The Clarkson Review: 2016 Citroën Grand C4 Picasso

I HAD a bit of a discussion the other day about when men grow up. A friend explained that when he used to work in a clothes shop he would fill quieter parts of the day by carefully unwrapping the underwear. He’d then use a chocolate bar to create authentic-looking skid marks before wrapping it up again and putting it back on the shelves. “The beauty was”, he said, “that no one would ever bring it back to complain.”

I won’t tell you his name, obviously, save to say that it begins with an A and ends in A Gill. What I will tell you is that today he’s in his sixties but, given the chance, he said with a big smile, he’d do the exact same thing again.

I fear I’m just as bad. When I’m told by a passport person to stand behind the line, I simply cannot bring myself to do it. I always, always, always position myself so that at least some of one foot is in the forbidden zone. It’s pathetic but I can’t help myself.

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It’s why I loathe average-speed cameras. With a normal Gatso you can roar up to the box, brake as late as possible and then roar off again when the damn thing is out of range. That’s sticking one to The Man. But when you are being monitored constantly, there is absolutely nothing you can do. You are forced to just sit there being obedient, and that causes me actual physical pain.

Neatly stacked tins in a supermarket make me ill as well. I become dizzy and faint when I walk past them because the urge to knock them over is so unbelievably strong. It’s one of the few things left on my bucket list.

However, I’ll need to hurry up about it because I can feel myself getting old. I can sense the rebel in my soul quietening down. It’s not just because I now enjoy a “nice sit-down” more than almost anything. It’s worse. It’s because I can’t be bothered half the time to make a nuisance of myself.

This brings me on to the business of renting a car. It’s a chore. It’s up there with trying on trousers or rubbing suncream into James May’s back. You stand for hours in a queue full of terrible people, and when you finally get to the front of it, you are made to stand there while the woman behind the counter writes War and Peace on her computer.

Why do they always do this? I have the money and they have the car, so what’s the complication? Why the need to tap away on a keyboard for three hours? They don’t do that in a sweetshop or at a petrol station. But they do at the airport rental desk. And the only upside is that when the interminable wait is over, you are given the keys to the fastest car in the world.

“It had the most extraordinary effect on me. I drove about the place, agreeing with all the callers on the Jeremy Vine show and missing Nigel Farage”

I have always driven hire cars as though my hair were on fire. It’s just so liberating when you arrive at a road where a sign says “Unsuitable for motors” and you think, as you floor it, “Yes, but it’s suitable for this one, because … yee-haw … it isn’t mine.”

This year I rented a house in Mallorca that sat at the top of what was easily the narrowest and longest and most challenging drive in all of the world. In the past it wouldn’t have bothered me one bit. I’d have simply ricocheted up it in the rental car, bouncing off the trees and the walls as though I was a large-scale demonstration of Brownian motion.

However, this year I found myself taking care. And amazingly at the end of the 10-day break the hire car was handed back without a scratch. It was a first, and it made me think: “Oh shit. At the age of 56 I’ve become an adult.”

The panic, though, is over, because last week Citroën sent round the same car as I’d been using in Mallorca. It’s a Grand C4 Picasso and it had the most extraordinary effect on me. I drove about the place, agreeing with all the callers on the Jeremy Vine show and missing Nigel Farage.

I scoffed at girls in ripped jeans, tutted at men with earrings and engaged the handbrake when stationary. This is a car that can accelerate from 0 to 62mph in 10.1 seconds and thunder onwards to a speed of nearly 130mph. But I never did either of those things.

What I did instead was admire some of the features, such as the comfy headrests and the passenger seat that comes with an electrically operated footrest for when the floor is just too uncomfortable. Then there are the sun visors that fold up and away to reveal a windscreen big enough for a National Express coach, and, further back, an all-glass roof.

Further back still, there’s a third row of seats, and everywhere you look there are cubbyholes and storage bins. This is one of those cars that are hard to resist in the showroom. It really is jam-packed with stuff you’ll want as soon as you see it.

Driving it is a different story, because there is some quirkiness. The gearlever, for instance, is a flimsy little stalk on the steering column. And just about everything else is operated by a screen in the middle of the car. That’s fiddly and annoying.

Well, it would be, but you’ll be too busy sticking to the speed limit to be overly worried about how you turn off the engine stop-start function. Not that you’d want to turn it off, because it saves fuel and that saves money. And saving money is the single most important thing in life. It’s why Grand C4 Picasso owners do all their shopping in the sales and only go to restaurants with all-you-can-eat buffets for £4.99.

It’s why they have Citroëns in the first place. Because they are cheap, long before you get to the endless everything-must-go special offers.

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This is not a criticism of Citroën’s customers. Each to his or her own. And it certainly isn’t a criticism of the car, because if you want a seven-seater, it makes a deal of sense.

You just have to remember that behind the clever design touches there’s a car that’s not inspiring to drive and will break down more than, say, a Toyota. And that sounds like the incoming-torpedo alert on a submarine if you leave the lights on or open the door when the engine’s running.

On the upside, though, you’ll never crash it. Because you’ll never be going fast enough. Because a Grand C4 Picasso brings out the adult that lives in us all.

That said, just before the delivery driver came to take it away, I was tempted to create some chocolate skid marks on the seat. And say it was like that when it was delivered.

 

Comment below or 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: 2016 Citroën Grand C4 Picasso appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-citroen-grand-c4-picasso/

2016 Mercedes-Benz E-class estate review

ON A list of endangered species, you might have expected to see the humble estate car feature prominently. First it was rudely barged aside by the ingenious seating arrangement that was the MPV, or people carrier, then it was trampled all over by the SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle), which seemed to satisfy an inner yearning within people to lord it over their fellow motorist.

The biggest estate car of all, and therefore perhaps the one with furthest to fall, is the Mercedes-Benz E-class. A new version is in British showrooms, lifting its powered tailgate and flaunting its big booty for all to see.

There’s controversy, however. Antiques dealers, Labrador owners and parents weighed down with all-terrain pushchairs have pointed out that beneath the sleek new bodywork, the E-class estate’s unique selling point — it’s gargantuan boot — has, for the first time, got smaller.

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Exactly how much smaller, we’ll come to in a moment. First, let’s look at the range and pricing, notably the latter which has suffered a minor eruption like Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

The E-class estate range starts from £36,735, for the E200 d SE, or £39,230 for the AMG Line trim version. At the top of the diesel line up is the £49,735 E350 d AMG Line, and for the time being, the only petrol-powered model is the sporty Mercedes-AMG E43 4 Matic, which is £58,290.

The mid-range E220d SE starts from £38,230, or £40,725 for the AMG Line model, tested here. The equivalent, last generation E220 BlueTEC AMG was £39,355, so prices have climbed by nearly £1,400.

Mercedes would argue you get more for your money; more power and performance yet lower CO2 emissions, a nine-speed gearbox in place of a seven-speed and a smarter cabin with more advanced features.

And they’d have a point. Settle into the driver’s seat and this is a world away from the last E-class. It’s seriously classy — too good, some would say, for muddy children and their sticky sweets and runaway raisins.

The dashboard has more curves than an hourglass. Press the ignition button and you enter a digital world, with not an analogue dial in sight. You can choose from three different displays for the main dials — Sport, Classic, Progressive. Presumably, Prog Rock didn’t make the cut.

The optional Comand Online system (£1,495) comes with a 12.3-inch display and sat nav that is so detailed that you could probably see your neighbour sunbathing in their garden, by zooming in with Google Earth.

The front seats are decidedly snug, hinting, perhaps, that Mercedes has made this car a little more sporty to drive than the last model. But they’re comfortable over a long run, as is the driving position.

It’s a joy to find that the E-class no longer squeaks. The last one is famous amongst owners for a noise coming from behind its dashboard that, passengers would unkindly remark, sounded like a bed upstairs being put through its paces. But in this model, the only rattle you’ll hear will be from toddlers in their child seats. At least, when new.

There’s a good amount of rear legroom but the two outer seats are more sculpted than before, so anyone sat in the middle will feel unwanted. The optional panoramic double sunroof (part of a £3,895 Premium Plus package), and dual level rear ventilation ducts with temperature controls are nice to have, but the absence of any USB charging ports won’t impress teenagers who are hooked on their gadgets.

“The previous E-class is famous for a noise emanating from behind the dashboard that sounded like a bed being put through its paces”

The reduced boot space could mean that anyone who bought the last model because it trumped all rivals in this department may be disappointed. It’s a consequence of the car’s sleeker lines and sloping tailgate, and means that the boot has shrunk from 695 litres to 640.

Yet it remains one of the most practical estates money can buy — a suitcase or two bigger than an Audi A6 Avant, BMW 5-series Touring or Volvo V90 — and comes with a powered tailgate as standard. It also has substantial storage space under the floor, as well as the excellent automatically-retracting luggage cover with its integrated dividing net that keeps the weekly shop or pets out of the cabin.

Another minor gripe, however, is that the roof rails on this generation of car are flush with the bodywork, whereas the last version’s stood proud. What’s the big deal? Anyone changing from one to the other that uses a roof rack for bikes or roof boxes will have to buy a new rack.

There’s been a marked step forward with the driving experience. Refinement is much improved and the latest 2-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine only ever raises its voice under full throttle. The rest of the time it’s largely silent — ideal for long runs.

Performance is relatively brisk for such a bulky (1,760kg) car, taking 7.7sec to get from standstill to 62mph, and there’s effortless acceleration from just 1,600rpm. If you’re lucky, you might just get somewhere over 60mpg, too.

With nine speeds, the automatic gearbox probably sounds like it has several gears too many, yet it never falters or has to pause for thought. The gearshifts are smooth and fast, and the ‘box is also responsive to the Dynamic Select driving modes – Eco, Comfort, Sport, Sport+ and Individual.

To be honest, most drivers most of the time will find Comfort by far the best choice, making the Mercedes feel as they’d hoped for: as calm and composed as the steady hand of a barber performing a cut-throat shave.

In Eco mode, the car drives like a Saint lost in the Outback and running low on fuel; in Sport the suspension is too firm and in Sport+ the engine and gearbox become hyperactive.

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It’s also worth noting that if Comfort is your priority, give the optional 20 inch alloy wheels a miss. They thump over drains and potholes and feel skittish over manholes.

There’s another element to the latest E-class that will appeal to the sort of people who could happily spend all day wandering around a Maplin store. Of any model you can go out and buy today, it is as close to a self-driving car as it gets. Fitted with the optional Driving Assistance Package (£1,695), it will steer, accelerate, slow and even change lanes for the driver. During our time with the car, the most impressive thing was that it all worked faultlessly, and didn’t require panicked intervention on the driver’s part.

All in all, then, the Mercedes E-class estate is an impressive package. The only downside to buying one is that you won’t be alone; there is no exclusivity from having a Mercedes-Benz parked outside your house. In middle class households, the German cars are as common as White Company bed linen or SMEG fridge-freezers. This September, over 31,800 Mercedes were sold to British drivers, taking the year’s total to nearly 136,000.

But when a car’s as good as this one, that’s hardly a surprise. The real surprise is finding the estate car remains a thriving species.

The post 2016 Mercedes-Benz E-class estate review appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/mercedes-e220-d-estate-amg-line-2016-review/

The AA Gill Review: 2016 Audi Q7

A CAR says something about you — perhaps more about you than anything else you own. A car is allegorically and practically the evocation of you and where you hope to get to. So makers of motors have a commonly discernible international language of character and aspiration.

In Africa everyone knows that a young man with a Mercedes is the son of the minister for trade. In Stockholm a young man with a Mercedes is a taxi driver — whose father used to be the minister for trade somewhere in Africa.

A Tesla says that you’re in the front of the queue for the future but at the moment you’re driving from a grandiosely dull urban office to an equally dull suburban house with electric gates because they’re the only two places you can plug it in. A Harley-Davidson says you’re a retired orthodontist with a ponytail who likes to make his own piccalilli.

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The international language of motoring has been one of the greatest cultural inventions of the past century. But there is one make that takes a contrary view of the iconography of the metal box. Audi is a car that doesn’t say what you are or aspire to be, but rather what you’re not. It is the Alec Guinness of cars — a believer that less is good.

So an Audi first says its driver wouldn’t dream of being seen in a Mercedes, in Abuja or Stockholm. It is a car that chooses not to draw attention to anything about its owner. They’re not rich or flash; neither are they necessarily frugal nor modest. It doesn’t imply they’re a heavy-footed, lorry-swerving competitive driver. Nor on the other hand are they a middle-lane sat nav drone. They don’t use their car for flirting or for genital advertisement. But then neither are they predictable, monogamous and vanilla.

The point about Audis is that they are inscrutably sotto voce and self-confident. No Audi ever had a bumper sticker that said “Princess on board” or “I’ll give up my gun when they uncurl my cold, dead fingers from around it”. They’re driven by the billionaire who doesn’t appear in The Sunday Times Rich List. Even the company’s slogan was enigmatic: Vorsprung durch Technik. What does that mean? If you drive an Audi you know what it means. If Yoda had a car it would be an Audi.

The marque derives from the surname of the original owner, Horch — his forename was August — which he translated into Latin. It means listen. This is the listening car. I’m going to do the same thing with my name. This column is being written by AA Branchia, the columnist who can breathe under water.

“No one in the history of four-wheel-drive vehicles has wanted a white off-roader. It’s like having a bride in a rugby scrum”

I got the Audi Q7 for my annual reel up to the Highlands, where I need a motor that can comfortably go touring but isn’t going to embarrass itself on a grouse moor in the company of brogue-muttering Land Rover Defenders.

The first thing I noticed about it was that it was white. No one in the history of four-wheel-drive vehicles has wanted a white off-roader. It’s like having a bride in a rugby scrum. And I worry about the solecism from Audi. You’d expect it to have come up with some colour that doesn’t have a name; just a code number.

The next thing I noticed was all the things it wasn’t. It’s desperate not to be a Range Rover. There’s no braying drinks cabinet or place to put your guns. And it doesn’t want to be mistaken for a steroidal Porsche or a tanked-up Mercedes double-parked, blinking stupidly, outside some Mayfair restaurant. It’s going for the forgettably memorable.

And, apart from the colour, Audi has managed it quite nicely. I can’t recall a single external feature. Except that it’s a fat car, made to accommodate the adipose and engorged. Its wing mirrors bring to mind an angry albino elephant and have an annoying flashing yellow light whose purpose I never quite ascertained, though I think it was to unnecessarily but cleverly warn you of potential accidents when you were changing lane.

I drove north from Edinburgh, past the new road bridge that is going to leave the Firth of Forth with three of the most beautiful and spectacular bridges in the world. And then it was on to the A9, an infamous road through spectacular country and places with romantic-sounding names.

But it is an oxymoron, the most anti-driving road in Britain. It is covered with average-speed cameras, and seeing as the stipulated limit lurks somewhere below 50mph, and there is a lot of single-lane road where you will queue for 20 or 30 minutes behind some agricultural machinery or a caravan being driven by someone taking endless photographs of the scenery, the brief passages of dual carriageway encourage you to put your foot to the floor and overtake everything, imagining that you have a few miles in hand. You haven’t.

This road is known to be a stealth tax on touring Englishmen. With this in mind, the Audi has a very useful head-up display that projects your speed onto the windscreen.

The rest of the enigmatically minimal driver’s controls are simplified into a keyboard of impenetrable haiku. You try to change radio station and it will call your mother. Turn on the air-conditioning and it will flash up every cafe in a 50-mile radius. The sort of people who slip easily into Audis already know how to use all this stuff by osmosis.

“This year the curly roads were speckled with supercars, acid-coloured wedges of high-performance cheese. It looks absurd, as conspicuous as expensive litter”

After the A9, I crossed the Ness and passed the Black Isle, heading into Wester Ross. These are some of the most beautiful and entertaining roads in the world and I’ve driven them for years. Normally you’ll pass Dutch tourists, local lorries and occasionally a Harley ridden by a fat dentist. But this year the curly roads were speckled with supercars, acid-coloured wedges of high-performance cheese, haring around U-bend and across glen. No one up here could possibly afford a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. And even if they could, they would never want one.

This is now apparently a thing. This is where men who have high-performance insecurities have their cars driven up on low-loaders so that they can spend a weekend careering round long loops of west coast road. It looks absurd, as conspicuous as expensive litter.

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The Highlands and this journey made me thankfully admire the déclassé bland confidence of the Audi. As a drive, it’s not really faultable. It’s predictable and unexciting. It wallows a little in the corners, and you’re constantly aware of its size. But it behaves well and doesn’t shout or cough when you put your foot down.

But there is a time delay, like talking on a dodgy video link. When you put your foot down, there’s a moment’s hesitation before the power kicks in. This is more annoying in the city than on country roads. But it’s a consequence of it being a diesel.

It’s a perfectly good motorcar, but no one passed a comment or asked me anything about it. And there’s precious little to say, which I suspect will have the anonymous Audi design team wiping their spectacles and giving little smiles of satisfaction. When it comes to Audis, the less said, the better.

Jeremy Clarkson is away.

The post The AA Gill Review: 2016 Audi Q7 appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/aa-gill-review-2016-audi-q7/

2016 Citroën C4 Picasso review

THERE WAS a time when mean-spirited motoring writers said to buy an MPV (multi-purpose vehicle, or people carrier) was to give up on life. Chosen by parents who put practicality before style and fun, it picked up a bad rep.

MPVs did themselves no favours. Their boxy bodies, dull interiors and wipe-clean materials were useful for those with children but did nothing to excite the senses. Which is why SUVs took off in a big way. They look cool, while being safe and big enough to handle a pushchair or two.

Leading the MPV fightback has been the Citroën C4 Picasso and its larger, seven-seat Grand Picasso sibling. It started life as the Xsara Picasso, which showed hints of character, but it was only when restyled as the C4 Picasso in 2006 that it could be considered truly interesting to look at.

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It still had the silhouette of a beetle, but details such as the wavy line along the door sills and the LED daytime running lights gave it a sense of style, and the distinctive interior looked as though it had been crafted by someone who had never seen inside another car.

It was supremely practical too, with cubbyholes galore, including two gloveboxes on top of the dashboard, and a back row that could take three child seats side by side.

A new generation was launched in 2013, with the narrow strip of running lights moved above the main headlight cluster, making the car look as if it is squinting in the sun. It’s a bold design. Some of the quirky yet practical interior features were dropped (such as the top-mounted gloveboxes and the temperature controls at either end of the dashboard), and the cabin became a little more grown-up, but the build quality seemed markedly improved. It’s a winning formula, apparently: more than 300,000 second-generation C4 Picassos and Grand Picassos have been sold.

The 2016 facelift keeps the same basic underpinnings, so the driving experience is largely unchanged, but the engineers have added a couple of new engines, the designers have done a nose job and put on new 17in alloy wheels and the boffins have fitted new safety and infotainment systems.

The minimal styling changes make it hard to spot a new C4 Picasso in a line-up; look out for the chrome chevrons on the nose extending fully around the daytime running lights, and extra air intakes at the sides of the front bumper. It’s a new trend across the Citroën range (we’ll review the new C3 soon). You can specify a contrasting black roof and door mirrors for the first time, and three paint schemes have been added to the palette.

Round the back you may notice new rear lights in a “3D” cluster, but of more interest to parents with armfuls of kiddie gear will be the hands-free tailgate (on top-spec models), which can be opened with a waggle of your foot beneath the bumper.

Parents will also like the large boot (537 litres). Even better, the second row of seats is still three individual thrones, each with Isofix points, which can slide forwards or back along the flat floor (there’s no transmission tunnel to hamper legroom for the middle passenger). With all three right forward you increase boot capacity to 630 litres, so along with the buggy and micro-scooter you can throw in a kitchen sink.

“The avant-garde dashboard remains as striking as ever, with the split-level screens accommodating all the instrumentation and infotainment”

Inside, the C4 Picasso retains a light, airy feel, with great forward visibility thanks to its panoramic windscreen, thin A-pillars and large quarter-light windows. BMW 2-series Active Tourer and Ford C-Max drivers can only dream of this kind of unrestricted view at T-junctions.

Buyers can specify a panoramic glass roof, keeping the kids bathed in sunshine during the day, although you can close a blind if it gets too hot.

Speaking of blinds, Citroën has added three interior design schemes. Hype Grey Ambience includes integrated rear window blinds, so you don’t have to make do with ill-fitting off-the-shelf jobs. This trim also features massage seats and an electric footrest for the front passenger. This is one of four interior design styles, and there are five upholstery choices.

Up front, the avant-garde dashboard is as striking as ever, with the split-level screens accommodating all the instrumentation (the 12in widescreen on top) and infotainment (the 7in display underneath). The blocky look and feel of the former won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s certainly distinctive and, most importantly, clear.

Touchscreens help declutter cockpits, and the C4 Picasso’s infotainment screen is intuitive. However, it can be laboured: if you’re listening to the radio (DAB comes as standard on all models) and want to change the temperature, you’ll need to switch menu first.

Other standard kit in all specs includes rear parking sensors, tyre pressure monitors, Bluetooth and cruise control. Upgrade from Touch to Feel trim and you’ll also get smarter 17in alloys, sat nav and front parking sensors. The top Flair spec adds the sunroof, a reversing camera (with a 360-degree option), parking assist, the hands-free tailgate, auto-dimming rear-view mirrors, keyless entry and tray tables for rear passengers.

Of course it all comes at a cost. Prices start at £19,635, but the Flair is an extra £8,000. With a few options you could spend £30,000. Ouch. Bear in mind that Citroëns tend to lose their value fast.

For our money the greatest bit of tech on the C4 Picasso is the button that switches off the adaptive element of the cruise control. These modern systems use radar to keep you an exact distance behind the car in front, in theory allowing you to concentrate on things other than your speed. Only it has the opposite effect, as you can’t think of anything but your yo-yoing speed as the inattentive driver in front accelerates and decelerates.

Other new safety systems include Coffee Break Alert as standard in all variants, Speed Limit Sign Recognition, Driver Attention Alert, Active Lane Departure Warning, Active Blind Spot Monitoring and Collision Risk Alert.

Two new engines — a 109bhp petrol and a 128bhp diesel — add to a line-up of four efficient powerplants, which are all good on road tax thanks to CO2 ratings ranging from 99g/km for the BlueHDi 120 S&S to 115g/km for the PureTech 130 S&S (both with the six-speed manual transmission). Our test car was fitted with the 147bhp BlueHDi 150 S&S engine with a manual gearbox, which is rattly at any speed but provides good punch from low revs and smooth power delivery.

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There are problems, though. To drive, it’s what you’d expect from an MPV, which is disappointing. You could be driving a Ford C-Max or S-Max, both of which are fun to pilot. With its focus on ride comfort, the Citroën is soft and rolly, and jittery around corners with uneven road surfaces. The previous model was worse, so there has been improvement in this regard, and it’s not unpleasant to drive by any means.

The manual gearbox is smooth, but I found my size 13 feet snagging the top of the footwell every time I pressed the clutch pedal. An auto is preferable in this type of car, but that’ll cost an extra £1,300 or so.

There are fewer cubbyholes than in the previous-generation C4 Picasso, and, bizarrely, the front cupholders are so close together now that you can’t fit two coffee cups side by side. Drivers sitting high up may also find that the sliding sun visor, when retracted fully, touches the front of their head.

Still, even with these niggles the Citroën combines high levels of tech, astounding practicality and great fuel economy with bags of cool — and that’s exactly what the MPV world needs to survive the SUV onslaught. Renault told us on the recent launch of the new Scénic, which similarly attempts to make the MPV sexy again, that “if this model doesn’t sell, the segment deserves to die”. Parents everywhere should be thankful for the French die-hards.

The post 2016 Citroën C4 Picasso review appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/2016-citroen-c4-picasso-review/

First Drive review: 2017 Peugeot 3008

ACCORDING TO lazy stereotypes, the French know a thing or two about fashion. That could explain why the Peugeot 3008 has morphed quietly from an MPV (or, to employ its even less chic moniker, people-carrier) into the car type du jour: an SUV.

Not a week goes by when a new SUV isn’t sprung on an expectant public eager to lord it over their fellow motorists in a chunky five-door road warrior that looks as if it could scale Ben Nevis, even if it couldn’t in reality tackle much more than a gravel track.

With most versions riding high on 18in alloy wheels and giving generous ground clearance, the 3008 certainly looks the part. Narrow your eyes and you’d swear there’s a touch of Jaguar F-Pace to the rear (complete with striking lion’s claw tail-lights), whereas the whole thing has something of the Range Rover Evoque about it. It’s a classy-looking addition to the mainstream SUV market. And, inside, the story gets even better.

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The way the dashboard curves around the driver, the plush seats and the high-quality materials (the Allure trim includes real oak inlays on, though Peugeot couldn’t tell us if they’re from sustainable sources) make other cars in this class seem staid. Nicely crafted details abound, including the elegantly sculpted automatic gearlever, which could come straight from a BMW.

However, Peugeot showed only mid-spec Allure and high-spec GT-Line trims at the launch event. The line-up begins with Active (Britain won’t be getting an even more basic trim called Access), which won’t look so plush, although it’ll have the same basic design.

There are two petrol and three diesel engines to choose from. The 130bhp three-cylinder 1.2 petrol is a delight: eager as a puppy and brimming with character. It’s refined too, but has a lusty slug of torque right where you need it. The official fuel economy figure is 55mpg, so expect the mid-forties in real-world use; that’s not bad for an engine with this much oomph. There’s a 165bhp version too, but it’s available with automatic transmission only, which will no doubt raise the price uncomfortably high. Still, the auto gearbox suits the 3008’s sleek, laid-back character rather better than the manual, which is a little notchy.

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The diesels are two 1.6-litre units, in 100bhp (underpowered) and 120bhp outputs, and two 2-litre jobs, one producing 150bhp and the other 180bhp. Again, this last is teamed with the automatic gearbox. It’s a spirited performer (0-62mph takes 8.9 seconds) and even more so when you press the Sport button. Bizarrely, however, this function does little to firm up the suspension, so you quickly learn to keep it turned off.

No 3008 has four-wheel drive, but one trick for mild off-roading is an option called Hill Assist Descent Control, which brakes each wheel independently. With the gearbox in neutral, you take your feet off the pedals and hold the steering wheel lightly; the system takes care of the rest, guiding the car down the muddiest slope without letting it get bogged down or run away.

However, the 3008 is first and foremost a comfortable tourer. The ride is soft yet composed. It’s quiet too, even on pockmarked roads. A Nissan Qashqai is more fun to drive but not as comfortable.

Surprisingly for such a tall and softly suspended car, it doesn’t lean too much in corners. That’s a relief, not only for the passengers but also for the driver, who has a comically small steering wheel to guide the thing with. The idea is to aid your view of the raised instrument binnacle, and it does work for drivers of average height.

The steering itself is remarkably quick and direct, but there’s a hint of the car pivoting around it.

“Features include interior fragrances, among them one called Cosmic Leather. Presumably Rodney from Only Fools and Horses is in charge of scent-naming”

The cabin is impressively roomy. Naturally, the front-seat occupants are well provided for, but even in the rear there’s lots of legroom and headroom.

The tailgate is large and opens wide. Pull a couple of levers on the rear wheelarches and the rear seatbacks fall forward to a slight angle. Lift out and reposition the boot floor, and you have a perfectly flat load deck that lies flush with the boot lip. Seats up, there’s 591 litres of boot space; seats down, an impressive 1,670 litres. Figures such as these knock the Qashqai and Kia Sportage into last week.

That’s practicality ticked, but it’s technology where the 3008 aims to make its mark. Even the Active trim includes Peugeot’s i-Cockpit, which centres on a 12.3in screen ahead of the driver. When you use the sat nav, the speedo and rev counter dials on the instrument binnacle spin off to the sides to make room, a striking trick first seen in Audis. An 8in secondary touchscreen mounted above the centre console displays sat nav in all but Active-trim cars. The TomTom system is among the better ones: quick to respond, clear and detailed and updated with traffic info by other road users as you go.

Below the touchscreen is an eye-catching bank of toggle switches that look like the stops on an electronic organ. The Mirror Screen system pairs your phone with the car, and a wireless charging station is on hand if your handset runs low on power.

However, it’s with i-Cockpit Amplify that the 3008 truly sets out its stall. This aims to satisfy the five senses with features including ambient lighting, seat massaging and fragrances, among them one called Cosmic Leather. Presumably Rodney from Only Fools and Horses is in charge of scent-naming.

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The 3008 has already earned its safety spurs: the full five stars from Euro NCAP. All versions have Active Safety Brake, a system that automatically applies the brakes if the driver doesn’t react to a hazard in front, rear parking sensors and Lane Departure Assist, which provides corrective steering if the car appears to be wandering out of its lane.

Prices have still to be confirmed but Peugeot suggests they’ll start at around £21,750 for the 1.2 Active, rising by £600 for each trim level, plus £1,000 for the 1.6 diesels and £2,000 for the 2-litre diesels. That places the model at the upper end of mainstream SUV prices, but it provides strong competition for the premium models in this class. The Peugeot certainly measures up to them in terms of comfort and tech, but badge snobs will still not be convinced.

A spokesman said Peugeot was waiting for the 3008’s likely depreciation to be calculated by independent market observers before it confirmed prices, which suggests residual values still trouble the brand.

Yet in one leap the 3008 has transformed from dull but capable MPV to stylish and practical SUV. It’s a journey even Bear Grylls would be proud of. Just don’t expect him to ditch the Land Rover for a 3008 on his next expedition.

The post First Drive review: 2017 Peugeot 3008 appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/first-drive/first-drive-review-2017-peugeot-3008/

The Clarkson Review: 2016 Audi S8

I’M WRITING this on a six-year-old laptop. It has been around the world umpteen times and is used to churn out five or six thousand words a week. The screen is fogged with spatters of coffee and mucus, the keypad is full of ash, the “A” button has worn to a stump and the cooling fan often has hysterics. But I am in no mood to swap it for a newer model, because it would be different.

I hate different. Which means I hate Macs. You need the fingers of a gynaecologist to operate their stupid keypads, there’s no right-click and nothing’s where it’s supposed to be.

It is of course the same story with my telephone. It’s very old and sometimes it forgets what it’s for. But I can’t upgrade to the latest model, with a Hubble telescope for a camera and 9G capability, because it’d mean sitting down with an instruction book, and I couldn’t do that, because I’m a man, so I’d just plunge straight in. Which means within an hour I’d have put a very private post on Twitter by mistake.

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Strangely, however, I have no problem at all using a different car every week. They all come with different sat nav systems — some are good and some are bad — but I can operate them all.

It’s the same with the electric seat controls. Some companies put them in the door, some on the transmission tunnel and some down the side of the seat itself, where they can be reached only if you have fingers like a conductor’s baton. But, despite this, I never squash myself against the wheel by mistake, or end up in the back, where I can’t reach the pedals.

Car firms have intuitiveness down to a fine art. The Audi S8 Plus I’ve been driving had a head-up display that had been set up by someone who was 4in tall. I needed to lower it on the screen, so I reached out and my hand immediately alighted on the button that did just that.

It was the same with the map. It had been set by the delivery driver to rotate every time I went round a corner, and I find that annoying. So I pushed the correct button, twiddled a knob the correct number of times and pushed OK to confirm. The job was done. If the man who designed the Audi’s dashboard worked for Boeing, everyone on earth could land a 747 with no problem at all.

And then things get even more impressive, because while I was driving down the M1 at 50mph, because someone in a control box had decided that was the highest speed a human being could possibly manage on a road where everyone was going in the same direction, my mind started to drift off and I found myself wondering how on earth Audi managed to fit all the stuff into the car.

Many years ago, when we were allowed to do 70mph — and usually a bit more — I went to interview a chap at Rover who had a dashboard in bits on his desk and a worried look on his face. “Not that long from now,” he said, “people are going to want air-conditioning and CD players as standard in even the cheapest cars. And where the hell am I going to put it all?”

He did appear to have a point. The dashboard of a car is not like the inside of an aircraft hangar, and even then, in the days of the Rover 216, it was pretty much jammed full with tubes and looms and relays. So how, I wondered as I crawled along at 50mph for yet more miles, has Audi managed?

Quite apart from the head-up display and the climate control and the sat nav and the passenger airbag, there were buttons to stop the engine shutting down at the lights, buttons to alter the interior lighting, buttons to turn off the traction control, buttons in fact to turn off a million things that hadn’t even been invented when Johnny Rover Man was pulling his hair out.

And because I was still doing 50mph, to “protect the workforce” that wasn’t bloody there, I started to wonder about more things. The engine, for example, is a dirty great V8 that’s fitted with two turbochargers. How does that go under the bonnet?

And then there’s the four-wheel-drive system and the antilock braking system and the bouncy castle that inflates when you have a bump, and the parking sensors and the cameras and the system that steers the car by itself and the forward-facing radar. Why, I wondered, isn’t this car bigger than the USS Dwight D Eisenhower?

And then the man in the control box decided that, actually, 50mph was way too fast for this day and age, so he changed the dot-matrix signs to say we could do only 40mph. And then I began to wonder why on earth anyone in their right mind would buy a car such as the 155mph Audi.

That didn’t take long to answer. Because it can do 155mph, it is barely awake at 40, which means it is supremely quiet and, if you put the suspension in Comfort mode, dreamily smooth. Honestly, I’ve been in noisier and less comfortable beds.

You may imagine that a car this squidgy is incapable of being exciting. And you’d be right. Even if you put everything in Sport mode — that’s something else you can do — and turn off the traction control, it is stubbornly understeery. It’s almost as though it’s saying: “What on earth are you playing at?”

A fair point. Driving a car such as this as though your hair’s on fire is like playing rugby in a £400 pair of loafers. And that brings me on to the question of price. I don’t know what it costs and I can’t be bothered to look it up. This is not a car anyone will buy. It’ll be leased. And the monthly bill will depend on who you are, how many A4s you’re buying for your sales staff and whether the dealer is struggling to meet his yearly quotas. All I do know is that it’ll be a lot less than you imagine.

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Of course, exactly the same applies if you are thinking of buying a Mercedes S-class, or the Jaguar XJ, or a BMW 7-series, which are pretty much identical to the big Audi. They’re all quiet and comfortable and loaded up with stuff you’ll never use and power reserves you’ll never need. The S8 Plus I had developed 84bhp more than the A8 on which it’s based. Which meant … absolutely nothing at all.

What does matter is that I liked it. I’ve always said the 7-series is the best of the big barges. But I don’t think it is any more. I think the A8 is a nicer place to be. When you’re doing 40. Which you will be.

The only problem is: you currently use a Merc, don’t you? And you’re used it to it. And you’re frightened to change. Don’t be.

 

Head to head

Audi S8 plus v Mercedes-AMG S 63

	Audi S8 plus	Mercedes-AMG S 63
Price	£98,395	£122,595
Power	597bhp	577bhp
0-62mph	3.8sec	4.4sec
Engine	3,993cc, V8	5,461cc, V8

 

Comment below or 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: 2016 Audi S8 appeared first on Sunday Times Driving.

source http://www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/the-clarkson-review-2016-audi-s8-plus/

Electric Hypercar Crushes LaFerrari and Tesla Model S in Race

Electric Hypercar Crushes LaFerrari and Tesla Model S

I first wrote about the Rimac Concept One hypercar three years ago. Since then, there hasn’t been a whole lot of news regarding the car, but a new video from Archie Hamilton Racing’s YouTube channel showcases the electric hypercar.

To test the Concept One’s capabilities, the team paired it up against the brutal acceleration of the Tesla Model S P90D and the incomparable LaFerrari. If you’re unaware of the Concept One’s abilities, in the three-year-old article I noted that the car is powered by a 92-kWh battery that sends energy to four sets of electric motors at each of the wheels. This power created equals out to around 1,088 bhp and 1,180 lb-ft of torque. With a kerb weight of 4,188, the Concept One can rocket from 0-62 mph in 2.6 seconds (in the old article it’s stated that its 0-68 time is 2.8, but the website now says 2.6).

Does this new hypercar have the ability to take down the Model S and LaFerrari? If you’ve read the title, then you know the answer. Check it out below!

Electric Hypercar Crushes LaFerrari and Tesla Model S in Race

http://blog.dupontregistry.com/news/electric-hypercar-takes-down-laferrari-and-tesla-model-s/embed/#?secret=ar6TFRZDnv

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Source: http://cardetailingphoenix.com/index.php/2016/10/10/electric-hypercar-crushes-laferrari-and-tesla-model-s-in-race/

source https://cardetailingphx.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/electric-hypercar-crushes-laferrari-and-tesla-model-s-in-race/