions than the outgoing one, NEDC (New European Driving Cycle). NEDC had been in play since the 1980s and, despite minor updates along the way, became outdated due to changes in technology and driving conditions. 

Meanwhile, WLTP has been under discussion since 2008, with plans to finalise its regulation by 2018 and launch it by 2023. Then the Dieselgate scandal happened and the European Commission decided to accelerate the process, which gave car makers just 13 months to overhaul their models and complete all testing. WLTP became mandatory from 1 September 2018 for measuring CO2 emissions and fuel economy on all new cars in the EU. Confusingly, in the UK, labelling regulations meant that WLTP fuel economy values were introduced from 1 January 2019, but CO2 figures are not due to be disclosed until 1 April 2020 to tally with changes in taxation. So while all cars will have a WLTP CO2 figure, in many cases it has yet to be publicised. 

As a result of this shortened time frame, manufacturers fell into trouble last year as demand at test centres bottlenecked. It meant many new vehicles weren’t ready to be sold from September, which sucker-punched the car market. Particularly hard hit were Volkswagen Group models. In September, Volkswagen’s European sales fell by 53% and Audi’s dropped by 60%. The problem was exacerbated by a crucial difference between WLTP and NEDC. WLTP requires significantly more testing to provide individual data for every variant of a vehicle, which wasn’t needed for NEDC. If you’ve noticed that the number of options on cars have been dramatically reduced and equipment ‘packs’ have increased, that’s why.

How does the test work? 

The WLTP test procedure looks identical to the NEDC process, carried out on a rolling road in laboratory conditions, but that’s where the similarities end. While the WLTP test itself takes only 30 minutes, as opposed to the NEDC’s 20, the whole process can take up to five days, more than double that of its predecessor. 

To reflect real-world conditions, temperature is set at 23deg C and, given that warmer temperatures put less load on a vehicle, there is another test for European vehicles at a more representative 14deg C. 

There is sharper acceleration and deceleration than previously, mirroring busier traffic conditions; higher average and maximum speeds; and five driving cycles, compared with the NEDC’s three, again to reflect modern-day driving. 

The other major difference concerns gearchanges during the test. In NEDC, there were fixed points for gearchanges; in WLTP, there are different gearshift points for each vehicle. 

So how does all of this affect the figures? Our sister title What Car? has found that the average gap between WLTP fuel economy and its own real-world True MPG test data is 4.9%, compared with a difference of 23.5% under the NEDC cycle. 

That’s WLTP in a hard-to-crack nutshell. But there’s something else: RDE. The Real Driving Emissions test, also introduced in September 2018, measures particulates and nitrogen oxides and backs up the results of a WLTP test. It takes place on public roads with a portable emissions measurement system. The 1.5- to two-hour test (over around 50 miles) has an equal split of urban, rural and motorway routes, takes into account stops/starts in towns and must exceed 56mph on appropriate roads. Essentially, it’s a validation exercise for WLTP results (which also note NOx and particulates). 

The goalposts for RDE will keep moving, too. For example, at the moment, manufacturers must sign a legal document stating that the RDE results can be achieved in certain conditions, such as an altitude of up to 700 metres. From 2021, that will extend to 1300m. The gap between the WLTP and RDE figures must also decrease over time. 

From 2020, a second step, RDE2 – which means lower NOx levels than are acceptable today – will become compulsory. 

Why should I care? 

The purpose of WLTP was to provide better data and improve consumer confidence, not only in demonstrating transparency – crucial in a post-Dieselgate world – but also to aid buying decisions. 

The five WLTP cycles (low speed, medium speed, high speed, extra high speed and combined), which should be listed for every new car on sale, are intended for buyers to check against their most typical journeys. 

The testing of all model variants will also help to inform car buyers. Previously, the best-case figures were used for an entire range, but now consumers will be more aware that a top-of-the-range trim level could be far less efficient in terms of economy and emissions than the entry-level equivalent. 

All economy and emissions figures will change to WLTP in April 2020, when CO2-related taxation will begin to reflect the new testing cycle. 

However, there’s a big question over how this will affect the cost of running cars. It’s hoped that taxation is adapted so not to increase the financial burden to consumers, given that WLTP will result in a higher CO2 value for the same car versus NEDC. 

Unfortunately, motorists are already being penalised under the new regime. Car owners who do not have an RDE2-compliant vehicle (which, remember, only becomes mandatory for new cars from 2020) are paying 4% more in benefit-in-kind rates, while the first-year rate for car tax is one band higher. 

For those in the market for a new car, supply issues should now be resolved. There is an additional stage in the transition to WLTP that will take place later this year, but it does not require further testing so should make no difference to car buyers. 

It’s a challenging and confusing time, then, for car makers and buyers alike. But within a year, conversion to WLTP will be complete with taxation to match, and the industry should be a fairer, more transparent and greener place for it.

The challenges facing smaller car makers

It’s not only the big players that must adhere to the new rules. Ultra-low-volume makers, such as Caterham, also have to put their models through testing if their vehicles are sold on the Continent. In the UK, such models fall under the Individual Vehicle Approval Scheme, making them exempt from WLTP. 

Simon Lambert, technical boss at Caterham, says that the biggest challenge the firm had to overcome to hit the September 2018 deadline was the lack of its own test facility. 

He adds: “We also found that the emission test operators struggled with the immediacy of the throttle response and engine braking on a Seven. That meant it was easy to drop out of the acceptable window of tolerance during the drive cycle. With NEDC, that window was visible to the tester during the test, making it much easier to follow [so a breach was rare]. 

“With WLTP, it isn’t. This meant that we only found out if this had happened post-test, invalidating the test and leaving us waiting days/weeks for a retest. Not because the car was failing, but because it was difficult for the human element of the test.” 

Lambert believes it’s important that Caterham cars are clean and comply to the latest standard, but points out that specialist cars cover “tiny mileages compared to regular road cars, so the actual annual emissions output is a fraction of what a typical BMW or Ford might produce during a year’s use”. 

He adds: “Blanket legislation like this does not take into consideration the scale of the challenge for an ultra-low-volume manufacturer like Caterham. To be asked to achieve this within the same timescale as a major manufacturer with all its resources is unreasonable.” 

Why WLTP isn’t really worldwide

The aim of the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, as the name suggests, is to create a global standard for emissions testing. Trouble is, it’s neither worldwide nor harmonised. 

To start with, North America hasn’t adopted the system, instead continuing with its own CFE tests. Other countries, including major markets such as Russia and Brazil, are still using NEDC or alternatives. 

Even those regions that have adopted WLTP have adjusted it to their own needs, making it far from harmonised. 

For example, with lower average speeds in Japan, its WLTP test doesn’t include the highest-speed cycle, and calculates figures for hybrids differently. The result is a fuel economy figure more accurate for Japanese usage, but different from Europe. 

India is set to adopt WLTP next year, but will also exclude the fastest cycle due to lower average speeds, and will adopt a different baseline temperature (to account for the country’s higher average temperatures). 

Meanwhile, China is due to adopt WLTP tests for fuel consumption after 2020 – but is likely to use them as the basis for its own China Automotive Testing Cycle (CATC). 

As a result, a test scheme designed to reduce complexity has arguably created more – and that’s before you consider the multiple ways different authorities have to calculate fleet emission targets…

The Mercedes emissions lab

The emissions test centre at Mercedes-Benz’s Stuttgart facility in Germany has never been busier. Since the introduction of the WLTP and RDE tests, the lab has operated three shifts a day from Sunday evening until Saturday. 

It’s a big operation: while the test procedures take only a few hours, a car can be in the lab for weeks while preparation, testing, checks and verification are done. 

When each car arrives, it is situated in a large indoor parking area (the biggest in the lab can house more than 100 cars) to be pre-conditioned – or ‘soaked’ – to a set temperature (ranging from –7deg C to 23deg C, depending on requirements).

The dynamometer chambers where WLTP and other tests are conducted are also kept at set temperatures (23deg C for most European tests). 

After the test, each car is locked in a shed. Sorry, a SHED (Sealed Housing for Evaporative Emissions), where evaporation levels can be measured. 

For the RDE test, each car is fitted with a Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) and taken on a set route that lasts between 90 and 120 minutes on various types of road. 

The data recorded by the PEMS is then processed to account for ambient temperature, altitude and other factors. The results are sent directly to regulators for certification. 

Those regulators can visit the lab at any time for checks. To prevent conflicts, Mercedes-Benz’s test staff only test vehicles, and have no development role. 

Electrified vehicles are particularly onerous: rules stipulate that dyno tests must run until the combustion engine kicks in (for hybrids) or the battery is drained (for EVs). For the EQC, fitted with an 80kWh battery, that took more than 15 hours. 

This creates another challenge: WLTP dyno tests must be completed by human drivers, but labour laws stipulate that drivers must change every two hours. It takes three shifts of workers to test an EQC. 

The lab does emissions tests for cars in multiple regions, running tens of thousands of tests each year. And while testing isn’t done on Sunday, don’t think the lab is quiet: that’s when maintenance work is done on the equipment.

Rachel Burgess and James Attwood

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A new scheme being developed by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) could allow drivers to earn money for reporting their journeys. 

Using ‘smart wallet’ technology, drivers would submit updates about traffic conditions and potholes to earn cryptocurrency, which could be used to pay for coffee, tolls and charging and parking fees. 

The ‘distributed ledger’ technology is being developed at JLR’s Shannon-based software engineering centre in Ireland, in partnership with communications developer IOTA. 

The company has not given a date for introducing the technology to customer vehicles, but it is being trialled with a fleet of Jaguar F-Pace and Range Rover Velar test vehicles that have been equipped with the smart wallet functionality.

JLR predicts that 75 billion devices will be connected to IOTA’s network by 2025 and that transactions will become faster because of the absence of processing fees. 

Jaguar and Land Rover drivers will also be able to top up their virtual wallet by more conventional means. 

This new scheme marks another step towards the firm’s ambition of achieving "zero emissions, zero accidents and zero congestion", by allowing vehicles to play a part in the data-gathering process. 

By enabling drivers to alert others to heavy traffic and poor road surfaces, JLR says, the new technology could encourage freer-flowing traffic, thereby reducing overall tailpipe emissions. 

Russell Vickers, JLR software architect, said: “In the future, an autonomous car could drive itself to a charging station, recharge and pay, while its owner could choose to participate in the sharing economy.”

JLR recently unveiled plans to develop a system that will project a vehicle’s direction of travel onto the road ahead, while an initiative detailed late last year could soon equip JLR models with software that helps them to avoid red traffic lights. 

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All next-generation Mercedes-AMG models look set to feature four-wheel drive as standard, including the AMG GT supercar, according to AMG boss Tobias Moers. Engine downsizing is also on the cards as Mercedes-Benz ramps up its brand-wide electrification strategy. 

Speaking to Autocar, Moers said in response to the idea of pure rear-wheel drive dying out in future: “Customers have given us the answer, and most want four-wheel drive. 

“Back in the days when we had an AMG E-Class as rear-wheel drive and with four-wheel drive as an option, over 90% chose 4WD. In the new E63 with drift mode, you have a real rear-wheel-drive car but with four-wheel drive also.” 

When asked if even the AMG GT flagship would adopt such a system, Moers said: “When I ask customers about the GT, they ask me about all-wheel drive. Regarding our competition, this is the downside of the AMG in terms of usability. People in Munich, for example, always, always ask for four-wheel drive – I think it’s for safety and stability.” 

The latest E63 AMG uses a clutch-based four-wheel-drive system that’s able to send up to 100% of engine torque to either axle. The E63 S’s Drift mode can disengage the front driveshafts entirely allowing a traditional rear-drive system, if requested. 

Moers confirmed that the trademark AMG V8 would go hybrid in its next generation, stating “we are not going to push the performance output of the V8 in future” beyond the 630bhp it currently offers. To go further, the system will be mated to a plug-in hybrid with an electric rear axle. 

Such a system will first debut on a hybrid version of the AMG GT 4-Door, Moers confirmed, setting it up as a rival to the Porsche Panamera S-E Hybrid. It is due to arrive next year. 

Moers also revealed that there will be no more V12 engines in Mercedes-AMG’s range beyond the S65 Final Edition, revealed at the Geneva show: “We’re still responsible for V12s – maybe Maybach is going to use them in the next-generation S-Class, but not AMG. Having a high-powered competitive V12 would be a new engine, and in the new times there is no room to do that.” 

The impending emissions regulations mean that the future of the V8 in some smaller variants is under threat, with the next C63 looking more likely to use a downsized turbocharged six-cylinder unit. When asked about that, Moers paused and said: “There is room for speculation there.” 

Despite previous plans to revive the SLC as a Porsche Boxster-rivalling sports car, Moers said Mercedes-AMG “is not able to do so”. 

“I know companies trying to exercise approachable sports cars in that €40,000 (£34,000) segment – they are not doing so well. It’s a question mark for the future,” he said. 

AMG is instead focusing its resources on the next-generation SL, which Moers confirmed will be developed by the performance division and share its platform with the next AMG GT. 

“We are focused on SL for the future,” he said. “Totally different car – It’s a sports car. The company has been running at full throttle for two years on that programme. It’s a shared platform between GT and SL.”

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Most conversations about EVs pretty soon turn towards battery technology and charging times, but the electric motors that actually drive an EV rarely catch the limelight. That’s a shame, because the beating heart of a car, the engine, has traditionally been something drivers get excited about, so why should electric motors be any different? 

An EV’s electric machine (to use the motor’s proper name – it works as a generator as well) is just as important as the battery in achieving the best possible range. Range directly relates to one crucial characteristic of electric motors: their phenomenal efficiency (ie how good they are at converting electrical energy into mechanical energy). Even the best combustion engines don’t do a great job in converting the energy in the fuel into torque, with only around one third of the fuel you put in the tank contributing to actually getting you down the road. Ouch. In contrast, a sophisticated EV’s electric machine can be more than 90% efficient. 

The three main types of electric machine used for EVs are brushless asynchronous induction (Tesla Model S), brushed externally excited synchronous (Renault Zoe) and, by far the most common, brushless permanent magnet synchronous (Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3). 

Permanent magnet and induction machines are mechanically similar. They both have a stator (static – it doesn’t move) consisting of electromagnetic coils arranged in a cylinder, and a rotor (it rotates) at the centre. In a permanent magnet machine, the rotor consists of powerful Neodymium ‘super’ magnets. When the stator’s electromagnets are switched on in sequence by a controller, a magnetic field rotates around the rotor like a merry-go-round. The rotor’s magnetic fields chase the moving fi eld at exactly the same – hence ‘synchronous’ – speed. The rotor turns. 

In the other two types, both stator and rotor are made up of electromagnet coils and there are no permanent magnets. In the induction motor the merry-go-round stator fields ‘induce’ a current and magnetic field in the rotor windings by turning slightly faster (asynchronous) than the rotor turns. In the externally excited machine, the rotor coils are connected to a DC power source by a rotating electrical contact called a slip ring, to generate the magnetic field, so it works just like the permanent magnet machine. 

Why one or the other? Induction machines are more suited to high power application which is why Tesla uses one in the Model S while the Model 3 gets a permanent magnet machine. Permanent magnet machines are easier to control, smaller, easier to cool (because the only windings are on the outside) and lighter, which makes them more suited to smaller cars. Turn the tables and spin either motor using the road wheels and they become generators (regenerative braking). So maybe there is more to these electric machines than meets the eye. And hot-rodders in 2050 may yet be huddling over a beer to argue which is better, induction or permanent magnet. 

Power and control

EV electric machines need some complex electronics to control them. These come in the form of a power electronics module (PEM), like this Audi one, and an inverter, which can be integral with the PEM or the motor itself. Inverters provide the interface between an alternating current electric machine and the direct current battery.

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Top 10 Best Electric Cars 2019

"Now’s the time to buy a 430 while prices are soft and there are plenty to choose from.” So says James Caborn, sales executive at Kent High Performance Cars. 

The dealership majors on Ferrari and the day before we spoke, James had sold a 15,000-mile 2006 F430 Spider F1 for £77,000, or £3000 off the screen price. It was a proper car, too, finished in Rosso Corsa with Nero Black leather, and fitted out with the interior carbon pack. 

On the same day, the cheapest approved used F430 in the official dealer network was also a coupé F1; another 2006-reg but with 24,000 miles, finished in Nero Black and advertised for £79,900, including the excellent, official used car warranty. 

But whatever you spend on a 430 (from around £60,000 for tired cars all the way to £280,000 for a late, lefthand-drive 16M F1 with full exterior carbon pack and 8000 miles) you’re getting a wonderful, usable Ferrari. 

It was launched in the UK in 2005 in both coupé and convertible forms, powered by a rear mid-mounted 4.3-litre V8 producing 483bhp. This was an all-new engine with, crucially, chain rather than belt-driven camshafts, laying to rest buyers’ concerns regarding the expensive belt-change intervals associated with earlier models. (On that point, the 430’s forerunner, the 360, does at least have a removable panel for access to the offending area.) 

Drive passes to the rear wheels through a clever electronic differential called the E-diff that channels torque to the wheel with the greatest grip. You can play tunes on it via a rotary controller called the manettino mounted on the steering wheel. Depending how courageous you’re feeling you can cycle through five grip levels. Verging on crazy? You can turn it off completely. The same controller allows you to adjust damper settings, shift speeds and throttle response. Gearboxes are a choice between a six-speed manual or Ferrari’s F1 automated manual with paddle shifts. Only around 10% of 430s were sold with the manual ’box. 

From 2007 a stripped-down, 503bhp version of the coupé called the Scuderia was offered followed, in 2009, by a convertible version called the 16M Spider. Also, from late 2007, previously optional carbon ceramic disc brakes became standard. Great if you like track days; not so if you don’t and the discs need replacing… 

That expensive niggle aside, the 430 was a thoroughly well-sorted car from day one, so don’t fret about buying an early one over a later model. Problems? Exhaust manifolds can crack – although there’s a fix and in any case, many were replaced – it’s heavy on suspension and the rubberised finish on the interior can come off on your hands. 

A full main dealer or specialist service history, the toolkit and the right tyres are a must. If it’s a convertible, check the hood is free of tears, and folds and sits properly. All good? Then do what the man says: buy now while prices are soft.

How to get one in your garage

An expert’s view 

Scott Chivers, Multiple Ferrari owner and self-taught Ferrari fixer: “I owned a 430 Scuderia I bought from a Ferrari dealer in Austria and drove home from Vienna without a problem. The car had only done 6000 miles but I sold it a few months later to a chap who has barely driven it since. That’s a tragedy because like the 360, the 430 is easily a daily driver that can take serious mileages. If the entry price is too high, consider a left-hand-drive one. There’ll always be a good market in the US and Europe for it when you sell. Rosso Corsa, or what I call Resale Red, with either a black, tan or cream interior is the best combination.” 

Buyer beware… 

■ Engine: First, have the undertrays removed. The engine has a dry sump so check the oil level when it’s hot. Services should be every 6250 miles or annually. Check for cracked exhaust manifolds. Excessive engine vibration may be a cracked engine mount. 

■ Transmission: Check for regular fluid changes and hydraulic actuator leaks. Examine the transmission control unit’s clutch wear record; a worn clutch will make the car sluggish from take-off. On manuals, check for a heavy clutch and for slippage. A troublesome E-diff might be faulty solenoids. Examine the gearbox mounts which can crack. 

■ Suspension and brakes: It’s heavy on balljoints and bushes. Check ride modes work and for play in the steering wheel, suggesting worn tie-rod ends. Feel for worn wheel bearings (about £800 a corner). If ceramic brake discs are fitted, check their remaining life using Ferrari’s diagnostic system. Check caliper pistons aren’t seized. 

■ Body: Corrosion of the largely alloy body shouldn’t be an issue so any you see is likely to be damage-related. Check the expensive and hard-to-replace windscreen for chips and cracks. Make sure the Spider’s hood sits correctly. Feel for loose tail-lights (a broken bracket that can’t be fixed) and loose wing mirrors (a loose screw). 

■ Interior: Examine the dash leather for shrinkage (noticeable around the vents and airbag). Check if the dash vents have popped out and feel for sticky buttons which may need to be re-rubberised. 

Also worth knowing 

Using OE (original equipment) Ferrari parts is recommended, but enthusiasts also use specialists such as Hill Engineering (hillengineering.co.uk), whose parts can exceed OE quality. 

How much to spend 

£60,000-£68,999: Tired right-hand cars in need of TLC plus high-mileage left-hookers. 

£69,000-£78,999: Some tidy lhd cars and a mix of mainly rhd F1 coupés, many with no more than 30,000 miles and no older than 2007. 

£79,000-£89,999: Brighter coupés and convertibles with most desirable specifications, better provenance and lower mileages. 

£90,000-£99,999: A 2007 F1 convertible with 14k miles, Mk2 manifolds and Hill Engineering caliper pistons, for £95,000. 

£100,000 and above: Very low-mileage 430s at all years.

One we found 

Ferrari F430 Coupé, 2007, 25k miles, £74,995 

OK, it’s black and it’s had six owners but this private sale, right-hand-drive 430 has the right mileage, full main dealer service history, and the sought-after carbonfibre interior pack, and carbon rear panel and lower diffuser.

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New images released by Vauxhall show the upcoming fifth-gen Corsa supermini carrying out extreme weather and performance testing. 

Camouflaged prototypes are shown being subjected to temperatures of -30 deg celsius in Sweden, carrying out chassis tuning at a test circuit and being analysed by electrical engineers in a laboratory. 

The new images come as the Luton-based company wraps up development on its reborn Ford Fiesta rival, with sales set to begin in the coming months. 

Vauxhall recently confirmed that the fifth-generation Corsa weighs up to 108kg less than the outgoing model. 

According to the manufacturer, depending on specification, the new supermini can weigh as little as 980kg - roughly 130kg less than the lightest Ford Fiesta. 

The weight loss comes courtesy of new high-strength steel bodywork, lightweight interior insulation materials and a range of all-aluminium powertrains. 

Like the range-topping variant of the current Insignia, the new Corsa will feature an aluminium bonnet weighing 2.4kg less than the steel unit fitted to the current model, as shown in a breakdown of weight savings published by the manufacturer (below).

Previous spy shots of the upcoming Volkswagen Polo rival show a design that shares cues with the recently revealed Peugeot 208, which uses the same underpinnings. 

It's the first mainstream Vauxhall produced entirely under the brand's new owner, the PSA Group, and is crucial to Vauxhall and Opel's success given the car's historic popularity. It will also be both brands' first model to be sold with a battery-electric variant. 

A preview image, released earlier this year, showed the Corsa's headlights will feature adaptive-beam full LED technology - claimed to be a segment first. Usually the preserve of premium models, the LEDs are able to continuously adapt the full beam pattern to stop it from causing glare to oncoming traffic. 

PSA growth plan includes range expansion and new markets 

The Corsa will set the tone for a new wave of Vauxhall/Opel models, each of which will be overhauled thanks to access to new platforms, engines and hardware that are also used across the group’s other car brands: Peugeot, Citroën and DS.

The new Corsa has been developed in an unusually fast time. When it is unveiled, less than two years will have elapsed since work began, just as the deal to buy Vauxhall/Opel was being agreed between PSA and General Motors.

The quick turnaround is due to PSA reversing the original decision for the next Corsa to be based on GM’s architecture. Once PSA had taken over Vauxhall/Opel, it would have been required to pay a licensing fee to GM to use the platform, something boss Carlos Tavares is keen to avoid. 

Vauxhall/Opel boss Michael Lohscheller has previously told Autocar that the new Corsa will not be compromised in any way.

"It’s true that we had a version ready to go, and you can’t just stretch a design to fit a new platform," he said, "but the teams have done a fantastic job in record time to ensure that the car is on schedule.”

The new Corsa will be based on PSA’s Common Modular Platform (CMP), a front-wheel-drive architecture. The Corsa will also dip into PSA’s engine line-up and is likely to adopt the turbocharged 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol unit in a variety of power outputs.

Comment: PSA plans for a better Vauxhall Corsa

Despite the switch to a new platform, the Mk6 Corsa’s dimensions are understood to closely match the outgoing model’s. Vauxhall chose to launch the current Corsa in 2014 with near-identical dimensions to its predecessor, because the company felt it was the ideal size for customers. This strategy is expected to continue. The current Corsa is 4021mm long, 1736mm wide and 1479mm tall, dimensions that make it slightly longer and taller, but narrower, than the existing 208.

The design of the Corsa was set to be evolutionary before the plan for a GM-derived model was axed. Now, to mark a new era for the model under PSA ownership, the styling promises to mark a departure from its traditional look. However, if the Grandland X SUV is anything to go by, its relationship with PSA will result in a design less radical than the new 208. 

The three-door Corsa will be axed, reflecting an industry trend to discontinue such bodystyles, which are less popular with buyers. Producing only a five-door Corsa will also help Vauxhall/Opel’s drive for greater efficiency and increased profitability.

Inside, the Corsa will receive PSA’s familiar touchscreen infotainment system, but the overall feel of the interior is expected to be distinct from that of its French siblings. Vauxhall’s new grille and lights design and all-glass fascia panel are expected to be introduced.

Not long after the debut of the standard Corsa this year, an electric version will be launched, named eCorsa. Although the Peugeot 208 will get an electric variant first, it and the Corsa will be among the select few in the supermini segment to adopt electrified powertrains. Key rivals such as the Ford Fiesta are not expected to go electric for many years yet.

The electric range of the eCorsa is likely to be about 210 miles, in line with zero-emissions rivals such as the Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf.

The current Corsa was once the UK’s second-best-selling car but is currently fifth in the sales charts, selling less than half of the Fiesta’s sales total each month. The new version will be built at the Zaragoza plant in Spain.

The price of the new Corsa is expected to rise slightly over today’s £13,575 starting point for the five-door model but still undercut the 208. 

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The RAC has launched a new emergency charger for drivers of electric vehicles stranded at the roadside.  

Called EV Boost, the EV recovery device has been installed on six of the breakdown service’s Ford Transit Custom patrol vans ahead of a large-scale roll-out over the coming years. 

As with the RAC’s Fuel Assist service, customers with an EV that’s run out of charge will receive a top-up boost, allowing them to progress to the nearest charging point. 

The RAC says the charging device is compatible with all Type 1 and 2 connections, accounting for the vast majority of EVs on UK roads. 

The device has been developed by the RAC in partnership with Original Ltd, a Shrewsbury-based automotive engineering firm. The initiative is the first of its kind in the UK, and highlights the need for recovery services to adapt to growing demand for electric vehicles.

Broken-down EVs usually have to be transported by flatbed truck, which makes recovery a slower, more expensive process. With its new charging device, the RAC aims to restart stranded EVs as quickly as possible, in order to minimise traffic disruption. 

Chris Millward, head of roadside rescue at the RAC, said: “With nothing like it on the market, the real challenge was to develop a mobile EV-charger system which is compact and light enough to fit into our normal patrol vehicles.” 

Alongside the portable charging scheme, the RAC has unveiled a new Isuzu D-Max heavy-duty patrol vehicle.

Equipped with a 1.9-litre diesel engine, a 2.8-tonne towing capacity and four-wheel drive, the RAC says the 50 new vehicles will be able to recover “up to 90% of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles”. 

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This week, we've got the lowdown on the the delay in launching Mercedes-AMG's hypercar, Infiniti's next step, Seat's position in the VW Group, and more. 

Affalterbach needs its filter back 

Mercedes-AMG’s flagship hypercar, the One, has reportedly been delayed while the company works to fit a particulate filter – to ensure WLTP emissions certification– without dropping the power output below 1000bhp. AMG boss Tobias Moers admitted the problem to Autocar but said there has been “great progress” in implementing a fix. “We’re figuring out when the first customers will get their cars in the next few weeks,” Moers said. 

Audi's new 'hot' hatch

Audi reckons shared autonomous cars could revolutionise takeaways – by arriving with your food already on board. The firm’s AI:ME urban concept car features a food storage unit and subscribers can request a car and food using an app. The autonomous car stops at the restaurant and is loaded up with the food en route to arriving for use. 

Infiniti looks eastwards

After announcing it will pull the plug on Europe later this year, Infiniti is betting the farm on China. At the Shanghai motor show, the brand said it will build its first electrified model in China, for China. Its target is to triple sales in China in the next five years with a number of locally made cars.

VW Group remains Seated

Seat may still be “very much a regional brand”, but a sale has never been on the table because it is so intertwined with the VW Group’s technology, according to group CEO Herbert Deiss. “It also makes sense within the group because it attracts a different kind of customer than anyone else.” That different kind of customer is a younger one - Seat owners are the youngest of any VW Group brand.

Read more

Mercedes-AMG One confirmed as hypercar's production name​

The Autocar guide to WLTP emissions testing​

Futuristic Audi AI:ME concept hints at Volkswagen ID rival