Why the Audi A5 was born for the outside lane

HERE’S one to discuss next time you’re at the pub. What is the coolest car from Audi’s current range?

Last time I delved into this particular discussion, the nominations for this year’s Coolest Audi Award were the RS5, largely for being a modern-day equivalent of Gene Hunt’s Quattro, the R8 because you can pretend it’s a Lamborghini in a boring suit, and the S1 because it’s a beltingly quick hot hatch.

In fact, I’ve long maintained the only Audi even vaguelywithin sniffing distance of being cool is the A7. Not the hugely powerful, range-topping RS7 version either. Just the basic A7 in its purest form, because it’s the only big Audi which doesn’t have the baggage of being a tailgater’sfavoured set of wheels.

That’s probably why I’ve found driving the A7’s baby brother – the A5 Sportback – over the past few days such an eye-opener. If you’re in the market for a sleek, family-friendly express for between £25-35k it’s well worth a look, because it’s pleasingly proportioned, roomier than you’d expect a coupe-esque five-door to be, and built with the sort of attention to detail that’d give the scientists at CERN sleepless nights.

Yet its trump card – and one it shares with all the A3s and A4s I’ve driven over the past few years – is also why I suspect I’m forever encountering A5 drivers thundering past me on the motorway at improbable speeds. It is, put simply, a piece of cake to drive at very high speeds.

At 70mph in sixth, the 2.0 litre turbodiesel engine in the one I’d borrowed wasn’t even nudging 2000rpm – in other words, it was barely breaking into a sweat. It’s not even fast in a particularly sporty way that eggs you on to go faster; the Audi is so composed at this sort of speed it shrugs it off. 

The temptation is settle into the A5’s natural groove – the sort of three figure speeds you’ll see perfectly standard Audis doing every day on German autobahns. The reason why you see so many cars with four rings on the front doing upwards of 85mph is because doing so requires absolutely no effort whatsoever from the driver, who’s only really there to dial in the occasional steering input to stop it hitting the central reservation.

The A5 is a superbly talented bit of kit, but I prefer my executive expresses to be a bit more involving. That’ll be the Jaguar XF, then.

Subaru Outback ready for April launch

PRICES for Subaru’s new Outback off-road estate car will start at £27,995 when it goes on sale on 1 April.

It’ll be available with two trim levels a choice of two of the company’s flat four ‘boxer’ engines – a 2.0 litre turbodiesel engine, and a 2.5 litre petrol powerplant. 

For more information about the new Outback go online to www.subaru.co.uk

Toyota set to sell its fuel cell car in the UK

A CLEVER new Toyota which runs on hydrogen fuel cells – meaning the only thing coming out of its rear end is water vapour – will be introduced in the UK later this year.

Toyota said its Mirai model, a five-door hatchback similar in size to the petrol-powered Auris model, had been a hit in Japan so the manufacturer is now planning to sell it across Europe too.

Quentin Willson presents a new TV show you won't want to miss

A NEW TV series for fans of older cars – presented by former Top Gear and Fifth Gear host Quentin Willson – starts on Channel 5 next week.

The 13-part series, called The Classic Car Show, sees Quentin team up with supermodel Jodie Kidd and presenters Alex Riley and Will Best for the one hour shows, featuring buying advice, motorsport and drive stories.

The first episode will be shown at 7pm next Thursday (5 February).

Why I won't be investing in one of the last Land Rover Defenders

MY DAD reckons he’s had a brilliant idea for a bit of automotive investment. Buy one of the very last Land Rover Defenders, stick it in a shed somewhere and make a small fortune after unearthing it in about 20 years’ time. It’s a no-brainer, surely?

Anyone with even the vaguest interest in cars will know Land Rover’s workhorse is a British motoring institution. Despite being treated to new engine once every so often and being given the Defender name in 1990, it’s pretty much unaltered from when it was introduced more than 30 years ago. Whenit finally goes out of production this December it’ll be the end of an era.

There are however a couple of problems with my dad’s cunning scheme, the main one being that Defenders aren’t the cheap, rustic farming runarounds they used to be. Land Rover is seeing out is longest-serving modelwith a trio of special editions, the cheapest of which costs £28,000. The range-topping Autobiograhy version is an eye-watering £62,000, which is a lot of money for a car he’d like to stash away in a shed somewhere.

The other problem, of course, is there’s no guarantee it’d work. Everyone had pretty much the same idea when the Mini went out of production 14 years ago, and the result now is you don’t actually have to look very hard to find X-registered and W-registered Coopers with fewer than 1,000 miles on the clock. As a result, they’re worth barely any more than they were back in 2000.

Then there’s the vexing problem of what you’d actually do with a very old but – showroom fresh – car, because even popping to the shops will ruin the minimal mileage that makes it special. After 20 years of having a Land Rover not moving an inch, all anybody will want to do it is keep it in another shed or put in a museum, which defeats the point of it being a car.

If I were lucky enough to be able to afford one of the very last of the old-school Land Rovers, I’d take it down muddy tracks and use it to pull stranded motorists out of snowdrifts – in other words, using it for what it’s meant for.

Even if there was the remotest prospect of making a couple of quid in the distant future, I’d much rather be out there enjoying this fantastic British institution than hiding it away.

Don't miss out on tomorrow's Mini Fair

MINI fans won't want to miss out on this year's Mini Fair, which gets underway at the Staffordshire County Showground tomorrow (25 January).

Not only are there scores of the Alec Issigonis-designed classics to check out, but one of the event's long-running traditions - the chance to win a Mini in a £1 raffle - is back. This year, show organiser the British Mini Club is giving away a 1988 Mini City, worth £4,500.


The show opens at 9.30am. To find out more, visit the event website.

Updates announced for the BMW 1-Series

BMW has treated its baby model to more powerful LED headlights as part of a gentle facelift for the model.

Along with the brighter new lights, the 1-Series has been given a few subtle styling tweaks to keep the hatchback looking fresh, including larger air intakes and a reshaped radiator grille.

It goes on sale on March 28, with the cheapest model being the three-door 118i SE at £20,245.

 

Fiat's new lease deal for the 500 is young at heart

FIAT is pitching a new lease deal on its 500 to teenage motorists who would otherwise struggle with the cost of insuring their first car.

The company’s i-DEAL scheme, agreed jointly between the Italian manufacturer and Carrot, an insurance firm, allows drivers as young as 18 to drive a brand new 500 fitted with a telematics system which encourages them to drive more safely.

The three year deal costs £239 a month to take part in. While it’s not the cheapest way to get motoring at the age of 18 – there are of course, telematic monitoring systems which can already be fitted to secondhand cars – it’s ideal for parents who want their offspring to start their motoring career in a safe, hassle-free way.

Karl Howkins, Commercial Director for FIAT Chrysler UK, said: “This all-inclusive insurance package deal will make the dream of driving a brand new FIAT 500 a reality for many young drivers who would otherwise be forced to drive an older and potentially less reliable and safe vehicle.”

To find out more go to the new website covering the Fiat 500 insurance deal.

Why I've signed the motorsport noise petition

BLIPPING the throttle on a Jaguar F-type, hearing the scream of that supercharged V8 and the lovely crackle from the exhaust overrun is one of those things I reckon I’d never get tired of doing. 

It’s a truly beautiful bit of automotive acoustics, but I reckon if I moved next door to your house and did it repeatedly, day after day, you’d start to find even the F-type’s sonorous song a bit annoying after a while. It’s the same story with anyone who thinks they can get away with playing with the Black Eyed Peas in the next room – noise, when you’re not expecting it, is utterly annoying and thoroughly deserving of a strongly-worded Post-It Note.

But what if you move somewhere where a bit of racket is to be expected – in fact, where a bit of racket is actually encouraged? I reckon that’s a different story. Luckily, about 36,000 of you happen to agree with me, which is why an ongoing petition to protect motor racing circuits from people who move in next door and then complain about the noise is well on its way to getting debated at Westminster.

I completely get where the likes of Mallory Park, brought to its knees two years ago by a noise-related complaint, and Mildenhall Stadium, which is currently fighting its next door neighbours in the Supreme Court, are coming from. You can’t just move in across the street from a motor racing circuit that’s been there for years, find it a bit annoying and then take the operators to the cleaners.

I grew up in a house less than a mile from RAF Woodvale, which has been there since Spitfires were taking off and predates the nearby homes by at least 30 years.  Equally, the place I put my head down for the night during the working week is less than 50 yards from the A1, and I’m not exactly in a position to moan about what’s been the road from London to Edinburgh since the Romans set up shop here. If I didn’t like either, I’d just move somewhere else.

If you value going to somewhere like Oulton Park or Donington and you enjoy watching racing, then go online and sign the petition. Britain is the de facto motorsport capital of the world – just ask all the F1 teams based within an hour of Silverstone – and it needs protecting from the numpties next door.

Honda's clever cruise control is computing witchcraft

THE OTHER week my smartphone – having worked out I was on a train chugging its way through Sandhills station – decided to give me an update on how Brendan Rogers’ boys were getting on against Arsenal.

Somewhere deep within the phone’s brain, a complicated algorithm had worked out that, as I was vaguely close to Anfield at the time of a Liverpool game, I must have been interested in the results. All it proved was that my phone probably knows less about me than you do. It knew where I was, but couldn’t figure out why.

If you’ve ever bought someone a gift on Amazon – say, Michael Bublé’s latest album – and then been hounded with emails suggesting you buy all his other albums despite the fact you hate his records, you’ll know what I mean when I say I don't really trust computerised technology. It makes even less sense when you apply it to real world driving – a colleague and I were circumnavigating London’s North Circular the other day, and even though I’ve never driven the capital’s roads before I could still work when to change lanes long before Lady Satnav did.

That’s why I’m genuinely going to have to take a leap of faith with Honda’s latest invention. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they’ve managed to come up with an automatic cruise control system that can predict if someone’s about to cut you up. Not only that, but it then applies the brakes to prevent them causing a pile-up.

Surely that’s just witchcraft? Predicting who is going to cut you up on the M58 is something best done with common sense rather than computers. Even a really good computer, developed by Honda’s brainiest boffins, cannot scan every car on the motorway, work out which one is the BMW X5 on personalised plates and take pre-emptive action to prevent them from ruining your drive into work.

However, it’s not something nicked from a science fiction movie. It’s called Intelligent Adaptive Cruise Control – or i-ACC, as Honda’s insisting we nickname it – and it’ll be available on range-topping versions of the CR-V off-roader later this year.

I can’t wait to give it a go and see if it actually works. Perhaps more worrying it’s that it’s being hailed as a step towards a whole new generation of clever gadgets that can predict what other people are about to do and take pre-emptive decisions to improve the situation.

Maybe such a technical marvel shouldn’t just be limited to motoring. Have Liverpool thought about bringing in i-ACC to replace Brendan Rogers?

Nissan LEAF leads electric car sales charge

SALES of electric cars more than doubled in 2014 compared to the previous year, new figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reveal.

Among the biggest sellers are Nissan’s LEAF and Vauxhall’s Ampera, but even at current rates the electric vehicles still only account for one in every 220 new cars sold in the UK.

SEAT joins the fast estate club

SEAT is following Ford, VW and Skoda into the world of practically-minded performance cars by launching its first ever fast estate model.

The SEAT Leon ST Cupra has the same 280bhp engine and six-speed gearbox as its hatchback sibling, but despite all the extra luggage room it’s only two tenths of a second slower in the dash from 0 to 60mph.

It goes on sale here in March, with prices due to be announced in the next few weeks.

New classic car show in Preston today

CLASSIC CAR owners in Lancashire might want to head to this new event, which takes place near Preston today.

The 10am-4pm event takes place at the Smiths Arms in Lea Town, and is open to all classic vehicles, and if it's a success more gatherings are on the cards at the pub later this summer.

For more information call John Deuce on 01772 760555.

Don't miss tomorrow's Wirral to Llandudno Mini Run

ONE of my favourite motoring events - the Wirral to Llandudno Mini Run - gets underway tomorrow morning (11 January, 2015).

It's not only a great opportunity to blow off the festive cobwebs, but you get to see scores of classic Minis from right across Wales, the north of England and the Midlands being enjoyed in and around the picturesque resort of Llandudno.

The run takes more than 100 Minis from Bromborough on the Wirral to Rhos-on-Sea, the Great Orme and into Llandudno, but the best place to see them is on Llandudno's promenade from 11am. The display is held on the town's seafront until 3pm.

If you've never been, these pictures from the event in previous years will give you an idea what to expect...

 

For more information have a look at the event's website.

It's the beginning of the end of the Land Rover Defender

LAND ROVER has announced a trio of special editions to mark the Defender's final year of production.

The Heritage, Adventure and Autobiography editions, which are all powered by the company's 2.2 litre diesel engine, are available to order now and will be on sale until the end of the model's production in December. The cheapest of the three is the Heritage edition, which costs £27,800.

The off-roader has been in production since 1984, and was given the Defender name a quarter of a century ago. Land Rover is considering keeping the model in limited production outside the European Union, but it will disappear from the showrooms at the end of the year.

However, there is a crumb of good news - work is very much underway on finally creating the trusty Land Rover's replacement.

Nick Roger, the manufacturer's vehicle line director, said: 'Passion and enthusiasm surround everything we do with Defender, and that will never change. With a history stretching back 68 years, this is a Land Rover that has thrived for decades on its unquestionable capability and iconic shape.

'I now have the honour of being one of the many enthusiasts at Land Rover committed to creating a fitting successor to the legendary Defender.'

Land Rover has also marked the Defender's final year by using six classic Land Rovers to create the UK's biggest ever sand artwork. To see the video, have a look at this article I've writen for the Classic Cars For Sale website. 

Lotus and Ariel take their sports cars off road

THE INTERNET is currently bursting at the seams with people wondering whether they’re going to get their hoverboards this year. It’s 2015, which if you grew up in the Eighties or early Nineties only means one thing; finally being able to see how much Back to the Future II jumped from fiction to fact.

It’s odd looking back at the all the things proclaimed as being the future back in 1985, and I don’t just mean the Sinclair C5. Things like four-wheel-steering and talking digital dashboards were about as futuristic as Human League records – but how of many today’s cars actually have them? On the other hand, Eighties luxuries like folding door mirrors and reversing cameras are making it into even the cheapest of today’s cars, and safety essentials ABS and airbags are de rigueur. 

But I’d love to know is what petrolheads will be thinking in another 30 years when they look back at motoring’s latest rethink. This is the year, it’s looking increasingly likely, when the British sports car whipped off its trainers and slapped on some walking boots.

I’m not talking about Jaguar’s four-wheel-drive version of its F-type, but sports cars designed specifically for venturing up forest tracks rather than setting blistering lap times around Oulton Park. We’ve had sporty off-roaders before, of course, but it’s looking increasingly likely 2015 will be the year of the off-roady sports car.

Word on the automotive grapevine is that Lotus is making an off-road version of its Evora, which will keep its rear-wheel-drive but will be jacked up and fitted with knobbly tyres. It might sound preposterous, but given Lotus’ engineering talent I’m really looking forward to seeing if they can pull it off. The existing roadgoing Evora cope that badly when I treated it to a spot of impromptu off-roading for a photoshoot at Southport Beach when I test drove one a few years ago, either!

Luckily, you don’t have to wait until Lotus finishes to see what an off-road sports car looks like. Ariel has managed to cross its already mildly unhinged Atom with something you might find in an Action Man toy set, called it the Nomad, and is about to put it on sale. It hasn’t got four-wheel-drive either, but with the chunky tyres, the minimal weight and the 200bhp the 2.4 litre Honda engine chucks out, it’s unlikely you’d need it on the rough stuff. As unlikely as an off-road Ariel Atom sounds, I think it’s going to be fantastic.

So is the off-road sports car something that’s going to catch on or is it an automotive dead end? Given the appetite for cars that even look a bit off-roaders but aren’t – take a bow, Nissan Qashqai – I’d like to think it’s the former.

I’m more likely to pilot an Ariel off-road than to take up hoverboarding, that’s for sure!

How to save hundreds of pounds on your next Mitsubishi

MITSUBISHI has announced a New Year deals involving savings right across its model range.

The offers include pre-VAT discounts on the L200 pickup truck, Outlander off-roader and ASX hatchback, and a zero per cent hire purchase on the Mirage supermini.

For a full round-up of the current offers, go online to www.mitsubishi.co.uk or pop into your nearest dealer.

Check out these 1980s 4X4 images

A LOT of you enjoyed the 1980s off-roader pictures, which I've been scanning in digitally over the Christmas break.

However it turns out my father had another old photo album with even more archive shots, including these shots from across Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Here are few more gems from more than 30 years ago, including everything from Land Rover Series Is to Mercedes G-Wagens. There's even a Daihatsu F20 getting stuck in - when was the last time you saw one of those?

There's no grey area with these special edition Mazdas

TWO new special editions of the Mazda2 named after their paint colours have just gone on sale across the North West.

The Black Edition and White Edition are both based on the five-door family hatchback but behind their bonnet stripes is a lavish helping of normally optional extras, including heated folding door mirrors and rear privacy glass.

The two special edition cars, which went on sale on New Year’s Day, costs £12,145.