8 more most wanted cars of 2016: Auto news Blog

From sports cars to track cars, seven-seat SUVs to high-tech saloons, there’s plenty more to get excited about in 2016

Ferrari 458T
Awesome how? Our fave supercar gets turbo punch
CAN FERRARI improve on the 458 Italia? We’ll find our next spring, when our favourite supercar gets a mid-
life overhaul. Out goes the 562bhp 4499cc V8, in comes the twin-turbo 3855cc V8 from the California T,
but cranked up from 552bhp to 670bhp. Revised looks improve aero and cooling, and the infotainment is updated. But will turbos spoil the fun? 

HONDA NSX
Awesome how? Porsche 918 tech on a budget
HONDA’S NEW NSX has been so long coming you might mistake it for an obtuse Japanese joke. But it will finally appear at the Detroit auto show in January. Why should you still be excited after all this time? Because it combines a mid-mounted V6 and three electric motors (one in the gearbox and one for each front wheel) to deliver Porsche 918 levels of torque-vectoring hybrid complexity, at a BMW i8-rivalling price. And its forerunner was a legend. 

Audi A4
Awesome how? E-quattro to rev up the repmobile
YOU CAN ALMOST sense the buzz in offices across the land as Audi gets closer to launching the next-gen A4.
Codenamed B9 and based
on Audi’s MLB ‘evo’ architecture, it’s lighter and stiffer with better component packaging – essential for the continuing march towards improved efficiency.
The new e-quattro plug-in hybrid
is the most intriguing model. This combines a 245bhp 2.0-litre TFSI turbo petrol driving the front wheels, with a 121bhp electric motor driving the rears – thus delivering four-wheel drive, big battery electric vehicle range and high performance.
The base engines are a 190bhp 2.0-litre petrol and a 180bhp 2.0-litre TDI, while the hot S4 gets 340bhp, the very hot RS4 450bhp.
Visual changes bring few surprises, save the slinkier lights that LED and Matrix laser technology make possible.
Production starts late in May, so you could have an A4 saloon parked on your drive soon afterwards, with the Avant estate following later in the year. 

Zenos E10
Awesome how? Could be the track sensation of the year
ZENOS CARS is yet another British start-up promising trackday thrills. But don’t let that put you off. The firm’s founders are ex-Caterham head honchos Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards – and they’re building a lightweight carbonfibre circuit slayer at a budget that’s more hot hatch than 911.
Weighing in at just 650kg, the E10 is based around an aluminium and recycled carbonfibre monocoque, and powered by a 200bhp Ford 2.0-litre engine. 0-62mph is estimated at 4.5sec, top speed 135mph. The 250bhp E10 S adds a turbo and slashes the 0-62mph sprint to 4.0sec.
Priced from £24,995 (£29,995 for the S), prototypes are already testing and full production begins in January. 

Volvo XC90
Awesome how? The family favourite SUV returns
YOU CAN order a new Volvo
XC90 now, but first deliveries aren’t scheduled until May 2015. So what makes the second-gen worth the wait?
Volvo has retained the family- friendly seven-seater layout that helped make the long-lived original
so popular, but the 2015 XC90 is
all new, and the first Volvo to use the firm’s brand spanking Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). Not to mention
a whole new range of engines and
as much safety tech as the Chinese- backed Scandinavians’ £6.8bn SPA development budget could stretch to. Which is plenty.
It’s four-cylinder engines only – which sounds brave, but what it lacks in cylinder count it makes up with forced induction. In fact, the top dog XC90 ‘T8 Twin Engine’ uses a 2.0-litre petrol with a turbocharger and a supercharger in combination with an electric motor to produce 395bhp. While emitting just 60g/km CO2. Eat that, BMW X5.
On the inside the new XC90 features a giant touchscreen in place of the confused mess of buttons most current Volvo owners will be familiar with, while an extra 143mm in overall length promises improved boot space, and added comfort for passengers up to 170cm tall in the final seating row.
Looks wise there are 22-inch wheels and daytime-running lights modelled after Thor’s hammer. Yours from £45,000.

Alfa Romeo 4C Spider
Awesome how? Sexy Italian takes its top off
CARBONFIBRE IS brilliant – so light yet so strong the 4C should withstand transformation from Coupé to Spider with little in the way of structural sogginess.
From its excitable steering to the chuffing 237bhp turbo 1742cc engine, the 4C is certainly dramatic. Now imagine that with the extra impact of open-air motoring. It almost brings a tear to the eye. Though that could just be the turbulence.

We’re expecting to see the production Spider at Geneva in March; sales should begin soon after, with prices below £50k.

Jaguar XE
Awesome how? Sharp style, mega mpg to rattle 3-series
FORGET THE looks and aluminium construction – it’s the XE’s engines that matter. Core are two new Ingenium 2.0-litre turbodiesels producing 161 and 178bhp; the former is the most efficient Jaguar ever, claiming 75mpg and 99g/km CO2 with the six-speed manual gearbox.
197 and 237bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrols carry over from the XF and XJ, while the 335bhp 3.0-litre V6 from the F-typeheadstherange.Tempted? TheXE arrives April 2015, priced from £27k.

Land Rover Disco Sport
Awesome how? Compact exterior, seven-seat interior
HOWEVER YOU look at the Discovery Sport – junior sibling to
the unashamedly functional Disco or seven-seater Evoque in comfy trousers – it certainly adds depth to the Land Rover range. Seven seats in a premium compact SUV is quite the coup, even if the +2 last row is kids only.
The existing 187bhp 2.2-litre SD4 turbodiesel kicks things off at £32,495 in January, complete with stop-start tech, direct injection and six-speed manual or nine-speed auto ’boxes.
Being a Land Rover, the four-wheel- drive system with Terrain Response will be in a class of its own when mounting pavements outside Waitrose.

Later in 2015 the XE donates its 2.0-litre Ingenium turbodiesel engine; this eD4 Disco Sport promises 119g/ km CO2 efficiency and sub-£30k pricing. Oh, and all versions get a pedestrian airbag. 

Honda Civic Type R Awesome how? Japan’s mightiest hatch, now with turbo power-auto news blog

VYING WITH its NSX stablemate for longest ever-confirmed model gestation period, the next Honda Civic Type R needs to deliver. Here’s

how it might just steal the hot-hatch crown when it finally arrives in 2015. If you’re going to fit a wing and

wheelarches as big as this you’d better have more than swagger when it comes to the crunch, and in the Type R’s case this means Honda’s first turbocharged petrol since the 1985 City Turbo II.

Pictured here is the latest, cool blue ‘concept’, but we’re still no closer to knowing precisely how much power its new 2.0-litre has got, with ‘more than’ 276bhp (the old Japanese gentlemen’s agreement threshold) still the rallying cry. If Honda hopes to keep those Nürburgring record ambitions alive, ‘more than’ is a must; when we drove a prototype drive last year, sources hinted that 340bhp was the true target.

Whatever the wallop, it will be fed to the front wheels only via a six-speed manual gearbox, which  given Honda’s previous superlative form  should prove a fantastic riposte to ponderously paddleshift-dependent rival hatches.

A trick ‘steer axis’ front suspension design with two additional supporting ‘kingpins’ aims to clamp down on torque steer. There’s no mention of any kind of limited-slip differential, but adaptive dampers aim to keep the tyres’ contact patches true to their name when the going gets tough.

The promise is comfort for cruising but racecar responses on track, unleashed by a ‘+R’ button next to the steering wheel. Honda says it will be the fastest Type R ever. We say: don’t let us down. And get a move on.

THE ARRIVAL OF ROLLS-ROYCE INTO THE CROWDED SUV FIELD IS THE SOUND OF SOMETHING SNAPPING-AUTO NEWS BLOG

IF NEWS OF IMMINENT SUV entries from Bentley, Maserati and Lamborghini was the wave that knocked me down, late-breaking word from Rolls-Royce that they’ll build a ute of their own for 2017 was the amphibious landing craft that drove on to the beach and backed repeatedly over my waterlogged person to make sure I was a goner. And

still, I fear, I’ve not been put out of my misery yet as all the world is on a king-sized SUV tear that promises to put all the tailfin and petrol-guzzling chromium excess of the 1950s and 1960s  that which our forefathers once righteously decried  to shame. For excessive modesty.

I read about the long-bruited Rolls SUV’s receiving the dread green light, a travesty of brand management yet no doubt a unique temptation for product planners, while perusing CAR on a speeding train through rural England on a recent visit. It added special poignancy to fleeting visions of what I, a visiting American, imagined to be ye olde England flashing by.

It also helped remind me: long before the 24-hour news cycle came along like some nitro-burning funny car to supercharge mankind’s most glaring neuroses and ever since, there’ve always been seemingly minor items which pop up to stop even the most grizzled veterans of the Fourth Estate in their tracks. Moments when you’ve realised, times you just knew, something had changed, ever so slightly perhaps, but somehow importantly just the same. That’s your Rolls-Royce SUV, for you.

I’d always figured Rolls, in not entering the sport utility fray, was taking a principled stand in service of a brand whose name was synonymous with the old ways and blue-blooded British reserve. I was wrong; in truth, they were just waiting for BMW to get the cash and the giant platform technology that might help justify some jacked-up fright-mare with a £350,000+ pricetag. (I made that number up, but who fails to raise their prices along with their ride height when they bring their SUVs to market?) 

Like the ‘Parking’ detent pin on an old automatic transmission quietly snapping to send the unpiloted, detent-less car rolling down the hill, the arrival of Rolls into the crowded SUV field is the sound of something snapping. It encapsulates the moment when greed, cost accountancy and the utter vulgarity of the popular culture collided with a hyper- concentration of wealth and the too often crushing lack of imagination of giant automobile combines, especially German ones. In the resultant wreck the casualty is not just good taste but also whatever worthwhile thing the company’s best engineers would have been working on were they not busying themselves readying another ridiculous high-riding conveyance for sale to the world’s most tasteless ultra-rich.

No one doubts they’ll sell Roller SUVs by the gross load, however expensive or painful to look at they may be. And that, I suppose, is a strong argument for Rolls- Royce SUVs. Or the Aston SUVs that are surely headed our way. But one must ask, at what price? Far from leading the market, which Rolls did only yesterday, by tomorrow they’ll be following, albeit from a higher than ever perch.

Remember when new money wanted nothing more than to be understated and stylish, just like old money? Me, neither.

With gusto, Giles Taylor, Rolls-Royce design chief, credits the Chinese for his company’s decision to go where it had once mercifully feared to tread, a not unfamiliar plaint with a positive spin. 

‘Many customers are now Chinese entrepreneurs  savvy and self-made with a young spirit,’ he has been quoted as saying. ‘They are interested in authenticity, Chinese heritage and prestige.’ You might ask what authenticity and Chinese heritage have to do with Rolls-Royce SUVs. But Taylor’s larger point  the Chinese made us do it  is plain. I’ll stake him Chinese demand, yet references to authenticity are inapposite.

Perhaps it is presumptuous to suggest that Rolls parent BMW should school the Chinese in the western art of automotive good taste. They can’t even control outbreaks of appalling taste among their customers at home.

I’m not against upscale SUVs per se. Range Rovers, when they debuted, were actually intended to venture off road, and were still fairly spartan vehicles which made sense for use on farms. But we’re not talking about old Range Rovers. Once you’re never going off-road  because who in his right mind would take a £350,000 car off-road  the whole exercise becomes slightly embarrassing. It’s the automotive equivalent of false-bottomed shoes to make you appear taller. An ultra-hyper- luxury SUV can’t be authentic because it’s inauthentic, at its core. To paraphrase a famous old Rolls ad, at 55mph the loudest thing you can hear is credibility going out the window.

Porsche 911 (997) Carrera

I am aware of how lucky I am to be driving a 911 every day. If any of the following observations seem churlish or spoiled, don’t hate me. The purpose of this test is to see what it’s like to live with a last- generation 911. That involves accepting that in return for a thumping saving on the price of a new car, your car won’t be the latest thing.
As previously reported, this matters less
in a car as timeless as a 911 than it might in some others. You need a second look to tell my 997 from the newer 991, and Porsche cabins are so well-made that it feels as if these cars and the cockroaches would be the only things to survive nuclear holocaust. My car laughs in the face of the 26,000 miles it endured before coming to me.
But I’m also lucky enough to get to drive the very latest kit as part of my ‘job’. I’m aware of how quickly automotive tech is moving on; just how much new car my 911’s still-considerable £43,850 would also get you, and how much you’re foregoing by going used.
Mine is a second-generation and much updated 2009 997, but the car was originally launched in 2004, and much of it was unchanged in the update. And some of it does feel a decade old. It’s not important if you just want this car for the way it drives, but may be significant if you need to use it everyday, as I do. You can spot the car’s age in the yellowy cabin lights (a £44k new car would have LEDs) and in the handbrake, which requires you to pull on an actual lever yourself.

These things are noticeable to someone used to the latest models, but not important. But the inaccurate sat-nav, clunky iPod and phone interfaces and the lack of some useful recent innovations like active cruise and digital radio remind you that five years – let alone ten – is a long time in technology.

Does the world need a 200mph SUV?

Does the world need a 200mph SUV? Probably not, but you could argue Land

Rovers are equally over-engineered. Instead just stand back and hail Bentley’s behemoth

200MPH: THE HALLOWED top-speed glass ceiling, for so long broken only by exotic supercars. But next year, Bentley will unveil a 200mph car with a difference: it’s an SUV.

Sources say Crewe is striving to engineer the first 200mph off-roader; Porsche’s facelifted Cayenne Turbo tops out at ‘just’ 173mph. Imagine the engine power, airflow management, component cooling and tyre durability required to take this two-tonne beast past the double-ton. 

When the Continental GT launched back in 2004, CAR’s intrepid Georg Kacher piloted it to 206mph. He learned that axle load doubled during 155mph cornering, tyre temperature touched 70degC, and to generate every incremental km/h over 210mph (336km/h) you need an extra 8bhp, then 10bhp, then 13bhp. Staggering. 

Therefore, the next Crewe’s missile will require some serious power. Today’s 567bhp 6.0-litre W12 has a starring role: we’re not sure of the exact output, but cylinder deactivation, a 48V electrical system powering hungry ancillaries and a coasting mode will deliver a double- digit fuel economy improvement. 

Another mighty powertrain is planned, an all-new 5.0-litre V10 diesel, with 544bhp and a whopping 737lb ft of torque (enough to lift-off a jumbo?), linked to a ten-speed ’box of cogs. The V10 TDI is a pet project of VW supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piëch, which shortens the odds of the first ever diesel Bentley. 

Wolfgang Dürheimer is making positive noises too. ‘Diesel and Bentley are not incompatible,’ says the CEO. ‘Demand for diesel engines is particularly strong in central and eastern Europe, so we’re investigating various applications. The SUV is one of them.’ Other powerplants should include a 408bhp turbodiesel V8, and a twin-turbo V8 available as a pure petrol or 500bhp plug-in hybrid. Coming in 

2017, the hybrid should offer a 30-mile EV range. 

The SUV uses the stretched version of the group’s PL73 platform, which will underpin next year’s Audi Q7, the new VW Touareg and the third-gen Cayenne. The Bentley’s body-in-white is made in Bratislava, but painstaking final assembly takes place in Crewe. VW is investing £800m in Bentley’s HQ over the next three years, creating some 140 jobs, and the SUV will swallow the lion’s share of this cash. 

The SUV ‘redefines the way Bentley treats its interiors,’ says Wolfgang Dürheimer, also claiming: ‘It sets new standards in terms of packaging, driving position, throttle response and ride comfort.’ 

And what about the design, which previewed as a 2012 concept car, provoking a similar response to an Arsenal fan in the Spurs end?  

Merc C63 AMG thunders in With a two-cylinder deficit, BMWÕs M3 looks a bit outgunned

AMG’S V8 ENGINE chief told us to expect a surprise when the new C63 was unveiled – and we’ve got one. The 470bhp entry car is more powerful than the 

base AMG GT sports car, and good for 0-62mph in 4.1sec. Plus there’s an extra- potent C63 S model: M3, be very afraid. 

The engine responsible for this excitement is a wet-sump version (M177) of the AMG GT’s dry-sumped (M178) 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, complete with the same ‘hot inside V’ turbo configuration. In the standard C63 it produces 470bhp and 479lb ft 

– 14bhp and 36lb ft more than the equivalent AMG GT. 

In the C63 S it’s cranked to 503bhp and 516lb ft, snatching a tenth off the regular AMG’s 0-62mph time in the process. The S also gets an electronically controlledlimited-slipdifferential, though a mechanical LSD is standard and both variants have ‘dynamic’ engine and transmission mounts. AMG’s seven-speed auto has been ‘heavily revised’ to improve shift times. 

The M3 summons 425bhp and 406lb ft from its 3.0-litre turbo six, but is 120kg lighter than the 1715kg Mercedes. Not that this matters in pub Top Trumps – 0-62mph takes 4.1sec in the BMW at best (with a dual-clutch ’box). 

Visually, the C63 deploys the usual big bumpers and side-skirts routine, 

with quad tailpipes and boot spoiler at the rear. As with the previous C63, there are twin power domes in the bonnet and flared front wings to cover the increased track; the rear is no wider. 

The comfort-to-body control ratio is balanced by three-stage adaptive AMG Ride Control dampers, while 19-inch wheels cover 390mm front and 360mm rear brake discs; carbon-ceramics remain optional. 

Want one so bad it hurts? So might the price – saloons start at nearly £60k. It’s a grand more for an estate and an extra £6k for the S. Deliveries start in spring 2015; we simply cannot wait. 





2015 Merc C63 AMG


AMG’S V8 ENGINE chief told us to expect a surprise when the new C63 was unveiled – and we’ve got one. The 470bhp entry car is more powerful than the base AMG GT sports car, and good for 0-62mph in 4.1sec.. (...)



Color: White


Number of gears: 7



Engine: 
 2 cylinder
      
    

 
Number of airbags: 11

Reviews 


  2015 Merc C63 AMG

 

Review:  5 -    "Merc C63 AMG"  by  John, written on  Nov 14, 2015   I really enjoyed this car