Audi R8 - Honda NSX

LATTER DAY HONDA NSX: THE AUDI R8

If you see this from the driving seat you could be in for an exciting time. It is the instrument panel of an Audi R8, one of the best and most accessible supercars I have driven for years. You would be required to fasten your seat belt and raise the engine revs to more than idling speed to find the most notable feature of the R8 is how easy it is to drive fast. Generations of sports car drivers, especially in America, believed that you weren’t getting your money’s worth from a sports car unless it was a) difficult to drive b) frightened you to death and c) was noisy uncomfortable and draughty. Cars that changed all that were the BMW 328 in 1936, the E-type Jaguar in 1961 and the Honda NSX. Here is what I said about it in The Sunday Times on 17 March 1991.

Honda now has a car to confront Ferrari and Porsche. The NSX challenges their ideology and refutes the assertion that fast cars should be exacting to drive. Thirty years ago the E-Type Jaguar did much the same and showed that racing-car handling was not incompatible with smoothness and refinement. Drivers who pined for stiff springing and a noisy engine in 1961, were as out of tune with current practice, as their successors who disparage the NSX for lacking character or failing some quaint test of machismo.
The NSX rides smoothly, handles as lightly as a small hatchback, yet it has the speed and power of a sports car. Like that other high-speed paragon, the Mercedes-Benz SL, it is quiet and refined and exquisitely balanced, and anyone who suggests it has no character is probably not driving it fast enough.
Above 150mph all cars have character.
The NSX has been a sell-out. At £52,000 (£55,000 with automatic transmission) it is in such short supply that at least one of the twenty or so cars that have come on the UK market has been advertised in the classified columns at a handsome premium.
Honda's Tochigi plant makes only twenty-five of the 3ft 10in tall mid-engined NSX coupes every day. Of these only 150 will come to the UK this year making it as exclusive as a Ferrari and rarer than a Porsche. It has all the elegance of both without the highly-strung nature of either.
The Honda's critics may regard it as a usurper, but anybody who enjoys driving fast on the road without feeling constantly on the threshold of disaster, will welcome it. Unlike many Ferraris, it does not demand deftness at the wheel, although with 270 horse power available from the 3 litre V-6 it does demand concentration.

This is the Audi R8 V8

Honda has drawn on its racing experience for some of the engine's radical features such as the lightweight (and expensive) titanium connecting rods. VTEC or variable valve timing is an ingenious feature, which engages a different cam profile to retune the engine for extra power at high speeds. The result is a substantial improvement in efficiency and commendable fuel consumption of more than 20mpg. The greatest asset of the NSX is its predictable behaviour. Other so-called supercars can snap quickly and violently out of control, but the NSX has cornering power to spare for emergencies, sudden swerves, uneven surfaces, or bends that tighten up unexpectedly. It is safe because it will not betray the semi-skilled driver yet its fine poise and good balance will amply reward the proficient.
It inspires confidence. The mid-engined layout places the bulk of the weight in the middle, where it will not make the front or back swing wide. The balance is perfect, provoking no tail slides, no front wheel skids, and while it may have less grip of a racetrack than a Porsche Carrera 4, it can be cornered faster on the road because the driver always knows where he is with it.
The NSX accelerates to 60mph in less than 6 seconds, reaches 100mph in under 14 seconds, and its powerful brakes can produce stopping power of over 1g, with the fat specially developed Yokohama tyres gripping the road with great might. It is as tolerant in the wet as it is in the dry; the driver gets plenty of warning through the steering of the limits of prudence.
The interior is hardly grandiloquent. It has an instrument display that would not look out of place in a Honda Accord and agreeable stitched leather seats. There is nothing fancy here, nor is there much to be said for a luggage boot that does not take a full-sized suitcase. It is a basin-shaped bin right at the tail behind the high-revving masterpiece of an engine.
The NSX can crawl along in traffic making no more noise than a small Rover, then accelerate to 160mph, reaching over 8,000rpm in the gears and sounding every bit the thoroughbred. Honda felt no obligation to compete with Ferrari and Porsche for the apprehensions of the

sports car buyer. Tradition runs deeper here than even in the luxury market.

This is the V10 engine of an R8's well finished (and illuminated) engine compartment. No modesty here.

Instead Honda made it their business to win grand prix races; it was the only way to convince the fastidious buyer that is more than a match for Ferrari or Cosworth or anybody else. Honda won the world championship more convincingly than anybody has since the days of Mercedes-Benz.
The NSX may never attract the traditional Ferrari or Porsche customer who will not regard it in the same designer-label style. No matter, the NSX is perfectly capable of creating its own new market among people who would never buy a fractious Ferrari or a too-precious Porsche in any case.

Audi also makes practical cars.

Motorway driving

This has nothing to do with motorway driving. This is me acting as riding mechanic on the 1906 Grand Prix Renault at Le Mans. (see below)

Scotland on Sunday 27 July 2003

I was driving up the M6 after a two thousand mile round trip mainly on motorways. For the most part the driving was not bad. White Van Man now drives Sprinters at 110mph in the outside lane but except for an articulated truck crossing my path while the driver dived for his Yorkie Bar, or fell asleep, it was pretty well without incident.

Biggest nuisance was the undertaker, left-side traffic stealing through, then pulling in front. One white van passed on the left, swerved over to the outside lane, dodging from lane to lane in a frantic and dangerous bid to get ahead. It made no sense, and made law-abiding drivers wonder where the traffic patrols were.

So what was I doing in the middle lane when there was overtaking space on the left? I like to set the cruise control to an indicated 80mph, that is 77mph for the 10 per cent the law allows, plus a couple of mph to take account of the flatter most speedometers have. At this speed the middle lane of the motorway is comfortable, flyers can fly by on the outside, trucks trundle along on the inside. Everybody, you would think, would be happy.

Not so. Self-appointed guardians of the Highway Code, which says in effect you should always pull over to the left, come up behind at 85mph and make a great display of swerving out to overtake, flash indicators and point leftwards in rebuke. It is never clear exactly what they are mouthing but it seems like indignation. People get shirty if the left lane is unoccupied and there is much flashing of lights, but I am too old and dignified for road rage, and let them get on their high blood pressure way.

I take the view that smooth consistent and predictable behaviour is far better on the motorway (or anywhere else) than dashing from side to side. I am pleased to find the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) supports this. The IAM manual "Pass Your Advanced Driving Test" on the thorny issue of lane discipline says:

"Return to the left when you can, but do not do this over zealously so that you end up constantly skipping from one lane to another. Far too often on motorways you see strings of cars bunched needlessly in the right hand lane queuing up to pass a few people drifting along in the centre lane."

The emphasis is on the over zealous. Unnecessary lane changing can make accidents.

“Drifting along in the centre lane” seems to exclude those, like me, going about their lawful affairs at around the statutory speed limit. Driving experts disapprove of Slow Lane, Middle Lane, and Fast Lane; the outside one is the Overtaking Lane but in theory if the Middle Lane is occupied by 70mph traffic nobody should be overtaking anyway.

The safest roads are those on which all the traffic is doing the same speed. If everybody is bowling along at 50 or 60 or 70 nobody is going to be taken by surprise and leave those lurid skid marks that mean somebody has had a heart-stopping moment or worse. Consistency, changing lane as seldom as possible, and constant monitoring of the mirror are the recipe for motorway safety.

RENAULT RACING



Scotsman Motoring, Eric Dymock 4 May 2006

Renault might look a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to Formula 1, but next month celebrates the centenary of not only grand prix racing, but also its first victory. Perching me high on an antique racing car, with the wind in my face, convinced me of the fortitude of drivers in the heroic age of motor sport. I managed it for several miles; they battled it out on dusty gritty roads in the searing heat of a scorching summer, literally up hill and down dale, for two whole days.

The 1906 French Grand Prix at Le Mans was no hour-and-a-half sprint by Schumachers and Alonsos, cocooned in fire-proof clothing, and strapped into fat-tyred roller skates. A hundred years ago next month, fearless Hungarian Ferenç Szisz and his intrepid riding mechanic Marteau, sat on a swaying one-and-a-half-ton monster with a 13-litre engine, averaging 63mph for the entire 770miles. They reached 100mph, bounced perilously on bone-jarring ruts in the compacted clay surface, scarcely easing up on stretches of railway sleeper roads by-passing villages along the 64 mile course.

Then as now, team managers were up to technical tricks. The flints and the heat shredded tyres; most fatalities in racing followed tyre failure, so in collaboration with Michelin the Renaults’ big wooden artillery wheels had detachable rims. The jantes amovibles were fitted to the back wheels since they wore out faster. Instead of cutting off the worn-out smoking remnants of the old tyres with knives and forcing on new ones, Szisz and Marteau undid eight nuts, and put on a ready-inflated tyre and rim. They were on their way in two minutes instead of their rivals’ ten, and by the end of the first day had 26 minutes in hand. After a second day, despite a last lap nursing a broken spring, they won by half an hour.

Renaults moreover had the first double-acting hydraulic dampers ever used on a racing car, not only for comfort and controllability, but also to spare the tall, narrow and vulnerable tyres.

British carmakers had been suspicious of the French Grand Prix. The Petit Parisien confirmed their doubts about its sporting nature, when it said: “If we win the Grand Prix we shall let the whole world know that French motorcars are the best. If we lose it will merely be by accident…”

The industries were deadly rivals. The British thought the contest would be rigged, so left it to Germany and Italy to enter three teams of three cars, challenging 25 from ten French manufacturers. The race was known simply as The Grand Prix; there was no other. The title meaning big prize, had already been used for the Grand Prix de Pau on 17 February 1901, but it was not applied to anything else until the 1920s.

Officially the Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France (ACF), the 1906 event was the first great national race, inaugurating a series that has counted towards the drivers’ and manufacturers’ world championships since 1950. The doubts of the British in 1906 were by no means ill founded. The Entente Cordiale had been signed barely two years earlier, but the French motor industry was the biggest in the world, its members formed the nucleus of the ACF, and they had been frustrated by the rules of the Gordon Bennett Cup, the first attempt at international motor races.

This specified one team per country, which seemed unfair to the French, because they had more manufacturers than anybody else. Prompted by the industry that formed the bulk of its membership, the ACF proposed teams for its Grand Prix, entered by make rather than country. The chief protagonists from Italy were Fabbrica Italiani di Automobili Torino (F.I.A.T. forebears of Ferrari) along with Itala, and from Germany the mighty Mercédès. Besides Renault the French teams included Lorraine-Dietrich, Darracq, Gobron-Brillié, Grégoire, Hotchkiss, Clément-Bayard and one of the oldest names in the industry Panhard-Levassor.

Renault’s commemorative expedition to Le Mans used Agatha, the closest thing to the 1906 racers, all of which have been lost. One of ten built, at $8,500 each for William Kissam Vanderbilt Jr to compete in the Vanderbilt Cup races on Long Island in 1908, Agatha is only 7.4litres but leaps off the line with astonishing vigour. The big crankshaft, with pistons the size of biggish teapots, turns only at between 1,200rpm and 1,800rpm, yet pulls with the low-speed strength of a steam engine. Changing gear is ponderous, accomplished with a certain amount of clunking and heaving of the big lever, even in the practised hands of owner German Renault dealer Wolfgang Auge.

The great car’s first owner was Harry Payne Whitney, Vanderbilt’s cousin and heir to a cotton gin fortune. It then passed to mining millionaire Robert Guggenheim, before coming to Britain before the first world war for Lord Kimberley, famous surgeon Sir Harold Gillies, then collector Marcus Chambers of Clapham. The value of all old racing cars collapses when they are no longer eligible for competition, and Chambers later the motor sport manager of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), bought it at the bottom of its cycle. He advertised it in Motor Sport of August 1935 under Veteran Cars as: “1907 Sports Renault, £30 or offer.”

Brothers Anthony and John Mills, named it Agatha, and when Anthony a Royal Air Force squadron leader was killed soon after D-Day it was sold to Charles Dunn until auctioned in 1992 to Wolfgang Auge. It is now almost priceless.

The course of the 1906 race is easily followed. It lies to the east of Le Mans, well clear of the Circuit Permanent de la Sarthe where the Automobile Club de l’Ouest runs the great 24-Hour Grand Prix d’Endurance. Triangular over undulating countryside it goes by the N157 to St-Calais, the D1 to La Ferté Bernard and the Route Nationale N23 back through Connerré to the start-finish line near Le Mans, where the twin tunnels built for spectators to walk from the pits side of the road to the grandstands have been carefully restored

Buxton and Crich Tramway Museum

Enjoyed a 1977 Ford Capri 1600L on the Guild of Motoring Writers Classic to Buxton and the splendid Tram Museum at Crich. A 1.6 is no flyer, see entry from The Ford In Britain File below, but it drives nicely. I collected it from Ford’s historic collection, housed in a modest little building in the middle of the Dagenham complex. What a treasure-trove. A hundred cars from Ford’s past, from GT40 to Model Y. The Capri is typically well-maintained. A lady, who didn’t want it to fall into some boy racer’s hands, donated it to the collection when it had only 25,000miles on the clock.

Crews confer, Crich Tramway Museum

Curious to drive with such a narrow-rimmed steering wheel. Was it somehow fashionable then? I remember Rolls-Royces had them. Steering wheels are now fat and chunky following the style set by racing cars of the 1960s. Drum brakes didn’t feel bad although I didn’t work them hard. Fade resistance was one of the advances discs made, but they weren’t spongy or slow to react and stopping distances seemed about right. We weren’t going very fast. Four speed gearbox. You stop looking for a fifth after a time. No rev counter and a plain facia of plastic-looking wood. Two speed wipers – the intermittent control was very intermittent indeed, sometimes stopped the wipers in the line of sight and they weren’t self-parking. The windows have a novel system for disappearing into the doors – a handle that you wind round and round. Amazingly simple and effective. No electric motors to go wrong. Comfortable seats but no head restraints. I was glad nobody ran into us from behind. Good boot. Good quality materials for carpets and facia although a lot of black made it look a bit gloomy. Low road noise, narrow tyres, didn’t drive much in the wet but it seemed stable enough. Heavy steering at parking speeds was hard work. Engine tolerably quiet and visibility good with narrow screen pillars. The ride was even and showed no sign of aging with effective dampers. What a commendably good-value classic; the Capri looks the part and people certainly look at it and smile. The L was fairly basic with cloth and leathery-looking upholstery. It’s odd not having central locking. Ruth remembered to hold the handle up when you shut the door – just the way you used to lock yourself out of a car with the key inside. Wheels typically Ford painted to look like alloy or Rostyle. The bodywork has lasted amazingly well.


The Capri was well proportioned – not quite like Lyons’ old SS with long bonnet, low roofline and not much accommodation. It’s quite roomy and although there is some wasted space in the engine compartment, there is not as much sacrifice for style as one remembers. Splendid radio with buttons that went straight to Radio 4 on long wave and never varied wherever you were. Absence of airbags makes an airy interior. Gearshift crisp. Vinyl roof is a big fashion statement – hangover from Riley RM and others that looked like faux convertibles but only had them to conceal bad presswork and ugly joints. They had a lot to learn about shut-lines in 1977 – you could get your fingers down the sides of the bootlid, although the water channelling was good and nothing leaked even on this 32 year old car.

From The Ford in Britain File: 1974 Capri II 1300 and 1600

With the world in the grip of the first oil crisis manufacturers seized the opportunity to put now model announcements on hold. Not Ford. It took the plunge with the already successful Capri to introduce styling changes, provide more room inside, and while remaining strictly 2+2, introduce the hatchback making the car far more practical. Folding down the rear seat gave huge luggage capacity. It was surprising really that it had not been done in the first place following the example of the MGB GT. The crease along the body side was discarded, and the dummy air intakes ahead of the rear wheel arch dispensed with, giving a smoother more sophisticated appearance. Slimmer windscreen pillars and bigger windows gave better visibility all round and although the innovations with their attendant reinforcement round the double-skinned gas-strutted tailgate increased the body weight by 27.22kg (60lb) they were well worthwhile. Using much the same Cortina underpinnings the 1300 had a pushrod crossflow Kent engine and the 1600 the latest Pinto overhead camshaft engine giving it a lively turn of speed. Capris continued to be made in Britain until 1976-1977 when production was concentrated in Germany. The array of trim packs available with the first Capri was reduced; buyers had been confused and in many cases dealers ordering cars for stock failed to identify the most popular options. 224

Autocar 30 March 1974 road test

INTRODUCTION Dec 1973 production to Oct 1976 in Britain and Jan 1978 in Germany

BODY coupe; 2-doors, 2+2-seats; weight 1010kg (2226.65lb), 1600 1040kg (2292.78lb)

ENGINE 4-cylinders, in-line; front; 80.98mm x 62.99mm, 1297cc; compr 9.2:1; 42.51kW (57bhp) @ 5500rpm; 91 Nm (67lbft) @ 3000rpm; 32.8kW/l (44bhp/l). 1600 87.7 x 66mm; 1593cc 53.69kW (72bhp) @5200rpm; 33.7kW (45.2bhp)/l; 118Nm (87lbft) @ 3000rpm. 1600GT 65.62kW (88bhp)

ENGINE STRUCTURE 3034E pushrod ohv; chain-driven camshaft; cast iron cylinder head, block; Ford GPD carburettor, centrifugal and vacuum ignition; mechanical fuel pump; 5-bearing crankshaft. 1600 ohc, 1600GT Weber carb

TRANSMISSION rear wheel drive; 19.05cm (7.5in) (1600 GT 21.59cm (8.5in)) diaphragm spring cable-operated clutch; 4-speed manual all-synchromesh gearbox; hypoid bevel final drive 4.125:1. 1600 3.77:1. 1600GT 3.75:1

CHASSIS steel monocoque structure; ifs by MacPherson struts and anti roll bar; live rear axle with half-elliptic springs and anti-roll bar, telescopic dampers; Girling hydraulic disc brakes at front, 24.4cm (9.61in); 20.32cm (8in) rear drums (1600 22.86cm (9in)); dual circuit; optional vacuum servo (1600 std); rack and pinion steering; 57.73l (12.7gal)(15.24US gal) fuel tank; 165-13; 185/70 – 13 optional radial-ply tyres, 5Jrims

DIMENSIONS wheelbase 256cm (100.8in); track front 135.38cm (53.3in) rear 138.43cm (54.5in); length 434.09cm (170.9in); width 169.93cm (66.9in); height 129.79cm (51.1in); ground clearance 10.41cm (4.1in); turning circle 10.67m (35ft)

EQUIPMENT toughened glass windscreen, laminated extra, brushed nylon seats extra

PERFORMANCE
Maximum speed 167kph (104mph) 1600, Autocar
1300 26.17kph (16.3mph), 1600 28.57kph (17.8mph), 1600GT 28.73kph (17.9mph) @ 1000rpm; 0-100kph (62mph) 11.4sec; fuel consumption 10.2l/100km (27.7mpg)

PRICE 1300L £1336.25, 1600L £1415.83, 1600GT £1632.92
PRODUCTION 84,400 all Capri II in Britain

An Old Friend

Rediscovered an old friend at the Goodwood Revival meeting. Cooper MG NKC195 lined up for the Stirling Moss 80th birthday tribute and I confirmed with owner George Cooper that it belonged to Frank D Dundas, for whom I navigated many times on his local South of Scotland Car Club and my local Lanarkshire Car Club rallies in the 1950s. Most memorably we scored third in class on the 1955 Scottish Rally in Frank’s Morgan Plus 4, one of the first with the Triumph TR2 engine. I only did one event in the Cooper, as replacement for his regular navigator Jimmy Bogie, one of a rallying family still to the fore. The Cooper had minimal weather protection; it wasn’t suitable for the “plot and bash” events of the time. It was all right for the bash, but a bit inconvenient for plotting. It had a hood of sorts, and a proper windscreen not the aero screens it has now, but OS maps blew about a lot.

After Frank started rallying the Morgan PSM 508, the Cooper was consigned to the roof of his Dumfries agricultural building. I never knew at the time that Stirling Moss had driven it.

I came across the Cooper at service area on the M5 some years ago. It had been splendidly restored and repainted blue instead of bronze (maybe it was green). I had to look up Doug Nye’s Cooper Cars (Osprey 1983) for more detail. Cooper had been making 500cc racing single seaters, then in 1948-1949 John Cooper put a Vauxhall Ten engine into the front of a chassis, engineered much like one of the racers. It had box-section longerons and independent transverse leaf springing front and back.

Encouraged perhaps by George Phillips’s 1949 Le Mans MG, Cooper built another, like the Vauxhall, with an MG TC engine developed by Barwell Engineering to give 75bhp, against the standard car’s 55bhp. This became the works racing car and was driven by John Cooper to a second place at Goodwood in May 1950. In June, Nye says, Moss was available to drive the car at Goodwood, “but it proved fractious and he was only fifth. John took over – actually wearing Stirling’s helmet – in a five-lap handicap and finished second, setting fastest lap at 73.56mph. In the final members’ meeting of the year he at last achieved that elusive win, averaging 71.74mph for the five laps and topping 100mph along Lavant Straight.”

John Bolster road-tested the car afterwards, deciding the suspension was on the hard side but the ride still good on bad surfaces. “In cornering the machine really excels.” JV Bolster was almost as much of a hero as Stirling Moss. In the 1950s I had admired them both at a distance. Getting to know them later only enhanced the respect. Boisterous Bolster, melodramatic Moss. National Treasures and they both drove this astonishing little car, Frank Dundas’s Cooper MG and he either didn’t tell me or he didn’t know. Most likely he thought it didn’t much matter.

What a treat to see it at Goodwood and re-live a piece of history. That’s George Cooper and his lady wife Carol: "...social secretary, without her I would not be able to go anywhere," in the picture above. The one on the left in the vintage dress is number one Dymock daughter Charlotte. Frank Dundas, generous, engaging, warm-hearted to a Dumfries fault and a gifted driver, would have enjoyed the occasion.

VW Polo 1.2SE

VOLKSWAGEN POLO 1.2SE

Road tests in The Motor were essentially compiled by committee, although an author, by tradition anonymous, was responsible for drawing opinions together. This cloak of secrecy was set aside when Roger Bell, who wrote a less than flattering appraisal of the Mark X Jaguar, was hauled up before the management at Browns Lane to explain himself. Editor Richard Bensted-Smith had to make a contrite explanation although Roger, skilled and articulate, was perfectly capable of speaking for himself. His views were not only those of the entire team, they have been endorsed by experience.

The road test staff comprised the technical editor, Joe Lowrey, Charles Bulmer, Roger Bell and me. We were joined by Michael Bowler and Cyril Posthumus and worked from time to time with John Anstice-Brown, and the marvellously erudite Laurence Pomeroy. Generous, amusing and never patronising, Pom was occasionally theatrical yet one hung on his every word.

The principles of road testing at The Motor were carefully drawn. Cars were assessed from the point of view of a likely buyer. Personal prejudices were disallowed. We individuals preferred fast cars, slow ones bored us, but authors were prohibited from reflecting such narrow-mindedness. Objectivity was crucial. Some readers actively disliked fast cars and we had to take them into account. You described a car rather than set yourself up as a critic, we were compiling tests for likely buyers so we had to think as likely buyers and not young tearaways.

Judging by tyre-smoking pictures and jargon from racing drivers manqué it’s not like that now. I reflected how testing has changed when I was at the wheel of a 1.2 litre Volkswagen Polo SE this week. It is now safe to reveal that I was author of The Motor road test of another 1.2 litre Volkswagen in 1963, in which: “Cornering is accomplished with little roll but a certain apprehension as initial understeer gives way to a decided oversteer as the 41/59 weight distribution and swing axle rear suspension assert themelves.” This described the handling without exactly saying whether we liked it or not. The conclusion was perfectly clear. “Although economical the performance is poor for a 1200 and it is seriously affected by adverse conditions like a strong wind or a heavy load. Handling is suspect on account of oversteer, which asserts itself abruptly.” Nothing mealy-mouthed there.

What strides cars have made in 46 years. Top speed of my 1963 Beetle was 70mph, fuel consumption 26mpg, although we always included a “Touring” consumption, calculated from the steady-speed tests, since it took less account of the test staff’s fast driving. The VW’s was 42.75 (6.6l/100km) reflecting high gearing and low rpm. Maximum power of 34bhp (25.35kW) came in at only 3,600rpm, “at which the piston speed was only 1,510 ft per minute.” Pom was very big on piston speed.

The clever little Polo gives 69bhp (70PS) (51.48kW) at 5400rpm representing some 3,080 ft per minute, about twice what Pom would regard as acceptable. The difference is that the Polo is going 30mph faster, its little 3-cylinder engine spinning smoothly and faultlessly to give a combined mpg of 51.4 (5.49l/100km). The quality of VW finish and engineering has never wavered since the Beetle, and even though the Polo takes 14sec to reach 60mph, or about 4 sec less than the Beetle took to reach 50, it does not feel slow.

Putting myself in the shoes of likely buyers, they would surely approve.

I tried the diesel 1.6 TDI. It has a few extra horse power and a fourth cylinder, is just about as fast and should give 65.7mpg (4.3l/100km) but likely buyers might not enjoy it as much as the swifter-feeling petrol car.