Buckle up for a test drive and keep up to speed with the latest motoring news
Text Ted Macauley, James Kevin Mac Goris Images Renault UK, Lluis Gene
Crowd-pleasing coupé
The new Mégane Coupé from Renault is set to go head-to-head with VW’s and Vauxhall’s new sporty hatchbacks
Renault has a reputation for trying to please customers that can lead to oddballs like the Vel Satis and Avantime. But with the sporty new Mégane Coupé, revealed in Geneva in March, it has come up with a real winner.
This car harks back to the original coupé, launched in 1996, but has a much more seductive and curvier shape. Even more eye-catching are the ‘dragonfly’ doors, which open upwards in two sections. Sporting a nippy twolitre, four-cylinder, turbo-charged engine, it’s expected to cost about €19,200.
It replaces the Sport Hatch and will take on the upcoming Volkswagen Scirroco and Vauxhall Astra sport hatchbacks. The production model can be seen in Paris in September and should appear in showrooms later this year.
Push-button protection
Volvo’s ‘On Call’ combines GPS with a phone to give you peace of mind
Volvo’s inventiveness is giving the rest of the industry something to worry about. On Call, which can be installed by your dealer, is an integrated GPS-based communications system. Press the ‘On Call’ button and the built-in GSM phone will dial up an operator who will know exactly where you are. Broken down? No problem. The operator will guide a recovery vehicle directly to you. If you lose your keys or lock them in the car, you can still phone the On Call operator, give your password and they will remotely unlock the car using the integrated phone. If you’re unlucky enough to be involved in a crash and the airbags or the seat-belt tensioner are triggered, the system is activated automatically. If the operator can’t get a response from you, they’ll guide the emergency services to you. For an additional fee you can even use the system to protect yourself from theft because the police can track your car via the GPS. So, whether you’re absent-minded, unlucky or careless, help is at hand – but only if you own a Volvo.
Briatore doesn’t want the top spot
The Renault boss says he won’t be applying for Bernie Ecclestone’s job any time soon
Flavio Briatore, Renault’s flamboyant Formula One mastermind, has opted out of the job of taking over from Bernie Ecclestone when, and if, the Grand Prix ringmaster quits. The Italian multimillionaire, a partner with Ecclestone in the takeover of London football club Queens Park Rangers and his firmest friend, plans to cut his connections with F1 when he retires from Renault at the end of 2009.
He says he wants to concentrate on his businesses – the upmarket Billionaire nightclub in Sardinia, his top-rated Cipriani restaurant in London, his exclusive clothing company, the football team and a worldwide property portfolio.
Due to be married later this year, Briatore dismisses suggestions that he will assume Ecclestone’s mantle and insists: “No, thank you.
I’m not interested. I’m not looking for another challenge. Renault will be my last job in F1.” Briatore has been a permanent fixture in F1 since he was brought in by fashion mogul Luciano Benetton in 1988 and, without any race experience, given the job of running the Italian clothing magnate’s Grand Prix outfit. Since then the 57-year-old has been the brains behind seven world championship successes, four drivers’ crowns, three constructors’ titles and put both German legend Michael Schumacher and Spaniard Fernando Alonso on the road to fame and fortune.
In between times the playboy has dallied with supermodels Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, the mother of his only child. “I have enjoyed a fabulous time in F1 – and still do – but enough is enough and I will be happy to go about my other business when the time comes,” he responded while ensconced on his splendid ocean-going yacht Force Blue in Monaco.
June dates:
Formula One: 8 – Canada, 22 – France; MotoGp: 8 – Barcelona, 22 – Donington Park, UK, 28 – Assen, Netherlands; Motor Show: 4-8 – Brno, Czech Rep.
In the news
Electric car with Italian flair
Italian design firm Pininfarina, whose legendary car cosmetics have added extra allure to top-end makes like Ferrari, is aiming to corner another area of the market by producing its own unique model. Plans are already drawn up for a four-seater electric car incorporating the innovative passenger safety features of the Nido concept car (pictured), unveiled in 2004 in Paris. Marketed with the Pininfarina logo, the zero-carbon runabout will be powered by a long-life Lithium-Metal-Polymer battery developed by French company Bolloré, which has a 50% stake in the project. The car’s range will be up to 250km with a top speed of 130km/hr. It’s expected to be on sale in 2010.
TEST DRIVE
BMW 635d – A wolf in wolf’s clothing
The new BMW 635d has a bark that’s as loud as its bite. With its powerful throttle and braking, and intuitive six-speed automatic gearbox, the only downside for James Kevin Mac Goris was that he had to give it back…
Short but powerful, said the nice man from BMW as he handed over the electronic key to the superbly alluring 635d parked all alone on the forecourt, like a wolf in wolf’s clothing. And, boy, was he right. Short not in centimetres (the car stretches to 4.6m) but regrettably in time – I was off to New York two days later – I couldn’t take the car with me, although I would have dearly loved to give my diesel-phobic cousins a wake-up call gunning down Fifth Avenue at 3am.
Powerful, however, is one of those words that nicely sums up this most captivating of GT diesels. It’s a word that stretches from the seat-hollowing acceleration of 0-100kph in just over six seconds to the fantastic throttle delivery when you hit the floor at 160kph and surge up to 230kph almost without noticing it. For anyone who is sceptical about twin-turbo diesels cutting the mustard, let me tell you, the 635d would cut an entire Colman’s factory and still have poke left over to spare.
Why did BMW wait so long to introduce this marvel? It’s better than the 630i, it’s nearly as powerful as the M6 (but in the real world, the automatic gearbox and linear delivery make it a much better car to drive every day) and a lot cheaper on consumption. BMW expects it to take over 60% of sales of all 6-Series, and it should because it’s undoubtedly the best car in the range.
The 635d’s six-speed automatic gearbox first appeared in the 5-Series last year. Here, however, it has a unique shifter with very neatly integrated buttons. It’s good to use and will find its way into the executive saloon in due course. As well as standard paddle shift levers, a ‘Sport’ button that shortens shift times is also included in the set-up.
Selecting Sport mode sharpens the throttle response and Servotronic steering, making the 6-Series feel even more stable and secure when cornering – in fact, I got as much of a kick out of braking as accelerating, putting the surprisingly nimble two-tonner through the corners. Try as I might, it was very hard to get it to slip off the road – only once did I manage it, on a 135° switchback in the rain in a forest. Plus it was dark, so feeling the back end sliding off track was extra exhilarating, especially as I knew that no real harm would come out of it.
One great little gimmick this car has is the speed numbers projected onto the windscreen in a heads-up, like in a fighter aircraft. It doesn’t sound like much but I can assure you, when I swapped the car back for my own lowly 325i, I really missed it. What am I saying? I really missed the whole smooth, muscular beast.
Spec
- Variable Twin Turbo (VTT) capacity: 2,993cc
- Max output: 210kW/286hp at 4,400rpm
- Max torque: 580Nm between 1,750 and 2,250rpm
- 0-100km/h in 6.3 seconds, top speed 250km/h
- Average consumption: 6.9 litres/100km
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