Independent Reviews of New and Used Cars

The fourth generation version of Škoda’s Octavia gets a light refresh as part of this Czech model’s mid-term update. Once, this car was the least sophisticated of all the Volkswagen Group’s family hatchback products. Not any more - thanks to mild hybrid electrified engine tech and cutting-edge media cabin provision. This car’s still bigger and better value than most of its rivals, pretty much a Passat-sized medium range model for the price of a Golf-sized one. And it’s clever enough, once again, to change the way you think about Škoda. Changes outside and in with this revised model are minimal. And the subtleness of this car’s mid-term is equally evident by the tiny updates made to the engine range. As before, the core of the range is made up of 1.5-litre TSI petrol or 2.0 TDI diesel engines, each with either 116PS or 150PS options. As previously, if you pay extra for the petrol unit with a DSG 7-speed automatic, you get the brand’s mHEV mild hybrid tech thrown in. The diesel, which remains unelectrified, comes in lower-powered form with a manual gearbox and in higher-powered guise with the DSG auto.

You can see why Audi felt it had to build this model, though it’s a little hard to understand why it took the brand so long to bring it to market. We’d half-hoped that this delay might have enabled the company to introduce a few radically new elements to the fashionable formula championed by this sort of car. That didn’t happen here, but even so, the Q8 did manage to provide buyers seduced by this class-conscious category something just that little bit different. Exactly what that is can be a little difficult to define. Perhaps the easiest way to express it is to suggest that if you turned up to a business meeting in this contender’s two most obvious competitors, the BMW X6 or the Mercedes GLE Coupe, some might dismiss you as a showy extrovert. Arrive in a Q8 and the impact would be a touch more subtle. For some, that distinction will be important, particularly as this Audi is - in its own way - just as stylish and avant garde as its two main Teutonic arch-rivals. And in summary? Well no SUV you could choose in this sector is going to add up if you judge it from a purely sensible perspective, so in considering this Audi, you’re rather beguilingly freed up to purely please yourself. If you’re attracted by it, then probably nothing else in this part of the market will do. It’s unnecessary, it’s uninhibited and it’s undeniably appealing - as all of life’s most appealing trinkets are. In other words, it’s everything that this kind of car should be.

…or is it? Jonathan Crouch looks at MINI’s smallest EV crossover, the Aceman.

The MINI Countryman is at its fieriest in JCW form. Jonathan Crouch drives it.

The improved version of the fourth generation Škoda Octavia vRS follows a well-established routine. Why mess with a winning formula? Jonathan Crouch takes a look.