Audi R8 review

It may not have a posh badge, but when it comes to what really matters, the R8 has what it takes to hold its head high among supercar rivals

Mid-life revisions keep the Audi R8 at the top of its game

You can usually tell how happy a manufacturer is with a car’s performance in the marketplace come facelift time. If it feels the need to start throwing new bodywork and engines at it rather than waiting a few years for its all-new replacement, you can usually assume the car’s not doing its job properly.

So armed with this knowledge, let’s look at all the changes Audi has decided to make to its R8 supercar six years after it first went on sale. Outside there are merely new lights, restyled exhaust pipes, a new valence at the back and a restyled grille at the front. Inside there are a few more aluminium trim panels and promotion from optional to standard for things such as sat-nav, Bluetooth and iPod connectivity. There’s confidence for you.

But there’s a little more here than immediately meets the eye, most important of which is in the form of a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission to replace the robotised six-speed manual gearbox found in previous two-pedal versions of the R8. Smooth, quick and without any of the old transmission’s habit of stumbling over itself, it is now as good a reason to skip the standard manual as the old auto was to choose it.

Don’t pay too much attention to Audi’s claims that it drops the 0-62mph time by 0.3sec of both the 4.2-litre V8 and 5.2-litre V10 versions because that’s only going to happen if you use its new launch control facility every time you leave the lights. Focus instead on the fact that the one weak link in the R8’s chain of command has now been replaced. It costs an extra £2900, which only sounds steep until you consider it’s less than Audi charges to trim the engine bay in carbonfibre.

There is, however, more to the 2013 R8 than a few visual tweaks and a new gearbox. Though all range members remain, their numbers have been swelled by a new arrival, the 524bhp R8 Plus, essentially a production version of the limited edition R8 GT with 25bhp more than the standard V10, bespoke suspension settings and carbon-ceramic brake discs.

It’s not the additional power you notice so much, for fast though its 3.5sec 0-62mph undoubtedly is, it’s a scant tenth quicker than the normal V10. More significant is how much sharper is the chassis thanks not only to its new suspension but also the reduction in unsprung weight at each corner. While still sufficiently civilised to fill the R8’s essential role as an everyday, all-purpose supercar, it provides the car with a new level of agility and response, and crucially without torpedoing the ride at the same time.

The issue is that Audi wants £127,575 for the V10 Plus with the new transmission, £12,000 more than it asks for the standard automatic V10 and a massive £33,000 more than the V8 with the new gearbox. And because it is this smaller engine that provides the R8 with its sweetest handling, we still reckon it’s the best of an increasingly able bunch.

McLaren 12C review

The McLaren 12C has extraordinary pace and handling, but is a touch clinical

Choosing a supercar may have just got harderThere could hardly be a more difficult mission for a new supercar company than setting out to beat Ferrari at its game, but that’s the task McLaren has set itself with the McLaren 12C, a natural competitor in terms of performance, price and mechanical layout to Ferrari’s universally admired 458 Italia.

And make no mistake, McLaren is a relatively new supercar company. It has had two previous forays into road cars, but the F1 of the early ’90s is now 20 years old, and the spec and positioning of the more recent SLR was so heavily governed by Mercedes-Benz that it couldn’t really be called a pure McLaren.

The 12C (initially called MP4-12C, but it was too much of a mouthful) is most definitely a pure McLaren. Its broad mid-engined mechanical layout is familiar among supercars but it bristles with McLaren-only technology.According to its founder and chairman Ron Dennis, the company plans a three-tier model range: the £170,000 12C is first, the super-expensive P1 is second, and an “affordable" £120,000 model is around the corner.

Under the skin you'll find a relatively small twin-turbo V8 of unprecedented efficiency and power, a carbonfibre tub chassis made using a revolutionary McLaren-designed process, and an all-independent double wishbone suspension so capable and widely adjustable that the 12C can be made to drive both like a softly damped saloon and a pure-bred racing car.

The icing on the 12C cake is its manufacturing process: McLaren has built a magnificent factory adjacent to its lakeside technology centre – already an architectural icon – where future McLarens will be built to the highest standards.

McLaren says it’s built and maintained to the sort standards popularly attributed to Ron Dennis himself, with the keenest possible eye for quality of materials and high manufacturing standards.

The car is good, especially after an extensive bout of factory upgrades (including a power hike) but it’s not yet perfect

2014 Nissan GT-R first drive review

Subtle changes make standard GT-R more appealing to drive, but by creating the GT-R Nismo, Nissan has left us with the job of choosing between the two...

What is it?

MY 14 to replace MY 13. Or that's what Nissan dubs its conveyor belt of model year changes; to everyone else it'll simply be the GT-R they receive if they order after December.

In previous years the difference between model years was fairly inconsequential, but this time round there are some genuine differences - in the most part because 2014 marks the point at which Nissan has opted to split the range in two.

Reviewed elsewhere, the more expensive Nismo will now be the performance pinnacle of the GT-R experience. Its placement means that the engineers have finally been freed to relax their grip on the Race part of the badge, and get to grips with the GT bit.

Thus, ride and refinement have become bigger issues than they have ever been before. The front spring rates and electronic control of the dampers has been revised “to reduce load fluctuations between the four wheels” ie to keep them all in contact with the ground rather than skipping around like frogs in a pond of trampolines.

Dunlop SP Sport Maxx GTs now come as standard, and the steering has been retuned to offer drivers a bit more assistance at lower speeds (where the GT-R was previously as cantankerous as Godzilla in a tea shop). The brakes have also been recalibrated for a more linear response when not on the limit.

Nissan has even set out to improve the car's insulation from the whine of the drivetrain, reassessing the placement of noise-cancelling material and indulging in Active Noise Control from the Bose sound system.

Finally (or possibly firstly, depending on how you look at it) there has been the usual deck-shuffling of light clusters, with the front getting rather dashing LED lamp signatures to the front and a more distinctive 'four ring' arrangement at the back.

What is it like?

Really rather convincing. Previous trips out in the GT-R would not last five minutes before the suspension was frantically thumbed into its 'Comf' mode. Here, on admittedly smooth Japanese roads, the softest setting was not required to reasonably satisfy one's aching spine.

Its engineers bridle at the suggestion of softness; what they've strived for, they say, is improved compliance for better traction, and there is that sensation - not plush or tremendously isolating, but sufficient to make the GT-R a better everyday prospect (obviously the point).

Similarly, the new steering does make junction navigation a little less bothersome, and work at the opposite end to make its responses more linear (and less in need of minor corrections) has also paid off.

A modest route hardly permitted a decent work out of the GT-R's formidable dynamic, but it's fair to say that when prodded, the car still responds with huge conviction. Revised throttle response, beyond a moment's pause for thought, is aggressive and then relentless. Nissan doesn't quote a 0-60mph time for the new Nismo, but the standard car is still below 3, and that'll be plenty good enough for most.

Suzuki SX4 S-Cross review

Second-generation soft-roader enters the family crossover fray

The Suzuki's low price tag will make it appealing to many

Where the crossover begins and the SUV ends are muddy waters, but there's absolutely no doubt that the Suzuki SX4 S-Cross – and the SX4 line – owes its existence to the range of small off-road vehicles that Suzuki has been building since 1968.

The latter-day variant, mostly forgotten, is known as the Jimny and has been with us since 1998. That's a rather staggering display of longevity in itself, but only an equal to the previous SJ-series, and still a junior compared with the original LJ ('light jeep') design, which soldiered on from 1969 to 1981.

But Suzuki’s offering was too small, too feebly marketed and probably still too quirky for it to reach the tipping point that would be Nissan’s decade-defining automotive achievement.The previous SX4, a five-door, Giugiaro-penned hatchback, predated the original Qashqai, already traded under the correct name and sported that oh-so familiar 4x4 look now seemingly craved by an ever-growing number of buyers.

Second time around, Suzuki now insists it has got the new model right. Dubbed the SX4 S-Cross, this second-generation incarnation shares nothing with its predecessor. It is now a proper C-segment contender, with one of the biggest boots in the class and offered with a choice of two highly economical four-cylinder engines

Better still, Suzuki boasts that it has been engineered by the same team responsible for the Swift – our preferred cut-price supermini. So in the S-Cross’s case, is bigger better?

Peugeot 308 1.6 HDi first drive review

Classy, high-quality cabin and good motorway manners heralds Peugeot’s return to form in the hatchback segment

What is it?

The new Peugeot 308, fresh on the scene in the UK. It’s a car with a very fulsome engine range, largely because PSA is right in the middle of the switchover from ‘Euro-V’ to ‘Euro-VI’ emissions-compliant motors, but clarity will come in time. 

We’ve had test experience of the mid-range 114bhp e-HDi turbodiesel, and will wait until thespring 2014 to try the full-house 148bhp 2.0-litre BlueHDi and the remarkable forthcoming 118bhp, 1.6-litre, 82g/km oil-burner – the latter a car with the potential to show a VW Golf BlueMotiona thing or two on fuel-sipping.

For now, we’re sampling the 91bhp 1.6-litre turbodiesel – the car that, in ‘Access’ trim, provides a sub-100g/km, £16.5k oil-burning entry point to the 308 range. Our test car is in slightly richer ‘Active’ spec, but still looks good value at under £18k.

What is it like?

Classy, upmarket and very pleasant indeed to spend time in. If habitual critics of French cars spent two minutes in this cabin, the greatly improved material quality will certainly make a good proportion of them think again. 

The 308’s is a sculptural, substantial and swish interior with a central colour touchscreen interface that has permitted a major decluttering of the centre stack. Even lower-middle spec versions get expensive-looking trims and generous equipment levels (sat-nav as standard on a sub-£18k car, anyone?). Rear cabin space isn’t quite as generous and the seats could be more comfortable, but you get a big boot for your money, too.

Mechanical refinement is the 308’s next most convincing attribute - even this 91bhp turbodiesel is hushed and smooth compared to most like-for-like powerplants – and after that, the car’s quiet and pliant motorway ride distinguishes it best. 

It’s a compliance, like so many, that is best delivered at the cheaper end of the model spectrum. Peugeot’s modus operandi on chassis tuning automatically gives cars with heavier and more powerful engines, bigger wheels and more fitted equipment slightly firmer suspension, and so full-house versions of the 308 not only produce more road noise, but ride less calmly, too.

But our Active-spec test car had an absorbent primary ride over low-frequency bumps, and while it lacked the fluency, wheel travel and subtle damper response of Peugeots of old when dealing with smaller and sharper intrusions, it still merits a rank among the most comfortable hatchbacks in the current class.

Performance suffers with poor turbo response at times, but feels entirely adequate otherwise, and the car’s handling is more than decent too, but the latter is the dynamic facet most likely to divide opinion. Through a downsized steering wheel, the car feels direct and wieldy at low speeds just as a 208 does, but has inconsistent levels of steering assistance and only sporadic feedback. It’s also easy to overwork the front contact patches in greasy conditions at fairly high speeds, and to bring about understeer sooner than you might have otherwise.

McLaren F1 1992-1998 review

In 1994 Autocar road tested the fastest and most extreme road car ever built. Here is the definitive verdict of the McLaren F1

The F1 is untouchable in a straight line: 0-100mph in 6.3sec

"What you are about to read is not simply the fastest road test in history. It is, in all likelihood, the fastest road test there will ever be.

"Until we strapped our equipment to the McLaren F1 no one knew how fast it would go. Now we know it all, because we have driven it beyond 210mph, timed it to the last hundredth of a second. And here it stops.

Those were the words that introduced Autocar's review of the McLaren F1 in 1994. To this day, it remains the definitive road test of the most iconic British supercar of all time. "McLaren will never release another of its amazing £540,000 supercars for road testing to anyone, anywhere in the world."

It was such a hammer blow that it took McLaren 21 years to produce a supercar capable of coming close to the F1.

In May 1994 we took the fifth McLaren prototype, codenamed XP5, to two proving grounds – Millbrook and Bruntingthorpe – to attempt to generate a full set of performance figures. That same car was driven, four years later, by Andy Wallace at Ehra-Lessien in Germany to record a world record-breaking 243mph.

Here, as McLaren launches the P1, we republish that original Autocar road test from May 1994.

Mazda 3 hybrid first drive review

Although it's not destined for the UK market any time soon, this Mazda hybrid offers a more stylish alternative to established players like the Toyota Prius

What is it?

Mazda’s first-ever hybrid, a version of the all-new 3 saloon just launched at the Tokyo motor show.

Built around a 2.0-litre petrol engine, the main electrical componentry has been bought in from Toyota and integrated with Mazda’s four-cylinder petrol.

These aren’t Toyota’s latest hybrid parts, however, they were developed for the first-generation Prius in the late 1990s.

Nevertheless, this is a sophisticated hybrid with a complex epicyclic transfer box and CVT to juggle power between the petrol engine, electric motor and front-wheels.

It also benefits from the latest knowledge in tuning and setting-up hybrid systems, so Mazda says it has extracted the maximum from the hardware.

The battery pack is nickel metal hydride, fairly compact and packaged next to the rear bulkhead, where it makes a limited impact on luggage space – which numbers 312 litres, a reduction of 107 litres.

What is it like?

Progress is smooth and efficient, Mazda clearly having successfully integrated the petrol engine and electric motor.

This makes the Mazda 3 a competitive hybrid against the latest rivals, which is particularly noticeable compared to the original Prius, a relatively crude device at its introduction.

It also shows how detailed engineering and greater knowledge can squeeze improved performance from older tech electrical componentry.

However, we’d still like more refinement from the CVT gearbox and engine. They operate smoothly enough, but as the CVT feeds in the power, the engine noise is too obtrusive as the revs constantly rise and fall.

Tyre noise was surprisingly vocal too. That could have been a coarse road surface, but our experience of Japanese tarmac is that it is smoother than UK roads by a fair margin.

Also, like most hybrids the fuel economy indicated in-car fell below the quoted figure. However, this was a short urban drive and the figure of 52mpg is comparative with what a Toyota Prius might typically deliver in give-and-take driving.

Other aspects of the new Mazda 3 are impressive, too. The cabin quality is high, the instrument pack is attractive and the driving position gives good visibility.

There wasn’t a chance to evaluate handling to a significant degree, but the 3 hybrid turned in faithfully, roll was resisted reasonably well and the chassis felt like it will deliver a fair balance between ride and handling.

Should I buy one?

Britons are unlikely to ever get the chance, hybrids not featuring in Mazda’s European plans. But we can see the Mazda 3 garnering a strong following in the home market, where hybrids dominate the small hatch market segment. As a stylish alternative to the ubiquitous Toyota Prius, the Mazda 3 hybrid looks to have a strong future.

Mazda 3 Hybrid

Price from £15,395; 0-62mph NA; Top speed NA; Economy 87mpg (Japan test fig); CO2 n/a; Kerbweight 1390kg; Engine Four cylinder petrol, direct injection, 1997cc; AC motor; Power 98bhp @ 5200rpm electric motor 81bhp maximum total 135bhp; Torque 142lbft @ 4000rpm electric motor 152lb ft; Gearbox CVT