Engine Bay Beauty: The Most Stunning Car Compartments Revealed
Unleashing Speed: The Bugatti Chiron’s Quest for Automotive Supremacy
The 300mph production car is a £2.5 million-plus engineering masterpiece The Bugatti Chiron design brief was very straightforward – the simplest that Bugatti's bosses of the time had encountered. “Be better than the Veyron [its predecessor] in every respect,” it said.Some numbers about the Chiron, then, if I may. At launch, the official line said the Chiron was able to do 420kph, or 261mph, which was misleading, because that's both electronically limited and slower than the old Veyron Super Sport when that became the world’s fastest production car, at 267.8mph.That had a mere 1183bhp to be getting on with. The standard Chiron had 1479bhp, so it ought to have gone rather faster than the Veyron. Bugatti waited for the Chiron Super Sport 300+ (with 1578bhp) to go after a top speed run, which it set at Volkswagen Group’s Ehra-Lessien test track and achieved 304.7mph.Bugatti built just 30 such models but other limited-run variants of the Chiron too: we tested an original car and later a Super Sport (the same mechanically as the 300+ but with a more habitable interior and a speed limiter at 273mph).Whichever variety of Chiron you're talking, the top speed numbers are important, because everything else you read about the Chiron here has to be tempered by them. It's a car defined by massive numbers, at once constraining and liberated by its singular top speed, which dominates yet compromises the Chiron's character. 
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Fiat Grande Panda Hybrid: Affordable Eco-Friendly Crossover with New Trim Option
New Pop trim loses roof rails and swaps alloy wheels for trimmed steel wheels...Steel wheels and clear glass cut price of new petrol-engined miniature crossover by £1000
The Fiat Grande Panda range has been expanded with a new trim level for the Hybrid model, cutting its starting price to £18,035.
Named Pop, it has been made £1000 cheaper than the previous entry level, Icon, with the removal of its alloy wheels, roof rails, privacy glass and the central armrest inside the car. It instead rides on 16in steel wheels with plastic covers.
Pop retains the 10.25in infotainment touchscreen, LED lights and rear parking sensors found on higher trim levels, however.
The Grande Panda Hybrid is powered by a turbocharged 1.2-litre three-cylinder engine and a 28bhp electric motor, the latter of which can drive the car alone for short distances at speeds below 18mph.
The engine and motor combine to put out up to 108bhp, which is sent to the front wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox.
The presence of the motor also allows the Grande Panda Hybrid to start up silently, using electric power alone. Similarly, it only uses the motor for low-speed manoeuvres in first or reverse gear, at low speeds.
As well as a lower price, the Pop version of the Grande Panda Hybrid emits less CO2 than the Icon, presumably because its weight is reduced by the removal of extra kit. It's officially rated at 113g/km, compared with the Icon’s 115g/km.
The Grande Panda Hybrid will enter UK showrooms in the coming months as a rival for the closely related new Citroën C3, the Dacia Sandero and the Renault Clio.
The Grande Panda will also be available as an electric car, pairing a 111bhp front-mounted motor with a 44kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery for a range of 199 miles.
The EV can be recharged at up to 100kW on a DC connection, and the front grille conceals a retractable cable for AC charging at up to 7kW.
It's priced from £21,035.
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Audi SQ5: A Sporty Escape from the Ordinary SUV Experience
New Q5 has underwhelmed, but 362bhp sports version is another matter Our road test of the Audi Q5 has highlighted a slip in class standards for the mid-sized SUV. That the best-in-class model scores no higher than three-and-a-half stars says plenty about progress being made, or rather not being made, by the breed, the bread and butter Q5 itself notable only really for being new rather than any kind of leap forward.In that context, it’s hard to get too excited by the Audi SQ5 performance version, the type of go-faster car that can typically push a middling breed in a direction that simply compromises it further.Which admittedly is unlikely to make you too excited about the words to come on this page. Yet your eyes will probably already have already caught site of the rating at the top of the page: yep, four stars, and the SQ5 reveals itself to have plenty more sparkle about it than its donor car.It would be a reach to say this ties up with Audi Sport returning to form, but this SQ5 is certainly good and much more of an S car than Audi’s latest electric cars.Audi's electric S variants have been a touch meh – more of a trim level with a few nice bits, rather than the toned-down RS experience that we had all come to enjoy. Sure, the S6 E-tron is quicker than the regular Audi A6 E-tron, but with an EV that's a bit so what? Plus it has a notably shorter range.By contrast, the SQ5 is notably different to the regular Audi Q5 and better than it as well in almost every area when you view it through the right lens. If you’re looking for a razor-sharp handling tool that can cheat physics to lap like a sports saloon around the Nurburging, you’ll remain disappointed.If you’re instead after an all-weather, all-scenario machine that seems to have been developed to enjoy everyday drives in a practical, comfortable package, read on.
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Renault’s Rugged Revolution: The 4×4 Savane Concept Unveiled
Small electric crossover gains a motor on the rear axle for 4WD – and it's looking likely for production
Renault has strongly hinted that the new 4 crossover will gain a 4x4 variant with the unveiling of a new off-road-influenced concept called the Savane.
Reprising the name of an adventure-themed variant of the original Renault 4, this new concept rides 15mm higher than the standard car, features bespoke utility-style wheels wrapped in grippy Goodyear tyres, and is decked out inside with 'deep brown' textiled fabrics.
It also has widened tracks and contrasting black body cladding in a nod to its enhanced off-road potential.
But more importantly – as signalled by the bespoke 4x4 badging – the Savane is most obviously differentiated from the standard front-wheel-drive car by the addition of a second motor on the rear axle, to give permanent four-wheel drive.
Renault has not given any technical details, but the FWD car comes with either a 118bhp or 148bhp motor, so if the 4x4 has another one of them at the back, it could produce somewhere in the region of 300bhp - which would give it comparable performance to the twin-motor Skoda Elroq vRS.
Renault has not officially stated its plans to introduce an AWD 4, but the Savane concept shows that its Ampr Small architecture can accommodate a dual-motor set-up, which the firm says shows the potential "to create a B-segment electric vehicle with four-wheel drive".
A Renault spokesperson told Autocar that the firm is "currently studying the technical feasibility and the financial equation", but added: "We can't confirm anything yet about the arrival of a production 4x4."
If it reaches showrooms, the 4 4x4 will be among the smallest electric cars available with a twin-motor powertrain.
The unveiling of a twin-motor 4 also opens the possibility of its lower-riding Renault 5 sibling adopting the same set-up, though it is unclear if that car's more compact body and floorpan would allow for the installation of a motor at the rear.
The original 4 was always a more rugged and outdoorsy take on the people's car than the contemporary Renault 5 city car, though, and the two cars' electric descendants have taken on similar billings.
In fact, the new 4 was previewed in 2022 with an extreme rally raid-influenced concept called the Trophy - which nodded to the rallying prowess of its 1970s namesake, and strongly hinted at Renault's plans to one day introduce an off-road-ready variant. The company has never voiced any plans for a twin-motor 5.
If the smaller car can take a twin-motor set-up, though, it has significant implications for the 5-based Alpine A290 hot hatch, which would theoretically be in line for a substantial power boost and could take advantage of torque vectoring across its two axles to enhance its agility and responsiveness.
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Reviving a Legend: The Bold Legacy of the Fiat Coupé
Once upon a time Fiat built charming, dynamically sorted and rabid coupes
Proportions more arresting than elegant. Superfluous, slash-like indentations above the wheel housings.
Double-blistered headlamp covers, deep-recessed taillights, an aluminium flip-top fuel filler, an aluminium key-fob and a bold repeat of the car’s exterior colour arcing across the dashboard.
This was the Fiat Coupé, a car unexpectedly signaling that its maker was ready to build sports cars again, and a car signaling the arrival of one Chris Bangle, a designer who would soon stir up the car industry like few designers before him.
This car was a surprise not just for its shape, but because Fiat had previously said that it would no longer make pure sports cars, despite a glorious run in the 1960s that included the pretty 850 Coupé and Spider, the 124 Spider, the 124 and 128 Coupés, the Dino Coupé and the exquisite Fiat Dino Spider.
That was before Paolo Cantarella arrived to take charge of Fiat Auto in 1989.
Cantarella was a businessman who had previously managed the Fiat Group’s industrial robot division Comau, but he was also a car enthusiast, and acutely aware of the Italian car industry’s past successes
Like any CEO, his overriding mission was to keep the Fiat Auto motor running sweetly, and while Puntos and Pandas sold by the trainload, the bigger Tipos and Cromas were more of a struggle.
The Fiat brand needed some burnishing and, if the numbers could be made to work, this new coupé could help.
Work began around 1991 at both Fiat Centro Stile and Pininfarina, the pair producing quite different proposals.
Pininfarina’s was crisp, subtle, well-proportioned, elegant and conventional.
Fiat’s in-house suggestion bordered on the outlandish, its wheel arches capped with angled elliptical blisters in black, a crease bisecting the upper third of its doors at exactly the same angle. Its tail was short, its boot lid no more than a modest capping.
It wasn’t beautiful but it was daring, original and fresh. Fiat bravely went with this proposal rather than Pininfarina’s, and while the finished article grew a longer and appealingly pert tail, the spirit of Bangle’s startling design survived largely intact.
Pininfarina’s interior suggestion featuring a swathe of body colour paneling across dashboard and doors easily won the interior competition, the coachbuilder also winning the manufacturing contract.
The business case was strengthened by using a cut-down Tipo hatchback platform, engines from the Lancia Delta Integrale and plenty of shared parts.
Few of these were visible, however, the Fiat was as memorable for the bespoke detail in its design as for its highly individual look. And there were more than the slashes and the fuel cap to savour.
The bonnet was a huge clamshell pressing that rose skywards complete with grille and headlights. The headlights themselves were odd enough to have been questioned during Fiat’s internal design reviews, one manager asking how they might be cleaned with headlight washers, given their contours and near-horizontal mounting.
‘Con amore,’ came the smiling reply, an answer that closed the conversation down.
Front-wheel drive and Tipo-based the Coupé may have been, but it rolled on a well-sorted chassis propelled by rorty, sporting engines, the potent turbo version featuring a viscous coupling limited-slip differential that did a great job of firing torque to Tarmac.
The 16V turbo was quick, the 217bhp five-cylinder turbo rabidly so, scoring 6.5sec sprints to 62mph and 155mph. This Fiat was more about outright grip than throttle-adjustable handling finesse, making for slightly less-than-stellar entertainment, but as a total package, complete with four usable seats and a fair boot, it worked.
Fiat launched its coupé with the memorable claim that, ‘In Italy, no-one grows up wanting to be a train driver’, together with a fine picture of the machine in broom yellow. Ironically, Fiat owned the company that made the rapid Pendolino high-speed train at the time, but no-one cared about that – this Fiat was exciting.
Prices are edging up, but somehow this Fiat doesn’t yet feel a complete classic despite its credentials, and despite some bold pricing from optimistic vendors.
This column first appeared as an email to subscribers.