Volvo and Skoda well ahead of the rest as Volkwagen left in the wilderness
I am not a particularly big SUV fan.
Most of them are bloated, oversized behemoths whose only raison d’être is to fuel the egos of those who drive them.
The Volvo XC90 is different for a number of reasons.
For a start it is the car that will propel Volvo back into the realm of premium car making; secondly, it is an amazingly capable thing; and, thirdly, it is a genuine automotive tour de force in terms of design and build quality.
Volvo, as we know, was saved from the receiver’s wrecking ball by a wad of Chinese cash and, in fairness to the investors, they stood back and allowed the Swedes to do their thing.
They did not interfere with any aspect of how their money was spent and the result for them will be a revitalised brand whose popularity across large swathes of the globe has been assured by the excellence of the XC90.
On the basis that the big Swedish SUV is as good as it is, it is reasonable to conclude that the raft of product which will follow it into production will be every bit as good.
Many opponents will have been shocked that Volvo has got its mojo back in such style, with such confidence, and — amazingly — in such a short period of time.
Packed with innovative design and safety features and incredibly good to drive for a thing its size, the XC90 is as impressive a statement of intent as I have seen from any manufacturer in many years.
When — not if — Volvo stretches its corporate legs into the various car segments, I predict that the company’s premium competitors like Audi, Jaguar, BMW, and Mercedes, will be more than mildly concerned by the results.
The S90 luxury saloon, which will be formally unveiled next month, will clearly underline this point.
The XC90 is a truly fantastic car and anyone interested in an SUV that has genuine mountain climbing, river fording, and tail-hiking abilities as well as superb on-road manners, should certainly not pass it by.
Back in January last I was whisked to Prague by Skoda to an unveil of the new Superb.
We did not actually get to drive the car at that event, but it was clear, even from a visual appraisal, that this was a machine with which Skoda was going to do serious business.
The existing Superb had been a massive success for the Czech outfit and had redefined the parameters of the large family car/repmobile segment thanks to its space, inventive packaging, a boot the size of a 747 cargo hold, and… an umbrella.
I mean, what car in the class offers you greater legroom than an S-Class Mercedes?
The original Skoda Superb did.
And what car other than a Rolls Royce has an umbrella as a standard piece of kit?
The original Skoda Superb did.
So how was Skoda supposed to top a car which is the darling of every family/sales rep/farmer/taximan who has ever driven one?
Well, the simple answer was to give fans more of the same, but add a lot more kit and a heap more good looks.
Skoda did just that and it now has on its hands an even greater tour de force.
The new car is bigger in every regard and, remarkably, 75kg lighter.
Cargo space is greater than before and embarrassingly outstrips all its immediate rivals by miles.
It also has two umbrellas. It is as good to drive as it is practical.
I don’t know of anyone — me, especially — who has driven one to have had even the merest complaint about any aspect of its demeanour.
The Superb is already a legend in its own lifetime and as time goes on and more people get the message, that legend will only grow and grow.
A fantastic piece of kit.
We do like our small cars at Examiner Motoring, many of which have more character and guts than much bigger, well-endowed, and more expensive machines.
The diminutive Renault Twingo was one such. In design terms, the car is unique in that it has a rear-engine, rear-drive demeanour — something we’ve not seen a lot of since the bygone days of the Hillman Imp and the Renault Gordini.
This means the Twingo — primarily a city car, after all — is an absolute treat to drive in an urban environment.
The absence of front driveshafts makes the turning circle tighter than that of a Jack Russell chasing its tail, and means you can park it on the proverbial sixpence.
The MPV demeanour, with a high driving position and really clever interior packaging, make this five-door a lot more practical and useful than its exterior dimensions might suggest. Legroom might be tight in the back seats, but is fine for kids.
As the Twingo will primarily be a second car for most families, that is not going to be an issue.
The diminutive engine — just one litre in size and outputting just 70 bhp — is truly an ideal city car companion and while not the quickest, will still get you around the place with surprising alacrity.
On the open road you might have to thrash it a little to extract every one of those horses, but it was a very entertaining drive on B-roads and its wheel-at-each-corner design means the handling is thumb-tack sharp.
Cleverly packaged and terribly chic, the Twingo is a little gem and, priced from just over €13,000, a complete steal as well.
In a year in which we drove the likes of the latest — maddest — Mini JCW and the lusty Ford Focus ST, there were no shortage of sporting thrills here at Examiner Motoring.
However, one car clearly stood out from the pack and that was the Volkswagen Golf R.
An abject lesson in studied anonymity, the ‘R’ looks — to the untutored eye, anyway — like a regular Golf GTi with a few styling additives thrown into the mix. Nothing could be further from the truth as this VW delivers nothing short of shattering performance.
The engineers have squeezed a massive 300 bhp from the 2-litre engine, alongside a massive 380 Nm of torque.
The result is a near supercar 5.1 second 0-100km/h time and a top speed limited to 250km/h.
It is truly a breathless driving experience when you want it to be, but the thing is that VW has tamed all that horsepower via a Haldex 4x4 system and all but eradicated understeer thanks to its XDS+ electronic power distribution trickery.
The great US World Champion Mario Andretti was once asked to describe the handling of one of his race cars and he blithely replied: “Man, it’s like it’s painted to the road.”
Such a sentiment would be applicable here as the Golf R is as sorted a handler as you’re likely to find among the hot hatch brigade, although we do await with considerable anticipation the Focus RS which is, by all accounts, a ready challenger.
For now though, the ‘R’ is a truly special car not only for its performance and handling capabilities, but also because it is remarkably practical and will handle the school run in just as accomplished a fashion as it might a special stage. Magical.
Here we have a real ground-breaker from BMW: The company’s first front-wheel drive car.
That it would even consider a front-driver is something to ponder upon, but that it made such a good one will leave many a furrowed brow among the Munich concern’s competitors.
Essentially a mini-MPV people carrier, the essential trick with this thing is that BMW has made a very non-BMW car for people who want a BMW, if you follow.
There was nothing like this ever before in the BMW canon and purists might cringe at the fact that the company has gone down this route.
But the drive to world domination means that every avenue for potential sales will be explored.
Typically, however, BMW does not do things by halves and thus its first real family-oriented car is a fine example of how to get it right.
As a lifestyle choice with truly clever packaging and excellent ease of use, the Active Tourer — not to mention its sibling, the 2 Series Grand Tourer — the BMW has immediate appeal to a variety of buyers.
We are told that in the future, as many as half of BMW’s total production will be front drivers, so those fans of the company who treasured the rear-wheel drive heritage will have to settle down and cool their jets because this is the future — and it is surprisingly good.
Sure the VW Passat was elected as the European Car of the Year back in February, but when VW was found to have deliberately duped the whole world with its misguided emission fakery, many people lost complete faith in the Wolfsburg outfit.
Indeed the shattering of the trust between the company and its customers is something that will take years to rebuild.
In any event, for all the kudos the Passat engendered, the fact remains that VW had achieved something remarkable by engineering out of the car any personality it previously had.
It made a very good but completely soulless car.
Ford, on the other hand, while not quite matching the sales figures VW was posting before people found out about its corporate chicanery, has made an excellent machine and one which oozes character and charm.
It is also one which is really nice to drive, fantastically well equipped, and parcels up practicality as a matter of course.
It is a car which should not, under any circumstances, be overlooked.
Toyota tried manfully to usurp the Mondeo with its new Avensis and, while it’s not a bad thing at all, it does lack the broad appeal of the Ford.
Mysteriously, even though plenty of other manufacturers source engines from other companies, the fact Toyota bought its Avensis diesels from BMW seemed to draw an unusual amount of flak.
That point aside, the Mondeo underlined Ford’s consistent engineering development and particularly on the engine front.
One up to the Blue Oval.
Not a company which often features in any car of the year line-up, Suzuki scored a massive hit in these quarters with this latest version of its long-established nameplate.
Better built, with better engines and a raft of standard kit, the new Vitara — astonishingly — is also cheaper than the last version which it stopped selling in this country many years ago.
It drives really well and looks really good too, and Suzuki has done a lot to rid the car of the sort of dirt-cheap plastics which so often characterised many of the company’s products.
This is a car which will fly under the radar for many people because the Suzuki’s Irish operation has a tiny marketing budget and will therefore not be blitzing it across our airwaves.
But, if you’re in the market for a car with genuine 4x4 credentials — even though a 2x4 version will probably be the better seller — then the Suzuki has to be looked at. It will surprise you greatly. It certainly did for me.
The Volvo XC90 aside, the one other big SUV which stood out for me was this new Mercedes. Previous versions of this car were sold as the M-Class and widely reviled as a very poor contender in the SUV segment.
When the time for change came around though, Mercedes swore it would not get caught in the same trap of mediocrity. It did not break its vow.
The GLE might not be the prettiest car Mercedes has ever made, but it is certainly one that will repay your investment.
This thing has “hard worker” written all over it, while also having the sort of luxury elements to which Mercedes owners are so accustomed.
Having driven it at the European launch in Kitzbuhel back in June and seen it cope with a ridiculous mix of Alps and off-roading, as well as some fairly concentrated autobahn driving, I came away convinced that Mercedes had finally got its act together in a segment were it had not exactly excelled in times past.
Having then subsequently driven it on what often pass for roads in our own humble country, I was even more of a fan.
It might be a bit more utilitarian looking than many of its rivals, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What really matters is its abilities — and it has bags of them.
This is a very serious car indeed.
No longer can we call the DS — one of the most famous names in automotive history — a Citroen.
The ‘DS’ name is now a brand in its own right and the DS5 is the first standalone product it has come up with.
Although readily recognisable as a Citroen — particularly given some of the historic styling cues which have been built-in here — we are no longer allowed to call it as such, which is a bit ridiculous.
It strikes me that if Citroen had invested as much cash in the product instead of spending it on this ridiculous rebrand, the company would have been better served.
It might even have made a car which could be genuinely considered a ‘premium’ machine to take on the massed ranks of Germans it is aiming to, but won’t, topple.
I love the French and their sometimes zany cars, but really, someone should have had a word in their corporate shell-like about the wisdom of this whole DS thing.
I’ve always liked the S-Max.
It dared to be different in the segment and it was engineered to batter the opposition into submission. It succeeded on both fronts.
The danger with such a rampant success it that the manufacturer will try to outsmart itself by making a good thing better. Usually they cock it up badly.
In this case, however, Ford stuck to the original principles of the S-Max and has made a car which not only underpins the strengths of the original, but builds on it too.
It is everything a family car should be: Roomy, practical, hard-wearing, and multi-functional.
There are many cars which fit that bill, but unfortunately so many of their designers forgot altogether about making them decent to drive as well. Indeed, most of them are lumpers.
Ford, on the other hand, concentrated very closely on the driving dynamics from the outset and what they have achieved in that regard stands their contender out from the pack.
Smashing car.
I have not yet driven this car in Ireland for a variety of reasons, but during the height of the summer was let loose in it on the famous Goodwood racing track in west Sussex — and what a fantastic thing it is.
The original MX-5 reinvented the two-seater coupe back in 1989 and it was an instant success with its crackerjack character traits and sheer joie de vivre.
There have been two other iterations of the car since then, but last year saw the introduction of the fourth generation MX-5 and Mazda took the opportunity to underscore the Japanese concept of ‘Jinba iitai’ which, loosely translated to English, means ‘horse and rider as one body’.’
The engaging nature of the car-and-driver-as-partners philosophy endeared the MX-5 to millions of enthusiasts the world over and the latest version will merely confirm the car as one of the most enduring roasters of all time.
Cracking engines, a 50:50 weight distribution, and oversteer aplenty make this thing a sheer joy to drive.
This is bugs-in-the-teeth, wind-in-the-hair motoring at its best.
Quite how one of the biggest car makers in the world — or at very least some of its senior personnel — thought they could get away with a scam intended to fool every car-testing and assessment body in the world that its products were far cleaner than in reality, remains an astonishing mystery.
The effrontery of its unalloyed conceit and arrogance — not to mention the sheer neck of it — defies belief and logic.
The stakes were so high for VW that the potential damage if it was caught was unthinkable.
Those responsible obviously felt they had no chance of being collared. Scuppered they were and the reputational damage to the Wolfsburg concern will take decades to correct.
Given its reputation was up there with the likes of, say, God, the profundity of this cataclysmic misjudgment now places the company’s perceived status closer to that of the devil.
All quite extraordinary.
What a bunch of dopes.
