The Clarkson Review: Maserati Levante Diesel

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.

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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.

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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 at driving@sunday-times.co.uk, or Driving, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

The post The Clarkson Review: Maserati Levante Diesel appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson-review-maserati-levante/

Bentley Bentayga Diesel review (2017-on)

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.

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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.

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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 post Bentley Bentayga Diesel review (2017-on) appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/bentley-bentayga-diesel-review-2017/

The Clarkson Review: Ford Mustang 2.3 EcoBoost

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.

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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.

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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

 

Chad McQueen and Ford Mustang GT: faster than a speeding Bullitt (video)

The post The Clarkson Review: Ford Mustang 2.3 EcoBoost appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-ford-mustang-2-3-ecoboost/

The Dom Joly review: Mini Countryman Cooper SD ALL4

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.

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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.

Jeremy Clarkson is away

The post The Dom Joly review: Mini Countryman Cooper SD ALL4 appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/dom-joly-review-mini-countryman-cooper-sd-all4/

BMW 5-series review (2017-on)

IF YOU could only pick one car to drive every day for the rest of your life, the BMW 5 series would have be at the top of the list, elbowing the Volkswagen Golf aside. It continually sets the benchmark that rival car makers find themselves breathlessly trying to keep pace with.

Each time the German engineers wheel out a new generation of 5, they take a step back, hand over the keys and give one another the briefest of knowing looks. They know they’ve done it again, and built one of the best cars on the road. But it would be vulgar and most unlike German engineers to boast of their achievements.

You won’t find them putting the boot in to the Audi A6, dissing the Jaguar XF, damning the Mercedes E-Class with faint praise, or scoffing at outside contenders like the new Volvo S90. Instead, they let the car do the talking.

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And so it is with the seventh generation 5-series. No fanfare; no celebrity endorsements; and no Jaguar-style PR stunts with cars crossing the Thames on a high-wire. Just the car, and the key.

Except, it’s not a key. Not in the traditional sense of a piece of steel that slots into a lock barrel. It’s a smart-key, which means it’s a clunky version of a pocket-size tablet that can be used to open and close the doors from, say, your office desk, check the fuel level and remaining driving range, sound the horn in a crowded car park or switch on the climate control.

However, it’s a £195 option on our test car, the big-selling 520d M Sport, which costs from £39,025. In fact, a lot of things are optional on the new BMW 5-series. And with just a handful of extras added, the car’s price will be on the wrong side of £40,000, which means that from the car’s second year of age until its sixth year the annual road tax bill will be £450, instead of the flat-rate of £140.

The 5-series, like many new cars, suffers from the modern malaise of technology for technology’s sake

Drivers could spend a frightening sum of money on extras for this latest 5-series. But given most will be company cars, you’d have a seriously unhappy fleet manager if you got carried away adding a Bowers & Wilkins audio unit, head-up display, climate control with four zones, driving mode configurator, adaptive suspension dampers or a ‘stop and go’ cruise control system. That little lot alone would bump up the price by £9,640.

And, frankly, some of the options on the latest 5-series are a waste of time. Like the aforementioned smart key (BMW calls it a Display Key, and it costs £195), which — like the majority of apps on your smartphone — is a gimmick you’ll use once then never again. Or gesture control, a £160 option that’s meant to let drivers or the front seat passenger twiddle their fingers to control things like the audio system. It only had a one-in-five success rate when we tried it – unlike the traditional steering wheel-mounted buttons, which work first time, every time, and let you keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

BMW offers bundle packs on the 5-series, such as the Technology Package, which are better value for money, but the truth is the 5-series, like many new cars, suffers from the modern malaise of technology for technology’s sake.

The interior of the seventh-generation 5-series is spacious, accommodating and the boot of the saloon is surprisingly long, with 530-litres of luggage space. BMW also appears to have worked hard at matching Audi and Mercedes for the tactile quality in the cabin.

The digital instruments change according to the driving mode, and there’s a wealth of interesting information to take in when using the Eco Pro setting, while a 10.5 inch touchscreen system dominates the dashboard.

The M Sport package on the 520d brings 18 inch alloy wheels, a smattering of M badging, a bodykit with gloss-black window trim and sporty steering wheel and pedals, amongst others. There’s also suspension that’s been lowered by 10mm and features different tuning to SE variants.

The finished effect attracted positive comments in the school car park, especially in its black paintwork. Mrs Mills thought it was an M3. This caused some consternation, as she wondered whether she’d become a victim of car-jacking.

Hidden beneath all this is a new aluminium chassis (which saves up to 100kg compared with the last car) and the familiar range of four-cylinder and six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, as well as a plug-in electric-petrol hybrid version in the 530e. Four-wheel-drive is available on the majority of models.

The backbone of the range, though, is the 520d. It delivers 187bhp, and 295Ib ft at 1750rpm, and the company says there’s the potential to achieve 65mpg, while CO2 emissions are rated at 114g/km. However, you won’t get anywhere near that sort of fuel economy. Despite testing it on a mixture of main roads, cross-country routes and in town, the best we achieved was 41mpg.

If you can muster enough performance to make the chassis work hard for a living, you’ll discover a machine that is poised and precise

That’s disappointing, given that its Eco Pro driving mode is so determined to save fuel that there are times that it prevents the eight-speed automatic gearbox shifting down a gear when you want to accelerate past a “Mamil” (Middle Aged Man In Lycra) before the next bend.

And generally, performance is docile. BMW says it will accelerate from 0-62mph in 7.5 seconds, but it never feels that swift, plodding along with just a faint thrum from the engine and smoothly executed gearshifts.

However, the level of comfort in this car is outstanding. Everything from the seats to the suspension to the steering feels like it was designed to soothe away the strains of a stressful day. If you wanted a car to drive from one side of Europe to the other, or just up and down the M1, this is your motor.

And if you can muster enough performance to make the chassis work hard for a living, you’ll discover a machine that is poised and precise. But if it’s a spirited drive you’re looking for, consider a 530d or 530i instead. The hot M5 will go on sale early next year. For more boot space, the Touring models are available now and the Gran Turismo, or GT, will reach showrooms this winter.

Since the 5-series was launched in 1972, more than 7.5m have been sold, and sales are actually accelerating. It’s easy to see why. It has always been the best car in its class, and judged on the latest generation model, that’s not about to change anytime soon.

The post BMW 5-series review (2017-on) appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/bmw-520d-m-sport-review-2017/

Mercedes-Benz E-class review (W213 model, 2016-on)

A RECENT trip to the Bentley factory in Crewe was illuminating. A workforce of around 4,000 includes roughly 500 skilled craftsmen and women — experts in working with wood and leather — all busily creating the finest handmade components for the interiors of the latest Bentaygas, Mulsannes, Flying Spurs and Continentals. The results, of course, are exquisite: Bentley owners are well aware that virtually everything they can see and touch in their car has been carefully put together by masters in their field, using only the finest materials. It looks special. It feels special.

But even Bentley’s master craftspeople probably look at the inside of the new Mercedes E-class and nod in approval. The German car’s interior is a jaw-dropping blend of technology and craft, all sumptuous curves and eye-catching details.

Mercedes is really on top form with its cabins right now; anyone climbing into a C-class would be impressed, yet with the larger E-class another leap has been made such that it’s not too far off that of the S-class. In the AMG-Line specification model we found a mix of leather upper dash, two large rectangular screens for infotainment and instruments (the central one being 12.3 inches in our car, or 8.4 inches as standard), and below that full-width contrast trim (“design piano lacquer” hard glossy plastic in the test car) with contour line effect design. This motif carries on into the doors and around Burmester stereo speakers.

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Then under that is a soft glow from a concealed LED strip. With its blend of minimalism and high tech, it’s one of the most striking interiors we’ve experienced. Given that those looking at the E-class may also be looking at the Tesla Model S, which may not use the finest materials or be put together by master craftsmen, but without question moved the game on in terms of clean, minimalist yet functional car interiors, Mercedes has managed to keep its premium executive car’s cabin feeling and looking like a class act. The Audi A6 and Jaguar XF are playing catch-up and even the new BMW 5-series doesn’t have such a wow factor.

The exterior is more conservative, as befits an executive car of this type, but it’s still an elegant design and a decent evolution of the outgoing E-class.

So the interior looks good, but does it work well? In a word, yes. The Comand infotainment system is clear and intuitive, with DAB radio, Bluetooth, sat nav and temperature controls all easy to find and change. There’s also the option to connect Apple Carplay or Android Auto. The touch sensitive steering wheel controls are effective and easy to use, or there’s the dial behind the cupholders and the touch sensitive pad above that, giving drivers three ways (excluding voice commands) to control the car’s functions.

Our AMG Line E 220 d also came with optional 360-degree cameras (reversing camera is standard), a split panoramic glass sunroof, keyless entry and start, and a Burmester stereo system.

It’s not all impressive stuff; a button labelled “Menu” amongst the climate control buttons, which seems to just bring up a picture of the cockpit, labelled climate control overview: we’re not really sure what to do with that.

And the AMG-Line seats can be adjusted in a million different ways but finding one that was comfortable for long stints at the wheel proved impossible. This isn’t a problem limited to Mercedes and it’s exacerbated by the fact that I’m an unnecessarily tall person. But it is often a source of bewilderment that a fixed racing seat made of a slither of carpet glued to a bit of carbon fibre can be supremely comfortable yet a hand-stitched leather job with extra padding, heating, cooling, massage and adjustments for lumber, shoulders and squab can make your right leg go to sleep and your lower back ache. Maybe it’s operator error; try out an E-class and see.

Having the passenger seat heating button on the driver’s side suggests customers told Mercedes, “My partner’s bottom must never touch a surface with a temperature below 20 degrees Celsius”

One innovation that we haven’t seen on any other car is buttons on the driver’s door for heating both fronts. Normally you’d find them in the centre console or touchscreen, or on the side of the seats themselves, but the significance of having the passenger seat heating button on the driver’s side suggests customers told Mercedes, “My partner’s bottom must never touch a surface with a temperature below 20 degrees Celsius, and I may find myself in a situation when I need to switch on the heated seats in an instant.” Problem solved.

Out on the road, our E-class proved predictably velvety. It may have been the AMG Line trim but that doesn’t mean it has suspension honed by in-house sports tuning company and the steel springs are heavily geared towards comfort rather than performance. As standard, the E 220 d comes with “Agility Control suspension with selective damping”, which is a system between basic “passive” springs/dampers and full fat Air Body Control adaptive suspension. We wouldn’t bother with it as whatever dynamic mode you select (eco, comfort, sport, sport+ and individual), the ride is always soft. It’s engineered that way for good reason: this is an E-class, designed to waft executives from London to Frankfurt in comfort.

This is a problem in Sport+ mode: while the engine goes into full psychopath mode – completely on edge, with millimetre adjustments in pressure on the pedal resulting in neck-snapping leaps forward – riding over a speed bump, the car wallows over the top and wants to scrape its nose on the ground on the other side.

There’s impressive safety tech as standard in the E 220 d: an active bonnet, to protect pedestrian in the event of a collision; active brake assist, knee airbags for the driver (on top of the usual all-round airbags); attention assist, which monitors tiredness; adaptive cruise control; and tyre pressure monitoring. There’s also parking pilot, to automatically park for you in bay or parallel spaces.

Our test car came with steering wheel-mounted paddles for the gears but as with Sport+ mode, it seems like overkill in the E 220 d when the excellent nine-speed automatic mode is able to predict which gear is required at any given time, almost as well as could any human.

The E 220 d  comes with a brand new 2-litre, 192bhp turbocharged diesel engine (also fitted in the E 200 d), which as suggested above is a powerful unit with nice smooth power delivery through the rev range. The red line comes at around 5,250rpm but peak torque is between 1,600rpm and 2,800rpm, so there’s plenty of tug low down in the rev range. Flooring the throttle will give you all the power you need but it’s best left in comfort mode for the most part, and given gentle treatment with the right foot.

Doing so will yield impressive performance and consumption: The E 220 d can do 0-62mph in a claimed 7.3sec and hit 149mph, yet the combined economy figure is 72.9mpg. We averaged slightly over 41mpg in the real world, which is good, nonetheless. CO2 is a low and tax friendly 112g/km.

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The E-class also measures how economically you drive, assigning scores for accelerator inputs, speed and balance, and told me I had achieved a 3.1-mile bonus over nine hours of driving. In the words of Alan Partridge: cashback.

At the top of the diesel range is a 3-litre V6, while for petrol fans there are the AMG-derived E 43, fitted with a 395bhp 3-litre V6, or the E 63 with a 4-litre V8, as found in the AMG GT, tuned to 563bhp or a whopping 603bhp. There’s also a 2-litre petrol hybrid.

Interestingly, the 2-litre diesel sounds a bit — how shall we say… industrial — from inside the cabin, at low speeds and accelerating, especially. It’s odd, as the noise from the tyres and wind is well suppressed, suggesting that the sound insulation is more effective in the doors and floorpan than through the engine firewall.

Bentley needn’t worry about that, then. But with the E-class’s elegant exterior, technical sophistication and an interior that gives the best in the world a run for their money, some will see the W213 Mercedes, priced from a shade over £35,000, as the bargain of the century, even if you can get the entry-level BMW 5-series for more than £3,000 less.

 

The post Mercedes-Benz E-class review (W213 model, 2016-on) appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/mercedes-benz-e-class-review-w213-model-2016/

First Drive review: Bugatti Chiron

THERE IS a moment driving the new Bugatti Chiron when you appreciate precisely what it is that the world’s wealthiest individuals are paying for. And that moment happens the first time you floor the throttle and feel the 8-litre, W16 engine passing 3,800rpm.

Before this point, only two of its gigantic turbochargers, which are roughly the same size as your head, are helping force air through the sixteen combustion chambers. At 3,800rpm, a bypass valve opens and two more turbos gatecrash the party and you get an idea of how it must feel when a rogue wave hits a ship.

Where before it felt as quick as the fastest Ferrari, with all four turbos spinning the Chiron feels jet-fighter fast.

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“This is what you came for!” the engine seems to shout, as there is a small explosion of power and noise and the world starts to rush by as though Captain James T. Kirk has given the command for warp speed.

There is nothing remotely like it. Which is why, for the world’s wealthiest individuals who like nothing more than to indulge in a spot of one-upmanship, the Bugatti Chiron is worth every penny.

That’s a lot of pennies, by the way. The successor to the legendary Veyron 16.4, which was £810,000 in 2005, costs €2.4m plus taxes, or a shade over £2.5m in today’s money.

But money isn’t an object for the sort of people that will buy a Chiron; Bugatti says that they are typically spending £260,000 personalising theirs. That’s enough for a new Ferrari 812 Superfast.

The likelihood is, however, that they will already own all manner of Ferraris, and any other luxury car you care to mention. Veyron customers owned an average of 42 cars.

In the 12 years since it was launched, nothing has come close to even catching up with the Veyron

So far, half of the 500 Chirons that will be built have been sold. The expectation is that once reviews from a select group of the world’s most prestigious media hit the shelves and start trending on social media and fire up the forums, the task of selling this multi-million pound plaything will take care of itself.

When the Bugatti Veyron first turned a wheel, in 2005, and set its turbochargers whistling like a doodlebug dropping from the sky, it left the world shell-shocked.

The Veyron was a hypercar without peer. But getting to that point pushed everyone involved in the project to breaking point. Like supersonic flight, or putting man on the moon, the engineers had had to venture into unknown territory.

They needed to figure out how to cool a 1,001hp engine that was in the middle of the car, out of the airflow. A gearbox had to be designed that could handle more power than a Formula One car but last for a lifetime, rather than one race. And the tyres should be able to handle being spun at the equivalent to 3,800 times the force of gravity.

The result was a car so fast that, according to Jeremy Clarkson, it made France the size of a small coconut. In the 12 years since then, nothing has come close to even catching up with the Veyron.

Now Bugatti wants to go faster still, and has spent the last five years perfecting its new baby. Next Spring, there will be an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the top speed of a production car. The Veyron Super Sport achieved 267.8mph in 2010.

How much faster might the Chiron go? Its electronically ‘limited’ top speed is 261mph. But the bets are on that the Chiron will top 280mph.

To achieve such feats, the W16 engine has been heavily reworked, with a lighter crankshaft, stronger, titanium conrods for the pistons and exhaust system, and a cooling system that can pump 800 litres of water through the engine every minute. At that rate of flow, a bath would be filled to the brim in 11 seconds.

These are merely tinkering compared to the main change: four huge turbochargers, which help generate an additional 500hp over the original Veyron – nearly as much as the engine in a Porsche 911 Turbo.

It takes the motor’s total power output to a comical 1,500hp – 1,479bhp total output. Getting to that point reduced grown men to tears, apparently. But their achievements are celebrated by stamping ‘1500’ on the top of the engine, which is uncovered and visible to the crowds that will gather at the petrol station.

To contain this pent-up energy, there’s a new generation carbon fibre monocoque, claimed to be stiffer than an LMP1 Le Mans racing car. The new Michelin tyres (at £10,000 for four, half the price of the Veyron’s run-flat items) had to be proved safe on a testing rig used for aircraft tyres. The larger brake callipers have pistons made from titanium.

That’s just for starters. New suspension with adaptive dampers and active aerodynamics adapt according to five driving modes and the speed of the car. And in a sign that Bugatti wants the Chiron to be as fun to drive on an Alpine pass as it is impressive to power along a deserted autobahn, the four-wheel drive system has been programmed with an “easy to drift” feature, addressing criticisms of the Veyron’s handling, which, understandably, erred on the side of caution.

Before driving the Chiron, I asked Wolfgang Dürheimer, the man in charge at Bugatti, if it’s noticeably faster than its predecessor. “It smokes the Veyron,” he said. He has raced the two side by side, from a rolling start, and says the Veyron “is a postage stamp in Chiron’s rear-view mirror” by the end of the five-mile straight at Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessein test track.

I suggest Bugatti is going to need to build a bigger test track for whatever will be the Chiron’s replacement. He thinks I’m serious, and agrees, solemnly.

The Chiron sticks with a proven analogue speedometer. Why? Because when children peer through the windows, they’ll be able to see that it winds all the way around to 310mph

This is a more exciting looking car than the Veyron, one that should do the job of rankling fellow superyacht owners in Monaco harbour. The lower nose, menacing looking headlamps and broader shoulders give it a more muscular appearance, like Daniel Craig in a dinner jacket.

The interior shows off the car’s carbon fibre construction, with acres of the stuff on the centre console, dashboard, doors and steering wheel. The seats are comfortable, as is the driving position, and with relatively slender A-pillars it’s a relief to find the view of the road ahead is better any family car.

While most cars move to all-digital instruments, the Chiron deliberately sticks with a proven analogue speedometer. Why? Because when children peer through the windows, they’ll be able to see that it winds all the way around to 500km/h (310mph).

Despite all this talk of mind-warping power and eye-watering performance, the first impression is that even a grandparent could drive the Chiron to Eastbourne for a day by the seaside. At everyday speeds, it is no more challenging than a Nissan Micra.

The light steering, smooth brake pedal and seamless automatic gearbox make the tiger feel like a pussycat.

Potholes, cobbled roads and speedbumps are all shrugged off by the suspension, as are wayward cambers in the road.

It’s impressive stuff. But it’s only when you find an open stretch of road, free from other traffic, that you get your money’s worth.

Obviously, any car with this much power will be “I think I’ve just had a small accident in my trousers” fast. The Veyron had considerably less power and weighed more than the Chiron, and that car could set eyeballs spinning in their sockets.

But the clever trick with the Chiron is that it’s so docile and measured when pottering around. The throttle, steering and brake pedal all have the sort of perfectly measured, linear progression that lets a driver get to know a car without beads of sweat forming across their brow.

Nothing, however, can prepare you for the first time you pin the throttle pedal to the floor.

The W16 (16 cylinders in a “W” configuration) slams you back into the driver’s seat and the world starts to pass by in a blur. Then, at 3,800rpm, you experience the ‘hyperdrive’ moment. There’s a small explosion of noise, another kick from the engine as the second pair of turbochargers are effectively switched on by a bypass valve, and the Chiron knocks the wind out of you.

From this point, regardless of the gear selected, the Chiron is capable of manipulating the skin on your face. There is a grotesque helping of torque, with 1,180 lb ft from just 2,000rpm — more than twice that of a Porsche 911 Turbo S.

This is the true measure of muscle power, and it’s what gives the car its character. Squeeze the throttle through just half of its travel and you will surge past slower traffic like Valentino Rossi on a superbike at full throttle.

The Chiron is able to power to 200mph in what feels like as much time as it takes to sneeze. At such speeds, it’s as stable as a nuclear bunker.

Yet the eerie thing is that it’s only just getting warmed up. This is where the Chiron laughs in the face of cars from Aston, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Porsche. Their fastest machines start running out of puff beyond 200mph. Whereas this one is just getting into its stride.

Bugatti claims it can accelerate from 0-62mph in under 2.5 seconds, reach 124mph in less than 6.5 seconds (the time it takes a Golf GTI to reach 62mph) and hit 186mph in under 13.6 seconds.

At everyday speeds, it is no more challenging than a Nissan Micra

Lifting off the throttle above 112mph, the rear spoiler changes its angle to act as an air brake. So even without touching the brake pedal, there is noticeable deceleration, akin to lifting off the throttle in an electric car as the motors turn into generators and recovery energy to the battery.

Switching to the winding roads outside Lisbon, and respecting all local laws, the Chiron continues to leave your mind boggling. Select the ‘Handling’ mode and the car hunkers down, the steering weights up and you can feel a surprising degree of information about how the tyres are coping with the demands of delivering 1,500hp to the road surface.

It’s composed, planted and feels smaller and more agile than a two tonne, 8-litre machine has any right to. But no matter how long the straights between bends are, they’ll pass by in the blink of an eye. So you’ll never feel more relieved than when you put the brakes to the test, which perform an emergency stop from extreme speeds without a hint of drama.

Pulling over to catch our breath and take photos, the rear spoiler remains raised on its hydraulically powered aluminium legs. Passersby might think the driver’s showing off, but there’s a legitimate reason for leaving the ironing-board wing in the air: it keeps ventilation duct above the exhaust muffler clear, which throws out heat like a white-hot barbeque.

In fact, every aspect of the Chiron’s bodywork has been designed to achieve just two things: cool the engine, so it doesn’t explode at 261mph, and pin the car to the ground, preventing unintended skyward acceleration above 200mph.

There wasn’t the opportunity to test the Chiron’s top speed or spend time with it on a racing circuit. It also comes at a price. But for the world’s wealthiest drivers it will be a price worth paying, and the Chiron has done more than enough to leave us in awe. With it, Bugatti has taken another giant leap forward, showing what man and machine are capable of achieving.

More significantly, it seems the company has built a machine that makes a Veyron feel like it’s got its shoelaces tied together.

Warp speed approaching: 20 mind-blowing facts about the 2016 Bugatti Chiron supercar

The post First Drive review: Bugatti Chiron appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source https://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/first-drive/first-drive-review-bugatti-chiron/