March

The naturally aspirated V12 engine is alive and well. At least, that was how it felt in March. In our 8 March issue, we not only got a brief taste of the wild Aston Martin Valkyrie but also got to grips with the Ferrari Purosangue on a snowy mountain. One is Adrian Newey’s vision of an end-of-days track car that overwhelms anyone who manages to fit inside with 10,600rpm savagery. The other is the most comfortable, easy-going Ferrari ever.

There was plenty of trepidation about whether the Purosangue would feel like a real Ferrari, but Matt Prior found that it absolutely does. It’s more of a slightly lifted four-door, four-seat coupé than an SUV, and thanks to that rich V12 and a set of very exotic Multimatic dampers, it rides and handles in a way that beggars belief.

March wasn’t done yet with V12s, because a week later Lamborghini dropped details of the 6.5-litre unit in its upcoming Aventador replacement. Unlike the Ferrari’s and Aston’s, this one is a plug-in hybrid, with three electric motors boosting performance. Company car drivers rejoice. We finally got to drive the V12 PHEV, the Lamborghini Revuelto, in October.

While the world’s car makers are falling over each other to release new toys for millionaires, it’s getting harder and harder to find affordable transport in the new car market. So we decided to shine a light on five budget-buy heroes. How much new car can you still get for £15,000? Not very much is the answer, but at least there is still plenty of joy and utility to be found in cars like the Dacia Sandero and Kia Picanto. The colleagues who were on that test can still be found extolling the virtues of the Hyundai i10’s manual gearchange to anyone who will listen.

Over to less good news. In a story that generated some hubbub in national media, we found that Range Rovers had become practically uninsurable in London. When we ran our report, they were the second-most stolen car in the UK, with many being pinched in the capital. If you could find an insurer to quote you at all, you were lucky to be paying less than £5000 per year. JLR subsequently initiated a £10 million security-fix programme for older models to tackle the issue.

Range Rover owners and prospective buyers might be tempted instead by the BMW XM. But they probably shouldn’t because, even if you can get past the Skoda-Kodiaq-by-Mansory styling, there’s neither much ride refinement nor handling finesse in evidence. From