VAUXHALL MOKKA GSE

Hot EV's looks might not grab you but its specs sure will

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Well, this feels refreshingly old-school. There are lots of 'hot variant' things to say about the new Vauxhall Mokka GSE. (Standing for Grand Sport Electric, this is an initialism that Opel has used before and is a mashup of the old GSi and GTE badges previously applied to hot Vauxhalls.) It's a 277bhp performance version of the Mokka Electric, a tall hatchback thing, and a relatively compact one, at 4.15m long - albeit weighing 1597kg.

Front-wheel drive, the GSE comes on 20in alloys - and here begins that big old-school technical rundown.

It sits on 10mm-lower suspension than the standard Mokka Electric; spring rates are up 49% front and 35% rear; there's a Torsen locking front differential (with 36% lockup under acceleration and 34% under braking); and there's a new 30.8mm anti-roll bar for the torsion beam rear suspension, increasing rear roll stiffness by 189% and, combined with the front stiffening, increasing overall roll stiffness by 48%.

There are new knuckles on the MacPherson-strut front suspension too, albeit not like those 'Hiperstrut' ones the old Astra VXR used to reduce torque steer. They're just designed to be a bit lighter and create enough space for those big wheels to clear the lowered body while increasing Ackermann angle and letting the wheels turn far enough to retain a 10.41m turning circle.