Car review

BWW's evergreen X3 is just as good as ever. But how does it fare with newer competition? Since the BMW X3's inception the firm's range of SUVs has undergone a bit of a coming of age.BMW's growing up and general maturing process coincides neatly with a dimensional expansion of the X3 that has made it a longer, wider car than the original BMW X5 that arrived on the scene in 1999.BMW has sold more than 1.5 million X3s worldwide, a success story it will no doubt be eager to continue with the version that’ll take the model into its third decade on sale.The X3’s price position within BMW’s SUV range is as you’d imagine it to be, at around £15,000 cheaper than a BMW X1 and £20,000 cheaper than a BMW X5.This end of the market is now practically bursting. The usual suspects from premium German rivals are here, including the Audi Q5 and Mercedes-Benz GLC, while the Land Rover Defender also offers stiff competition.Diesels, petrols and plug-in hybrids are all available, and there's a separate 3.0-litre M model called the BMW X3M, which gets its own review. BMW claims the X3’s design is more confident and off-road inspired. But where this car is really going to have to impress, though, is on the tarmac. BMW has a knack for making cars a cut above the competition when it comes to driving dynamics, but the X3 hasn’t traditionally been the best of them.

Is it just a nip and tuck? Or is the third-generation VW Tiguan a thorough re-think? We try one and find out If we were in a corporate bonding exercise and playing a mandatory game of word association and I said Volkswagen, you might say Golf. But those in the know know that the Volkswagen Tiguan is in fact the firm’s best-seller. This third-generation model has a lot riding on it, then. And Volkswagen has nailed it, to be fair. It's easily as good as the last one, with some clever additions and some low-key hidden-gem style polish that you might not be expecting.Competition in this end of the SUV market is feisty. It ranges from the British built Nissan Qashqai right through to other Volkswagen Group cars such as the Seat Ateca and Skoda Karoq, via some premium offerings from the BMW X1 and Volvo XC40.

Crossover has expanded to Qashqai size for third generation but promises to be a truer Mini than before The new Mini Countryman is emphatically not mini. It’s the biggest Mini yet, in fact, and it looks it.It’s more like a Maxi Countryman. With that established, prepare yourself for an angry missive about how the brand has scandalously veered away from its roots and heritage.Except… well, it turns out that size really isn’t everything. Because in how well it embodies the renewed spirit and ethos of the Mini brand, building on its past and a sense of upbeat, optimistic fun, this car totally feels like a Mini.This is the third-generation Countryman, and the SUV has grown notably from the Mk2, which in turn grew notably from the Mk1. At 4433mm, it's 120mm longer than the 2016 car and more than a third of a metre longer than the 2010 original.It’s the first car in a revamped line-up as Mini accelerates its transition to being fully electric, and its growth makes room for the new, electric-only Aceman crossover. Also coming are the all-new electric three-door Cooper hatchback and heavily updated versions of the three- and five-door ICE Coopers.The growth also moves the Countryman up into a lucrative class: while previous versions had SUV styling but really competed with family hatchbacks, it has now firmly entered Nissan Qashqai territory.The Countryman will be sold in both electric and petrol forms. It will be a few weeks before we can talk about the EVs, though.Our first outing instead comes in the range-topping John Cooper Works, which uses a 2.0-litre turbo four that offers 296bhp and 295lb ft.If you’re after a more sensible engine, there’s also a 1.5-litre turbo triple offered with front- or four-wheel drive.

The new i5 got this eighth-gen 5 Series range off to a stuttering start. What's it like when an ICE enters the mix? Given that BMW itself calls the BMW 5 Series the “core and heart” of its brand, the arrival of a new one is going to be a much bigger event than yet another SUV rolling off the line.This all-new G60 version is the eighth generation of a model that has racked up more than 10 million sales in more than 50 years on the market, yet so far we have only known it by a different name: the BMW i5 – a decent but not game-changing electric car offering. But don’t tar the entire 5 Series range with the same brush just yet, because it is as broad as any other out there at the moment. Depending on where you live, you can get a four-cylinder and six-cylinder diesel (remember those?), a four-cylinder petrol and four- and six-cylinder petrol plug-in hybrids. Power outputs range from 205bhp to 593bhp. In the UK, we are getting the 520i four-cylinder turbo petrol as an entry-level offering that costs almost half the price of the range-topping i5 M60; the 530e four-cylinder PHEV; and the 550e six-cylinder, four-wheel-drive PHEV, which sits roughly level with the i5 eDrive40 at £76,605. No diesels for us. Here, we are testing the 550e. There’s a hell of a lot of technology and running gear packed into this car, and if you look at each line of its specification in isolation, each number tells a very different story about what kind of car it could be. One role is that of a sports saloon that can crack 0-62mph in just 4.3sec and has combined peak outputs of 482bhp and 516lb ft of torque. Yet it can also play the role of economy champion, thanks to up to 56 miles of electric-only range from its 19kWh battery – enough to drop it into the UK’s low 8% BIK band (compared with 31% for the 520i).

What else besides Mokka-inspired looks has Vauxhall given its old showroom darling? We try the Vauxhall Astra and the Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer. The backstory of the Vauxhall Astra tells you much about Vauxhall as a company, as well as the ebb and flow of volume car making on these isles.Having always been what we might now call a platform-engineered vehicle, the Astra was launched in the UK in 1980 as the successor to the popular Viva, but it differed from its predecessor technically in a number of significant respects. Even the Viva shared a floorpan and engines with its continental equivalent, the Opel Kadett, but while the Opel’s parts and panels were measured, cut and stamped out in metric millimetres, the Viva was designed, measured and made in imperial feet and inches.The Astra Mk1 changed all that, and was also the first compact Vauxhall with front-wheel drive, and to offer a choice of both petrol and diesel engines. It quickly found a receptive market in the UK and continued the Viva’s sales success. Another six generations of the car followed onto Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port production lines over the proceeding four decades, during which time the Astra carved out a place as one of Britain’s biggest-selling new cars.Now, the Mk8 Astra is on sale as the first to have been designed and engineered entirely by Stellantis, and the the first that won’t be built in the UK in any form. Like the Vauxhall Corsa before it, the Astra switches from an old General Motors model architecture to a new one that makes it a technical relation of the current Peugeot 308 and 408, and the Citroën C5 Aircross and Citroën C5 X.But, unlike any Astra before, this one adopts both electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains in a bid to remain a relevant, responsible choice among a fast-developing fleet of rivals such as the Volkswagen Golf, Mazda 3, and Ford Focus.Range at a glanceWith the addition of hybrids and an electric version, the Astra’s UK model range has become slightly complicated. The Astra Electric and the standard petrol and plug-in hybrid versions come in a three-tier trim structure that starts with a Design-spec car and rises up through GS Line (as tested) to Ultimate. Individual options are few, so if you want IntelliLux adaptive headlights, a head-up display, wireless phone charging or a panoramic sunroof, you have to stump up for a top-spec model.There is also a separate range-topper, the Astra GSe, which strays into hot hatchback territory in its use of a more powerful 221bhp plug-in hybrid powertrain. It is also available as an estate, and comes with a level of equipment that is roughly equivalent to Ultimate.The Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer estate completes the range and sells for a £1200 premium over the hatchback.A diesel engine was available from launch but remained on sale for less than a year before being discontinued.EnginePower1.2T 110PS109bhp1.2T 130PS*129bhpTurbo D†129bhpHybrid178bhpGSe224bhpVauxhall Astra Electric153bhp*Version tested  †Discontinued