63

‘What do you want me to do: burn of f my bloody moustache?’

THIS WEEK

Issue 6558 | Volume 315 | No 12

NEWS

Kia EV9 Upmarket electric SUV to rival the BMW iX 6 New entry Ford Small MPV steps in for axed Fiesta 10 Lambo’s first PHEV V12 , three motors and 1000bhp 12 Low-traffic neighbourhoods Good or bad? Or both? 14 Nissan’s hybrid pledge Price parity with ICE by 2026 16 Polestar ‘moonshot’ Carbon-neutral car due 2030 18

TESTED

Polestar 2 BST Edition 270 Not too hot to handle 24 BYD Atto 3 British drive of promising VW ID 4 rival 28 Lexus RZ Electric SUV with innovative driving tech 30 Mercedes-AMG SL 63 Roadster pumped to 577bhp 32 BMW 230i Coupé Who needs the GR86 anyway? 33 Subaru Solterra AWD Touring ROAD TEST 34

FEATURES Britain’s cheapest new cars Fun and less than £15k 44 City car bargains 12 second-hand gems from £2k 52 Guilty as charged? EV battery sourcing: the facts 54 Massimo Fumarola Morgan boss on firm’s future 58

OUR CARS Peugeot 308 SW Final reckoning for PHEV estate 64 Volkswagen Multivan A cracking time costs £740 66 Ford Mustang Mach-E Zero-emission? No EV is 67

EVERY WEEK Jesse Crosse Why you can’t yet recycle old into new 15 Jim Holder Time to question where your car is made 17 Matt Prior Road pricing seems a sensible new tax 19 Steve Cropley Wrangler; Ranger Raptor; Newey 21 Damien Smith What we learned from F1’s opener 23 Subscribe Save money and get exclusive benefits 42 Your Views Lunaz; VW ID 2; Porsche 944; Audis 60 On this day 1983: MG Metro Turbo; Geneva show; F1 63 Slideshow World’s most exquisite shooting brakes 82

DEALS

As good as new Latest and last Ford Fiesta: £6k up 68 James Ruppert Why Peugeots are unsung bargains 69 Cult hero Bugatti’s mighty Veyron: a snip at £850k 70 New cars A-Z Key car stats, from Abarth to Zenvo 72 Road test index Track down that road test here 81

Autocar (ISSN 1355-8293 USPS 25-185) is published weekly by Haymarket Media Group, Bridge House, 69 London Road, Twickenham TW1 3SP, United Kingdom. The US annual subscription price is $190.00. Air freight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container Inc, 150-15, 183rd Street, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Brooklyn, NY 11256. US postmaster: Send address changes

to Autocar, Air Business Ltd, c/o World Container Inc, 150-15, 183rd Street, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA.

Subscription records are maintained at Haymarket Media Group, Bridge House, 69 London Road,

Twickenham TW1 3SP, United Kingdom. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. Autocar is published by Haymarket Media Group, Bridge House, 69 London Road, Twickenham,

TW1 3SP, United Kingdom, haymarket.com Te l +44 (0)20 8267 5000 Autocar magazine is also published in Estonia, Greece, India, Japan, Latvia, Korea and Thailand.

I M AG ES

G E T T Y

Autocar is a member of the Independent Press Standards

Organisation (IPSO). We abide by the Editors’ Code of

Practice and are committed

to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you

think we haven’t met those standards and want to make

a complaint, contact autocar@haymarket.com. For more information, contact

IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or

visit www.ipso.co.uk

Haymarket is certified by BSI to environmental standard

ISO14001 and energy management standard

ISO50001

ISSUES WITH YOUR MAG? For subscriber issues, call 0344 848 8816. If you can’t find a news-stand copy of Autocar

in your local area, email autocar@haymarket.com

Autocar is a member of the

organising committee of Car Of The Year caroftheyear.org

KIA’S NEW FACE: EV9 TAKES BRAND UPMARKET 6

MORGAN’S NEXT MOVES, BY CEO FUMAROLA 58

SUBARU SOLTERRA AWD TOURING: ROAD TEST 34

C O V E R STORY

❝ INSIDE, IT FELT AS IF AIR FORCE ONE’S PRESIDENTIAL SUITE HAD BEEN RESTYLED BY LIBERACE❞

JONATHAN BRYCE REVISITS BUGATTI’S NECK-SNAPPING, JAW-DROPPING VEYRON 70

COMMENT

CHEAP CARS ARE BRILLIANT, EVEN IN 2023

PRESS RELEASES that crow about the spiralling cost of modern motoring are typically concerned with road tax, petrol prices or fuel duty – seldom the actual cost of new cars. This week, then, a realit y check – and a very welcome and entertaining flick of the reset button for four of us lucky road testers. There are only eight new cars that remain on sale in the UK for less than £15,000 and Messrs Cropley, Prior, Disdale and I had the use of five of them one day in Wiltshire last week (p44). What a blast. Seldom have I driven a bunch of cars as hard on the road, or had as much fun so comfortably within the national speed limit. And seldom have I found such a varied and appealing selection of cars within the same comparison test, each one clearly presenting a reason to argue its case.

Are new cars expensive in 2023? You’d better believe it. (Our inflationcorrected prices of the cheapest cars over past decades, on the same pages, show you the margin – and it’s big.) But the very cheapest also still show you how much charm, down-to-earth simplicity and real versatilit y remains out there to be seized on by the thrifty – and especially by those who like fun in small, affordable packages.

Matt Saunders Road test editor matt.saunders@haymarket.com

@thedarkstormy1 Rachel Burgess is away

BEST NEW CARS FOR LESS THAN £15,000 44

youtube.com/autocar facebook.com/autocarofficial

twitter.com/autocar

autocar_official

NEVER MISS

AN ISSUE Subscribe p42

15 MARCH 2023 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 5