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Motors
Model Y deserves huge sales figures
I tend to shy away from manufacturers’ obsequious press releases when they land in my inbox.
There’s seemingly an award for everything these days, whether it’s safety-related or to do with customers’ satisfaction but, on the whole, the gushing praise means my brain switches off after about five seconds.
They’re always so biased but one was emailed to me earlier this year which made me read further, and it was to do with...
911 GT3 builds on its decades-old reputation
IT’S amazing how quickly the Yorkshire Dales’ flora bursts into its springtime hue - lush greenery seemingly sparks into life after months of slumber when the sun finally makes its long-awaited return - while blankets of wild garlic smother Swaledale’s downright gorgeous valleys, filling the air with a sweet-smelling aroma as you navigate through its tree-lined routes.
The tarmac warms, instantly setting the perfect stage for a memorable, life-changing drive. Having headed a
Kia's life-changing pace leaves a lasting impression...
SOMEONE at this newspaper once thought it was wise to buy a Kia Rio in about 2012 for reporters to use in their respective patches. It was a truly terrible thing to look at, drive and use and if you’d have told me that the same manufacturer would release something with almost 600bhp a decade or so later, I simply wouldn’t have believed you.
What a turnaround it’s been for Kia. They are rapidly...
Nissan's new EV is a sure-fire winner
MANUFACTURERS - in their quest to appease the world’s governments’ unquenchable thirst for lower emissions - tend to take an existing, traditionally-powered model and turn it into an EV.
Just about everyone’s done it and to be fair to them, they’re pretty decent cracks, too: all-electric Golfs, Minis and so on and so forth have all become some of the most popular EVs on the market.
However, there hasn’t been many ground-up EVs,...
Manual gearbox transforms the Supra
ON first glance, the ‘new’ Toyota Supra is a much-changed proposition from what it was when I was a youngster in the mid-1990s. Back then it was all about twice-or-thrice-the-original-power modifications, quarter-mile drag times and beating Nissan Skylines.
Again, on first glance, it appears much more mild: it shares its platform with the underwhelming BMW Z4, has an eight-speed automatic gearbox and while it’s undeniably low slung and rear-wheel drive, its exotic looks coul
All-electric UX takes on Tesla’s dominance
OUR government’s unquenchable thirst to reduce emissions is happening at an alarming pace and manufacturers are doing all they can to meet that requirement. While bans on internal combustion engines are on the horizon, if you can’t be bothered with plug-ins and want an economical, kind-to-the-environment car in the meantime, Lexus has the market pretty much covered with its hybrid line-up.
However the marque - synonymous with technology and a real front-runner in producing...
Limited-run Type R is an all-time great
IF I picked the perfect ingredients for a countryside drive the car would - 100 times out of 100 - be a hot hatch. Their uncanny knack of fitting tight, twisty roads like a glove mean you’re not worrying about grazing an eye-wateringly expensive, low-slung carbon splitter and you can instead concentrate on why the car of choice was created: the thrill of driving something built purely for enthusiasts.
There’s been many stand-out, pumped-up...
New Supra worthy of its name
WHEN I was a youngster - no older than 12 - my mate’s dad had a highly-modified Toyota Supra. It was absolutely the car’s fault for starting my obsession with Japanese cars.
Having been a twin-turbo A80 version - arguably the most famous Supra of all from the mid-90s - it was converted, like many, to a single-turbo unit and, if memory serves right, was running a north of 600bhp.
I remember the...
New Juke's set for sales success
REMEMBER a time when families only had the option of choosing between humble hatchbacks, a saloon or its estate version?
The motoring world’s a very different place in 2022 and just about every manufacturer has branched out into the complex world of MPVs and SUVs.
You’ve got large ones, middling ones and smaller ones - no matter what your budget is, there’s something for everyone.
Take Nissan, for example, a marque that’s...
Rally-ready GR Yaris is an all-time great...
EXCITEMENT levels always ramp up when eagerly anticipated cars are released after months of spy shots and the subsequent glossy magazine splashes.
Usually the furore - heightened by cars wearing camouflage taken on the Nurburgring, then the following media coverage - is reserved for exotic manufacturers: new Ferraris, GT-badged Porsches and road-going Lamborghini racers dripping with carbon fibre always register column inches.
But hot hatches - special ones in particular - never fail to strike
Eighth-generation GTI is the perfect daily driver
There’s always a tiny bit of trepidation when an all-new version of a motoring icon is released.
Volkswagen’s indomitable Golf GTI is unquestionably royalty, formed over more than 40 years of providing pace, practicality and supreme quality.
Although there's been some low points during previous decades, the eighth-generation GTI looks, on paper at least, set to re-write past cars' wrongs.
To be fair, VW’s been on a role since the woeful mark...
C-HR steals Qashqai's class-leading crown
IF you’re not into cars, I can all but guarantee you’ll have seen a handsome-looking thing gliding around. Angled lines, extremely futuristic, albeit with a familiar Toyota badge on its front and rear.
It’s called the C-HR and it’s their crack at the competitive family SUV sector, which in recent years has been dominated by the good-but-dull Nissan Qashqai.
Based on the Prius platform and sharing its 1.8-litre hybrid engine in this test...
Grimethorpe tuning company's two creations to be raffled
As someone who’s always been an OEM-plus kind of bloke when it comes to cars, you’d perhaps think an assignment to drive two heavily modified superminis would fail to ignite my excitement.
My car modifying history is as follows: Supersprint, Milltek and KTEC exhausts on my S2 106 Rallye, Clio Trophy and Megane R26 respectively, and a nice remap on the latter to unlock a bit more power. That’s it.
When I look...
RS5 is one of the great fast Audis
THE German-led battle in the world of family-friendly performance cars with supercar pace shows absolutely no signs of abating - and thank goodness it hasn’t.
For years we’ve been treated to many - BMW M3s, Audi RS4s and Mercedes C63 AMGs to name a few - but there’s always been a little gap in the market for those punters who just don’t really require as much space as an RS4-sized car affords them.
That’s where...
New Focus ST comes of age
ONE of the motoring world’s simple pleasures is attacking a tricky stretch of countryside road in a car that’s brimming with steering feel and involvement. If you enjoy driving and being an integral part of the process, little can beat the brilliance of doing such a thing in a hot hatch.
Key to the exercise, repeated countless times over the years, is the subject’s simplicity. Intrusive stability programmes are often dialled down or made redundant...
Entry-level F-Type impresses
THERE’S long been misconceptions attached to cars in the motoring world which, more often than not, have been formed by silly people who don’t really know what they’re talking about.
The Porsche Boxster, for example, is instantly dismissed and regarded as a ‘poor man’s 911’ which is utterly ludicrous when you hang on to that well-used riposte and analyse it. While normal people who have an ounce of sense know the Boxster is one of...
i30 N stakes its claim for the hot hatch crown
I’VE regularly voiced my opinions on manufacturers’ seemingly unquenchable thirst for honing their latest, greatest performance car on 12-and-a-bit miles of German track nestled in the Eifel mountains.
There’s a similar routine: an email will ping into a journalist’s inbox from a hyper-active PR officer containing a car’s lap time around the fabled Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit, like that somehow means it’s better than everything else… even though the majority of us will never
Enigmatic Cupra divides opinion
IT’S only normal to feel a tad apprehensive when a manufacturer’s performance arm announces it is becoming a standalone brand. Those initial apprehension levels grow somewhat when Cupra, whose engineers have been responsible for transforming dour Seats into some cracking cars, say they’re launching their new sporty venture with a mid-sized SUV, the Ateca.
If that decision’s a hard one to come to terms with, it’s a bit of a weird one to look at,...
Best-in-class Jag impresses
I’M a fickle person and if I had been given a Jaguar E-Pace to review before becoming a dad for the first time, I’d have scoffed and probably moaned about its lofty driving position and failed to see its point.
As someone who loves driving, preferably with a manual gearbox, an automatic SUV never really floated my boat until a little bundle of joy came into my life.
Your preferences change in the blink of...
Big Volvo injects excitement into Swedish marque's line-up
VOLVO is a manufacturer synonymous with family life - they’re practical, they’re spacious, they’re reliable and they’re very good at their job. Their owners, many of whom opt to stay loyal to the brand, will bleat on about their NCAP safety ratings, cavernous boots and rattle-free interiors but one thing they don’t tend to mention is how the ownership as a whole makes them feel.
That’s because they aren’t known as an exciting brand -...
