kushin879999

  It would be easy to assume the electric cars rapidly reshaping our definition of performance exist only at the upper end of the price spectrum: think Tesla Model S Plaid, Rimac Nevera or Lotus Evija. But it’s occurring in the city car segment too. Where once you might have walked into an Abarth dealership, ticked a few options boxes and driven away in a 595 Competizione, now you can head to the other side of the office, spend a similar amount on an electric Fiat 500 and be comfortably beating ICE-engined cars at every set of traffic lights on your way home. Does that sound like an easy decision? Perhaps, if you never leave the city limits. Both cars achieve 0-30mph in a little under 3.0sec and have not too dissimilar torque outputs (162lb ft in the 500 versus 184lb ft for the 595), despite the EV being about 300kg heavier and some 60bhp down on power. But while the Fiat’s accelerative efforts then begin to drop off as its speedo needle continues to climb, the Abarth is still...

  Deliveries of the   Aston Martin Valkyrie   AMR Pro - the track-only version of the V12 powered hypercar that the company promises offers an equivalent level of performance to a top-flight race car - have finally begun. To celebrate the fact they also let a small group of journalists experience it from the passenger seat at the Homestead track in Florida, becoming the first people outside the company and the customer base to have the chance to feel its full brutality. While the while Valkyrie project has gone well beyond its original timescale, and the Formula 1 connection between  Aston Martin  and Red Bull Racing that underpinned it has since been dissolved, Aston says it is on track to deliver more than 75 of the road-going Valkyrie and the track-only AMR Pro to customers this year. Meeting the Pro up close also got the chance to see some of the many differences that separate it from the regular car, with Aston Creative Director Marek Reichmann talking us t...

  The new  Ineos Grenadier   4x4 has officially gone on sale in the UK, priced from £49,000 and available in both commercial and passenger guises. The Grenadier range opens up with the two-seat Utility Wagon, which will rival the  Toyota Land Cruiser  Commercial and  Land Rover Defender Commercial  with a load capacity of 2088 litres, a towing capacity of 3500kg and the ability to winch a 5500kg load.  The five-seat passenger version, priced from £52,000, matches those towing and winching abilities, and though load capacity is reduced to 1152 litres - that's 77 litres more than the equivalent  Land Rover Defender  110.  Topping the line-up from launch are a pair of special editions developed in partnership with Ineos-owned clothing brand Belstaff, both priced at £59,000 and equipped with many optional extras as standard - including an auxiliary battery, front park assist, a reversing camera, electrically adjustable heated mirrors an...

  When Autocar’s Nissan Qashqai arrived a few months back, you might recall I named it Ed, after middle-of-the-road music maestro Ed Sheeran. My theory was that both the Qashqai and Sheeran had achieved phenomenal success through the super-smart tactic of appealing to the widest possible audience. Both tick all the boxes but, well, could be considered a little bit bland. So the goal I set was to see if I could discover “any hidden depths of character” lurking inside the Qashqai. Well, reader, I could not. But what I’ve also realised over the past few months: I’m not sure that really matters. The truth is I did nearly 5000 miles in the Qashqai – and virtually none of them were memorable. There was never any real spark or hint of driver engagement, no real character to discover, no joy to be had in a machine excelling beyond expectation in any given task. But the truth is also this: during those nearly 5000 miles of driving on all sizes and types of road, on journeys short and long, ...

  Some cars are so esoteric that it’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll just spit it out. The RML Short Wheelbase (SWB) is a V12-engined berlinetta heavily redolent of the 1961   Ferrari   250 GT SWB and built on the bones of a Ferrari 550 Maranello, mostly using composites. The result costs £1.6million. So it’s not really a restomod, like the  Alfaholics GTA-R , because no 250-series Ferrari is involved. But neither is the carbonfibre bauble before you an entirely clean-sheet affair, like the Porsche 964-flavoured  Ruf SCR . RML’s work instead blends 1990s hardware (the driveline and suspension layout) with cutting-edge manufacturing techniques (the Wellingborough-based company’s raison d’être) to capture, in the words of CEO Michael Mallock, the “look, sound and tactility of an epic GT car from the golden age of motoring”. You might never have heard of RML, but I’ll wager that you know the name of its founder (Michael’s father, former racing driver Ray...