Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2017 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Issue 299 September 2017 072 Range Rover Velar We all knew it was coming, didn’t we? But, following the government announcement that from 2040 it will no longer be possible to buy a new diesel- or petrol-powered car, we now have a proposed date for the demise of the internal combustion engine. While the announcement raises more questions than it answers (where is all that electricity going to come from? How and where are we going to charge them? What happens to petrol stations? And pasty companies? Some of which Chris Harris tackles in his column on p31) 23 years is a long time in this industry... Back in 1994, Ferrari launched the 355 boasting 370bhp and a 0–62mph time of 4.7 seconds, the previous iteration of the Bugatti brand…

P eel that annoying camoufage away, and you’ll fnd what might be the rawest, most exciting small hatchback in years. The Toyota Yaris GRMN is intended to bridge the gap between the Yaris that does World Rallying and the Yaris your elderly neighbour drives to the shops. The end product feels far closer to the former than the latter. That doesn’t mean it’s a 4WD homologation special, it stays front-driven, but, even so, the spec sheet is strong. The engine is a 1.8-litre with a supercharger yielding around 210bhp. The car weighs just 1,135kg, so 0–62mph takes a sprightly 6.3secs. There’s a proper Torsen dif on the front axle, and Sachs suspension. You can only have a 6spd manual ’box, there’s a manual handbrake, and once planted in its sports…

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE $69,995 (£53,728) WE SAY: CHEVY UPGRADES THE UPGRADE TO CREATE A BEAST... f you thought that the supercharged ZL1 was the king Camaro, think again. In its quest to own the super-musclecar sector, it has now unleashed the ZL1 1LE. Those three extra characters dangling of the end of the car’s name mean just one thing: serious track performance. The 1LE track package was invented back in 1989 to help make thirdgeneration Camaros more competitive in the Showroom Stock race series. Basically, the package borrows the suspension, wheels and brakes from the model above it and leaves the engine as is. We’ve already driven the V6 and nat-asp V8 1LE models, the latter being the US performance car bargain of the year. It has more grip…

Engine 1995cc 4cyl turbodiesel, RWD, 187bhp, 295lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 7.4secs, 140mph, 64.2mpg, 117g/km CO2 Weight 1560kg Now for a 2-Series you can buy in Britain. Convertible gets the same upgrades as the Coupe, which means standard-fit LED headlights plus sharper interior and exterior styling. Latest and (arguably) greatest iDrive from the 5- and 7-Series is now optional, too. All worthwhile changes, but none transformative. No mechanical changes to speak of, so the 2-Series remains a nice enough thing – doesn’t wobble, handles with enough aplomb to satisfy most people and the workaday 2.0-litre diesel is punchy and sufficiently refined. But style matters here, and in that area the 2-Series still doesn’t live up to the Audi TT. Usable rear seats are a big plus, mind. TH…

ITA THE TRAVEL ISSUE TG Stelvio vs Stelvio Being honest, this kind of started of as an assassination attempt on overly literal, selfdefeating public relations. We’re going to drive the new Alfa Romeo Stelvio on… the actual Stelvio Pass! Cheery gufaws all round, some earnest but naive nodding about it being a great driving road. Except that the Alfa Romeo Stelvio is an SUV. And an SUV on the Stelvio Pass is only mildly more appropriate than a bendy bus or, say, the RMS Lusitania. Which suddenly makes it a manufactured, hashtag-adventure. An escapade shrinkwrapped into a package so tight that it sufocates the romance out of it, strangles it of any passion, takes it outside and kicks emotion’s head in with boots made of cliche. Here, says the cheery headline, have…

Hello Skoda Kodiaq £29,260/£33,895 as tested ANDY FRANKLIN W hen I was at school in the late Eighties, Skoda was the butt of all car jokes. My favourite was: “Why do Skodas have heated rear windscreens? To keep your hands warm while you’re pushing it.” Fast forward 30 years, and the story is very diferent, as are the jokes – there aren’t any. And Skoda is taking its growing place in the market very seriously. With this, the Kodiaq – Skoda’s frst sevenseater 4x4 SUV. And if I was told as a kid that in years to come I would be running a Skoda, I defnitely wouldn’t have taken them seriously. In fact, many of my friends still think that the Skoda brand is as tarnished and as bad as…

Goodbye VW Caravelle £45,540 OTR/£52,606 as tested OLLIE MARRIAGE oodbye to the most useful car on the feet. Yes, it looks like a shuttle bus, so most wouldn’t consider it as a daily driver. Too big, they’d think, too cumbersome and you look like a van driver. None of that is inaccurate exactly, it’s just that when you live with a Caravelle you quickly realise that the pluses outweigh the minuses. This is the third VW van we’ve run in the last few years. There’s a reason for that. We ran a California camper back in 2014 and found that as useful for family duties as actual camping. Then we had a glitzy Gen6 in a striking red/white colour scheme and that was superb – probably the pick of the…

Report 3 BMW 530d £49,265 OTR/£66,150 as tested JACK RIX I n one fell swoop of a sentence, Paul Horrell summed it up: “Unless you want to look like a Frankfurt banker, I can’t see why you’d restrict yourself to the four-door.” This is not cockney rhyming slang, he assures me, but even so, damn you, Paul, and your cutting insight. I quote from his review of the new BMW 530d Touring, of course, an article that’s been haunting me on a daily basis. You see, I love our 530d saloon – I know it’s early to come on that strong, but I do – yet every morning I wake up and secretly hope it’s sprouted a boot. Why on earth would anyone buy the saloon when the estate is…

T he early Eighties loom large when it comes to rally cars for a good reason – it was the unrepeatable, unsurpassably brilliant Group B era. This was a time of high-speed techno madness, when car manufacturers had to homologate 200 cars for road use in order to qualify for the WRC. Audi Quattro SWB, Metro 6R4, Peugeot 205 T16, Ford RS200 – take your pick. Then there’s the Lancia 037. In Stradale (aka street) form, the 037 is surely the prettiest of all the admittedly bombastic Group B road-legal spin-ofs, a chiselled slice of pure Italian midengined lunacy, with hungry wheelarches, fared bodywork and mostly ill-ftting Kevlar-infused fbreglass body panels. This isn’t just a cool car, it’s one of the coolest things ever. Lancia in 2016 is a diminished…

hen you are the self-styled builder of the best car in the world, you tend to attract a certain clientele. Although Rolls-Royce has discreetly reversed away from that particular boast – more of an albatross than a job description – the task of replacing the Phantom isn’t for the faint-hearted. This isn’t just its fagship model, it’s also the car with which the BMW Group announced the brand’s gigantic reboot at one minute past midnight on 1 January 2003. They even called it “the last great automotive adventure”. Follow that, eh... Well, here’s the answer. “Every one of our customers – connoisseurs of luxury in the extreme – was asking me for something more individual to them, not less,” Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös says. “I was adamant that’s what they…

T hink big. You hear that quite a lot. Thing is, very few have the brains and balls to reimagine the world as we know it. To grab physics by the throat and squeeze until it gives up its secrets. Musk has that ability, and the potential to change everything because he’s not just a talker, he’s a doer. SpaceX Formed by Musk in 2002, SpaceX has one main mission statement – to send a manned expedition to Mars by the 2030s and, later, to create a colony on the red planet. Before then it intends to send two members of the public around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft in 2018. All this will be powered by recyclable rockets developed in-house, not bought from NASA. Tesla Powerwall The…

The sky’s the limit McLaren 570S Spider £164,750 (£195,510 as tested) WE SAY: FAST, PRETTY, ACCESSIBLE AND FUN. AND NOW WITH ADDED HAYFEVER... F ifteen new models or derivatives in the next fve years, ffty per cent of which will feature hybrid technology in one form or another, a billion quid’s-worth of R&D on a new business plan dubbed ‘Track 22’, a third year of proftability in just six years of trading, a full-house EV Ultimate Series in discussion and a three-seat hypercar homage to the legendary F1 – codenamed BP23 – around the corner in 2019: McLaren Automotive isn’t exactly resting upon its corporate laurels, kicking back and smoking a self-congratulatory cigarillo. But it might be slightly misleading if you think there’s suddenly going to be a McLaren crossover…

£85,215 WE SAY: THE BEST JUST GOT BETTER. MERCEDES FILLS S-CLASS WITH LOVELY TECH Has the tech on the S-Class finally caught up with the stuff you get on the E-Class? So young and so world-weary. How sad. But yes, in brief, the technology that first saw light of day in the E-Class has now filtered, er, up to the über-everything, Mercedes flagship. What’s it got, then? Everything the E-Class has. Very funny. Just tell me what’s new Easy, tiger – cynicism is not a one-way street. In answer to your question, the S-Class has a bunch of new engines (three to start with: a 6cyl inline diesel, a 6cyl inline petrol, the S63’s V8 bi-turbo petrol... and a hybrid arriving later in the year), an array of semi-autonomous driving…

Renault Zoe e-Sport concept £n/a WE SAY: IF THIS IS THE FUTURE OF HOT HATCHES, MAYBE WE WON’T MISS THE COMBUSTION ENGINE… Coming from any other manufacturer, the idea of a 460bhp, two-seater, four-wheel-drive, electric supermini would seem preposterous. Renault, though, has rather a rich history of dreaming up absurd Frankenhatches (see Renault 5 Turbo and Clio V6 for hair-whitening proof) and actually putting them into production. This is just another day at the ofce. Actually, sorry to poop the party before it’s got going, but you won’t be seeing this one at your local dealership, or wrapped around your local lamppost. That’s because the Zoe e-Sport concept is a one-of designed to draw a link between Renault’s eforts in Formula E and its road cars. Unusually for a show…

At the unveiling of the Range Rover Velar, some of the mutterings weren’t dissimilar. People were upset that while Land Rover was plucking a name from history (the prototype Range Rovers in 1969 were called Velar), it was hardly mentioning the traditional strengths. Would the Velar actually be any good as a 4x4? At the celeb-packed London launch party, the words “unstoppable”, “useful” and “of-road” were hardly uttered by the Land Rover people, who spoke instead mostly about style (although they preferred “design”) and the new interface: a series of mysterious, ultra-glossy, black-’til-lit screens. Lots of wow factor for an indoor party at the Design Museum, yes, but how would it play in the wild? Except Range Rover isn’t about tradition above all else. It’s actually been quite light on…

CAN THE TRAVEL ISSUE TG Panamera in Vancouver “Its twin-turbo V8 sounds utterly mischievous when you’ve twiddled the steering-wheel dial” Weekend breaks are all the rage. As well as compressing how much money you spend on a holiday, they compress how much time you spend away. Our fraught and busy lives make 48 hours in a European capital a more readily available prospect than a fortnight on a beach. And a far better way of actually soaking up a country’s culture, too. Problem is, you’ll probably share the budget fight with a stag do. Or seven. And once you’ve sampled the local food and hurdled the language barrier, continental cities arguably aren’t that removed from ours. A weekend break a bit more far-fung is surely more adventurous. Somewhere like Canada. Home of…

Report 6 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV £61,000 OTR/£73,505 as tested ROWAN HORNCASTLE A s the golden sun set over the M23, the Giulia Quadrifoglio started to shudder. Moments later, RJ66 KYZ came to rest in one big, fat Alfa cliché on the hard shoulder. Yep, after just three months of ownership the Alfa has broken down. Go on, laugh your little head of and tell me you told me so. Haha! Ha. Ha. Ha. You done yet? Given the car was developed in just two and a half years, we were expecting some electronic gremlins – even Charlie’s McLaren is riddled with then. What we weren’t expecting was the toys to be thrown out the of pram this early. And by toys, I mean fundamental mechanical parts. Before the Giulia…

Report 5 Volvo V90 £44,555 OTR/£50,530 as tested PAUL HORRELL B een doing a lot of motorway work lately. The V90 has self-steering and radar cruise control. It’ll adapt its speed to limit signs too, but I don’t use that, as I sit at a 3mph above the limit between average speed cameras. Hey, speedo error. Volvo insists you keep your hands on the wheel. Rightly. When the car loses the plot (as all driver aids do, especially when you most need them – in the dark or rain), it could be lethal if you’re concentrating on opening a sandwich. That’s why Volvo intends to go straight from level 2 autonomy to level 4, skipping level 3. But the V90’s steering inputs are actually a bit coarse and irritating, clashing…

“O ur target is to be the most fun to drive car in the segment,” says Albert Biermann, boss of Hyundai’s N division. That puts him in charge of the Korean’s performance brand, the frst product of which is the i30 N. It’s front-drive, with a 2.0-litre 4cyl petrol turbo providing the power. There’s a base 247bhp tune, or a Performance Package car, which gets 271bhp. Both produce 260lb ft. Figures which peg the i30 behind a Seat Leon Cupra or Honda Civic Type R. But the point, Hyundai tells us, is that you won’t mind. Because its car puts fun above performance. Both tunes of i30 N ofer a 155mph top speed and 0–62mph in the low sixes. But you still want the Performance Package. That’s because it also…

We banged on about it, and it appears Jaguar has listened. E-Pace comes as standard with Jag’s top wide-screen, hi-def infotainment as standard Just as you were getting used to the F-Pace, and bracing yourself for the electric shock of the I-Pace, here’s yet another Jaguar crossover, the E-Pace. E doesn’t mean electric, it just means smaller than F. If you want to fle it among rivals, think of the BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLA and Audi Q3. Lest you think we’re fxated in the German big three, try the new and expanded Mini Countryman, Lexus NX or Infniti QX30. Or, heck, the DS 7. Not long after its development began, Jaguar people started calling it the Cub. “It sort of fts,” design director Ian Callum tells TopGear. “It’s got big…

By 2019, Tesla will have a S3XY range of cars. No, really. After the S, X and 3, comes the Y – a new compact crossover teased a few months ago in this rendering. And the first thing you’ll spot is that you can’t spot very much. What Musk has confirmed is that the Model Y will get its own unique architecture. “I think, actually, we made a mistake in trying to derive the Model X from the Model S platform,” Musk said. “It would have been better to design an SUV the way an SUV should be designed.” He reckons he can drop the capital expenditure on the Model Y by a factor of two compared with the Model 3. Which is probably a good thing, because Musk also…

Does anyone still want a rep wagon? Vauxhall says this beleaguered segment is no longer a fight between Mondeos and Insignias. This is the only mainstreamer left in the top sellers among a sea of premium German offerings. Audi et al are carving up the kingdom, so the new ’Sig is much bigger, plusher and loaded with klt. Talk to Vauxhall’s product chiefs about the new Insignia’s longer, lower, equipment-generous new spec and it takes all of five seconds for them to namecheck Skoda’s accurately named Superb. The recipe of E-Class space for sub C-Class cash in a crisp body makes it a proper TG hero. Which is nicest on the road? Sensibly, Vauxhall’s ditched any attempt to make an ultimate driving machine and gone for mega-mile refinement. The 1.6-litre…

£125,690 Engine 3982cc V8 petrol, RWD, 612bhp, 664lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 4.3secs, 155mph, 32.1mpg, 199g/km CO2 Weight 2015kg Under five per cent of all S-Class sales in the UK are AMG models. This is insane. It means that 95 per cent of S-Class owners are missing out on the best models in the entire range. We must change this. After some consideration, the general consensus is that many are not buying an AMG for economy reasons. For these people, there is excellent news. The new Merc-AMG S63 now has cylinder cut-off technology, so when you are bimbling along in the outermost lane of the motorway, half your cylinders are slumbering and saving you money TopGear top buying tip? Forget the diesel and buy an AMG.…

BMW M240i xDrive £n/a WE SAY: A CAR YOU CAN’T BUY IN THE UK, BUT REALLY SHOULD BE ABLE TO Before you get all excited at the prospect of an all-wheeldrive, six-cylinder 2-Series that’ll match an M2 to 62mph, know this: BMW will not be selling it in the UK. Not for a million British pounds, a night with your girlfriend or the rights to name your frst-born “740Le xDrive iPerformance”. This is a shame. And yes, you read right. The M240i xDrive is as quick as an M2. The same 335bhp and 369lb ft as the regular M240i and standard-ft eight-speed auto (there is no manual) means 0-62mph in 4.4secs. That’s a tenth quicker than a manual M2, and a tenth behind the DCT – even though xDrive means…

USA THE TRAVEL ISSUE TG Dodge Demon in Indy Practice makes perfect. So practice happens everywhere. Intersection trafc lights, small country roads, near city hall, exiting a fast-food joint, past a row of electric cars, staging a quick getaway from a trafc warden. You name it, I found the opportunity to do it. Line lock, then transmission brake, then vanishing point. The Dodge Demon is the world’s fastest production car from zero to 60mph. It’s the world’s fastest production car over the quarter-mile. It’s the most powerful production V8 ever. And it pulls wheelies. It’s the frst production car ever to do that, too. Clearly Bugatti has missed a few tricks. “Line lock, then transmission brake, then vanishing point” By the end of the day, I have a spray of molten rubber…

SA Merc GLA45 in South Africa They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions, my arse – it’s not even paved. I’m tiptoeing over melonsized boulders, my face one constant, contorted wince as I wait for the inevitability of expensive German metal interfacing with ancient, unyielding rock. Behind me is 15 miles of woefully slow progress, to the right six inches of spare road... and then oblivion, ahead of me, 15 miles of much the same. And the worst part is I’ve brought it all on myself. The plan, wonderfully simple and perfectly foolish, was hatched with the spirit of adventure coursing through me... in the sanctuary of an air-conditioned ofce in London. There is a town, well, a smattering of small buildings, buried deep…

GBR THE TRAVEL ISSUE TG Five go mad in the Cotswolds NISSAN MICRA TEKNA 0.9 IG-T 90 Price: £18,010 (£18,560 as tested) Engine: 898cc 3cyl, turbocharged, 89bhp, 103lb ft Transmission: 5spd manual, FWD Performance: 0–62mph in 12.1secs, 109mph Economy: 61.4mpg, 104g/km CO Weight: 1083kg CITROEN C3 FLAIR 1.2 PURETECH 110 Price: £16,285 (£18,710 as tested Engine: 1199cc 3cyl, turbocharged, 108bhp, 151lb ft Transmission: 6spd manual, FWD Performance: 0–62mph in 9.3secs, 117mph Economy: 61.4mpg, 103g/km CO2 Weight: 1050kg FORD FIESTA TITANIUM 1.0 ECOBOOST 125 Price: £16,645 (£18,550 as tested) Engine: 999cc, 3cyl, turbocharged, 123bhp, 125lb ft Transmission: 6spd manual, FWD Performance: 0–62mph in 9.9secs, 121mph Economy: 65.7mpg, 98g/km CO2 Weight: 1144kg SEAT IBIZA FR 1.0 TSI 115 Price: £16,630 (£19,075 as tested) Engine: 999cc, 3cyl, turbocharged, 113bhp, 148lb ft Transmission: 6spd manual, FWD…

Report 6 Fiat 124 Spider £23,295 OTR/£23,645 as tested STEPHEN DOBIE T he Fiat 124 Spider is based on the Mazda MX-5. That’s very good to drive, but has faws – light steering, lots of body roll – which the 124, and its switch to turbo power, seems to exacerbate. Particularly as there’s no limited-slip dif on its rear axle. The 124 is scrappier near its limits, harder to read than the Mazda, and can be spiky in the wet. I’d not yet had a truly great drive. So this month I’ve made a conscious efort to always drive the long, twisty way, to dig into the 124’s dynamics a bit more. And I’ve found good things. The trick is to adapt your driving style to the low-down torque of…

Report 6 Renault Scenic £25,445/£28,080 as tested JASON BARLOW T he iPhone has just turned 10. It’s funny that the guy who’s had the greatest impact on 21st-century car design has never actually worked for a car company. Hats of to Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s creative director. His infuence is everywhere. But I reckon we’ve reached peak touchscreen. The systems that work in an automotive context (Audi’s and BMW’s spring to mind, though Audi has just junked it on the new A8) combine a rotary controller with onscreen menus. Frankly, you can keep the rest as far as I’m concerned, especially Renault’s R-link set-up. The Scenic has been designed with acumen, inside and out, but its touchscreen drives me mad. The Home button doesn’t really take you Home, it displays…

Goodbye Toyota Prius £28,255/£28,800 OWEN NORRIS I hate to admit it, but over the past six months I’ve decided that in many ways the Prius might be the perfect car for me. Let me explain: my commute consists of travelling from north to west London on some of the most clogged roads in the capital. Meaning I tend to be sat or trickling along in trafc for an hour or more each way. This is exactly the sort of journey the Prius was designed for, it seems. Too short a journey, and the engine is trying to charge the depleted battery all the time and so knackers the economy. On the motorway, the mpg isn’t bad but won’t trouble a frugal diesel and the car is tiresome due to loud…