If you are looking for investment grade automobiles, Dana Mecum and Company have a knack for finding irreplaceable cars. It took many years to find the first production Ford Mustang, and the convertible now resides in the Henry Ford Museum. But the first coupe (VIN 002) was among the 121,000+ cars built in the first year, making the search like a needle in a haystack. Ford knew they had a hit on their hands, so the first cars were rushed to dealers. April 17, 1964, was the public unveiling at the World’s Fair in New York, so Ford’s top dealers needed to have a showroom example to land the first orders.
As we’re well aware, mistakes happen when shipping cars, so instead of going to a domestic dealership, the first Mustang coupe was banished to the Arctic cold of Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. Since the Mustang was based on the lowly Falcon, many early cars used many of the same parts. Under the hood was a 170 ci straight six engine backed by a three-speed manual. Drum brakes at all corners are hidden by the massive 13″ wheels, but that is how the base model Mustang was able to offer decent performance at a bargain price. We wish Ford would make A/C and power windows optional again. Remember when cars were light and fun?
If you need a new centerpiece for your stable, this Caspian Blue coupe will be the main event of Mecum’s 30th Anniversary Auction. Taking place May 16-21st, the Indiana State Fairground will see many classics find new owners.
TECHART has just launched a new model based on the Porsche Panamera, the new GrandGT. The tuning company went ahead and gave the four-door Porsche new exterior and interior components.
On the outside is a list of components that increase the car’s width by 50 mm in the front and 80 mm in the rear. The components include side skirts, wheel arches, engine lid, front apron, rear diffuser, tailgate, and spoiler. Joining these new components are wide 22-inch TECHART alloy wheels with tires sized 285/30 ZR 22 at the front and 335/25 ZR 22 at the rear.
Inside the GrandGT is a custom-made interior that is created according to each customer. Fine leather, Alcantara and carbon fiber can be used throughout the car’s interior, giving the cabin a refined and personal touch. Customers can also get the TECHART Type-7 sports steering wheel, paddle shifter trim, illuminated door entry guards, aluminum sport pedals and much more.
TECHART will be releasing powerkits and exhaust systems for the GrandGT later this year. To learn more, visit TECHART.de.
IT’S TEMPTING to describe the Skoda Octavia as the no frills option of the mid-size hatchback world. Like a loaf of white sliced Everyday Value bread from Tesco, it’s not especially exciting but you know it offers a predictable blend of affordability and practicality. That’s why more than two thirds of Octavia sales go to company car fleets, rather than private buyers. It’s a car for the head rather than the heart.
Yet, with the new Octavia, updated for 2017 rather than redesigned from the ground up, Skoda has added a number of eye-catching tech features that may appeal to more than just an accountant’s bottom line.
All Octavias, for example, now include elegant glass-fronted touchscreen infotainment systems that react to finger gestures, not just pressure. Three screen sizes are available, from the 8-inch Bolero and Amundsen versions (the latter offering sat nav and a WiFi hotspot) to the whopping 9.2-inch Columbus system, which includes a 64Gb hard drive and DVD player.
The larger of the two touchscreens is impressive in its clarity and visual impact. It’s a huge, gleaming slab in the centre of the dashboard. But we found the smaller screen almost as arresting but easier to operate, with added menu buttons down the right-hand side of the screen, and it comes with all the features a gadget-lover could want.
Then there’s an optional inductive charging plate for compatible smartphones, a 575-watt Canton stereo and a host of driver assistance tools including a pedestrian detection system that will slam on the brakes if a smombie steps out in front of the car, and Trailer Assist, which steers for you while reversing a (you guessed it) trailer.
Skoda’s engineers seem to have got a little carried away with innovative little tweaks to the new Octavia, in fact, evidenced by a new central cup holder that is designed to grip the base of fizzy drink bottles, allowing you to screw on or unscrew the cap with one hand. Hopefully whoever came up with that idea was given the rest of the week off.
Unusually for a mid-life facelift, the updates go beyond new gadgets and styling tweaks (a wider grille, redesigned light clusters, all-LED headlights, etc.); the rear wheels have been shifted further apart (20mm or 30mm, depending on the engine choice) in an attempt to give the car a wider, more planted feel on the road.
Over a two-day test we covered hundreds of miles through England and Wales, in four variants of the new Octavia hatchback, and found all to be satisfyingly good fun to drive. We were impressed with the composed chassis of the Octavia when it was launched in 2013, with its ability to ride uneven British roads without any nasty vibrations and shudder, and the wider back end on the 2017 model only helps with stability. We were able to make rapid, confident progress through the twists and turns of the Brecon Beacons.
Skoda introduced Dynamic Chassis Control as an option for Octavias last year, which automatically adjusts the suspension via electrically-operated valves to suit road conditions and driving style. You can select Comfort, Normal or Sport mode, and each makes a marked difference to the way the car feels to drive, although in all honesty we preferred the basic (passive) suspension system in almost every situation.
Another option is the Drive Mode select, which allows you to fine tune the engine response, steering weight and gearbox, but again, a basic set-up is all that you’ll need in the Octavia.
Likewise, going for the optional larger, more attractive wheels is a waste of time. The first car we drove was shod with large, 18-inch alloy wheels, meaning you get thinner (low profile) tyres — what Jeremy Clarkson calls “painted-on” — and, while they helped the car round corners with less body roll, we found the ride to be too harsh, with plenty of road noise adding to the problem.
The mix of colours in the cabin is about as aesthetically compelling as a goth’s wardrobe
Stepping into a model with 16-inch rims, and therefore deeper, more pliant tyres, transformed the ride and much of the harshness was eliminated. There was still a fair amount of noise into the cabin but a set of rubber aimed at reducing tyre noise could perhaps help here (there was a difference between the cars’ different makes of tyre on our media drive).
Whatever, the Octavia isn’t as well insulated for sound as the likes of a Golf, from sister company VW, which uses the same underpinnings, or the Audi A4.
Worse than the noise from the tyres, though, was that from the wind around the driver and passenger windows. A motorway run makes an apparently calm day sound like you’re driving in a howling gale. We couldn’t trace the exact source of the boom but suspect it’s related to a combination of thin window glass and air flowing over the wing mirrors, which Audi spent two months working on when developing the A4. Clearly its engineers didn’t share their findings with their opposite numbers at Skoda.
Another disappointment was that, while the build quality of the cars is top notch, Skodas inevitably suffer from having to slot into the brand’s designated place in the VW family hierarchy. They must appear to be a step down in style from Volkswagens, and two down from Audis, and so the choice of materials and colours used in the cabin is rather uninspiring.
The most striking feature, found in the SE L trim car, was brushed aluminium-effect panel in the driver and passenger doors. The dashboard could have benefitted from running this trim element from the doors, across its full width. As it is, you get soft black plastic on top, softer black rubbery plastic underneath and hard black plastic under that, for the glovebox and the like. It’s about as aesthetically compelling as a goth’s wardrobe.
The good news is that the Octavia’s long wheelbase (distance between the front and rear axles) means space inside is excellent, and the estate version offers a cavernous load area. This is despite being 3mm shorter than the hatchback, oddly.
There’s even better news under the bonnet, where you get a choice of three petrol or three diesel engines. The 1.4-litre 150PS turbocharged petrol is a strong motor with plenty of poke at exceptionally low revs and can reach 62mph from a standing start in 8.1 seconds, which is pretty good considering it only pumps out 114g/km of CO2 (low for a petrol engine) and averaged around 41mpg during our time with it.
Only 5% of sales will go to the little 1-litre 3-cylinder petrol, which was introduced in 2016, but it turned out to be our favourite engine. It’s a peppy little thing with a wide power band and good amounts of go at low and medium speeds. Sadly, if you need to engage afterburners to overtake at 60mph, it runs out of breath, but it’s a good option for most situations and its puny size means less weight over the front wheels, which makes the nose of the car more responsive. Plus it’ll get at least 45mpg and save you in road tax, producing just 108g/km of CO2.
The diesels, meanwhile, offer further tax savings and better economy for motorway cruising, but attract a premium in price: the 115PS diesel is more than £2,000 dearer than the 115PS petrol.
And so we’re back to decisions of the head rather than the heart, and ultimately buying an Octavia still means you’ve run the numbers and know it makes sense on paper. Falling in love may happen, but don’t count on it.
THERE was a time, not as long ago as the company might like to admit, that Jaguar refused to stoop to the level of other manufacturers and sell cars with anything as common as a diesel engine.
Then someone woke up to the reason that car makers like Audi, BMW and Mercedes were selling ten times as many cars: they had diesel motors throughout their range.
The first Jaguar to burn heavy oil was the X-type, introduced in 2003 – 67 years after Mercedes put its 260 D on sale.
Today the company offers a wide range of diesel-powered cars as well as an SUV, the F-Pace. It’s the fastest-selling Jaguar of all time, the company says. And the variant most drivers buy is the 2.0d R-Sport AWD, seen here.
We can only assume all those owners are hard of hearing, because if our test car was anything to go by, this is one of the most unpleasant-sounding diesel engines on the road.
At low revs, the most appalling grumbling noise and vibration come up through the F-Pace’s aluminium structure, as though a washing machine on the spin cycle were underneath your seat. This engine bears comparison with one of the roughest of all time, the Ford 2-litre four-cylinder YB petrol unit that powered the thuggish Sierra and Escort Cosworth models.
At 70mph the diesel engine rattles the cabin, so you must decide: drive at about 60mph and arrive late everywhere you go or speed up to over 80mph and risk losing your licence
It might be possible to overlook the racket if it went away when you were cruising on main roads. Unfortunately, at 70mph the engine is turning over at 1700rpm, exactly the point at which it rattles the cabin. So you must decide: drive at 60mph and arrive late everywhere you go, or speed up to over 80mph and risk losing your licence.
And then there’s the performance — or, rather, the lack of it. Jaguar describes the F-Pace as a “luxury performance” car, but there is nothing about the driving experience that suggests you’ve paid for something a cut above the herd of other SUVs on the road.
It is said to take just under nine seconds to accelerate to 62mph, but someone was counting too slowly. The acceleration is brisk at first, because the engineers have cunningly made the first part of the throttle pedal’s movement trigger most of the engine’s power. As you push it further towards the floor, the diesel runs out of puff and feels as if it’s struggling to add every mile per hour.
What’s more, it returned an average of just 36mpg, well short of the claimed 53mpg, and the price of more than £40,000 (the manual and rear-wheel-drive versions scrape in just below) puts it in the higher, £450 annual vehicle tax band in years 2-6 of the car’s life.
The 2.0d’s shortcomings are a shame because the F-Pace could be a joy to drive. The all-wheel-drive system, while unnecessary in a car with this little performance, has been engineered to send 90% of its power to the back wheels in everyday driving, so the F-Pace feels agile. And it steers with a rare precision for this type of car, handling a winding road with some enthusiasm — although the Porsche Macan is still the SUV to beat.
With a smooth, quick-shifting eight-speed automatic gearbox, decent ride comfort, an elegant interior with a good driving position, top build quality and a well-designed infotainment system, this could have been a tempting package. It’s one of the best-looking SUVs, too.
Perhaps the secret is either to invest in a set of heavy-duty earplugs or to stretch to the smooth, powerful V6 diesel version. Better still, buy the Macan.
IF A PIECE of technology remains fundamentally unchanged for more than a century, it’s inevitable that one day it will be as perfect as it’s going to get. And so it was with the most recent BMW 530d.
Every tiny lesson and shuffle forward since Karl Benz took his invention for a spin round Germany in 1888 had been incorporated. And as a consequence, the world had arrived at what might fairly be described as “peak car”.
That thing offered an incredible blend of economy, refinement and power. It was comfortable, it handled beautifully, it was well made and easy to use and its astonishing good looks were tainted only by a deserved familiarity.
If I’d been in charge at BMW when that car was launched, I’d have asked everyone in the research and development department to go on holiday for ever because their work was done. The car, as an entity, had been perfected. And there were no more worlds to conquer.
However, the world doesn’t work like that. The world demands change. So BMW was forced to come up with a new model that would, somehow, have to be even better . To try to achieve this, in a car that’s still propelled down the road by the age old principle of suck, squeeze, bang, blow, BMW turned to its laptop department, instructing it to fit the new model with all the electronic whizz bangs that had been invented since the previous model was on the drawing board. Sounds good, yes?
But perhaps it isn’t. Many new cars — even my Golf — are capable of reading the road ahead and, for a few seconds, steering themselves. That’s great, unless you want to change lanes on the motorway. If you indicate first, then the system knows you’re doing it on purpose and shuts down, but if you don’t, and frankly there’s little point if traffic is light and you’re moving into the middle lane to overtake a lorry, then the system tries to stop you. In some cars, you get a gentle tug at the wheel, but in the 5-series, you get a wrench. And then you end up fighting your own car, which is undignified and annoying.
Turning this facility off means plunging into the car’s computer, which means you need to take your eyes off the road all the way from London to Swindon. But eventually you find the right sub-menu and then you’re free to change lanes without letting the car know first.
But this puts it in a bad mood, so when you cross the white lines, it shudders and shakes, and to do something about this, you have to put on your reading glasses and go back into the menus, which is dangerous because now the car won’t steer itself while you’re otherwise engaged.
Mind you, it also won’t crash into anything. Sensors are on hand to prevent you from getting within about 400 yards of the car in front, and if you break the speed limit, you are reminded on both the speedometer and the head-up display that you are on the wrong side of the law.
“The only way you can tell that the engine has diesel coursing through its veins is by driving halfway round the world and then noticing there’s still enough juice in the tank to get you home”
It’s weird. You are driving along, with the engine ticking over at about 1500rpm. You are well within the capabilities of the car and you are a sentient being. But the electronic systems are behaving like you’re armed with a sub-machinegun and you’ve just entered a shopping centre with a murderous look on your face.
It takes a while to turn all this stuff off and then you are left with a car that feels pretty much identical to the old 530d. The only way you can tell that the engine has diesel coursing through its veins is by driving halfway round the world and then noticing there’s still enough juice in the tank to get you home.
Every single thing in the cabin works as well as is possible and there’s so much space in the boot and the back that you’d have to be very fat indeed to need the bigger 7-series. Honestly, as a car — four wheels and a seat — it is impossible to fault. It’s lovely when you are going quickly, and quiet and relaxing when you aren’t. And it even has a party piece when you get to journey’s end because you can get out, push a button on the (enormous) key fob and the car will park itself.
You’d never actually do this, of course. In the same way that you wouldn’t board a plane with no pilot. You’d assume that while the electronics are capable of doing the task they’d been given, they’d go wrong, and then a human would need to be on hand to rescue the situation.
And that raises another interesting point. It’s a far nicer and more relaxing car to drive with all the electronic nannies turned off, but what if I were momentarily distracted by something Jeremy Corbyn had said on the radio? Or if I’d dropped my lighter down the side of the seat? And the car crashed. And killed someone.
It’s a moral maze. Do you put up with the constant interference and nagging just in case? Or do you disconnect everything and have a nicer time while hoping for the best? And does having the choice make this an even better car than its predecessor?
Or is it morally reckless to turn off all the systems that could save a child’s life? Surely, you should leave them on. In which case, why would you need a car that handles so sweetly and can do 155mph? When you think about it for a while, your head starts to hurt.
So let’s move on. It’s not as masculine to look at as the old model. It looks less solid, less robust, more feminine. That’s probably a good thing.
I don’t doubt that it will be easier and therefore cheaper to make than its predecessor. And that’s definitely a good thing because savings on the production line mean greater profits for BMW, which is good for the German economy. And what’s good for the German economy is good for the economies of Greece, Italy and Portugal as well. Put simply, big profits on a 5-series mean fewer riots in Athens.
And of course, if more people buy a car like this — a car that forces you to indicate before moving, and obey the speed limits and not tailgate; well, that has to mean fewer fatalities.
So this is a car that hasn’t moved the car itself along one jot. But it has raised the bar nevertheless because it’s something you buy for the benefit of other people. That’s an idea that’s never really been tried before.
Write to us atdriving@sunday-times.co.uk, or Driving, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
THE NEWS is bad for diesel cars but you wouldn’t think so from the numbers in showrooms. That’s because car makers plan new models at least five years in advance, so when regulations suddenly change, they have no choice but to put their fingers in their ears and whistle. Today, makers that have invested in diesel are pretending not to notice looming extra costs for drivers, such as emission charges and higher parking fees.
A pleasant surprise, then, to drive a new petrol machine that runs rings around its diesel counterparts yet costs no more to run. The Mazda CX-5 is a medium-sized sports utility vehicle, similar in size to Volkswagen’s Tiguan or Ford’s Kuga.
It’s available with the same frugal engine as the 2-litre MX-5 sports car, giving it a similar zesty feel. And like the MX-5, it doesn’t get too distracted by electronic aids. You get in, start it and it goes without bings, bongs or warning lights.
You suddenly remember the fun of driving a petrol car with a manual gearbox. We’ve been soft-soaped about diesels for so long (kinder to your pocket and the planet) we’ve forgotten why we hated them; not just because they were rattly and smoky, but because they don’t respond to the demands of the driver. Accelerate hard, and the engine goes flat because of the sluggishness of turbochargers.
Driving a car with a peppy petrol engine is different, like listening to your favourite LP on vinyl and rediscovering the top notes. On a road such as the one where I tested the CX-5 near Siena, Italy, you can sling-shot between bends.
Given how good this car is, you’d think Mazda would encourage people to buy petrol power so it can steal a march on rivals. But no, Mazda will import only a limited number of petrol models into Britain. Four-fifths of the cars will be diesel, responding to demand, it says. The trouble is, no matter how often car makers tell us diesel is still best, the fact that they’re selling increasingly efficient petrol engines to America, with tighter emissions rules than Europe, means we’re no longer sure we believe them.
I’M SURE you will have noticed, people have started wearing trousers that are deliberately torn across both knees. Does this mean that the Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes has jumped on the bandwagon and is selling suits with raggedy holes in the legs?
No. It won’t have even crossed the tailors’ minds. They have spent hundreds of years developing and nurturing their reputation and they know it would be unwise to throw it all away in the pursuit of a fast buck.
People should stick to what they know. You don’t find Mary Berry making programmes about motorcycle maintenance or Vin Diesel playing Hamlet. But in the world of car manufacturing, things are different.
There’s a fad at the moment for SUVs, and, rather than sit around saying, “That’s not what we do”, Aston Martin, Porsche, Bentley, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo and Lamborghini have all taken leave of their senses and thought, “We’ll have some of that, thank you very much.”
Lamborghini, I admit, has dabbled in this area before, with the fearsome LM002. Powered by the V12 from a Countach, it was a gigantic and hilarious monster. I tried to drive one once and it didn’t go well because the gearbox was jammed in second. I sat in the back seat pushing the lever with my legs, while a burly chap sat on the dash using all his strength to pull it. Eventually, it gave in with an almighty crack and the burly man’s arse shot through the windscreen. I laughed about that for six years.
I suspect the LM002 wasn’t really built as a serious attempt to move in on the pre-Hummer military, and was just a gift from the network of Italian power to Colonel Gadaffi, who, it’s said, loved it.
Lamborghini can probably get away with an SUV today. Because we know it started out as a tractor maker and all its cars have always had a certain He-Man appeal. They’re built for doing 9mph in Knightsbridge, not 90 round the Nürburgring.
But Aston? Jaguar? Alfa Romeo? Bentley? Companies such as these making SUVs really is as odd as McDonald’s launching a watercress and kale smoothie. And that’s before we get to Maserati.
Maserati made its name in the 1950s on the grand prix circuit, and then nailed its colours to the mast in the 1960s with an impossibly beautiful succession of exotic cars that were named after the world’s winds. This is a company, then, that has no place making a jumped-up Land Rover. But that’s exactly what it has done.
“[Maserati] called a meeting and very obviously said, ‘Right. Let’s do this for as little as possible.'”
The car in question is called the Levante, which sounds as though it ought to be some kind of soap for the sort of man who enjoys personal grooming.
Now. Had Maserati called a meeting to decide what this car should be like and decided it would go all-out to emphasise the “S” in SUV, then it might have stood a chance. Alternatively, it could have decided to make it the last word in luxury, a car that would make the Bentley Bentayga look like a toddler’s pushchair. And that might have worked too.
But instead it called a meeting and very obviously said, “Right. Let’s do this for as little as possible.”
I’ll start with its clock. For as long as I can remember, Maseratis have been fitted with an elegant, oval timepiece, the sort of thing you would expect to see David Beckham advertising at Heathrow’s terminal 5. Even when Maserati was basically bankrupt and making the Biturbo, it never stooped so low as to go down the Casio digital route.
In the Levante, however, you get an ordinary circular plastic clock mounted in a plastic oval. You look at it and think, “Well, if they’ve cut corners there, where else have the accountants been making merry with the sandpaper?”
An answer becomes obvious when you fire up the engine. In time there will be a V6 that runs on petrol, but your only option in the UK now is a diesel. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it were a modern diesel fitted with all the latest whizzbangs and gizmos to make it quiet and refined and torquey. But instead Maserati has fitted a single-turbo engine that happened to be available. And it’s just not good enough in any area. It’s not particularly quiet or powerful or economical or clean. It’s just a tool that does a job, and in a 50-grand Maserati, that’s nowhere near good enough.
Then you move off, and immediately the whole car has hysterics. It’s so big and so wide, its impact warning sensors are constantly convinced you’re going to have a crash. Even when you are in slow-moving traffic on the A4 coming into London, it’s screeching and squealing about the proximity of the barrier to your right and the bus to your left.
When you’re parking, it goes berserk, insisting you stop reversing when there’s enough space between you and the car behind to build a £7m house.
There’s another problem with the Levante’s size. It doesn’t translate into actual interior space. The boot isn’t that big, the back isn’t really big enough for three adults and in the front you feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. And deaf, because it’s just seen a tree that you are definitely going to hit.
You may imagine, of course, that all these quibbles melt away when you leave the city and find yourself a nice piece of open road.
Nope. Like all purists, I was delighted when I heard the Levante wouldn’t just be a leather-lined Jeep — Chrysler, which makes Jeeps, and Maserati both belong to Fiat — but instead would be a Ghibli on air-sprung stilts. But this isn’t much better, really, because the Ghibli is actually based on the old Chrysler 300C. Which in turn was based on the Mercedes E-class taxi from about 30 years ago. So the Levante is basically a taxi with a crap clock.
You see evidence of the parts-bin mentality all over the interior. Yes, there’s a lot of leather, and that’s nice, but many of the buttons are lifted straight from the old Yank tank.
There are many, many people of my age who would dearly love to own a Maserati. Lying in bed at night, knowing that you had one in your garage, would make you all warm and gooey. But not the Levante. It doesn’t look or feel or drive like the image you have in your head.
And, to make things worse, it doesn’t even feel or look or drive as well as its rivals. To put it simply, BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Land Rover can offer you something better. Much better.
I’m willing to bet that the new Alfa Romeo Stelvio is better as well. Even though that’s another car from the Fiat stable that shouldn’t have been made in the first place.
Head to head: Maserati Levante v Porsche Cayenne
Maserati Levante 3.0 V6 Diesel
Porsche Cayenne Diesel
Price
£53,335
£53,875
Fuel
39.2mpg
41.5mpg
CO2
189g/km
179g/km
Power
271bhp
258bhp
Torque
443 lb ft
428 lb ft
0-62mph
6.9sec
7.3sec
Top speed
142mph
137mph
Boot space
580 litre
618 litres
Write to us atdriving@sunday-times.co.uk, or Driving, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
TALK ABOUT timing. At what may be the peak of anti-diesel sentiment, luxury car maker Bentley has chosen to introduce its first ever oil-burner. Is it a symbolic two fingers up at the environmentalists (and Westminster) from a company that services the 1% of the 1%; customers who apparently couldn’t give a fiddle about respiratory diseases as they waft around puffing away on large Montecristos?
Well, no, of course not. You may have noticed the term “peak anti-diesel”; we’ve had dieselgate, we know that diesel engines are far dirtier in the real world than current lab tests suggest and we’ve seen the headlines about diesel doubling the risk of dementia and air pollution causing 40,000 premature deaths a year. But even those reports recognise that the chief problem is related mostly to older cars with relatively primitive engines and exhaust systems. The dirtiest new diesel cars, it was suggested recently, are small, cheap cars such as the VW Polo, which “have less sophisticated emissions controls to save money and space”.
Whereas a Bentley can be fitted with all the bells and whistles mainly because the company’s patrons can afford them and its cars are as expansive as a royal residence. The Bentayga Diesel, which is, almost unbelievably, 9cm longer than the huge Audi Q7 and weighs 2.5 tonnes, is exceptionally clean, says Bentley.
Yes, 210 grams of CO2 per kilometre won’t beat almost any other new car on the road, but it is the lowest amount of CO2 produced by any model coming out of – and to have come out of – Bentley’s Crewe HQ. And it’s modestly better than a current Range Rover 4.4 SDV8 SVAutobiography LWB (219g/km).
And in terms of harmful diesel gases, the Bentayga uses a number of systems to reduce the impact on air quality, including selective catalytic reduction (an additive called AdBlue turns harmful nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrogen and oxygen), an exhaust gas recirculation system (with a cooler “for maximum NOx reduction”), and a “bypass valve” for rapid engine warm-up.
Why, then, does Bentley guard the official figures for NOx and particulate matter? It would not provide them to Driving, saying simply the Bentayga Diesel’s engine emits “very low levels” of both. According to independent estimates the diesel SUV emits 4g/km of NOx, and 0g/km of particulate matter, which is again less than the Range Rover (7g/km and 0g/km respectively).
Not convinced? Fair enough, diesel will never be 100% “clean”, but then, emissions reduction wasn’t Bentley’s primary reason for creating its first diesel. The point of the Bentayga Diesel is in part to enable its first SUV to cross continents without the need to fill up the tank every five minutes, as might be required with a car powered by the alternative W12 (12 cylinders in a W formation) petrol engine. Diesel is the king of miles per gallon, and we were impressed to see the Bentayga Diesel achieving 32mpg on long runs — not far off its official 35.8mpg figure. That dropped significantly in stop-start traffic, where the engine has to get the car’s bulk into motion, showing that it’s most at home on long, unimpeded runs. The official range per tank is 621 miles; enough to get you from Chelsea to Geneva without stopping.
Diesel offers another advantage that is an essential part of Bentley’s oeuvre: torque, or twisting force. Essentially, a diesel motor has more muscle, at lower revs, for low speed manoeuvring. And that is perfect for venturing off-road, of course.
The Bentayga Diesel uses the 4-litre V8 engine derived from sister company Audi’s SQ 7, which has an electrically driven supercharger in addition to two turbochargers making it what Bentley calls “triple-charged”. Woe betide anyone implying Bentley shares an Audi powertrain, though: Bentley says it does extensive work to the engine’s electronic control unit on top of pairing it with bespoke transmission and exhaust systems, changing its character completely.
What we can say is that, while the Bentyaga Diesel may have less power than its W12 petrol sister (429bhp v 600bhp), it has exactly the same torque figure: a meteoric 664 lb ft. By way of comparison, the flagship Range Rover diesel produces ‘just’ 546 lb ft.
This helps make the Bentayga Diesel extremely capable off the beaten track. Bentley used the Range Rover as its gold standard for mud-plugging prowess, and made damn sure its car was a match for it on the rough stuff.
Like almost every owner, we suspect, during our week with the car in the UK we dared not take it down rocky ravines or wading through deep fords unsupervised.
We also know, from our time with the 6-litre twin-turbo W12 version, that the petrol Bentayga’s electronic brain, ride-height-adjusting air suspension (powered by a 48-volt system that also drives the supercharger) and four-wheel drive mechanicals do indeed work wonders away from the black stuff. “Never again do you need to be stuck up a creek without a china dinner service,” concluded Giles Smith.
Despite all the traditional craftsmanship, the Bentayga is one of the most technologically advanced cars on the market today
Bentayga offers four off-road modes, in fact; for snow and ice, gravel, mud or sand dunes. It’s likely that a £135,800 (or £162,700 for the W12) Bentayga will sit side by side with a Range Rover in an owner’s car collection, and the reality will be that perhaps 1% of the 1% of the 1% may, at some point, take their car from Geneva to Chamonix and expect it to be able to drive up an Alp without breaking a sweat.
It should be able to tow with the best of them, too, given the Bentayga Diesel’s official towing capacity is 3,500kg (in four- and five-seat guises; Bentley says the seven seat version is not to be used for towing). But, with a wry smile, the Bentayga’s product line chief told us, “If you can afford a Bentayga, your boat’s too big to tow.”
The problem with a luxury brand using a diesel engine, of course, is refinement. A rattly old oil burner? Doesn’t sound very “luxury”. For that reason, a great deal of time was spent making it seem, from inside the cabin, at least, like a thoroughly un-diesel driving experience. From the noise, vibration and smoothness through the transmission, it’s genuinely not easy to tell whether you have a diesel or a petrol V8 under the bonnet. This is partly down to an electronic noise compensation system, which can be tuned to varying degrees of quiet. Open the window and it becomes obvious, but the sound is still not offensive; it purrs along.
For all the off-road potential, a Bentley still needs to have smooth, effortless performance on-road. The company found that those willing to buy a Bentley sports utility vehicle were far more interested in the sports side of the market, which has been owned by the Porsche Cayenne since its launch in 2003, than the utility side of things. So it made the Bentayga the fastest SUV in the world, with a 187mph top speed, and made sure the diesel version was the fastest of its kind, too: it can reach 168mph, and accelerate from 0-62mph in 4.8sec. Experiencing two-and-a-half-tonne lump accelerating as quickly as a Ford Focus RS hot hatch is a little mind-scrambling.
Yet there had to be no concessions to creature comforts either, so the company packed it with the usual wood veneers, which are cut, lacquered, sanded and polished in-house, as well as Nappa leather, hand-stitched by ladies in Crewe, too (sorry, folks, we didn’t see any men at the banks of sewing machines on our recent factory tour).
Despite all this traditional craftsmanship, the Bentayga is one of the most technologically advanced cars on the market today. The air suspension, for example, has to be not only unbelievably tough at a 3mph crawl but also sophisticated and powerful enough to deal with corners at 160mph. It must take every ounce of the 48-volt electrical brain to keep the thing from toppling over, yet not only does it manage it but the car feels level and nimble, even, through twists and turns. It feels heavy, yes, but the steering is precise and rewarding, while the levels of grip inspire confidence.
Then there are the gadgets: an 8in touchscreen infotainment system; full LED headlights with auto-dipping high beam; heated and cooled seats with six massage functions including “lumber”, “shoulder”, “stretch” and “wave”; an Apple Watch app that can control seats, entertainment and climate control; and a monstrously powerful (700w or even 1,950w with 18 speakers) Naim stereo.
The Touring Specification pack adds Bentley Safeguard Plus, which applies the brakes if it thinks you’re about to hit something, and Predictive Adaptive Cruise Control, which not only keeps you a set distance from the vehicle in front but also uses navigation data, sensors and cameras to predict upcoming corners, city boundaries and speed-limit changes, modifying speed accordingly. It also includes Electronic Night Vision, a system lifted from the Audi RS6 that uses infra-red technology to identify potential obstacles ahead.
There’s also the City Specification pack, which includes Traffic Sign Recognition, Park Assist (parallel and bay) and Rear Crossing Traffic Warning. And in the back, rear passengers can get the new Bentley Entertainment Tablet – a removable 10.2” Android device with 4G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.
In other words, despite the traditional craft and materials, the Bentayga is as high-tech as they come.
But then, with a base price of £135,800 and an options list that will make the average Joe weep (£11,735 for the Mulliner Driving Specification trim; £4,330 for City Specification; £6,195 for Touring specification; a Mulliner bespoke hamper for £22,000; a Breitling clock for — get ready — £105,000), you’d expect bells and whistles, not to mention cymbals, snare drums and the rest of the percussion section. For most of us, the Bentayga is but a dream; for those who can slot one into their already impressive fleet, it’s a must.
And for those who actually want to cross continents in one, the diesel option is a remarkably refined alternative that will mean fewer pesky trips to the filling station.
THE RIGHT-HAND-DRIVE Ford Mustang has been on sale in Britain for a little while now, but I’m still always a bit surprised when I see one bumbling down the street. However, I’m even more surprised when I don’t.
Every day, thousands of people take delivery of a new BMW or Audi or what have you, and I don’t doubt they’re very pleased. But the fact is that for a great deal less money they could have driven away in a Mustang. The American icon. Steve McQueen with numberplates.
The figures are remarkable because the Mustang costs less than two-thirds of what BMW charges for an M4. And it’s not like the Ford is equipped like a cave. It has rain-sensing this and dark-sensing that and electric everything and a system that lets you spin the rear wheels and make smoke while the front brakes are locked. And spin they will, because under the bonnet is a big, American 5-litre V8. It’s not the most sophisticated engine; often it feels as though it’s made from rock and powered by gravel, but it delivers the goods well enough.
When you drive the Mustang, you are left scratching your head and wondering: what’s going on here? Is BMW being a profiteering bastard, or is Ford paying its workers in beads? Because how can it possibly sell a 5-litre sports coupé for £36,000 when Jaguar — as another example — charges £90,000 for almost exactly the same thing?
Well, now we have the answer. Europe’s independent safety testing body recently gave the Mustang a two-star rating out of five, the lowest rating for any mainstream car it’s tested for nearly 10 years.
It found that people in the rear would slide under their seatbelts in a frontal impact, that the airbags inflated insufficiently and that it lacked the sort of sophisticated braking system fitted to even the Fiesta these days. What’s more, it noted that safety equipment available to American customers is not offered on this side of the pond. That, then, is why the all-singing, all-dancing, bells-and-whistles V8 Mustang costs so much less than any rival: it’s just not as safe. So I guess you got to ask yourself one question, punk. What do you want? A system that lets you do burnouts at the lights? Or a head?
On the face of it, the answer is simple. You want a head. You want the safest car you can buy. But do you?
I smoke and drink and jaywalk. I try to mend electrical equipment myself. I jump off cliffs without testing the depth of the water. I fire firework rockets horizontally across lakes, and at work I put myself in tricky spots to get a laugh out of the audience.
And I’m not unusual. Kids go to all sorts of stupid places on their gap years and do all sorts of stupid things. YouTube is full of people falling over on ski slopes and tripping over next to swimming pools. And have you met anyone who says, “No, let’s not build a swing over that river. Let’s go to the library instead because it’s safer”?
“Yes, it’s not going to look after you very well if you crash into a tree. So here’s an idea. Don’t crash into a tree”
Coming back to cars, the Ferrari F40 is not even on nodding terms with the concept of safety. It doesn’t have antilock braking or airbags. And it was designed at a time when any sort of accident was simply the starting point for your journey through the Pearly Gates. So obviously you’d rather have a Volvo V70. Except of course you wouldn’t.
Which brings me back to the Mustang. Yes, it’s not going to look after you very well if you crash into a tree. So here’s an idea. Don’t crash into a tree.
There are two ways this could be achieved with the Mustang. Either you could concentrate the mind by replacing its airbag with an enormous spike, or you could buy the version I’ve been testing.
It’s the £35,845 Mustang EcoBoost convertible, so called because, instead of a stone-age V8, it has a bang-up-to-date 2.3-litre turbocharged four-pot. Yes, that’s right. A four-cylinder Ford Focus engine … in a Mustang.
The figures aren’t as bad as you might expect. There are 313 horsepowers, for instance, and 319 torques. This means a top speed of 145mph and reasonably brisk acceleration. But not so brisk that you risk finding out first-hand what a two-star safety rating actually means.
What’s more, you get a rear-view camera as standard, dual-zone air-conditioning, the burnout facility, keyless entry, DAB radio, USB and Bluetooth connectivity, selectable driving modes and every other whizz-bang you can think of, all for £35,845. Or £3,500 less than that if you go for the coupé.
To drive, it feels like a Mustang. Obviously, you don’t have the Steve McQueen offbeat burble, but, if I’m honest, you don’t really get that in the V8 either. You do get, however, a deep bassy engine sound that suits the car well.
You also get several acres of bodywork. In America this is fine, but here, especially in a city, it can be annoying. Especially as the turning circle is woeful. After a short while, you start to look enviously at bus drivers as they zip about in their far more manoeuvrable vehicles.
But then you get out of the city and the Mustang does what it does best. It lopes along, eating up the miles without any fuss. And,of course, because there are only four cylinders, you should do twice as many miles to the gallon as you would had you gone for the V8.
Best of all, though, are the admiring glances. People like Mustangs. They smile at you and let you out of junctions. And that’s because we all know that behind the shouty noises, and bigness, it’s a gentle giant. A pussycat that thinks it’s a wild horse.
It really isn’t an out-and-out racer. It leans and it wobbles and it gets awfully wayward if you ask it to behave like a Porsche. But minding this is like buying a burger and then minding that it’s not a quail’s egg dipped in a pinch of celery salt. If you want a quail’s egg, you’ll need to spend twice as much.
The only real problem, as far as I can tell, is that while there’s not much in the way of exterior badging to say this is a 2.3-litre car, you always know. And a Mustang without a V8 is like a chicken korma. Yes, it’s less likely to crash, and, yes, it’s cheaper and more economical, which means it’s the more sensible option. But who buys a Mustang to be sensible? It’s a fun car, so you absolutely have to have it with the most fun engine.
Head to head: Ford Mustang v BMW 4-series
Ford Mustang Convertible 2.3 EcoBoost
BMW 420i M Sport cabriolet
Price
£35,845
£37,915
0-62mph
5.8sec
8.2sec
Top speed
145mph
143mph
Fuel
34.4mpg
42.8mpg
CO2
184g/km
153g/km
Boot space
332 litres
370 litres
Write to us at driving@sunday-times.co.uk, or Driving, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
IS THERE there anything more British than a Mini? Well, if I’m being pedantic, then, yes, there probably is: emotional insecurity, fear of public embarrassment, the bad teeth thing that Americans always go on about, the expectation of failure in any big sporting event.
Also, the Mini is now made by BMW — which I think stands for Bavarian Mini Workshop. So the Mini isn’t really British at all. It certainly used to be, back in the Sixties, when all of them had Union Jacks painted on the roof and were used for raiding banks in Turin, driving miniskirted Twiggys about and other high-spirited japes. But everything is different now. We don’t own anything any more. Foreigners have taken everything from us. Luckily Nigel Farage has been sent to save us. What could possibly go wrong? But I digress.
Back in the mists of time, when everything was still British, my parents used to have a blue Mini Clubman. This was a peculiar vehicle — a Mini with a pair of wood-trimmed back doors. I never understood the point. It seemed to have been designed for someone who wanted a Mini that looked as though it could transport stuff but had no room to do so. If I’m honest, it was a seriously rubbish car, and my parents eventually offered it to me as my first drive.
About a year ago I did a TV show called That’s So Last Century, in which I showed my son the sort of stuff I’d had when I was a child. It was mostly really bad toys, but, to jazz things up, the production team brought along an old Mini. I’d forgotten just how mini the Mini was — I could barely get into the thing. My son refused to believe it was a road-legal car and couldn’t stop laughing. More importantly, I couldn’t believe how tinny and fragile it seemed. It refused to start and had to be towed away. It’s a good job the Germans took over the brand.
The Mini Countryman that was delivered to my house recently was huge by comparison — it should hardly be called a Mini any more. It had the look of an old acquaintance that had piled on the pounds.
One of its little tricks is that the LED ring round the infotainment screen changes colour: red when you engage Sport mode, green for save-the-planet, blue for dullard. It’s a bit blatant, but the rest of the interior is rather gorgeous. The screen is fun to use, and the £1,345 Navigation System package includes real-time sat nav traffic information that looks almost trustworthy.
Once installed in the driving seat, you again get that feeling of bulk, heft … like the first time you look in the mirror after Christmas. This is not a Mini — this is a rotund bruiser spoiling for a fight after years of being looked down on by bigger cars.
For round one I decided to take a trip into the heart of neighbouring Clarkson country to buy an aubergine for £28 at the Daylesford farm shop. I briefly considered going the other way for once, towards Lily Allen land (Stroud), but Allen has recently relinquished her kingdom and returned to the big smoke. Besides, if you drove through the Free Trade Republic of Stroud in non-green mode, you’d get chased by a mob brandishing pitchforks. So I headed for the flatlands near Chipping Norton.
As I left my village and hit the winding lanes of the high Cotswolds plateau, I was a tad disappointed. I’d been up for some fun. I remembered borrowing a Mini Cooper hatchback from a colleague at the BBC about 10 years ago and taking it for a couple of days’ driving around Wales. I’d had the sensation of being in a go-kart. The Countryman, on the other hand, felt middle aged, bulked up. It lacked the essential spirit of the Mini. When I put it into Sport mode and tried to go for it, there was no enthusiasm. In fact, the engine sounded almost as if it were pretending to make sporty type noises. It was a bit like the annoying bloke in the ad who goes into his kitchen and makes percolator noises while fixing his date an instant coffee.
On the school run I got a few admiring glances. Some may even have been for the car
But I’m sure this new, revamped version of the Countryman will do well. This is a vehicle for Mini lovers who have grown up. I had two grumpy children in the back and they had plenty of room for their clobber — hockey sticks, books, bags, paraphernalia from God knows where. I took the opportunity at Daylesford to empty all my kids’ junk into the rubbish bin. Even the bins there feel as though they are intended for stylish, organic rubbish, so I felt a touch guilty desecrating them. I imagine an employee dressed as a holistic mime artist lifting empty pop bottles at arm’s length with a look of exaggerated horror.
Later I drove into Cheltenham to do the school-run test. I got a few admiring glances. Some may even have been for the car. Two mothers asked me what it was like to drive, because they had a Countryman on order. I told them it was fine. What else could I say? If you want an SUV, get an SUV. This vehicle is in competition with the hard-to-define Nissan Juke. There is nothing particularly wrong with it — it’s a solid bit of kit and ticks a lot of boxes. It just lacks that British joie de vivre.
