Opinion

I always thought Smart was the friendly face of Mercedes-Benz.

Sure, the original dinky little City Coupé two-seater was a better idea in principle than I felt it was in reality, but I loved the idea of it, the cleverness of it.

If we all drove sub-tonne Smarts rather than 2.5-tonne SUVs, the world would have thanked us for it. And we would have had more fun along the way.

Above all, though, I liked the Smart’s friendly vibe. Where other Mercedes were austere and sensible, the Smart – first conceived as a joint-venture between Mercedes and Swatch, famous for bringing trendy Swiss watches to the masses – was funky and attainable. And even when it started to lose its mojo, it was forward-looking; Smart has been an all-electric brand since 2019.

Now there’s a chance that, even though it’s a compact SUV maker and Mercedes-Geely mash-up, it will remain at the forefront of trends. Only this time, a rather more concerning one…

The Smart #1 can, like nearly all new cars, receive over-the-air software updates. At some point, early customers will find their car’s touchscreen is suddenly able to mirror their phone, thanks to a free download.

Then will come another update, which Smart UK hasn’t yet decided how it will handle.

The #1, see, has a heated steering wheel. At the moment, its functionality hasn’t been turned on. When the time comes, it could just arrive like a surprise present. Or, more worryingly, customers might be asked for pay for it, either permanently, one-off, or as a subscription: you pay it in winter but not in summer.

Either way, the hardware is already fitted. Both #1s that I drove last week had a heated steering wheel, just not a switch for it. At some point, Smart might deign to provide the heating, perhaps for free, perhaps for a price.

I hate the idea of it costing. The heater element is already there because it’s cheaper to fit all cars with one than some without, given the percentage of buyers who would like one.

So the potential scenario exists: you’re driving your Smart to work, where you will be told off for being late, with your hands chilled to the bone, because you spent many painful minutes walking Gran into a health centre in sub-zero temperatures.

You’re wondering whether she will be okay and how you’re going to handle the impending carers’ expenses, on top of the other ever-rising bills. And you will have a choice: bear the numbness or get some badly needed warmth back into your delicate fingers by swiping some of your hard-earned pounds, which mean a great deal to you, in the direction of companies to which they mean nothing, because they made over £20 billion in profits in 2022, so that software can automatically enable a switch for a feature that you own and have already paid for.

Paying for features that already exist is not a new, Smart-centric idea, I should add. BMW (2022 profits: £20bn) introduced subscriptions for features like heated seats to plenty of outrage. Tesla (2022 profits: £9.9bn) enables adaptive cruise control features via subscription to less outrage, because there are owners who would applaud Elon Musk for punching their dog.

Whoever does it, I despise it. More than I can tell you. I’m a mildly spoken man, but there are two words for this: one of them is ‘off’. Is that irrational of me?

I’m convinced of two things: I will never buy a car that has subscription-enabled features. And if I wanted to show what a nice, customer-focused car company I was, I would provide that switch for nothing.

Much of the talk about McLaren’s bold electrified future has centred on the prospect of a high-riding electric GT car mooted for launch around the end of the decade.

McLaren CEO Michael Leiters has form in this sphere, having had a hand in the development of the Ferrari Purosangue and Porsche Cayenne. He professes to “love SUVs”, believing that “it’s a really important market”.

A roomier and more luxurious new model makes sense for McLaren, as evidenced by the overwhelming success of the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and Aston Martin DBX. But the revelation that scintillating new supercars remain on the horizon in the electric era is reassurance that the brand won’t lose sight of its core values.

Even more excitingly, Leiters hints that any electric sports car flagship won’t be a mere marketing exercise. His bold ambition is to ensure it’s comparable with the 750S in every key respect – a tacit acknowledgement that McLaren is a performance brand and must remain as such, even when its first four-door model arrives in showrooms.

Today, I have become the envy of my colleagues while some of us are gathered in North Yorkshire to test a bunch of electric driver’s cars.

The fun EV that I had hoped to bring was sufficiently new that it couldn’t make it even in early left-hand-drive form, so I’ve had to arrive in something else. Hence the envy.

Now, this isn’t an EV versus ICE car look-at-me smugathon (although it did take quite a long time for one of us to arrive from the south coast in a Honda E). No, instead I’m the envy of my colleagues because I’ve arrived in a Series 1 Lotus Elise. And I’m not alone in thinking it’s fabulous.

This is a fairly early example, from 1998. Although at one point badly damaged, it’s in very good mechanical order, if a bit scruffy around the edges – as a 59,000-mile, 25-year-old car should be.

It belongs to a friend of mine, Simon, owner of independent Lotus specialist Scott-Russell Sports Cars. It barely turned a wheel last year and was taking up space at his workshop, and as somebody who thinks cars are better when used regularly, he asked if I would be able to add a few miles to it. So here I am.

There will be more on these pages in a couple months, but for now, I’m afraid to say that I’ve become obsessed with it. It’s just so good.

As good now as the Elise was when it was launched in 1996 – perhaps even better. Now, when writing tests, referencing new car prices and a car’s value, somebody will always pipe up about used cars.

I recently said that I thought the Citroën C5 X, priced from £28,000, was good value for a big, practical, immensely comfortable family wagon, but matey on the internet said it had nothing on his £12,000, 10-year-old BMW 5 Series. Maybe, but that was £45,000 when it was new, and it’s no good banging on about old cars when you’re testing a new one, otherwise you’re not comparing like with like.

I’ve felt firmly that way on everything I write about… except for my own weakness on this front, the Elise. Later models, fabulous though they still were, advanced the Lotus game only a little from the purity, simplicity and, above all, driver enjoyment of the original. As a used car, it has everything of a new one.

Much of that is down to the fact that, made from bonded and extruded aluminium and with plastic bodywork, it doesn’t rot, it doesn’t sag and it doesn’t flex. The torsional rigidity of an Elise was claimed at 11,000Nm/deg when it was new and, from a chassis perspective, this one still feels like it could have only recently rolled out of a showroom.

Everything that hangs from it is basically a consumable, so in good mechanical nick, as this one is, it’s like going back a quarter of a century and being blown away just like we were in 1996, when we were presciently confident in calling the Lotus “a reference point in the history of the motor car” (even if it was “more difficult to climb aboard than a Caterham”).

It cost £18,990 then, made just 118bhp and 122lb ft of torque and weighed a mere 723kg on our scales, and its performance numbers (0-60mph in about 6sec) were irrelevant to the fun it provided on the road, where it was – and remains – a total joy.

“There’s a piece of history waiting out there,” we wrote, next to a picture of the Elise parked in a field not 15 miles from where I’m currently writing. It’s still waiting today.

The case for a smaller Defender has been clear for years, as product strategy types at Land Rover (is that still a valid name?) have known for more than a decade. But the advent of the latest full sized Defender four years ago has only made it stronger.

Main reasons: size and cost. Back in 1948, a Land Rover was 3.3metres long, considerably shorter than today’s Mini or a Fiat 500. 

Even the longer wheelbase version that bobbed up after a few years was shorter than today’s Ford Focus. If off-road capability still concerns the modern creators of Defenders — and their care with electronic traction, ground clearance, hardware durability and tyre spec shows it does — then compactness is a big asset they can no longer use.

Back in the day, even a humble Freelander could do better than a Range Rover in some arduous conditions, because it was smaller. And stories abound of Suzuki Jimnys — and even Fiat Panda 4x4s — outdoing Defenders on grounds of weight and size. Drive today’s Defender on road and you’ll discover that in some common conditions, London’s suburban streets for instance, the current Defender is just too big. 

If JLR wants its staple model to be relevant in the country’s major population areas, size matters. And especially width.

Second, it can’t be ideal that the cheapest of a family of off-roaders starts at £50,000-plus. Especially since it’ll be £60,000-plus in today’s money when compulsory EV models arrive. Leaves a yawning space for rivals, notably Chinese, to pile into your strongest markets at £25k less with products that do nearly as good a job.

Finally, there are the marketing concerns: today’s Defender is earmarked for a long life. What will stimulate interest in the putative Defender family over the next six years or so? Even Range Rover has support from Evoque. A small model is needed, and it’s already late.

At last, I found myself at the right place and time to drive an Ineos Grenadier. It was only a short drive but long enough to find that I liked it and its off-road capability.

All serious modern 4x4s would have completed the chalky course that I drove but not all with such ease.

I drove a Utility Wagon, which lacks a Station Wagon’s locking front and rear diffs but still has a locking centre diff, a low-ratio gear set and hill descent and stability control systems. It’s not the full terrain-adjustable gamut you would find on a Land Rover or a Jeep, but the hardware is strong.

Still, I wondered whether Ineos would find enough buyers for a £70,000 car that’s not plush enough to be a luxury off-roader yet not cheap enough to be a utility pick-up. Until yesterday, when I ran into another new owner.

I’m suspicious of anecdotal evidence, but he’s the fourth I know who’s enjoying the car, is realistic about its on-road performance (better than an old Land Rover Defender, as good as a Mercedes-Benz G-Class) and who likes the blocky switchgear.

Plus, he joked, if you only open the smaller of the two boot doors, you can slide a sausage dog in without swinging open the bigger door.

On a serious note, that’s handy if you have a trailer: my 2005 Defender’s rear door quickly whacks a trailer’s jockey-wheel handle.

That Ineos is aware of ‘flippers’ – people who intend to sell cars quickly for profit – even though it will have built 15,000 Grenadiers by the year’s end suggests that demand is strong.

The new Quartermaster pick-up and a chassis-cab variant for those who need to affix their own utility equipment will further boost appeal.

Still, “we recognise that one car line isn’t going to make the automotive business that it’s our vision to be, so we will invest in a portfolio of products and the technology they need,” Ineos Automotive CEO Lynn Calder recently said, referencing the “probably smaller” battery-electric SUV that will follow in 2025.

Anecdotal again, but I know a few people who dislike the Grenadier for looking like an old Defender. It does, but it also has a bit of G-Wagen, big Suzuki Jimny, early Toyota Land Cruiser… They can’t all look that different, can they?

Anyway, I think that regardless of how you feel about it, Ineos deserves admiration for having had the nous and the will to make it at all. Few firms would put up the resources and the nerve.

Maybe it takes a privately owned one like Ineos to do it, given the risks, ever-changing regulatory requirements and necessary long-term capital investment.

When it comes to the smaller SUV, Ineos will have to commit to buying about £15 billion worth of batteries. Who knows when it will start paying that back? Fair play to them for doing it.

Rolls-Royce's customer base continues to get younger

A recent snippet about the Rolls-Royce Spectre: the average age of a Rolls customer is now just 43.

Granted, that doesn’t sound that young in isolation. It’s roughly when I started worryingly Googling ‘when does middle age start?’. But it’s young for an average car buyer.

“When I joined Rolls-Royce [in 2010], the average was 56,” CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös told me. “43 is spectacularly young, because [it means] for every one in their 60s, we need one who is 20.”

It’s funny how that translates to companies with a more youthful reputation. As Müller-Ötvös said: “Our buyers are now younger than Mini’s.”