What will the new baby Yamaha be like to drive?

If the Murray T25 is anything to go by, the new Yamaha Motiv will be deeply impressive.

When we drove the first Murray prototype a couple of years ago the lightness was almost the first thing you thought about.

The car zipped off the mark with remarkably little feeling of shifting mass to its unassisted steering seemed to deliver a degree of road feel that went out with the original Mini, its iLink strut-style independent rear suspension compensated nicely for a very short wheelbase and its puny-looking brakes were amazingly effective, because it the whole car simply wasn’t heavy.

Despite the lightness, the chassis seemed so rigid it might have been made of granite. There seems no reason why the Yamaha Motiv, refined and productionised by one of the world’s best makers of motorcycles, shouldn’t be a whole lot better.

Steve Cropley

Title: Editor-in-chief

Steve Cropley is the oldest of Autocar’s editorial team, or the most experienced if you want to be polite about it. He joined over 30 years ago, and has driven many cars and interviewed many people in half a century in the business.

Cropley, who regards himself as the magazine’s “long stop”, has seen many changes since Autocar was a print-only affair, but claims that in such a fast moving environment he has little appetite for looking back.

He has been surprised and delighted by the generous reception afforded the My Week In Cars podcast he makes with long suffering colleague Matt Prior, and calls it the most enjoyable part of his working week.