There’s so much to say about the new Hybrid version of Porsche’s most controversial car that a review could easily fill the whole Internet. Nobody would read it to the end, nobody would gain anything from it and we’d have wasted our time. So, to avoid the bother and prove that no car review needs to be longer than 500 words, this one’s 499.

To address the fact that the old Cayenne was too heavy, too ugly and too poorly furnished, Porsche have released a new model that’s up to 180kg lighter, much sleeker to look at and infinitely posher to sit in. And to address the fact that it was a total bastard to the environment, they’ve made a Hybrid version. Sounds perfect.

But it’s not – there are two big problems. First, it’s the least satisfying model to drive. And second, despite the 3.0l supercharged V6 engine being the smallest in the range, and despite it being assisted by a 34kw electric motor and hybrid drivetrain, it’s actually less economical than the Cayenne Diesel. Oh, and at £57k it’s also £13k more expensive than the Diesel. So the Hybrid’s pointless. Right?

Well yes. But also no. Just like every hybrid, it depends on where you drive it.

On roads where other Porsches shine, the Cayenne is flawed. Not because it’s the heaviest model, or because it’s the only one with electric rather than hydraulic power steering – what really sucks enjoyment out of the Cayenne Hybrid is the droning engine note and the distracting commotion of hybrid electronics you can feel through the brakes and throttle.

Brush the brake pedal lightly and it seems to slow through magnetic resistance instead of friction; press harder and only a greater sense of deceleration makes you believe the actual brake discs are doing anything. A similarly numb inconsistency affects the throttle, but is less severe. The engine can go from purely turning the wheels, to charging the battery while turning the wheels, to being switched off totally if you’re coasting, to working at maximum power with electric assistance… all with one flex of the right ankle. The motor swapping is masked well, but never totally disguised.

Yet all that’s forgiven when you get into traffic and drive around on electro-juice alone. Like a Prius, the Cayenne has a parallel Hybrid system in which some MENSA powered clutches allow the electric motor to turn the wheels without turning the engine as a slave and therefore wasting energy.

So while its combined economy of 34mpg is worse than the Diesel’s 38, and its 193g/km CO2 figure only 2g better, the Hybrid gets better as the traffic gets thicker; the slower you go, the more chance you have of running without using any fuel. Press the E-Power button and the car will propel you for as long as possible on electricity alone. With suitably gentle driving across a city, we covered 1.1 miles without a spark plug firing once. On one gentle journey, we even hit 38.7mpg at an average speed of 15mph. You wouldn’t get that in a diesel. Or in a Fiesta for that matter.

So the Hybrid lacks the dynamics and mechanical intuition that Porschefiles get clammy over, but has the talent, badges and technology to give City types something to boast about. In the end then, it’s not actually that different from any other Cayenne.

Oakley Hoodie

In a couple of weeks, the Range Rover will be forty years old. Through four decades of technological progress, it’s not only become the best off-roader in the muck, but the best off-roader on the road. It had coil springs, on and off-road ABS, driver and passenger air bags, self levelling suspension and electronic air suspension before any other SUV.

But the Rangie’s muddy-time tech innovations aren’t the only factors in its success. There’s also the bling… and nothing says bling like over-guilded, diamante encrusted headlight jewellery. So to celebrate the fact that Range Rover can make cars for crystal fingered footballers without annoying the hard-working farmers, here’s a chronology of Range Rover headlights – from the soft Halogen of a 1970 Classic to the LED and Xenon pierce of a facelifted L322. You can click it to make it bigger.

Now shut your eyes, blow out the twinkling LED candles, and wish for another 40 years of Range Rovers that satisfy tarty taste without sacrificing mud-munching prowess. Happy Birthday Range Rover – and never forget that farmers are more important than footballers.

Matalan Beachwear

Organic Veal

Knuckle Shuffle

The previous Sorento always seemed at its most comfortable with a Border Collie on the back seat, some wellies in the footwell and a small cottage connected to the towbar. With a body-on-frame chassis, low transfer box and live rear axle, it was a farmers’ weapon that shifted nearly a million units across the world.

Which makes the new Sorento a brave move by Kia – because with a monocoque chassis and independent suspension, it’s completely different. More for Mrs Farmer and the family than Mr Farmer himself.

Happily for Mrs Farmer, Sorento mk2 is also very good. The hero is Kia’s brand new, 194bhp 2.2CRDi engine – especially when hooked up to the smooth £1300 6-speed auto box. Spinning between 1800 and 2500rpm, peak torque of 311lb ft is maintained quietly with the box shuffling through ratios without bother. Bumble around in this comfort zone and the Sorento’s 38mpg combined figure isn’t out of reach either. A good engine.

And Mrs Farmer won’t complain when she encounters her first corner. Body roll is kept to a minimum, the steering has a consistent and natural feel from its hydraulic assistance and there’s more than enough grip and stability to stand up to any emergency sheep avoidance routines. A slightly over-firm ride is the trade-off for making a 1.8 tonne SUV corner without drama – but it’s not a deal breaker.

Nor is the interior. All but the base £20,495 2.4 litre petrol (which is next to pointless) have 7 seats, with a rear pair that are big enough to transport children with limbs, but small enough to use as a method of punishment if they get lippy. Pay £25,495 for the mid-spec KX-2 trim and you get leather, climate control, rear parking sensors and cruise control – it all contributes to an ambience that Mrs Farmer might feel is too push for her husband. Best not tell him that even her new Sorento has actually got a pretty handy 4×4 transmission then.

Perhaps the interior plastics are a little brittle, and perhaps the price looks strong next to a £24k Nissan Qashqai+2 with similar spec – but there’s no escaping from the fact that Mrs Farmer’s new Sorento is a much smarter car than Mr Farmer’s old one.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Porsche unveiled the new Cayenne which is now available with a £57k, 375bhp, 34.4mpg V6 petrol hybrid. Alfa Romeo released more pictures of the facially challenged Giullietta which we still can’t spell. And the Government announced a £230m scheme that will give people a 25% discount, up to a max of £5k, if they buy an electric, hydrogen or plug-in hybrid car.

After yesterday’s jubilation of GM securing the future of Saab by selling it to Spyker, the American giant announced they are going to close Hummer leading to the loss of over 3,000 jobs. GM have been trying to shift the SUV brand to Chinese company Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, who’s name is as economical with words as Hummers are with fuel, but the sale has fallen through. GM will honour warranties and continue to provide spare parts for current cars.

The failure of the $150m deal is due the Chinese Government’s reluctance to approve the sale, probably due to the fact that they didn’t really fancy idea of appearing to condone cars that can’t crack 15mpg. Not good for the international street cred you see… there’s an irony there somewhere.

Look on the bright side though – in a world of averages, Hummer’s death means we can all drive a faster, more polluting car without any ill effect. If anyone ever accuses you of being blase towards the environment as you rag your V12 Vantage, just say you’re restoring the Hummer equilibrium. Call it a kind of automotive altruistic utilitarianism. You’ll be gone before they realise what the hell you’re on about.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Porsche released some info on the new Panamera V6 – it’ll have 296bhp, 296lb ft of torque, be good for 30.4mpg combined and cost £61k. Toyota announced a face-job for their Rav4, which will be shown at Geneva. And BMW tweaked the M3, adding stop-start and an optional Competition Pack which lowers it 10mm and offers tweaked eletronic stability control settings.

The Citroen C-Crosser is a 7 seat, diesel only, 40mpg, fairly massive 4×4 that in Exclusive trim costs £27k. It will appeal to folk who live in the country with children who occasionally bring their mates home. Families who can afford a new car, but struggle to justify spending over £30k on a Discovery. Pleasant humans who want something that can deal with the pitted, muddy track to the stable without bottoming out. It will make these people very happy. As a sensible, rugged, reasonably affordable family car with a couple of spare seats in the back, it’s good. Very good.

It’s good at doing stuff it doesn’t need to bother with too. Like going round corners. We spent a whole weekend driving it round the Cotswolds, and on more than one occasion deliberately drove straight back where we’d come from just for the hell of it. Obviously, the C-Crosser is no Saxo VTS – there’ll certainly be no inside wheel cocking, lift-off oversteer or hairpin handbraking. But, considering it weighs 1750kg and takes 11 secs to get to 62mph, its fleet footed bend taking ability is a gentle shock, especially given that the ride is still perfectly composed and comfortable.

Perhaps a Mazda CX-7 feels tighter, and perhaps a BMW X1 is quicker to change direction – but the C-Crosser has a more fluid, better-resolved ability to manage both bumps and corners simultaneously, shrinking around you and being easy to place on the road. The similarly priced Mazda and BMW don’t have 7 seats either. It’s not supernaturally good, just much better than it has any right to be. You can enjoy it.

Some of the fun can be attributed to the new ‘DCS’ double clutch gearbox, a £1200 option. Snicking it across to manual and using the massive wheel mounted paddles adds to the involving nature of the chassis. And, if we’re being picky, this also avoids the auto mode’s occasional tendency to languish in an optimistically high gear, below where the peak 200lb ft of torque steps in at 2,000rpm. The only other downside to the DCS is an environmental one – figures of 38.7mpg and 192g/km of CO2 aren’t as pleasant as the manual’s 40.4mpg and 185g. No biggy though… the smooth auto changes help the big Citroen’s refinement.

The C-Crosser’s other bonus feature is a usefully robust 4wd system. A dial lets you choose between FWD, occasional 4WD if the fronts lose grip, or locked 4WD. Admittedly, we didn’t blat up any mountains to test it to the limits, but over rough, slippy, pitted dirt tracks where the back wheels were at least being called into action, the C-Crosser felt perfectly happy acting agriculturally. Seeing as it’s been co-developed with Mitsubishi (who rebadge it and sell it as an Outlander), this impression should at least have some objective backing – they’re pretty handy at the 4×4 business.

It’s only when you stop moving and look around the interior that negativity starts to creep in. The heating dials feel flimsy, with materials that are bettered by the new C3, which costs £10k less. The £1690 optional sat nav has the iffy ergonomics you’d find in an aftermarket Halfords job – and like too many factory fit sat navs, you can’t change the CD track or radio station if you’re using the navigation. The rear seats are only very temporary too. But that’s about it. The C-Crosser is a surprising car… not just because of how well it achieves what it set out to, but because it offers much more than you’d expect.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Today, many cars were revealed. Nissan thrust their striking Yeti rivalling crossover upon us. VW showed off the new Touareg – now with a 34mpg, 375bhp hybrid that can run on just electricity. Kia bandied around their plug-in hybrid Ray concept, which hints at what a Kia Prius rival would be like. And Audi unveiled official pics of their new A1.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Mercedes announced that their Ferrari 458 Italia rivalling SLS AMG will cost £157,500 when it goes on sale in the UK in July. Porsche released a new £123k 911 Turbo S that’s got 523bhp – 20bhp more than a standard Turbo. And BMW gave the X5 a gentle face-job, improving power and economy and fitting an 8-speed auto as standard.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Mini released pictures of their ‘Beachcomber’ concept car, hinting at what the 2010 Mini Countryman would look like if it didn’t have any doors – i.e. slightly daft. Bugatti showed off three largely irrelevant Veyron special editions, which they will only sell in the Middle East. And Donato Coco, previously the design boss of Ferrari, joined Lotus as Director of Design.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Renault owned Romanian budget-meisters Dacia unveiled their new and erotically utilitarian Duster – a Yeti sized wagon that might yet come to the UK. A group of old Ford executives put together a bid to buy Volvo, rivalling current favourite purchaser Geely. And news of another wrecked supercar did the rounds, as some chap stuffed his Zonda in Hong Kong.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Mitsubishi revealed their brand new RVR crossover, which will go on sale in summer 2010. Audi chairman Rupert Stadler confirmed that the R8 shaped electric e-tron will go on sale (at least in some form) in 2012, hopefully still with 3319lb ft of torque. And Nissan confirmed a hardcore V-Spec GT-R will come to Europe… but only 40 of them.

Remove your off-road hate veils readers – here’s an SUV that’s trying to be nice! Meet the Volvo XC60 DRIVe – a cheaper version of Volvo’s 4×4 that’s turned environ-mental! A green-leaning SUV? It’s even more deceptive than Derren Brown’s monthly murder mystery night!

So let’s play the murder mystery! What’s the crime and who’s the killer? Here’s the crime! Compared to a standard XC60 with the same diesel engine, it does 6mpg more and produces 24g CO2 less! Yes! From the same engine! So who’s the emission murderer?

The culprits are easy to find! A green-tinged ECU, longer legged gears and a torque-twiddled turbo all look guilty on a spec sheet! And there’s 30bhp less than the standard car! They’re certainly accessories to murder! But 47.1mpg and 159g CO2? Emission killers like that are used elsewhere and never have such a massive effect! We need to look deeper!

Is it whooshy aerodynamics? No! Is it slippy gearbox oil? No! Is it a rear diffuser on the edge of regulations? No! Think it’s getting hard to find the murderer? Don’t!

Sorry Derren, but we’ve got it! The Volvo XC60 DRIVe isn’t actually a 4×4! You’re no better at hiding emission murderers than you are at tricking casinos! Pulling out of a greasy junction will betray the criminal! Slippy, trampy, juddery cack wheelspin! That’s our emission killer! The 2WD transmission – it’s going straight to Derren’s imaginary mind trick goatie jail!

So, has the emission killing 2WD criminal made the XC60 DRIVe a worse car? The answer is the same as the answer to ‘is Derren Brown’s murder mystery night actually fun?’! It’s a no! The DRIVe is the best XC60 on sale! It still lollops with a blandly decent gait – but Derren’s DRIVe is £2k cheaper than the rest! £25,395! It might slip its front wheels more, but just like Derren, nobody really cares!

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Hyundai unveiled a facelifted Santa Fe SUV with a better engine, less enviro-poison and a lower price – starting at £21,495. Peugeot confirmed that they’ll join Citroen in releasing an electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV clone next year, which they’ll call the iOn. And a Spanish newspaper said that Schumacher won’t be advising Ferrari F1 next year. It was a slow news day.

Hadrian’s Wall

What a kerfuffle. Read the opening paragraph of any magazine’s 5 Series GT review and you’ll be caught in a whirlwind of words, all trying to place the car in BMW’s line-up. It ends up looking like a dyslexic teacher’s algebra lesson; 5 X6 + 7 X5 = 5GT – algebra never made any sense anyway. To avoid the mess of crossed over algebraic niching, we’re going to take a step back and compare it to the benchmark of all things 5 Series – the E39, or ‘the old shape’ 5 Series. From back when 5 = all rounder.

Because it’s a BMW, we’ll start with the driving. The E39 is silent and serene when you want it to be, but will happily hussle if the needs arise. Which is exactly what the 5GT does, but better. In our 530d GT, the sense of occasion and level of pampering is sublime – more softly sprung than a normal 5 Series, with finger-light steering and a speak-when-spoken-to engine.

But stamp on its foot, and the 241bhp diesel romps away with a new personality – the steering weights up, the body sits down and the two tonne package shrinks to fit. Perhaps having active steering, Dynamic Drive Control and five clutches is cheating next to the E39’s simple engineering, but it works. A current 5 Series can feel brittle, one dimensional and insubstantial in comparison.

Inside, it gets better. Our E39 is only 9 years older than the GT, but the presence of wood on the dash knocks it into a different era – the GT is ice-cool sci-fi in comparison. It might lack the last nuances of twinkly ambience you get in a 7 Series, but you’ll never feel mis-treated.

There’s no pressure to set the seat to the lowest position and put the wheel in your lap – unlike the normal 5, the GT has no interest in wanting to be treated like a Z4. Much like the chassis, it’s an all-rounder first and sports-saloon second.

It moulds into harmony on the motorway – 5 Series home ground. The diesel produces its massive 398lb ft of torque far out front, the wheels put it down somewhere below, and you sit cocooned in the middle, wondering how you’re leading the fast lane at only 2,000rpm. Yet despite the mechanics of driving being more distant than a normal 5, it’s no less involving – you can tune into the dynamics, or ignore them. It’s up to you.

So the 5 GT is actually very easy to justify – it’s the spiritual replacement to the E39; wafty but agile, big but snug, powerful but smooth. At £40k it might be pricey, and it might occasionally slip into a lumpy, lurchy habit in the worst city scenarios, but other than that, it’s exactly what a 5 Series should be.

We vote the GT badge is removed and this is known as the real successor to the E39 – the current E60 can be badged up as some sort of low down, stripped out 5-Series CSL. Stick that up your algebraic pigeonhole.