When Ford unleashed the first Mustang, back in 1964, they had no idea that the new pony car would become an American icon. But it sure has, and in a big way. Young and old alike have an appreciation for the Ford Mustang, through every generation in which the car has been offered. Newly designed inside and out, the 2010 Ford Mustang is no different. This vehicle aims to please, and it does just that.
If you have been longing for a sporty car that won’t break the bank, the new Mustang will fill the bill. You can get into this car for about $21,000, featuring 210 horsepower, with a standard 4.0 liter V-6 engine. If you have the money to invest, there are options that can put you closer to the $28,000 range, for a Mustang GT or, for those with money to burn, a $46,000 option will give you all the speed you need in a 5.4L Supercharged V-8 Engine.
Your biggest decision will be choosing between the two body styles being offered, either a fastback or a convertible. Both start at around $26,000. No matter what you envision, there’s a color for every taste. Choose from torch red, sunset gold, or even kona blue metallic. The interiors have been redesigned and updated. Although nice, they could have been improved still more by using a little less plastic.
To keep down the expense of owning a sports car like this, it’s important to pay attention to your auto insurance rates. Sports car insurance rates tend to be higher and, if you are young or have tickets on your record, this could be something you can’t fit into your budget. Comparing car insurance companies is the most effective way to get a good deal on rates.
Gather several quotes for comparable coverage, compare what is offered with each company, and go with one you can best afford. But don’t get too comfortable; you should compare rates at least a couple of times per year to ensure you are getting the best deal. Many factors go into determining rates; even things like auto roadside assistance being included can make one company’s offer better than the others.
The 2010 Ford Mustang provides a nice ride and handles well. It also comes with some standard safety features that will help keep you safer and may even help keep your insurance rates down. Airbags, a tire-pressure monitoring system, tethers for child seats, and an SOS post-crash alert system all come standard, as does an anti-theft system.
If there is one thing that will keep Ford’s status from falling in the car world, it has to be the Mustang. It’s a car that has been pleasing people for 45 years and will continue to do so for many more.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Audi A5 £23,325 - £39,595
So what is the A5 Sportback, exactly? We will attempt to answer that as briefly as possible, but because it's complicated, it might take nearly a billion words.
Firstly, ignore the name because essentially what we have here is the first-ever A4 hatchback (the A4 has always been a saloon or estate until now). Audi will recoil in mock-shock at that allegation, and insist this is a blood member of the A5 coupe family. But there's no escaping the two extra doors at the back, and especially the third one hinged to the roof.
Confused? Not yet, you're not. Is it the swoopy roofline that messes things up, making this a hatch that dabbles in coupe-ness? Or is it a coupe that dabbles in hatch-ness? Or is it neither, as Audi might claim, because it thinks it's an entirely new type of car? If you disregard the hatch's shutline or just squint a little, it could be an A5 saloon, or, in other words, a lower, swoopier A4 saloon. Maybe the A5 saloon is coming next.
Let's keep ploughing on through this, because at some point we'll get to the answer.
Mechanically the A5 Sportback shares almost everything with the A4, on which the A5 coupe is based. The wheelbase is just 2mm longer than an A4, though overall it's a tad shorter and a touch wider - as if God has reached down from heaven and gently squashed the car.
Visually, it's obviously more A5 than A4. It shares the same nose, the rippled waistline, the flicky bootlip and has a similar rear end. It has the classy frameless doors, too. But despite its complicated conception, the look is cohesive rather than confused - though it takes a few glances to fathom what you're looking at, which is a hatchback A4 with an A5 coupe nose. Maybe.
If you think we're going round in circles, you're probably right. But this is Audi, so it has built this A4 Hatchback and called it an A5 Sportback for a reason.
Scan any office car park and you'll see neat lines of saloons and estates, bookended by a slinky coupe in a spot marked ‘reserved'. It's the most obvious of status symbols - something swoopy for the boss, something ubiquitous and boxy for the underlings. Many company car lists restrict lowly staff to a four-door layout, leaving them wallowing in a saloon while the MD swoons around in his coupe. The Sportback fits somewhere between the two and gives middle managers a way around the rules. "An A4? Huh! No way, mine's a Sportback..."
Audi will tell you that the car is made for people who care greatly about design. And perhaps they do, but the fact that 70 per cent of sales will go down the fleet route suggests that, for most Sportback drivers, status is more important than style.
Is this starting to make sense? If it is, then think again, because we haven't stepped inside yet.
Appropriately, we'll start in the back. Swing open a rear door, plonk yourself inside and all seems pretty normal. Legroom is the same as the A4 saloon and headroom is compromised by just 5mm, which isn't a bad payoff for that sloping roofline. But look closer and you'll notice the lack of a middle seatbelt. Audi is selling this thing as a four-seater, which would be fine if the rear seats were artistically sculpted to cuddle your torso. But they're not. It's just a regular bench with a raised cushion where the middle seat would usually be. In other words, it's an incredibly lazy attempt to imitate a four-seat coupe, at the expense of practicality. Who will it impress?
Moving rearwards, the Sportback starts to make more sense. Despite the new arty silhouette the boot has a wide and unobstructed aperture through which to load your stuff. At 480 litres, luggage space is exactly the same as the A4 saloon, only more accessible as the hatch opens its big, yawning mouth.
At this point, you're probably wondering how it drives. Surely it will be like any other Audi, right?
Wrong. Somehow in the transition from coupe/saloon/whatever to Sportback, things have gone a bit soft. There's more body roll than in the A4/A5 and a floaty feeling on motorways, which on our test route, were as smooth as boiled sweets. Our car was on 17-inch wheels and standard suspension, which might account for some of the squidge - S-line cars did feel firmer. Audi reckons the spring and damper rates are identical to the coupe, but it doesn't feel like it.
That isn't necessarily a criticism though, as the entire Sportback experience was curiously relaxing. Best to forget Audi's claims of ‘extreme driving pleasure' and treat it more like a GT with which to hoover up motorways.
So now it's a GT too? Possibly.
The engines and gearboxes are more predictable. We spent most of our time in the 2.0-litre TDI, which was as strong and refined as ever. We also tried the 2.0-litre petrol, and that was smooth and quiet enough to put you off diesel for life, especially if you don't notch up huge motorway miles. But then it wouldn't be a GT, would it?
And while all that swirls around your brain like leaves in a vortex, consider this final twist. Spec-for-spec, the Sportback is more expensive than the A4 saloon - £1,700 in the case of a 2.0-litre TDI SE. Remember, what we're dealing with here is an A4 hatch (possibly), so a £1,700 premium over an equally-optioned saloon is madness. All you're getting is a swoopier C-pillar, more accessible bootspace and one fewer seat.
Compare that to, say, a Vauxhall Insignia - which carries no extra charge for the saloon-to-hatch transition - and the Sportback looks like a bit of a swindle.
And so we arrive at an answer, of sorts. The Sportback is an A4 hatch with the looks of an A5 and a ludicrously absent fifth seat. It's a comfy GT with usefully accessible bootspace. It won't satisfy your inner Stigness and it's far too expensive. And because it's an Audi, it will sell by the lorry load.
If that doesn't make sense now, it probably never will.
Bleu is the colour
If the standard, boring, 1001bhp, open-top Veyron Grand Sport is just too commonplace for your exacting standards, how about a one-off Grand Sport Sang Bleu?
Bugatti unveiled this special edition convertible Veyron at Pebble Beach over the weekend. As the Sang Noir special edition Veyron featured a black-on-black livery, so the Sang Bleu – yep, it means ‘blue blood’ in French – is decked out in blue carbon fibre and polished aluminium.
Mechanically, the Sang Bleu identical to the standard Veyron Grand Sport – though it’s tough to argue with a thousand-bhp 8.0-litre W16 engine and a 0-60mph time comfortably under three seconds.
So, yeah, we’ll take one, please. Ta. But we can’t helping wondering whether Bugatti is slightly confusing the term ‘special edition’ with the term ‘paintjob’. Gorgeous as the Sang Bleu is, can they keep claiming another special edition each time they paint a Veyron in a new colour?
Maybe this is how to add value to your knackered old Vauxhall Nova come resale time. Paint the bonnet and roof in some improbable shade of fluorescent yellow – to contrast nicely with the beige doors – call it the Nova Coeur Jaune and add £500 to the part-ex value. Another recession-busting Top Gear Top Tip there…
Vauxhall Insignia
Because despite producing 321bhp and 321lb ft from a 2.8-litre V6 turbo, the Insignia VXR doesn't suffer from any sort of torque steer at all. Those three words also sum up neatly the attitude shift of VXR - gone is the chav factor, replaced here by something more civilised. Less Burberry cap, more company rep with tie at a jaunty angle.
‘Useable performance' is the buzz phrase now, even ‘subtle' styling. Thank goodness for that, as VXR was in danger of becoming an antiquated performance brand only four years after it launched.
Step into this Insignia VXR and there are still performance brand touches, but it's a classier place to be and less in-your-face. The seats are Recaro and illustrate this best - yes, they're racing seats, all-in-one things with no separate head-rest, but they're comfortable not just supportive. Long journeys won't be a problem in this car. The gearstick no longer has the rough stitching on it. The dials are more subdued. It's all improved.
The same goes for driving. The first thing that strikes you about it is how well it rides. The car we drove came on enormous 20-inch alloys, which look fantastic if a bit big on the Insignia, and the tyres are seriously low-profile. It also has stiffer suspension all round and the whole car is 10mm lower. But drive through town and you don't feel like you're about to compress your spine by three inches. It's firm, of course, but there's exceptional compliance here. Drive through a pot-hole and it doesn't crash, it doesn't shake the whole car. Even at higher speeds you don't have to fight it too much to keep it on the black stuff because the car doesn't fidget over bumps, in normal mode at least.
There are two ‘sport' buttons on the VXR, one marked ‘Sport' and the other ‘VXR'. Hmmm. Their originality knows no bounds. The former just tightens the damping, but press the latter and you get stiffer suspension, more direct steering and a sharper throttle. Oh, and the dials turn a shade of dark red.
This button is a throwback to the Vectra VXR, as if the ghost of that car can't quite be banished. It doesn't make the car any faster, doesn't release any more power, it just makes the Insignia feel skittish and over the top. If it suddenly turned the car into a fun performance hatch, I could understand. But all it does is remove any finesse from the package. Take the throttle for instance. In VXR mode, it's far too sharp, so that when you're mid-corner and a bump makes your foot nudge the accelerator, you get an annoying squirt of power from the engine. It's jerky and not what you want. Smooth driving is tricky with that VXR button lit.
The engine has its contradictions as well. It's quick (0-60mph in 5.6 seconds), smooth (far silkier than the Vectra's old four-pot) and very responsive over 2,500rpm. Sixth gear isn't massively long so you can sit in that cog quite happily over B-roads without having to change down all the time.
But, there's an annoying exhaust boom at about 2,000rpm that makes longer journeys more tiring than they need be. In the old Vectra VXR, you would have accepted that as part of the in-yer-face attitude of the thing. But it doesn't suit the character of this new car - it just feels weird. Fine to make it sound loud when you really rev it, but this car will do a lot of motorway miles and for that any sort of boom is bad. The irony is that the noisiest revs equate to 70mph in sixth - only at 85mph do they disappear.
This is a pity because grip levels and lack of body roll are seriously impressive on the VXR. Turn in and there's absolutely no hesitation, it just fires you around the corner. As part of the VXR tweaks to the Insignia, Vauxhall has fitted a limited slip rear differential. Doubtless this might make a difference on the track, but I never got to a circuit and I certainly couldn't feel anything noticeable on the road.
The steering doesn't help either. It's too light and over-assisted. Lightness isn't necessarily a problem if there's feedback there too, but that's not the case here. The Insignia feels like Vauxhall has bolted too big an electric motor to the steering rack so you don't get any sense of adjustability. Minute changes at the wheel don't bring minute front-wheel changes. Fine for your motorway cruise, but not so good for the B-road. Other cars make that compromise better.This illustrates the biggest problem with the Insignia VXR. On the one hand, it's far, far better than the Vectra and on most levels is a good car. It also has this sector pretty much to itself - an Audi S4 is only about £4,000 more, but Audis and Vauxhalls rarely mix. Though their performance is similar, badge snobs will still steer away from Vauxhall.
The plus points don't stop there. The Insignia does what most people require of it perfectly acceptably, like the motorway cruise, and the B-road blast. The problem is that it doesn't excel at either. It doesn't seem entirely happy in its own skin.
Renault Kangoo
In fact, the all-new Renault Kangoo is decent to drive. Obviously you can't negate the brute physics of a giant, slab-sided van - plunge into a corner and it'll list like a flimsy sailboat in a storm - but the steering is surprisingly direct and the ride firm and composed. That's because the new Kangoo shares its underpinnings with the new Scenic, not the commercial van platform of its predecessor. So it drives like a car - a big, tall, heavy car, admittedly - and the range-topping 106bhp diesel is just quick enough to keep up with traffic. At least until you load it up with trombones, Borzois and enormous wheels of cheese.
Because, decent gearbox or not, the Kangoo is still all about storage, load-lugging, and it still does it better than just about anything else out there. It's absolutely cavernous - a full 18cm longer and 10cm wider than the old, definitely-not-small Kangoo - with nearly 3,000 litres of load space. It's packed with all the useful stuff so conspicuously lacking from the Citroen Nemo: fold-flat seats, underfloor storage bins and lots of cubbyholes, some large enough to fit small humans in. Not revolutionary stuff, but immaculately executed.
Nemo and Qubo, take note: this is how to do a van conversation. And a gearbox.
Lexus SC 430 £52,759
Comfort
One of the most unsubtle rides in the world of the car. For a big CC cruiser, you'd think the SC430 would be a world of calm, but it punches every pothole with a vengeance. The engine and gearbox themselves are near silent - it's just that the suspension and tyres feel broken.
Performance
You can't really hear it, but the SC430's 4.3-litre V8 and five-speed auto are tremendously refined and quite quick; 0-62mph in just 6.2 seconds and a limited 155mph top speed. You just never feel like making use of it.
Cool
You might think that you're thinking outside the box and being a bit eccentric when buying an SC430. Anyone who knows anything about cars will just think you're a twat who knows nothing about cars.
Quality
Thankfully the SC430 does carry through the tradition of having a supremely well-built interior - it might sometimes look a bit plastic (that's perceived quality in Japan, apparently), but in terms of how it's screwed together, the finish is peerless.
Handling
Hmmm, given that Lexus usually excels at making cars ride and handle, or at least ride, the SC430 is surprisingly wobbly when going fast. The steering expired some time ago and there's precious little feel. It encourages precisely nothing. Bit of a bugger when the Mercedes SL is the competition.
Practicality
No room in the back and a tiny boot (138litres) that all but disappears when the roof is stowed. There's room up front, but as it's such a bulbous-looking blob, you'd have thought there might be a few more litres of space in it.
Running costs
If you really did go and do this as a company car you'd be 35-percent liable thanks to 24.8mpg and group 19 insurance. Residuals are pure financial suicide.
Toyota iQ £8,872 - £11,837
ur verdict
Utter brilliance from Toyota – the car the Smart ForFour should have been
Comfort
Performance
There's only one engine choice and that's a lovely little 1.0-litre triple with 67bhp and 67lb ft of torque. Sounds weak, in reality it really works. Top speed is just under the ton and 0-62mph is 14.7 seconds - and for such a small car it actually feels pretty sprightly - it'll hold 80mph on the m-way easily too.
Cool
At the moment the iQ is just glorious. Everyone wants a small rational car, and the iQ isn't a retro homage or a pastiche. Modern, quirky and just a little bit special.
Quality
The one thing where the iQ isn't totally on the pace. The early cars have shoddy, cheap plastics on the interiors that really jar with the premium feel of the rest of the car. There is no doubt at all over the quality of the grubby bits, but why, oh why couldn't they spend more than 7p on the door cards?
Handling
Toyota's packaging solutions push the wheels out into the corners just like the original Mini - and we all know how well that went around corners. The iQ isn't quite in that league - but it's more fun than you think. One of the reasons is that the iQ is as wide as a Ford Focus (even though it measures in at under 3m) and so the plan view is essentially square. Towns become playgrounds.
Practicality
Another superb coup from the iQ here. As a city car it simply cannot be beaten. When you don't need the rear seats you can fold them over to form a bigger boot. Not massive, but definitely useful. And then when you need to furtle around with friends and still park, you can do all that too. Interestingly, there are lots of places in Europe where cars under 3m have special parking spots where they are designed to park front/back on to the kerb; the iQ is the only four-seat car that can do it.
Running costs
A tiny triple will easily get 65-odd mpg. On test, with hard driving, the car returned nearly 60 - which is very good. Insurance is cheap and the car will be very reliable if Toyota's reputation is anything to go by. The only slight fly in the ointment is the high initial purchase price; the iQ starts at £9495 with the higher-spec ‘2' version a grand more.
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