KIA OPTIMA: classy touches in a classy saloon

optima4FACED with a choice of either Kia’s successful Optima saloon or a VW Passat, a friend of a relative tossed a coin and took the keys to the German.

He was allegedly swayed by the greater engine choice available with the VW – a point hard to overlook when the Kia has but one on offer – but dismissing the Korean out of hand is a mistake.

It’s a car configured to catch the eye of the UK business driver, and while you can only have that 1.7 litre 134bhp version, it comes with an awful lot of equipment to make the buying decision that much harder.

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SEAT LEON CUPRA 280: mixing Spanish flair with German quality

8143393295388aaee0d69dA 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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PORSCHE MACAN: so smooth you’ll forget it’s a diesel

MacanWE 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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INFINITI Q50 2.0: it’s posh, but is it posh enough?

infiniti 5FORGET 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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VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT: more room with lots of vroom

VW_6731BACK 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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SKODA SUPERB ESTATE: a life changing decision?

e359660437184a48f29b2efa61afd174c839edb0WHEN you consider you’ll spend something like three years of your life in a car it makes sense to do the homework before you write the cheque.

And if you’re looking for something that really does the business, then Skoda could have the car for you with the appropriately named Superb Estate SE Business.

A car thus named because you could just about run a small business from its capacious interior.

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YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A PHIL – and a whole lot more!

mb worldWANT to be a motoring journalist?

Aged between 13 and 17? Want to write (or talk) about cars for a living? Here’s a chance to make a name for yourself with leading UK car journalists AND win all these great prizes:
* £1000 in travel vouchers (courtesy of Audi UK)
* the loan of an Audi of your choice for your parents for a week
* a tour of the Aston Martin plant at Gaydon, Warwickshire and a passenger ride with one of the company’s test drivers
* a visit to Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands, Surrey for a tutored drive and lunch for yourself and your parentsWin an Audi for a week

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