48
‘This was MG Rover squeezing the juice from the lemons BMW left behind’
THIS WEEK
Issue 6419 | Volume 305 | No 3
NEWS
Nissan Ariya Battery-powered SUV, 310-mile range 4 Cupra El-Born Electric hot hatch l ined up for 2021 6 Lamborghini Sián Roadster 780bhp V12 and no roof 8 BMW iX3 Veil f inal ly l i f ted from new X3-based EV 10 New car sales Are they picking up or sti l l fa l tering? 12
TESTED
Polestar 2 Does Tesla have a f ight on i ts hands? 16 Ariel Nomad R Think of it as a mad Tarmac rally car 20 Mercedes GLB 220d Seven-seat Disco Sport r ival 22 Mercedes-AMG GLE 53 Classy, quick and refined 23 Hyundai i10 N Line City car gets turbo, eyes Up GTI 23 Bentley Flying Spur ROAD TEST 24 Road test rewind Five stars for the Rolls Phantom 32
FEATURES McLaren Speedtail £2 . 1m eye-popper i s a revelation 36 Join the club How to buy and sell rare cars discreetly 44 We confess Our guilty pleasures and unsung heroes 46 Blitz spirit Why UK i s at the heart of motorsport 52
OUR CARS Mazda 3 Final verdict on our trick-engined hatch 60 Skoda Superb iV Plug-in hybrid seeks charge point 63
EVERY WEEK Jesse Crosse Will the rotary engine ever return? 11 Jim Holder Hurdles for mega-merger of the decade 13 Steve Cropley Three favourite car venues reopen 15 Subscribe Save money and get exclusive benefits 34 Damien Smith What next for racer Andy Priaulx? 50 Motorsport round-up F1, Nascar, WRC and BTCC 51 Your Views The future is electric – and it’s exciting 58 Matt Prior I s this the ideal f i f th car in your garage? 82
DEALS
James Ruppert A £25k used car you’re sure to l ike 64 As good as new BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé from £12k 67 Spied in the classifieds Five armoured cars for sale 68 Used buying guide All the gen on a Mk7 Toyota Hilux 70 New cars A-Z Key car stats , from Abarth to Zenos 72 Road test index Track down that road test here 81
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McLAREN SPEEDTAIL: WHY IT’S ONE OF A KIND 36
FIRST DRIVE: GAME CHANGING POLESTAR 2 16
SECRETS OF A SERIOUSLY HIGH END BROKER 44
COVER STORY
❝PEOPLE WILL CRASH THEIR TIN BOXES TO GET A BETTER VIEW. ONE BLOODY NEARLY DID❞
ANDREW FRANKEL ISN’T ALONE IN BEING BLOWN AWAY BY McLAREN’S SPEEDTAIL 36
EIGHT PAGE ROAD TEST: BENTLEY FLYING SPUR 24
COMMENT
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
IT’S RARE THESE days for a car to be truly different. There’s usually an obvious rival, or the niche a new car fills is simply the merging of two existing bodystyles. But the Polestar 2 is just that: truly different. We’ve been wowed by the limitedrun, ultra-expensive Polestar 1 coupé, but it’s the more mass-market 2 that marks the real arrival of the Polestar brand to wider public consciousness.
Its shape and styling make it look like no other car on the road and, while we’ve found most electric cars to offer broadly similar driving characteristics so far, the 2 is also a step-change in that regard, as our first drive reveals (p16).
Polestar’s first two cars have achieved that oh-so-tricky commodity: being interesting. Being interesting, however, does not always translate into being a commercial success. But from what we’ve seen so far, Polestar deserves every success. It just needs buyers to understand the less than typical direction it’s coming from. ■ A sign of life returning to normal comes in the return of our full eightpage road test format this week (p24). We, like you, have missed running an objective full set of numbers on a new car in the biggest, best and most thorough test in the business. Its return, along with so many new car reveals and first drives now filling up the diary, brings a welcome dose of normality.
0 09:47:16
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Mark Tisshaw Editor mark.tisshaw@haymarket.com
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