TIGUAN carried the label of the most important new car for Volkswagen in the UK this year. So, no pressure then.

VW is a brand back in growth after the financial horrors of the emissions scandal, and it’s the Tiguan leading the way.

It’s a car that was last refettled in 2011 and it’s sales have risen every year since, mirroring the rise in popularity of the compact crossover in general. More and more are hankering after a car that looks like a big SUV but is more compact in size so actually isn’t. This one is the classy option.

Continue reading →

LIGHTS, cameras, action! We’re on the set of the latest blockbuster Range Rover today and it’s giving quite a performance.

It’s lighting up the way with its big LED lamps, it’s got cameras strategically placed around the big body to give you a view of what’s going on all around, and you’re guaranteed plenty action with Land Rover’s 4.4 litre V8 turbocharged diesel under the bonnet.

As one of the great icons of modern times it’s a vehicle that is much feted – and much bought.

Continue reading →

YOU might have read a lot already about how good the all new Kia Sportage is. A car that outsells Audi’s Q3 and BMW’s X1 in Europe.

I can offer a reason for that. And that is that anything anyone’s said or written about the desirability of the Kia is beyond question.

It IS a very good vehicle.

Continue reading →

BACK in the day when when I was new to the roads, a car engine was just that – an engine in either 1.2, 1.3, 1.6 or if you could afford it, possibly a 2.0 beastie.

Not any more though. Gone is the simple identifier, replaced by a string of letters and numbers of mindblowing complexity in some instances.

We all have to do our homework so we know what we’re buying into, so if you see 1.0 EcoTSi on the paperwork, you’ll know you’re being sold short as it’s a unit with just three cylinders instead of the more usual fare of four.

Continue reading →

REFLECTIONS: always has been and always will be one of my all-time favourite Motown classics.But it’s also a word that heralds a bad start for the subject of this week’s words.

For while I like the musical reflections, I have a pathological dislike for in-car reflections. You know, the ones that are annoying/distracting/infuriating (delete as necessary) and the sort of thing that you don’t notice on a brief road test in broad daylight.

Continue reading →

THERE are plenty cars that you don’t mind seeing the back of as they speed past you into the distance.

A Porsche 911 would be one. Definitely an Audi R8. But a Skoda Octavia?

Well, it’s a case of having to get used to it because Czechoslovakia’s finest has proved particularly adept at showing a clean pair of wheels to a lot of its motoring opposition.

Continue reading →

THERE’S no simple recipe for making a good car better – but Suzuki seem to have come up with a vital ingredient.

Their all new Vitara has been a hit for the Japanese manufacturer since its launch last year.

Now it’s been given a vital spark – or more accurately, a boost – in the pleasing shape of the Vitara S and its new 1.4 litre direct injection turbocharged petrol engine. Quite simply, it’s a little cracker.

Continue reading →

CAST your mind back to 1989 – a year when the Chinese squared up to the authorities in Tiananmen Square, Sky TV hit the screens and Eternal Flame by the Bangles flickered into life.

So did the original Mazda MX-5, and while the Bangles hit still gets played a bit, the instant love affair that developed between the motoring public and the MX-5 shows no sign of abating.

Continue reading →

NISSAN have banished the box and taken the stylish route with their replacement for the squarer than square X Trail.

Sacked is the six-year-old who obviously styled the last version with a ruler and pencil and is his place has come someone who knows a bit about how to make a car a bit curvy and sexy.

Even something with the on road footprint of the new X-Trail, which by anyone’s standards is a big piece of kit.

Continue reading →

SO, it’s not just Red Bull. Honda gives you wings too, in the shape of the over large attachment on the bootlid of the latest Civic Type R.

I’ve always felt there’s something distinctly sobering about knocking along at the legal limit and realising the car you’re in will do twice that speed. And then some.

And it’s a bit of a ‘splash some water in your face’ moment when you peruse the statistics and take in the fact it’s ‘just’ a 2.0 litre engine powering things.

Continue reading →