ROAD TESTS

 
Colloquially known as the car that burned touring car hero Jason Plato on national TV, there’s far more to the Caparo that just being, er, a bit of a hottie.
Designed to demonstrate cutting-edge British technology, it’s thoroughly deserving of Cult Car status. Indeed, its fiery habits maybe even only enhance this…
The designers, both ex-McLaren F1 [...]

THE Rover 200 was one of the best cars Rover ever made. Sure, it wasn’t quite the most dramatic-looking.
Nor was it the most interstellar to drive. It wasn’t even history’s most innovative Rover. But, in terms of market-hitting success, probably nothing can beat it. 
No, not even the iconic original Mini.
Controversial? Maybe. But it’s also because [...]

FERRARI doesn’t hang onto its laurels for long, with a lifespan of just five years for every new model.
Yet even Ferrari was surprised at how quickly the mid-engined F430 fell from fashion once the California, with its fancy folding hardtop, hit the streets. So the F430’s replacement, the 458 Italia, really must do the business.
Just [...]

CAR Dealer Magazine staff are of a certain age. In our childhood, there was only one daddy on the World Rally circuit. The Lancia Delta Integrale. World Rally Champion 1987. 1988. 1989. 1990. 1991, too.
Oh, and don’t forget 1992. 
On the poster we had on our wall, they’d run out of space on the laurel wreath graphic [...]

TWO seats, soft top and rear-wheel drive – three ingredients that form the basis of a recipe for success.
Add in a dash of affordability, a pinch of cute styling and lashings of handling prowess and you’re well on your way to a Michelin Star winning banquet of a car!
When Mazda designed its MX-5 it [...]

BMW has designed the 730Ld luxury limo to be something of a Tardis in reverse.
Huh? Well, sure, there’s no arguing with the presence it has on the road. Yes, that ‘L’ stands for long-wheelbase. Fittingly, it’s huge.
Long, lithe and designed – at no little expense – with a totally bespoke roofline to the standard-wheelbase model [...]

PORSCHE’S new 911 Turbo can accelerate from 0-62mph in as little as 3.4 seconds. Now that is fast – very fast. But maybe not quite fast enough.
See, Porsche’s engineers dropped enough hints to us on the new car’s launch to suggest it’s very much on the 
‘conservative’ side of cautious. Meaning, to all intents, Porsche has [...]

FIAT was in strife in the early 1980s. Not an unfamiliar situation for the Italian firm, in all fairness. But this particular predicament was especially bad.
It needed a car to save it, to replace the ageing 127 and give the automotive giant the all-important volume it needs. 
Basically, it needed a winner. A car that [...]

BRIDES traditionally have a habit of being late to weddings. It’s almost accepted: the nudges in the crowd, the nervous groom, the best man getting into the spirit of a few lunchtime beers by winding up the groom (and that’s before his hilarious ‘lost the ring’ joke). 
However, even the most disorganised bride would have trouble [...]

THE new Astra has a lot of work to do. In recent years it’s been overtaken by the VW Golf and Ford Focus in the driving stakes – now the new Vauxhall hatch needs to reignite the brand.
With the manufacturer’s future the stuff of soap operas, one thing is for certain – the Astra has [...]

SO, the latest Astra is a ‘vital’ car for Vauxhall? A ‘make-or-break’ model in many ways? Well, no change there. It’s always been so, ever since the very first was launched back in 1980.
Back then, Vauxhall was in strife. It had a grim reputation, an ageing model line-up of rear-drive cars… one of the most [...]

Ah, how different things were a decade ago. Back then everything was booming. Nothing was running out. Anything was possible. Well, almost.
Certainly, launching the world’s fastest, most powerful, most expensive car was but a walk in the park. Well, it was if your surname was Piech, and you were boss of the mighty Volkswagen.
Ferdinand had [...]

THERE can’t be many Porsche fans left with a weak heart. They just wouldn’t have survived the shocks they’ve been submitted to in the last decade.
It started with the Cayenne – an off-roader with a Porsche badge – gasp! Then there was the Cayman, a cheaper sportscar that was so good the only car it [...]

NISSANS didn’t used to be Nissans in the UK. They were Datsuns, and models such as the supermini-sized Cherry made the firm’s name here in the 1970s.
Reliable, cheap and sturdy, they were pretty dire to drive, but reassurance-seekers didn’t care. The cars were fuss-free enough to establish the idea of Japanese cars in the UK.
By the [...]

A Fiat with a waiting list? You bet. That’s the measure of success earned by the funky 500, which is sold in 51 countries and has won over fans in every one. Fiat’s take on the MINI is more than up to the task.
Now it’s established, Fiat’s expanding the range. First key addition is an [...]

If Continental GTs are new-gen Bentley, this is very much the old money choice.
Class, elegance, upstanding dignity – oh, and a huge great slug of none-too-subtle British beef. That’s the Arnage, alright. If Brunel were alive today, he would drive one of these.
Some may be surprised to discover that, despite its stately appearance, it is not [...]

Land Rover admits the Range Rover Sport has been a brilliant car for them.
It boasts almost the cachet and allure of the bigger Range Rover Vogue, yet is derived from the more attainable Discovery 3 mechanicals. This keeps prices realistic – and demand high.
Beefy profit margins on this hit model mean the firm’s been [...]

HARD to believe that Renault used to be known as a conservative, middle of the road brand.
Oh, sure, it had funky cars such as the 5 supermini. But, alongside these were Renaults 9s, Renault 11s; even the Fuego coupe somehow managed to make sporty boring.
Today, the brand is one of Europe’s most forward-thinking. [...]

JUST as you do with a Bentley Continental GT, see a top-spec Range Rover with large wheels and special paint, and you think only one thing: Premier League footballer.
That’s quite a leap from the original Range Rover’s roots in muddy farmer’s fields.
Back in the early 1970s, the Range Rover had sliding windows, plastic seats… [...]

BMW car dealers will not be inundated with demands for this car.
A 555bhp uber-SUV, costing £77k? Not highest on the wish-list of today’s buyers. That’s why BMW is estimating sales in the tens, rather than hundreds. This is a car for China and the Far East.
So, why are we getting it? Well, because every [...]

Pre-Quattro, Audi didn’t really stand for much. It was a posh Volkswagen, little more, in the eyes of car buyers; it had the same sort of quirky standing as Saab.
Case not helped by building models such as the Audi 50 – a badge-engineered first-generation VW Polo…
This approach was never going to turn it into [...]

HERE at Car Dealer Magazine we’ve fallen in love with a lot of cars in our time. But one of the most amorous we’ve ever driven was the Maserati Quattroporte: The four-door saloon car from the Gods.
Maserati, you see, employed angels to tune the engine, in the time-honoured Italian way. It then put it on [...]

SOME 100 years after it started, Audi is still making fine cars. There’s a reason why you see so many TTs on the road, after all.
It’s a great motor. Car buyers can’t get enough of them and Audi dealers know there’ll always be a market.
But as any brand expert professes, to continue this success, [...]

WHEN Renault first announced it planned to shoehorn a two-litre engine into a Clio, it was met with mixed reactions.
Some thought it was just plain stupid, others stupidly fun. But, thankfully for the French marque, most fell into the latter category.
With competition in this small car hot hatch sector fierce, the Renaultsport models have [...]

IN 1960s US, they had Steve McQueen. They had San Francisco. They had the Mustang. They had so much that was cool, and fun, and modern, and enviable. In the UK, we had Brian Blessed, Slough, and the Austin Maxi.
Thank the lord then for Ford. Ever the savvy marketeers, the mighty Blue Oval spotted an [...]

GROWN men go weak at the knees. Women swoon. Small children explode with excitement.
No, there are not many cars that offer the visual stun of an Aston Martin Vanquish; it’s the world’s most powerful automotive tazar shot. 
Launched in 2001, the Vanquish was Aston Martin diving straight into the 21st century. The DB7 had been beautiful [...]

YOU’VE got to smile. That’s not an order, it’s a fact. You see no matter how grim life gets; how much we’re squeezed by the government for every single last penny, or how often you forget to pack your sandwiches, you’ve still got to smile.
It’s healthy, it’ll cheer up you and those around you, not [...]

IT’S funny how two simple letters can stir so much emotion in so many people. That sweeping blue and white RS emblem can be traced back through a bloodline that plots a graph of hot-hatch evolution.
It’s a name that has graced the rear end of some truly awesome cars – from rally legends such [...]

LOCKED in a basement of the French firm’s design department is, I imagine, a complete and utter nutter.
Think Sloth from the Goonies mental. Shackled at the ankles and waist, every so often this beast of a Frenchman is fed one of the firm’s production cars to ‘play’ with.
Sloth, or as he’s known in France, [...]

NOT since Gary Glitter has something fallen from the dizzy heights of super-stardom quite so ungracefully.
Think back to the days of Colin McRae’s era and the amazing Impreza models we all enjoyed. The incredible P1, the Richard Burn’s inspired R22B – both stunning machines with looks that matched their performance.
But then something went wrong [...]

The Abarth 500 Essesse and MINI Cooper S are bitter rivals. So much so it led to a seething office row over which is better. To settle the argument we headed to the Isle of Wight to find out. It rained. A lot.

 
THE Isle of Wight is a funny old place – if you ever went [...]

THE car that saved the company. Le sacre numero. The car of the decade. Yes, there are no shortage of plaudits for the Peugeot 205.
Quite simply, it is the most important car the company has ever made. Remains so. And still, for many, is irreplaceable.
To understand why the 205 was so significant, you need [...]

It’s already an icon. A handful of lucky Nissan dealers will be basking in the halo effect soon, when it arrives in the UK. It’s the mainstream-maker alternative to the Porsche 911. It is, of course, the Nissan GT-R.
We could feature the regular version here – after all, with well over 1,000 UK orders, [...]

HAS Volkswagen dropped the ball before it’s even been played?
See, the latest Golf GTI ‘only’ produces 210bhp – down on the Ford Focus ST’s 225bhp, never mind the 300bhp-plus of the Focus RS rocketship. An Astra VXR? 240bhp. Mazda 3 MPS? 260bhp. Even the elderly Megane RenaultSport had 230bhp – and the new one’s [...]

NOW isn’t an easy time to be launching the replacement to the 350Z. Times are tough for us all – but especially for the target buyer of the new Nissan.
The 370Z customer is likely to be a white-collar middle manager, earning a sensible wage, 2.4 children and mortgaged up to the eyeballs.
And that [...]

It was the car that brought Mercedes to the masses and looks as fresh today as it did back in 1983 – it’s our latest Sales Legend, the Mercedes 190.
THE Mercedes 190 was launched as the most affordable Mercedes ever. Which, you must note, is a relative term. It’s like saying Richard Branson is going [...]

It is most famous for being the car The Stig developed. Remember the Koenigsegg’s first attempt at lapping the Top Gear test track? It ended in an ignominious spin, as the hypercar proved just too hyper for the reclusive racer.
‘Fit a rear wing,’ he said. ‘Then, it’ll be the fastest ever round here.’ Koenigsegg [...]

She’s posh, likes shopping, lunching with friends and is climbing the social ladder. No, I’m not talking about Cheryl Cole (for once), this time it’s Miss Minnie Bya who has caught my attention – and she’s in a bit of a dilemma.
You see, a few years ago if Miss Bya’s husband/dad/secret lover wanted to [...]

It’s a direct line from customers to BMW engineering staff that has led to the new Z4 being how it is. See, BMW engineers are sporty types. The sort who turn DSC off.
They like their hard-riding, focused machines – cars such as, ooh, the original Z4. Particularly ones with high-output straight-six engines.
Customers, however, were [...]

BENTLEY dealers. They’re selling loads of used cars. The problem is the new side. What they need is something to get the confidence going.
How about, then, a 200mph convertible? With 600bhp? That does 60mph in 4.5 seconds? And, with 750Nm of torque, has enough grunt to pull a whole housing estate down? 

That should do [...]

Times change. Porsche, for example, went to the brink of bankruptcy during the last, post-80s boom recession.
Yet in this current crisis it’s one of the most powerful car companies in the world – a controlling interest in the Volkswagen Group giving the German manufacturer influence far beyond the performance realm.
Porsche knows you have to adapt [...]

 
A supercar without the super-salaried baggage? That’ll be the Audi R8. A car gaining a reputation for being the thinking man’s hypermotor.
It’s driven by Premiership footballers with degrees. Company MDs who know the name of the tea lady. Nice sorts, in other words.
Problem is, until now, it’s not been quite super enough. Audi’s delicious [...]

The editor made the mistake of buying a Focus ST in November - after reading this RS road test he regrets it!

THE very fact this car has made it into production in these green-focussed times is a surprise.
With most mainstream manufacturers installing fuel-sipping, eco-friendly diesels under the bonnets of their best sellers, the Focus RS is a pleasant surprise.
But [...]

ALFA Romeo stands at international motor shows are famous for one thing. The girls.
Seriously, they are almost entirely staffed by supermodels.
It is common for some journos to head straight over there, camera in hand (yes, we said camera) to get shots of ‘the latest model’. Ugh. It’s an ugly site at times, surrounding all [...]

The sixth-generation Golf is hitting dealer showrooms right now. Volkswagen’s most important car is ideally timed to help dealers through the gloom of the plunging new car market.
Thing is, 35 years ago Volkswagen dealers were similarly doom-laden – and also looking to the Golf as the great white hope.
Back then, the Golf was completely [...]

What’s the best car Porsche makes? The 911, surely? Well, look at where the smart money goes, and the Cayman is definitely in with a shout.
It has always been great to drive, for thousands less than its famed icon – and now, freshly face-lifted, with direct injection and the 911’s PDK gearbox, it’s even [...]

 
DNA. Clever stuff. Genetic coding that relates one thing to another. Father to son, mother to daughter. Alfa Romeo 8C supercar to Alfa Romeo MiTo supermini…
No, seriously. From surface-mounted headlights to circular LED taillights, via slender glasshouse and curvaceous hips, this compact hatchback really does capture the spirit of its high-class, high-price Competizione cousin. The [...]

THE Golf is a top 10 seller in the UK. What’s more, it is also Europe’s best selling car. So you could say the launch of an all-new one is vital. But how many are going to notice? 
A common criticism with any new Golf is that it looks too much like its predecessor. But, even [...]

‘It’s ‘car’ now, not ‘kay-aye’ or ‘ka’,’ said one dealer to us, as he took delivery of his very first new baby Ford. ‘However it’s pronounced, though, I’m delighted to see it. This couldn’t have been better timed.’
Such is the excitement in the Ford dealer network over the brand-new, second-generation Ka. The old one lasted [...]

HOW could you fail to be seduced by Ferrari’s most powerful road car? Driven by, of course, a howling V12 engine?
Sadly, if EU legislators have their way, the V12’s days are numbered – which could well make the 599 GTB Fiorano the last of a great line.
With a 6.0-litre V12 hurtling 612bhp to the [...]

Out with the old, and in with the shock of the new. Company car drivers were brought straight into the 80s with a slap in the face back in 1982, when Ford launched its most controversial car ever. 
Replacing that old favourite, the Cortina, the Sierra was as radical as a pound coming in coin form. [...]

BMW certainly sprang this one on us. An all-electric MINI, that’s not only a fully-working, driveable vehicle – but one which is being pressed into public service as we speak! It was certainly a shock…
Trials are underway in America with 500 buyers able to lease a MINI E for £550 a month. They’ll last a [...]

Has Japan finally cracked the supercar code? Car Dealer pitches Lambo vs GT-R in a head-to-head to find out.
IN 1967, Spen King – the man responsible for the first Range Rover – told his bosses ‘I think we ought to watch out for the Japanese.’ His prediction, based on seeing the very first Japanese cars [...]

FOR a car that doesn’t officially go on sale in the UK until March, the GT-R has already built up an enviable reputation.
Nissan’s hard-working press demonstrator was bought over to the UK a full 10 months ahead of the launch, and since then it has driven off with more silverware than any other Japanese [...]

WHILE Japanese supercars have famously suffered from a lack of charisma in the past, that’s not a criticism you can level at Lamborghini.
Even with the calming influence of Audi at the controls, machines like the Gallardo have Italian style oozing from every panel gap. Only now, the passion is matched with decent build quality [...]

With Toyota revealing it will make its first loss since 1941, the new iQ city car needs to be good. But is it too expensive? Richard Aucock finds out
HERE is Toyota’s Smart-beater – or so the troubled carmaker hopes! The iQ may be tiny, but it has a huge weight on its shoulders.
With the Japanese [...]

WAS the Scirocco ever really cool? It may have been when first launched, back in the 70s, but the Golf GTI followed a few years later – and in creating an entirely new, must-have hot-hatch sector, effectively stole the Scirocco’s cult car thunder.
It dragged on, updated but essentially unchanged, for nearly two decades, before [...]

I almost crashed an M6 the first time I drove one. In the car park. In reverse. Mildly embarrassing, you could say. That bloody SMG semi-auto gearbox…
See, you can’t juggle the clutch in an M6, nor edge along with a slur of the torque converter. It’s either go or stop, one or zero, there’s very [...]

 
MiTo fever is well under way in Alfa Romeo dealers. And how they deserve to have a ‘pizza’ the action (sorry)!
Boss Christopher Nicholl has slashed the network, encouraged those who remain to pull their socks up, and the result is the strongest state of health the dealer network has seen in years. 
It may not [...]

WHEN was the last time you just got in a car and drove somewhere? I’m going to bet it was some time ago. Remember when you were young and had just passed your test – if you were anything like me you’d just get behind the wheel for the sheer hell of it.
Perhaps it [...]

I’ve had an interesting couple of months on the road test side of things. As you saw last month, we stretched the legs of an Aston Martin DBS, Caterham R500, Mitsubishi Evo X in Wales – all capable of hitting 60mph in under five seconds.
Then, a few weeks ago, as you’ve read on the [...]

DON’T be confused by the hype. The California is not the new entry-level Ferrari. Indeed, it’s actually more expensive than the existing F430.
Bang goes the modern-day Dino replacement we speculated on when rumours of the new model first started to surface.
No, instead it is the ‘approachable’ way into Ferrari ownership. We mean that not [...]

AT 186mph, the Ferrari Enzo generates downforce equivalent to having a Lotus Elise sat on its chuff. Which is one way of illustrating just how ‘planted’ it feels at speed.
Painted on to the road is a more apt description – it can’t quite drive upside down in a tunnel and not fall off, like [...]

Ground-breaking technology, handsome looks and great engines gave the Cavalier the ammunition it needed to crack the booming family car sector. Little wonder buyers loved it…
DESPITE being absent from new car price lists for nearly 14 years, the Cavalier name remains one held in high regard by Vauxhall nuts.
Why? Because it helped bring the [...]

 
‘An Aston Martin DBS, Caterham R500, Mitsubishi Evo X.. and a Twingo.’
‘And a Twingo?’
‘Yes, and a Twingo.’
That’s pretty much how the conversation went whenever I told friends, family and colleagues what we had planned for the inaugural Car Dealer Road Test of the Year.
Ok, so I admit this is a rather eclectic bunch of [...]

WE’RE 50 miles into a trip that will take us 10 hours from our Gosport HQ to Tenby in Wales via Caterham in Surrey. Problem is I’m already starting to feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t meant to be like this; the Aston Martin DBS is a £165k car – it shouldn’t be sending my backside to [...]

SATURDAY morning starts stupidly early. It’s cold, dark and damp (still) and we’ve got a 95-mile drive from our Lydstep Beach to rendezvous with snapper Dave Smith and deputy ed Rich in the Twingo in Crickhowell.
Having spent 10 hours in the DBS on the way here it’s hard to justify any more time cocooned in [...]

MID-AFTERNOON on Saturday and we’re getting slowly stewed like Welsh lamb in a hotpot by the unseasonably warm sunshine.
The team are sat in a quiet layby on the edge of a stunning hairpin watching as the quiet of the countryside is rudely interrupted as 263 horses liberally apply black rubber over a bumpy apex. [...]

HIS face says it all – like a smacked toddler, Dunc’s mouth is down-turned like the economy. To make up for his ‘loss’, we point the grieving salesman towards the Aston and Dan and I climb into the Evo. For much of the weekend, the Mitsubishi has been the ugly duckling of the pack (while [...]

Unless you’re a fully paid-up member of the biking fraternity, there’s a very good chance that you’ve never heard of KTM. If, however, you are aware of Austria’s only – and therefore biggest – motorbike manufacturer, you’ll know that it made its name in the mucky world of motocross before branching out into the kind [...]

Private buyers. If you’re a franchise, you love ’em. Particularly if you’re one selling Fords – the Fiesta is the car more people spend their own money on than any other. Your excitement will be off the scale right now, too; the all-new model is starting to arrive by the transporter-load – and it’s brilliant.
Car [...]

You can’t have missed the launch of the latest Fiesta. Ford is undertaking perhaps its most co-ordinated campaign yet, incorporating TV, radio, internet, even local pubs and clubs. It’s the culmination of a process that started this time last year, with the unveiling of the dramatic Verve ‘concept’. Which, we now know, was actually the [...]

High-profit luxury cars are great business. Amazingly, sales can even increase in bad times as many are bought as chauffeur cars. That’s why BMW expects to sell 2,500 new 7-Series in a year. And we can’t see why not – the latest model is an exceptional car.
We’ve come away amazed after driving one of the [...]

Back in 2003 I was working for a well-known national motoring magazine. It was my first job writing about cars full-time and I loved it.
Well, when I say writing about cars, what I really mean was writing about the things that bolt on to cars. You see I was employed as the gadget geek, [...]

 
We all know of Mitsubishi’s off-roaders and mental Evo performance cars, but regular largish family cars? The Japanese company has not really been a big player in this sector before, despite the obvious mainstream appeal of the high performance Evo FQs (FQ standing for, well, ’something’-quick). 
Here’s the car the firm hopes will change all that. [...]

 
SUVs are taking a hammering in the trade, as you no doubt know – when was the last time you had an ounce of interest in some of your more affluent stock? The situation has changed so quickly, it really is alarming and that’s why we felt a little uneasy, taking delivery of the mighty [...]

Lotus Formula 1 made Ayrton Senna a hero by giving him a great chassis powered by a blinding Japanese engine. The company is now using its 26 UK dealers to offer similar sensations to car buyers, by applying the same philosophy to its road cars. Driver’s car? The Elise SC almost defines the term. 
This time, [...]

We’ve driven the future… and it’s three-pin plug-shaped! In years to come, supercar owners won’t be zooming to the filling station, hob-knobbing with the hoi polloi as they sink yet another £150 of super unleaded into a bottomless tank.

They’ll be molly-coddling it in their garages, polishing and cosseting it like a baby – [...]

Motorsport is a Porsche obsession. We’re not talking Formula 1 here, either. No, what keeps the Stuttgart engineers busy is racing their beloved 911 road cars by turning them into race-track world-beaters. And the very pinnacle of their engineering nous is this – the mighty 911 GT2.
 
To fans of the pure, delightful GT3 RS, it [...]

Remember the Maverick? Didn’t think so. Not many people do. The Ford 4×4 was introduced in 1997 and binned not many years after that. Problem was most buyers looking for a mid-sized SUV went for a Freelander instead and that pretty much killed the Ford.
 
That’s why the maker carried out far more taste tests with [...]

The new football season is upon us, which means one thing – boom time for Bentley dealers, says Richard Aucock
 
THERE’S a new rumble starting to bellow through Hull, West Brom and Stoke. That of, ooh, 16 W12 engines being given their head. Why’s that? Well isn’t that obvious? Their respective football teams were all promoted to [...]

If any car didn’t need a performance upgrade it was the Corsa VXR. But it’s got one anyway. Richard Aucock finds out what’s new…
 

ONCE the lubricants had warmed through, I did as instructed – not change gear until I met the rev limiter. Until then, the Corsa VXR had been, frankly, pretty surprising. The standard [...]

AFTER years of BMW’s X3 soaking up all the sales in a sector it invented, finally Audi’s here with a premium compact SUV rival, but is it really the right time to be launching another SUV? Well, Audi certainly thinks so. This is a sector manufacturers have eyes on for success in the future. They [...]

It’s a motor show with a difference. The annual SMMT test day, which we mentioned in last month’s issue, is a chance for hundreds of journalists to sample a host of car manufacturers’ wares in one place. Held at the amazing Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, the Vauxhall-owned test facility has a maze of challenging [...]

THE Focus ST has been treated to a facelift for 2008, gaining the nearly-all-new body restyle of other Focus models, plus an interior makeover that improves perceived quality. They haven’t messed with the fantastic high-backed Recaros, though. 
 
They are still a bit high, but clamp you firmly in front of a well-packed, better-quality dash still featuring, joy, [...]

So, this is the ‘new’ 911 then, eh? Doesn’t look very new does it? Well, squint a bit harder. You may spot the fog lamps have disappeared at the front, replaced by LED driving lamps. Oh, and aren’t the air intakes bigger? Those rear lights, they’re new too, aren’t they? Those wheels and some of [...]

REMEMBER when BMW launched the X5? Most people thought they were mad, then tried not to watch as the 4×4 sailed up the sales charts. So, when rumours started surfacing that the men from Munich were working on a seriously sporty 4×4, this time those same people took them a little more seriously. 
 
The X6 is [...]

Eighth gear clicks into place and the acceleration is unrelenting. The noise from the 5.0-litre V8 is penetrating the cabin through the floor, shaking my kidneys as the speedo climbs past the 100mph mark. And I can’t quite believe I’m in a Lexus. This IS-F is good. Very good.
 
The revs are still rising as the [...]

The battle for the hot hatch crown just got interesting with the arrival of the Astra VXR Nurburgring. Duncan Chappell samples the newcomer

If you’re anything like me, these pictures will be giving you flashbacks of car tuning mags, 90s Brit pop and some misspent teenage hours whiling away hours pricing up performance upgrades. Ok, so [...]

It was in Knightsbridge (as if it could be anywhere else), where I saw my first Phantom. Sat parked up outside a Costa coffee shop in a bus lane, I couldn’t help but stop and stare. The good ship HMS Rolls-Royce, berthed next to a lamppost, might have been illegally parked, but not even the [...]

Luxury saloons are more common than you’d think. Take a short drive and make a mental note of how many S-Class and 7-Series models you come across. It sometimes feels like we’re up to our necks in them – have the wealthy really got no imagination? 
 
The appallingly rich don’t seem to get it at all; [...]

IMAGINE opening a garage door and finding inside a line-up including the Bentley GT Speed, Ferrari 599, Pagani Zonda F, Lamborghini Mucielago, and that F1-inspired quart-million pound device the Mercedes SLR. You would know this was supercar land – but would you then park among those desirables an Audi estate?
 
Well you would if you were [...]

IN our latest Cult Cars feature we take a look at why the Lamborghini Gallardo has earned its place in the motoring hall of fame. James Baggott reports.
 
Lamborghini’s Gallardo may look like a wedge of cheddar, but that doesn’t stop every man and boy with a slight trickle of petrol in their veins wanting one [...]

WHEN I was 10 my best mate Joe Jacobs collected model cars. And I was jealous. Not because he collected them – I had loads myself – it was because he had a niche: he’d only have Lamborghinis. Unless it had a raging bull on the front of it, Joe wasn’t interested. 
 
And he knew everything [...]

QUITE why the sheer brilliance of the Audi R8 took the world by such surprise is a mystery. We should have saw it coming. For years the four-ringed marque had been steadily clawing its way up the corporate car park, stealing sales from German rivals Mercedes and BMW.

Then, last year, they hit us with the [...]