Road Strikers

Back again, like Sylvester Stallone churning out another ill-advised boxing movie, it’s South Korea’s own square-jawed bruiser: the SsangYong Rexton W. After a nine-month sales hiatus in 2014 owing to the absence of an EU5 emissions-compliant engine, the seven-seat SUV has retuned. Facelifted lights and grilles sharpen the looks, it uses a new in-house engine, and still purports to offer all the utility of a Toyota Land Cruiser and the space of a Mercedes GL, for not much more than twenty grand. The Rexton W is a quintessential ‘lot of car for the money’ definition. But does cheap also equal cheerful? How much SsangYong Rexton W do I get for my money in 2014? The range starts at £21,995 (which gets you seven seats, all-wheel drive with locking differentials, and 265lb ft of grunt from the new 2.0-litre turbodiesel engine). If you need to conquer the Outback on a shoestring, this is one hell of a candidate. And what about this posher-looking test car? W...

‘Designed in the USA, built in Italy’ is perhaps not the most reassuring way Jeep could have introduced the new Renegade. This small SUV – and it is an SUV in the literal Sport Utility Vehicle sense, rather than some kind of new-fangled crossover – is the first fully cross-Atlantic product of the Fiat-Chrysler conglomeration. It is also the forthcoming Fiat 500X in the macho (ish) equivalent of drag, but that’s not to say it doesn’t offer chin-strokingly capable off-road potential. Particularly in this range-topping Trailhawk specification. Trailhawk? Sounds like some kind of country music prog rock horror show – what gives? Think the Panda 4x4 is a tenacious little terrier off-road? The Renegade Trailhawk takes small cars – ok, so not that small – into much more challenging territory, and comes back covered in mud and screaming for more. Sized (and probably priced) to take on Mini’s Countryman and the Skoda Yeti, if you ac...

With its faux-rally flared wheelarches, stubby nose complete with diamond-studded ‘Mount Fuji’ nose and hatch-mounted spare wheel, this new fourth-generation Shogun may look pretty much the same as before. But three-quarters of it is new, apparently. Like the new Outlander , it arrives here next March, and comes as a stretched five-door or short wheelbase three-door, running one engine – Mitsubishi’s familiar 3.2-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel. An opportunity to hike prices? No. There’s the familiar Equippe, Warrior and Elegance derivatives, and Mitsubishi will also introduce a topdog Diamond model, complete with big 20inch alloys, a lot of chrome and a different front grille. Despite these wholesale changes, prices remain unchanged, ranging from £22,949 for the three door entry-level Equippe to £34,999 for the new five-door Diamond. Expect the aggressive-looking long-wheelbase Warrior – the car we drove – to take the bulk of UK sa...

Ah yes, the Outlander, aka the C-Crosser and 4007… Yes indeed. Mitsubishi’s new Outlander, which arrives in the UK next March, is the perfect example of the interwoven intricacies of the current automotive market. It’s a soft-roader built on a platform jointly developed by Mitsubishi and DaimlerChrysler, powered by a Volkswagen-sourced diesel engine and a petrol unit co-developed with Hyundai, and both PSA Citroen and Peugeot will rebadge the Outlander to create their own versions, the C-Crosser and 4007. Expect a start price around the £19,500 mark for the entry-level Equippe, rising to around £25,000 for the top Elegance model. It’s a hell of a lot better looking compared to the outgoing model. True, the Outlander’s predecessor was the wallflower at the soft-roader ball, but the rakish and more aggressive new model should turn more heads. Mitsubishi is hoping for around 5600 sales in the first 12 months – around 10% of the UK’s mi...

Excuse me while I flick through the handbook. Let me see now – ah, yes, here we are: ‘off-road performance’. ‘The Shogun can tackle the most arduous off-road work with confidence,’ it says. Yes, that’s what I thought. ‘Every facet of the Shogun’s development is geared towards superior off-road performance.’ Pause for vigorous nodding. ‘It’s all but unstoppable!’ That’s right! So, why am I stuck? Let’s rewind. I’m off on a trip to a modestly slippery Welsh hillside and I need a proper, grown-up off-roader – a car whose toughness transcends the frippery of the term SUV. The Shogun! Although the Mk4 has been outside your school since 2006, they’ve fettled it for 2010, and this is our first taste: the long wheelbase, seven-seat, five-door Elegance model. The new car has lower CO2 emissions than any other car in its class (bar the X5), its 3.2-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel ultimately pu...

Should you even care about the new Mitsubishi Outlander? The new Outlander is based on the old model but has a revised diesel powerplant and new transmission that offers superb stats, while there’s loads more room and tech to go with it. It’s four-wheel drive and comes with a six-speed auto and seven seats. This is the top-of-the-line GX5, which costs £33,999 to make a slightly more than the flagship five-seat Honda CR-V and seven-seat Hyundai Santa Fe. Can it muster a genuine fight to its more popular rivals? So is just the old car with a new shell? That’d be selling it short. The slightly odd styling, which is a mix of curves and a slightly bulbous, almost Peugeot-like nose, is at odds against competition that’s tossed out the French Curves and relied on setsquares instead. It’s lost that jacked-up Lancer look of the previous model, with a stronger identity of its own, but underneath our test car is the old car’s platform meaning it has the ...

So the Mitsubishi ASX is one of those jumped-up supermini crossover jobs? Bang on. Its dimensions conform to the compact norm for this class and it’s priced from £14,999 to £23,899 (£22,499 for the 1.8-litre diesel with a manual gearbox as tested). Given the most divisive-looking machine in this segment, the Nissan Juke, starts much lower down the price ladder, at £13,195, the dull-looking ASX is already on the back foot. For the same outlay as your test car, you could bag a new Nissan Qashqai 1.6 DCI, albeit without our ASX’s all-wheel drive. It’s far from the funkiest little car in its class. Cars like these, if the popular Juke and Clio-overshadowing Captur are anything to go buy, sell on trendy looks. Small wonder Vauxhall predicts its Mokka crossover will be its third-best-selling model in 2014. These family-friendly fashion accessories need to stand out in a crowded marketplace – and the ASX doesn’t. Forget turning around to stu...