Steve Cropley: why it's hip to be square
BL got there first but Audi’s is the wheel deal
Our man reckons the Q4 Sportback's near-rectangular steering wheel is a winner
This week, Steve had a 'wheely' good time in the new Q4 Sportback, reflects on an extremely cordial interview with JLR's new boss - Thierry Bollore - and ponders the past and future of Ariel.
*Tuesday*
What’s this? A car with a square steering wheel? Nipped over to Audi’s Milton Keynes HQ to try the new Q4 Sportback E-tron 50 and discovered a spacious, complete, well-made but otherwise somewhat unexceptional machine, despite its two electric motors (boggo versions have one) and quattro system that feeds torque very intelligently to all four wheels.
The amusing standout for me was its nearrectangular steering wheel – flat top and bottom – which took me back quite a few decades to the pioneering ‘Quartic’ wheel of the Austin Allegro, so shaped to provide extra leg room underneath. The Quartic wheel drew such withering criticism – as did quite a few of the car’s other attributes – that it was rapidly withdrawn. In the Audi, it works perfectly. The steering is high geared, so even in town driving you hardly ever need to change your grip on the wheel. Amusing to think that back in the 1970s, BL wasn’t actually wrong, it just cocked up the execution.
*Wednesday*
What a pleasure to spend some time with Jaguar Land Rover’s somewhat elusive CEO, Thierry Bolloré, who turned out to be an extremely cordial bloke, clearly well on top of his brief and relishing the task of putting Jaguar back on the profit-earning rails. It made me even more impatient to see what Bolloré, chief creative officer Gerry McGovern and the now-united JLR design team make of New Jaguar, even if it sounds a fiendishly daunting task.
We talked about lots of important stuff, but I selfishly took a minute or two to regale Bolloré with my burning personal desire to own a car with the quietness and refinement of a Range Rover, expressed as an SUV supermini. He listened more indulgently than the idea probably deserved, and then gave an interesting if disappointing clue to Land Rover’s future model priorities. “Well,” he said with a smile, “I’m not sure we are going to take that on right now…”
*Thursday*
A day-long visit to Ariel, near Crewkerne in Somerset, where all things seem to happen at once. In one end of the company’s busy clutch of buildings, the Ariel Hipercar project is proceeding in secrecy (although interesting news is rumoured to be coming soon) while in other places, founder Simon Saunders and his loyal band will show you the collection of early Ariel mobility contraptions they’ve been accumulating, going back as far as the penny-farthing bicycle, and including an extremely rare Ariel car from the 1920s. Biggest news is that the heart-stopping Atom 4 continues to generate every bit of the demand it deserves. The works did shut down last year for a couple of months but everything has long been back in full swing as they build cars for a continuing backlog of lucky customers. Whether your car company is huge or tiny, the same rule seems to apply: great cars are the key to success.
*Friday*
I know we’re not supposed to talk motorbikes much, but I’ve never been able to believe that those who love cars won’t see some of the beauty of the best two-wheelers – notably, a BMW 1250GS we’ve borrowed for a while. It’s a so-called adventure bike that comes complete with electronic suspension (several riding regimes, plus automatic compensation if you take a pillion) and a magnificent 1250cc iteration of the traditional BMW flat-twin engine, this one with a top-end mechanism that selects different sets of cam profiles according to load. The result is a normally aspirated engine pumping out 110bhp per litre plus EV-level bottom-end torque and a power band of 6500rpm (beneath a 9000rpm redline). I keep thinking that, were I not already a bike lover, if I sampled an engine like this, I’d hotfoot myself to a licence.
*And another thing...*
Not our primary role to look back, but did you catch Mark Tisshaw’s interview with Lewis Hamilton, one of our principal Autocar Award winners this year? I’ve been visiting it again: you can find it here. I reckon it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done.
*READ MORE*
*Audi Q4 E-tron 40 2021 UK review *
*New 2023 Audi A4 range to be topped by electric and hybrid RS duo *
*Official: Audi to launch final combustion car in 2026*