BBC Top Gear Magazine - April 2023

PUROSANGUE DRIVEN! WE TEST FERRARI’S DEFINITELY-NOT-AN-SUV*

CHRIS

“Potentiallythegreatesthypercarevermade...”

JAZZMASTER PERFORMER

GET YOUR FIX

There’s more than one way to consume the world’s best car content

Editor

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com

MAGAZINE

Order a copy at MagsDirect.co.uk

SUBSCRIPTION OFFER buysubscriptions.com/TGSP3M

Hypercars and F1 have a lot in common. Nope, not the tech drip manufacturers insist their latest hyperthing is riddled with, but because the hype, anticipation and web of stories and scenarios before a new season or car launch is often more interesting than the driving itself.

A line in Chris’ Valkyrie piece stopped me in my tracks: “It could be argued that these cars are better left as static objects and maybe demonstrated by others so we can all hear them and see them scream past.” A dedicated driver to parade your £2.5m purchase in front of you so you can revel in its beauty and aural firepower without sacrificing your spine and eardrums? Now there’s a hell of an optional extra.

Don’t get me wrong, my enthusiasm for the Valkyrie’s double concentrated insanity isn’t dampened, I’m still itching to have a go, to spend some proper time in its formidable presence and tick it off the bucket list, but as you’ll learn on page 54, driving one isn’t the transcendental experience we’d hoped. And we can’t be accused of not being thorough – both Ollie and Chris went to Bahrain to test it on road, circuit and in ‘standard’ and track-only AMR Pro guise. But the truth is, as hypercars become ever more technical exercises that need to elevate themselves above the realm of mere supercars with more power, more downforce, more electronic trickery and more fantastical materials and methods, they might be moving further, not closer, to the keystone for all great performance cars. From an Up GTI to a Valkyrie, they should be fun to drive first, not just physically abusive.

I had the immense privilege of meeting Adrian Newey in his office at the Red Bull technical centre in the summer of 2017, when the Valk’s form was first revealed and he was still very much the driving force behind the project. After charting the car’s back story from out of hours sketching in his garage to partnering up with Aston, he insisted the end product would need to be “tractable” on the road. “If it’s simply a racing car on the road and feels as such, I’d view that as a failure.” It also needed to be capable of extreme performance, and be small, light (he called the McLaren P1, LaFerrari and Porsche 918 “big, clumsy and heavy”) and intimidating, like the very fastest superbikes. It also needed to be, in his words, “a piece of art.” Perhaps one day I can sit down with him again and get his take on how many of those goals have been met. Enjoy the issue,

DOWNLOAD

The TopGear app from your App Store

WEBSITE

Vi it topgear.com for your rolling hit of news, reviews, entertainment and advice

YOUTUBE Subscribe to the TopGear YouTube channel to watch the best car videos on the planet

PODCAST Visit topgear.com to download the TopGear podcast

@topgear facebook.com/topgear @BBC_TopGear

“HYPERCARS SHOULD BE FUN TO DRIVE FIRST, NOT JUST PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE”

POWER. DRIVEN.

HEAD OF CAR TESTING Oliver Marriage

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Tom Ford

CONSULTANT EDITOR Paul Horrell

EDITOR AT LARGE Jason Barlow

US CORRESPONDENT Pat Devereux

SENIOR ROAD TEST EDITOR Ollie Kew

CAR REVIEWS EDITOR Joe Holding

STAFF WRITER Greg Potts

BRAND MANAGING EDITOR Esther Neve

SUB-EDITORS Sam Burnett, Peter Rawlins

EDITOR, TOPGEAR.COM Vijay Pattni

WEB WRITER Cat Dow

WEB PRODUCER Katie Potts

HEAD OF DIGITAL PUBLISHING Chris Mooney

HEAD OF CONTENT STRATEGY Rowan Horncastle

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Simon Bond

ART TEAM

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Andy Franklin ART EDITOR Elliott Webb

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Mike Channell, Chris Harris, Richard Holt, Sam Philip

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Lee Brimble, Mark Fagelson, Jonny Fleetwood, Wilson Hennessy, Rowan Horncastle, Alex Howe, Jamie Lipman, Dennis Noten, Richard Pardon, Mark Riccioni, Philipp Rupprecht, John Wycherley

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Jason Elson

HEAD OF CLIENTS AND STRATEGY Phil Holland

SENIOR BRAND EXEC, CLIENTS AND STRATEGY Kit Brough

HEAD OF AGENCY TRADING Simon Fulton

HEAD OF DIGITAL INVESTMENT Dan Hellens

PARTNERSHIPS MANAGER Liam Kennedy

REGIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Richard Burns

CLASSIFIED SALES EXECUTIVE James Allen

INSERTS SALES EXECUTIVE James Law-Smith

DIGITAL SALES PLANNER Isabel Burman

DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL LICENSING AND SYNDICATION Tim Hudson INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS MANAGER Molly Hope-Seton SYNDICATION MANAGER Richard Bentley

PRODUCTION MANAGER Katie Panayi

GROUP PRODUCTION MANAGER Jo Beattie

PRODUCTION & REPRO DIRECTOR Koli Pickersgill CIRCULATION MANAGER Gareth Viggers

MARKETING MANAGER Laura Connaughton DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL, LICENSING & TOPGEAR MAGAZINE Tim Hudson

OF PARTNERS, BRAND MANAGEMENT & ETHICAL COMPLIANCE Molly Hope-Seton

DIRECTOR, SUPPLY CHAIN & LICENSING Alfie Lewis EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN Tom Bureau

AD SERVICES MANAGER Eleanor Parkman-Eason

AD SERVICES COORDINATORS Cherine Araman

INSERT SERVICES COORDINATOR Agata Wszeborowska

PRODUCTION & AD SERVICES DIRECTOR Sharon Thompson

HEAD OF LICENSING Tom Shaw HEAD OF SYNDICATION Richard Bentley IM COO & CFO Dan Constanda

GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR Stephen Lavin

FINANCE MANAGER Hari Kannapiran

JUNIOR MGNT ACCOUNTANT Ben Simmons

BBC STUDIOS, UK PUBLISHING

DIRECTOR, MAGAZINES AND CONSUMER PRODUCTS Mandy Thwaites

ASSISTANT PROJECT MANAGER Eva Abramik

MD, CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND LICENSING Stephen Davies

CHAIR, EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARDS Nicholas Brett

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Naomi Carter, Jane Lush, Clare Mottershead, Alex Renton, Charlotte Stockting

COMPLIANCE MANAGER Cameron McEwan ©

£49.99

CONTENTS

ISSUE 370 / APRIL 2023

054

ASTON VALKYRIE

At long last Aston’s F1 car for the road has landed Worth the wait? Chris Harris and Ollie Marriage drive the world’s wildest hypercar on road and track

074

BARRETT-JACKSON

Forget your fancy Bonhams or RM Sotheby’s, Barrett-Jackson is part auction part carnival We head to Arizona to soak it all in

082 FERRARI PUROSANGUE

Remember when Ferrari said it would never build an SUV? Well it still insists that its new four-seat, four-door, high-riding Purosangue isn’t one

094

JAPAN ROAD RACERS

The Japanese absolutely love a road-going racecar But why? Mark Riccioni takes a deep dive into a car scene without logic

104 ROLLS-ROYCE SPECTRE

The all-electric Roller is here – well, almost here Jason Barlow goes for an early glide in a pre-production Spectre in South Africa

F1 PREDICTIONS · KONA ELECTRIC · PLAYLIST

We look ahead to the new F1 season, reveal a l you need to know about the new Kona EV and showcase our most popular vids from the past month

010

054

082

094

FAMILY EVs · GT TROFEO · CAYENNE VS URUS

It’s Toyota BZ4X vs Nissan Ariya vs Kia EV6 for best electric fami y runaround plus Lambo Urus Perf vs Porsche Cayenne GT

036

074

FORD IN FORMULA ONE · RICCI’S GARAGE

Ford returns to F1 in 2026 – we look back on its history in the sport Plus Mark s Brabus W126 needs an eng ne conversion 111

ORA FUNKY CAT · DS 4 · VOLVO XC40 RECHARGE

We welcome the Ora Funky Cat and DS 4, plus extended roadtrips in the Volvo XC40 Mazda CX-60 and Renault Megane 123

Most likely to deny Max Verstappen a title hat trick?

LEWIS HAMILTON

Red Bull’s punishment for breaking the cost cap in 2021 is less wind tunnel time in 2023 Mercedes has apparently cracked its porpoising woes George Russell beat Lewis last year because he’s ace at dragging the best from a bad car, but in 2023 we reckon Hamilton will come out swinging for a deserved eighth title

EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

F1’S RETURN

Remember that Netflix soap opera where some cars occasionally race each other? Well, it’s time for a new season, and TopGear is making some bold predictions...

Least likely to be on speaking terms by the summer break?

FERNANDO ALONSO & LAWRENCE STROLL

A notoriously sensitive veteran world champion has gone to work for a notoriously sensitive billionaire bankrolling an underperforming team And his son just so happens to be the other driver Aston Martin’s not going to be a happy camp

Most likely to stab their teammate in the back?

SERGIO PEREZ

The Mexican did his best to be a dream wingman during the sharp end of the last two title fights, but Verstappen’s pettiness over Sergio’s Monaco quali spin led to bad blood in ’22, costing Checo second place Revenge is best served with guacamole

Most likely to struggle to fill a DTS episode?

ALFA ROMEO

Same nice but unmemorable driver line-up at Alfa, which has – brace yourselves –gone with black n red instead of white on this year’s livery It’s officially morphing into Audi F1 in 2026, which is when the team becomes interesting

Most likely to become a meme?

FRENCH CIVIL WAR AT ALPINE

Allegedly, Alpine’s all-French pairing of Esteban Ocon and ex-AlphaTauri man

Pierre Gasly don’t get along brilliantly Both have one F1 win in their career, and something to prove as they try to escape the onset of midfield malaise

Weekends not to miss?

SILVERSTONE, INTERLAGOS, CANADA

Forget the Vegas and Miami razzmatazz

The best F1 events are the ones that combine overtaking hungry old tracks and raucous fans Last year’s British Grand Prix was a season highlight, and the Brits will be quicker this year, while Canada rarely avoids serving up a classic race

Most likely to be grounded and banned from their PlayStations?

LANDO NORRIS & OSCAR PIASTRI

McLaren’s nomex-clad toddlers have a score to settle Norris has only had to see off an ailing Danny Ricciardo so far Aussie Piastri mugged off Alpine to sign for Woking Both have stellar potential, but we expect tears before bedtime

Most likely to have a strategy meltdown?

FERRARI

King of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Ferrari’s insane tyre calls, bungled pit stops and team boss revolving door have left it incapable of stringing together a title run Can ex-Alfa boss Fred Vasseur change that? Last time Ferrari was led by a Frenchman, it won five world titles

Least likely to retain any credibility whatsoever?

THE FIA

The season hasn’t even begun and already the sport’s governing body is mired in mayhem, with barely-past-his-probation president Mohammed Ben Sulayem ‘stepping back’ from F1 involvement due to bizarre tweets and personal scandals

Weekends to spend in the garden?

SPAIN, MONACO, QATAR

The new regs haven’t made Catalunya a decent track The cars are far too big for Monaco, and there are now more forgettable Middle Eastern barrierdrome snoozefests on the calendar than restraining orders against Jos Verstappen Do yourself a favour and get some fresh air

COFFEE BREAK

What we’re watching/ listening/doing, while we should be working

FIAT 124 SPIDER

Picture the scene. A two-seat, rear-drive Italian roadster on a sinuous Amalfi coast road. Roof down, Champions League theme on the stereo, bowl of piping spaghetti alla vongole in your lap. What could be finer?

In the case of the Fiat 124 Spider, quite a lot. There’s nothing like a truly great Italian sports car, and the 124 Spider was indeed nothing like a truly great Italian sports car.

The fact it was based (heavily, heavily based) on the lovely Mazda MX-5 wasn’t really the issue, even if Fiat should have tried a bit harder than simply Ctrl+C/Ctrl+Ving the MX-5’s interior wholesale. After all, Italy has a grand history of taking a tried-and-tested donor car and... Italianifying it with prettier bodywork, rortier engines and sharper handling.

But Fiat didn’t take the MX-5 and make it prettier, rortier and sharper. Instead, it gave it lumpier bodywork, wheezier turbo engines, slightly soggier handling, and a heftier price tag. The fruitier Abarth version did a little for the 124’s driving manners, but nothing for the heavy chinned looks. Or indeed the price tag.

TopGear magazine fix

You can download the latest edition and back issues direct to your phone or tablet from the App Store. Because when life gives you lemons... settle in and read TG

In four years on sale in the UK, Fiat sold about 3,000 124 Spiders, with the Abarth version adding – when rounded to the nearest hundred sales – ‘basically none’. In the same period, Mazda shifted five times as many MX-5s. You can keep your spaghetti alla vongole, Fiat, because Britain’s having ramen.

95th

PUFF PIECE

Moncler and Mercedes team up to create...

Mercedes-Benz has revealed the latest must-have accessory to help G-Class owners keep their 4x4s warm in these cold, dark times: a puffer jacket. Specifically, a puffer jacket made by Moncler.

Welcome to Project Mondo G, officially designated an ‘art piece’ that debuted at London Fashion Week, presented in “an imaginary universe with low gravity”.

We’re told the addition of Moncler’s “style defining” puffer jacket atop the G-Class allows for a delightful contrast: the sharp, decades-old look of the iconic G-Wagen mixed with soft, quilted textiles contributing to something that’s not far off a moon buggy.

ALPINA XB7

Being refined is not easy with an Alpina – blue special paint with 23in forged wheels and a black tailpipe is the best you’ll get, but you’ll pay £7,365 for the subtlety. Gold lettering and sludge colour paint are no cost options Curious

There’s a fair chunk of DesignSpeak at play here, suffice it to say the final piece weighs 2.5 tonnes and measures in at 3.4m wide with those moon buggy wheels. That’s nearly two Range Rover’s worth of wideness.

We’re told there’s a “rough patina” on the Benz showing use, contrasted against the reflective surfaces of the puffer jacket, and there’s strong mention of The Zipper, a “practical reference to the versatility of both products”. Be afraid of The Zipper.

Here’s hoping this kicks off a new series of the iconic 4x4 wearing exaggerated items of clothing, because we desperately need to see the G-Class gilet. Or would that be G-let?

well, this

Procrastination ahoy! Six videos worth watching on the web this month

CHRIS HARRIS DRIVES... THE VALKYRIE

We’ve finally got our mitts on the most extreme Aston ever Hell, probably the most extreme car ever made Harris grapples with ‘standard’ and track-only AMR Pro versions in Bahrain Ear defenders required

FERRARI PUROSANGUE vs THE DOLOMITES

If it looks like an SUV and quacks like an SUV, is it an SUV? Who cares! The Purosangue might be the most polarising Ferrari for a generation, but it’s got a huge V12 and kept us the right way up in a blizzard Success!

FASTXTRAILER

There’s proper old school street racing in the trailer for the new F&F film, with Jason Momoa’s villain in a Chevy Impala going head-to-head with Dominic Toretto in his classic Dodge Charger Ride or die is back, folks

ARE PEUGEOTS TOO WEIRD FOR JAPAN?

The Peugeot 308 is a good car, it’s got intriguing looks, is practical and drives well But that doesn’t make it a great. To try to find out why, Tom Ford went to Japan in search of a certain je ne sais quoi

TOURING SINGER’S NEW FACTORY

Purveyor of the world’s most achingly gorgeous reimagined 911s has moved house to a new, shinier, 115,000 sq ft facility in Torrance, California Ollie Marriage was in town, so popped in for a poke around.

RANGE ROVER STORMER REVOLUTION

In 2004 Land Rover did something it’d never done in its 56-year history: a concept car It was called the Range Rover Stormer – a Lambo-doored RR coupe and it started a movement. Jason Barlow tells its story.

WATCHES

DO THE ROBOT

The internet loves a robot video. They walk, talk – some even dance and do a spot of parkour. Very entertaining. But you can’t help feeling that by this stage we’d be a bit further down the line. Take the car as an example: in 1886, you could outrun Carl Benz’s three-wheeler on foot; a century later we had the Porsche 959.

If robots had improved at this pace, they’d be moving among us undetected by now because we have been trying to make automated humans for literally thousands of years – with many of the early attempts by clock and watchmakers. In the 3rd century BC, a Greek inventor called Tesibius made a water clock that was the most accurate way of measuring time until the advent of the pendulum clock in the 17th century. He also created automata for fun, like a statue that could stand up and sit down.

A 12th-century Mesopotamian scholar called Ismail al-Jazari made more advances in clockmaking and proto-robotics, even combining both with a water clock complete with little figures playing drums and cymbals. He also made a robot waitress that could pour drinks. If that is not enough clever stuff for one person, he is also credited with inventing the camshaft, which went on to prove fairly useful.

The relation between clocks and mechanical figures continued into the modern era. In the 18th century a Swiss watchmaker called Pierre Jaquet-Droz created automata as toys for the well-heeled. His creations, still found in museums today, include The Writer, a small boy at a desk programmed to write up to 40 letters with an ink pen. The mechanism worked along the same principles as a clock, with ratchets, gear wheels and mainsprings, but its programmable nature makes this slightly spooky robot a forerunner to the computer.

The future of robots no longer lies with watchmakers, of course. It is now the business of Silicon Valley, not the Swiss mountains. Sadly the robots on YouTube look like they are stuck in the expensive prototype stage for now. So dreams of a lifelike droid in every home looks like staying in the realm of science fiction for some years to come. In the meantime, thankfully, there are plenty of robot-themed watches to choose from, available to suit all budgets.

Clockmaking and robotics have more in common than you’d think...

UNDER £300

If the scientists are not going to hurry up and invent proper humanoid companions, at least we have Star Wars. Citizen does Darth Vader and Chewbacca watches, among others, but none captures the face quite as well as the gleaming C-3PO. It has a quartz movement, so is not a piece of high watchmaking, but at around £300 it is not a novelty piece either, with a well-made chronograph movement operated by the gold horns at the top of the classically styled 38mm stainless steel case. The clincher: C-3PO’s eyes glow in the dark. Splash resistant. £279; citizenwatch.co.uk

AROUND £300

This piece from a small independent London firm was designed by pinball-loving cartoonist Ryan Claytor. The artwork is generally functional – in this watch the time is told via the pinball scoreboard. It has an automatic movement and 37mm stainless steel case. Also, it’s water resistant to 50m. £325; mrjoneswatches.com

UNDER

This Czech firm is so pro-robot that it looked no further for a name. This model pays tribute to 20th century Czech graphic designer Ladislav Sutnar. It has a manual-wind mechanical movement with 65-hour power reserve, a 42mm black PVD-coated stainless steel case and is water resistant to 50m. £2,877; robot-watch.com

The inventor of many 18th century automata (see opposite) lives on in the watch company Jaquet Droz, and the Swiss firm plays heavily on the robotic history. This skull-themed tourbillon model has a 41mm red gold case and an automatic movement with seven-day power reserve. £POA; Jaquet-droz.com

MY LIFE IN CARS PHIL

TUFNELL

PHIL’S DREAM GARAGE

What’s next on the TV star’s wishlist?

Ialways loved cars growing up. I had pictures on the walls, you know, the usual stuff. My father had a Ford Cortina estate that he used to let me drive a bit. He needed an estate because he was a silversmith. It was red with a go-faster stripe down the side.

My parents had Volvos after that. I got given my mum’s after I passed my test and I put a load of speakers in the back. I was 17 years old. I passed first time after about five lessons, although I think that was in the days of just having to read a numberplate from 30 yards and then looking at a sign with a train on and explaining what it meant. That was the extent of the Highway Code back then.

The first car I bought was a Ford Cortina Ghia with a black vinyl roof. It was cracking. I put in all the speakers and things again. A few of my mates would modify their cars – put an extra carb on them or stick a pair of Wolfrace wheels on, but mine was pretty standard.

After that I had a beautiful black E30 BMW 325i Convertible, which I’d love now actually. That was a great car –

probably one of my favourites. Then I had a Porsche 944 S2 which I went out and bought with my first tour fee. It was the whole of my tour fee, so I was skint as soon as I came back, but I had a Porsche. Slightly later on in life I had a Volkswagen Golf and then a couple of Jaguar XKRs. Beautiful cars. That was after I’d won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2003 and Jaguar phoned me up and asked if I fancied an XKR for a bit. I said, “Absolutely.”

I was very lucky that when I played cricket you were given a sponsored car when you got your county cap and became a part of the first team. That was a real thrill. It had your name down the side of it and everything. You thought you’d really made it. At Middlesex they were Peugeots and Vauxhalls. The senior players got fancy trim levels like CDXs whereas the youngsters would get a GL or something. That was probably the first time I’d encountered a brand new car. I was 19 years old so it was pretty cool.

We used to drive up and down the country a lot as a team – there would be

fleets of us on the M1 all piling up to Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire. We didn’t have a team bus – it was mooted but we all liked the bit of independence while we were up there. You’d have your travelling partners – two or three people who lived near to you – and there were some cracking roadtrips.

I enjoy driving. At the moment I’ve got a Porsche Macan GTS, which is a nice all-rounder, and a Jaguar F-Type. It’s a V6 – I did try the V8 but it’s a bit of a hooligan.

I’ve done a couple of track days, which are great fun, and I did some stock car racing in New Zealand on a dirt oval. I had motorbikes too when I was younger – scramblers and road bikes. I had a Yamaha FS1E – I wish I still had that –then a Honda XL185, a Yamaha DT175 and RD250, a Suzuki ER50 and a couple of Kawasakis – an ER250 and a KDX175.

I kind of lost my bottle on bikes though, truth be told. On my Fizzy I had a couple of near misses, and my dad wasn’t very happy with me riding either. I quickly got into cars at 17. They’re a lot more comfortable and not quite so dangerous.

TRIUMPH

STAG

My dad’s mate had a Stag when I was a boy. He always wore a brown leather jacket. Very cool.

LAMBOHURACÁN SPYDER

A Lambo might be nice. I think I’d have a convertible for the summer months.

LAMBO

URUS

I like the Urus – be nice as a family runaround. And I’d have a Yamaha YZ250 on a trailer.

through his Ford Cortinas, Jaguar XKRs and sponsored Vauxhalls...

It’s more Need for SpeedthanAventador 901

UGLY

Cut and paste

shame I won’t be able to afford one!

Matt Harvey Wowlooks amazing!!!!!!

Mitch Galle

This

IT LOOKS LIKE THE CHILD OF THE VENENO AND SIAN THAT WAS ADOPTED BY MANSORY

LAMBORGHINI AUTÉNTICA & INVENCIBLE

THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME TO ME AND IT’S GETTING OLD. HAVEN’T BEEN A FAN THE LAST FEW YEARS…

What elementary schoolers werehired todesign those exteriors?

THE PARTS BIN SPECIALS

Though production officially ended last September, Lamborghini has given its 6.5-litre V12 engine another encore: meet the new Auténtica and Invencible, a pair of one-off hypercars that signals the really very final act of one of the car world’s loudest plays.

Just weeks before we see the Aventador’s successor –a V12 hybrid – Lambo has revealed the last two customer

cars powered by the famous un-e-assisted 12cyl engine and a whole load of bespoke bits. The Invencible is the red coupe, the Auténtica the grey roadster. Both are built up from the Aventador’s carbon-fibre monocoque base of course, and feature full carbon-fibre bodies with styling elements taken from the Sesto Elemento, the Reventón and the Veneno.

is the one instance where the Lego variants will be better looking Manicm

Dustin Ryan Davis

Grid Legends VR

If you’re not familiar with the Oculus Quest 2, it’s an entirely standalone virtual reality headset that uses built in processing power roughly on a par with a mobile phone This modest spec is why it was a bit of a surprise to discover last year’s Grid Legends, in its entirety, was going to be stuffed inside this face-mounted box The inevitable compromise is in the graphics The game handles well and has a wealth of content, including all the filmed cutscenes of the full fat version of the game and decent multiplayer support, but overall graphical detail takes a huge, potentially unforgivable, hit In particular, the low overall resolution makes it almost impossible to pick out the next corner until it’s almost upon you and leaves the entire scene looking grittier than a toddler’s nappy after a day at the beach If you can put up with that, there’s hours of game here for your money

GEAR

BEELINE VELO 2

The problem with bicycles – other than the fact that they require actual physical effort to operate – is their lack of satnav, right? How on earth are we expected to get where we need to go without a little computer telling us when to turn left and which exit to take at a roundabout? And don’t start with that ‘sense of direction’ stuff That’s clearly a myth. Anyway, the folks at

Beeline are here to do something about all the lost cyclists in the world, and this Velo 2 is the perfect little pedaling computer. It has an 11-hour battery life and allows you to plan routes on your phone before offering simple turn directions during your ride. Plus it’s the world’s first carbon negative cycling computer, apparently global.beeline.co; £99.99

THE KNOWLEDGE

Need-to-know nuggets of automotive news

ID.THEFT

VW’s ID.Buzz has only been around five minutes but it’s already fallen prey to the tuners. Prior Design has slammed the people carrying EV, adding a bodykit and new wheels. You can have the range-sapping ‘upgrades’ later this year

LAKE PLACID

The annual Wörthersee meet-up is dead. The Volkswagen GTI-themed event famous for its wacky concepts since 1982 has been cancelled indefinitely by the Maria Wörth town council for sustainability reasons

PUSH BUTTON

We doubt anyone’s got ‘Jenson Button becomes NASCAR driver’ in their 2023 bingo, but the 2009 F1 champ is contesting Le Mans in a NASCAR-backed Camaro in the notoriously oddball Garage 56 slot

ICE AND EASY

The ice drifting record has been melted – by a Skoda Enyaq vRS. It was held in a slide on a track in Krokom, Sweden, for more than 15mins over 4.6 miles, besting the previous record by 0.7 miles

ELECTRIC BIKES

LiveWire S2 Del Mar

The brainchild of Coventry-based Maeving, the RM1 is a tremendously good looking British electric bike CBT-carrying yoofs can ride it almost 40 miles with two batteries (20 with one – maths, wow) But this retro-styled bobber tops out at 45mph –enough to outrun a Citroen Ami, not a lot else

Sounding more like a laptop than a motorbike, Untitled Motorcycles’ XP Zero weighs just 218kg and pushes 110bhp – twice what’s normally acceptable for EV two-wheelers Capable of acceleration speeds “as fast as a Ferrari F40”, there’s less comparison for the 160-mile range

Harley-Davidson’s EV sub-brand LiveWire has launched its second bike – the S2 Del Mar. The battery forms part of the bike’s overall structure, so there’s no frame It comes with a 10 5kWh battery, a 80bhp electric motor and a somewhat weighty price – around £19,000

KTM E-Duke

The KTM E-Duke, expected to be based on Husqvarna’s E-Pilen, will use a 5 5kWh fixed battery pack (as opposed to a removable one). Both streetfighters, however, will have a similar frame, swingarm, the same 13bhp motor, and same ability to zip through gridlocked traffic.

Kawasaki Z EV

The Kawasaki Z EV is part of a brilliant sounding yet criminally underpowered duo, making up Kawasaki’s new zero-emission range – other half being the Kawasaki Ninja EV. The Z EV has two teeny 3kWh removable batteries Details are sparse, but wherever the Z EV is going, it ain’t going far

Triumph TE-1

The TE-1 has lofty ambitions It’s been developed in collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering, has 100 miles of claimed range, and is capable of a 0–80 per cent charge in just 20 minutes. Triumph reckons it’ll do 0–100mph in 6 2secs – the brand is aiming to match the Speed Triple 1200

Indian Motorcycles eFTR Hooligan 1.2

From the heights of an electric Speed Triple 1200 to the lowlands of Honda’s EM1e: moped is quite the reality slap Still, a clever swappable battery system and futuristic Honda e inspired looks cushion the disappointment of a 30mph top speed

The Yamaha E01 may have neither the looks nor power of its R1 superbike brother, but it does have something else an 11bhp e-motor and fixed battery design, set to be good for around 65 miles on a charge Whoop! A tribe of food delivery riders wait in the wings for their new rides.

The Indian eFTR Hooligan 1 2 looks cool but a hooligan? Really? A 1kWh battery offers a 75-mile range in Eco mode, although Tour, Sport, and Off-road modes are also available. Reckon we’d need the thighs of Chris Hoy to get any proper speed up on those chunky tyres though

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE...

HYUNDAI KONA ELECTRIC

A smattering of useful information on Hyundai’s all-new electric crossover

2 4 5 1

IT’S A BIT BIGGER

The new Kona is 150mm longer, 25mm wider and the same height as before. Hyundai’s found 60mm in the wheelbase for added cabin room. It’s still a strict five-seater, but the front seats are 30 per cent thinner to boost rear legroom and a flat floor means whoever’s sitting in the middle won’t suffer.

3IT’S A BIT POSHER TOO

The previous car’s rising centre console has been ditched for a floating dash that makes the cabin feel airier. Two 12.3-inch displays across the top provide the high-tech ambience you’d expect. Hyundai says its new “weightless” front seats are designed to cut fatigue – looking forward to trying those in a four-hour tailback.

ALL ABOUT THE DETAILS

Ever been stuck at night trying to charge up for the last dash home? Someone at Hyundai has, because the new Kona comes with a heated plug door and there’s even a light there, so no more standing about with your phone in your mouth trying to point the torch in the right direction of the socket.

LOOK AT THAT FACE

Hyundai’s on a design roll lately, and that continues with the second-gen Kona EV. We’ve got Robocop vibes from the “seamless horizon lamp” stretching across the front. It’s not just about looks, those strong lines have a purpose – the new Kona has a drag coefficient of 0 27 thanks to “active air flaps”

RANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN

The new Kona offers two flavours of powertrain, with 48kWh/154bhp and 65kWh/215bhp – the latter offering 304 miles of WLTP range. There’s battery preconditioning for better performance in winter weather, smart regen and V2L functionality so you can run all sorts of electronics off the car battery

o o e e t o cs o t e c batte y

You won’t lose your new Kona Electric in the car park... at least until everyone else has one too

TOPGEAR’S GUIDE TO THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING

MYTH BUSTER

“LIGHTS AND WIPERS KILL YOUR RANGE”

It’s a dark wet night and you’re gripped by range anxiety How much better it’d be, you think, if you could do without those power hungry headlights and wipers. Ah well, there are street lamps, so perhaps you could get by on only sidelights, and running the wipers on intermittent Nah, don’t worry, because they make little difference. Your screenwipers on full speed only draw about 100W – they have a 12V motor that runs less than 10 amps. So you’d need to run your wipers

for 10 hours to use even 1kWh of battery energy. Many or indeed most electric vehicles nowadays have LED lights and they draw even less power, so although you might have them on for longer than the wipers, they still aren’t a concern.

More of a current draw might be the demisting, especially if your car doesn’t have a heat pump. You’ll have the aircon running to dry the air and the resistive heater to warm it. But if you hit the max demist button, the system should clear

LATER

the screen in a couple of minutes. Then you can shut off the aircon and turn down the fan – and volume of warmed air – to a dribble just to maintain a clear view. At least unless you have a pack of big wet dogs steaming away in the back.

More likely to staunch your range, or your fuel economy in an internal combustion car, is the energy that is absorbed by tyres in clearing the water and creating spray. This can be a 5–10 per cent penalty.

WHO KNOWS?

BIG SPENDER

Meet the Mini Electric Convertible. Just 150 out of 999 are destined for UK shores, each costing... £52k. Ouch

VAN LIFE

Fancy your next van with a McLaren F1esque central driving position? Watt’s scalabe EV platform could be the answer

MAX ATTACK

Check out Nissan’s ‘Max-Out’ EV concept, a mega looking two-seater convertible straight out of Tron

THIS MONTH:

CHEVROLET BOLT EUV

SPLITTING BARS

I know style is secondary to practicality and affordability here, but I’m not a fan of the split headlights. Works on a Rolls-Royce Spectre, not so much here.

MARQUES BROWNLEE

HARD DRIVE

We download YouTube’s #1 tech expert on whatever he’s been driving this month

NAILED IT

For a small and affordable EV, the EUV nails the fundamentals. There’s a single motor that drives the front wheels with 197bhp and 266lb ft of torque, which is plenty, and the 65kWh battery means Chevy claims 247 miles on a single charge. Think sub-200 real world.

In the US, the standard Chevrolet Bolt hatch has been the benchmark for affordable electric cars since it was first launched in late 2016. It’s not glamorous, or sporty, or luxurious, but prices start at $26,500, and you can’t argue with that.

But fans of small US electric hatchbacks may have noticed that this isn’t actually the Bolt EV. The taller stance and black plastic cladding give this away as the Bolt EUV – a crossovered creation that arrived when the hatch was facelifted in 2021. That acronym stands for ‘Electric Utility Vehicle’ and means this is slightly longer and larger than the EV. In the USA, it goes up against stuff as varied as the Nissan Leaf and Volkswagen ID.4, but the Nissan has dramatically less range and the ID.4 costs a fair bit more. This is hands down the best value electric car out there.

KIT LIST

Prices start at $28k for LT trim and that gets you 10.2in infotainment, 8.0in driver display, wireless phone pairing (and charging) and a rear camera. Everything you need, really.

DOPE TECH

MB’S FAVOURITE FEATURE

There’s nothing flashy here, but you can spec the Super Cruise system found in more expensive GMs. It allows for hands free driving on over 200,000 miles of North American roads. Impressive.

SOFT POWER

One thing that could do with an improvement is the charging speed. The EUV can only fast charge at speeds of up to 55kW, which isn’t ideal for roadtrips or frequent users of public charging stations.

NICE ‘N’ EASY

The Bolt’s comfortable in its own skin, it’s not trying to be too sporty or premium, it knows it’s a budget option and has a quiet, relaxed driving character as a result.

AXLE TO GRIND

A shame that Chevrolet hasn’t included an all-wheel drive option. That would have made this the perfect little winter EV for colder states.

VERDICT

The Bolt is the best value EV in the US right now. Maybe anywhere in the world. Given it offers similar tech to $50k+ rivals for a fraction of the price, it’s a massively underrated package.

THE DRIVE: THE TECH: THE WANT:

CONSUMER TECH COMPARISON...

The first Airpods from Apple weren’t really standout in any way, but they were cheap enough and set the benchmark for years to come.

Good as new

Nigel Mansell, Tyson Fury and plenty more special guest stars feature in the brand-new series of Car S.O.S, exclusive to National Geographic

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a perfect restoration story, and no one does it quite as well as Tim and Fuzz. Car S.O.S is back for a new series, jampacked with special guest stars and plenty of exceptional machines getting the long overdue love they deserve.

Tim and Fuzz bring their unique brand of charisma and in-depth auto knowledge, along with a burst of freshness, to a whole new host of clapped-out cars. And when it comes to patients in need, they’re spoilt for choice – from a Renault Alpine GTA and a souped-up Ford Mondeo to a 1953 Riley and even a vintage JCB.

These will be some of the most complicated repairs yet, and each end

1953 RILEY RMF

The boys travel to Rochdale to collect a very special family heirloom: a 1953 Riley RMF. This now rare British post-war classic has been handed from father to son for 70 years. The current owner, Richard, has been unable to get the Riley up and running and has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, so Car S.O.S has been called in to try to make an automotive dream come true. Also popping in for a chinwag is veteran presenter and petrolhead, Edd China , who knows his way round a good restoration.

result will have petrolheads drooling. But it’s never just about the car. Behind every restoration is a heart-warming story that’ll have even the most stoney-faced viewer dabbing their eyes. For all the stiffened suspensions and tuned engines, this is a car show with a heart.

And if all that wasn’t enough, you can look forward to special appearances from the likes of superstar boxer Tyson Fury, former F1 Champion Nigel Mansell, familiar faces from the world of motoring Vicki Butler-Henderson and Edd China. So, get ready to enjoy the all-new, bigger and better Car S.O.S – here’s a selection of episode highlights from the upcoming series to whet your appetite.

FORD MONDEO

Tim and Fuzz head to Hampshire to collect a Ford Mondeo. The car belongs to Karl, a widowed father of two young girls, who has been hit with three years of tragedy. After losing his wife unexpectedly to meningitis at the age of just 34, Karl was then diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and required open heart surgery.

His family and friends want to show Karl that good things can and, most importantly, do still happen. Car S.O.S is here to help as Tim and Fuzz take Karl’s bog-standard Mondeo and convert it into a 200bhp Touring Car tribute with a little help from engine supremos Cosworth. Two behemoths from the world of British sport come along for the ride in this instalment. The Lion himself, 1992 Formula One World Champion Nigel Mansell , and two-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer Tyson Fury (as well as his dad, John), make this an emotional rollercoaster of an episode you won’t want to miss.

RENAULT ALPINE GTA

This episode sees Tim and Fuzz set off to Dorset to pick up a 1987 Renault Alpine GTA. The car belongs to former computer technician David, who has sadly been struck down by throat cancer, leaving his beloved car off the road and in desperate need of some TLC. His friends and family hope Car S.O.S can restore David’s beloved motor back to its former glory. The lads are also joined by motoring broadcast legend Vicki Butler-Henderson

JCB DIGGER

In a departure from the norm, Car S.O.S goes to Southend to take on a 1978 JCB digger. The vehicle belongs to former carpenter Kev who has recently suffered two heart attacks and is now unable to look after his pride and joy. Can Tim and Fuzz get to grips with this bruiser of a machine and get it digging again?

After driving the Mercedes-AMG One and Aston Martin Valkyrie, Chris has had a revelation – he’d have neither

I’m lucky enough to have now driven the Mercedes-AMG One and the Aston Martin Valkyrie. They both offer more performance than any normal human being could ever want to use on the public highway. And they both confirm that the genre of the hypercar has not only failed to progress since 2015 in areas meaningful to people who love driving, but that it might well have regressed.

You see, 2015 was the year that it all came together. The LaFerrari, Porsche 918 and McLaren P1 arrived as the Holy Trinity and they created what would become the finest grudge match in my working life. Their performance and specifications were so perfectly aligned that it really was just a matter of getting them to the same track at the same time, and watching the feathers fly.

That happened later in 2015, and the resulting video probably helped me land a job at TG. I have many fond memories of that week in Portugal filming with Tiff Needell and Marino Franchitti, but the indelible ones are of how much I relished driving all three cars. They weren’t simple machines with manual gearboxes and no electronic systems, they were the pinnacle of technology and microprocessor supported speed. But the people who developed them had never lost sight of the fact that the most important factor was the driver. These monsters were there primarily to entertain. In each of them you

could lean against the chassis systems and allow the car to flatter you and trim some lap time. Or you could switch everything off and play the loon. I will never forget being a few yards off the rear of a LaFerrari as Tiff launched it sideways at 120mph – seeing the car slide and the front wheel move to his steering inputs.

The AMG One and Valkyrie can do none of this. Not only are their respective chassis not designed to support anything other than obedient track behaviour, neither offers even the basic apparatus for correcting a slide – they both use half steering wheels designed to make people feel like racing drivers. In the AMG you’d be falling out of the non-seat long before trying the grab a dap of oppo anyway.

On many levels they are both fascinating pieces of engineering, but it’s taken me some time to reflect and realise the startling thing they have in common – neither gives a fig for how the driver feels. They don’t feel alive when cornering, their controls seem numb. Both have driving positions defined by the width of their carbon tubs rather than what shape a corpulent billionaire’s tummy might be. They are both far too loud to be enjoyable, and the noises they emit into their cabins are far from musical.

Setting aside financial gain, if you offered me the chance to drive any one of the Holy Trinity, or a Valkyrie or AMG One, I’d take all three of the class of 2015 over the new kids. They have a sense of rounded fun and completeness missing in these new cars.

This isn’t me being a curmudgeon. I love the relentless search for speed. I love extreme sports cars. But when they lose sight of what should be their core competence – entertaining the driver – I think we need to ask if we’re heading in the right direction. I’d have a Rimac Nevera over the Valkyrie and AMG One. A year ago I’d have allowed anyone hearing that utterance to punch me in the face.

Need more of the TopGear telly show in your life?

All episodes are now free to stream on BBC iPlayer

“NEITHER THE AMG ONE NOR THE VALKYRIE GIVE A FIG FOR HOW THE DRIVER FEELS”

So how about a bit of love for the billionaires?

They cop a lot of flak, the old 0.001 per cent. But I’ve just spent a few days happily thumping around the Highlands in the Ineos Grenadier – the rugged off-road brainchild of petrochemical moneybags Jim Ratcliffe – and my main takeaway is: won’t someone give the poor petrochemical moneybags a break?

This is a guy who’s plunged a reported £1.3 billion into Ineos Automotive to get it off the ground. Yet, to judge by the internet at least, the majority verdict on his investment seems to be, “Yeah but your car looks like an old Defender knockoff, mate.”

Which, in fairness to the internet, it definitely does, a bit. But the Grenadier isn’t an old Defender. It’s a genuinely new car from a genuinely new car company, a company that actually looks like it might not sink without trace inside six months. Those don’t turn up often nowadays, at least not outside the super smallvolume world of Pagani, Koenigsegg, Ariel and BAC. If you like cars, more car companies is a good thing, right?

And, like it or not, more car companies requires more willing billionaires. Starting a car company from scratch is a) really, really expensive, and b) frankly a terrible way to turn a quick buck. Think of all the simpler, more instantly gratifying things a tycoon

could do with their swimming pools of cash instead: sending rhinos into space; figuring out how to turn off Earth’s gravity, just for fun. A billionaire who’s up for sinking billions into a car company is a billionaire to be cherished. Jim didn’t send rhinos into space! Jim made a new car company! Someone give Jim a hug!

I’m no Elon Musk superfan, especially not since his Twitter feed went full ‘divorced uncle-in-law who’s started dabbling in the world of internet conspiracy theories’. But, give the lusciously thatched despot his due: when he’s not gently fraying the social fabric of the world wide web, Musk has done a bang-up job of making Tesla a credible rival to the mainstream, established car companies. Someone give Elon a hug! He really looks like he could use a hug!

Competition improves the breed. No, I realise billionaires don’t build cars through some altruistic desire to diversify the automotive ecosystem, but instead to make their billions into even bigger billions. Even so, assuming we don’t all want to be driving round in identical clones from some Stellantoyotswagen mega-conglomerate in 30 years’ time, we’re going to need new car companies. Which means we’re to need obstinate plutocrats to plunge obscene amounts of cash into getting them up and running.

So, a bit of love for the billionaires, please. Grab your closest Jim, Elon or other aspiring car-capitalists (Jeff? How about it?

The ‘Bezos GT’ has a nice ring to it, no?), give them a proper big squeezy embrace to thank them for their efforts. Just because they’ve got enough disposable income to buy Belgium, doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate a nice cuddle.

Need

It’s time we started appreciating those who spend big on new car companies, says TGTV’s Sam Philip

“A BILLIONAIRE WHO’S UP FOR SINKING BILLIONS INTO A CAR COMPANY IS ONE TO BE CHERISHED”

“Sustainable” petrol seems like a magical idea. Find a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, then turn that captured carbon into petrol by adding hydrogen to form the hydrocarbon molecules of petrol. So when you combust it, you’re merely sending the CO2 back up, rather than creating CO2 from what has been trapped underground for millennia. It’s a net zero closed loop. And it works with the all petrol cars and fuel stations we already have. Huzzah!

Whence that captured carbon? You can let nature do it. Plants absorb CO2 as they grow. Now take that plant material and turn it into petrol – not simple, but doable. Great. Except everyone agrees it’d be a rotten idea to use plants that would be used to feed people and divert them into powering cars, or to grow the plants on slashed rainforest land. Both have happened. So the trick is to manufacture from sources of plant material that don’t constrain food supply – aka second-generation biofuel.

Coryton is a British company that does this, although you won’t have heard of it because it produces comparatively tiny amounts, and most is relabelled or blended with petroleum based fuel. Coryton uses all sorts of waste stuff: straw, the tops and tails of sugarbeet, forestry leftovers from paper production, old cooking oil, dot dot dot.

Sounds great doesn’t it, so I asked Coryton people the obvious magic bullet question: is there enough of this plant waste to fully replace what we currently get from oil wells? They said they don’t know exactly what is or will be available, except they do know it’s nowhere near enough. At the moment Coryton’s total annual production is equal to one day of the UK’s oil-based fuel use.

OK, another idea for a substitute. Porsche is collaborating on a factory that uses CO2 scrubbed directly from the air by fancy new machines. Alongside those, well-proven electrolysers split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Next along the line, the hydrogen and CO2 are combined to make methanol, and then the methanol is converted to petrol. All those steps demand electricity, which comes from the wind. You can see why if there’s an EV nearby it’s more efficient to put the electricity into the battery and forget the rest of the faff. But Porsche has chosen a place where there’s lots of wind and few cars: south Chile. Shipping petrol is easy but long-distance transmission of electricity is expensive and wasteful.

As with the plant-based fuel production, at the moment the Porsche enterprise is putting out tiny amounts. But it’s scaleable. Mind you these routes will be financially viable only if governments recognise the carbon-cutting potential and tax the new fuel at rates similar to electricity (low) rather than petrol (very high).

Thing is, even in small quantities, it’s worth doing whatever we can to cut carbon right now, and that means reducing the CO2 from petrol cars while they’re still with us. We need a tapering towards net zero, not a sudden cut in 2050. That’s because every tonne of CO2 we avoid now is the equivalent of 28 tonnes in 2050, because for the intervening years it’d be up there doing its harm.

TG’s eco-conscious megabrain, Paul Horrell, is one of the world’s most respected and experienced car writers. Has attended every significant car launch since the Model T

Research into substitute fuels is great, but we need to be cutting carbon now, says Paul

“IT’S WELL WORTH DOING WHATEVER WE CAN TO CUT CARBON RIGHT NOW”

Thebigtest:

electricfamilycars

The five-seat crossover EV is going mainstream, with new contenders arriving every month. Can Japan wrestle honours back from the Koreans?

VES

Even three years ago, the realistic choices for a pure electric family car were something expensively Tesla-shaped or the Nissan Leaf. Possibly a Renault Zoe if your kids were particularly undernourished. These days, you can’t move for manufacturers committing earnestly to be entirely electrified in the next 10 years, pretty much all of them some variety of the much-abused ‘SUV’ catch all. And yet a couple of big hitters have been notably quiet. Nissan had always been at the forefront of electrified mass production with the Leaf, but

while that car quietly soldiered on, there was a distinct lack of electric freshness on the Nissan menu. October 2019 first saw the Ariya concept, but it wasn’t until 2022 that we actually got our hands on a car. Similarly, Toyota – pioneer of semi-electrification that it was with the Prius – hedged its bets so severely that it feels late to the party; everyone’s already fully engaged and the grand entrance of the EV-specific e-TNGA platform is a bit lost in the noise. Conservatism often looks exactly like apprehension. Or industrial-grade dithering. But Toyota’s here now with the BZ4X – co-

“KIA HAS PERFORMED ONE OF THE BIGGEST BRAND GLOW-UPS IN HISTORY” IGG BRA D GL W UPS HISTORY

developed with the Subaru Solterra – and the company needs it to be noticed and taken seriously, a tough ask in a market awash with the new and shiny.

On the flipside, Kia has performed one of the biggest brand glow-ups in history and has used electrification as its main springboard; the EV6 is a car that’s making the legacy manufacturers look leaden, and it’s been selling as fast as Kia can make them. So which mid-size, five-seat, pure electric family SUV is the best?

In this case, we’ve opted to go for the longest-range versions with single axle drivetrains and one motor. All three are optionable with two motors and all-wheel drive, with the Ariya also featuring a smaller 63kWh battery on its pricelist. The Nissan is the most expensive at £59,280 for this 87kWh Evolve, the Kia is £49,820 for the heat pumpequipped 74kWh GT-Line we have here and the Toyota is £50,475 for this 71.4kWh Motion. In these specs all three come with heat pumps as standard (a clever way of heating the cabin

that’s around three times more efficient than a ‘normal’ heater). In general terms though, this is what you’re looking at if you want the most range and decent kit.

So let’s start with the Nissan. The Ariya actually looks much more striking in real life than it does in pictures – mainly because there’s a lot more subtle detail once you see it in the metal. The blanked-off front section is finely detailed, and the long fangs of the daylight running lights look swish. Yes, it’s a little bit deep-sided to look anything other than bulky, but the kicked-up rear is neat and crisp, and there’s a pleasing Japanese design flavour. Which helpfully continues on the inside – a big bank of two melded 12.3-inch screens dominates the forward view, but backlit ‘Andon’ fretwork appears in the doors and bottom of the dash, making the car feel like a posh hotel. There’s excellent quality throughout, a nice mix of materials and plenty of technology, though none of it feels particularly hard to decipher. Ridiculously deep-pile carpet, too.

NISSAN ARIYA

1 Evolve spec gets excellent heated/cooled synthetic leather seats 2 Also a very nice 10-speaker Bose stereo, dual zone climate etc

3 There’s a slim glovebox, plus an overly complicated powered centre tray that can also act as a little desk for a laptop Haptic buttons are a joy – and they work! 4 Centre console slides fore and aft electrically

5 Andon lighting suggests someone paid attention to the design 6 Dual 12 3-inch screens are slick and useful

TOYOTA BZ4X

1 Lack of a glovebox creates more space for knees 2 Interesting use of recycled materials on the dash – feels hardwearing

3 12 3-inch Toyota Smart

Connect display in the middle with usual Apple CarPlay/Android Auto

4 BZ4X was meant to come with a yoke steering option – still being homologated

5 Binnacle surround is a generous swathe of slightly cheap-looking plastic

6 Connectivity to phone secreted under semitransparent charging tray

KIA EV6

1 Dual curved 12.3-inch displays present a wall of info, but don’t feel overwhelming 2 Voluminous space underneath the floating console, houses the rotary gear selector and electric handbrake 3 Heated black suede seats with ‘vegan leather’ bolsters are less pretentious than they sound 4 Plenty of cubbyholes for life’s essentials 5 Vehicleto-device is standard on GT-Line trim and more useful than you think – even if you just want to plug in a laptop

The Toyota BZ4X, on the other hand, immediately feels more utilitarian. There’s more bare plastic – especially looking down the barrel of the surround for the driver’s display – and though it all feels nicely hardwearing, it hasn’t got the plushness of the Ariya. Still, the large central display works well, there are neat features, and the lack of glovebox isn’t the big deal some would have you believe. There are slight issues though; the steering is designed to accommodate a yoke system with fully variable rack, but the chopped control hasn’t been fully homologated yet, and with a full wheel, the rim obscures the bottom of the driver’s display. Not ideal.

On the outside, it’s actually quite striking. Obviously there’s a lot of RAV4 family features, and some people feel the bare plastic arches look unfinished, but mostly it just looks a bit more rugged. There are good shapes in the metal, and a kind of angular arrogance that suits it. Again, it looks better in real life than in pictures.

The Kia EV6 sits somewhere else again, neither a traditional SUV or a saloon, but a striking thing nonetheless. It’s larger than you think, but lower than the other two, has less room in the back but a bigger boot and 52-litre frunk where the other two have none. Like the Ariya, there’s a doubled bank of 12.3-inch screens with a decent user interface, lots of tech and generous

storage underneath the big floating centre console. It also has haptic buttons and switchable bits, and in quality terms feels better than the Toyota if not quite as solid as the Nissan. It’s a good performance though.

But that’s enough styling subjectivity. One thing that most electric car owners obsess over is range and charging, and bluntly, neither Japanese car can hold a candle to the Korean EV6’s 800V architecture. With more sophisticated heat management, an 800V system can handle more power for longer, meaning that the EV6’s 74kWh battery can deliver a 10–80 per cent charge in just 18 minutes on a big enough public charger – and by that we mean above the Kia’s 233kW max charge rate. A full battery should offer up 328 miles of WLTP range, which probably means 250–275 miles in the real world – the lower end of which is what we were getting on a cold winter’s day in the UK countryside.

The Ariya has a bigger battery at 87kWh, but only offers 329 miles of WLTP range, meaning the Nissan is less efficient in real terms. With 130kW DC charging, it’ll run from 10–80 per cent in 35 minutes – nearly twice the time of the EV6 – for roughly the same real world range. On this model there’s 22kW AC charging as standard, which means you can make the most of any available AC

“THE TOYOTA BZ4X, ON THE OTHER HAND, IMMEDIATELY FEELS MORE UTILITARIAN”

Excellent all-rounder, RWD feels more sporty, ace charging Leaves the Japanese pair trailing

A solid electric SUV, but not the most dynamic Surprisingly efficient for the size, excellent interior

A solid effort, but there’s little surprise and delight Gets beaten back here AWD option more attractive

litres

litres

litres

charging – even three-phase industrial outputs –so the Nissan gets points back there.

And then there’s the Toyota; very respectable 150kW DC charging and a 32 minute 10–80 per cent charge time for the 71.4kWh battery. The BZ4X has the smallest battery, so the WLTP range is obviously a little less – but not devastatingly so at 317 miles. That means the BZ4X should be happily efficient – though we didn’t get quite the figures Toyota suggests. In fact, all three cars managed largely similar miles per kWh figures of 3–3.4mpkWh on test – which are fine, rather than impressive.

When it comes to driving, it’s surprisingly the Ariya that falls short. Electric cars all tend to be weighty, but where most present their mass low, the Nissan feels top heavy. Pitch into a corner and it feels as if it leans forward and down across the diagonal, and the front-wheel-drive format gets reined in by the electronics hard and early if it’s anything other than bone dry. Add to that a ride that’s not as plush as you’d hope, and it’s actually a car that’s best sampled at lounging speeds on smooth roads. Nissan’s missed a trick here; if the Ariya had forgone any sporting pretension and aimed at Range Rover-ish suppleness, it could have been a winner. Saying that, the brakes are strong and the steering’s accurate, though the new brake regen system – called e-Pedal Step in this iteration – isn’t as aggressive as the old Nissan e-Pedal, and the worse for it.

The Toyota is better, but again, you’re looking at a front-wheel-drive arrangement that requires a bit more finesse with the throttle compared to a non-electric; if you’re heavy with the right foot, you’ll be constantly waking the traction control fairies. But once on the move, the BZ4X is competent and solid, if not exciting. There’s even a little bit of hustle hidden in there, if you can be bothered to find it. The ride is fine, the brakes are good, the steering similarly good enough to remain unnoticed – it’s a decent midfield operator. One thing to note though; the AWD BZ4X has proper off-road modes and ability away from tarmac – and one suspects the USP of the BZ4X might lie somewhere over in that direction. It’s good, but nothing to write home about.

The EV6 is the only car here to drive the rear axle, and it’s night and day compared to the others. No, it’s not particularly fast, but there’s a perkiness to the delivery and willingness to adjust through a corner that makes it the only one on nodding terms with the idea of fun. It feels lighter through the wheel, more deft, and although it manages generous lean angles if you’re pushing, it’s playful rather than annoying. It also feels a good deal lighter, even though it isn’t. Yes, you still get traction scrabble from a greasy junction, but somehow that’s less annoying with rear-wheel drive, and if you turn the traction control off, it’ll be quite silly. Suffice to say there’s only one choice here for anyone who cares about dynamics.

It’s an interesting and accelerated market, this. Manufacturers are scrabbling to deliver on the money making premium mid-size SUV segment, and there’s now a decent slew of choice. So much so that oftentimes when buying a new electric car you end up with a strange kind of choice paralysis: you can talk yourself into anything. The same could be said here, in that all three cars have excellent reasons for signing on the dotted line. The Ariya has a lovely interior and looks interesting, the Toyota is a solid choice with a genuinely brilliant ownership prospect: a 10-year warranty if the car is serviced at a dealer, and you can wind in everything from insurance to servicing from the manufacturer, making it hassle free if not notably cheap. Be interesting how those efficiency tweaks add up though.

These are not bad cars, but lean heavily on preference to overlook some of their shortcomings. But Kia’s EV6 remains the TopGear choice, thanks to a combination of efficiency, style, dynamism and charging ability – plus it’s competitively priced and has a seven-year warranty to back it up. The looks might be divisive, but the results aren’t. In fact, the EV6 looks set to be a favourite until the similarly priced Hyundai Ioniq 6 ‘streamliner’ (Premium RWD £46,745/Ultimate RWD £50,245) promises to up the ante and muddy the waters, precisely because it doesn’t immediately follow the blueprint of raised ride height. That and a bit more range at 338 miles WLTP. Bring on the next generation.

“THE EV6 IS THE ONLY CAR HERE TO DRIVE THE REAR AXLE, AND IT’S NIGHT AND DAY COMPARED TO THE OTHERS” ND DA CO PAR D T E OTHE

Trophy life

£160,000

(est)

FOR Supercar quick but remains a stunning, comfortable GT AGAINST Perhaps not the most emotive noise

Up until now we had only driven the all-new GranTurismo in all-electric, 750bhp Folgore form. However, ever since development started in 2017, Maserati planned for this new generation GT to house both petrol and electric powertrains.

Clearly a huge amount of effort went into the firm’s first EV, with massive power and fancy 800V architecture for rapid charging times, but there’s big changes for the combustion-engined iteration too. The headline here is that the GranTurismo is no longer powered by the sonorous old V8 developed in conjunction with Ferrari. In its place is Maserati’s own 3.0-litre twinturbo Nettuno V6 that has already been put to work in the MC20 supercar.

It’ll come with two different power outputs – 483bhp in entry level Modena spec or 542bhp in this top spec Trofeo. It uses a wet sump as opposed to the MC20’s dry sump, but there is still the Maserati Twin Combustion tech derived from F1 engines. Simply speaking the fuel is ignited in a separate ‘pre-chamber’ before the whole chemistry lesson transfers to the traditional combustion chamber, making for faster reactions and more efficient combustion.

Under low loads the engine can also shut down a whole cylinder bank to save fuel, and here’s another turn-up for the books – the GranTurismo is now all-wheel drive only.

Yep, you get an eight-speed ZF auto that sends the power to all four wheels, although it defaults to a 30:70 torque split front/rear.

Looks rather special too, doesn’t it? It’s more evolution than revolution from the previous generation, but that’s more than fine by us. You’ve still got that wonderful long bonnet (which is now a massive clamshell piece), raised front arches and a sweeping roofline. The main visual differences come from the vertically placed headlights and the larger grille.

On paper the Trofeo looks quick. It’ll sort a 0–62mph sprint in 3.5 seconds (the Modena will do it in 3.9secs while the Folgore takes 2.7secs) and on to a top speed of 199mph. In reality – when you’re higher up in the rev range and in the Sport or Corsa drive modes – it feels even quicker.

With the twin turbos spooled up, the twin combustion tech doing its thing and four-wheel drive dragging you from the exit of a corner, the GranTurismo will spit you down a road at serious pace. The ZF gearbox is competent but unremarkable. Changes are rapid and you get some shunt in Sport and Corsa modes, but really it’s just an aid to unrelenting acceleration. This may be badged grand tourer, but it’s supercar quick.

We’re yet to give the Trofeo the full track test, but on the road it corners well with masses of grip and light but direct steering.

The Modena has a mechanical rear diff, but the Trofeo gets an electronically controlled unit, power constantly being shifted for maximum traction. Up to 50 per cent of the 479lb ft of torque can be sent to the front wheels.

There’s a Goldilocks amount of body roll from the standard air springs too, with the softer setting offering a little more flow and good control on poor tarmac. Remember this is a near 1.8-tonne tourer, so although it may be a fair chunk lighter than the 2,260kg Folgore, it’s still hefty. And yet it controls that load impressively well and changes direction neatly without needing to be too stiffly sprung. The brakes – steel Brembos – could offer more feel if we’re being picky.

The good news though is that this is still a proper grand tourer. In Comfort and GT modes it’s remarkably supple, you’d have no trouble spending long hours at the wheel. It’s relaxing at low speed (for those in the front at least), full of tech inside and easy to place on the road thanks to the raised front arches and all-round visibility. It is a bit of a shame the V6 is hardly the most operatic thing to ever come out of Italy though, especially in those more restrained modes.

The little Nettuno can’t hold a candle to the noise of the old V8, but then its inclusion does mean over 20mpg is easily achievable. And fewer trips to the pumps should make the purchase price easier to swallow,

because when the Trofeo at last arrives on our shores it’s likely to cost around £160,000. Engine snobs look away now, that’s a lot of cash for not many cylinders.

It also puts the GranTurismo firmly in the sights of cars like the Aston DB11, BMW’s M8 Competition, the McLaren GT and the V8-engined Bentley Continental GT. A tough crowd with big characters, but Maserati does seem to have turned the Trofeo into a properly dynamic sports car while retaining continent crossing comfort. We’ll have to drive it on track and in the UK for a definitive verdict, but early impressions are that it – and the brilliant MC20 – can bring Maserati back to the fore.

“IT’S A PROPERLY DYNAMIC SPORTS CAR, WHILE RETAINING CONTINENT CROSSING COMFORT”

ALPINE A110R

Sacre bleu

£89,990

FOR Supercar-like steering and poise. Treads lightly

AGAINST Aero bits jar with the base car’s design grace

One could approach this sceptically. The A110R is the track-ready version of the A110. It costs £90k, or roughly half as much again as the next-down A110S. It has not a single more horsepower, and despite all the carbon fibre it weighs just 34kg less than the S. On the other hand, one could cut it some slack. All Alpines are light, and even with ‘just’ 300bhp the A110R ends up with the same power-to-weight ratio and 0–62 time as a 420bhp Porsche Cayman GT4. But as it

weighs a quarter less than the Porsche, the agility and feel could be wonderful.

The A110R development crew tapped up Alpine’s F1 and endurance expertise. Result is aerodynamically effective new panels: bonnet, splitter, sills. The rear wing is more effectively positioned and there’s a new rear not-screen. Yes, it’s opaque. All those are carbon fibre, to cut weight. The R ends up with less front downforce than the aero pack version of the S, but more at the rear. That done they were able to retune the suspension to be sharper at the front and more agile at low speed, using the extra rear downforce to resist oversteer.

On the track, it works. The steering is just gorgeous. The front end peels into a corner with a smidge of understeer, and the wheel rim lets you know it all, every little variation in the surface and its effect on the grip. It works with kerbs and bumps because it’s not too firmly sprung. At speed, there’s loads of reassurance and stability. It also means you’re happy to lean deep into the brakes.

Of course, because it’s so light it doesn’t chew through tyres and pads. Or fuel. If you want big smokey tailslides, get a BMW M2.

On the road, it’s firm but not madly so. The steering is terrifically sharp but not nervous. Springs isn’t too hard, and in any case you can (with spanners) raise the ride height and soften the dampers. The ultra-light carbonfibre wheels follow the ground so there’s little secondary harshness. The tyres can sometimes roar, but the transmission and engine, untouched from the base car, don’t snatch or grumble. It has CarPlay and it retains its front and rear bootspace. There’s a rear camera for manoeuvring; only the six-point harness delays your departure.

But with all that grip, is it quick enough? I say yes. The engine isn’t exotic but it’s responsive and sounds pleasant on a new tailpipe. The DCT is fine. The powertrain isn’t the R’s high point. But then, to be more memorable than the chassis it’d have to be utterly sublime.

Twin test

Urus Performante vsCayenneTurboGT

What role does a super SUV perform?

FOR More natural, communicative dynamics than the Urus, forceful engine AGAINST Corsa tyres are a step too far, more compromised than other Cayennes

£204,312

FOR Explosive performance, better suspension control than regular Urus AGAINST Improvements aren’t that noticeable, it’s very expensive, thirsty

I thought I’d nailed it. The ultimate winter supercar: a high-rise family hauler to see over the snowdrifts, make enough noise to trigger avalanches in distant valleys and generally blitz all roads. And not-roads –the new Urus Performante has a Rally mode.

And then the Cayenne Turbo GT turned up on Pirelli Corsa track day tyres. The Lambo wasn’t on winter rubber, but tyres a notch back from the Porsche’s. The truth of it is that super SUVs are no more suited to winter than any other supercar. It’s not the quality of engineering, it’s the quality of contact patches.

Both Lamborghini and Porsche are part of the wider VW empire, so both use the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 base engine and insert it into the same MLB Evo platform that underpins everything from the Bentley Bentayga to the Audi e-tron and A4. It’s not all chummy in the group though. Porsche and Lambo both want to claim dibs on building the most dynamic SUV.

For Porsche this meant a Cayenne Coupe with the Turbo S’s hybrid gubbins stripped off and plenty of GT department know-how thrown at it. Mainly by the marketing department. Hence the Corsa tyres. Plus standard carbon ceramic brakes, rear-steer and stronger pistons, timing chain, crankshaft and boost pressure for

the V8. Its 631bhp is up 89bhp on the standard Cayenne Turbo. Torque has climbed 59lb ft while 0–62mph has fallen 0.6secs to 3.3.

Which is precisely the same claim as the Urus Performante, despite the fact it’s even more powerful than the Cayenne, and claims to be lighter (2,150kg plays 2,220kg). Maybe it’s the gearing, but I suspect a little numbers fiddling is more likely. However, the gains over the regular Urus aren’t that pronounced. Only 16bhp up and 47kg down – a software tweak and carbon body panels; 657bhp is plenty though – but it’s no coincidence it translates to 666PS (metric bhp). That’s Lambo playing to the gallery.

So you have to nose deeper. And then you discover the air suspension is no more, replaced by steel springs with adaptive dampers. The ride height drops 20mm, track width is up 16mm, and work’s been done on the steering, diff, rear steer and exhaust. The titanium Akrapovič system does a fine artillery rendition.

The first takeaway is that fat tyres with fewer crevices than a marble worktop don’t bite into the road surface, no matter how much pressure is bearing down on them. Both cars skitter, struggling to find a flow. Attempting to tighten the suspension is proof it is possible to replicate the judder you last experienced when you tobogganed over that field of molehills.

Things do reveal themselves, though. The Lamborghini’s Rally setting does not engage a hidden long travel suspension mode, but does throw more power to the back axle. Even when you don’t indulge the Anima control, the Lambo has a slightly unsettled rear axle that gets a bit of lateral shimmy. There’s no denying it communicates better than the regular Urus – the ride and handling is more connected, but it’s not a huge step forward, and takes the Urus further down the path marked ‘discomfort’. In other words the dynamic changes, like the visual ones, take a bit of spotting.

The Porsche, despite the frankly ridiculous tyres, is the more natural feeling car to drive. You actually get proper steering feel, the brakes are fantastic to use, the chassis is more fluent. Where the Lambo is tense from fighting the physics, the Porsche has more limber and flow. But it’s still stiff and unforgiving. It likes to have some pressure put through it, to be working hard, or it gets fidgety.

Both engines take some exploiting too. Although there’s torque low down, there’s also inertia. But once above 3,500rpm, both fly. These are unsettlingly fast cars, they hurl themselves forward with enormous energy and determination, and you, sitting relatively high and detached, start to ponder whether

you have full control. You do, especially of the Porsche with its superior feedback and more natural road manners. Great noises emanate from both, the Lambo more raucous, the Porsche more focused.

The Porsche’s cabin is easier to get on with. Both are very well constructed and spacious enough to convince as daily, four seat transport. The Urus is darker inside, its operating systems more complex, although the Porsche’s polished glass panel surrounding the gearlever takes some getting used to.

But here’s the thing. They are vastly expensive to buy and to run. The Turbo GT is £147,510, the Urus Performante £204,312. The way the Lambo gargles fuel and belches it out the pipes would explain the 16.5mpg we averaged as well. The Porsche managed 18.2. I’m impressed by the Porsche, it’s a genuinely taut and together SUV, but I don’t find either machine lovable or engaging. They’re both aggressive and a bit stroppy. Beware of thinking these are just faster versions – they’re not, they’re also more compromised.

The Performante doesn’t move things on as far from the regular Urus as I’d expected, while the Turbo GT does feel notably different to anything else in the Cayenne range. Of the two, I’d have the Porsche. Ollie Marriage

MUST TRY HARDER

THE BMW iX IS AN UNUSUAL CAR. WE USED to be offended by its looks, but given the crimes committed by BMW elsewhere, we’re inclined to cut it some slack now. And having run one as a long termer, we know it’s strengths. Comfort, specifically.

But you know how these things go. No one ever does a ‘comfort’ version of a car do they? It’s always ‘sport’. So here, for the first time from BMW, is a car that combines the letters i, X and M. Is it confused about itself? No, it’s just pointless. For customers that is, rather than BMW itself. I suspect it makes great business sense – turn the wick on the twin e-motors up another 100bhp, fit some badges and bits and charge another £20,000. Easy income.

There’s precious little M-ness about it. Yes, the big wheels make more of a fuss than smaller ones and the air suspension has been retuned, but not once did it feel uncomfortable, or encourage me to clog it. It does the exact same relaxation job as the other models in the range. Only this one has 619bhp. Shame it’s not actually that much faster than the 523bhp xDrive50.

Both have speed that could be deemed inappropriate given the sleepy chassis. The iX copes, but really it would rather cruise. So have the 50 which goes 30 miles further, or the 40 that costs £50,000 less. The iX M is, quite literally, a MiX up. Ollie Marriage

EV forty

£444,000 (plus taxes)

FOR A classic reinvented, with the motor in the rear. Of course

AGAINST Vast cost, throttle and brake pedal very close together

An electric GT40? Yup, following its success with electric Merc Pagodas and Land Rovers, Everrati has teamed up with American company Superformance (which builds brand new ‘continuation’ cars under licence) to create its latest project.

This is a prototype, so we can’t give an absolute opinion on how it drives yet, but as it goes, it ain’t a bad steer. The wheel is decently weighty, and you feel what the front end is doing without much issue. However, the steering and brakes don’t get any of that newfangled assistance stuff, so make sure you’ve done some bicep curls and haven’t skipped leg day. Also, Everrati has got a strange V8 noise generator thing, but you can (and should) turn it off. It makes futuristic whirring noises as it stands.

Everrati told us it wants the specs to look like this: 800bhp, 590lb ft, 0–62mph in sub four seconds, 125mph, and around 160 miles on a charge from a 62.5kWh battery. As it

stands, the car’s running 650bhp, but that’s no small change considering Everrati’s claim that it’s 47kg lighter than a V8 car.

The main problem for 2023-size people might actually be getting in. It’s exactly the same dimensions as an original GT40, which means it’s a squeeze even if you’re average height. You have to stretch yourself over the sills, thread your legs under the steering wheel and hope you don’t need to get out in a hurry. Just as with the original, the door has a bit of roof on it, so make sure not to clatter yourself as you close it. Once you’re in, it’s... tight. The wide sill means your right elbow has somewhere to go, but your left may end up in a passenger. However, if you meet all the height and flexibility criteria for fitting in, you’ll have a blast of a time.

The other downside is the price. It’s, erm, £440,000 (plus local taxes). Everrati’s justification is that it undergoes proper OEM standard testing and development, and doesn’t just gut a car, throw a motor in it, and hope for the best.

For some the idea of a GT40 without a V8 isn’t going to cut the mustard, but if you want (almost) guilt-free GT40 cruising this looks like a promising way to do it.

Theoverrun

Small but perfectly formed reviews. The best of the rest from this month’s drives

AUDI A6 AVANT

50 TFSI e S-LINE

£66,470

FOR Looks good, drives well, premium and spacious cabin AGAINST Less engaging than 5-Series, ride stiff in higher trims

Audi has slimmed down the available variants of its largest estate of late – gone are the 3.0-litre six-cylinders, meaning you’ve currently the choice of two petrols, one diesel and one hybrid. Here we were driving the latter, which promises up to 41 miles of electric running, and offers 30ish in the real world. Otherwise it’s as you were, at least until the fully electric A6 Avant e-tron arrives, with its claimed 435 miles of range... PR

£54,825

FOR Insulation from outside world, comfy, suits EV wafting AGAINST Screen and button setup is baffling. PHEV only seats five

Land Rover’s order books swelled in 2022, but it’s the Defender, RR and RRS enjoying the success, leaving this former bestseller to feed on scraps. Surprising? Not really. Last big update was 2019, and the PHEV it enabled doesn’t exactly scream ‘sport’. But then this car never has: built for comfort over pleasure, nothing else this size puts more distance between you and the outside world. And for that, we still appreciate it. JH

VOLVO C40 RECHARGE

£40,910

FOR Smart looks, nice cabin, more sensible than the Recharge Twin AGAINST Meagre visibility, small boot, iffy ride on 20s

Life comes at you fast these days. Even in a Volvo. The FWD car driven here has since been usurped on the configurator by a new RWD set-up. The switch will boost range to 292 miles, and there’s a smidge more power too. Which is like being offered seconds at an unconvincing restaurant: you won’t say no to a bigger portion, but you’d much rather they just fixed the recipe. Better visibility and a more composed ride please, chef. JH

FOR Extra space, imperious road manners, no compromise on style AGAINST Maybe some styling compromise wouldn’t be so bad

An extra 180mm inserted into a car that’s already over five metres long isn’t transformative. It’s a struggle to notice it in fact. But that’s kind of the point. If it had long back doors you would assume the chauffeur was driving. Open them up and you’re optionally greeted with £3k palatial reclining seats. You might rather be back there. The choice is yours. It starts at £211k, but this is the Bentayga you want. And since the death of the Mulsanne, it’s the most chauffeur-y Bentley there is. OM

DISTURBING THE

PEACE

It’s got numberplates alright, but is the Valk too extreme for the public road? Bring it back in one piece, Ollie

THE ASTON MARTIN VALKYRIE PUTS ME TO SLEEP.

AT 30MPH.

Surrounded by Manama’s nighttime bustle and thrust. Yes, it’s been a long day driving probably the planet’s most exciting hypercar, but that’s not it. Instead – and prepare for a key change here – I want you to imagine that you’re an unborn child. There you are, tightly packaged yet perfectly supported. Warm. Safe. Soothed by lub-dub noises, the hum and vibration of unknown everyday life.

Welcome to the Valkyrie. From the neck down every bit of me is supported by various bits of trim and floor, lulling zizzes and vibrations run through the carbon tub, the engine’s low-rev drone is a constant, dominant white noise. I didn’t expect to liken travelling in the Valkyrie to being in a womb, but that’s the effect it has on me and, yeah, it sends me drifting towards the land of Nod. Of all the things I expected to learn about the Valkyrie, its soporific nature was not one of them.

I slap myself round the cheek, hard. The effect is diminished because the first thing my fingers come into contact with is a set of ear defenders. That could be part of the problem. I adjust my aim and go again, harder.

Some 12 hours ago I watched this car being unboxed in a pit garage and was handed a small lozenge-like key. It deserved more ceremony, seeing as we’ve been waiting for this car since 2016. A seven-year gestation, riven with complications all boiled down to a key in my palm, and a car in front of me.

Given the timescales a historical recap is probably necessary. Originally a collaboration between Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin, the low drag, high downforce concept was the brainchild of famed F1 designer Adrian Newey. That relationship dissolved when Aston formed its own F1 team, but the basics were already there. A tiny teardrop carbon passenger cell with an all-new

6.5-litre naturally aspirated 65º V12 hard mounted to it and out back a clever gearbox integrating an electric motor. That draws power from a 1.68kWh battery pack supplied by Rimac. The powertrain is a stressed member, saving weight and allowing Aston to claim a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.

That’s slipped. The V12 and e-motor still deliver a combined 1,139bhp, but weight has risen in the face of regulation, legislation and rumoured cost-cutting. As it sits here, with brimmed tanks it’s probably around 1,350kg. But still, one thousand, one hundred and fifty five horsepower. I have a pinch myself moment, when I think back to driving my first car, and try to imagine what 17-year-old me would make of this situation, this car developing 20 times the power of a beige diesel Peugeot 205.

The Valkyrie is mine for the whole day, to go and drive around Bahrain. It’s not the first place I’d have chosen for an excursion, but people’s responses to a car like this are the same the world over and summed up in three letters: WTF? My mantra as I absorb the bodywork, the gaping openings and empty spaces is HITRL – how is this road legal?

But it’s got numberplates and if you remove the front one, you’ll find the first aid kit. Have a shunt and it will be ready distributed for your needs. A fingertip-size button releases the lightweight door. It flits up and once you’ve wriggled over and down, you reach up and realise it slams with a lovely ‘krump’ noise. It also has soft close. Hell, it’s tight in here, though. Racecar tight. You don’t notice, but each minimalist carbon wafer seat is angled inwards at 2º. The upwards leg incline feels natural almost immediately. The steering wheel doesn’t lift high enough, an array of screens provide your rear view. A central divider prevents the

passenger operating the pedals, and further back contains the parking brake switch, hazards and a USB port. But nowhere, not even a pouch, to put your phone. The best I can do is drop that into the slot where the crotch harness emerges from on the passenger seat. Want more storage? You’ll have to ditch the warning triangle and inflation kit under the nose.

There’s real complexity here. The engine takes a fair few seconds to fire, the e-motor spinning the V12 before it catches, settling into an even but raucous and penetrating idle. There are vibrations. Refinement is absent. But it operates easily. The seven-speed gearbox is a single clutch sequential by Ricardo –getting this much power and 681lb ft of torque rolling would stress the clutch hugely. So it pulls away electrically, then bleeds the clutch in automatically around 10mph. That never misses a beat, happily tolerates traffic all day.

Next surprise comes as we leave the circuit. Speed bumps. The Valkyrie has nose lift and clearance, but the suspension feels loose, soft as it drops over them. The whole aero and suspension package is designed to work together, hydraulically linked and actuated to support the car at 10mph as well as 200mph with a tonne or more of downforce on it. The sense of connection diminished because it’s not behaving as I expect,

the usual spring/damper activation is a nudge off normal, but I’ll tell you this: the ride isn’t harsh.

I’m out among the oil fields now, getting more speed and flow into the Valkyrie. The low speed ride hits hard, but it smooths as speeds rise. It’s a small car on the road, forward visibility is good, I can see over the humps of the front wheels, but it’s difficult to focus on individual aspects of the Valkyrie when volume dominates everything. That mighty Cosworth engine may be well-mannered and approachable, but inside it’s deafening. The standard ear protection does a good filtering job, but you can’t escape the mechanical thrash. We have radios to communicate but unless it’s pressed to my head I can’t hear it, mics struggle as on no other car we’ve ever filmed.

It’s not for that reason I point blank refuse to turn into the first drive-through we see. Good gag, but the kerbs are half a yard high. I end up outside a donut joint. I have to shut down the engine to be heard. I order a coffee, which is daft as there’s nowhere to put it.

Back on the road I’m getting more of a feel for this alien machine. The gearchanges are slow and considered, the steering has weight and accuracy but not a terrific amount of natural feel. Much like most racecars. If I’m honest, the Valk’s dynamic development doesn’t feel quite finished.

“THE LOW SPEED RIDE HITS HARD, BUT IT SMOOTHS AS SPEEDS RISE”

“THE SOUND IS JURASSIC. OR NINETIES LE MANS. YOU CHOOSE”

I’m heading to the coast, surrounded by waving arms and toots. So I cut the shackles and blast it. Holy hell. The beast awakens, the noise instantly changes pitch and tone and the Valkyrie shrieks. The sound is Jurassic. Or Nineties Le Mans. You choose. Weightless acceleration, and absolutely no need to deploy the ERS button for a 140bhp e-boost. I only see 8,500rpm. Only.

The full experience on circuit the next day is mind-altering. Not just for the noise, but the lack of downforce and drag that means high speed acceleration is utterly relentless. It accelerates like a paper dart with afterburners. Here’s the ultimate contrast though – I drive the Valkyrie onto a beach. It’s sunset, not the rosy orb we were hoping for, but a chance to soak in this glorious looking thing. What a piece of sculpture, how skilfully the yin and yang of design and engineering have been blended. The body’s top surface is a flip point, underneath is insect, above is beauty.

Manama’s neon does nothing to diminish this. Street lamps reflect in the front wings, each beam peeling over the curve like a shooting star. I don’t know where I’m going, so our local fixer jumps in the car with me. He’s wearing a puffer jacket because for him, 20ºC ambient is freezing. It’s like sharing the car with expanding foam. It’s suffocating, I have to fight for space to operate the car.

I once roadtripped a McLaren Senna. That was a doddle compared with the Aston Valkyrie. Yes, it has aircon and that works well. And if you travel solo, you’ll have space for kit. I have a dabble in the menus and find the stereo controls. That makes me laugh out loud. Aston did consider fitting a hi-fi, but backtracked. Instead you can stream tunes through the headset, while imagining you’re a WRC driver on a road section. But even so I just can’t see owners tolerating this noise and sensory bombardment for long periods. Not without a support car. It’s draining. I haven’t been anywhere near the limits of it all day, and it’s still taken real mental processing to just operate. It’s not just the volume – it’s the value, the foreign land, the attention, the suspension that does me in, gets me near nodding off. Not entirely down to the car, then. And not repeated during next day’s adrenaline fest.

We stop right in the centre of the city. A nightlife hub on a weekend evening. The place throbs. It’s the kind of place you might just spot one in the wild. Daft, I know, but it stops people in their tracks in a way the massed ranks of McLarens and Lamborghinis lining the streets just don’t. Pedigree and exoticism combined. Aston has done it, got an F1 designer’s fever dream into production, breathed life into it. But at some cost.

STRUT YOUR STUFF «

Conventional double wishbones, but aero profiled and springs are torsion bars because they’re easier to package. The design of the 210-bar hydraulic suspension has some things in common with the Newey designed Williams FW15 active suspension car of 1993

«

SELF STARTER

Aston only claims 0–60mph in under 3.0secs. Despite launch control it won’t be that fast off the line because it pulls away electrically, engaging the V12 at around 10mph, helping save the clutch. However, once up and running...

SHIFTY »

Seven-speed sequential with hydraulic actuation, same as the suspension, steering and aero, mounted behind the engine. There’s no separate gear for reverse, that’s done electrically via the 141bhp e-motor and 1.68kWh battery

SMALL, MIGHTY «

At 4,506mm long and 1,920mm wide it’s quite compact. It’s only 1,060mm high – over 120mm lower than Ferrari’s 296 GTB. Ground clearance is 68mm, which the nose lift increases to 98mm. Watch out at speed bumps – the approach angle is a mere 7.5°

BRAKING NOT BAD «

Carbon ceramic brake discs measuring 420mm (front) and 385mm (rear) provide colossal stopping power and hide behind 20in front and 21in magnesium wheels. The 265/325mm wide tyres are by Michelin – the Valkyrie performs best on Cup 2Rs

« AERO BAR

The Valkyrie generates 1,100kg of downforce at 137mph. Aston doesn’t need it to develop more than that as it would have to compromise the suspension to cope, so above that speed active elements such as this one on the rear wing move to maintain that 1,100kg figure all the way to its maximum speed up beyond 220mph

«

FIREPOWER

Air enters via the roof scoop, but so tight is the packaging that there’s no room for a traditional air filter. Instead that’s replaced by a pale grey membrane. The all-alloy 48v V12 itself weighs only 206kg and develops 1,001bhp at 10,600rpm, but keeps going to 11,100rpm. So hot are the exhaust gases that the metal deflector panel under the pipes is vital to prevent the numberplate from melting

« BADGE ENGINEERING

Newey didn’t want a bonnet badge, but agreed to compromise when Aston showed him this etched titanium just 40 microns thick. Slender enough not to interfere with the paint lacquer and 99.4 per cent lighter than Aston’s regular badge

The voodoo behind the Valkyrie’s astonishing performance

CONTROL

Enough bimbling about on the road, let’s take things up a notch shall we? Chris, light the afterburners

NOT BEING A STUDENT OF WAGNER I HAVE NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD THE MEANING OF THE WORD VALKYRIE,

nor the etymological connection to the extraordinary looking vehicle you see before you now. Having driven it at Bahrain’s F1 circuit I was rather hoping that it would be some wildly idiosyncratic beast which turned out to be rather different to what people might have expected. Sadly the connection seems limited to it being an angry sounding word beginning, as is the Aston nomenclature, with a V. Because Valkyrie was actually the daughter of a god who protected some people. Art and cars rarely mix well.

I feel in some danger of trotting out the standard hypercar tester’s handbook of excuses for this machine. It is monstrously late, hasn’t ended up being entirely faithful to the original offering and under most circumstances I don’t doubt a base Porsche 911 would allow its driver to travel faster. But the handbook insists that I ignore that rather fundamental fact. As we do for most hypercars because they are the chocolate fireguards of our world.

But doesn’t it look fantastic? A futuristic amalgam of sci-fi angles and negative spaces. You walk around it wondering what bizarreness you’ll see next. In some respects it could be argued that these cars are better left as static objects and maybe demonstrated by others so we can all hear them and see them scream past.

On the circuit the Valkyrie was initially very intimidating. I had already driven the AMR Pro (see p70) and this probably didn’t help. From the start the road car felt quite compromised and much heavier. The seating position is amusing for the first few minutes, and I love the way all the contact surfaces are lovingly trimmed. There’s an air of fighter pilot or Star Wars speeder about it as you slide down low and under the wheel. The view forwards is just about enough, the rest is typically woeful. A rear camera does help slightly.

I venture out on a set of new Michelin Cup 2s to get a feel for over 1,100bhp. As the spec sheet suggests, it bears no resemblance to the Pro. Even when cold the engine’s vibrations trace a different path through the carbon tub and into your body. The noise inside is impressive, but it’s mostly volume over quality which is disappointing. Like the Carrera GT, folk on the outside get a better deal.

Not much happens below 3,500rpm, then the V12 begins to push hard, the gnashing increases and at that point – as the afterburners hit – it becomes very difficult to see the wheel mounted speedometer because it is simply set too low. I don’t understand how a clean sheet car of this type has a steering wheel that won’t adjust high enough for most drivers.

What happens next might compensate for that ergonomic faux pas. Because the Valkyrie piles on some big, big numbers – it’s ferociously fast and you have to keep looking down to ensure you don’t hit the 11,100rpm limiter. Into the first braking zone the left pedal is very long, but the feel is good and the graunching of ABS gubbins is reassuring when you’re casually hitting 210mph on the main straight.

But the gearshifts need discussing because they are just so slow on the way up. This frantic V12 masterpiece rushes to potential valve bounce and just when you want a whip-crack shift, the clutch disengages and slurs a shift so slow it actually interrupts your appreciation of the engine. I have to assume that’s to protect something in the powertrain, but whatever the reason, it kills some of the car’s potential theatre.

The handling on circuit I found quite difficult to decipher. Bahrain is always dusty off line, and the car wanted mostly to understeer. But there was a complete lack of traction and the damping was just odd – it felt like the clever hydraulic suspension was struggling to glean anything through the Cup 2’s sidewalls and just threw support at whichever corner it fancied. Something wasn’t right. A change to Cup 2Rs made a huge difference. Now I could push much deeper into braking zones and hold the racing line, but the steering is heavy and the car is physical to drive fast.

And it’s just so, so loud. Above 50mph there’s no point in attempting to talk to the poor sod wedged next to you. Any journey requires use of the in-built ear defenders.

If the gearbox limits the engine, then the tyre limits the Valkyrie’s chassis. I’m a little bemused by the vastly complicated hydraulic system that has allegedly been a large part of the reason

Never mind practicality, owners will be rich enough to have a car following with their golf clubs

“And if you look over here, you’ll see there’s absolutely no space for your shopping whatsoever”

Oblong steering wheel removes to aid access – just mind scratching the polished carbon tub with your mucky kicks – and if you’re solo the cabin is merely tight rather than downright claustrophobic. View forward is reasonable, view back is handled by cameras and screens with more mixed success

the car was delayed. It’s designed to offer a range of ride height and damping options that conventional suspension simply can’t replicate. I can’t vouch for it on road, but on track it doesn’t give a great sense of connection and the car feels quite inert mid-corner because with the systems on, the throttle is killed too early. This isn’t a car to play with in a turn, partly because the steering wheel is such an odd shape I’m not sure it’s possible to correct a large slide. Moreover, this is the first very fast car that I haven’t even attempted to skid for the video camera. Read into that what you will. If only Aston could have developed a tyre especially for this car, maybe the chassis could have been more playful?

So where does that leave us? Seems I’ve written more negative things than positive, and that is a fair summary of the car I drove on the day. Dynamically, I expected more. Here’s what I now think about the Valkyrie after driving it. It’s potentially the greatest hypercar ever made, but it just isn’t finished. The electronic chassis systems are poorly calibrated, the gearbox is just too slow and the noise makes it unlikely that people will want to use it as a motor car. Those are all attributes of a mid-to-late stage development vehicle. If I was a customer, I’d find that deeply disappointing.

However, the car didn’t miss a beat in nearly two days of stop-start driving in a warm climate. The same couldn’t be said of the AMG One. The aesthetic package combined with the V12 are enough to elevate this car beyond anything else that has ever been sold before, and let’s face it, that’s how most owners will use their £2.5m investment. And the history of this type of machine is littered with compromised glory. In fact, arguably the daddy of them all – the McLaren F1 – was a a sensational engine in a chassis that probably needed some more development work. That the Valkyrie appears to have replicated exactly the same outcome almost 30 years later could be seen as a triumph or a failure.

Yes, I’m so glad it exists because one strongly suspects that it nearly didn’t. But I’m left frustrated with the knowledge that I know there’s a truly history changing vehicle just waiting to be unlocked from underneath that extraordinary bodywork.

ASTON MARTIN VALKYRIE

Price: £2.5m

Engine: 6.5-litre nat-asp V12 + e-motor, 1,139bhp @ 10,600rpm, 681lb ft @ 7,000rpm

Transmission: 7spd seq, RWD

Performance: 0–60mph under 3.0secs, 220+mph

Dimensions: length 4,506mm, width 1,920mm, height 1,060mm, wheelbase 2,768mm

Dry kerbweight: 1,270kg

“THE AESTHETIC PACKAGE COMBINED WITH THE V12 ARE ENOUGH TO ELEVATE THIS CAR BEYOND ANYTHING EVER SOLD BEFORE”

Road-going Valkyrie not quite extreme enough for you? You’ll be wanting the AMR Pro then

G O P R O

At £3.5m the AMR Pro isn’t cheap, but once you’ve divided that into 36 easy monthly payments...

Let’s be clear: an Aston Martin Vanquish from 2001 has more in common with a Ford Mondeo than the Valkyrie AMR Pro has with the ‘standard’ Valkyrie. The humble Ford repmobile donated its engine (well, two of them stuck together) and many interior trim pieces. The AMR Pro and its namesake share only that V12, plus the headlights.

Side by side this track-only monster does its more civilised relative many aesthetic favours. The Pro is longer, lower, wider and looks like the racing car it should have been. And like all racing cars once the initial shock of how large a shadow it casts is normalised, it quickly becomes just a racing car. No, I’m not saying the Pro looks anything other than stupefyingly sexy, but the road car is on another level completely

er leve c mp hos ns? I

gearbox nudges it along to about 25mph, then the ICE uses that forward energy to burst into life. At the start of a day driving the car I thought it was absolute folly and certain to go wrong. By the end I was thankful to have been protected from an angry clutch pedal and the system didn’t malfunction once.

Like so much of the Valkyrie programme, the original intentions have been muddied by the practicalities of actually delivering cars. So this really is a stillborn racing car that should have been wailing around Le Mans beyond 200mph. It was supposed to be an amphetamine laced version of the road car. The Pro is now simpler and less of a technology statement. It’s an engine, a gearbox, a load of carbon and some conventional suspension – albeit the very latest dampers from the geniuses at Multimatic.

s 80 m long

eral an

e a y, s d de t ta .

Those dimensions? It’s 380mm longer in the wheelbase, 266mm longer overall and, at the front, has 96mm more track and is 115mm wider in total. Dimensionally, it’s a different vehicle. Power comes from the same 6.5-litre V12, although this time with no fancy hybridity. Power output is 1,001bhp, and the car weighs 1,006kg – some 300kg less than the one with numberplates.

Inside it’s pure racer. Race dash, race seat, and nowhere to hide your left foot to the side of the brake pedal. AMR Pro owners need to learn to left foot brake. The start procedure is complicated and a little bizarre. To protect owners from the potentially pernicious behaviour of a carbon clutch, the Pro effectively bump starts itself every time it gets going. A small electric motor on the back of the

The result is a car that rather shattered my expectations. I’m not a fan of track-only supercars because they are almost always inferior to a non-racing racecar. But the difference here is that I can’t think of a racing car that produces this much downforce, and has a 1,001bhp naturally aspirated V12, so you can’t replicate the experience elsewhere.

Once the eerie start procedure is sorted the V12 yelps into life and then it’s simply a case of snicking gears with the paddles behind the wheel. It’s a magnificent engine, a thing to savour and drink in at every opportunity. The power arrives smoothly and is well matched to the available traction, the throttle travel is long and it takes a few minutes to have the confidence to push down to the stop.

“THE PRO EFFECTIVELY BUMP STARTS ITSELF EVERY TIME IT GETS GOING”

A weeny racing steering wheel has rotary knobs for traction control and all manner of other racy bits. It runs a Michelin racing slick tyre. It’s hard to test a racing car chassis objectively because in reality you’re merely testing the set-up applied to the vehicle for that test session – and the title of this session was ‘journalist we don’t want crashing our £3.5m car’. So there was some safe understeer.

But the rest was a joy. The crazy braking potential, the silly medium to high speed cornering forces, and that never-ending V12 music which left my face contorted with delight. It is one of the most special motor cars I’ve had the pleasure to drive, and I suspect a few will find their way onto the public highway.

It also exists as a potential thorn in the side of the road car because the bits it does demonstrably better – handle, brake, steer – are all down to it being much simpler. It doesn’t have to tolerate a slow gearchange and the engine vibrations through the tub are vastly reduced.

And, to settle the inevitable comparison, it is faster too. Ollie and I went side by side, the Pro caught and passed the road car. Not with ease, but it still got the job done.

Barrett-Jackson is a car auction like no other –and you don’t have to be a buyer to enjoy the show

HAMMER TIME

The auctioneer stutter raps the microphone at a million beats per minute. Around him guys in black jackets and red ties survey their identically dressed colleagues in the bidding pit and grandstands beyond, the beer bars and VIP platforms, looking for a signal. In a dark, distant corner there must have been a nod. Activity ripples outwards from that spot. A Mexican wave crossed with a Chinese whisper communicated via the medium of racecourse bookies’ arms radiates outwards as the red ties go into overdrive and semaphore the bid to the stage. The auctioneer, somehow, goes up a gear.

We know car auctions. They’re either grotty places populated with car-dealing tyre kickers looking for stock amongst unloved ex-rental repmobiles, or they’re ultra exclusive, sip champagne on immaculate lawn events where exotic specimens (both cars and people) preen glossily and desire to be admired for their good taste and breeding.

Barrett-Jackson is what happens when the two are combined and tossed in a blender with a good helping of American showmanship, pizzazz, noise, energy, dodgy artwork, hype, scale, speedboats, dust, liquor, excitement and people. Oh, and the Blue Origin space capsule. It’s effervescent and weirdly, oddly captivating.

“The World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions” is the promise, and they have the world records to prove it.

I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona in late January. It’s the first big annual event of the US car season (think of it as a moving circus of auctions, club meets, classic car events, shows and gatherings that drops in on various places across the course of a year. Pebble Beach happens during Monterey Car Week, for instance). Scottsdale is Barrett-Jackson’s home. It makes a real effort here. Founded in 1971 by Tom Barrett and Russ Jackson, when Craig Jackson, Russ’s son, took over in the mid-Nineties, he realised that it wasn’t just about the buyers and sellers. If he added entertainment and action, people would come for the show.

It worked. Last year, some 350,000 people came, and 95 per cent of them didn’t go near a bid paddle. They came to gawp at the cars, watch the auction, see live entertainment, have thrill rides and hot laps, buy hot tubs even. The scale is boggling. I’m told 1,907 cars will be sold over the course of this week. Each one spends about three minutes on stage. Before and after their moment of glory they’re parked up in vast marquees that spread out in all directions from the auction auditorium. The biggest is 0.8 miles long. That set a world record for a temporary structure.

“What can we do for you, mate?” “I’ll take the full wash and valet, please”

After the stress of Christmas, the big fella comes here to unwind

Surprisingly

“THE SCALE IS BOGGLING, 1,907

When you’ve got to snooze, you’ve got to snooze. Nice pair of alarm clocks...

CARS WILL BE SOLD THIS WEEK”

I go for a walk around. I’d naively thought that an afternoon/evening would be enough. Fat chance. I do one marquee, perpetually arrested by staggering metal, merch stalls, opportunities to buy everything from pervy artwork to axle stands. The people watching is brilliant, especially at the place selling gaudy sculptures of life-size shrieking eagles with the declaration of independence clutched in a talon. Good sideline in model stagecoaches, too. Many of the people look like they might have just hopped off one. There’s purposefully no real organisation to the cars themselves. If they grouped all the Corvettes together you’d soon grow bored. So we have a Chevy Blazer parked next to a Batmobile, something named a Conquest Evade dwarfing a poor 993-gen 911, an original 8.0-litre Viper between a Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph and a Maserati GranTurismo. The exception is the star cars. They’re roped off: a good smattering of European supercar exotica, rare-breed muscle cars, outrageous custom conversions plus a cardboard cutout of Rod Stewart placed next to a Ferrari 550 Barchetta he used to own.

This is key. Barrett-Jackson is an equal opportunities auctioneer. It loves cars with stories, a bit of celeb sparkle or silver screen stardust to punch through the massed ranks of US muscle and mayhem. The contrast is starkest the next morning when I visit RM Sotheby’s. It’s a much smaller, more exclusive operation in the grounds of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Arizona Biltmore hotel. While Barrett-Jackson can pile ’em high, RM Sotheby’s needs to carefully curate cars that go under the hammer to ensure each consignment is the best it can possibly be, to be selective about what it sells. So Sothebys does legwork and negotiation up front. It will not only restore cars, but also work on their provenance. There’s a more intimate relationship with the seller and buyer.

At the bottom of the giant stage screen at Barrett-Jackson is a disclaimer. It reads “unless otherwise stated, assume vehicles are non-matching numbers and mileage to be non-actual”. You, the bidder, are responsible for your mistakes. However, you could pick up a complete bargain. Everything at Barrett-Jackson, even a Ferrari F40 that will finally hammer at $2.75 million, is sold at no reserve. The bidding starts at zero. Sometimes it doesn’t climb that far.

For sellers there’s a commission and an entry fee (the latter based on where your car is displayed and when it’s due to go across the stage, with evening slots on the Friday and Saturday being the most desirable), while buyers have to pay a 15 per cent premium on the hammer price. Craig Jackson is estimated to be worth $300 million. A big, friendly Arizonan with sharp eyes and a Bugatti belt, he knows his audience inside out.

The organisation is incredible. As their moment in the spotlight beckons, each car is taken from its marquee into a lane system. It’s a chance for potential bidders to see it start up and move, to have a nose around. From there it rolls through a curtain into the auditorium. I walk in behind a convincing replica of a presidential Beast. It hammers at $14,000. Each car is introduced in the briefest way possible (“Ladies and gentlemen, here is an Oldsmobile Cutlass aaannnd…. whgivme5uh5n6ncanigeta7 etc). It becomes compelling, the blistering delivery, the semaphoring arms, the sheer turnover, the whooping, the live TV broadcast. You get sucked into the razzmatazz.

I talk to a couple of the bid assistants, digging for stories. Almost all surround the fact that bidders get beer vouchers. And the bid takers are authorised to ‘encourage’ bids (“c’mon man, you need this car, don’t let it get away”). “Where’s the line between ‘encourage’ and ‘intimidate’?” I ask. Shrugs.

As each car rolls off the stage a girl in spray-on spandex leans further across the bonnet than is strictly necessary and writes the sold price on the screen. It’s a distraction and a reset: that car is now sold, please switch your attention to the stage. It could all come across as rather grimly masculine and dated, but the whole event is done with such showmanship, such friendliness and openness that I can’t help but buy into it. This doesn’t feel shady. How can it when the Boy Scouts of America are here, earning their automotive badges? Call me naive, but I walk around with a huge smile on my face, marvelling at it. But I should make this point: the lights, the constant bombardment, the noise, the lost sense of time... leaving that evening feels like stumbling out of a Vegas casino.

It’s become a thing to have your car sold by Barrett-Jackson – where RM Sotheby’s feels like a business, this is playtime. Come with your friends, drink, laugh, buy stuff, be happy. It’s a day out to the American Dream.

“IT LOVES CARS WITH STORIES, A BIT OF CELEB SPARKLE OR SILVER SCREEN STARDUST”

Burly hhors

The new four-door, four-wheel-drive Purosangue is the most controversial Ferrari yet. Fortunately, it’s also the most versatile...

ENGINE IS BLARING SUPER UNLEADED’S GREATEST HITS AT FULL VOLUME”

“THE

It’s a Ferrari, Jim, but not as we know it. Still, it’s a good option for a long trek

IIt’s snowing. The sky sweating fat, lazy snowflakes that give the impression that they can’t really be bothered to fall, the horizon blurred the colour of regret. The Dolomites in late February; majestic, romantic, and if you don’t like the weather, just wait a bit. It looked happily imposing just an hour ago, but now the weather gods have got all grumpy and drawn a veil across the view. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be so bad if the ill-equipped chase car hadn’t slithered off, snapped a snowchain and proved itself incapable, but that’s where we are. We forgot to have breakfast, gloom is going viral, and everyone is getting lightly annoyed and hangry. Except me. I’m confused

Some of the things make sense. I’m in a Ferrari, with a recognisable Ferrari steering wheel festooned with the usual sticky out bits. There’s a big capacity V12 trying to inhale the mountain and making Ferrari noises, and the rear wheels seem to castor around a central pivot when you apply too much throttle on hairpin exit. Too much throttle on hairpin exit is fun. The big central rev-counter is sunshine yellow, and the needle keeps bounding merrily to one o’clock before jerking backwards as the big paddles do the usual; a snappy keychange while that engine keeps blaring Super Unleaded’s greatest hits at full volume. All is as it should be.

And yet there are generous floofs of snow on the ground slicking themselves over sheet ice, and I’m not currently face first into the valley via a brief crunch of Armco and several seconds of alarming, silent free fall. Bespoke snow tyres are witchcraft. I also feel like I’m sat about a foot above where I should be. There are unfamiliar sonar echoes in the cabin, two decent seats behind me and an unmistakable hatchback in the rearview mirror. This is a new, different kind of Ferrari; a four-seat, four-door antidote to overblown SUVs that have forgotten what those three little letters actually mean. It is the Purosangue. A Ferrari, but one that comes with new perspectives, both literally and metaphorically. It takes some getting used to.

So then, the Purosangue. In literal terms ‘pureblood’, though finesse the Italian translation a little and it refines as ‘thoroughbred’. Apt for a brand whose identity is centred around a famously flamboyant horse, hell on those who can’t do convincing Italian accents. There’s a V12 up front and all-wheel drive, but more importantly, four doors and four seats. The conventional front doors reveal a cabin with new architectures and materials (85 per cent of the upholstery is sustainable, including a special new Alcantara), the rear-hinged, independent rear doors ushering you into a pair of slick, electric bucket seats that ape the fronts. These are not the seats of the forgotten rear passenger, but more equal billing. There’s a hatch and a decent enough boot, plans for ski and bike carriers – carbon fibre and fabulously expensive, obviously –and the sense that if practicality had been skinned down to the bare essentials in favour of Ferrari-ness, you’d be looking at it.

It looks... interesting. Intriguing. Though one would hesitate to call it pretty. Flavio Manzoni’s layered design slicking a fat coupe shape over a bottom section defined by undercut wheelarches

“THERE ARE SHADES OF SF90, WHIFFS OF 296 GTB IN A KIND OF ALLROAD VARIANT”

“CRUISING ALONG, IT FEELS BENIGN,

QUIET, COMFORTABLE... EASY”

linked by carbon sills. There are shades of SF90, whiffs of 296 GTB in a kind of allroad variant. Out here on a bare, snowy mountainside, it looks better and better as time goes on. So new territory for the brand, and something of a reconsideration; Ferrari made some definitive statements about never producing this kind of car five or six years ago. But things have changed, both technologically and in terms of the market, and there’s no shame in recognising commercial opportunity.

This car does feel different. The rear doors are suicide style, and completely independent of the fronts, slung on a single curved spar concealed in the rear wing. There’s a button on the B-pillar for electric operation, something that also works if you pluck and hold the hidden exterior handle tab. Getting in and out is largely graceful thanks to the door arrangement and there’s plenty of space once you’re in, although those with particularly huge feet might need to curl toes. Up front there’s a twinned cockpit, as well as a new user interface and many threads of haptic annoyance. The information screen ahead of the driver is configurable using the swipeable pad on the right-hand side of the steering wheel, and the rest is controlled on the rotary knob in the middle of the dash. Tap the top and it rises up, tap again to select a function, rotate to adjust. Sounds simple, and it works. Standing still. Once moving, the whole set-up is fiddly and the haptics inconsistent in reaction, and the car’s screen mirroring (which brings CarPlay maps up in the dash) is built for touchscreen. Cue much swiping, looking down and general faff – in a car as fast and reactive as this, it’s not brilliant.

“AT 6.5 LITRES AND AROUND 715BHP, THIS IS AN ENGINE THAT LIKES TO SING”

Is it a problem? Possibly not in a supercar where daily comforts are less of a concern, but in a daily driver the UX is a big deal – and I don’t think Ferrari has nailed it yet. But once you’ve annoyed yourself, there is a salve for the wound. And that’s mounted up front, features an anachronistic 12-cylinders and breathes via pure atmospheric pressure. At 6.5 litres and around 715bhp, this is an engine that likes to sing – although it’s wise to note that 80 per cent of the 528lb ft of max torque is available at just over 2,000rpm, so the Purosangue never feels anaemic. You can slither along at a relaxed pace, or jab at the paddles, flick the drivetrain into a more aggressive setting and scare entire flocks of birds from the trees – the Purosangue is loud. But it’s also fast, direct and light feeling. On a big mountain road, with the skyline framed by a sharp underbite of geography, it just feels like a Ferrari. And that’s a big compliment.

Which brings us to the thing that seems to have bothered Ferrari ever since the concept of a more practical variant was mooted: the dynamics. The truth is, you can’t make an SUV handle like a mid-engined sports car without compromise. Not my rules, but those of Newton, Einstein, Galileo and Mother Physics, who reacts poorly to being taken advantage of. By raising a car up, you have to negotiate a maze of dynamic instability. This is the grail that has haunted chassis engineers through the ages; finding that blend of supple comfort and fine control at speed, a crusade in which the measure of success is entirely subjective. Hard one to balance, that.

So, you can’t make a tall car handle like a low one, but you can try to oil those negotiations to make then slip past the dynamic gatekeepers. The Purosangue is both lower and shorter than you expect, but wide. The V12 that powers it is stuffed so far under the front bulkhead that it’s surprising you don’t burn your knees, and the all-wheel-drive system is a transaxle layout to aid weight distribution. The engine is forward, the 8spd gearbox at the back, and there’s a PTU (power take off unit, like the GTC4Lusso) with a clutch on either side that allows torque to be transferred to either front wheel. The mass is centred with a slight rearward bias of one per cent, the CoG as low as it can reasonably go. Which all makes sense. But then you need to do something special with the suspension. Enter the spool valve. Now without making everyone’s head explode, the suspension on the Purosangue uses what’s called a TrueActive spool valve (TASV) from Multimatic. Basically compression and rebound endlessly modulated by 48V electric motors for each wheel via miniature gearboxes. Really. A suspension that reacts faster and can have a much broader range of abilities than traditional systems, so much so that you don’t actually need anti-roll bars anymore. Body control and ride comfort. In theory, as little compromise as is currently possible.

Purosangue not quite as playful as this little fellow, but it can prance

The big question is, does it work? Short answer, yes. And spectacularly. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo that tried to chase the ’Sangue down for a picture certainly felt bumps that the Ferrari cruised over, and after the third bout of hairpinned understeer and one very marginal... uh... deceleration event, was forced to back off. The Purosangue was at about seven tenths – I guarantee the Cayenne wouldn’t see which way it went at full bore. The longer answer involves a little bit of explanation. The steering is an interesting one – because good steering is a relationship between the wheel itself and what happens with the body; it can be undone in short order by poor damper control. Ferrari sports cars, more than pretty much anything else, operate from the wrist. They require a flick to interpret intention, and have a habit of sticking any line you like. The Purosangue, while exceptional, requires forearms. You have to place it, where you’d almost think a 296 GTB into position. This is not, however, a criticism. If the Purosangue was too light, too ridiculous in its immediacy, it would feel like some of the other hyper SUVs – fake – and give you a slight feeling of motion sickness. Your inner ear often knows when electronics are feeding you false information.

This is a car that can nibble at the edges of a bad road at low speeds and bloodhound a severe camber, but with wide wheels and winter tyres, that’s almost to be expected. But cruising along, the Purosangue feels benign, quiet, comfortable... easy. Rear vision isn’t the best, and the V12 whirrs away without the low-rev bass you get from a V8, but that’s why God invented rearview cameras and exhaust valves. But out here in the Dolomites, above the villages but below the peaks, on the marginal roads, there are places where ascent grabbing hairpins are stitched together with flick-flack corners. A side to side tankslapper of a road.

The Purosangue demolishes the lot.

Where other SUVs run out of ideas, the Purosangue raises its game. Climbing further up the V12’s rev range exposes new depths of ability, gearchanges punched cleanly through the edit of the view, a casual scroll at twice the speed you expect. It’s got feel, and precision, and a delicious sense of connection. It breathes its way down the road. One of the reasons for all the extra feel is that the all-wheel-drive system appears to be extremely rearward biased. On a dry road and under heavy load – say, accelerating out of one of those hairpins, the rear tyres will spin merrily before the front end is tugged back into line. Similarly, this isn’t an off-roader –think of it as a rear-wheel-drive car with a front axle helper rather than something that can lock a diff.

So what’s the verdict? Well, Ferrari seems horribly insecure when it comes to the Purosangue. That it should be somehow ashamed at producing a taller, four door, four seat car. Apparently it’s not an SUV because it has only four seats. Because it has a V12. Because it is made by Ferrari, there are no peers. But why not be less bothered by what the crowd thinks? The Purosangue is unique. It can speak for itself. There is always a cost to things. A compromise. Without a price, a thing has no value. The Purosangue’s compromises are well judged. The looks are subjective, the price only ridiculous if no one buys one. Admittedly, the car would be more sensible with a turbo V8, more practical with a bench seat. But who wants that? Even in the more door capacity, you want a Ferrari to bend the rules. The Purosangue actually is in a class of its own. But paradoxically, Ferrari has been so committed to distancing itself from the SUV tag that it has missed the point entirely; the Ferrari Purosangue is not ‘another’ SUV, it is, in fact, the only one.

FERRARI PUROSANGUE

Price: £313,120

Engine: 6.5-litre nat-asp V12, 715bhp @ 7,750rpm, 528lb ft @ 6,250rpm

Transmission: 8spd DCT, AWD

Performance: 0–62mph in 3.3secs, 193mph

Economy: 13.8mpg, 393g/km CO2

Weight: 2,200kg

RC

REFU

Racecars don’t really work outside the racetrack, so why

acec d ’t re ly uts e a k s h

ING

GEES

are the Japanese so obsessed with making ’em road cars?

re th J panes o ssed i h ak ng

Back in 2009, Kelly Ann Walz of Pennsylvania met her untimely demise while cleaning her beloved pet, a 160kg black bear named Teddy. For Indonesian Deasy Tuwo, keeping a freshwater crocodile against its will yielded a similar result. As did hoarding 75 species of exotic snake, something New Yorker Aleta Stacy realised while handling her pet black mamba. Whose bite kills within 20 minutes.

The loss of human life is always tragic. But these examples are slightly marred by the five words you’ll be thinking right now – what exactly were they expecting? Unsurprisingly, apex predators don’t take kindly to being coerced into becoming pets. And we humans are a substantial meal. Most individuals are happy to settle with a Labrador, the doggo equivalent of a VW Golf. It’s a safe bet after all – you shouldn’t end up dead while doing basic tasks like cleaning, and if you do end up on the six o’clock news it’ll be for something genuinely quite surprising.

What about the other side of the fence? Like the world of exotic pets, there’s a growing number of enthusiasts who refuse to settle for the safe choice. People who look at TopGear’s consumer advice and do the exact opposite. Buy a track-inspired road car? Absolutely not, only a racer with a numberplate will cut the mustard here. A mountain lion with a retractable lead round its neck. What could possibly go wrong?

Road-legal racers aren’t a new idea. Many are based on actual road cars after all, and in cases like the WRC they’re required to

be ‘legal’ to compete. But there’s one country taking this approach that little bit further. A country brimming with car culture that borders on the obsessive. Get your Gulf-liveried kimono ready, we’re off to Japan.

The car is still king here. Not only is Japan the third largest producer of vehicles globally (around nine million each year), but its economy absolutely depends on it. Take manufacturing – automotive accounts for 89 per cent of this entire industry with some 5.5 million employed within it. And that’s before we look at the tuners, garages, and race teams.

After all, Japan is the spiritual home of motorsports including Time Attack, drifting and touge running. The nation’s love for driving fast – combined with its vibrant and diverse tuning scene – makes it the perfect melting pot for young, car obsessed geeks to thrive. They’ve even coined a term for it – otaku – which means a ‘young person obsessed with particular aspects of popular culture at the detriment of their own social skills’. Try not to feel personally attacked with that one.

And any country which embraces obsession while rewarding attention to detail will have individuals who take things even further. People like Takeshi Moroi, who drives Vern Schuppan’s Porsche 962C Le Mans car on the streets of Gunma (TopGear issue 279). Or Junya Matsushita, the owner and driver of an ex-Colin McRae Prodrive Impreza nestled deep in Tokyo (TopGear issue 305).

“In Japan, the car is ultimate freedom and expression,” Junya explains. “Many people – especially in cities like Tokyo – still live at home with parents. So, the car becomes their sanctuary, their release. Some like to drive low, some like the classic car. Me? I enjoy the feeling of being a racing driver. To know my Subaru was once driven by heroes – and raced around the world – gives me a feeling no normal car will achieve.”

Like all forms of expression, it comes in many levels ranging from those simply wanting to get the look right through to those demanding a raw, unfiltered driving experience. Cars are an extension of your personality after all – just because you wear a suit for 12 hours a day doesn’t mean your car needs to reflect that. Hence why we’re headed into Saitama first – 45 minutes from Tokyo – to meet a trio of friends who seem to have watched motorsport on the telly in the Nineties and not looked back.

Getting the Look – Super Touring on the Streets of Saitama

Introduced in 1990, the BTCC’s Super Touring formula was supposed to quash the wild spending incurred by the Group A era before it. And that’s exactly what happened... for a year or two. But with major brands like Toyota onboard –followed by Williams bringing F1 tech into Renault’s Laguna – it was never going to stay cheap for long.

Every corner taken flatout, three-abreast for that authentic BTCC experience

If they can manage to fit perfectly in the bays, why can’t a Qashqai at the Co-op?

Despite being nearly 35 years old, Honda’s legendary B-series engine remains one of the most popular in Japan. And can you really blame ’em? Small, cheap and packing a near 9,000rpm rev limit all while retaining Honda’s impeccable reliability. In fact, for many years, the B16B found in EK9 Civics like Ogata-san’s had the world’s highest bhp per litre for a nat-asp engine; 188bhp from just 1.6 litres. Lob in a set of cams, a new intake/exhaust and you’ll be knocking past 200bhp and close to 10,000rpm

But it did bring us some of the best looking racecars of all time. Cars that actually resembled their road-going counterparts, just slammed to the ground on giant wheels with (now) iconic liveries. It captured our hearts in Blighty, and after a slight delay in transmission has done the same for Takeshi Akiyama, Niikura Kousuke and Masahiko Yamazaki.

“When I was little, I watched motorsports at my grandma’s house because she had a foreign TV satellite,” explains Alfa 155 owner Akiyama-san. “WRC, Le Mans and BTCC. To see cars that looked like my father’s being raced gave me a dream to one day do the same.

“I didn’t have the resources to go racing, but I couldn’t stop looking at these fighting machines like the Alfa 155. Their purpose gives them beauty, and they require bravery to drive fast. I have never seen the actual racecar, but for six years I have been building two replicas – one in the ’94 livery and one in ’95. The feeling these cars give is addictive. I feel like the racing driver when I turn the key.”

Kousuke-san, who has the unenviable job of saying Rydell every time he describes his Volvo S40, also had dreams of being a racing driver at a young age. But for Yamazaki-san and his Audi A4, it was Gran Turismo 2 which sparked his lifelong obsession with BTCC.

“My parents owned an Audi, and when I saw the Super Touring A4 on the game I could not believe they were the same car underneath,” he recalls. “Many people love Gran Turismo because of the unusual Japanese cars. But here, we love it

because of the unusual European cars! But especially the racing machines featured, they are always the best. Moving or static, the feeling is very nostalgic. And I will continue to develop my car into a proper racing machine.”

Getting the Speed – Kanjo Civic Racers

In tuning culture, the Wangan route between Tokyo and Kanagawa remains one of Japan’s most infamous. Wide lanes – combined with long, smooth, straight sections – make it the perfect playground for high-powered tuner cars to reach obscene speeds. But over in Osaka lurks the Kanjo loop – short, narrow and riddled with tight curves. Horsepower doesn’t matter here, grip and agility does.

And because this is Japan, a subculture exists solely for this Osaka-based loop. Think lightweight, front-drive hatchbacks capable of cornering on two wheels and you’re almost there – Kanjozoku takes inspiration from Nineties Group A Honda Civics, and 30+ years later this motorsport-inspired attitude is still hugely popular.

“If you want to drive fast, it’s best to start with a fast car,” laughs Daiki Ogata, whose EK9 Civic Type R backs this claim right from the factory. “When I was young, my aunt’s house overlooked the highway, so I would spend hours watching interesting cars race past. By the time I could get a driving licence, car culture had already taken hold of me. I became a mechanic, bought my first Civic and started tuning it.”

“CHILDREN POINT AND SHOUT, ELDERS WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS”

While the rest of the city sleeps, this lot try and wake them all up

For both Ogata-san’s EK9 Type R and Yanagi-san’s EG6 Civic, the liveries are more than just getting the look – they’re a nod to the era which inspired them, but with their own unique twist. “I respected the design of the EF Civic racing in the 1991 JTCC series, and my livery – designed by my friend who also created the famous Izumitsu Civic livery – pays homage to it. The look and feel of a racing machine is unique, but you need to be fast also.”

Getting Road Legal – Nagoya’s Trofeo Racers

Over in Nagoya, things get a little more hardcore as demonstrated by Yasutada Takeda’s Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo racer. With air jacks, Perspex windows and a ground clearance measured in millimetres, the off-centred numberplate on the rear is the only giveaway that this car is in any way street legal.

“I worked with the race crew of the Super Trofeo series, and I remember thinking that it would be a fun car to drive on the street!” Takeda-san explains. “Steering is faster, engine sound more extreme, it feels special. But I believe that if you drive a machine like this on the street, you need to know how to race it too.”

But for 29-year-old Kyosuke Toda, piloting a racer on the street goes far beyond an extreme driving experience. To him, it’s a part of his lifestyle. The friends around him and the events he visits in his spare time are all shaped by the joy his Saker GT brings wherever he goes.

HOW HARD IS IT TO REGISTER A RACER?

Er, that can vary between not too difficult and entirely impossible depending on car and country. But for the sake of this feature, we’ll stick to Japan. According to Takeda-san, recent changes to the registration process means that getting cars like his Gallardo Super Trofeo road legal is now incredibly difficult, unless they have a road-going VIN or were converted street cars. Without that, forget it.

What’s more, Japan’s shaken (MoT equivalent) test can be incredibly strict in some areas – especially

those cars with altered steering, hubs, control arms and more. But one thing you’ll notice about the owners here is that most work around cars. Some are dealers, some are mechanics, and some are tuners. Unsurprisingly, you get to know other car-friendly people... some of whom may even work in one of the shaken centres. And if you happen to choose one of the slightly quieter ones outside of the main cities, getting such cars signed off for another two years suddenly becomes a lot easier.

“I was born in 1994, so I missed many iconic racecars when growing up,” Toda-san adds. “When I got older, I wanted to experience them all but watching videos on YouTube is not good enough. When you are stood next to a car like the Mazda 787B, you feel the engine vibration through your body. It creates a feeling you want to last for a long time.

“Choosing the Saker GT was easy. I cannot afford a genuine Group C car, but Saker has the presence. It is made for racing and causes conversation wherever you drive. Children point and shout, elders want to know what it is. And of course, with 300bhp and 750kg it is fast! You prepare for a journey, and you feel excitement before, during and after. Many new cars – even fast ones – cannot provide that. And I think it will become harder as they get heavier and electric. I drive for the experience, and a racing car is the ultimate expression of that.”

Toda-san’s last point is one that unites all of the owners here. New cars are arguably the best they’ve ever been, but that doesn’t always capture someone’s imagination. In the world of music, you can listen to any song, anywhere in the world through noise cancelling headphones for the ultimate sound quality. Yet vinyl sales are at an all-time high. A format with imperfections, which degrades over time and requires effort to find.

As we get closer to full automation, the desire for an unfiltered and uncompromised driving experience only gets greater too. And, as a country which still embraces the fax machine and DVD as a suitable medium, don’t expect the Japanese to give up internal combustion racecars just yet.

Never has a numberplate looked like more of an afterthought

Hang on, aren’t Ultimas already road-legal racecars? Yup, and they’ve been responsible for some of the fastest 0–100–0 times recorded over the years. But because this is Japan, this is viewed as more of a ‘starting point’ than an end. Get the tricky road registration out the way and let the games begin. That’s why the yellow Ultima here now runs a 383 stroker motor displacing 6.2 litres and over 500bhp. As for the rear cover – or lack of – that’s not because the owner forgot to latch it down earlier in the shoot; they just think it looks cooler without it. And we’re inclined to agree

I N S P E C T R E

WORDS JASON BARLOW

PHOTOGRAPHY MARK FAGELSON

TG crashes hot weather testing in South Africa... and tries not to get in the way. Here’s seven things we learned driving the Rolls-Royce of EVs

1It looks Spectre-acular on the move

Sorry, but even the amazing images here don’t do justice to the real thing. The Spectre is a huge statement car, more than ever now that Rolls-Royce has finally embraced electrification. It’s imposing rather than pretty, but fabulously coherent. The overall shape is defined by a silhouette line, a shoulder line, and what Rolls calls a waft line. It needs those 23in wheels to do its best visual work. Its aero numbers are impressive, the tapered tail helping it to a 0.25 drag co-efficient. The grille is the widest ever on a Rolls, also designed to reduce drag. The aperture beneath the grille and bumper is the one feeding cooling air. The Spirit of Ecstasy is leaning forward more than before, for improved efficiency. The split headlights look better resolved here than on other Rollses; the upper ones are permanently lit. The sense of strength this shape and body imparts is extraordinary, although South Africa’s liquid light helps.

2It feels... well, like a Rolls-Royce

Full disclosure: we’re driving a pre-production car, on a late stage hot weather test in South Africa. ‘Feel’ is the key word, though not perhaps in the traditional road-testy sense. It’s an idea Rolls CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös is particularly keen on. Remember, the Rolls-Royce Phantom is a car that can be driven with a fingertip touch on the wheel, so these cars have a unique dynamic imprimatur. The Spectre is definitely more spirited although still no sports car. It’s 5m long, 2m wide and weighs over three tonnes with even a small human behind the wheel. But it has amazing poise despite its mass, and its control weights are very pleasingly calibrated. True steering feel is a dark art, but the Spectre delivers a linearity and balance that’s very special. The batteries weigh 700kg, so even with its aluminium chassis the Spectre is heavy. At least their location under the floor helps promote an effective centre of gravity. An active rear axle also enhances low-speed manoeuvrability, and AWD is a given. As for the fabled R-R ride quality, the components are familiar from the Ghost, although Rolls hasn’t issued full details yet. As on the Ghost, the Spectre has the Planar suspension system, which adds a mechanical mass damper on the front suspension’s upper wishbone to enhance body control. The ride is sublime, even on 23in wheels.

There are very specific challenges when it comes to developing an electric Rolls-Royce

We’re driving with Spectre project leader, Joerg Wunder. He’s the man who has to cope with a mission statement that basically says that good is never good enough. Even very good isn’t acceptable. This car has to be spectacularly refined. In the Spectre, the sound of a pin dropping on the lambswool rug could send the otherwise

mild-mannered Joerg into an apoplexy. And yet, absolute silence is oppressive, so Joerg is tasked with achieving the perfect balance. “It can also be a safety issue,” he says. “You need a certain amount of noise to enable the driver to place the car properly on the road, and to know what to do on the approach to a corner.” Rolls talks in terms of marginal gains, an idea popularised by former British Olympic cycling boss, Dave Brailsford. Tiny detail improvements can add up to a big win. This explains why Joerg winces as the wind kicks up a bit of a fuss around the door mirrors. He mumbles something in German as the doors lock with a rather weak-sounding ‘kang’ rather than a Rolls-appropriate ‘whump’. And there’s a squeak coming from the driver’s seat, but that’s because I’ve motored it as far back as it’ll go and it disappears when I ease it forward a touch. Joerg looks relieved. “Presumably you thought about camera mirrors rather than conventional ones?” I ask. “We did, but not for long,” he says. “They’re not appropriate on a Rolls-Royce.”

4

It isn’t perfect... but it isn’t finished, either

Joerg says the Spectre is only 65 per cent finished. Even at this stage, this electrified Rolls – the most important model the company has made since 1906’s Silver Ghost, according to Müller-Ötvös – is the most refined car I’ve driven. Its ambience, atmosphere and the experience of travelling in it are unlike anything else. They’re after marginal gains so I offer marginal criticisms. There could be smidge more weight in the steering, and maybe a little more feel at the top of the brake pedal. The regen braking – triggered by a ‘B’ button on the drive controller – and one-pedal driving mode could be more meaningful. Other than that, it’s bewitching to drive. And somehow it manages not to be a mobile sensory deprivation tank.

5Elements of the powertrain are still secret

Rolls is keeping its powder dry on the details, but it’s safe to assume the hardware is heavily related to the set-up in the BMW i7 and iX. This is good news because they’re both brilliant. But Rolls-Royce, mindful of the overarching relationship, is extremely keen to put some fresh air between itself and BMW. So the Spectre gets its own bespoke software and the integration is all singularly Rolls-Royce. Its ‘step-off’ is even smoother than the i7’s, its overall calibration more decorous. It will also have a more powerful battery – we’d guess at 120kWh, which puts it right up there with the EV big guns. A 664lb ft torque figure is confirmed, but the exact power output remains a matter of speculation. North of 600bhp, surely, although Rolls is disinterested in any sort of power race, and no one’s going to do a silly YouTube drag race in one. If the motors are the same as BMW’s, they’re electrically excited synchronous rather than ones with fixed permanent magnets, eliminating the need for rare earth metals in the rotor. Charging software is always improving, and while Rolls claims a range of 310 miles WLTP, that’s less of an issue in this car than in other EVs. The average Rolls owner has seven cars in his or her garage, and the Spectre is likely to be a special occasion drive only. The

Fact: you need enormously big scenery to make the RollsRoyce Spectre look this small

Spectre is super-peaceful, super-calm, super-cool. Just like our Jason

Rolls likes to do things differently, which meant camouflage didn’t quite cut it

“GOOD IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. EVEN VERY GOOD ISN’T ACCEPTABLE. THIS CAR HAS TO BE SPECTACULARLY REFINED”

Phantom, with its olde worlde combustion V12, can do the long haul stuff. You are unlikely to see a Spectre owner caught on social media waiting for a charger to become free, or chowing down on a Costa ham and cheese toastie while the car juices up.

6Its interior is deliberately, satisfyingly analogue

Access to the four-seater cabin is via rear-hinged doors, which the driver closes by pressing the brake pedal. Unlike some high-end rivals, Rolls-Royce has resisted the temptation to deliver a full-bore techno onslaught. There’s no hyperscreen in here, or anything like it. But there are digital instruments for the first time, which do an excellent job of looking exactly the same as analogue ones. There’s a central touchscreen, which can also be accessed via a rotary controller. The climate control is done by big rotary knobs and the traditional Rolls red and blue discs. It’s a fabulously elegant solution, never bettered. The starlight headlining now extends into the doors, and adds up to almost 4,800 individually lit stars. (It’s a Rolls USP and also the reason why you’ll never see a 7-Series-style ‘theatre screen’ in a Phantom or Ghost.) The central console is part of the chassis, which helps rigidity, so there’s no funky real estate happening here, unlike in other big EVs. The seats are fabulous, sumptuous but effective during brisk cornering. And Rolls has designed its own monumental audio system, optimising it right from the body-in-white stage. Our prototype is deliberately rather sombre inside, but in Rolls’ bespoke division anything is possible. A brand new paint shop is planned in the next few years, along with an expanded production facility at Goodwood.

The group test will cost a fortune

Its rivals aren’t cars. Spectre owners are looking for the four wheeled equivalent of the view from the One57 penthouse in Manhattan, the Project Norse super yacht, or the Gulfstream G650 (a long haul private jet, Elon Musk has one). We’ll see what power figure Rolls settles on, and some might prefer it to be a bit faster, a little more, er, electrifying to drive. But that’s missing the point. We must reserve judgement until we drive the finished car, but the Spectre is a genuinely elevating experience.

It’s every man for himself if you find yourself short of charge out in these parts

OVAL RACING

One of the most successful engine makers in history returns to the grid in 2026... here’s why Ford in F1 matters

WORDS JASON BARLOW

“RELIABILITY SORTED, THE DFV WOULD ENTER ITS LENGTHY IMPERIAL PHASE”

It’s -10°C outside but warming up nicely in here. Red Bull Racing is based in Milton Keynes but in launching its 2023 Formula One contender in Manhattan, several important things are at play.

Firstly, F1 is now officially a big deal in North America. There will be three races in 2023: in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas. All those years that former supremo and walking controversy magnet Bernie Ecclestone tried and failed to crack the world’s biggest sports market, turns out all he needed was a global streaming platform and a clever TV show. Secondly, Ford is back in F1, and will today announce a technical partnership with the reigning world champions, to commence when the new rules and regulations come into force in 2026. Did anyone see that coming?

It’s difficult to remember a time before Netflix’s Drive to Survive, and it’s tempting to assume that the new generation of fans isn’t bothered by whose name is on the side of a car. But anyone who knows their history will be acutely aware of the legacy Ford has in top tier motorsport. The stats are impressive in isolation but only tell a fragment of the story: between 1967 and 1983, Ford DFV-powered cars scored 155 Grands Prix wins, propelled 12 drivers to championship titles, and racked up 10 constructors’ championships. This makes the Blue Oval the third most successful engine constructor in F1 history, with only Mercedes and Ferrari ahead. Not bad given that it’s been absent for 20 years.

Before Ford, we need to talk about Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, two former Lotus engineers who set up as Cosworth in the late Fifties. Following early adventures in F3 and F2, they were approached by their former employer Colin Chapman to step up to F1 ahead of the new for 1966 3.0-litre rule change (a welcome increase from the 1.5-litre formula). Chapman tried to secure government funding but then took his famous flat cap in hand to Ford, in particular the legendary head of public affairs and former Daily Mail journalist, Walter Hayes. He managed to persuade Ford’s UK chairman Stanley Gillen and the bosses in Dearborn to pony up £100k to develop a new four-cylinder F2 motor and a V8 for F1 in collaboration with Cosworth.

The DFV – “double four valve” – was the result, widely regarded as the greatest engine in F1 history not just because it was competitive, but because it enabled so many different teams to be competitive. Originally, though, it was destined only for the Lotus 49. Duckworth opted for a 90° vee-angle so the unit fitted smoothly in the typically slender Chapman designed chassis. A flat plane crank simplifed the exhaust layout. The engine was also a stressed member, reducing weight and centralising mass, among other benefits, but it meant that the cylinder heads, crankcase and rear suspension were all designed to cope with racing loads. The DFV had clever combustion, helping it to a power output of 408bhp at 9,000rpm.

It almost had a dream debut. Although it didn’t appear until the third GP of the 1967 season at Zandvoort, Graham Hill put the DFV-powered Lotus 49 on a convincing pole position and scampered off into the distance. He retired

Hunt had to stop for a refill more often than his Ford engine

domination. A message left on Andretti’s engine, ahead of the 1977 British GP – it blew up six laps before the race ended. Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, and James Hunt all won world titles in DFV-powered cars, and Ford power propelled Ayrton Senna to five GP wins in 1993. Above: Michael Schumacher celebrates his first world title in 1994, having won eight of that year’s 16 GPs in his Benetton-Ford

“IT’D BE EASIER TO LIST THE TEAMS THAT DIDN’T USE COSWORTH POWER”

with broken cam drive gears, but his teammate Jim Clark managed to win the race. There would be three more victories that season for the Scot, and a third place finish in the drivers’ championship, reliability issues invariably obstructing progress.

Once they were ironed out, though, the DFV would enter its lengthy imperial phase. Key to this was Ford’s decision to make the unit available to teams other than Lotus, which no doubt irked Chapman but led to a golden era in F1 in which a variety of outfits had a fighting chance of victory. Light, powerful and reliable, the DFV was also affordable: it cost around £8,000 in the late Sixties, equivalent to £140k today.

It would be easier to list the teams that didn’t use FordCosworth power, but that famous logo helped Jackie Stewart to his first driver’s title with Matra and Ken Tyrrell in 1969 (in fact, all three of his titles were DFV-powered), saw Emerson Fittipaldi become the then-youngest ever champion at the wheel of the Lotus 72 (yep, that JPS black and gold beauty), and was in the back of James Hunt’s McLaren M23 when he saw off Niki Lauda’s fateful Ferrari challenge to win the 1976 world title.

The DFV even survived the advent of ground effect aero in F1 in 1977 because its narrow angle and compact design was a better fit with the newly reworked chassis than the Italian rivals’ bulkier flat-12 engines. Cue a world title for Mario Andretti in the Lotus 79. Other milestones? Alan Jones helped Williams take its first titles in 1980, and uprated innards meant the DFV was now making in excess of 500bhp, enough to keep it on par with the Eighties’ new era turbo engines, in race spec at least.

Martin Brundle has the honour of racing the last DFV engine to appear in F1, in a Tyrrell in the 1985 Austrian GP, but Ford V8s later powered Ayrton Senna’s McLaren to multiple victories in 1993, and a Ford Zetec-R propelled a certain Michael Schumacher’s Benetton to his first world title in 1994. How quickly we forget, eh?

In 1997, former customer Jackie Stewart started his own team with Ford backing, while the company itself bought Cosworth in July 1998. There was a solitary win for Johnny Herbert in the 1999 European GP, whereupon JYS sold the team to the company that had helped fund it in the first place.

What a deal. It was rebranded as Jaguar Racing from 2000, but that’s a sadly inglorious chapter best skipped over – Ford sold the team to Red Bull at the end of 2004. In fact, the last victory for a Ford-powered car in F1 came in 2003’s red-flagged Brazilian GP controversy fest, for Giancarlo Fisichella’s Jordan.

So in a sense things have come full circle. And pretty quickly by all accounts. Red Bull got very close to a deal with Porsche last year, but apparently that went awry because Porsche wanted equity, a big say in all future development, and perhaps even to replace Christian Horner with one of its own. Never gonna happen. So who called who?

Having established its powertrain division at its ever expanding Milton Keynes campus, and presumably learnt a lot from its relationship with Honda, Red Bull doesn’t need Ford to conjure up a whole new engine. It needs help with the new 469bhp electric motor and associated software that’s core to the 2026 technical regulations. Ford has world-class knowledge there. And Ford? It gets to put the famous logo on a likely championship-winning F1 car, in an era when sustainable

fuels and the push to carbon neutrality aligns with its own goals. Plus, all the competencies Red Bull has developed in F1. As the Manhattan launch melee subsides, TG has time to grab the key players, starting with Ford CEO Jim Farley, and ask him where and how the idea first took root.

“Here’s why it started to click for me. The most important thing is how we get the tech transfer. When we started getting serious about EVs around three years ago, we realised that aero was going to be the most important differentiator in the physical product. The battery is so heavy and so expensive that anyone who comes up with the best aero will make that battery smaller which means lower cost and greater affordability. Anyone can make an EV. But if you want to make money on it, you better minimise the size of that battery. To do that you need better aerodynamics than anyone else.

“So we had to recruit, and where do we get the best aero people? F1. So I had to get these guys to win in our production car business. Christian and the others need, from 2026, to have the best energy density in the batteries, the best control software

“WE DON’T HAVE AN AWARENESS PROBLEM AT FORD”

for that battery cell. And we’ve got really good at that stuff because of the R&D and investment we’ve been making. In the end it was, “You need this, I need that... let’s make it work.”

Farley, who’s an accomplished racer in his own right and campaigns an original GT40, acknowledges F1’s booming profile in the US was helpful. We watch as Red Bull’s third driver, Daniel Ricciardo, is mobbed as he leaves the building. “We make five million cars per year, and we’re adding two million units. Even in the Twenties Ford never grew like it’s going to grow in the next few years. I have a lot of EVs to sell. Who’s a better advocate? A Max, Checo or Daniel, or a Hollywood star I hire?”

Nobody in New York will disclose how much the deal is worth, but TG understands it’s very cost-effective. Ford is not on a free-spending ego trip – not with all the bad news swirling around its European operation – and has what it wants without having to fork out for an entire team. “That’s not interesting for us. We don’t have an awareness problem at Ford,” Farley says.

As for Christian Horner, who raced a DFV-powered F3000 car in 1997, the bigger picture barely needs explaining. “Ford has

got such a great heritage in the sport. After meeting Bill [Ford] and Jim, their passion for racing was just so clear. And it was a very, very straightforward discussion, you could just feel that there was an alignment of goals and targets and that we weren’t going to get in each other’s swim lanes. We could help them and they could help us. It felt very natural.”

Horner says that he met Ford’s global motorsports boss, Mark Rushbrook, at the “back end of the summer. Then we had a meeting with Bill and Jim on the way down to São Paulo [ahead of the Brazilian GP, on November 13th].”

What exactly will Red Bull Racing get from the deal? “We’ll get access to all the R&D, on the hybrid technology, particularly with the battery cell and software. This is an area that an independent engine manufacturer in F1 would have been a bit exposed on, compared with Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Audi. Now we have the support of a major OEM in an area that requires huge investment.”

The Red Bull Racing/Ford axis starts now and runs until 2030. Yes, things are warming up very nicely indeed.

CONCEPTS THAT TIME FORGOT

CHRYSLER CITADEL, 1999

Strange to think of an estate being a retro design, but a concept car with a wagon rear end immediately dates itself to that halcyon period of the late Nineties/early Noughties before all our cars got inexplicably taller and heavier and slightly shorter

Especially an American concept car, like the Chrysler Citadel, which appeared at NAIAS in Detroit in January 1999, a motor show as all-American as apple pie and concealed weapons This was the year after Daimler and Chrysler had merged to form an ultimately doomed industry behemoth (DaimlerChrysler – very unimaginative back then), and perhaps they wanted to show that some of that European flair had rubbed off

As well as that sleek racy exterior there were some nifty touches on the Citadel – sliding rear doors with integrated B-pillar, or a split bootlid that retracted into the floor Both designed to provide maximum accessibility to the creamy leather interior An interior – especially the dash

said to be influenced by high-end watches, all of which should get you well on the way to filling out a line on your concept car bingo card

But the real party piece that would have got show visitors hurling their bloody steaks across the room in disgust was the hybrid powertrain Electric assistance was at this point almost the exclusive purview of Japanese manufacturers,

PRODUCTION WEDGES

Following on from Gandini’s dramatic Stratos Zero concept at the 1970 Turin Motor Show, production of the HF finally began in 1973

The most famous wedge of all? The Gandini-designed Countach went into production in ultra-clean LP400 form in 1974

with teeny engines and even teenier fuel bills

Outrageous stuff But the Citadel’s virtue was that it – and Chrysler was entirely earnest when it said this – combined the performance of a V8 with the economy of a V6 Oh to be back in a time when either of those would have been a major selling point in a family estate car

The 3 5-litre V6 petrol engine pumped out 253bhp to the rear wheels while an e-motor shipped in from Siemens provided an extra 70bhp of assistance to the front wheels for 4WD security About as far from a Prius as you could imagine a hybrid to be

And yet for some reason the Citadel never made it to production – the likes of the Sebring and PT Cruiser were safer bets, it seems The Citadel might have had a better chance in the US if it had promised V8 performance with V12 economy Or if it had been a gigantic pickup with monstrous 40-inch tyres and a shotgun rack on the passenger side of the dash

DaimlerChrysler tended to get it all wrong, though The US/German mash-up blended the worst of both sides to trash the reputations of Chrysler and Mercedes for years to come It was a dark time Chrysler was sold off in 2007 went bankrupt in 2009, was bought by Fiat in 2014 and then absorbed into Stellantis in 2021 American quality, French ergonomics and Italian reliability? Now that’s more like it Sam Burnett

Want a wedge on a budget?

The TR7 was penned by Harris Mann in the early Seventies –around the same time he was sketching the Austin Princess

LOTUS ESPRIT S1

Wasn’t just the Italians who loved a wedge. But dig a bit deeper and you’ll find the Esprit was actually drawn by Giugiaro at... Italdesign

ICCI’S GARAGE

“How long do you think the replacement engine has been left standing?” I asked Andy Young of Spider’s Collection, hoping for something reassuring. He replied, “I’d say it left the factory in the Eighties running, but I’d be surprised if it’s moved this decade. To put it into perspective, two slugs popped out to say hello while removing the exhaust manifolds...”

I’ve never met Andy in real life, and that’s probably a good thing considering the Brabus W126 was originally dropped round to his workshop for a quick service and check of the valve clearances. Both of which were completed very quickly. But what Andy wasn’t expecting was to undertake an entire engine conversion, something which became apparent after the ‘slight tapping’ I mentioned wasn’t so much the valves as it was the oil in the engine... or rather lack of. And the 5.5-litre M117.9 V8 had many pieces in its oil pan after driving a grand total of 13 miles in the two years I’ve owned it.

Rebuilding it wasn’t really an option by this point. If it’d been running well, a quick refresh might’ve made a lot of sense. But a tapping engine with a temperamental oil pump that could’ve caused much oil starvation? That’s not going to look pretty, whichever way you approach it.

Like every broken car I own, it’s important to look at the positives rather than default to absolute rage. And, in the case of the Brabus, it should’ve never been fitted with the 5.5-litre V8 found in later 560 SEL models. Sure, that yielded a bit more power, but the original

pre-facelift W126 should’ve been fitted with the smaller 5.0-litre engine instead.

More importantly, whoever did this engine swap in the past managed to complete it using just two tools: an impact gun with a 12mm socket and a large hammer. I don’t know what the words ‘finesse’ and ‘care’ are in the Belgian language, but neither were considered at any point during the process. The fact it drove 13 miles without falling out is testament to the power of an impact gun on its maximum setting.

Anyway, we’re keeping things positive. Not only is the W126 now running and not tapping its head off, but Project Voldemort aka the BMW M635 CSi is also rapidly making progress too. It’s called Voldemort because I refuse to acknowledge or speak of its very existence, something Alan at CNC Motorsport is very familiar with after I popped it round for “a little bit of work” several years ago.

I bought it as a cheap non-runner and managed to get it running (and MoT tested) without spending a complete fortune on it. What I should’ve done at that point was sell it for a decent profit. But no, I took it down to Alan initially for some centrelock wheels and hubs. Which rapidly progressed into making it a kind of road-legal Group A M6, and that involved stripping it to a bare shell before welding, repainting, and refurbishing every component before installing a Group A rollcage and various other bits.

But, if I had sold it, I’d only have bought something worse and found myself in a similar situation just with a slightly different badge on the front. Both Andy and Alan have been legends while entertaining these builds, and frankly if it wasn’t for their patience and ability, I’d have tapped out a long time ago. Bring on having two (almost) running cars in 2023.

Mark Riccioni

“Yeah, I can see your issue there mate. This should be under the bonnet”

32 Mark’s Brabus W126 has gone in for a quick service... and come out needing a new engine

“LIKE EVERY BROKEN CAR I OWN, IT’S IMPORTANT TO LOOK AT POSITIVES RATHER THAN DEFAULT TO RAGE”

(2023) HONDA CIVIC vs HONDA CIVIC (1975)

Over half a century separates the first and latest gen Civics – what’s changed?

HOW MANY GENERATIONS SEPARATE THESE TWO, THEN?

We’re into double digits now. Incredibly, the delightful Carnaby Yellow Civic pictured on the right is the first of 11 generations to roll out of the factory. First launched in 1972 as a 2dr coupe, a 3dr hatch followed a couple of months later. It measured 3.56m long by 1.51m wide and 1.34m tall, weighing in at 790kg, while power came from a 1.2-litre four-cylinder engine producing 49bhp and 58lb ft, mated to a four-speed gearbox. In the half century since, more than 27 million Civics have been sold worldwide.

THE NEW ONE’S NOT BAD LOOKING, EITHER

You’re not wrong, particularly in this striking Premium Crystal Blue Metallic paintjob. It’s grown in size mind, measuring 4.55m long by 1.80m wide and 1.41m tall and weighing in at 1,533kg, but the bigger story is its new hybrid powertrain (branded eHEV). It combines a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine with a 1.05kWh battery and a pair of electric motors – one of which generates electricity, the other of which drives the front wheels – which Honda claims results in smoother power delivery and improved fuel efficiency.

THAT’S ALL WELL AND GOOD ON PAPER, BUT IN THE REAL WORLD?

It’s rather impressive. Around town you generally sit in EV mode, with the engine seamlessly picking up the pieces when the going ramps up and taking complete control at motorway speed. The

new set-up delivers 178bhp and 232lb ft of torque, resulting in a 0–62mph time of 8.1secs and vmax of 112mph, plenty handy for a regular family hatchback. It’s a wholly relaxing affair, even the usually much maligned CVT gearbox is a smooth operator here –just don’t expect much (if any) in the way of driving thrills.

HOW DOES THE OLD TIMER COMPARE?

A reminder of just how fun and involving cars of this age are to drive. There’s plenty of play in the surprisingly light steering, but it’s pleasantly quiet once underway and shifts nicely, even if the 0–62mph time of around 15secs and top speed of 90mph won’t break any records. Not that you’ll want to do much more than 50mph, with the ride becoming noticeably bouncy and the engine ever more strained as you push on. Still, as a little motor for tootling around town, do you really need much more car than this?

HAS TIME BEEN KIND TO THE INTERIOR?

You get some stylish wood trim on the dash (plenty of similarities with the Honda e there), half leather seats and door cards, an analogue radio... and that’s about it. The latest gen here comes kitted out with heated steering wheel and seats, digital dials and infotainment display, a Bose 12-speaker hi-fi, panoramic sunroof and more. There’s no doubt the older one is showing its age –but so would you if you were approaching the big half century.

ROVER TAT

ROVER 75 (2001)

Price now: £1,250

Harris says: Leather seats, a wooden dash, cruise control and a 2 5-litre V6 You can have all of that for just over £1k if you don’t mind the fact that it all has to come on a Rover 75 These really are very cheap.

LESS THAN £1.3K

ROVER STREETWISE (2004)

Price now: £1,495

Harris says: Was the Streetwise ahead of its time? Rover introduced its jacked-up hatch with plastic bumpers way back in 2003, and now you can’t move for crossovers in car parks

LESS THAN £1.5K

ROVER 100 (1997)

Price now: £1,695

Harris says: Launched as the Austin Mini Metro in 1980, this hydrogassed hatch only became the Rover 100 when it was rebadged in 1994 Strangely prices seem to be on the up right now

LESS THAN £1.7K

REMEMBERING

#48 RETRO GAMING THE CLASSICS

GRAND PRIX 2

PC, 1996

While the original Grand Prix was undoubtedly a groundbreaking leap forward in racing simulation technology, there’s no denying that, with its flat, polygonal graphics, it looked a bit like the entire thing had been fashioned from children’s construction paper. The sequel, 1996’s Grand Prix 2, took advantage of a technique called texture mapping, which ensured the cars and circuits were exactly as festooned with garish sponsors as on the telly. The only thing missing was Murray Walker rapidly approaching supernova in the commentary box.

At the time of its release, Grand Prix 2 was unmatched as a simulation, recreating the sport in all its complexity using a sophisticated physics engine written by ace programmer Geoff Crammond. Every car and track from the 1994 season was represented and the handling was a true test of driving skill, which was not what you wanted to hear when you accidentally launched your car over the top of Ukyo Katayama for the third race in a row.

As with the previous game in the series, there were a selection of optional driving assists, such as traction control and braking help. Given that the majority of players were attempting to control an 800 horsepower F1 car by pecking at a PC keyboard, though, you can probably delete the word ‘optional’ there. In a rare inclusion, and in keeping with the brutal realism, the masochists amongst you could also activate an entire page full of potential random failures including engine blowouts and suspension collapses. Exactly what you want on lap 71 of a 72 lap race.

This commitment to accuracy produced real world results when, having practised the circuit on Grand Prix 2, then-rookie Jacques Villeneuve slapped his Williams on pole position for the 1996 Spa Grand Prix. It does make you wonder what he’d been playing when he rolled his car into a ball there in 1999, though...

VolvoXC40Recharge

REPORT 3

£45,750 OTR/£48,085 as tested/£761pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is Volvo’s electrified crossover as good as a bespoke EV from Polestar?

DRIVER

Rowan Horncastle

THE GREAT M8/XC40 CAR SHARING CRUSADE CONTINUES. AND this month I’ve been spending time in the peculiarly coloured ‘Champagne Dregs Gold’ electric Volvo. Which, after a few weeks living in the sumptuous 600+bhp BMW, has provided a welcome palate cleanse. But also a few frustrations.

One thing that drives me insane are unwanted squeaks, buzzes, clonks and rattles in cars. And – annoyingly – the XC40 has them. More annoyingly, they’re hard to locate; little noise ninjas in door cards, suspension struts and the nine-inch central touchscreen.

The first exceedingly irritating noise arrives before you’ve even driven the thing. As soon as you get in the Recharge you’re greeted with a faint buzzy static hum from the central screen. Worse, unlike an ICE XC40, there’s no ignition/on/off button (you just get in, knock it into gear and go) so you can’t turn it off, even when stationary. The way I counter it is to crank the music up and drown it out. But electric cars are meant to be silent and therefore soothing and relaxing.

Which brings me on to my next point. The added silence gifted from the lack of an engine in the Recharge means this XC40’s little knocks and rattles are even more prominent. Like the squeak in the back seat. Or worrying clonk from the left-rear suspension. And having consulted the forums, I’m not the only one who has had this issue – with some tracking it down to a faulty strut. So I’m going to head to a dealer and see what they say, as ultimately all these noises makes the car feel cheaper than it is. And at £48k, this isn’t a cheap car. So it shouldn’t rattle, hum and clonk like one.

Blood boiling sounds aside, aware that the little Volvo might rarely escape the London’s ULEZ zone as Jack and I are tragic urbanites, I thought I’d test out its claimed 264-mile range from the 69kWh battery. The plan was to head from London to Bristol and back, a 240-mile trip down the M4. Easy, right? The XC40 failed spectacularly, only able to deliver 150 miles in cold weather. Luckily, there was a saviour: Mollie’s.

Mollie’s is a new motel and roadside diner just off the M5 near Bristol but a million miles away from those washed up, kitsch Americana diners you see on the A1. Created from the brains of the people behind ritzy member’s club Soho House, Mollie’s is attacking the market with a disruptive ‘budget-luxe’ alternative to your Holiday and Premier Inns. And it has nailed it. I’d go as far to say it’s a new benchmark – and it couldn’t have come along at more of a perfect time.

See, roadside offerings when it comes to food and sleep options in the UK are – let’s be honest – crap. And with first time EV users like me being duped by misleading WLTP figures, EV ‘destinations’ are only going to become more of a thing. And Mollie’s is perfect, offering somewhere to fuel both you and the car as it’s flooded with 14 charging bays and a restaurant. There’s a mix of rapid chargers (which can charge the Volvo from 10–80 per cent in as little as 27 mins) and overnight chargers in case you want to kick back and have a few cocktails at the bar before a filling dinner and cheap sleep. Tired, weary and thirsty, I opted for the second. And didn’t regret it.

Where a lot of ‘motor hotels’ (as they were called in the Fifties) smell of a student halls of residence, have sticky furnishings and TV remotes

you wouldn’t pay someone to touch, Mollie’s is tech-centred (everything from check in, to car charging, playlist in your room and breakfast order is controlled via an app) and chic. Costing from £70, the rooms are smart, spacious and have that Insta-friendly trendy minimalism you see in Scandinavian coffee table books. Better than that, each room comes with big head rainfall showers, insomnia-be-gone Hypnos mattresses, Cowshed cosmetic products and Dyson hairdryers. This is all stuff you get in a Soho House room which costs hundreds of pounds. Diners may draw up imagery of chrome stools, lukewarm drip coffee, greasy burgers and hot dogs that have been boiled in old bath water. But Mollie’s is light and elegant, blending hints of vintage with modern. It’s the perfect backdrop for the social media friendly food served all day that’d cost you a fortune in London but is delicious and refreshingly reasonably priced, making it the perfect place to stop if you need an EV top up. Or if want to take your EV on a roadtrip. With Mollie’s opening a further 10 locations around the UK as part of a rapid expansion plan, it can’t happen soon enough if the viral footage of queues at motorway service charging points is anything to go off. And given the XC40’s range, I’ll probably be going back sooner than I think.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

BAD STUFF

The XC40’s not hitting its range numbers. But it allowed us to stumble upon a roadside gem. And not the grot shops on the A1.

orchestra of squeaks, rattles and buzzes are making even the smallest journey aggravating.

Mazda CX-60

REPORT 2

£49,520 OTR/£53,270 as tested/£649 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Can Mazda join the large/luxe SUV party?

DRIVER

AF: THOSE THAT READ MY INTRODUCTION TO THE CX-60 LAST MONTH may remember that I mentioned an early problem with the big Mazda. There was a squeak coming from the suspension at full lock and over large bumps at slow speeds. Mazda reckoned it could fix it in a day, and did! Apparently a suspension bush just needed regreasing.

I’m now struggling with the steering. It doesn’t feel right, it’s too mechanical and the CX-60 moves around too much on the road. Whether this is just me, or if it’s related to the other issue, I don’t know, so I’m handing it over to Greg Potts to test on a slightly longer journey.

GP: Well, initial impressions are very good. As Andy mentioned last month the interior is a lovely place to be. The materials are all top quality and it’s a lovely, light cabin. Plenty of room in the 570-litre boot too, not that I’ll need all that luggage space – this is a quick dash to Brussels.

On the move, things with the CX-60 aren’t quite as positive. At low speed the calibration between petrol and electric power is a little clunky, with some alarming noises as the internal combustion engine and auto gearbox sort themselves out. There’s no trouble from the suspension though, so it would seem that Mazda has fixed that.

On a small section of northern France and a whole heap of Belgian motorway, I have to agree with Andy on the steering. At high speeds it

doesn’t feel natural. You’re constantly having to make small corrections, and most of the time over-correcting. This needs more investigation. Other than that, the Mazda is a strong roadtrip companion, with its chunky tyre sidewall making for a comfortable ride and road noise kept to a minimum. There’s nowhere to plug in overnight at our impossibly tight underground car park though, so in 500 miles with limited electrical assistance I’ve averaged 31.7mpg.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

BAD STUFF

AUDIS3SPORTBACK

REPORT 3

£39,045/£49,030/£794

WHY IT’S HERE

Fast Audis are consistently inconsistent – is the S3 hit or miss?

DRIVER

Ollie Kew

YOU’RE NOW LOOKING AT THE ultimate small fast Audi. No, I haven’t had the engine tuned to 500bhp, or treated it to slick tyres. Audi’s done the hard work for me. It’s killed the RS3. So, has life been made any easier for the car left in its shadow?

Well, as we now stumble blinking into springtime, I’ve got to admit to being a tad underwhelmed by the S3 as a rapid winter weapon. It’s never felt as ruthless as I’d expected. The gearbox is lazy. The balance is very definitely FWD with a reluctant delegation to the rear wheels if you insist. The steering’s the worst of both worlds: absolutely no feel or feedback, but too much kickback from the potholes on our freeze-thawed roads.

Still, I have cause for cheerfulness. First, the S3 is soon to take a little trip down memory lane, so we can apply some science to the theory that the S3 hasn’t moved the hot hatch game on enough during its near quarter of a century in existence. And second, some experimentation with modes has yielded spectacular results in fuel consumption. I’m talking 50 more miles per tank. More next month...

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

This month: the Ora’s missing Apple CarPlay

Greg Potts

In theory, the ability to perform over-the-air (OTA) updates should be a fantastic feature that means your brand spanking new car isn’t out of date the moment it drops off the assembly line. And yet, increasingly we are seeing manufacturers use this as an excuse to deliver unfinished product. Take our new Ora Funky Cat for example. There are no supply chain issues here – if you order one today it’ll be ready to collect in as little as three weeks – but it will arrive without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto compatibility. We’re told by Ora that the phone pairing will arrive as an OTA update in the “middle of 2023” but there’s no specific date and no word on whether we’ll have to pay for the pleasure, so until then we’re stuck with the inbuilt nav... which is rubbish.

Vauxhall Astra

REPORT 2

£28,710 OTR/£29,310 as tested/£409 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Does the sharp-suited new Astra prove you don’t need that SUV?

DRIVER

Sam Philip

IT’S THE QUESTION EVERY DREADFULLY MIDDLE CLASS HATCHBACK enthusiast has been asking: can you fit four people and their ski stuff in the new Vauxhall Astra, without sticking any stuff, or people, on the roof?

And after extensive, selfless research, I’m pleased to report that the answer is... yes. Provided that two of those people – and indeed their skis –are very small. Both pairs of adult skis wedged through the load-through hatch (just, you wouldn’t get a third pair in), all the rest of the kit jammed into the boot and around the backseat passengers. Not much room for any other luggage, not exactly comfy – especially for the rear seat passenger forced to travel with the sharp end of a ski pole up their nose – but it all fits.

This extensive, selfless research forms part of an extensive, selfless couple of winter weeks in the Alps, to discover exactly how the Astra handles a big family holiday. With great competence, as it turns out.

On the drive down across France we see a steady 45mpg, which I don’t think you’d get in many petrol SUVs. I manage nearly 500 miles between refills. With a lighter right foot I suspect you could get considerably further.

While we’re on the subject of clocking up the autoroute miles, big up to the Astra’s front seats, which are phenomenally comfy, and even include a slide out section to extend under-thigh support. I generally end up with an achy back after a big continental drive. Not in the Astra.

For a big winter trip, the only thing I’d really want from my Astra is a little more bootspace. Though its 422-litre capacity is actually pretty generous by the standards of the hatch class, it’s still snug for a big family holiday, especially one involving many long, pointy skis. If you need a bit more space, I reckon the new Astra Tourer could be just the ticket...

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

BAD STUFF

WHAT ELSE WE’RE RUNNING

VOLKSWAGENMULTIVAN

Our Multivan comes kitted out in top spec Style trim, which commands a £10k premium over entry level Life for the likes of the electric sliding doors and tailgate We’ve also got nearly £6k of extras, including the £2 7k paintjob (see TG.com for a full breakdown). Ouch. But none of it is really necessary – even in its most basic of specification, I still reckon this is the most practical family transport going PR

CITROENC5XHYBRID

The C5 X gets vaguely stroppy in a semi-detached French kind of way if you go a certain number of days without plugging it in “You have not charged up the battery in 17 days, you are missing out on all the eco benefits,” it says And it’s right Citroen claims a range of 37 miles, but right now I’m getting about 18 and they seem to zip by at an unseemly rate So it’s a non-Gallic shrug from me on that one JB

HONDACIVICeHEV

One suspects the otherwise unimpeachable Honda Civic eHEV has sensed extraterrestrial activity. Yes, it drives superbly Yes, it’s built supremely well as you’d expect But it recently had a bit of a nightmare where the front parking sensors kept screaming out a warning that there was an “APPROACHING OBJECT” when nothing was in front of it Likely a mucky front sensor. Or is the Honda now a clairvoyant? VP

AlpineA110S

REPORT 7

WHY IT’S HERE

Does the concept of a lightweight dissolve on contact with Real Life? DRIVER Ollie Marriage

THE FRENCH DON’T HAVE MUCH OF A REPUTATION FOR LIGHTWEIGHT engineering, which is a bit daft when you look at some of the cars they’ve created over the years. We can put the A110S to one side and talk about everything from the Citroen AX GT hot hatch (745kg) to the current Renault Zoe (name us a lighter electric car than the 1,506kg supermini). We might bang on about Lotus and Caterham and motorsport, but the French have probably done more to put lightweight in the mainstream.

Not that the Alpine is mainstream. But it is very light. Just 1,119kg it says, but I put ours on a weighbridge and it was 5kg below that with a quarter of a tank of fuel. It’s as refined and comfy as a Cayman, but a quarter of a tonne lighter. Another example of French lightweight thinking can be found in French push-bikes. Look (yep, that’s the brand name) created the first ever carbon road bike, the KG 86, back in 1986 (it won the Tour de France that year), and its focus on weight-saving is absolute.

Same with the Alpine. If it had just kept pulling Renault components off the shelf, Alpine would never have got the weight down to 1,100kg. Instead brackets and grommets were redesigned just to save a few grams and it was the first car to integrate the electronic handbrake into the rear disc brake, rather than fitting a secondary caliper.

It all adds up and makes a difference. The bikes are stiff and responsive, the car is agile, grippy, graceful and has a light touch in everything it does. What does this all tell us? Chiefly that French engineering shouldn’t be underestimated, that light things tend to be more engaging than heavy things, and not to go hurling cars around the countryside when you’ve got bikes on the roof.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

The importance of innovation – you don’t get weight reduction without clever thinking.

BAD STUFF

Light weight does make the Alpine susceptible to crosswinds and buffeting. If you think it’s bad, try the bike.

OraFunkyCat

HELLO

£31,995 OTR/£32,790 as tested/£398 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is Chinese domination of the small EV scene inevitable? We find out DRIVER

Greg Potts

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT WE GET TO RUN A CAR FROM A COMPLETELY NEW manufacturer, so the fact that an Ora Funky Cat has come to live with us for a while is very exciting indeed. Mind you, it’s a little bit misleading to label Ora a new manufacturer – it has been building electric cars under the name (which apparently stands for “open, reliable, alternative”) in China since 2018, its parent company is the giant Great Wall Motor Co. Ora sits alongside Haval, Wey, GWM and Tank as brands owned by the overlord, and a few years ago it signed a joint venture agreement with BMW for the “development and production of electric vehicles in China”. That means that much of the Funky Cat’s underpinnings will make their way into future electric Minis, so it’d better be good.

The Funky Cat is an ID.3-sized five-door hatch but with a small 48kWh battery and a claimed WLTP range of 193 miles. A single electric motor drives the front wheels with 169bhp, but you’ll only be able to get juice back into it at maximum speeds of 64kW on a rapid charger.

From the outside it looks rather cute with hints of Mini and even Porsche 911 if you really squint. On the inside you get two infotainment screens, lots of fake leather and a worrying lack of physical buttons.

It’s easy to spec a Funky Cat in the UK right now, with the only trim level being the fully loaded First Edition that’ll set you back £31,995.

Your only options are then £595 for metallic paint or £795 for the metallic paint and two-tone interior set-up that we have here. You get a strong warranty for that cash too – five years with unlimited mileage for the car itself and eight years or 100,000 miles for the battery.

For years there’s been talk that state-subsidised Chinese companies would soon dominate Europe’s low(ish) cost car market. Is the bizarrely named Funky Cat a sign of things to come? Here, kitty kitty...

SPECIFICATION GOOD STUFF

Great to have an all-new car to play with. Interesting to see how the Cat copes in the UK.

BAD STUFF

“What are you driving these days?” “Erm, a, er, Funky Cat.”

“I’m calling the RSPCA.”

RenaultMeganeE-Tech

REPORT 3

£39,495 OTR/£40,445 as tested/£715 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

To prove our love of hatches in the face of a crossover-mad world

DRIVER

Paul Horrell

LAST TIME I REPORTED ON THE MEGANE, IT WAS AN ACCOUNT OF range as the weather hovered around 0°C, which turned out to be 140 miles, worst case. A web commenter said that this means the Megane is only for “people who don’t need to drive more than 100 miles a day, I assume”.

Which is an entirely understandable view of EVs if you haven’t used one. But actually you can rapid charge en route, not just top them up overnight. See, I just did a trip of 240 miles before noon, then 60 miles running around near my destination in Belgium. The second afternoon I set off on the return trip, starting at 2pm. The weather was cold, blustery and often wet.

So if you ignore the extra local mileage, you could say I proved it possible to do 240 miles in the Megane before noon, have a good lunch, then drive 240 miles home in the second part of the day. Plus a Channel crossing each way.

Teslas still get exclusive use of Superchargers in places where there’s most demand, but in quieter sites the rest of us can use them. So having started fully charged at home in North London and driven to the Channel Tunnel at Folkestone, I used the Supercharger there to add a quarter of a battery’s worth during the few minutes’ wait for my turn on the shuttle. Next stop was at an Ionity 350kW job near Mons, then on to the destination near Charleroi. The Mons charge was exactly to spec: 20 to 80 per cent in half an hour. Coming home, I did Calais in one hit, got straight onto a shuttle, so arrived in England nearly flat. No bother as there’s a charge hub near the terminal on the M20, and I just gave it the partial charge I needed to get home. That was 13 minutes. Which was really the second time I was waiting for it to charge on the whole out and back trip.

This steady state autoroute driving gave me a true bad weather range of 190 miles at an indicated 115kph, or 72mph to us Brits. Pretty impressive.

SPECIFICATION

BMWM8

REPORT 4

£129,750/£150,050/£3,272

WHY IT’S HERE

Can the most powerful M car be a proper luxury car?

DRIVER

HERE’S THE CHALLENGE, CAN THE M8 Coupe serve as a family car for the half term holidays? First hurdle – getting a car seat into the back. Not clipping it into the Isofix points, that’s simple, but manoeuvring it past the front seat without removing any paint. It’s possible, just, but installing the children, stooped with one foot in the rear footwell, isn’t fun. Cue yelps from the back as our front seats whirr into their positions and squash little legs. Seat forward, wheel closer to the dash, my legs a little more bent and my six-year-old is happy. I’m 5ft 8in remember.

Once settled, they sleep fine, but extraction without waking is virtually impossible. The boot is massive, a shallow but deep cave that disappears back into the darkness. Not great, for any one large item, but for loads of small ones, it’s a Tardis.

Conclusion: if rear passengers are going to be a regular thing get the M8 Gran Coupe. But actually why not save yourself £25k and get an M5 Comp? Or better still, save a further £25k and buy an M3 Touring, then you can bring the dog as well.

GOOD STUFF

Cruises smoothly and quietly, driver aids good on the motorway.

BAD STUFF

The position of the charge port doesn’t suit some rapid chargers.

SPECIFICATION

4,395cc, 8cyl twin-turbo, AWD, 616bhp, 553lb ft 1,975kg

0–62mph in 3.2secs, 155mph

Cupra Born

REPORT 3

£43,735 OTR/£45,100 as tested/£490 pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Can the Born succeed where other VW product fails?

DRIVER

Ford

THERE’S BEEN A LITTLE WOBBLE WITH THE CUPRA BORN THIS MONTH. Having recently moved house and unexpectedly ended up having to rent a barn to live in, my ‘driveway’ has sprouted a couple of cattle-grids and 1.5 miles of bumpy approach road. Not a problem, except for the fact that the Born immediately burst a rear tyre going over one of said cattle-grids – and not at 120mph, before anyone asks. A quick wheel check revealed an interesting rear suspension set-up with plastic anti-roll bars and rear drums, as well as a decent split in the sidewall.

Hmm. Could it have been an existing issue and the grid finished the job? Possibly, but it felt very much as if the slight step onto tarmac from the cattle-grid simply burst the tyre. A few calls, and a new tyre was sourced, although not for a day or so, because the specific Goodyear Efficient Grips in the correct size were “unusual” according to the three tyre places I spoke to. Then a little ring around: it seems that Borns and ID.3s are quite prone to punctures if my massively unscientific survey was anything to go by. Once the tyre was off, I had a poke around it, and it had the softest sidewall I’ve ever seen on a non-specialist tyre.

This got me thinking – the 77kWh Born is a heavy small car – it weighs in at 1,946kg – and therefore to maintain its sporty tag, probably needs fairly controlled damping to manage the weight. Do these EV tyres

have soft sidewalls to add some ride fluency back into the equation? And do those softer sidewalls mean that pothole (or in my case, cattle-grid) pinch punctures are more likely than on other, more traditionally shod cars? Low-profile stuff is often more prone to pothole punctures, but could EVs with big wheels be just as bad? More research is needed. The upshot is that £196 (fitted) lighter, the Born is back doing what it does best, and heading out over the cattle-grids at less than 1mph.

DS 4

HELLO

£41,600 OTR/£47,185 as tested/£643pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is this hatchback where the DS masterplan finally comes good?

DRIVER

FOR THE PAST FORTNIGHT I HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT COMPLIMENTS: “Great looking”, “Really strong lines”, “Lovely nose”, “Fantastic rear”. Obviously, these comments aren’t aimed at me, but rather the newest addition to the TopGear Garage – the chic and stylish DS 4.

Part of the DS’s appeal is its rarity, but I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of them on our roads soon. Looking to steal sales from the Merc A-Class, BMW 1-Series and Audi A3, as well as the VW Golf and the DS 4’s own cousin the Peugeot 308, two weeks with our new arrival has been positively enlightening.

Basics first... The DS 4 comes in four trim levels: Bastille, Trocadero, Rivoli and Opera (anyone else remember the days when car trims were simple? XS, S, SE). It costs from £28,330 for the lowest spec. We’ve gone with a DS 4 Rivoli E-Tense 225 PHEV costing £41,600, though with options KP22 OPZ costs £47,185. Quite the indulgence. So part of our test will be to see if those five and a half grand of options are worth forking out for, or whether you should save the cash and use it to go on a splendid holiday instead.

First driving impressions are very positive – the 4 rides well and engenders a sense of calm in the driver; it’s a great foil to the busy and frantic nature of rival German hatchbacks. As some may know, I’ve been running a DS 9 recently and we got along well, but it’s as common as a Koenigsegg so DS really needs the 4 to do some heavy sales lifting.

The cabin is less glitzy than I was expecting, but I think for many that will be welcome. It’s actually quite minimalist, very clean, very cool. And it does still have buttons for the essentials – something not true of all its rivals. However, I must admit that I’m struggling a bit with the Smart Touch technology. It’s just not something I find easy to use, and my fingertips are seemingly a bit cold for the screen to recognise they exist – as the weather warms up, maybe I’ll suddenly find it a breeze to use... we shall see.

SPECIFICATION

176.0mpg, 35g/km CO2

MILEAGE: 10,200 OUR MPG: 42.6

GOOD STUFF

For a stressful motorway/city back street commute the DS 4 ticks all the boxes.

BAD STUFF

Struggling with some of the touch-sensitive technology, it’s just not very intuitive.

EXHAUST

BEGINNER’S

GUIDE TO SEAT

From greatest hits to lowest moments, everything you ever wanted to know... and a fair bit you didn’t

What is Seat and when did it start making cars?

Spanish carmaker Seat is relatively young, established in 1950. Unlike some brands which can trace their roots back to a single founder in a tiny workshop, Seat’s birth was less romantic.

It was set up by a state-owned financing company, and had almost taken off in the aftermath of civil war in the late Thirties, but with that conflict closely followed by World War Two, those ambitions were put on hold.

Seat – which stands for Sociedad Española de Automoviles de Turismo, or the Spanish Touring Car Company – was established in May 1950, following a deal with Fiat to bring its experience and know-how to the table. The first car came three years later in the shape of the Seat 1400, a rebadged Fiat 1400 built in Barcelona.

All early Seats were based on Fiats, it wasn’t until 1963 that Seat would offer a car – the 800

– without an Italian equivalent. Even this was just a long-wheelbase version of a Fiat-derived model, and another 12 years would pass before Seat could claim to have developed something –the 1200 Sport – entirely on its own.

The Fiat relationship lasted until 1982, when Seat was sold to Volkswagen. The German multinational still owns Seat today, and as a result its vehicles are now based on VWs.

Seat’s greatest hits

Seat’s first ever car The 1400 may have essentially been a rebadged Fiat, but crucially this new car was built in Spain as Seat was tasked with helping to rebuild the country’s economy after the end of six devastating years of war across the globe

The economic boom in Spain between 1959 and 1973 was called the ‘Spanish miracle’ and coincided with the Seat 600’s (yes, a badgeengineered Fiat 600) arrival in 1957, bringing affordable motoring to the Spanish masses It succeeded and was on sale right up until 1973

In the early Sixties Seat finally went it alone (sort of) and introduced its first car that had no Fiat equivalent The 800 was a stretched 600 with front suicide doors and a new set of rear openers for increased practicality, but it was only available from Seat and built from ’63–’68

Who would have thought that the first car Seat developed all by itself (at its then new Martorell Technical Centre) would be a two-door four-seater coupe with ‘Sport’ in its name? We wouldn’t mind at all if Seat returned to these roots at some point soon

The Leon Cupra R ST was already set to be a rather special hot estate in 2020 with all wheel drive and a perky 296bhp from its 2 0-litre turbo engine, but then Seat added a sneaky £500 option that let German tuner ABT unlock a full 345bhp via some ECU trickery Si señor

With diesels dominating at Le Mans and selling like hotcakes in Europe, Seat took the opportunity to create a 2 0-litre TDI touring car It won drivers’ titles for veteran racers Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini in 2008 and 2009 respectively, taking both manufacturers’ titles too

Named after your favourite party island, the first-gen Ibiza was penned by your favourite designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign, engineered for production by Karmann and had an engine partly developed by Porsche Not bad for a mass market supermini

In 1996 Seat used the Cupra badge for the first time when it stuck the 2 0-litre, 150bhp 16-valve engine from the MkIII Golf GTI into Spain’s equivalent of the smaller Polo. This secondgeneration of the Ibiza was the first one developed fully under Volkswagen ownership

The Leon SC Cupra 280 was briefly the fastest FWD production car around the Nürburgring in 2014, needing less time than it takes to read the name of this special edition. By the time it went on sale, Renault had snatched the record away

What’s the cheapest car that Seat builds... and what’s the most expensive?

Building small cars has always been a marginal exercise, but it has become increasingly uneconomical in recent years as emissions legislation has got stricter. So it’s both surprising and entirely expected that Seat’s cheapest and smallest car is its Ibiza supermini, with prices starting at £17,955 for a 79bhp, 1.2-litre engined SE-spec car that comes with 15in alloy wheels, aircon, cruise control and electric front windows.

At the other end of the scale the Tarraco SUV is the priciest car in the Seat range, unsurprising given its ability to carry a five-a-side football team, along with its coach and costume-clad mascot. The priciest version is the FR Sport model, which costs £45,700 when specced with the 242bhp, 2.0-litre petrol unit, four-wheel drive and 7spd DSG auto. That’s quite a big cheque to write for a not very premium car brand.

FACTOID

You probably already know this, you smarty pants, but Seats have been named after Spanish towns and cities since 1982, when the Ronda was launched. Up until then cars were named after their engine displacement or project number (or more likely just straight up nicked from Fiat) – we much prefer a romantic sounding Ibiza, Léon or Cordoba. Thank goodness this never took off in the UK. A Rover Nottingham doesn’t have the same ring.

What is Seat’s fastest car?

The fastest production Seat that has been built so far is the 2019 Leon ST Cupra R estate. The limited edition Cupra R ST model could do 0–62mph in 4.9secs thanks to a 7spd DSG auto and launch control feature.

Hidden away on the options list though was a £500 box that would see German tuning firm Abt up the power from 296bhp to a whopping 365bhp.

This dropped the already quite impressive 0–62mph

figure even further to 4.5secs. Eat that, hot hatch drivers. Sadly (only if you’re German though to be honest) top speed on both cars was limited to 155mph – they don’t need to go any faster than that in Spain.

Cupra was established in 1985 as Seat’s performance division, so any secondhand Seat carrying the Cupra name suggests much sportiness. Cupra’s a standalone brand now, so Seats have gone back to being slow.

NOTABLE PEOPLE

Where are Seats built and how many are sold a year?

232,700

Seat’s main factory is in Martorell, which is about 20 miles northwest of Barcelona, where it employs around 11,000 people. It also has factories in Barcelona’s Zona Franca free port area and El Prat de Llobregat, which is also in Barcelona’s municipal area. Somebody in management really doesn’t like travelling far between factories. Sadly for them, Seats are also assembled at various Volkswagen Group facilities in Slovakia, Portugal and Germany. Seat shifted 232,700 cars in 2022, a whopping 40.5 per cent down on the previous year thanks to parts shortages and a decision to prioritise more profitable Cupra-branded cars. Mash the two companies back together and you get a more respectable 385,600 Seats and Cupras sold in 2022.

What’s the best concept that Seat has ever made?

Seat isn’t really known for outlandish concepts, but the 2004 Ibiza Cupster is a gem. Marking 30 years of the Ibiza supermini, the Cupster appears to resemble what would happen if you crashed one into a razor sharp (and impossibly low) bridge.

Power came from a 1.4-litre turbo engine producing 176bhp, and the car was fitted with

18in wheels. Meanwhile the absence of a proper windscreen meant the racing seats had to be lowered by 80mm to ensure the driver wouldn’t get a faceful of insects behind the wheel.

Now you know where Ferrari, Aston and McLaren got inspiration for all those exclusive speedsters they were making for a while there.

What was Seat’s best moment?

It’s fair to say that Seat doesn’t have a great deal of motorsport heritage, but that doesn’t mean that it has spent its life shying away from competition altogether.

It made its debut in the World Rally Championship at the Monte Carlo Rally in 1977, finishing third and fourth with a 1.8-litre 124D Especial 1800. Although Seat has never yet reached the dizzying heights of a WRC title, it did triumph in the 2-Litre World Rally Cup after homologating the Ibiza as a kit car. The short-lived category had world championship status, and Seat prevailed three times on the spin between 1996 and 1998.

Its motorsport pinnacle though is winning the World Touring Car Championship two years in a row from 2007–2008, with Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini taking a drivers’ title each. Even more impressively, it did the feat as a bit of an upstart, fielding a diesel-engined Leon in the fight.

What was Seat’s worst moment?

From a diesel high to a diesel low. Seat had only a few short years to celebrate its motorsport success, because it was tainted by parent company Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal in 2015.

In September of that year the scandal often referred to as Dieselgate erupted when it was discovered that Volkswagen had fitted its dieselengined cars with ‘defeat devices’ that would make them look cleaner than they actually were when being independently lab tested for NOx emissions. It cost the company billions of dollars in fines and compensation worldwide, and the scandal is seen as one of the main factors behind the astonishing decline in diesel sales. The impact has been huge.

As a subsidiary of Volkswagen, Seat was dragged into the mess, and of the 11 million affected cars that VW identified around the globe, 700,000 were thought to be Seats. Definitely not its finest hour.

1953

The wings on Seat’s first emblem were symbolic of the paella, a Spanish bird native to the Iberian region

What was Seat’s biggest surprise?

Seat left a lot of heads being scratched when it announced back in 2018 that it would be establishing its Cupra performance badge as a manufacturer in its own right. What was the thinking behind it? Well, they’ve never really managed to explain it that well. Seat is the sporting sub-brand of the Volkswagen Group, but if the sporting sub-brand has a sporting sub-brand what does that mean Seat is even for?

It didn’t help either that the first standalone model from Cupra was an SUV. No matter how sporty the car turned out to be, it seemed an odd choice to launch a brand more closely associated with cheeky little hot hatches in such a compromised manner.

Five years on we remain surprised but frankly none the wiser as to what it’s all about. Buyers don’t seem to be too nonplussed, mind – a third of Seat/Cupra sales in 2022 were from the copper-hued sporting department.

1968

Well this makes it a lot harder to tell the Fiat and Seat models apart, doesn’t it? Still, fills the space

1982

Seat cans its deal with Fiat, jumps into production with Volkswagen, glows up

2012

Fewer of those fiddly little bars in the badge presumably makes them much cheaper...

2017

In 2017 the S logo goes monochrome, suddenly looks 54 per cent less like robot lobster claws

What’s the most Seat car in the back catalogue?

Seat Ibiza MkII / 1993–2002

The Honda Civic might be grabbing all the headlines in its 50th birthday year, but the Seat Ibiza is pushing 40 and continues to quietly crack on with things.

There are an impressive six generations of the car to choose from, but we think that the MkII version is the model that quietly got everyone to look in Seat’s direction.

Probably because it was one of the first cars developed wholly under Volkswagen supervision after the company took over Seat fully in 1990. The styling was worlds apart from the square stanced MkI Ibiza (although both were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign) and immediately declared the carmaker’s new intentions. It had sharp lines

and a pert stance, immediately bringing the Seat look up to date with the rest of the car industry. And best of all it was set up beautifully for the judicious application of bodykit.

The second generation of Ibiza was also the first car to roll off the production lines at Seat’s brand new Martorell factory, a fancy modern facility that was officially opened by King Juan Carlos and recently appointed Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch. This car heralded a new era for Spain’s national carmaker in more ways than one, even if it was no longer technically in family possession.

This was also the car that took Seat back into rallying – if you try and imagine any Seat sideways it’ll no doubt be one of the Nineties

Ibiza kit cars that were flung at various bits of scenery around the world in the 2-Litre World Rally Cup, the WRC support series, and at the hands of Welsh driver Gwyndaf Evans in the British Rally Championship, where he twice finished second in the championship with eight podiums across 1998 and 1999.

It was the associated cool of rallying and the introduction of the Cupra badge that made the Ibiza an attractive to option to young people of a certain age who might otherwise have considered cars like the Citroen Saxo – this was the beginning of Seat’s efforts to appeal to a younger crowd, the sorts of people whose parents drove the rest of the cars in the Volkswagen Group portfolio.

The MkII Ibiza was based on the VW Polo platform, which made it a more sensible, dependable drive, but it had still been designed with enough space up from to squeeze in some of the more interesting engines from the family pantry. The smaller petrols (between 1.0 and 1.6 litres) and the 1.9-litre diesel option were ported straight over from the Polo, but the spicier 1.8-litre and 2.0-litre petrols were Golf powertrains.

These engines were put in the GTI models, offering 130–150bhp in a smaller, lighter package than the bigger Volkswagen. The ride in the GTIs was criticised at the time for feeling harsh, but the sporting Ibizas were commended for offering plenty of grip and lots of pace.

Pane in the glass

Do the windows go up and down? Regulators are another known fault point, bonus points if they’ve been replaced

HATCHBACKS SUPERMINIS CITY CARS

These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range

You drive mostly around town, with occasional need for longer distances? Try these for size

A good electric hatch needs decent range without compromising interior space

PRICE: £36,920–£38,120 RANGE: Up to 136 miles

This TG favourite has retro styling and a brilliant interior, but it’s a smidge expensive and the range isn’t great. Somehow we can’t help but love it...

PRICE: £30,195–£34,345 RANGE: Up to 232 miles

The e-208 is competent and stylish, but ultimately you’ll fall into one of two camps: outraged about the tiny steering wheel or you don’t understand the fuss.

PRICE: £35,995–£39,995 RANGE: Up to 292 miles

Renault hopes to bring a bit of va va voom (French for increased car sales) to its electric line-up with this larger electric Megane. Early signs are promising.

PRICE: £30,645–£36,645 RANGE: Up to 199 miles

The latest version of the 500 offers sharper looks, good value and decent range – and a parcel shelf full of soft toys shouldn’t hurt the battery too much.

PRICE: £31,000–£35,050 RANGE: Up to 145 miles

The electric version of the home-grown favourite squeezes the BMW i3’s powertrain into a familiar package. Range not massive, but the car’s still fun.

PRICE: £25,995–£31,495 RANGE: Up to 281 miles

Oh, MG – what’s this delightful looking new electric hatch? The company’s previous EVs have been very sensible buys, now we know that it means business.

PRICE: £7,695–£8,695 RANGE: 47 miles

Say hello to your little French friend. The pared back Ami is the perfect car for the city streets, as long as you don’t have ambitions to go further than that.

PRICE: £29,995–£31,995 RANGE: Up to 239 miles

They grow up so fast, don’t they? The Zoe’s not long turned eight, but a recent refresh has given the car a boost. Make sure you get one with rapid charging.

PRICE: £41,650–£56,095 RANGE: Up to 315 miles

Hyundai’s futuristic hatch is much bigger than it looks in pics, but comes with solid range, loads of space and a host of life-enhancing touches inside.

PRICE: £22,225–£25,795 RANGE: 80 miles

Yes, range is terrible, but as city cars go the Fortwo remains a brilliant package and works well in the city. It’s just not quite as cool as Citroen’s effort...

PRICE: £31,000–£33,735 RANGE: Up to 209 miles

A Peugeot e-208 in a Vauxhall suit – now the EV’s gone fully mainstream. The one to buy if you don’t want anyone to notice you’ve taken the plunge.

PRICE: £36,475–£43,735 RANGE: Up to 343 miles

The Born offers a sporty flavour of VW’s small EV hatch set-up (see also Enyaq). Check out our current long-termer in the Garage section of the magazine.

READY TO MAKE THE SWITCH? WE SEPARATE WHAT’S HOT FROM WHAT’S NOT LARGE CROSSOVERS COMPACT CROSSOVERS FAMILY CARS

Small, but perfectly formed. These cars are a perfect second motor or teeny family wagon

Slightly larger electric cars that are designed to cope with everything you can throw at them

These cars need to meet tough demands –plenty of space, a solid image and low costs

PRICE: £43,150–£49,550 RANGE: Up to 341 miles

Undercover Volvo offers Scandinavian attention to detail paired with a level of build quality that would shame a number of much more expensive cars.

PRICE: £38,970–£51,765 RANGE: Up to 336 miles

As usual, Skoda offers a down-to-earth and slightly cheaper alternative to whatever Volkswagen is pumping out. To great effect, as it turns out...

PRICE: £57,115–£61,915 RANGE: Up to 258 miles

Our electric car of the year comes with an imposing heritage, but it’s a solid family wagon that shows off a different side to Volkswagen’s electric platform.

PRICE: £36,745–£43,145 RANGE: Up to 285 miles

The old Niro was already a decent buy, but the new version improves everywhere and is alright to look at too. Great family entry point into electric motoring.

PRICE: £51,990–£67,990 RANGE: Up to 331 miles

A Model 3 with more headroom and a seven-seat option. Latest Tesla gets usual blend of innovative disruption and occasionally iffy build quality.

PRICE: £69,905–£116,905 RANGE: Up to 369 miles

A lovely cabin and it’s not too bad to drive – which is great, because inside the BMW iX is one of the few places where you don’t have to look at the outside.

PRICE: £33,700–£37,650 RANGE: Up to 212 miles

Wait, when did Peugeots become so desirable again? The e-2008 is surprisingly fun to drive and offers a chic interior with lots of nifty touches.

PRICE: £45,245–£57,145 RANGE: Up to 328 miles

The EV6 is based on the same Hyundai Group platform as the Ioniq 5, but they’re very different propositions. The EV6 is stylish and fun, we like it.

PRICE: £62,865–£65,865 RANGE: Up to 285 miles

Slightly stealthier than some of BMW’s more, er, aesthetically challenging EVs, this car is essentially an electric translation of the bestselling X3 SUV.

PRICE: £30,450–£37,900 RANGE: Up to 300 miles

The Kona is highly specced, offers a solid slug of range and looks pretty sharp too. Good value, good range and good looking. What’s not to like?

PRICE: £50,830–£74,540 RANGE: Up to 372 miles

The Mach-E isn’t really a Mustang at all, or a men’s razor, but it looks pretty good. It’s definitely a Ford though, so relentless competence is guaranteed.

PRICE: £67,080–£114,500 RANGE: Up to 343 miles

Audi’s flagship e-SUV wears its electricness lightly, it’s a great option if you’re new to EVs. Just have a look at those digital mirrors to see if you like them...

SPECIAL MENTIONS LUXURY EVs

“I’VE BOUGHT ONE! WHAT NOW?”

BEST FOR WEDDINGS

PRICE: £110,545–£137,230 RANGE: Up to 387 miles

The 7-Series has always been the standard setter for BMW’s luxury efforts, and the new i7 is a fearsomely effective limo, with the 31in Theatre Screen a highlight.

You’ve got recycled invitations, guests chucking dried flower petals, but what about the car at your eco-friendly wedding? Allow Lunaz’s revive Bentley S2 to whisk you to your countryside ceilidh in style.

BEST FOR AERO EFFICIENCY

PRICE: £69,905–£116,905 RANGE: Up to 369 miles

The iX sets a high bar in terms of interior quality and interesting materials, a wafty ride and gusty pace. But you’d probably park it round the corner still.

arrive on UK

any moment, and it’ll no doubt be very attractive to aerodynamics fans thanks to its slippery 0.197Cd rating that helps it to an impressive 520-mile range.

You have a home charge point. Don’t you? Well, get one. There’s a grant, so it’ll cost you less than £500. If you don’t have a driveway, to get an overnight or allday recharge check zapmap.com for posts near home or work that give between 5kW and 7kW. Always make sure that you know in advance the supplier for the post you want to use, and register on its app or get its dedicated RFID card.

Rapid (DC) chargers, at a slightly higher price, are best used for long trips, like you’d stop for fuel. They take roughly as long as filling with petrol and having a full English.

PRICE: £105,610–£119,610 RANGE: Up to 464 miles

Phwoar, look at the range on that. The Merc EQS is a proper grand tourer, complete with everything we have always loved about the combustion S-Class.

BEST FOR RICH PEOPLE

We all try and save the planet in our different ways –for the super rich cutting down on emissions means going for a greener hypercar, and Lotus is glad to oblige with its Evija, which will set you back £2.4m.

In winter, keep plugged in until you drive away, as pre-warming the battery and cabin increases range. When possible, choose heated/cooled seats over cabin heating and aircon. Try to drop your motorway speed by 10mph: it’ll hugely increase range, getting you there far more quickly if it avoids a recharging stop.

BEST FOR MOVING SOFT DRINKS

PRICE: £77,495–£79,995 RANGE: Up to 292 miles

Sure, it’s getting a bit old and left behind compared with some of its rivals but the I-Pace is where old school class meets cutting edge technology.

Well, who would have thought it, eh? The Tesla Semi is finally on the road in the USA a mere three years after it was promised to arrive. The first models off the line were given straight to sugary pop behemoth PepsiCo.

EV

BAFFLED BY ELECTRIC CAR JARGON?

YOUR GUIDE TO DECODING THE FUTURE IS HERE

Let’s start with a simple one. EV means electric vehicle, as opposed to one powered by petrol, diesel, used chip oil, Chanel No 5 or magic.

BEV

People in the car industry like to use this one. It stands for battery electric vehicle, as opposed to, say, an FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) that’s powered by hydrogen. We just call them EVs.

ICE

The internal combustion engine. Confusingly, ICE can also stand for in-car entertainment (ie the stereo, touchscreen and so on).

PHEV

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or a hybrid with a bigger battery that you can plug in to charge, giving you a short, say 20-mile, electriconly range. Amazing taxdodging mpg figures in the official tests, not so amazing in real life... unless you plug in every night and use the car exclusively for short trips.

MHEV

The mild hybrid EV, or MHEV, the very bottom rung of the electrified vehicle ladder. A small electric motor assists the engine, but doesn’t have enough gumption to push the car on its own. MHEVs usually manage a fuel saving of about 10 per cent compared with a pure petrol car.

REX

Refers to range extenders, or small internal combustion engines used as generators to recharge EV batteries on the move. The engine can be run at its most efficient rpm, converting fuel to electricity, which is fed to the motors that supply the motive force.

Volts, amps and watts

We’re going to go full science teacher on you and use an analogy. Imagine a river: the volts are how fast the river flows, the amps are how much water is flowing, and the watts are how easily it’ll carry you downstream.

kW

Logical, metric countries use kilowatt to measure power from petrol and diesel engines. For the rest of us a kilowatt is 1,000 watts, and is the most common measure of power in an EV. A kilowatt is equal to about 1.34bhp.

kWh Stands for kilowatt hours and can cut two ways – how much power you’ve used (which a utilities bill does), or how much capacity there is in a battery. For instance, a Tesla Model S has 100kWh of capacity, of which you’ll be able to use about 90, because fully depleting a battery is a great way to ruin it forever.

AC and DC

AC stands for alternating current, and DC stands for Batman comics... er, wait... direct current. AC’s better for long-distance transmission, because it can easily be transformed (to higher voltage, lower current, so fewer heat losses). Transforming DC power is a faff but, because DC charging stations can be as big as they need to be, they can employ high-voltage power, giant transformers and rectifiers and get huge power – up to 350kW.

Slow, fast and rapid charging

Slow or level 1 charging is when you use a regular wall

plug. Fast or level 2 refers to street chargers and the boxes you can install in your house or office, which go up to 7.4kW on normal 240V single phase AC, or 22kW on industrial three phase. Rapid or level 3 is the high power DC supply, the sort you’ll find at motorway services and dedicated charging areas, from 50kW up to 360kW.

CHAdeMO

CHAdeMO is not the result of a cat walking across a keyboard. It’s basically the fast charging standard Japan came up with. Competing standards include CCS and Tesla Superchargers, which all look reaaaaally similar.

CCS

The DC charger you’ll most likely use across the UK and Europe. Works in everything from a Tesla to a VW.

Supercharging

If it looks like a CCS charger and works like a CCS charger, it could very well be a Tesla Supercharger. But you can’t use it unless you’re in a Tesla.

mpkWh

Not content with the unholy union of litres of petrol and pints of milk, the UK’s uneasy blend of metric and ReesMogg leaves us measuring EV economy in miles per kilowatt hour. So, if you have 50 usable kWh, and run at 4.0mpkWh, you’ll do 200 miles before you’re stranded.

WLTP

Stands for Worldwide

Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure. A way to test new cars to see how much fuel, or energy, they use, how much greenhouse gas they expel, and how far they get on one tank/charge. More

accurate than the old NEDC standard, but still optimistic.

Regen

Shorthand for ‘regenerative braking’. Electric motors work by using electricity and magnets to spin a shaft. So, if you were to spin it manually, say, by coasting, you will then generate electricity, because generators are basically motors operating the opposite way.

Range

How far you’ll get in your car from the amount of energy you put into it. So, it’s been fuel from a tank for most of your life, now it’s a battery.

Range anxiety

The fear of being very far from home, on a dark and cold night, without enough power to make it to a charging station. In the short term, the solution is more rapid charge stations, in the long term, better energy density and more efficient cars should ease our furrowed brows.

Li-ion

A contraction of lithium-ion, which refers to the chemical make-up of a typical battery pack. The 12V brick used to start your petrol powered car is a lead-acid battery, but lithium-ion is now the global norm for powering new EVs.

Solid-state battery

The next big step in battery tech – holds more energy than an equivalent-sized li-ion battery, or the same amount of energy but in a smaller and lighter pack. They’re easier to cool, too, which means you can charge them quicker before they get too hot. At least five years until any come to market.

Supercapacitor

Supercapacitors can charge and discharge more quickly than regular batteries – good for bursts of speed – and can tolerate more charge and discharge cycles, but they’re still not as energy dense as batteries, so you’re unlikely to see them as direct battery replacements. More likely to supplement a petrol engine’s performance. See the Lamborghini Sián.

CCZ

The congestion charge zone that covers central London. From 7am to 6pm on weekdays, or 12pm-6pm at weekends and on bank holidays it’ll cost you £15 to drive in this zone. But, with a zero emission car you can fill out a form and pay a oneoff £10 for an exemption that lasts a year.

ULEZ

The CCZ is there to ease traffic; London’s Ultra Low Emissons Zone is to ease pollution. The ULEZ is in effect every hour of every day, and will rain down with great vengeance and furious application of a £12.50 charge if you drive into the zone in a petrol car that doesn’t meet Euro 4 standards or a diesel car that doesn’t meet Euro 6 standards. The good news is that full EVs are exempt.

FCEV

Fuel cell electric vehicles, like the Toyota Mirai. Separating hydrogen and oxygen takes a lot of energy, but reuniting them in just the right way releases energy. You can burn hydrogen, but in a hydrogen fuel cell you generate electricity to drive an electric motor. It’s also easier to move H2 over long distances than electricity.

"STEP INTO THE WORLD OF IMMERSIVE GAMING WITH OUR NEW SIM RACING AND FLIGHT SIMULATION MARKETPLACE. WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BRING YOUR GAMING EXPERIENCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”

At Tuin, we specialise in wooden Log Cabins and Garden Buildings, providing Dutch quality to UK homes and gardens. For motorists looking for a place their cars can call home, our Carports and Garages are for you! Made from pressure treated timber, they provide sturdy shelter for your car, no matter the weather.

USE

WHAT: BIRTHDAY CAKES

WHERE: LONDON, UK

To celebrate its 10th birthday here in the UK, Dacia sent us some delicious cakes. Can confirm they were affordable, rugged and highly practical

WHAT: HENRY THE CLEANER

WHERE: MANAMA, BAHRAIN Aston, annoyed by the genius of Gordon Murray’s suction fan on the T.50, launches an aftermarket solution of its own for the Valkyrie. Spoiler: it sucks

WHAT: BABOON

WHERE: FRANSCHHOEK, SOUTH AFRICA

New Rolls Spectre simply not interesting enough to get any attention from the local wildlife –though to be fair the flies were all over it

WHO: OLLIE MARRIAGE & CHRIS HARRIS

WHERE: MANAMA, BAHRAIN

“I’d love to borrow your racy boots Ollie, but these puppies are all I need. The lady in the shop said I’m now a size 5!”

WHAT: FERRARI PUROSANGUE

WHERE: MENDOLA, ITALY Thought dodgy welding and crap build quality was in Ferrari’s past? Ha! Someone’s put the doors on the wrong way round. Mannaggia!

BEHIND THE SCENES

WHO: SERGIO PEREZ

WHERE: NEW YORK, USA

When we asked Sergio what his chances of beating Max were, we didn’t expect a coin toss... that’s far too optimistic

MAKING IT HAPPEN

HOW TO CONTACT US

SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES AND BACK ISSUES: 03330 162 130 topgear@buysubscriptions.com

TopGear, dsb.net, PO Box 3320, 3 Queensbridge, Northampton, NN4 7BF

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: 020 7150 5558 editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com

TopGear, Second Floor, 1 Television Centre, BBC Studios, 101 Wood Lane, London W12 7FA

TV ENQUIRIES: top.gear@bbc.co.uk

TopGear, Second Floor, 1 Television Centre, BBC Studios, 101 Wood Lane, London W12 7FA

twitter.com/ BBC_TopGear facebook.com/ TopGear @topgear