A FEW damp laps round a racetrack can do little else than whet the appetite for a car that has undoubted performance on tap – but what’s it like to live with one for a week?

SEAT’s latest Cupra model, crafted into the three door Leon SC bodyshell, wears the badge of being the fastest and most powerful car the Spanish manufacturer has ever built – but while its get-up-and-go credentials are unquestionable, so is it’s ability to behave as sensibly and sedately as any of the other offerings in the Leon range. You just don’t want it to.

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I’M beginning to think the French have got a little touch of German fever.

They probably caught it back in 1939 when there was a knock at the door and outside were the seried ranks of the Wermacht and the SS, intent on dominating western Europe and indeed further afield.

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WE start with a special plea – but it’s not one the total git who keyed the Porsche Macan in our care is going to want to hear.

Quid pro quo in this instance for this particular Bletchley lowlife will be a puncture in the outside lane of the M25, at a particularly inconvenient time. Let’s say 8.14am on a Monday morning.

It can only be a particularly green eye that prompted the initial deed, but while there’s no excuse for the reaction, you can retrospectively see why.

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FORGET any thoughts of limitless broadband – here’s an Infiniti that communicates on an all-together different plane.

It can’t do anything but with its two big touch screens dominating the central dash area.
A wide gamut of information is but a touch away in this 2.0 version of the Q50 saloon – a car they hope will help them turn passing interest into concrete sales.

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BACK in the mists of time, I can recall sampling what was then the latest Volkswagen Passat – and getting the fright of my life.

Moving the seat back to get a more comfortable position behind the wheel, I was suddenly aware that I was rapidly getting closer to the boot than the dashboard. ‘Dear God’, I thought (or something like that….) they’ve forgotten to put stoppers on the end of the seat runners.

But of course they hadn’t. It was just that the Passat was the exception to the rule in that it offered an exceptional amount of interior space for a family car.

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TO win awards you have to impress the judges – and Mitsubishi‘s Outlander PHEV certainly did that.

It’s green credentials caught the eye of those picking the winners in the Green Apple awards for cars that are a bit more Eco friendly than the rest. Those judges were my colleagues in the Midland Group of Motoring Writers who made it a class winner and the top performer overall.

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WHO would ever have thought that naming a car after a desert dwelling nomadic tribe from South West Iran would bring Nissan sales success they had probably hitherto only dreamed of.

But the Qashqai did just that.

it brings together in one package the best of all worlds: the fun-to-drive dynamic abilities more usually associated with conventional passenger cars as well as the tough stance, excellent interior packaging and commanding seating position of an SUV.

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A FEW years back Honda were pushing the point that their new Civic was a car for the Playstation generation.

So that would make Toyota’s new Aygo one for the X Box generation, right?

It must be. Just take a look at the front with its distinctive Toyota family face and you’ll get the link.

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‘ARE you sure that’s a Golf?’ mused one weekend visitor.

He had a point but as it says Golf on the hatch lid then we must treat it as one, even though after that comment I began briefly to look on it as a shrunken Touran.

Based on the standard Golf hatchback, it gives you more space and a bit more versatility.

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176mpg and just 37g/km of co2 emissions – you can’t really argue against figures like that.

Audi‘s A3 Sportback e-tron is a new plug in hybrid that successfully dispels the ‘range anxiety’ fears that might otherwise put you off.

The range on pure electric power from the 75kW motor is just 31 miles but coupled with the thriftiness of the excellent 1.4TFSi petrol engine it’s got a range of a claimed 580 miles.

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