TOPGEAR’S LONG-TERM CARS. TESTED & VERIFIED

Volkswagen ID.3

HELLO

£37,430 OTR/£42,880 as tested/£435 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is the revised ID.3 easier to live with?

DRIVER

Paul Horrell

I HAD A VOLKSWAGEN ID.4 A YEAR OR TWO BACK. NOT THROUGH CHOICE: it was too bulky for my taste and felt it, and it had the cumbersome early manifestation of the Volkswagen twin screen interface. But early ID.3s had their issues too, notably impoverished-feeling cabin materials and – what was it again? – oh yes, that infotainment interface.

Well here we are with a MkI-and-a-bit version of the ID.3. Its facelift is comparatively mild, but inside the plastics have been improved and the screen system is better (although not as good as the ID.7’s). It runs faster, is more configurable and many of its worst solipsisms have been excised.

This particular ID.3 started life at £37,430 then added a £1,725 exterior pack (matrix headlamps, tinted rear glass), 19-inch wheels at £1,120, and keyless entry with rearview camera for £985, plus stuff like mats, two-level boot floor and bike carrier preparation. Two-tone paint is another £885. A heat pump is an option not fitted. Yet the car still costs nearly £43k. Gulp. This facelift trim version is now replaced by Match trim, where the same thing would be more than £4k less.

I’ve done just one charge cycle so far. The new software has a much better guess-o-meter. From 100 per cent to 11 per cent was 177 miles for an extrapolated range of 199 miles (177/0.89 is 199) and now I’ve recharged it tells me I have 198 miles to go. The ID.4 never learned.

This is the small battery ID.3 with 58kWh. I drove those 177 miles in cold weather in a hurry, a significant portion on motorway, and it took more than six hours. I can’t go that long between toilet stops and a car that needs topping up as often as its driver needs draining down seems a sensible prospect now that public chargers are closely spaced. The ID.3 is also notably more efficient than the ID.4, which got about 3.4mpkWh against 3.7 for this first cold weather cycle.

THANKS TO FINMERE AERODROME FOR THE LOCATION

Jaguar F-Type R

REPORT 2

£104,880 OTR/£109,360 as tested/£1,132 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Was Jag’s final petrol sports car the wrong car at the wrong time?

DRIVER

Greg Potts

IT MAY BE A CLICHÉ, BUT I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A MASSIVE FAN OF the mechanical, metallic sound created by Porsche flat sixes. Heck, the Cayman GT4 RS at 9,000rpm had me seriously considering a bank robber y in order to be able to stump up the circa £130k price for a Weissach pack version, and this current 992-gen GTS chunters away like a racecar at idle. And yet, with twin turbos deadening the sound of the 911 slightly, it’s the Jag I’m driving every day that encourages involuntary expressions of excitement like the one up above.

I’m enjoying life in the Jag. There’s just the one problem – as fantastic and dramatic as the F-Type is, it’s always had the task of going up against the 911. Not an easy feat. A quick search through the archives proves V8- engined Jags lost to 991-gen 911s in three separate group tests. The V6 S F-Type Convertible put up a good fight against the Carrera 2 S Cabrio and the Boxster S in 2013, but the RWD F-Type R also suffered a shock loss to a Corvette C7 Stingray at Speed Week 2014.

Before the Jag goes off sale later this year, I wanted one final head-tohead. Ideally we’d have a Carrera 4 S, but Porsche will soon facelift the 992 and so the standard 911s have gone. Not to worry, the 4 GTS you see here provides quite the stern test for the F-Type R – read the full comparison online at topgear.com.

The Porsche is technically the better car. It’s much more involving to drive and still has rear seats, but there is clearly a place in the market for the Jaguar. Yes, you could just have a lesser Carrera 4 if (for argument’s sake) you were in the mid stages of your life and wanted a softer sports car, but the F-Type still looks utterly fantastic, and the driving experience is all about the noise and the drama. Make as much of it as you can, most passers-by will thank you.