News: Opel cascades us with new Cascada photos

These are the first official pictures of Opel's replacement for the Astra cabriolet, the new Cascada.

With this being the fourth new model that Opel has launched this year (following on from the Ampera, Mokka and Adam), clearly GM thinks that the way out of the firm's current cash crisis is to keep hitting us with more and more new models.

And the Cascada is certainly rather gorgeous,with some seriously sexy styling thanks in part to a folding fabric roof that doesn't need a butt like Jennifer Lopez' to store it when folded. Opel seems to be retreating from the weight and complication of folding steel hard tops and it's a move we applaud.

It looks  a lot like an Astra, but with a 70mm longer wheelbase than the outgoing Astra TwinTop, it's leaner and sleeker, and should be a bit more roomy inside too. That roof can be raised or lowered in just 17 seconds, and at speeds of up to 48kmh. Plus, when it's down, it only robs 70-litres from the 350-litre boot, so the Cascada remains reasonably practical.

Opel's existing range of 1.4 petrol turbo and 2.0 turbo diesel engines will be available, and the Cascada will be the debut vehicle for a new 1.6 petrol turbo with 168bhp, fitted at first only with a six-speed automatic gearbox.

While Opel claims a 43% improvement in torsional stiffness over the old Astra cabrio, prices will the stiffer too, with the Cascada tilting at the likes of the Audi A5 convertible and BMW 3 Series carbio. Don't expect much change from €40k, if any.

"The midsize cabriolet segment is only occupied by very high-priced cars from premium manufacturers," commented Thomas Sedran, Deputy Chairman of Opel. "With the Cascada, Opel offers all the typical features and premium qualities of a midsize convertible, but at an affordable price."

One thing though; the name. Cascada? Sounds like a dodgy 80s perfume...

News: Fiat and Mazda get a little closer

 

Mazda  boss Takashi Yamanouchi reckons that Fiat and Mazda will be snuggling up ever closer to one another soon.

Speaking to the press in the aftermath of the Paris Motor Show, Yamanouchi confirmed that the two companies are exploring ever-closer links.

“There’s nothing to announce yet, and nothing that’s certain to happen, but our engineers have been in each other’s plants looking for opportunities," he said. Yamanouchi is due to meet Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne in the next few days and more co-operation programmes may be announced then.

Earlier this year, Fiat and Mazda announced that they would collaborate to build the next-generations of both the MX-5 and Alfa Romeo Spider, with both cars to be made in Mazda's home factory in Hiroshima, based on a common chassis and potentially using the same SkyActiv 1.5-litre petrol engine that Mazda is currently working on.

Mazda certainly needs a new partner, with its relationship with Ford now very much on the back burner, it needs a new platform for the next-generation 2 and 3, and Fiat's versatile Panda and Giulietta chassis would fit the bill nicely there. Likewise, Fiat has always flopped at building larger saloons, but using Mazda's clever and light SkyActiv chassis from the new 6 could potentiallly fix all that. Equally, Mazda's excellent CX-5 crossover could be just the ticket for Alfa Romeo's long-awaited SUV.

News: VW Beetle goes topless in California

Volkswagen has released the first details of its all-new Beetle cabriolet, appropriately enough in sunny California.

 It's thankfully sticking with the traditional fabric roof, rather than a complicated folding hard top, but in true Beetle tradition the windscreen is still bolt upright and the roof, when folded, sits pram-like on top of the rear deck.

Impressively though, it can be opened up in as little as 10secs and and works at speeds of up to 48kmh. Handy for non-Californian downpours that.

Entry levels cars will get the 105bhp 1.2 TSI turbo petrol, while 105bhp 1.6 TDI diesel, 140bhp 2.0 TDI diesel, 160bhp 1.4 TSI turbo petrol and a range-topping 200bhp 2.0 TSI (effectively a Golf GTI engine) will be available too.

Now, if only we could get a little of the weather from these photos...

Features: The man who puts the Jaaaaag in Jaguar

This is the man who finally got Jaguar design right, after it had languised for years, unable to break away from a slavish devotion to a classic sixties look that just didn’t work in a modern context. Ian Callum is an astonishingly talented man, with stints at Aston Martin and Ford behind him, he swept away the retro look at Jaguar and ushered in a clean, modern style, beginning with the XK and XF and onto the sometimes controversial XJ. But was that binning of retro the key to Jaguar’s recent renaissance?


“Well, it depends what you mean by retro. I think if it means deliberately copying the past in order to try and capture something from that past, it’s the wrong thing to do. I’m afraid Jaguar had fallen into that trap, a little bit. Not overtly, or even consciously, but just by not moving on quickly enough. From my point of view, it didn’t work very well."

The 2008 XF was the final nail in the coffin that Callum had prepared for Jaguar’s dark days of producing photocopies of the 1968 XJ. Out wen the sixties, in came the 21st century with a car of near perfect proportions and gorgeous detailing. Even without the retro style of the old XJ and S-Type, there was no mistaking the XF for anything other than a Jaguar. But now Callum has another tough assignment on his hands. Styling never stands still and Jaguar has to move on again. Where now?

“I’m going through that very issue at the moment, with the design team, how we go about moving on, having established the foundations. I think the key to this is not copying the past, but what we’ve tried to do with the current lineup of cars is understand the values of what Jaguar stood for in the fifties and sixties, and that’s certainly when I admired them the most, and pin down these values about modernity, about beauty of line, about purity of surface. We’ll continue with those same values; we haven’t changed those, but very much in a 21st century way. I think that this is where we wanted to get to with XF and XJ.

“Where we go to now is probably a continuation of that, we’ve made a big leap into the future, we’re now in the right place, and I think the challenge is now to move on from that in a very positive and hopefully very successful way. It’s very difficult to know how much further to take it. As a designer I perhaps always want to take it a little further than other people feel comfortable with. But we need to find that balance.”

A big move, recently, was the launch of the high performance XKR-S model, which delved into Porsche 911 GT3 territory, with an in-your-face bodykit and aerodynamic performance given preference over Jag’s traditonal GT comfort.

“I have to admit that that car is quite aggressive, although I like to use the word ‘assertive’ more. That car is overt, because it has been designed in the wind tunnel, all these appendages you see are there for a very good reason. It’s to keep the car on the road at 300kmh. Therefore they have a function and so I’m very comfortable with they way they’ve evolved. We wouldn’t do that on a less powerful car,  but you’ll certainly see our cars becoming more assertive, and the simple reason for that is that the visual geography out there in the car world is very aggressive. If you go to America, people out there drive around in great big pickups and you need your cars to have a presence on the road and I think the idea of the cars becoming more subdued and a little more gentle in their attitude and their presence are probably over.”

Certainly, Callum’s latest creation, the F-Type, as fully revealed this week at the Paris Motor Show, follows these cues. Classically Jaguar proportions (long bonnet, short rear) but with aggressive (sorry, assertive) details like the deep side vents and the gaping grille. It’s a looker, that’s for sure.

“Even if a car is fairly ordinary, they need to shout a bit louder these days, and Jaguars certainly will be shouting.”

Road Test: Mini Cooper Roadster

Price as tested: €28,165

+ Better looking than the Coupe, fun, agile, engaging
– Crashy ride, limited practicality
= Sweet and fun but we still prefer the standard Mini hatch

I am, I will admit, somewhat baffled by the existence of the Mini Coupe. Why? Because the Mini hatchback is already a coupe. No it's not, you will say. It's a hatchback, clear as day. Not so. Take this simple list of the standard Mini's attributes. Two comfy seats in a stylish (if archly retro) cabin up front, a pair of cramped, tight-fitting, only fitfully useful seats behind and a small boot. A car bought almost entirely on the strength of its style and personality. That's a shopping list that brings you immediately to the door of EuroCoupe – coupe supermarket to the stars.

So, by taking out the occasionally useful pair of rear seats, plonking an offensively ugly roof on the top and calling it a coupe, Mini has created one of the most singularly pointless and unattractive cars I have ever driven, quite apart from its poor ride quality. It does nothing on the road that the Mini hatch doesn't do at least as well, often better, yet is more expensive and less useful. Avoid.

This, the Mini Roadster, I have to say I find significantly less troublesome and its cleaner, crisper styling is only the half of it. Because it has a folding fabric roof that stows neatly away behind the two seat cockpit, there is at least a compelling reason for the excision of the hatch's two rear seats. In doing so, it actually manages to look better than its four-seat equivalent, the Mini convertible (with its awkward rear headrests and pram-like hood) and manages therefore to deftly sidestep the Coupe's inherent pointlessness.

Of course, it is a bit of a silly car for Ireland, and that is only partly down to our regular climactic conditions. It's not even not very practical, it's not practical at all, with a tiny boot and little in the way of extra stowage space in the cabin. Not only that, but the rival Mazda MX-5 easily shows it the way home in terms of driving position, handling balance and even boot space.

Still, the Mini Roadster is at least a fun little thing. Front-drive it may be but the standard Mini's up-and-at-em chassis is still a delight, more than a decade on from its original re-invention. The steering still feels meaty and rewarding when pointing the stubby nose into a corner and in terms of grip and agility it's hard to fault. A shame that the seemingly standard too-hard ride is there; it does rather spoil the mood when tackling some of Ireland's more entertaining back roads. Someday, car makers will realise that an ability to shrug off bumps and lumps is actually more help to making swift progress than all the low profile tyres and stiff springs in the world, but I suspect it will take the carpet-bombing (or impending financial destruction) of the (in)famous Nurburgring race track to do so. The fewer car makers that sign off their stiff chassis settings on that legendary strip of tarmac, the happier I am...

The 1.6-litre 120bhp petrol engine proves that diesel needn't have things all its own way in the Mini range, and indeed reminds you that you don't need to upgrade to a Cooper S just to enjoy yourself. True, performance is hardly electrifying, but then it's more fun to spend the time winding something like the Cooper up to brisk speeds than to simply stamp on the pedal of something more powerful and arrive immediately at licence-threatening velocity. Well, I've always thought so at any rate. That it's a crisp and smooth unit, eager to rev and decently refined is all icing. As is the low Co2 figure. Who would have thought, half a decade ago, that you’d be able to buy a fun, agile, revvy, gutsy Mini convertible and pay just €225 a year for road tax? Brilliant.

The electric folding hood is a good one, belying the need for a heavier, more complicated folding steel roof, providing as it does all the insulation and security you could reasonably ask for, at a fraction of the weight and complication and without the detrimental effect on styling. The little pop-up boot spoiler is a nice little gimmick, but rather a bit of a giveway to the law that you're pressing on, unless you remembered to flick the cockpit switch to raise it manually of course, officer.

It must be noted that the Roadster finds the Mini at something of a crossroads. A decade ago, we just had the standard three-door hatch in Cooper and Cooper S forms. Since then, the Mini family has grown from a sub-brand into a proper car maker in its own right, with the Clubman, Countryman, Roadster, Coupe, Convertible and forthcoming Paceman (a Countryman coupe of all things) all vying for space. BMW is currently working on the successor to the Mini, which will use a more versatile chassis that will allow, for the first time ever, the creation of a five-door version of the standard car. Hopefully, the current car's sense of simple, honest fun will transfer to the new one, as will its palpably good cabin quality, distinctive layout and pleasantly cheeky styling. A bigger boot would be nice, and please Mini, drop the Coupe altogether, OK?

Oh, but you can keep the Roadster. A nice little car, that.


Mini Cooper Roadster
Price as tested: €28,165
Range price: €25,660 to €58,860
Capacity: 1,598cc
Power: 122bhp
Torque: 160Nm
Top speed: 200kmh
0-100kmh: 9.2sec
Economy: 5.7-100km (49.6mpg)
CO2 emissions: 133g/km
Tax Band: B. €225 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested

Road Test: Mercedes-Benz SL500

Price as tested: €170,000

+ Awesome engine, comfort, quality, refinement, image
– Soft-ish chassis, size, chintzy cabin
= Expect it to be sporting and you’ll be disappointed. Expect it to be an SL           and it’s perfect.

So, the questions that has to be asked is; is the Mercedes SL actually a sports car? Has it ever been?
The original gullwing 300SL was certainly sporty, in fact a race car in all but name and some creature comforts. But the “pagoda roof” SL that followed was much more about grand touring (GT) comfiness and the models that followed were not what you’d call trackday specials. Yes, you could have the mental AMG versions of the last-generation SL, which were sharp to drive and blisteringly quick but actually, truly sporting? Hmmmmm... You see, sporting has to do with being light, agile, fast to change direction. Bludgeoning power is all well and good, but if you have too much mass then you’re just not in the sporting ballpark.

Now with this new model, the SL has a chance to reclaim a touch of its birthright. It’s certainly light now, at least lighter, thanks to an aluminium body and chassis that cuts its kerb weight by as much as 140kg. That allows it to be laughably efficient, with our 4.7-litre V8 test car rated at an average fuel consumption figure of 9.1-litres per 100km.

The more popular 3.5-litre V6 version can manage about 6.2l/100km, according to Mercedes. A stop-start system and class-leading aerodynamics play their parts, but the new SL is proof that if you want to be efficient, lose weight.

But sporting? Now that could prove a harder cheque for the SL to cash. For the past 60 years, SLs have been more Rodeo Drive than Nurburgring, and glancing at this new one’s folding metal roof and sybaritic interior, you instantly suspect more of the same.

And that’s precisely what you get here, at first. The SL is hushed and refined and even roof down at 120km/h, conversation is possible at normal volumes. The big V8 is all but silent, the ride pillowy soft and the sheer width and size of the thing, weight loss notwithstanding, dissuades you from pushing it too hard, especially on narrow roads.

Light, slightly distant steering doesn’t help and you soon rest deeply into the ample seats, happy to drive across continents in a single leap and not too bothered about what time you get there at. A classically inclined grand tourer then.

Except, if you have ticked the options box marked Active Body Control (ABC), there is another side to the SL. It’s not quite Jekyll and Hyde, more Jekyll and Hyde’s mildly annoyed brother, but there is some fun to be had. The ABC system tightens up the suspension, not to the point of harshness, but to a tauter setting than the default “comfort” allows.

Flick the gearbox (a seven-speed dual-clutch affair) into sport and let the V8 have its head, and a bit of a hot rod emerges. The twin turbos take a big gulp each and unleash the full 435bhp and 700Nm of torque on the rear wheels. There will be a roar, a snarl and, as it hardens to a NASCAR-esque bellow, you suddenly find yourself rocketing up the road.

Find some tight corners and . . . well, it doesn’t actually change very much. Yes, there is more control on offer, but the steering and body-roll soon make it amply clear that they don’t really like to be hustled and that, if you want that sort of thing, you should really probably wait for the tweaked SL63 AMG when that arrives later in the year.

It’s not that it won’t do the fast cornering stuff, it just finds it all rather tiresome, like an elegantly-dressed uncle forced into a game of backyard tag rugby.

Better to sit back and enjoy the comfort. Our car came in the delightfully tacky combo of pearlescent white paint and full red leather interior, but the default plain black cabin with silver coachwork should look significantly more subtle and suitable.

A shame that the main dials look a little aftermarket, but the glass roof panel (which reacts at the touch of a button like a pair of Reactolite sunglasses), the astonishing stereo with front-mounted bass speaker, and the heating, cooling and neck-warming seats should keep you distracted.

As for the styling, well, we’re really not sure. Mercedes cars these days often look rather over-egged and complicated, yet age and mellow beautifully as the years pass. Given that the new SL doesn’t look radically different to the old one, we’d say that’s likely to be the case once again. But it does look just a touch ordinary for a car with a six-figure price tag, with none of the drama or presence of the SLS AMG or the nigh-on perfect elegance of the W113 ‘Pagoda Roof’ SL.

Use it as intended, as a classy and effortless tourer and the new SL, especially with that mighty V8 engine, is as close to peerless as you will find. Expect it to be a sports car? You’ll be disappointed.

Facts & Figures

Mercedes-Benz SL500
Price: €170,000 (approx)
Range price: €130,000 to €170,000 (approx)
Capacity: 4,663cc
Power: 435bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Top speed: 250kmh
0-100kmh: 4.6sec
Economy: 9.1-100km (31.0mpg)
CO2 emissions: 212g/km
Tax Band: F. €1,129 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested

Road Test: BMW 640i SE Convertible

Price as tested: €116,991

In brief: Really quite exceptional. Lacks the pin-sharpness of say, a 911, but smooth, agile, beautiful and with a toweringly brilliant engine.


God, I did not want to like this car. Fate just seemed to be shoveling barriers to me liking it in the way as I went to collect it. First off, with a few notable exceptions, I don’t like convertibles. I’m a coupe man, and that’s an end of it. I also have a natural Marxist aversion to cars with six-figure price tags. I know the bill for such technological mastery has to be paid, and if I had the wherewithal, I’m certain it’s a price I’d be happy to pay. But I don’t, so I’m bolshy about it.

Finally, as I set off from home and flicked on the radio, there was Depression FM (formerly RTE Radio 1) informing us all of the doom laden live register figures and further plummets in growth and consumer sentiment. Just what kind of attitude was I supposed then, to take to a €100k Beemer with no roof?

I guess that it’s the biggest compliment possible to the 640i Convertible that not only did it win me over, it did so within seconds. Sucking my Marxist ideals straight out of its open roof, it took just one hefty prod of the throttle and a quick listen to that gorgeous, creamy-smooth snarl to have me desperately assaying my kid’s college funds.

As we’ve started with the engine, let’s start with the engine. The 640i does not use a V8, despite being so close in badge to the old 645i. Instead, it uses the 3.0-litre straight-six turbo that’s found, in slightly detuned form, in the 335i. The headline figures are 320bhp and 450Nm of torque. No, scratch that. The headline figures are the 185g/km Co2 figure (for a 3.0-litre engine, let’s not forget...) and a combined fuel economy figure of 7.9-litres per 100km. Don’t believe it? You can. In spite of my leaden right foot and in spite of keeping the aircon blasting on muggy, showery August days, we averaged 8.9-litres per 100km over a week’s motoring. Now that, folks, is how you do engine.

Tied into the excellent 8-speed ZF automatic transmission, it’s little short of a wonder. It reduces motorway slip roads to snarling, roaring 1/4 mile drags, yet it’s whisper-quiet and tractable around town. And it pulls like a mule from low rpm in a high gear. The only downside is that the Sport mapping of the gearbox still doesn’t give you total manual control when using the (wonderfully tactile) steering wheel paddles. The computer, infuriatingly, still overrides you if it thinks you’re wrong. Which it will. A lot.

And the body it’s wrapped around isn’t half bad either. The old 6 Series, distinctive though it was, always looked a bit blocky and lumpy. This one, although probably quieter in looks, is also cleaner, sharper and much more elegant. Much of that is doubtless down to BMW’s decision to eschew a folding steel roof and stick with good old fashioned fabric. So, no big arse needed to hide all the gubbins that go with a folding steel roof, and no obvious loss of comfort within the cabin either, thanks to exceptional levels of refinement and insulation. Plus, you get that lovely camping sound of raindrops on the canvas above your head. Security worries? Well yes, someone could stick a knife through your roof, but hey, they can just as easily shove a brick through the window of a folding steel roof cabrio...

In the cabin, though, you’d better be prepared for a couple of disappointments. The fit and finish is, frankly, wonderful (note; this is not one of the disappointments). From the way the outer edges of the centre console loop out and over the passenger’s knees to the crisp, clear, beautiful instruments this is a fabulous motoring interior. But for one major flaw which is the driving position. For a start, the steering and pedals are offset to the right by at least two inches. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’ll be enough to trigger bad back syndrome in more than a few of us.

Secondly, the seats just aren’t supportive enough if you have them set low down in the car (surely the correct location in a convertible) yet if you raise them up, then you feel perched up and exposed. And if you’re tall, your head will be above the windscreen header.

Still, it is spacious. Sufficiently so that I was able to take the entire family (wife and two small kids plus various bags, baby seats and etcetera) out for a lovely day’s driving and avoiding showers. If those seated in the front are prepared to sacrifice a little legroom then the rear seats suddenly become adequate. The boot, hampered slightly by the need to save space for the roof to fold into it, seems small compared with the massive space you got in the old 6, but you can still pack sufficient in. BMW reckons you can get a set of golf clubs in there, which is fine if you like golf, but seeing as I hate it, I’ll just point out that you can’t get a three-wheel Phil & Teds buggy in.

I’ve saved the best bit for last. The way the 640i drives. It could have just been a big, jelly-ish thing for the American market. All squishy suspension and no deportment. Or it could have been a stiff-springed Kommandant of the Autobahn Aggressors Klub, with astonishing precision but bricks for dampers. In fact, it treads neatly between these two paths, riding with firm-edged comfort, steering with unerring precisions (and better weighting at the wheel rim in Normal rather than Sport mode). Toggling between Normal and Sport does firm things up and theoretically improves the handling but the need for extra bump absorption on twisty Irish roads means you’re better off in Normal. Besides, this is not a gung-ho sports car, even if it can play that game when asked. It’s more a precision Corniche attack weapon, ideal for an exactly timed, laser-guided sprint along the Amalfi coast before arriving at your villa just in time for Martinis. Or just bombing down the coast road between Ballyvaughan and Lehinch. Whatever. Mary Poppins-like, it’s practically perfect in every way.

So then, Unemployment. US debt downgrades. Consumer sentiment. Eurozone crisis. Gay Byrne running for Prez. Marxist ideals. You can make them all go away with a 6 Series Convertible.


Facts & Figures

BMW 640i SE Convertible
Price as tested: €116,991
Price range: €97,480 to €133,040
Capacity: 2,979cc
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 450Nm
Top speed: 250kmh
0-100kmh: 5.7sec
Economy: 7.9l-100km (54.3mpg)
CO2 emissions: 185g/km
Road Tax Band: E €630
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested