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Road test: Skoda is Superb, with no hint of irony
THE JOKES about Skodas spluttered to a halt at the roadside almost two decades ago, partly because there was nobody left who hadn’t already heard them all at least a dozen times, but chiefly because Skodas stopped being comical in October 1994.
Motoring review: Electric Vauxhall Ampera a gas
You may run out of power, but you won’t run out of steam with the Ampera, although finding the cash to buy it could prove a problem, writes Frederic Manby
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My first car ... Ashley Smith, actor
MY FIRST car was a Fiat Panda. My parents bought it second hand for me before I passed my test, which would have been about eight years ago; I got it as a Christmas present.
Aberdeen car club first to trial clean fuel cars
A SCOTTISH car club is to be the first in the world to trial hydrogen fuel cell cars.
£90 to fill up your car, motorists warned
MOTORISTS could face a 50 per cent rise in fuel duty within two decades to cover a £13 billion hole in Treasury coffers, according to a report.
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My first car … Alyth McCormack
WHEN my husband once asked me the question, “What was your first car?” I answered “green” so clued up was I on such things, however I believe it was a green Rover Mini Metro. It was a gift from my parents; I was a struggling musician. My granny passed away and they had been left some money and bought it for me as they were worried about all the travelling I was doing, often at odd hours, relying on public transport, hire cars and lifts from other musicians. I had it for about four years – the poor thing was in shock after the first. It had belonged to the mother of a car dealer in Stornoway who would drive it into town and back for her “messages”. In its first ten years it had only done 10,000 miles, in its 11th year it did another 10,000.
Road test: Suzuki will have you making a Swift decision
WHICH one are you? Upstart, or upstanding member of the community? To help you make up your mind, we have enlisted the help of two Suzuki Swifts. Specifically, the Sport and the 1.3 DDiS diesel. They look like twins, but their personalities are poles apart. And no, there are no prizes for guessing which one’s the upstart.
Road test: Nissan X-Trail marks the spot
GATHER your pals for dinner and, as they take their places at the table, kick off the chat by asking them what car, in the entire history of cars, has done more than any other to transcend the boundaries of class, age and gender.
Road test: Renault will have you in a Twizy
ALTHOUGH it’s premature to say that the electric vehicle (EV) has come of age, there’s one branch of the EV family that seems a good deal further along its evolutionary path. It’s the lightweight urban-specific vehicle and none represents the current state of the art better than Renault’s Twizy. The reason? It’s not even pretending to be a conventional car. Whereas many car makers start with a supermini, tear the engine out and try to find a home for batteries and such like, Renault has approached the genre with a clean sheet of paper. The Twizy seats two, is built light and can slot through gaps only a tad broader than a motorcycle with panniers. In other words, it’s ineffably fit for purpose.
Road test: Hyundai on a new high with i20
SMALL cars are becoming ever more cosmopolitan. Take this one, Hyundai’s i20. A clean sheet of paper design that’s built in India, designed and engineered in Germany and brought to us by a Korean car company, it’s a clear sign of how the motor industry is changing.
Scottish drivers the first to take tests in supermarket car parks
SCOTTISH learners drivers are to be the first in the UK to take their driving tests from supermarket car parks.
The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) is to offer tests from the Asda stores in Arbroath and Forfar when centres in each town close later this month.
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Mini restoration was a labour of love
I ONCE stumbled across a car I used to own. Sadly it was in a scrapyard and obviously had not enjoyed the loving attention from the subsequent owners that I had given it when it was in my care.
Analysis: Why I love my Lada, and that’s no joke
IT IS the end of an era. Ladas have been around for a long time in their current guise, but I think when Russia opened up and became more prosperous, the aspirations of the people changed.
Road test: Cash is king in Shogun Black land
“WELL, you wonder why I always dress in black/ Why you never see bright colors on my back/ And why does my appearance seem to have a sombre tone/ Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.”
Road test: VW is on the up!
HAS Volkswagen come up! trumps again? Its new up! has all the ingredients to shake up! the city car market and to rack up! massive worldwide sales in the process.
Road test: Ford’s power Ranger
PACK away your salopettes and sweep the last of April’s snow from Soutra’s summit, because summer is here and it’s time to hit the beach. And when we say “hit the beach”, we don’t mean “trawl the prom looking for the last parking space, stick five quid in the meter and haul half a hundredweight of seaside essentials half a mile across the dunes”. That’s for losers. We mean “plough right down to the water’s edge and jump out”.
Road test: Hyundai’s iflyer
WHAT’S that you say? You’d like to chart the rapid and seemingly unstoppable progress of the Korean car industry, from bit-part player to big gun? Well, we could always devote a day to dissecting graphs and sales charts, translating thick-as-phonebook company reports and poring over share prices on the Seoul stock exchange.
Road test: Alfa Romeo steps up a gear with Giulietta
MORE haste, less speed or, in the case of modern motoring, less haste, less speed – and more gear changes.
Road test: New Porsche 911 is seventh heaven
MANY years ago a friend of mine wanted to enhance the driving experience of her brand new Mini. I thought at the time it was rather a drastic move. Armed with an electric drill, she crawled under the car and cut out several holes in the silencer. The result was a lovely rasping sound as she accelerated, and it was effective for as long as the silencer stayed together, which as I remember was only a matter of months.
Road test: Winging it in a classy Skoda
ROAD cars, like birds and Boeings, should only ever have two wings: an offside one, and a nearside one. Any other sort – a spoiler across the boot, say, or a diffuser behind the front number plate – is a sign of wanton excess, foolish optimism and/or inbreeding. Here endeth the lesson.
Road test: Toyota Yaris will have you lost for words
BOORAY: It’s a compound word (I believe the correct term is portmanteau), which blends boo! with hooray! and best sums up my feelings when the fates conspire to rob me of an exotic car and offer up something altogether less exciting in its place.
Road test: Mini’s coupe de grace
ONCE you’ve figured out quite what Mini were trying to achieve with the John Cooper Works Coupe, you’ll find a car that’s a belter to drive. While it might lack the last couple of per cent of ability and tactility, there’s certainly no shortage of fun or attitude. It’s surprisingly likeable.
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Road test: Audi A1 Sportback is like a big car, only smaller...
WHEN Audi launched the A1 it played to a market that most manufacturers had either ignored or failed to even recognise. It had already had one crack at it with the aluminium-bodied A2, but the product wasn’t quite right and customers had yet to come to terms with the idea of boutique small cars.
Road test: New Honda Civic shapes up nicely
CIVIC – a name that launched a range of 20 million Honda hatchbacks in 1972. This is one of the world’s biggest sellers and the latest is trickling into showrooms from the Swindon factory which produces it for Europe.
My first car: Ryan Fletcher, actor
MY FIRST car was a really old Ford Escort. My dad bought me it, and it was very cheap and nasty. It was a G reg so you can imagine how old it was, a total rust bucket. When my dad got it it was blue but because it was rusty it had a band of silver gloss paint at the bottom of the car.
China Auto Show: the Posh Range Rover Evoque
GENIUS is an overused word. But every few hundred years, human civilisation produces a person of such raw talent, such vision, such genius, that all the rest of the world can do is stand back and gasp in awe. Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison – they all blazed a dazzling trail across art, design and science. But today we can add a new name to the pantheon of polymaths.
After stuttering start, new Honda Civic gets moving
IT’S a bit of an understatement to say 2011 hasn’t been a great year for Honda as far as model production is concerned. Like other Japanese manufacturers, plants were affected by the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in March.
Chrysler Delta makes Fiat’s all-American dream a reality
AFTER its much-anticipated 2009 touchdown on these shores was postponed, the Lancia Delta (now in third-generation form) looked destined to prolong its 14-year exile from the UK indefinitely. One facelift, Fiat’s buyout of Chrysler and a realistic marketing budget later, it’s finally back as a keenly-priced, lavishly appointed “premium” Chrysler hatchback with the Ford Focus firmly in its sights.
Test drive: Peugeot 308 makes space for itself in the corporate car park
The Peugeot 308 is available in a special, business-orientated version identifiable by its SR badge. The car features an enhanced communications package and a choice of economical engines to make the professional’s journey between appointments a more profitable one.
First Look: Alhambra puts people before performance
We’re so used these days to seeing Seat as a “sporty” brand that it’s easy to forget the Spanish marque’s other core attribute: value for money. Attempting to combine both things isn’t easy and it may have prevented the company from becoming the kind of Iberian Alfa Romeo that its German owners want it to be. But many family buyers loyal to the brand won’t care if it means the Spaniards can continue to bring us Volkswagen designs at more affordable prices. Cars like this one – the Alhambra seven-seater MPV.
Roomier, vroomier Cooper SD Clubman is Mini maxed
Performance estate cars are fairly commonplace at the moment, presenting motorists with the option of taking an Ikea coffee table for a hot lap of Knockhill or getting those bags of grass clippings to the municipal dump before the mower’s blades have stopped turning.
Distiller gets into spirit and turns over a new Leaf
WHEN I heard that the owner of the Bruichladdich distillery on Islay was tootling around the island in a car powered by whisky by-products, I wasn’t too surprised, to be honest.
My local hostelry has a shelf creaking with dubious drams which could comfortably power a manned flight to Neptune and back.
BMW 740d loses a litre but gains a whole lotta ground
FOR this recipe, take BMW’s most powerful diesel engine, pop it into the company’s biggest saloon, sprinkle generously with toys, and serve. The end result is the 740d M Sport, an executive express that will take you and your fellow board members to the other side of Europe in a day.
Audi A7 takes its own road
LEGEND has it that, shortly before making his ill-fated ascent of Everest in 1924, George Mallory was asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb the world’s highest mountain. “Because it’s there,” was the Englishman’s succinct reply.
BMW X5 has enough torque to tow two Clydesdales at the gallop
YES, that is a BMW X5 xDrive40d M Sport, exactly like the one we test drove the other week. No, that’s not Leith harbour or Bo’ness foreshore or somewhere equally exotic. We just cheated a bit with the picture.
- Rangers takeover: Duff & Phelps threaten legal action against BBC
- Family mourn death of Glasgow ‘fight’ schoolboy
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
- Rangers administration: Fans fear Duff & Phelps claims could scare off Green
- Rangers takeover: triple penalty punishment enough, says Johnston
- Alistair Darling leads ‘No to independence’ fight over tea and biscuits
- Scottish independence: SNP flip-flops over Nato
- Scottish Independence: SNP ‘won’t be Yes campaign’s only voice’
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
- Scottish independence: ‘People here are best qualified to run Scotland’
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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