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  There is no need for a crossover SUV to have 402bhp, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t fun. The  Volvo C40 , despite its pseudo-coupé sloping roofline, isn’t meant to be a sports car. Volvo's Geely Group owner has Polestar and the likely upcoming O2 roadster for that. No, this is fundamentally an XC40 coupé. The big difference from the  Volvo XC40 , apart from its stockily muscular ‘coupé-SUV’ styling, is that it won’t be offered with any combustion engines. It rides on the same CMA platform as the XC40 and  Polestar 2  and is available with those models’ two pure-electric drivetrains. Since it is essentially an XC40 coupé, there’s no technical reason why it couldn’t have the XC40’s range of petrols and hybrids, but Volvo has chosen to position the C40 as the spearhead of its EV transformation, proudly proclaiming it’s the first Volvo in history designed as pure-electric only. That's not untrue, but it does make the C40 sound rather more momentous than it is. With identical moto

    Another compact-class value champion from ascendent budget brand Dacia, and this time a bit of a versatility champion too. The   Dacia Jogger   is a smallish estate-cum-seven-seat MPV; an indirect replacement for the old   Logan MCV   in a way, but done with much greater individuality and charm. We’ve already had a go in Europe , but with the UK launch of the car, Dacia has confirmed the numbers that matter most about it. They are £14,995 (the car’s scarcely believable entry-point showroom price) and £195 (the monthly outlay for which you can get one on a personal finance deal, after a deposit of… wait for it… £195). A car in this position doesn’t really need to be particularly well packaged, refined, versatile or nice to drive in order to find a receptive market; it probably just needs to exist. The Jogger, however, does quite a bit better than that. It’s ostensibly a 4.5m-long, seven-seat family car built on a supermini platform, which is why Dacia can make the numbers for it add

As  Ford  prepares to reinvent the Mustang coupé with a hybrid V8 and electrify its  Ford Puma ST  hot crossover, the manufacturer could soon bring back several other historic nameplates to its portfolio. Last year, Ford’s Europe design chief, Murat Gueler, told Autocar that reviving old monikers could be a shrewd marketing ploy for the firm.  Murat Gueler, told Autocar that reviving old monikers could be a shrewd marketing ploy for the firm. This could be a move purely to stop other companies using them and a spokesperson told Autocar that “the registration of intellectual property is not a signal for any future product plans”. But with a Europe-focused electric crossover on the way, sitting atop  Volkswagen ’s MEB platform and built at the same Cologne site that made the Capri, Granada and even Scorpio, Ford could look to spiritually link the newcomer with a successful ancestor. Gueler told Autocar last year: "The industry is in its craziest time ever since I joined 20 years ago