Passion For Cars

Our UK drive of the new Honda Civic reveals that it's an impressively well-rounded family hatchback What is it? We first drove this new entry point to the Honda Civic range in Spain at the start of the year. It was a big launch for Honda; after all, the new Civic is the product of the single largest development programme in the Japanese car maker’s 70-year history. With a new platform, a more sophisticated multi-link rear axle and a significantly stiffened unibody (which features increases of 52% in torsional rigidity and 88% in lateral stiffness), our Spanish drive was evidence that the Civic has benefited from Honda’s renewed focus on the European market during benchmarking. The Civic's engineering team wanted to get its family hatch to drive better, with greater comfort and more driver engagement than the immediate C-segment opposition. We've now driven the Honda Civic EX 1.0 Turbo on UK roads, where it needs to stack up against rivals such as the three-c...

Abarth 124 Spider review

From £28,825 Last year we saluted Fiat for the canny reasoning that resulted in the 124 Spider, its first rear-drive sports car since the original model was discontinued in the early 1980s. Although the amalgamation of Mazda MX-5 mechanicals and Italian styling was not a flawless integration by any means, it delivered the kind of desirable product that was so obviously missing from Fiat’s limited and conventional line-up. However, to Abarth, Fiat’s feisty tuning division , the 124 is of arguably much greater import . Where its parent, through minimal investment of resource, gained a useful image bump (particularly in the US) and a very decent roadster, Abarth gets the chance to apply its underused talents to an already admirably talented piece of kit – a dramatic shift from its current norm of uprating the Fiat 500’s modest abilities . The fact that there is also a manifest gap in the market for Abarth’s version ...

Mercedes-Benz GLA 200 d 4Matic AMG Line Auto 2017 review

Mercedes-Benz's small SUV gets a higher ride height and more equipment for 2017 to remain fresh in this ever-popular class What is it? Lovers of small, premium SUVs lend me your ears, for there is news to tell - and if UK car sales reports are anything to go buy, that should be quite a few ears. Indeed, if you were heading out (physically or digitally) to buy a Mercedes-Benz GLA this weekend , it might be worth holding off, because there's an updated one just around the corner. The engine line-up remains the same: there's a 2.1-litre four-cylinder diesel in 134bhp 200 d and 175bhp 220 d forms, a 154bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol (200) or a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol as the 208bhp 250 or the range-topping, 376bhp Mercedes-AMG GLA 45 . The 200 d we're driving has traditionally been the best-seller and should continue to be so, with official fuel economy of 67.3mpg and CO2 emissions of 110g/...

Alex Fasanando

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