SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER
S
most
weeks, meaning our new chief testing location of Horiba MIRA proving ground would soon become second home to Autocar’s road testers. Unsurprisingly the spread of metal in the September-October period was vast, with everything from city car (Kia Picanto) to supercar (Maserati MC20) going under the microscope along with icons such as the VW Golf GTI and Mercedes G-Wagen. Oh, and anew Aston Martin, which was the first car to appear in our new 10-page format. Truly, there is no more comprehensive a review out there: all said and done, it runs to 6000 words or so.
Despite the scope and quality of the road test cast, there were, alas, no five-star verdicts and nothing you might call either game-changing or genre-defining, as had absolutely been the case with the Hyundai Ioniq 5Ntested in August. There was, however, much to like. Abrace of Maseratis, the other being the Granturismo Trofeo, were expensive but lovable, and both the bold new Hyundai Santa Fe and Cupra’s hottish Born VZ demonstrated that interesting, capable and thoughtfully developed everyday machinery is still reliably coming to market. Equally, one disappointment was the Golf GTI. Sure, it ‘did the numbers’ and was generally inoffensive, but it lacked simple spirit in the way of the Mk7 and the Mk5 before it.