car

03 Mar 2024
  During their spent time on manufacturer’s press fleets the cars we motor-noters are privileged enough to be lent must inevitably lead a hard life. All those miles; all those different drivers; all those different driving styles…     So far, so good. In over thirteen years of borrowing myriad motor cars from myriad marques (some now defunct), fortunately – touch wood and all that – I’ve never...
01 Feb 2024
     I’ve driven Aston Martin’s DBX707 before; an all-too brief blast in August 2022 from Dormy House in The Cotswolds, down to Clivedon House – where the scandalous Profumo affair is said to have started – and back again. I wound my way down on A –roads through the Cotswolds (AML’s PR people do seem to love The Cotswolds) before cruising my way back via an almost unnaturally empty the M40. As...
18 Nov 2018
   Kuga, Kadjar, Karoq, Qashqai, Sportage, CR-V, Tiguan… And that’s to name but a few. The list of compact SUVs, soft-roaders and faux-by-fours – call –them-what-you-will - keeps growing. And yet strangely, Jeep, the brand that inspired them all (yes, even Land Rover) and the grand-daddy if-you-will of off-roaders, have been somewhat late to join this particular aspirational party. Until now that...
10 Jul 2018
   It was not so long ago that SEAT, Volkswagen’s Spanish and sporty brand, didn’t have an SUV in their line-up. Now they’ve got two. First there was the Ateca.  That’s their bigger one, based on the MQB platform that underpins a whole host of VW group regulars. And now there’s this: The Arona.    Well, I suppose, it’s a crossover really, rather than an SUV.    I say that because the Arona is...
20 Jun 2018
     You may perhaps not even have seen one yet, but already Volvo’s new XC40, has been winning awards. Not only did it recently win both the Car of the Year and Best Medium SUV titles in the recent DieselCar and EcoCar Top 50 awards 2018, it also scooped the coveted European Car of the Year award prior to its unveiling at this year’s Geneva Motorshow in March. What Car? Named it their Car of the...
16 Feb 2018
      Park Hyundai’s i30N next to a VW Golf GTi and it’s easy to see where the Koreans have firmly set their sights. The Golf of course has long been the go-to hatchback bench-mark, and it’s not stretching the imagination too far to say that, even in their respective milder forms, both the i30 and the definitive people’s car share certain similarities: Size for starters, plus the ability to seat...
10 Dec 2017
      Figures were never really my strong-point, so let’s get them out of the way first shall we?     Ferrari’s GTC4Lusso is a 680bhp, 12 cylinder, 4 seater, 4 wheel-drive, 4 wheel-steer, 0-62 in 3.4 seconds, 0-125 mph in 10.5 seconds, 208 mph all-out super-coupe. It weighs 1,920kg, has a 7 speed dual-clutch gearbox (in fact it has 2 gearboxes, we’ll get to that later), and is nearly 5 metres...
17 Oct 2017
   Quite where the line is drawn between what makes an SUV an SUV, and what constitutes a crossover these days is hard to determine, but what can’t be argued is the fact that we car-buyers love ‘em – and especially so if they’re considered “premium”.    At the time a writing, and just a couple of weeks after their glitzy unveilings at The Frankfurt Motorshow, I can name at least another half-...
20 Sep 2017
      Think of a GT car and your thoughts quite naturally turn to the likes of 1960’s Aston Martins, Bentleys, Ferraris, and Jaguars; exquisite luxury leather-lined coupes with effortless power, sleek styling, and more-than-likely astronomical price-tags. GTs are cars in which an intercontinental drive would be a pleasure not a chore - GT stands for Grand Touring after all GTs.  They’re the kind...
11 Aug 2017
     The last time I drove a SEAT Ateca was in Manchester, as part of its UK launch, and like many motoring writer that day I returned full of praise for what is the Spanish manufacturer’s first foray into the ever-growing, and indeed ever-popular, family SUV market place.    It was Autocar Magazine however that really put the Ateca on the map by bestowing upon it their “Game changer Award”; one...
Subscribe to car