Good looks, a great engine set-up, but basic chassis and handling traits are lacking
It’s unfortunate that two great sporting names have somehow found their way into the title of a Renault SUV without one sporting bone in its body. But don’t be distracted for, unlike most crossover hybrid SUVs, there’s actually some interesting stuff in this new Renault Austral.
Like close to 200bhp from a 1.2-litre engine. It’s thanks to two electric motors which work in a far from conventional way. One actually powers the car most of the time, and almost all of it around town, while the second doubles as a combined starter motor and alternator, adding dashes of torque-fill when required. Which leaves the ICE engine either as a dead weight, or working in tandem with the main electric motor, or acting as a range-extender and topping up the onboard battery, so you never have to plug it in.
Now, because plug-ins make a mockery of fuel consumption calculations, its 57.7mpg looks rubbish compared to, say, the 217mpg recorded by the heavier, more powerful Alfa Tonale PHEV reviewed last month. But, in the real world, the car is phenomenally frugal and performs well because of its novel powertrain.
It’s also spacious, well equipped and, by the absurd standards of such cars these days, not even that expensive. A shame, then, that its chassis fails to match the standards of its driveline. I didn’t expect it to handle brilliantly despite four-wheel steering, but it doesn’t even ride that well either, which is a pity. AF
Gold plated car becomes a fact. So ran the headline in the April 28, 1955 edition of The New York Times above a story about the jaw-dropping appearance of this…
Can you think of a worse time to have launched a business selling an expensive, single-seat racing car for the road than 2009, just months after markets went into meltdown…
This may not be the car readers of this august journal have been waiting for, for these last 10 years, but it is the car its creator has wanted and,…
It is possible that I am going to look foolish writing this the day after the Belgian Grand Prix – thanks to summer schedules and my deadline being brought forward…
1987 Alpine Gta Turbo Fleischmann Sold by Aguttes, £23,000 The V6 Alpine A310 was less than a success for the Renault-owned sports car builder when it was launched in 1976,…
If news reports and social media posts from June’s Baja 500 inspired you to have a go at Mexico’s madcap desert race, now might be the time to start building…
Can you believe it’s already 12 years since Jaguar Classic unveiled its first recreation project at California’s Monterey Car Week? The model in question was the famed Special GT E-type…
These days I need little reminding that I am no longer in the first flush, but bombarded by reminders I am on a daily basis. And this one really did…
Everybody knows you cannot judge a book by its cover but nor, it seems, can you judge a car by its photograph. In this space last month I wrote about…
Farer is a UK-based dial name founded in 2015 by four horophiles who thought there might still be space for another brand in the already crowded adventure-watch space. As it…
It looks like a Can-Am car! That’s because it largely is. Meet the M6GT, Bruce McLaren’s personal vision of his brand’s first road car. And perhaps unsurprisingly it is based…
2002 Nissan Skyline Gt-r Crs by Nismo Sold by Broad Arrow, £403,700 Broad Arrow’s auction at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como might have been…
