CAR Interactive
The miracle of McLaren’s Speedtail, plus why lap times just don’t matter
> VIA EMAIL Another McLaren? Really? I can’t have been the only person thinking that when my December issue arrived. But then I opened up the magazine and all that was forgotten. What an astonishing looking creation the Speedtail is. Maybe John Wycherley’s photos are slightly lattering – it’ll be interesting to see how it looks on a country lane. Probably sensational. Great work, McLaren. And great work, CAR.
Ellis Forbes
Diesel decision
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I firmly believe that Porsche have shot themselves in the foot by declaring that they will no longer be producing either the Cayenne or the Macan with diesel engines.
Eighty per cent of their SUV sales have these. I have had three Cayennes with diesels. My current one is the Diesel S with a 4.2 litre V8, which is epic.
VW have announced a new V8 4.0 litre for the Touareg – surely this would fit the Cayenne. With 440bhp and massive torque it would be perfect!
Jon Hardin
It’s a wind-up
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I feel manufacturers keep offering up solutions to problems that don’t really exist. Not every new idea is a good idea. Indeed, I wonder how some of these ideas actually make it past the first discussion.
The most recent I came across was in the November 2018 issue where the Personal Assistant function on the new BMW 3-series could learn to lower your window at a ticket barrier. Really? I’m sorry. Enough is enough. I am quite capable of hitting the button to lower my window when needed. It takes a really low level of effort and I have been doing it for years. Are the lunatics running the asylum now?
David Loveland
Going spare
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I read with interest Paul Alexander’s letter in your November issue about his travails with a puncture on his Jaguar F-Type and the avarice of manufacturers in not providing a spare wheel. I have to say that I am not convinced it is as simple as money-saving.
Like Mr Alexander, I still view a spare wheel as an essential on a car, so when I ordered my F-Type, I stumped up nearly £300 to get one. When it arrived I opened the tailgate to reveal a spare wheel surrounded by a very small amount of fresh air. With the spare in place the load capacity is reduced to items the size of a child’s lunchbox. I am led to the conclusion, therefore, that the omission in the case of the Jaguar is one of packaging not price. So I have an F-Type spare wheel. It sits in pride of place in my shed and Mr Alexander is welcome to pop around and borrow it any time.
Jez Smith
So near Yeti so far
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I was pleased to read in the October and November issues of CAR very complimentary remarks about the now sadly retired Skoda Yeti. First, your4
distinguished editor simply summed up the Yeti’s many positive aspects: ‘irreplaceable, apparently’.
Then, in the Top 10 Great Leaps Backward, while Gavin Green is rightly critical of the Yeti’s replacement, the Karoq, he notes: ‘The Yeti was as outstanding as a Himalayan snowman.’
I could not agree more. I own a 2014 Yeti (second generation) 4x4 with a wonderfully vigorous 2.0-litre diesel engine and a smooth DCT ’box. It is one of the very best cars I’ve had in my relatively long life (out of 17 cars from nine different brands, including some very nice BMWs and a great Saab).
The Yeti has character in spades and superb practicality in one package. I love its dynamism for safe overtaking and the excellent visibility all around. The all-wheel drive provides sure handling and stability in the snow (I live in a mountainous area). It’s a cinch to park, being so compact, yet its cargo area is huge once the back seats have been removed (easily done). After almost 60,000 miles, it still amazes me with its versatility.
I think that, like Ben Miller, I will keep mine for a long time. Such a pity that the Karoq has renounced all originality, ingenuity and personality to become a clone of the Seat Ateca.
Giuseppe Papuli
Allo allo allo Alexa
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Gavin Green’s column in November about the use of surveillance in self-driving cars omitted one possibility which is probably on the edge of reality today. That is the introduction of the in-car traffic officer.
With existing systems such as sign recognition, GPS navigation, automated cruise control and more, it would not be too difficult to envision a time when a car would be capable of reporting any traffic violations it was used to commit. Very minor violations could be collected and emailed to the authorities at the end of the day. More serious violations could be reported in real time, and extremely dangerous driving could result in control being taken over by the car’s autonomous systems so it could be steered to the closest safe stopping point, parked and disabled to await the arrival of the police.
It would be a nationwide traffic enforcement system paid for by the car makers with no need for local authorities to spend millions on cameras.
John Tuleibitz
But it works
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For all Colin Overland’s grouching through his time with the Seat Arona (Our Cars), the fact is that I’m seeing loads of Aronas and very few Ibizas. If the trad hatch was so good, people would buy them, not more expensive crossovers. Dale Eastwood
No longer supported
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Having recently been to Biggin Hill, I see that there are an increasing number of Spitfires being flown, supporting thriving businesses who are taking on apprentices to restore and maintain aircraft from that era. By contrast, the Vulcan can no longer be flown, in part because no one knows how to certify the airframe but more importantly the skill, knowledge and ability to understand the electrics, diagnose faults, and even be able to source the parts to effect a repair have disappeared.
How old does your PC or laptop become before it’s obsolete? How old is your television? Machine tools and equipment in our factory become obsolete and thrown out in a relatively short number of years because the electronics are obsolete or the spares are not available.
Progress in the car industry is following the same path. Who will know how to repair an digital dashboard in 10 years’ time, and where will we be able to get those spares? That’s assuming that we can get in the car if the keyless entry sensors are still functioning. And when we do, will the car start if the electronics develop a fault and are obsolete?
There is a ‘burning platform’ situation here: we are designing and producing ever more efficient vehicles but the entire life-cycle including the cost of manufacture and then disposal over an ever-shortening lifetime makes the cost per mile ever higher.
In 20 years the Ford Cortina will still be repairable and driveable long after the Tesla has been recycled into an end-of-life certificated and environmentally accredited landfill.
Alan Webb
What we went to school for
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You guys need to work on the physics. First plastic bottles that crush as you climb a mountain (Bentley drive, October) and now the new Peugeot 508 is a bit of a drag (November). Drag is ½pCdAV2 but the A isn’t the area of the car at the front; it’s the overall silhouette of the car as viewed from the frontal aspect. If it’s wider at the back that’s the ‘A’ that applies. The new 508 may be narrower at the front than its predecessor but the improved air resistance will be down to a better Cd. Tim Gosling
Stop the clock
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I have to agree with Peter Webster (Letters, December), there’s far too much emphasis in your reviews on lap times. These are irrelevant to 99 per cent of buyers and probably 90 per cent of your readers. We know journalists love these experiences, since you write about them with such relish (it probably helps that you don’t pay for the tyres, brakes, fuel, etc), but readers want to know what cars are like on real roads. This does include at 7/10 to 10/10 for those rare occasions when roads and conditions allow us to indulge in a little fun. But lap times and racing cars, meh. Mark McElligott
We don’t quote lap times in road tests. We
didn’t even put them in our recent Sports Car Giant Test because, as you imply, it’s the experience that’s more important. BM
Turn over an old Leaf
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Jake Grove (Our Cars, November) expresses surprise that a model ‘built from the ground up’ shouldn’t have design niggles. Presumably he doesn’t know that the Leaf is in fact based on the chassis/ floor plan of the old Nissan Tiida from 2004. Once you know and look at the proportions you can’t unsee it..
Declan Doyle
Square roots
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VW’s design process can be expressed in mathematical form.
Jeep Renegade body plus Suzuki Ignis front end equals new VW T-Cross.
Probably unfair to judge on the basis of the photographs, but it just looks so derivative and clunky.
VW’s launch strapline for the car is ‘I am cool’. So far it leaves me cold.
Ken Taylor
Timewarp
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Re Top 10 Great Leaps Backward, December 2018, the Citroën ZX may not have been a great leap forward from the GS but it was certainly not a rebadged 306, predating the Peugeot by a couple of years. Another arguable error in the article was that the ZX didn’t even directly supersede the GS, that role falling to the Citroën BX. Finlay Booth
Come o it
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What are you guys using for eyes these days? How could you heap anything but derision on the awkward looking Peugeot e-Legend (Insider, November)? It doesn’t sit comfortably on the road, it has awkward angles everywhere, it is a travesty! It’s another competitor in the ugly competition that every manufacturer except Mazda and Tesla seems to be secretly competing in. I read with sadness that Mazda have a new designer, so their handsome looks could be a thing of the past. Oh for the days of the gorgeous Lambo Marzal, the Citroën GS, or any number of pre-snout Audis, or the clean simplicity of a Fiat 128, Alfasud et al. Crappily built though they were, they looked good! Peter Johns
Stick to the metal
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I buy CAR for items on cars. I do not buy it for anti-Brexit propaganda. Make this (‘Brexit: the hard truth’, December) your last foray into this sort of politics. I’ve been a fan of CAR for 20-plus years but not for much longer if this is your style. John Donnellan
Sorry you thought it was propaganda – the intention was to represent the views of the manufacturers. BM