Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2015 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

With the dust still settling from recent developments on planet TopGear, I have no doubt you’re wondering what it all means for your favourite magazine, and what the future holds. So here’s what we know: what’s next for the TV show will become clearer in the coming months, with the BBC committed to delivering a ‘renewed’ version of TopGear in 2016. As soon as we have more details, you, as part of the TopGear family, will be the first to know. In the meantime, we will continue to bring you the greatest car magazine in the world every month. The exclusive access, adventure, creativity and straight car knowledge you buy this magazine for is the very essence of what TopGear stands for, and will continue to be the driving force…

1 It’s evolved, not, um, revolved The first-gen XF, launched in 2007, has been a quiet success story for Jaguar, so the MkII saloon doesn’t mess with the formula. Though a fraction shorter than its predecessor, the XF gains a couple of inches in the wheelbase, while that familial design masks a slipperier shape, its drag coefficient falling from 0.28 to 0.26. It’s rear-drive as standard, though some as-yet-unspecified markets will get 4WD. 2 It’s keeping things light By employing yet more aluminium in the XF’s construction, Jag has managed to reduce weight further, claiming the new car has lost as much as 180kg, spec for spec. The base diesel XF, we’re told, is 80kg lighter than its nearest competitor, though Jaguar doesn’t specify who it considers competitors (we’re assuming…

Mazda has turned mindreader in response to our thoughts on the new MX-5. Already on the way is a new MX-5 Club, complete with tighter Bilstein dampers, a proper limited-slip dif, strut brace and subtle bodykit. There’s a small ‘but’, mind: the kit is US-only at the moment, and limited to the 2.0-litre engine rather than the sweet 1.5 we like so much.…

PLANET/ASK UNCLE TOP GEAR Dear Uncle TG I’ve got a Fiat 500 Twinair which I like very much, but I fInd it isn’t as economical as the brochures claimed. Is there anything I can do to use less petrol? Jan, by email Don’t drive as far. Dear Uncle TG I’m very interested in the Nissan Leaf electric car. What do you think? RT, by email I’m very interested in Beckton Sewage Treatment Works, but that doesn’t mean I want to get inside it. Dear Uncle TG I heard that they’re going to stop making the Land Rover Defender and so I started looking around at secondhand ones, but I can’t believe how expensive they are. Why are they so expensive? Ian, by email I believe it comes down to the…

RECON JET In the old days, head-up displays were only for fighter pilots and RoboCop. Then Saab installed them in cars, which made everyone – or at least the few people driving a Saab – feel a bit like a fighter pilot or RoboCop. And now that we’ve arrived in the future, they have inevitably become wearable. Until now though, having an HUD on your face was a) only for special ops, and b) a clunky business, sometimes requiring an entire facemask in which to house it. Not so with the Recon Jet, an American invention that turns a pair of classic, wraparound sunnies into a projection screen for all sorts of useful information. It has a speedo, maps with turn-by-turn nav, weather forecasts and a trip computer. It also…

We’ll get to the interesting mechanical ins and outs of this revised 1-Series in a moment, because it’s a curious mix of eminently sensible and possibly pointless. But first we’ll address the looks, which, as usual for the Beemer hatch, are controversial. Finally, BMW has sorted out the 1’s front, ditching the gawky Halloween pumpkin mask for a dignified 3-Series expression. But despite pulling the lines tight up front, the rear has sagged, thanks to gloopy new L-shaped lights. Weird, isn’t it? BMW has dibs on myriad classic cues – the grilles, the Hofmeister kink, the flanks’ suggestion of rear drive – yet struggles to hang those elements coherently on a humdrum hatchback. Now, the engines: 120d xDrive denotes this 1 has a 2.0-litre diesel (in 187bhp tune) and AWD,…

If you’re keen to throw hot-hatch money at something altogether shorter on practicality, and even a roof, you’ve never been lacking choice. A Caterham Seven provides heritage. An Ariel Atom promises a good dose of thrills. And if you want carpets and a stereo optional, the Lotus Elise hasn’t made its 20th birthday without good reason. But now there’s another way, and it’s a curious cocktail of those three, with a sprinkling of KTM X-Bow for good measure. Meet the Zenos E10, driven here in its sprightlier, turbocharged S form. There’s the roofess, mid-engine layout of the Atom – the men behind it have years of experience at both Caterham and Lotus – and its construction centres around a carbon composite tub, not dissimilar to that X-Bow. It differs by…

Mad Max’s faithful Ford Falcon XB. Typecast in the Eighties as fercely as Marty McFly’s De Lorean, it’s the Pursuit Special, the Interceptor, rolled to oblivion and incinerated part-way through Mad Max 2. And it’s back. Out of the Outback, and skulking around deepest Lincolnshire, with a hellish rat-rod enemy on its heels. Mad Max is returning. And its post-apocalyptic muscle car supporting cast is back too. “We call it Mad Max Two and a Half,” laughs Fury Road’s effortlessly aflable production designer Colin Gibson (no relation to Mel), who prefers to be known as a ‘salvage artist’. “We’re all too young to have worked on the first Mad Max, but a few of us worked on 2 and even on 3, though they won’t admit it. We don’t talk…

It’s not the obvious analogy, and Range Rover’s marketing people almost certainly won’t approve. But after a day behind the wheel of the Sport SVR, I decide that this car is like one of those buskers you occasionally see with cymbals on their knees, a drum kit on their back, strumming a guitar while alternating between a kazoo and a harmonica. Its ability to do many different things, often simultaneously, is very impressive. Unlike our busker friend, it’s also surprisingly tuneful. Dial up a decent chunk of revs, and the Sport SVR makes a noise like a skyful of marauding Spitfires (WWII fighter plane, not pox-prone BMC roadster). It works by using a two-stage active exhaust, with larger-diameter pipes than the standard car. Electronically controlled bypass valves keep everything discreet…

HELLO 2143cc, 4cyl diesel, RWD, 201bhp, 369lb ft 62.8mpg, 117g/km CO2 0–62mph in 6.9secs, 150mph 1660kg £ £ £37,125/£45,035 Total mileage 1259 Driver Owen Norris Why it’s here Were we right to make this our Family Car of the Year? Shaving a family, my taste in cars has changed somewhat. I used to think that soft roaders would be the ideal choice for a family car, but I’ve now been thinking that the humble estate is, in fact, the perfect family wagon. The rest of the TG team obviously agrees, as the C-Class estate was named our Family Car of the Year in 2014’s Awards. All hail the wagon! Over the next six months, I’ll be using my family to make sure it gets thorough testing. So, what we have…

REPORT 8 1968cc, 4cyl bi-turbo diesel, FWD, 178bhp, 295lb ft 37.2mpg, 199g/km CO2 0–62mph in 12.4secs, 117mph 3000kg £49,214/£58,834 Total mileage 15,338 Driver Simon Bond Why it’s here Is VW’s camper worth 20 years of holidays in Spain? One thousand, one hundred and fifteen miles in a single one-way trip. That’s quite far. The RAC tells us that the average motorist drives a mere 9,115 of them in one year, so what better than a thousand-mile haul to discover how good a long-distance tourer (rather than camper) the VW California actually is? We recently tasked the Cali with playing support vehicle as we transported a ninemetre efgy of The Stig (no, really) on the back of a fatbed lorry from the TG track all the way to Poland. And the…

Porsche can’t stop itself, can it? Fresh from sponging up the drool from the recent unveil of the Cayman GT4 and 911 GT3 RS, it’s putting localised food defences at risk again with this: a re-boot of 2010’s Boxster Spyder. What you’re looking at is a MkIII Boxster with a hand-cranked fabric roof that covers the open bit between the header rail and the new swoopy aerodynamic pods over the rear bodywork. Beneath that bodywork lurks the 375bhp, 3.8-litre fat-six from the 911 Carrera S, making this the most powerful Boxster yet. Front- and rear-end styling is lifted pretty much wholesale from the Cayman GT4, and although the Spyder weighs 30kg less than the Cayman GTS, Porsche engineers managed to lop 55kg from the Boxster, before replacing 25kg in the…

Independence, adventure and unbelievable experiences: the Grand Tour of Switzerland gives you all this and more. A route planned by the people that know the country best, this 1,600km driving tour brings you up close to all of Switzerland’s best bits, giving you the flexibility to head off the beaten track if you want. The Grand Tour combines 44 of Switzerland’s highlights on one unique trip, and in Ticino alone you’ll see five of them. Firstly, there’s the Tremola – the famous winding road on the southern side of the Gotthard Pass. It’s Switzerland’s longest historical monument. But you won’t just see it, of course. You’ll drive it. Navigate the cobblestone-paved hairpin bends and snaking turns as you drive from the peak of the pass to Airolo. Want incredible views?…

TG TOP FACT Pioneering Spirit’s makers are working on an even bigger version, due for completion in 2020 How does it work? First, the topside of the rig is emptied and the legs, which can stretch hundreds of feet to the seabed, are sliced. The ship then straddles the rig, placing it between the two hulls. Sounds romantic… Eight giant arms then grab the topside of the rig and hold it steady. They constantly adjust their tension like a car’s adaptive suspension, to compensate for the pitch of the waves. Then what? Ballast water is pumped out of the hulls to raise the decks, so the ship and rig bob free in a sort of floating cuddle, leaving the legs behind. It works a bit like a seagoing forklift. What…

ICE-BREAKER Russian man parks Lada in small ditch overnight. Ditch flls with water. Water freezes solid. Man buys new Lada. JUDGEMENTAL Brazilian judge is suspended from high-profile case after driving defendant’s confiscated Porsche home. FEELING DOZY US man builds kids a half-tonne, all-metal bulldozer, with 18.5bhp mower engine and a 5mph top speed. PROTECT AND SWERVE Two Secret Service agents crash car into White House security barricade after night of “drinking and partying”. DOG-EAT-DOG Man kicks stray dog out of parking space. Parks car. Returns to find pack of dogs chewing it to pieces. “It’s like a rollercoaster ride that flies of the track... You just have to wait to land and hope everything does its job for you.” Top Fuel drag racer Larry Dixon walks away from a 280mph…

There’s no better way to get to know a country than to drive across it. Behind the wheel of your car you’re the master of your own destiny – stick to a planned route or veer off and get lost in the nitty-gritty. Either way, the choice is yours. That’s the philosophy behind the Grand Tour of Switzerland, which guides you along 1,600km of phenomenal roads to totally immerse you in this most spectacular of countries. And it’s a driver’s dream, curving around 22 lakes, over five mountain passes and through 14 different regions. As scenic routes go, good luck finding better. Few sections are as memorable as Engadin St. Moritz. Nestled in the stunning and sun-filled southeast, the only problem you’ll have is tearing your eyes away from the…

We didn’t benchmark rivals when we created the CX-3, because there were no rivals.” Yeah right, Michio Tomiyama. So, the project chief in charge of Mazda’s Juke rival reckons his new baby stands apart. Big surprise. “But we have been developing the CX-3 since 2009.” Ah. That’s a year before Nissan’s bug-eyed, genre-defining crossover appeared. Maybe Mazda isn’t simply following the herd. That said, the recipe for Mazda’s new jacked-up supermini is far from revolutionary. Under the bodywork and below the bonnet sit the underpinnings and engines from the Mazda2, a rocksolid base – lightweight, agile and very chuckable. Beside a 40mm roofine swell, the CX-3 trumps the 2’s boot size by a useful 100 litres and offers optional all-wheel drive that fewer than 10 per cent of UK buyers…

TWELVE HOURS. BRIEF ENOUGH THAT YOU COULD WASTE IT AND NOT FEEL TOO REGRETFUL. LONG ENOUGH THAT YOU COULD SPEND IT WELL AND BANK MEMORIES TO LAST A LIFETIME. WHICH I INTEND TO DO NOW. The grey Porsche factory in Stuttgart glows shades of peach under the sun’s evening rays as the security guard hands me the key to a Cayman GT4. My 12-hour clock starts ticking. An all-nighter will see us across to England via autobahns, back roads, forested hills and open plains. Tomorrow morning, the gates to the TopGear track will unlock, and with them, this car’s Porsche Motorsport soul will open wide. It lurks with intent by the gatehouse, its stance squatter and wider than the regular Cayman’s to a drastic extent. Its body is emphatically reshaped…

Guilt, that’s what I’m feeling now. Mud is arcing into the cockpit. To be fair, there’s not a lot to keep it out. Great globs of it are spattering against the seats, cage, pedals, belts, me, and, well, that’s about all there is in here. This is a car built of nothing but nooks and crannies – it’ll never be as clean again as it was yesterday. Because yesterday I watched this Ariel Nomad being built. And this is it, currently the only one, the one they’re keeping for best. And now it has grime where the sun don’t shine. So yes, guilt is occurring. But, as the wheels spin and the gyroscopic forces fling yet more Salisbury Plain clag into my face, it’s hard not to get carried away.…

Jaguar Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations division isn’t a new idea. ETO – engineered to order – has been knocking around for years, and the back catalogue is full of random commissions, many of them royal in bloodline, British or otherwise. What is new is a determination to streamline the operation while expanding it with an ambition that’ll have JLR lifers old enough to remember Red Robbo spluttering into their Typhoo. So much so, in fact, that to describe SVO as a skunkworks – guilty, m’lord – is doing it a disservice. These guys have outgrown their Brummie outbuildings and are thinking BIG. In fact, a 20,000m2 HQ with Formula One-inspired, surgically clean workshops, a state-of-the-art paint facility and a lavish VIP area is close to completion on the site…

HELLO 898cc, 3cyl turbo petrol, FWD, 89bhp, 100lb ft 65.7mpg, 99g/km CO2 0–62mph in 10.8secs, 103mph 943kg £ £ £12,545/£13,765 Total mileage 690 Driver Sam Philip Why it’s here Is this the best city car on the market? I’ve never been so excited by the arrival of 89bhp and three cylinders of French city car. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has ever been so excited by the arrival of 89bhp and three cylinders of French city car. Why? Because parking. A neat parallel park might not be so impressive as a 200-yard drift, but when you live on a cramped terraced street in a cramped little town just outside London, it’s the difference between a serene, stress-free commute and full, hair-wrenching meltdown. And in its first couple of weeks…

REPORT 5 1598cc, 4cyl turbodiesel, AWD, 128bhp, 236lb ft 53.3mpg, 139g/km CO2 0–62mph in 11.0secs, 116mph 1615kg £ £28,995/£30,245 Total mileage 9603 Driver Andy Franklin Why it’s here Is this the next logical step after the Qashqai? A few years ago, we probably wouldn’t have compared these two brands together, such was the difference between them. But that is a testament to Nissan’s improvement, not Land Rover’s decline. There is much similarity in these two cars: both are roughly the same size, have seven seats, an engine that’s a bit rubbish and are more than capable of going of-road. There is one difference, though: the price. The Discovery Sport is a whopping £10k more than the X-Trail, but the big question is whether it’s worth it. I won’t lie that…

REPORT 3 Rolls-Royce EJ200 turbofan, Nammo hybrid rocket, 47,700lb thrust 200 litres of jet fuel and 800 litres of rocket fuel per run 0–1000mph in 42.0secs, 1,050mph max 7750kg Weeks to go 18 Run by Mark Chapman Why it’s here It’s Bloodhound SSC... The component you see above is the impeller for Bloodhound’s rocket fuel pump. Its job is simple – to force 800 litres of hydrogen peroxide rocket fuel into the Nammo hybrid rocket pack as fast as possible. It’s this little part – it’s about the diameter of a teacup saucer at its widest – that requires 550bhp of supercharged Jaguar V8 to power it. But then it does need to spin at 10,500rpm. To that end, we’ve also beefed up the V8, using a steel crank, rods…

SPOT THE McDIFFERENCE CHOOSE YOUR FLAVOUR OF MID-ENGINED McLAREN McLAREN 570S Twin-turbo V8. Carbon tub. 562bhp. £144k McLAREN 650S Twin-turbo V8. Carbon tub. 641bhp, £195k McLAREN 675LT Twin-turbo V8. Carbon tub. 666bhp, £260k McLAREN P1 Twin-turbo V8. Carbon tub. 903bhp. £866k This car is McLaren spreading the supercar love. The new 570S contains much of what makes the company’s 650S so extraordinary, for three-quarters of the price. In fact, the power, torque and performance figures of the £143,250 newcomer are within a whisker of matching the original MP4-12C’s. Which means, to put it another way, it goes like a Lamborghini – that’s not just the Huracán but the Aventador. ‘Baby McLaren’, eh? Clearly, the 570S bears the McLaren family look, but it actually has entirely different body panels, made out…

From one incredible region to another. That’s the beauty of the Grand Tour of Switzerland: it guides you through an unrelenting tally of show-stopping sights and experiences. Small the country may be but its regions and their attractions are anything but – in size, number and impact. Switzerland’s number one holiday destination, Graubünden offers easy driving – there’s an excellent infrastructure and roads are safe and mostly broad. Although, to be fair, this is true of much of the Grand Tour. As Switzerland’s largest canton, Graubünden has loads to recommend it – but don’t miss five key highlights. There’s the Swiss National Park for one. Covering 170 square kilometres, there are hiking routes and interactive trails galore. Venture into the untouched wilderness and, with a bit of luck, you’ll spot…

1. WHO The Queen 2. WHAT Spannering 3. WHERE Surrey 4. WHEN 1945 Yep, that’s Her Majesty, Elizabeth the Second, Queen of England, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith… up to her royal elbows in engine grease. It was 1945 and the 19-year-old Princess (as she was then), keen to do her bit, had joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the female branch of the Army. But this wasn’t some photo op to boost wartime morale – it was the real, oily deal. Women weren’t allowed into combat, so instead they ran things on the Home Front, and that included driving duties. Lorries, messenger bikes, troop trucks, ambulances, they steered the lot. And when stuff went bang, they’d roll up their sleeves and grab a spanner, as evidenced…

The Mercedes-Benz F 015’s self-driving journey into the future started back in 2011 on a blank piece of paper in Mercedes’s Tokyo design studio. The brief was not to create a production autonomous vehicle, rather to examine what is possible with the technology available “the day after tomorrow”. So it’s not a concept car presaging a watered-down version you’ll be able to buy at a dealership in a couple of years’ time. It’s a research vehicle, a $50m automotive lab rat designed to showcase and test the technologies – and our reactions to them – that could define what a luxury vehicle might be like by the year 2030. Two years after the final sketch had been signed of, project Led Zeppelin – yes, really – started its two-year production…

The ATS-V delivers a nice surprise before it’s even turned a wheel – it has got nine more bhp than the engineers originally thought. That might not sound like much on a car already boasting an ocean of power, but it’s enough to make the smallest V car more powerful than the base 455bhp C7 Corvette Stingray. It’s also far from the only pleasant shock you get when you get behind the wheel of the ATS-V. The base saloon and coupe both impress with their well-mannered, neutral chassis. Yet they always feel like they would be a lot more entertaining with 50 per cent more power. The V car confirms that feeling is bang on. The twin-blown bent-six engine is not the most sonorous unit – although it sounds meaty…

Flight. Brief and terrifying, but for two long and silent seconds, this three-tonne truck leaves the Earth’s embrace and mimics one of the graceful and deadly avians whose name it carries. It soars, whooping supercharged V8 dying away of-throttle, peaceful in its unlikely glidepath, strangely, disturbingly beautiful. Unfortunately, even after the cognitive whiplash you get from seeing it get elegantly airborne, it still lands like a three-tonne truck. Which is the reason I now know what lungs taste like. Long-travel but butter-soft suspension compresses, then compresses a good deal more, regrettably allowing 35-inch of-road tyres to chew into the arches, and the skid-plate under the plutonium-density girder of a front bumper to take the rest of the impact. My shins smash into the bottom of the dash, my teeth clack…

REPORT 2 1968cc, 4cyl turbodiesel, FWD, 181bhp, 286lb ft 67.3mpg, 110g/km CO2 0–62mph in 7.1secs, 150mph 1265kg £ £29,770/£34,385 Total mileage 5249 Driver Esther Neve Why it’s here Is the TTD the best Audi TT? I do not pack light. I am not a wash-it-out-in-theevening-and-rewear-itthe-following-day kind of person when it comes to clothing. To be frank, I pack heavy. So I was concerned that the TT would not offer sufficient space for my entire wardrobe on a recent trip to the Dorset coast. I need not have worried. For a weekend away, the TT offers just enough luggage space. If you pack light. Seriously... one large holdall, one small holdall, a bag of wellies and a few sundry items, and the entire bootspace was taken. Nary a place to put…

HELLO 6210cc, V8 supercharged, 623bhp @ 5700rpm, 627lb ft @ 3800rpm 14.3mpg, 428g/km CO2 0–62mph in 5.2secs, 110mph 2,789kg £ $95,000/£60,000 Total mileage 5982 Driver Tom Ford Why it’s here Because you just would, wouldn’t you? You’ve seen it on TG telly, driven by a shouty Clarkson un-rescuing Hammond from the top of a mountain, but now the Hennessey Inc VelociRaptor has swum the Atlantic and ended up at the TG office. This brings much happiness. Literally. A modern supercar in the UK makes people angry, and yet this big, yellow, butch, aggressive truck makes people laugh, point and want to chat. It’s utterly brilliant. Of course, you may wonder at its relevance to the UK, but to deal with the vagaries of the UK Highways Agency, I’m putting forward…

REPORT 6 1499cc, 3cyl turbo, RWD, 231bhp, 235lb ft (plus 129bhp, 185 lb ft e-motor driving the front wheels) 134.5mpg, 49g/km CO2 0–62mph in 4.4secs, 155mph 1560kg £ £ £99,845/£105,825 Total mileage 19,256 Driver Charlie Turner Why it’s here Is this the future of the sports car? Following its 1,529-mile each way, epic adventure to Åre in Sweden for last month’s Sub Zero test, the i8 arrived back into my possession in need of a service. As the clock clicked over the 19,000-mile mark (making it the highest-mileage i8 outside of Munich’s development feet), the service advisory illuminated in the TFT panel, and it was time to call some dealers. Since its arrival, it’s fair to say that the i8 has been something of a joy to accumulate those miles.…