Long-Term Review

Why we’re running it: To see if the Clio is the heir apparent to the Ford Fiesta’s ‘default buy’ throne

Month 1 - Specs

Life with a Renault Clio hybrid: Month 1

Welcoming the Clio to the fleet - 20 December 2023

For so many years, the Ford Fiesta was the 'default' British car buy. Now that it's dead and buried, which affordable small hatchback should take its place?

Although the Vauxhall Corsa has since scaled the sales charts, it isn't fun like the Fiesta was. Likewise Europe's favourite car, the Peugeot 208. 

The Volkswagen Polo? Even the GTI version leaves me cold. Skoda Fabia Dacia Sandero? Worthy but, like the Corsa, dull. Seat Ibiza Hyundai i20? They're strong contenders - as is the Renault Clio.

Despite having been around for decades, the Clio always seems to get a bit forgotten for some reason, despite being, in its 2019-born fifth generation, very talented. It can be great value for money too: Autocar's editor got an astounding finance deal on his one (see second opinion below).

His entry-level version, priced from £17,795, has an 89bhp 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine - which Renault reintroduced to UK showrooms a few months ago "in order to meet the needs of some customers in a difficult economic climate". Massive respect for that.

In contrast, my new long-termer has the E-Tech Full Hybrid powertrain, priced from £22,695, which comprises a 1.6-litre four-cylinder atmospheric petrol engine, a 24bhp integrated starter-generator (ISG), a 48bhp electric motor, a small 1.2kWh drive battery and an off-the-wall transmission.

How the DiscoLocoBox (great name!) came to be is a fascinating story that started way back in 2010 with a Renault engineer keeping himself entertained over the Christmas holidays with a load of Lego Technic pieces.

You can read it online by clicking here, but in a nutshell there's a four-speed gearbox with dog rings instead of synchros and no clutch, so the engine is put into neutral and then rev-matched by the ISG; two gears can be engaged at the same time, one to the engine and one to the motor; and so the E-Tech has 14 modes of powertrain operation.

My initial reaction was "why wouldn't they just use a CVT like everybody else?", but apparently this transmission, despite its huge complexity, feels more natural and allows for an engaging drive - while offering advantages of cost, size and versatility to the manufacturer.

I'm told that some of the system's technology came from Renault's Alpine Formula 1 team, so I don't feel quite so embarrassed about the blue As on the fake side vents of my Clio as I did initially.

You see, as part of the Clio's mid-life facelift, Renault has added a range-topping Esprit Alpine trim level, which also brings Alpine-branded sports seats and unique alloy wheels with blue centrepieces - but no power boost or any dynamic enhancements.

I've always felt uneasy about such things: if Renault really wants to make Alpine into "the French Ferrari", surely sticking its branding willy-nilly on a hybrid Clio or, for goodness sake, an Espace 1sn t the way to build brand equity. I can't imagine Maranello endorsing a Fiat 600... but then every Mercedes-Benz is an AMG Line and every BMW is an M Sport now, so who knows?

In any case, really like how this facelifted, Alpine-spirited Clio looks. Compact, confident, not over-detailed and with cool new LED lighting patterns at the front. It's just a shame that it's finished in dreary Shadow Grey; I definitely would have paid another £100 for the Flame Red, Valencia Orange or especially the Iron Blue. 

The interior, I really must say, is fantastic in the context of today. Yes, it has succumbed to the trend of having a large infotainment touchscreen totally dominating the environment, but its unusual portrait orientation leads to less stretching away from the wheel and, crucially, there's still plenty of physical switchgear.

Underneath the screen is a dial each for the heat, fan speed and air direction, just as it should be, as well as buttons for the heated seats, EV mode and driving mode selection. Then over to my right is an absolute treat: not just buttons for the heated steering wheel and lane-keeping assistance but also up-down toggles for the angle of the headlights and the brightness of the two screens. (The instruments are, of course, fully digital and customisable.)

The bar is on the floor these days, but Renault is leaping high anyway. Alpine spec also puts sustainable fabric on those sports seats, as well as synthetic leather, which features on the steering wheel too, complemented by blue stitching and blue lining on the seatbelts - small details that I really like.

I noticed an enormous difference in my bank account when moving from an antiquated diesel Toyota Land Cruiser to a modern turbo petrol Peugeot 408 fastback earlier this year, and I'm hoping that this innovative hybrid supermini will yield a similar improvement.

My Clio promises a fabulous 65.7mpg (compared with 53.3mpg for the equivalent petrol), and in these inflationary times that's a prospect that really has got me enthused.

Second Opinion

Yes, I’ve bought myself a new Clio – not the hybrid but the pure-petrol model, for a mere £29 per month. I’ve been a serial Ford Fiesta buyer, but with that gone, the Clio is the heir to its throne as the best small car you can buy. I look forward to swapping notes with Kris.

Mark Tisshaw

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Renault Clio E-Tech Hybrid Esprit Alpine specification

Specs: Price New £24,095 Price as tested £24,695 Options Shadow Grey metallic paint £600

Test Data: Engine 1.6-litre petrol engine, plus electric motor, 1.2kWh battery Power 143bhp Torque 118lb ft Kerb weight 1103 Top speed 108bhp 0-62mph 9.3sec Fuel economy 65.7mpg CO2 xxxg/km Faults None Expenses None

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Why we’re running it: To see if Peugeot can refresh the family car market with an innovative mash-up 

Month 1 - Specs

Life with a Peugeot 408: Month 1

Welcoming the 408 to the fleet - 13 September 2023

It’s a saloon... It’s an SUV... It’s a Peugeot 408! When a car maker says things like it’s “introducing a novel silhouette to the market” and “reinventing the hatchback”, it can be tempting to snort at the hyperbolic puffery, but in this case such assertions are hard to argue with.

The 408 came out before the closely related Citroën C5 X, and while there’s a whiff of Polestar 2 about the shape, there’s a lot more ground clearance, because the extra body height isn’t due to a floor-mounted battery.

Aye, this is a good old-fashioned petrol. Or rather I should say new-fashioned. It strikes me that Gilles Vidal and his team were very clever here in essentially designing a big family car of the Ford Mondeo ilk but sitting higher off the ground and adorned with some other SUV- esque design touches to almost trick the great uninterested away from all their Nissan Qashqai-a-likes.

I’m all for anything that brings the average height of cars on our roads back down, and especially so when the result looks fantastic, as I believe the 408 does from every angle. Its sharpness speaks of Peugeot’s slight drift upmarket – as does its newly redesigned logo, which several people have said looks quite Ferrari but to this football nerd is rather more FC Sochaux. Oh, hang on...

Having learned to drive in my grandad’s old 406 SW and then bought a 206 as my first car, I dearly want Peugeot to win. But it will need to play out of its skin to do so, because it has taken on a tough challenge with the 408.

It seems everybody wants to ‘go premium’ these days, but that’s far easier said than done, and many who have tried have fallen short – except in eye-widening price rises, of course.

We’ve gone for GT trim – the priciest of the three – which takes our car to £34,825. Swap its petrol engine for the slightly punchier plug-in hybrid powertrain and you’re looking at £43,450. Sheesh!

On first impression, though, Peugeot has justified these lofty numbers inside. Its i-Cockpit dashboard configuration continues to look futuristic, even after a decade on the market, and it has now been enhanced by the introduction of larger digital ‘buttons’ called i-Toggles.

The seats are deep-set, supportive and trimmed in decent faux leather. And the other trim materials include Alcantara, soft-enough plastics and bits of aluminium. I like the stitching, too, in the lime green of Peugeot Sport Engineered - as seen on the Le Mans hypercar. 

Also on the standard list is six-way electronic adjustment, heating and a massage function for the front seats; heating for the steering wheel; ambient lighting; dual-zone climate control with a purification filter, a 10in, 3D-effect digital dial display and a 10.0in touchscreen with sat-nav and smartphone mirroring. I mean, goodness, my 206 didn't even have air-con!

Away from comfort features, there’s also adaptive cruise control; lane-keeping assistance; blindspot monitoring; three selectable driving modes; a powered tailgate with a foot sensor; keyless entry; and LED matrix headlights with automatic full beam.

I’m grateful for the added option of a 360deg parking camera in addition to the standard beepers, and for the tremendous premium paint, but I would rather have the Focal premium stereo (because the standard one is pretty puny) instead of the wireless smartphone charger (because all these ever seem to do is cook your phone) and Peugeot’s Drive Assist 2.0 system (because all such things ever do is wind me up).

That petrol engine, by the way, is the 178bhp version of the PSA Group’s (so nowadays Stellantis’s) turbocharged three-cylinder 1.2-litre unit, called the Puretech. This has been much lauded over the years, and I rather liked it during the pandemic days inside my 2008 crossover, as it was eager, was economical (45mpg) and emitted an appealing growl.

There’s no diesel 408, and I’m the worst imaginable candidate for a PHEV, having no home charger and a 140-mile daily motorway commute. If you’re a company car driver, even one with a similar use case to me, you might want to know that it’s a 1.6-litre system with a 42-mile EV range, reducing BIK tax from 32% to 8%. 

Any criticisms? Well, I strongly disliked the driving position that the small, rectangular steering wheel of the i-Cockpit forced when I had my 2008, and it's much the same story in the 408, but I won't start banging on about that again now. I knew what to expect and it's a subjective rather than objective issue, clearly, when millions around the world seem to have no problem with it. 

This 408 seems to tick (almost) all the right boxes for me, then. Let's see how many I scrub out in the weeks and months to come. 

Second Opinion

I was immediately impressed by the character and punch of the 408’s tiny three-pot: it’s more than enough for a car of this surprisingly generous stature. I hope it suits Kris’s lengthy commute, though, because over 300 miles with me on the motorway, it failed to crack 40mpg.

Felix Page

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Peugeot 408 1.2 Puretech GT specification

Specs: Price New £34,825 Price as tested £36,725 Options Elixir Red varnish paint £850, Drive Assist 2.0 £500, 360deg Vision £450, wireless smartphone charger £100 

Test Data: Engine 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol Power 178bhp Torque xxxlb ft at xxxrpm Kerb weight xxxkg Top speed 140mph 0-62mph 8.3sec Fuel economy 48.1mpg (claimed) CO2 xxxg/km Faults None Expenses None

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Why we’re running it: To see how well Alfa’s new PHEV small SUV balances rationality and emotion 

Month 1 - Specs

Life with a Tonale PHEV: Month 1

Welcoming the Tonale to the fleet - 20 September 2023

Here’s a potted recent history of Alfa Romeo: it was loss-making until parent company Fiat Chrysler was subsumed into a new conglomerate, Stellantis, which quickly made it profitable, under the watchful eye of Jean-Philippe Imparato, already esteemed for his positive impact on Peugeot.

New cars have been sparse, and while the Giulia saloon is well-liked by us and others and the Stelvio is a talented SUV (albeit an ageing one with no electrified powertrains), the introduction of a small SUV was well overdue. 

Enter the Tonale. Luxury brand or not, if you don’t have a compact SUV on your books these days, you’re dead in the water. The Tonale was revealed in 2019, but after Imparato joined in early 2021, it was delayed before arriving last year.

Why? Well, as a perfectionist and a true Alfista, the Frenchman wasn’t happy with the electric-only range of the plug-in hybrid, nor the “Alfa Romeo touch and feel” of the mild hybrid. Those are the two variants now available, with our new long-termer being the plug-in hybrid.

One of the reasons that Imparato wanted that EV range to be decent was to ensure it appealed to fleet customers. After all, it’s the most fleet-relevant car that Alfa has made in donkey’s years. Just over half of Tonale sales are to fleets,

and the SUV unsurprisingly already accounts for two-thirds of the brand’s UK sales, so it’s a considerable volume that is going to businesses.

For now, the 1.5-litre MHEV is still the more popular powertrain, making up 58% of sales, but Alfa expects the balance to flip as full availability of the 1.3-litre PHEV comes into play in the UK.

That will also improve Alfa’s overall sales standing here, which is down 7.6% year to date. The maker says that’s a result of it moving away from internal combustion cars and the delay in the PHEV arrival.

Anyhow, the summary is that the Tonale might not be the Alfa of your dreams, but it is the Alfa that the company desperately needs.

So to ours. First, that colour! Already found on the Giulia, it made me smile when I first potted it on my street. Regular readers might recall that I'm not one for bright colours (although I wouldn't say no to a yellow McLaren if offered, obviously), but this Montreal Green - a £1500 option - is on the loud side without being garish. Maybe it just feels, well, very Italian, and very Alfa.

The other two options on our car are the Mode 3 charging cable, which helpfully connects your car to a charging station, and the autonomous driving L2 pack, which is a fancy name for some assisted driving functions as intelligent adaptive cruise control, advanced lane keeping assistance and a front-facing camera. 

Included as standard on Veloce trim (the middle and most popular) are a 10.25in touchscreen system with a DAB radio, sat-nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a wireless smartphone charging pad and hands-free boot opening. 

The powertrain is an uprated version of the one found in the Jeep Compass 4xe (although Alfa doesn't like that reference). It has the same 177bhp four-cylinder turbo petrol engine driving the front wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox, but the electric motors are more powerful than the Jeep's, at 121bhp. That all delivers four-wheel drive and a 0-62mph time of 6.2sec. 

It has a bigger battery too, with a capacity of 15.5kWh, which promises up to 48 miles of electric range. Time will tell, but I'm hopeful that I can comfortably get more than 30 miles of range in the real world. 

As you can see from our road test editor's comments (below), the PHEV powertrain hasn't been as well received as Alfa might have hoped, mostly because of its legacy as a sporting brand. But living with a car is very different to an intensive road test, so let's see how I come to feel about it over the next few months. 

I continue to be amazed by how expensive cars are these days, but to be fair to Alfa, the Tonale is on par price-wise with key rivals including the BMW X2 and the Jaguar E-Pace. 

It's an exciting time for Alfa: money-making once again and able to justify making truly exciting cars such as the recently-revealed 33 Stradale supercar. Now is my chance to see if the Tonale offers any clues about where the brand is heading. 

Second Opinion

When I compared a Tonale with an equivalent Audi Q3 earlier this year, Alfa’s inexperience with PHEVs was made clear by a comparative uncouthness about its powertrain. However, there was also much to like about the newcomer, not least its surprisingly agile handling.  

SECOND OPINION AUTHOR HERE

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Alfa Romeo Tonale 1.3 PHEV 280 Veloce specification

Specs: Price New £48,495 Price as tested £51,595 Options Autonomous driving L2 pack £1250, PHEV Mode 3 charging cable £350, Montreal Green paint £1500 

Test Data: Engine 4 cyls in line, 1332cc, turbo, petrol, plus 15.5kWh battery and rear-mounted electric motor Power 276bhp Torque 347lb ft Kerb weight 1835kg Top speed 128bhp 0-62mph 6.2sec Fuel economy 217.3mpg CO2 29-33g/km Faults None Expenses None

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Why we’re running it: To find out if this quirky newcomer is a serious prospect or a flash in the pan

Month 1 - Specs

Life with a BYD Atto 3: Month 1

Welcoming the Xxx to the fleet - 6 September 2023

We have seen this sort of thing before, so we all know how this is going to go already, don’t we?

A debutant from the East enters the UK market with plenty of fanfare, derivative styling and huge value for money, but ultimately it falls short against the established marques. Plucky effort. Must try harder.

See you back here in a couple of generations’ time and you might be considered a contender...

This time, though, the circumstances are a bit different. Hyundai, Kia, Ssangyong and, more recently, the reborn MG were very much on an upward learning curve when they braved British shores for the first time, meaning I had to endure cars that were – quite literally in some cases – pony before getting to the good stuff. But this manufacturer that many won’t have heard of is remarkably well established already.

BYD has been around since 1995. Last year, it produced more plug-in cars than any other brand worldwide, and it has just built its five-millionth ‘new energy’ vehicle. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the badge on the back of the next electric bus you see pounding the streets: chances are it’s powered by BYD battery technology.

The Atto 3 family crossover is leading the Shenzhen-based battery giant’s assault on the British buyer’s pocket, with the compact Dolphin hatchback and Seal saloon (driven, p28) coming next, and it has some serious opposition in its sights, led by the smash-hit Kia Niro EV.

The fact that BYD stands for Build My Dreams is a bit, well, unfortunate, but I will gloss over that. Likewise the fact that the styling does indeed magpie others’ ideas: it’s no straight copy of any one rival, but I can see hints of the previous-generation Honda HR-V in there, along with Hyundai Kona and Cupra Born cues – the latter in the C-pillar treatment in particular.

More than one visitor to my house has asked if that’s a new Kia in my driveway, but the important thing is that the overall result is inoffensive and even bordering on the really quite handsome.

As for the other Eastern- newcomer touchpoint? The hefty kit list gets a big tick too. My top-spec Design example wants for nothing for a shade less than £40,000, offering the kind of generosity that would shame many a luxury car at twice its price. I’m talking electric panoramic roof, bird’s-eye cameras all round – the works.

There are also a few quirks that have thrilled my children, such as door pockets whose sides are made not of plastic but a trio of tuned guitar strings (they really to play three distinct notes). There's a huge rotating 15.6in touchscreen, too.

Thr trim is pretty quirky. Sit behind the wheel nd just count the finishes: 'vegan leather' in not one but three different colours and a dash that blends a brushed metal effect with rolling curves in blue, black and white, with a small binnacle ahead of the driver and that vast central screen dominating proceedings. 

As someone who is something of a stranger to the gym, I had to be informed that this environment was the inspiration for the interior styling. But even I got the hint with BYD's colour names, which are a rather lame attempt to cement these active associations, with Surfing Blue, Skiing White, Climbing Grey and my car's Parkour Red. It doesn't make me want to start leaping from railing to railing (not with my knees), but it at least is a very attractive shade.

Try not to be blindsided by the gimmickry, though, because the Atto 3 is a properly practical car. The cabin is far more generous for space than those of many of its rivals, and it feels remarkably well-screwed together. There's a decent split-level boot back there too, albeit with a horribly flimsy cover that reminds me of an early '80s Vauxhall. 

The sense of quality and solidity is further enhanced on the road. The BYD is a really sweet-riding machine, helped by its big doughnut tyres. The powertrain offers effortless rather than astounding pace, and while the chassis won't win any prizes for entertainment, it is as competent as the rest of the package. 

I have had one slight problem, albeit when the car was being used the tracking photography (snapper in the boot, harnessed up, shooting out the back as the subject car follows). That meant having the electric tailgate open for a sustained period while I drove around at relatively low speeds, but it was enough to really confuse the poor Atto 3, and afterwards, the boot refused to open fully or shut properly - which was doubly annoying because it disabled other systems, such as the cruise control, at the same time. 

Fortunately for me, because my nearest BYD dealer is a fair hike away, that evening the car informed me it was having a software update, which cured the fault in the process. it has, however, at the same time disabled the sat-nav, so for now I'm sticking to Apple CarPlay for route-finding duties.

Some cars fall short in the harsh glare of the road test spotlight, and indeed the Atto 3 didn't make the top five when compared to rivals in our 31 May issue, but having previously run two that pipped it in the rankings (the Born and the Renault Megane E-Tech Electric), I can't help thinking that this car is more of a slow-burner. Even just a few short weeks in, I'm really warming to it. 

Second Opinion

My main complaint when I drove the Atto 3 was its centre screen, which is huge but doesn’t have the most logical interface. So it’s worrying that Al is already seeing glitches. Software updates are inbound, but will these improve things, or will the tech taint the overall experience? 

Illya Verpraet

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BYD Atto 3 Design specification

Specs: Price New £39,695 Price as tested £39,695 Options None

Test Data: Engine Power 201bhp Torque 229lb ft Kerb weight 1750kg Top speed 100mph 0-62mph 7.3sec Economy 3.9mpkWh CO2 xxxg/km Faults Electric tailgate, sat-nav Expenses None

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Why we’re running it: To find out how much a good three-pedal gearbox can improve a modern sports car with a classic flavour

Month 1 - Specs

Life with a Toyota GR Supra: Month 1

Welcoming the GR Supra to the fleet - 16 August 2023

As a motoring hack, when you pick up the phone to a manufacturer’s PR representative who is responding to something you have just written, you tend to wish you had been smart enough to print out that list of ready-made reasons to urgently hang up and then pin it to your office wall.

Not this time. “I’ve just been reading your group test on manual sports cars,” said the man from Toyota. “You forgot one, of course – and we think it’s rather good. So would you like to run a GR Supra 3.0 manual long-termer for a few months?

No pre-prepared script was necessary for my reply. The Toyota GR Supra is a car that has tempted me from a distance since it first appeared in 2019. When we road tested it, I liked the idea, and the ’90s-Supra-tribute styling, a little more than the driving experience. The steering felt a bit woolly and over-assisted to me, and the auto ’box a little undeserving of a truly sporty application. But, as is so like Toyota, the company has chipped away at making the car better as the years have passed – and introducing a version with three pedals and a manual gearlever is just one of the routes it has taken.

So we are to spend the next three months or so exploring them, in a GR Supra 3.0 manual with about 9000 miles and nine months already on the clock. Box fresh this car is not, but this should mean that, at some stage during our custody, it will go in for its annual oil change and tell us something about how good Toyota’s dealer customer service is in 2023, and how much a £55,000 sports car costs to keep in the process. So this should be an interesting few months.

The GR Supra was launched to customers in 2019 in six-cylinder 3.0-litre automatic form but gained a cheaper, four-cylinder 2.0-litre auto version in 2021 – and then branched out again in 2022 with the model we’re testing. It was Toyota’s intention all along to launch a manual transmission for the car, apparently, and so committed to the idea was the company that it developed a gearbox especially for the job, from components that transmission supplier ZF had on the shelf but had never combined for anything else.

The three-pedal ’box clearly took some time to perfect – hence why it had to follow the auto to market. It is only offered in tandem with the BMW-sourced, 335bhp 3.0-litre turbocharged ‘B58’ straight six: a unit that, since you can also find it powering cars as different as the Ineos Grenadier and Morgan Plus Six, must by now be becoming one of Munich’s more popular customer engines.

Without a turbo straight six, of course, no modern Toyota Supra would feel quite right; and, much as it’s clearly some way off matching the outright power and flexibility of, say, a BMW Motorsport six-pot, the B58 is one major mechanical that seems to suit the Supra well. I’ve only had the car for a few days as I write these words, but it certainly seems fast enough, and briskly torquey, and it revs well.

It’s the Supra manual’s ride and handling I’m equally keen to explore, though, with Toyota having used the three-pedal model’s development for a second go at calibrating the car’s adaptive dampers and power steering, and having respecified its anti-roll bar bushes.

We wrote several times in praise of the car’s unexpectedly compliant touring ride four years ago, but less positively about its body control on rougher roads, or the driver’s tactile connection with the front wheels. And there are plenty of country roads in the Midlands, near to me, that should reveal how much progress has been made here.

But what really interests me is the process of dialling into the dynamic character of a really analogue sports car – one of a classic, front-engined, rear-drive, three-pedal make-up the likes of which few manufacturers bother to offer any more – and spending weeks and months fiddling with drive mode settings and tyre pressures to bring out the perfect driving experience.

Aside, perhaps, from with our own cars, we road testers seldom get to do it. Test cars come and go again within just a few days, and besides, there are fewer and fewer cars with a sufficiently straightforward mechanical temperament that invite you to bother in the first place.

The GR Supra is not a complicated prospect when it comes to ordering it either, you might be pleased to read. If you are having the bigger engine, there are standard and Pro equipment specifications, as well as those manual or automatic gearboxes to choose between, but if you want the simpler, cheaper trim, you have to have the manual.

So that’s what we’ve got. No full leather seats, premium stereo or adaptive cruise control for us, then: just a pretty simple sports car with more than enough kit, and plenty of driving to do to really get to know it. Bring it on.

Second Opinion

It’s easy to forgive the BMW Z4 a degree of lethargy and softness, given its baby-GT billing, but by dint of its fixed roof and hallowed GR badge, the technically related Supra has always felt it could do with being a pinch more poised and engaging. Hopefully, Matt finds the manual gearbox brings that extra zing.

Felix Page

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Toyota GR Supra 3.0 Manual specification

Specs: Price New £54,630 Price as tested £55,280 Options Premium solid paint, Prominence Red £650

Test Data: Engine 3.0-litre turbocharged ‘B58’ straight six Power 335bhp at 5000-6500rpm Torque 369lb ft at 1600-4500rpm Kerb weight 1457kg Top speed 155mph 0-62mph 4.6sec Fuel economy 32.1mpg (claimed) CO2 198g/km Faults None Expenses None

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