Tester’s notes

Britain's most pointless car?

John McIlroy — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:16:19 GMT

I grabbed the keys to a Citroën C5 last night; I’ve been impressed by the looks of and, to a certain extent, the approach behind the French firm’s latest saloon, so I was keen to sample it for myself.

If anything, I’d hoped that a spell behind the wheel might allow me to see past Citroën’s ludicrous marketing campaign for the C5. In case you’ve missed the television commercial – and if you watch F1 on ITV then you’ll struggle to do that – it shows a tiresome man displaying lots of Germanic traits that generally irk Britons, then tells us that the C5 is unmistakeably German (as if this would be a positive), then points out that it is, of course, French.

It’s as if some Citroën marketer piped up, “Of course! The reason British BMW and Merc drivers have forked out their hard-earned on those brands is because the cars are built between knockwurst lunches by sword-fighting Bavarians!” (An alternative view being that it’s because they are better engineered, more reliable and hold their value more effectively.)

Anyway, I digress. The C5 in question was a 2.7 HDI Exclusive, effectively the range-topper with a V6 diesel engine. It costs, wait for it, £24,395 – which makes it, I believe, one of the most pointless cars on sale in the UK today.

Now, put aside for a second the fact that the Mondeo outshines the C5 in almost every area of dynamics (except, perhaps, ride quality). Fact is, you don’t even need to look beyond the C5’s own range to find a car that renders the 2.7 HDi irrelevant. It’s called the 2.2 HDi, it costs precisely £3000 less, wants for precious little on the spec sheet, emits 51g/km less of CO2 and manages 9.9mpg more on a combined cycle.

Alas, it is a whole 3mph slower in terms of top speed and the 2.7-litre model will have raced a whole 0.4sec clear in a dash from 0-62mph. But I’d live with it. Or rather, I’d give it a second glance before committing to a Mondeo 2.2 TDCi.

Bertone's fantasy car collection

Julian Rendell — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:46:17 GMT

Every so often in this job, we get lucky enough to live out deepest-rooted dreams, and so it was for me in Italy last week.

I was there to do a story about the Bertone BAT11 concept that you can read about in next week’s mag, a handsome recreation of one of the company’s 1950s one-offs. The venue for the story was Stile Bertone, the company’s design centre, housed in a wonderful architect-designed building which features a wing full of Bertone’s most famous car designs.

The classic collection reads like a world’s best list - Alfa Giulietta and Montreal, Lamborghini Miura and Countach, Lancia Stratos, Iso Rivolta — and all kept in running order.

After an hour or so chatting, Bertone’s Scottish-born design director David Wilkie made the offer of a life-time: “We could get a couple of cars out of the collection for you to drive if you’d like...”

What to choose? No question really, it had to be the Miura, the first mid-engined supercar, and a car I’ve lusted after since I wore short trousers. And a second? Go on then: the Lancia Stratos, which I first glimpsed in well-thumbed copies of Autosport magazine in the days of black-and-white pictures.

Given that it hadn’t run for a while, the Stratos fired-up pretty easily. When the Miura wouldn’t catch, Bertone’s technicians did the obvious and jump-started it....with the Stratos. Is that a Guinness record for an exotic jump-start?

Myself and an equally-chuffed snapper Stan Papior each had a run around the grounds of the design studio.

The Miura had the star quality you’d expect of a 1960s Italian supercar — arms out, legs bent driving position, little rearward vision, unassisted steering that was heavy at parking speed but lightened-up as we got quicker, a gearchange that required firm yet accurate pressure and brakes of dubious bite, even at very low speed. The engine was terrific, running pretty smoothly, if noisily and all accompanied by four-star fumes. Fabulous.

Just getting into the Statos’ cramped cockpit was hard enough: I am in even greater awe of rally maestros like Sandro Munari who tamed the tiny Lancia. I still can’t work out how they squeezed in a roll cage and left room for the driver and navigator to wear helmets.

On our short track, the Stratos was amazingly nimble. With deference to its age and value, I wasn’t exactly pushing it to the limit – but I could still sense the fabulously sharp steering would devour Col de Turini hairpins with a flick of the wrist. The fabulous Ferrari V6 was as eager as when it was new, there’s no doubting the Stratos is still supercar-quick.

What a great day.

Superb? It's not far off

Steve Cropley — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:56:31 GMT

If you like big cars and do a fair bit of your driving on British A- and B-roads, you’re going to like the new Skoda Superb, mainly because of the way the suspension suits British roads. I went to the Czech Republic last month to drive the all-new version of Skoda’s biggest model, expecting a solid and well-engineered car (as befits a car whose underbits are also found in the latest VW Passat and Skoda Octavia models) with the usual somewhat stiff-legged German-inspired suspension.

Instead, I found a car with a suspension that could have been tuned specifically for Britain: terrific at soaking up bitumen ruts, Mercedes-quiet over potholes, tolerant of the kind of confused cambers we have in this country, nice to steer, long-legged and economical. The star of the show was the new-to-Skoda, VW-sourced 173bhp common-rail diesel, which gives this bulky car a top speed close to 140mph (hence ultra-quiet cruising at 90ish) yet will surely deliver 40mpg when sensibly driven by the owner. Chuck in limousine comfort, a very well-appointed interior, a boot lid that can also be a hatchback, deep equipment in a three-tier model range and prices that start (for a 125bhp, 1.4-litre litre petrol turbo) not far over £15,000, and you have an appealing car.

Downsides? The size, for some. A Honda Accord in the same class feels much more chuckable. The name, too. I’m not suggesting “Skoda” is laughable the way it was, but VW, Honda and even Ford – all in the same size-class – carry more prestige. Wouldn’t matter to me, though. I’d be proud to drive one of these for a while.

The Nissan Bluebird lives on

Mike Duff — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:56:06 GMT

Okay, this is my final blog from the Nissan 360 – I promise. This morning I dug up a current Japanese-spec version of the Nissan Bluebird – or Bluebird Sylphy as it’s now named.

Britain hasn’t had a Bluebird since 1990, when the Primera arrived. But it’s a car that many of us will remember as the ubiquitous ‘90s minicab: for about five years it felt that every private hire trip I took was in the back of a blue-smoking 2.0D version.

Anyway, I digress – but not by as much as you might suspect. Because somehow during the last 18 years and however many subsequent iterations, the Japanese-spec Bluebird still shares some recognisable characteristics with the ones I remember: this must be the last car in the world to feature velour panels on the insides of its doors.

Power now comes from a 2.0 litre four cylinder petrol engine, with drive heading forwards through a standard CVT slusher. Suspension settings are pillow soft and the controls all have Nissan’s trademark 1990 over-lightness.

I drove it back-to-back with an American market Nissan Altima, complete crashy over-hard suspension, feel-free steering and an alarmingly over-enthusiastic launch from its own “sports tuned” CVT transmission. I have to admit that, desperately unfashionable though it is, I far preferred the Bluebird.

And I also suspect that, now the Primera has died, Nissan would find a small but loyal band of buyers if the Bluebird was re-introduced into the UK. If nothing else, it would give minicab drivers something to choose other than the seemingly-mandatory Skoda Octavia.

Is this work?

Mike Duff — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:47:02 GMT

You join me pretty much live from the 'Nissan 360', where i'm typing this sitting in the pit lane at the Estoril circuit in Portugal, next to a ticking GT-R that's cooling down after its last stint of abuse.

So what exactly is this rotationally-monikered event? Pretty much the ultimate toy box, to be honest. Nissan has got together every vehicle it makes, anywhere in the world - from the GTR down to tiny Japan-spec city cars, for journos to have a go in. There's even a Cedric taxi in full-on Tokyo spec, including lace doilies on the rear seat and a set of white gloves to wear while you drive it.

It's all good, clean fun - well, excepting the muddy off-road course where I just did my best to beach a collosal US spec Titanic pick-up. CEO Carlos Ghosn and various other execs are also on hand to drop some broad hints about forthcoming model plans, but at the moment this doesn't feel like work.

The only question is what to drive next...

Not driven this week: Keating SKR

Will Powell — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:48:04 GMT

Went to the launch of Keating and its “new British supercar” in Southport last week and came away disappointed, but not surprised, by what I saw.

Fledgling Keating decided that no journalists would actually drive its SKR. But from this evidence, it seems to be another under-engineered British sports car with a big American V8, no heritage and an optimistic asking price.

The Merseyside likely lads behind Keating want £90,000-125,000 for the SKR. But that cost is “arbitrary” I was told, so it might be more, depending on ‘what the customer wants’.

So far Keating has built just one, and it’s a machine whose build quality is akin to a hobbyist’s kit car, not a £100 grand supercar. Despite the Ford Sierra switchgear, the interior’s not nearly finished, which makes me wonder if the Keating dream has run out of money and now needs customers, who’ll essentially pay to complete the car’s development. Which would explain the ‘arbitrary’ price.

As things stand, the SKR would tempt only the clinically insane away from an Aston Martin, an Audi R8 or a Porsche 911 Turbo.

But Keating’s press briefing had a good go at convincing us anyway, littered as it was with grandiose performance and reliability claims, which I’m afraid were met with scepticism. One of Keating’s men then got up and said: “Proud British companies are now owned by Germans, Americans or Indians, taking the best of British and using it for their benefit. We’re bringing back the best of British.”

That’s an interesting point of view when you consider that the SKR’s 400bhp V8 comes from Chevrolet of America and that its body shell is made in the Philippines. In the end, we took a passenger ride in the SKR alongside an affable Scouse test driver whose sole qualification for hooning the car along a runway seemed to be that he was pretty handy on the Southport ring road.

It was quick, but not mind-blowing. The dials didn’t work so I can’t tell you how fast we went. But the springs are ridiculously soft - mid-corner bumps would be an unsettling issue. And then, after a few runs up and down the runway, the gearbox went pop and started to spew its oil over the back wheels. So it was game over.

I dread to think how much money has been invested in Keating. In fairness, just building the car is further than most wannabe supercar makers ever get.

If Keating builds a finished, working, marketable car, we’ll be more than happy to test it with an open mind. Who wouldn’t want to see the North West’s new TVR or the next Noble? For now though, Keating’s SKR is some way from getting there.

Methanol: fast, fun and green

Richard Bremner — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:21:29 GMT

A supercharged Lotus Exige with go-faster stripes? That sounds like an excellent way to go green.

This experimental Trifuel Exige 270E can run on any mix of petrol, ethanol or methanol, its engine management system able to detect the mix currently occupying the Lotus’s tank and adjust accordingly.

The point of this exercise is not so much to demonstrate that an engine and its fuel systems can be modified relatively easily to deal with a mixed diet, as to make the case for methanol. Which can be part-made from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – see our news story for more.

This Exige not only earns its stripes for being greener, but also for going faster. The standard supercharged car is quick in its standard 237bhp form, but when it’s running on methanol it gets a whole lot more powerful, the fuel’s higher octane rating enabling it to produce 266bhp. As I found at Lotus’s Hethel test track, the combination of extra-potent fuel and a supercharger work to dramatic effect. Whether you’re low down or high in the rev range, this Exige extracts itself from corners with rampaging urge. This is terrific, addictive fun.

None of which may sound terribly green, but Lotus’s aim is to achieve guilt-free motoring by taking the car – or rather, its fuelling - out of the CO2 equation.

Its engineers make the point that once you fill your car’s tank with carbon neutral fuel it doesn’t matter how hard and uneconomically you drive, the CO2 emissions – potentially nil – remain unaltered. Now that sounds like a sensible way to enjoy the miniature supercar experience of the Exige. More than that, it sounds like a sensible reason to get behind the methanol solution.

DSG: is it really one clutch more than necessary?

Ed Keohane — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:27:35 GMT

I admit it: I’m a fan of the DSG gearbox. I like the lack of a torque converter, the almost instant changes and the way it improves the car’s fuel economy.

But I’ve just driven the Skoda Octavia 1.9 Tdi through London and back round the M25, and I’m sad to report that it’s not quite the dream-come-true package I was expecting.

On the motorway the transmission works superbly, but the pumpe-duse engine is too vocal and sounds all too like the the previous-generation diesel technology that it is. But to give Skoda credit where it’s due, it achieved 49.6mpg over 50 miles, 15 of which were in town traffic – and I wasn’t trying to drive economically.

It was the performance in town traffic that really disappointed me, though. It has enough creep that you have to keep your foot on the brake at standstill, but not so much that it doesn’t roll backwards on shallow inclines. That’s the wrong amount of creep.

Also, when you brake it only shifts down a gear at the last possible moment, often at 850-900rpm, when the engine is beginning to cough, which makes it impossible to drive slowly and smoothly. Plant your foot on the accelerator, however, and it feels pretty nippy and very smooth. Certainly mid-corner gearchanges are so smooth that the car does not get unsettled.

So it seems to me that there’s nothing wrong the transmission hardware and quite a lot wrong with its software configuration, possibly it’s been set up for maximum economy at the expense of low-speed driveability. Whatever the case, DSG is here to stay and I’m very happy about that. But a bit more polish in its implementation wouldn’t go amiss.

It's time to lighten things up

Richard Bremner — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:56:56 GMT

The new Ford Kuga is unusual for featuring some unexpected flashes of colour in its cabin, providing you choose the lesser Zetec trim.

Sections of the centre console and the interior door handles are finished in either matt metallic blue or orange, although the same bits are an unimaginative silver in the pricier Titanium.

It’s novel and neatly done - and I earnestly wish I liked the effect, because car interiors are generally so conservative. But it doesn’t quite work for me, and not half as well as the orange detailing in the Ford SAV concept interior that previewed the S-Max.

At least Ford is experimenting with interiors and colour, which is more than most manufacturers are managing.

We’re a long, long way from the astonishingly bold colours flaunted by many American cars during the 1950s and 60s though, when your most humdrum sedan could have an interior swamped with glinting metallic vinyl as colourful as the carnival in Rio.

Seats, dashboards, door cards and even the steering wheel would be shot through with iridescent rainbow colours, and tasteless though some of these interiors were, others looked terrific - and decidedly less apologetic than Ford’s tentative adventures with the Kuga’s colour palette.

Of course, the main reason Ford is being cautious is that we, the buyers, are behaving that way too, hardly daring buy a car unless its cabin comes dressed in the shades of a depressingly monochrome palette.

Let’s hope that the Kuga, the Fiat 500 and the Mini, all of them more colourfully furnished than most, begin tipping our tastes towards something more adventurous.

Passat CC: why I want one

Hilton Holloway — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:50:02 GMT

You wait years for one chop-roofed luxury four-door GT coupe and then two come along at once.

Only a few days after driving the BMW X6 for the first time, I found myself behind the wheel of the new Passat CC. Like the BMW, it is coupe-ified version of an existing car. And like the BMW it feels remarkably different to its more upright sister. Somehow, the lower roof and smaller glass area of the CC delivers a more luxurious feeling than the cabin of the more upright and homely Passat saloon.

Perhaps, like the X6, it is the cosseting sensation delivered by a very slightly more enclosed cabin – a trick that the similar-idea Rover P5B Coupe managed to pull off in the ‘60s. The CC’s rear cabin treatment is almost identical to that of the X6, with twin rear seats separated by a large storage console.

From the outside the CC also looks much more expensive than its £21,000 entry-price. With the sweet-spinning 1.8 TSI engine, the saloon costs £19,000. The swooping lines of the CC add just £2000 to the showroom price. Which, considering the premium normally charged for two-door coupes, looks like remarkable value.

And there’s not much loss of practicality if you want the slick looks. You have to duck to get in, but the rear headroom is adequate for 95 per cent of people, the boot is still pretty huge and the cockpit has a very pleasant ambience. It’s not a hot-shoe driver’s car, but the CC does deliver unexpected calm and peace, just like a GT car should. And it’ll look great on the driveway.

To my surprise, there’s rather more substance to this concept than just style-led differentiation.

HILTON HOLLOWAY

Stop this twin-clutch madness now

John McIlroy — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:16:52 GMT

I stole Autocar’s current Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X last night, keen to see how a performance icon has managed the transfer to a completely new model after, well, increasingly frayed incarnations from VII to IX.

Did I enjoy it? Yes and no. Many of the traditional Evo strengths are still present: incredible turn-in, great balance and traction, the constant belief that the transmission is one step (slip?) ahead of you. Oh yes, and the fact that there’s no torque whatsoever beneath 2000rpm (well, I still find it charming, anyway). And it’s quick, of course; once the whoosh sets in you get a terrific prod in your kidneys.

But (didn’t you know there was a ‘but’ coming?) at the heart of the latest Evo is the Twin Clutch SST gearbox, yet another take on the ‘semi-auto’ theme with steering wheel-mounted paddles and a press release boasting of previously unimaginable shift times. The irony of this is not lost on me, because a few years ago, Mitsubishi released an automatic version of the Evo VII. And we laughed.

Now, though, it seems that a more sophisticated slusher is the centrepiece of the model. So can I make a plea? Manufacturers (yes, that means you, Mitsubishi, Audi and Ford), can we establish once and for all that DSG/Speedshift/SST gearboxes – twin-clutchers – are not as rewarding to use as a stick? I drove the Evo for a good couple of hours and only once, once, did I really feel involved in what was going on.

The rest of the journey was spent either in the wrong ‘gear’ or waiting while the SST gearbox appeared to ride not one clutch, but two.

There is hope, of course; Mitsubishi has said that in preparation for the car’s use in rallying (the sport that spawned it in the first place, after all) a five-speed manual Evo X will be made available. In the meantime, I’d like a VI Tommi Mäkinen Edition, please, with Ralliart sidestripes, white wheels and a proper stick between the front two seats. In my view it’s never been bettered.

BMW X6: the definitive polarising machine?

Hilton Holloway — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:29:56 GMT

The new BMW X6 is probably the most oddball BMW to date. Who wants a chop-roofed version of the X5, which suffers in accessibility and rear space, if not load capacity?

Well, BMW thinks it has discovered a niche within a niche and has plenty of confidence in the car, which is made here in South Carolina, at BMW's Spartanburg factory. I've just spent the morning in it, on a 154 mile, three and a half hour drive. Our X6 was powered by the new twin-turbo V8 engine, which is good for just over 400bhp.

It's also equipped with BMW's new DPC, which is very similar to Saab's XWD. These 4x4 systems not only allow engine torque to be switched back and forward between the axles, it can also swap torque side to side, between the rear wheels.

The upshot is that, apart from under the most severe provocation, the X6 remains resolutely neutral, despite its sheer bulk and the efforts of some of South Carolina's best switchback roads. And if you push it too far, a combination of stability and braking controls prevent the car losing grip altogether and leaving the road.

I've a feeling, though, that the X6 will be the definitive polarising machine.

For those inside, life will feel pretty damn good. For those looking at this huge, imposing machine coming down the local crowded high street, the reaction will probably swing between irritation and fury.

Click here to read the BMW X6 first drive.

Ford Ka: basic but brilliant

Vicky Parrott — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:05:52 GMT

I have an admission to make.

I didn't know that in the gadget crazed throws of i2008, you can still buy a new car with nothing more than a tape deck and radio for entertainment. I was dimly aware that you could still get cars without central locking, but imagined that they were only available from makers who still class a heater as a selling point.

Not so. I had a go in a 57-plate 1.3 litre Ford Ka at the weekend, courtesy of a well-known daily rental company. It came with seats, a dashboard, wheels and a body shell. And that's about it.

The only concession to modernity was power steering, which did nothing to dull the car’s legendary dynamics. In fact, it was one of the most engaging cars I've been in since I sold my Peugeot 205 GTi, not least thanks to its complete lack of pretence at being anything other than a bog standard means of transport.

The Ka is a minor phenomenon in the modern motoring world. It still looks fresh and hasn't aged inside, despite being nearly 12 years old. It's just over 3.5 metres in length, rides well, looks great, is cheap to produce and cheap to buy. It also has class-leading dynamics.

Of course, it fails on CO2 output (147g/km), and residuals are terrible because there are so many on the used market already. So bad, in fact, that you can get a five year old car with only 20,000 miles on the clock for just over £1000.

List price is £7345 for the base Studio variant I had the luck to sample, but if you can't get an entry-level Ka for under £5000 from your local dealer then you're not bargaining hard enough.

I remember when Sciroccos were special

James Ruppert — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:14:14 GMT

A chance encounter with an original version got me thinking about the all-new Volkswagen Scirocco. To be honest, it’s a concept that I’m still struggling with.

Because the original Scirocco was one of the best coupes of all time, encapsulating all the virtues that the breed is meant to exemplify. It looked good, it drove well and it cost everyday hatchback money to run.

The mk1’s crisp lines, sharp handling and sturdy mechanicals earned it a devoted following back in the day – it was a sort of middle-class answer to the Ford Capri. Okay, so the ‘seventies rust-proofing meant that most of the first generation had fallen to pieces well before Maggie left power, but in the combination of general niceness with near-Golf practicality, the Scirocco led the way.

Now the new Scirocco is going to be bigger, heavier and considerably more ugly. I’m reliably informed that it doesn’t look as bad on a motorshow stand as it does in the pictures, but it’s still definitely not an oil painting. Okay, so we should be thankful it’s not a retro mash-up – most manufacturers’ first instinct when raiding their heritage – but it does just seem to be trying a little too hard.

But the biggest problem is cost. The original Scirocco matched the equivalent Golf’s engine-and-spec designations pretty much across the board. You could even get a 1.6 GL for schlepping your way to the shops and back. The new version looks like it’s heading fast and furiously to a drifting competition – with a 2.0 litre turbocharged motor a no prospect of change from £25 grand when it eventually goes on sale.

The old Scirocco was a nice car, driven by nice people. The new car has so little to do with the old that I’m wondering why they bothered reviving the windy old name. VW should have stuck with the IROC tag of the concept. Alternatively, if they were determined to reach into the corporate badge-drawer, then surely the new car would be better off wearing the Corrado tag – the original Scirocco’s punky younger sister.

The whole thing has left me feeling distinctly nostalgic, though. You can keep your TFSI engine, I’m off to find one of the last surviving mk2 Scalas to revel in its cheesy bodykit, chunky alloys and colour-keyed bumpers.

Subaru's great leap forward

Mike Duff — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:34:14 GMT

I’ve just driven the new Subaru Legacy diesel and to say I’m deeply impressed would be a major understatement.

The flat-four diesel motor doesn’t just transform the Legacy, it gives the whole brand a new impetus in the UK. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the new engine – and its inevitable spread throughout the model range – is likely to save Subaru from the sales annihilation its petrol models’ profligate CO2 outputs threatened to trigger.

I’d be very surprised if a substantial majority of British-bought Scoobies weren’t packing the new motor in a year’s time: it really is that good.

Most impressive is the way it delivers on economy – long the bane of modern turbo-diesels, which tend to fall considerably short of the grandiose claims made for them in real world use.

Several years ago I ran a previous-gen Legacy 2.0-litre petrol which managed to combine utter gutlessness with fuel consumption to rival a recently torpedoed supertanker – I think the best it ever managed on a gentle run was 25mpg, and enthusiastic use would push it down to the mid-teens.

The new diesel version is empirically quicker – 8.5 seconds for the 0-62 dash is hardly hanging around in anyone’s book – but it’s also remarkably frugal. Taking a gentle run at my 130 mile commute home and back, including urban sprawl, motorways and ‘A’ roads, saw an average of 50.7mpg according to the trip computer.

For a 1510kg estate car fitted with proper, permanent four-wheel drive system, that’s not just good – it’s unprecedented.