Audi A1 Sportback 1.4 TFSI COD
The doors are, funnily enough, smaller than the regular A1's
What is it? It’s an Audi A1 with two extra doors and an extra seat. That’s pretty much it. The roofline is a tiny bit taller, too. The three-door A1 is a rather good little car, it’s nimble enough to make buzzing around town something of a pleasure, planted on the motorway and set up to make a bit of a stress relieving blast on a B-road quite a giggle. A good all-rounder, then. Well, think of t…
Read moreAudi A5 Sportback 2.0 TDI
comes with a boot large enough to store an obese man's corpse
What is it?An A5 coupe’s bigger, beige clad, geography teaching brother. It’s not a bad thing, just far more sensible than its open-top and two-door siblings. It’ll seat five (the pre-facelift model could only seat four) and comes with a boot large enough to store an obese man’s corpse. The 177bhp 2.0-litre TDI will, according to Audi, be the most popular A5 Sportback. Its sensible size will pa…
Read moreAudi A1 1.6 TDI S Line
If Mother Nature was going to drive a car it would probably be one of these
What is it? Small, expensive, German and efficient. If Mother Nature was going to drive a car it would probably be one of these. You see, the dinky A1 range didn’t always have an eco model, it was always just a couple of g/km above the magical 100g/km mark – too high to grant you access to congestion charge zones for free. That’s changed. Audi’s engineers were starved of tea, biccies and cake (...
Read moreRenault Megane Reanaultsport 265 Trophy
the test car's Liquid Yellow paint job isn't one for shrinking violets
What is it? Big, yellow, shouty and far quicker than a Megane should be. They’re shopping cars, not supercars, for Pete’s sake. Ok, it’s not supercar quick, but the drama the 265 Trophy provides is pretty special for a car on the fun side of £50,000. Only 50 of the 265bhp monster hatches are heading to the UK, and unlike other manufacturers I doubt Renault will bow to pressure to make more. As…
Read moreRenault Clio Renaultsport Raider
making Dr Jekyl's otherwise sensible (and a touch dull) hatchback into Mr Hyde's noisy runaround
What is it?A limited edition, shouty little hot hatch. It’s the sort of car you feel bad for not driving the cajones off because it simply doesn’t feel ‘right’ if you pilot it like a granny. It’s a Clio with a 2.0-litre engine tuned by the boys at Renaultsport, who appear to take joy in making Dr Jekyl’s otherwise sensible (and a touch dull) hatchback into Mr Hyde’s noisy runaround.The Raider d…
Read moreFord Focus Zetec S 1.6
with 180 bhp it is not an ST - but it is entertaining
What is it?This is a warmed-over version of the standard Focus. It is not the hot hatch version (that is the 2012 Foucs ST) but, with 180 bhp in petrol form, it is not the Chicken Korma of the range either. It is a measure of how far engines have come recently that 180 bhp only earns the title ‘warm hatch’ – the first Golf GTI made do with just 115 bhp. Apart from the changes to the engine, the…
Read moreLand Rover Discovery 4
A new gearbox and a more powerful, more economical engine keep it competitive
What is it?This is the 2012 iteration of the Discovery 4. The main difference to last year’s model is an eight-speed automatic gearbox plus yet another upgrade to the V6 diesel. It started life in 2004 with 204 bhp from 2.7 litres, and by 2011 provided 245 bhp from 3.0 litres. For 2012, it has 255 bhp, and more importantly, fuel consumption has gone down to 32.1 mpg with a CO2 figure of 230 g/k…
Read morePorsche 911 Carrera S PDK Coupe
the move to electric power steering is one of many modifications designed to improve the 911's efficiency
What is it?Now switching into its seventh generation, this latest version of Porsche’s 48-year old 911 sports car is lighter, faster, less thirsty, more luxuriously finished, better equipped and more sophisticated. That’s impressive, if no less than to be expected of Porsche. What’s more controversial for anyone who enjoys the 911 – and there have been over 700,000 of them over the decades – is…
Read moreAudi Q3 2.0 TFSI quattro
the most powerful engine shows up the fact that the Q3 isn't sporty at all, and nor is it that comfortable
What is it? On paper the Audi Q3 2.0 TFSI 208bhp quattro is an alluring package. We liked the Q3 when we drove it at launch, giving it four-and-a-half stars and putting it ahead of its main rival, the BMW X1. So surely the 2.0-litre TFSI version with 208bhp, four-wheel drive and an S tronic automatic gearbox, is the ultimate small premium SUV? Sadly, no. On the nobbled roads of the UK it simply…
Read moreSuzuki Kizashi
Suzuki fails to take what the market actually wants into account
What is it?A retro ride, but not in the cool ‘Fiat 500’ way. Designed for the US and EU markets, the Kizashi is Suzuki’s way of taking on the likes of the Audi A4 (bigger, comfier, better appointed and more expensive) and the Subaru Legacy (see Audi description). The Japanese brand claims that it’s there to show off what the company can really do, to sit at the top of its range as a halo produc…
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