IT’S only when you put the latest Mazda3 alongside the model it’s replacing that you notice the oh so subtle changes in its look.
But changes there are – vital in a sector of the market that includes the Focus, Golf, Leon and Astra – and vital to ensure that sales of the neat 3 continue to rise as they have in recent years.
But the biggest change trumpeted at the UK launch is one that you definitely won’t see but one you should, on a trip, benefit from.
THE New Zealander who gave McLaren its name will always be remembered as the ‘whoosh, bonk’ man.
That was the way he went about things in his early years. “We can get a body knocked up and whoosh, bonk, there’s our racer’ was the Bruce McLaren way of doing things in the 1960s.
These days, at McLaren’s pristine factory in Woking, you get the distinct impression that things are a touch more ordered, more clinical, ever so slghtly better organised.
THREE cylinder engine technology is not a new automotive phenomenon – Saab were doing it fairly successfully back in the 1950s and 60s.
But cars have grown since then, in both size and kerbweight, as the drive to make them safer for us to use has gathered pace.
So this week we pose the question ‘how realistic is it to stick a three pot under the bonnet of an average sized family car’? In this case Volkswagen’s much bought Golf.
And will it still perform with an air of respectability?
THE Golf was credited with being the first hot hatchback but you motoring historians out there will know that is not strictly the case.
That mantle falls to the Renault 5 Gordini, the company’s first ever front wheel drive sports hatchback and one that terrorised grannies a full year before the Golf was launched in 1977.
And that mainstay of ‘fast and furious for everyone’ has served the French manufacturer well over the ensuing three decades and more.
EARLIER in the summer we were being warned to hold fire on the chequebook if we were in the market for a compact SUV – there was an upstart on the way.
That upstart was SEAT‘s first foray into the market, the Ateca (A-tee-ka). Now it’s here and the warnings were on the ball. It is, to my mind, better than expected.
It does everything the rest of the pack does, but where it proves to be the new leader is in its pricing. It’ll cost you less than the best of the rest and is it’s based on the hugely popular Leon it can’t really fail to be a good all rounder.
BMW have been at the cutting edge of electric car engineering for a few years now – witness the i3 hatch and i8 supercar.
But you can also go more mainstream with the 330e – the traditional four door sport saloon that comes with its own electric propulsion that gives you a 25 mile range in zero emission mode.
The undoubted quality of the current 3 series Beemer makes it an attractive proposition – but more so for the business user rather than Mr and Mrs Private Buyer.
CARS these days come with a multitude of safety gadgets and built in features that a) you’ll never see, and b) hopefully you’ll never need.
On your average Volvo, you get more than most because that’s part of the thing about driving a Volvo – you want to feel REALLY safe.
IT’S one of the most hyped up and talked about cars in Jaguar’s recent history – the tongues have been wagging, the computer keys being mercilessly pounded.
And why? Were they ever likely to produce something that wasn’t up to the high standards the Solihull manufacturer sets?
To my memory they’ve never produced an out and out embarrassing bloater, and the F-Pace certainly isn’t one.
EVERY now and then you get a moment in a car when the lights come on and you’re left wondering ‘why don’t others do that?’
In this case it’s wipers. Good old fashioned windscreen wipers that actually clear the screen properly.
And the problem in the past has been with some importers that they’re set to sweep for left hand drive cars, which leaves a big patch not being cleared properly when said car is converted for right hand drive use. Ie here.
IN a world where manufacturers are changing the good old fashioned handbrake for a small unobtrusive electronic button to carry out the task, the French are rebelling.
Peugeot have opted to carry on with their over-sized aircraft style lever on the latest 2008 – probably borrowed for lowering the undercarriage on a Boeing 787 – and it helps to make the cabin a touch quirkier than your average small crossover.