Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

In the first edition of TopGear in October 1993, this magazine’s first editor wrote: “We believe an accurate road test of a Lada is more important than a heartwarming story with a Lamborghini, since more people buy Ladas.” Erm? He continued: “TopGear is a unique car magazine that will cover everything to do with cars, informatively, humorously, inventively and stylishly…” In every issue since, TopGear has worked to refine that initial pitch. At its best, a copy of TopGear should deliver a healthy dose of escapism, make you laugh, give you unrivalled access to the automotive world, help you dream a little and make sure your next car isn’t a Lada. To deliver on the promise, every editor of TG has been blessed with vast talent at their disposal. All…

Here it is then, folks. Minus a bit of carbon fbre here and two-tone interior there, this is the new BMW Z4. You like? Revealed at the world’s poshest garden party – the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach – it leaves precious little to the imagination about what the production version will look like when it lands in 2018. BMW has been criticised of late for its lack of design cojones, mainly by us, to be fair (see new BMW 5-Series and 6-Series Gran Turismo for drab proof), but correct us if we’re wrong… this is a bit of a return to form. All the classic roadster cues are there: long bonnet, short overhangs, no roof, while the whole package has been marinated in a refreshingly aggressive take on BMW’s…

Everyone has their own expectations of an SUV. We can all agree it’s got to be roomy, comfortable and easy to drive. But then what? What about technology designed for ultimate convenience? And those design touches to add a measure of class? T e Sorento’s pedigree is well established, and you could forgive Kia for being reticent to change a winning formula. But this isn’t a team to rest on its laurels, and you’ll find plenty in the latest range – from the practical to the aesthetic – to whet your automotive appetite. Take a look at just some of the Sorento’s key features. BIG ON SPACE It’s not just about designing a car with lots of space; it’s about how that space is used. Its seven-seat flexibility means you…

LOTUS ELISE CUP 250 Engine: 1798cc 4cyl, 243bhp, 184lb ft Transmission: 6spd manual, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 3.9secs, 154mph Economy: 37.4mpg, 175g/km CO2 Weight: 860kg LOTUS ELISE S1 Engine: 1796cc 4cyl, 118bhp, 122lb ft Transmission: 5spd manual, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 5.8secs, 126mph Economy: 40.0 mpg, 168g/km CO2 Weight: 755kg Without the Elise, it’s doubtful there would actually be a Lotus any more. It was a gamble that paid of, a reimagining of the original Lotus Seven, only with added habitability. You could conceivably, if you were small, agile, had few friends, even less baggage and were a bit masochistic, run one as your only car. Possibly. It was simple (a two-seat, mid-engined, rear-drive roadster) yet radical (all aluminium, box-section tub, glued together). None of that has changed, but the…

BEST BIT Improves efficiency and cuts lag a little WORST BIT It’s an expensive, bulky manifold casting Since turbochargers are nearuniversal, let’s quickly recap. Exhaust gas leaving each cylinder is fed into a semi-spiral pipe – the scroll – to feed into a turbine wheel, causing it to spin. On the same shaft as the turbine, but in a separate housing, is another wheel, the compressor, through which the inlet air passes. So the spinning of the compressor pushes more air into the engine, mixing with more fuel and producing more power. Thing is, in a four-cylinder engine with a conventional single-scroll turbo, all four exhaust outlets are joined together to feed the turbo. Remember, the exhaust from any given cylinder doesn’t come as a smooth fow; it’s a pulse…

Audi RS5 £62,900 (£78,345 as tested) WE SAY: RS CARS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HIT AND MISS. SPOILER ALERT: THIS ONE ISN’T A HIT... What is an Audi RS car? What diferentiates an RS to other cars in the range? These are fundamental questions. They’re also questions the new RS5 fails to address. What was Audi trying to achieve with this RS? Has it given up entirely on making its RS cars fun to drive? RS, RS, RS. No matter how many times I write it out, I still can’t equate this particular car with that badge. I appreciate I’m giving away a verdict that is not going to be happy reading for Audi, but seriously, Ingolstadt, this was your answer to the BMW M4 and Merc C63? Or perhaps Audi…

Ford Mustang CS800 £66,942-plus WE SAY: A BIG, BAD MUSCLE CAR WITH RIGHTHAND DRIVE AND A UK SPEC – MONSTROUS The Bugatti Veyron in the features section produces 987bhp. When new, it cost £1million. Which equates to £1,013 per horsepower. This Mustang produces 814bhp, and starts at £66,942. That’s £82 per horsepower. It’s the work of supercar dealer Clive Sutton, which takes a UK-spec Mustang – with the steering wheel on the right side – and does the conversion work on these shores. Such hysterical power-per-pound ratios are common in the US, but to import an inappropriately powered muscle car here you’ll have surrendered lots of money in tax and rather a lot of your time to make it happen. Here’s an overpowered coupe with the efort removed. Based on Ford’s…

Surprise! The sports car is still here. No, really. Now the crossover has established itself as the must-have lifestyle vehicle, and anything moderately low, loud, light or chuckable has been vilifed as environmentally unfriendly, unsafe, or worse – geeky – the sports car is evidently on its arse. Back in 1995, TopGear magazine group-tested the Mazda MX-5 against the Fiat Barchetta, Toyota MR2, Lotus Elan, and MG F. Fast-forward 22 years, and the modern MX-5’s only true rival is a Fiat badge, nailed to an uglier version of itself. Whatever happened to sports cars? The MX-5 wobbled around on its foundations, steadily getting fatter and butcher up until the current MkIV version, which targeted a kerbweight of a tonne, while still ofering all the airbags, aircon, iPhone connectivity and crash…

‘We’ve got the lot – every car is here in our great first issue.’ Back in October 1993 that was a ballsy cover-line and an unforgettable image, but now it looks like a dispatch from a parallel dimension. Here’s why. You have to count fve rows back on that rammed cover image before you get to an SUV. It’s a first-gen Land Rover Discovery, the three-door with the stepped roof and stripes. Behind it is a Jeep Cherokee, only a Fiat Cinquecento’s width away from a Daihatsu Fourtrak. Remember that? Farmer’s vehicle, right? Searching beyond row six is akin to reading the Snellen chart at the optician’s, but you can make out a Jeep Wrangler, a Mitsubishi Shogun and an Isuzu Trooper. Good for towing horseboxes or boats. Bad at…

“Motorsport is dangerous” is a familiar refrain wherever cars are made to go fast in a competitive environment, but, if you want to get to the heart of the matter “Motorsport is cripplingly expensive” is more appropriate. TG magazine loves motorsport, but also doesn’t have the cash to indulge our rally/F1/BTCC fantasies. And so, in lieu of any formula we can aford, and in celebration of our 300th issue, we invented one. Welcome, friends, to the TopGear 300. The rules are vague and appallingly open to abuse, but go something like this: inter-departmental track rivalry. Three teams (TG road testers vs TopGear.com vs TG art dept), three in each team. Cars bought and modifed for £300, and they must have a valid MoT certifcate and be road-legal. Cars will be…

The Lotus Carlton arrived in 1990. TopGear magazine arrived in 1993. Therefore, the car that rewrote, publicised and defined the supersaloon class during TG’s formative years is ineligible for inclusion here. But 377bhp, what’s that these days? Just a bit more than BMW’s entry-level M car, the M2, less than Merc’s second-tier fast E, the 396bhp E43. The hottest E, the 63S, makes well over 200bhp more than the Vauxhall/Lotus efort, an increase of over 50 per cent in 25 years. But no one’s asked questions in Parliament about the E63S, no public action committees have demanded it be banned. One hundred and seventy-seven miles per hour? There are hot hatches capable of getting into that ballpark now. But there weren’t back then. Issue 1 of TopGear shows the supersaloon…

Report 8 Ford Mustang £35,745 OTR/£37,830 as tested I have, according to the timing equipment in EF66 WCC and bar a few weeks away, spent 284 hours, 22 minutes driving, covering 10,314 miles. Twelve straight days of my life. A respectable amount by most standards. Now, my original plan was to modify this Grabber Blue Mustang in the manner of most owners, but Ford thought I might get silly with the superchargers, so banned me from touching it – which is a shame, because I reckon it’s about now that the car could do with a shot in the arm. It’s not that I’ve got bored with it, but actually laying hands on a Mustang turned out to be just the start of the experience: daily driving and owning one…

Report 4 BMW 530d £49,265 OTR/£66,150 as tested A 45-minute return dash on some of Exmoor’s finest tarmac. A Ferrari 458 Speciale in one direction, a BMW 530d xDrive in the other. Yes I’m a lucky git, but the reason I’m telling you this is because on that day, on those roads, it was the Five that shone brighter than the Speciale. Some context: I was tasked with returning the 458 to its owner, who had loaned it to us on pain of death for our game changers test (p166). It was dark and wet, I was shagged, the road was decorated in clumps of mud, I had 597bhp spinning two Pilot Sport Cup 2s under my right foot. At that point, the thought of handing back a £350,000 Ferrari…

THE ONE IT HAS TO BEAT The new M5 and Merc-AMG E63 are destined to lock horns. Both have four-wheel drive with switchable 2WD lunatic modes, the Merc edges it with 604bhp vs 592bhp, but both cover 0–62mph in 3.4 seconds and the £89,640 M5 costs just £1,150 more. But can it match the E63’s thirst for drama? Twin test incoming. Time to get friendly with your local tyre-ftter: it’s a new BMW M5. But such a clichéd intro line might not be relevant here, because BMW has succumbed and made the most famous sports saloon of them all four-wheel drive. Purists finally getting their heads around turbocharged base 911 Carreras and Maserati SUVs have just been dealt another blow. Before you start blubbing, take solace in the fact it’s…

Singer has been busy with the collaborative networking, and has teamed up with Williams to produce a new engine for serial Singer client Scott Blattner. And it’s had a little help from none other than Hans Mezger, the ‘father of the flat-six’. Based on Mezger’s own flat-six 3.6-litre motor from a 1990 Porsche 911, the new engine is pulled out to 4.0 litres and has a basic 500bhp with four-valve cylinder heads and four cams, titanium con-rods, better oil circulation, aluminium throttle bodies, upper and lower injectors, an Inconel/ titanium exhaust system, carbon-fibre intake trumpets and a carbon air box with a resonator chamber to increase mid-range torque, ram-air induction, and a 9,000rpm red line. Yep, that’s a 500bhp Mezger flat-six with a 9k red line. Which really deserves only…

I’ve been wanting to do a barrel roll since I was eight. Imagine I was a kid watching the AMC barrel roll in The Man with the Golden Gun. I now know that jump was real, but the car didn’t drive out. Still, it was the best it could be back in the Seventies. If they’d not done that, I wouldn’t have just done the best barrel roll in the world ever. I’ve got a great relationship with JLR since the loop [Grant looped the loop for the F-Pace launch]. We had a meeting after that, 18 months ago. They said, “We’ve another car launch coming up. We’ve got some ideas. Have you got any?” I whacked this one down on the table thinking there’s no way… and they loved…

Audi RS3 Sportback £44,300 WE SAY: A FUN, FAST AUDI? YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. OH, YOUR’E NOT... Why the sad face? It’s raining. Really raining. In fact, I’m writing this (mentally, not in actual fact) waiting in a vast traffic jam caused by a mini flood. And this is Britain, so what’s new? What’s new is my mode of transport, the refreshed £44,300 Audi RS3. Stats: 9 per cent increase in power, 3.2 per cent increase in torque, 2.5 per cent improvement in mpg… Lucky you. Indeed. And, yes, before you point it out in a pithy and hilarious remark, it is also 4WD, so these should be perfect conditions for it. Hahaha, just what I was thinking. That’s because you’re a fool. Much more fun to drive…

01 McLAREN F1 WHAT WE SAID THEN Perhaps the most impressive part is the engine. It just goes on accelerating, accelerating and accelerating Issue 67 WHAT WE SAY NOW The brakes can be interesting and the handling lively, but the engine is unlike anything else. Headline power figures may have grown since 1994, but in terms of raw thrills it remains unsurpassed Legendary automotive writer LJK Setright – who once fled a column in Latin – is the man credited with coining the term “supercar”. He was writing about the Lamborghini Miura in 1966, the first road car to go mid-engined, prompting Enzo Ferrari’s famous barb: “The ox pulls the cart, it doesn’t push it.” Il Commendatore would change his mind soon enough. At what point did the “supercar” make…

The Grand Tourer. It works as a phrase as well as a class of car, which has always been the point, really. It evokes memories of romantic poets sighing by Alpine lakes, of moustachioed, plus-fourclad Edwardian adventurers, of Renaissance paintings carted back to stately homes. No wonder brands such as Bentley and Aston Martin still define themselves – and are defined by – their adherence to the GT code. Comfortable. Fast. Expensive. Refined. Nothing’s changed in 300 issues. At least as far as the brief goes. What has changed is the democratisation of the class. Mass-market manufacturers are forever trying to take themselves upmarket. Throughout the Nineties, the received way of doing this was to build yourself a ‘luxury’ coupe. Ford, Renault, Vauxhall, Volvo, Honda – they were all at…

These days, you see Colin Chapman’s “Simplify, then add lightness” quote all over Instagram. But it was uttered way before the endless scroll of social media. Even before TopGear’s first issue and way before minimalism was cool. See, the reason that Colin’s philosophy still stands up is simple: it works. Look at his creation, the mighty Seven. 2017 marks its 60th year in production, and in an era of three-phase charging, electric torquevectoring and turbine range-extenders, the Seven is as simple as things get this side of a pedal car: a steel spaceframe chassis, engine at the front, power at the rear, and driver slung over the back axle to feel everything the featherweight is doing. It’s driving purity. The 620S – here in widebody SV spec to beneft the…

38 LAMBORGHINI MURCIÉLAGO WHAT WE SAID THEN The Murc stee rs, handl es and brakes better, goes even faster, is a little easier to drive, l ooks even bette r but doesn’t sound q uite a s exhilara ti ng as th e Diablo Issue 99 WHAT WE SAY NOW A loud, t hea tr i cal , mi ndfrazzl i ng event . Fo r thi s the word su perca r was inve nted. Yet, w his per it, became fa r better-sor ted tha n the rep utation of its predecessors wou ld have you beli eve 39 FERRARI 458 SPECIALE WHAT WE SAID THEN The engine feels more refined at low revs while just poncing about. But, once you boot it, it takes on a quality…

Alayby on the B3223, Exmoor. Evidence of a deluge flls ankle-deep, metre-wide holes all around us, but this morning the driving gods are smiling, for the hills are dripping in sunlight and the tourists are still in bed. Peace, beauty, total silence... all are shattered as Paul Horrell comes barrelling towards us in a Rolls-Royce Phantom, splashes to a stop and screeches that after his four-hour voyage from north London he’s “starting to rethink his stance on the redistribution of wealth”. Don’t blame him – it looks utterly magnifcent, even on 21s with white-wall tyres. Others follow. An Ariel Nomad pedalled by Ollie Marriage, the world’s most waterproof man, a 2001 Mini Cooper that Elliott Webb declares the rattliest thing in existence, and a Discovery 3 in full G4 Challenge…

Report 2 Skoda Kodiaq £29,260 OTR/£33,895 as tested I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. The simple fact is that the Kodiaq’s seven seats just aren’t big enough for three kids and their car seats. The issue lies not entirely at Skoda’s feet, because it’s partly down to the bulkiness of kids’ car seats. However, it doesn’t help that the back seats are fxed and not far enough away from the middle seats. This means you end up bringing the middle seats forward so the child in the back has more room, but that then squashes the child in the middle up to the back of the driver’s seat. Regardless, it’s still cramped for a little one in the back. The Kodiaq just needed a couple of inches more in length…

Hello Mazda CX-5 £30,195 OTR/ £31,555 as tested I’ ve got to confess I’ve not driven many Mazdas before, apart from squeezing into an MX-5 on a PCOTY shoot, so I’ve no preconceptions of what to expect from running this all-new CX-5. On paper, it’s ticking a lot of the boxes for my family. Ride height raised to please the missus, decent boot for all the twins’ gear, nice interior to look at while sat in trafc. But the claim with this mid-size SUV is that it’s also supposed to drive not only well but, according to my road test collegue, it’s actually – whisper it – fun. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve not driven it on any decent roads yet, so I’ll save that for another report…

Report 6 Citroen C3 £16,825 OTR/£18,710 as tested First things first, the C3’s technology has behaved this month. The touchscreen’s habit of taking to a phone being plugged into the media socket like a Fitbit having a crowbar lobbed into it has ceased. That’s the thing about intermittent electrical gremlins. Like a snap election, you’re never certain when it’s about to impose itself inconveniently on your day. The touchscreen is still rubbish, mind you. I’ve spent some time knocking around in cars that use buttons for climate control this month, and never once fussed, “Look at this mess, what a cluttered dashboard.” Anyway, the other thing that happened last month was the Citroen C3 didn’t win our supermini group test. The new Ford Fiesta is too good: too rounded, too…

Be still my beating wallet. This is the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 Cabriolet revealed, appropriately, among the rich and beautiful at the Pebble Beach Concours in California. On the face of it, this is just a decapitated, repainted version of the obscene Vision Mercedes- Maybach 6 shown this time last year, but somehow it’s so much more than that… I mean, just look at it. It really does look like a Riva speedboat that’s sprouted a set of wheels. Or a very expensive pen. But Merc’s greatest achievement is to make a car that’s 5.7m long and 2.1m wide... and only find space for two seats. If that’s not excess, we don’t know what is. Like its coupe sister, said wheels are centre-locking 24-inch dustbin lids, while 740bhp from four electric…

My first car was the Ford Cougar coupe. I was 18, but when I was a kid, my grandparents would let me drive a little bit on the gravel roads – they had a Talbot. After the Ford I was going to swap into an Alfa Romeo 156, but when I test drove it I managed to put it around a tree, so I decided not to swap. I think I got away with it – there was excellent insurance and I had a good friend that worked there. After that, when I moved to the UK in 2010, I got a Mini Cooper, just a standard one, and at that point Williams was with Renault so I got a Megane RS – it was good actually, not a bad…

BAUME-ET-MERCIER CLIFTON CLUB B&M is making just 196 of these flyback chronos to celebrate a speed record set by the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe at Le Mans in 1964. Peter Brock - the car's designer - even helped style the dial. £6,500; baume-et-mercier.co.uk OMOLOGATO JAMES HUNT CHRONOGRAPH Celebrates 70 years since the birth of 1976 F1 champ Hunt. Sanctioned by son Freddie and limited to 750 pieces. Features Hunt's signature on the dial, plus stripes from his race helmet. £599; omologatowatches.com CERTINA DS PODIUM CHRONO LAP TIMER Born from Certina's partnership with the ADAC GT Masters, hence the fetching black/ yellow thing it's got going on. Quartz but COSC-certified, a sensible 42mm and, at less than £600, decent value £575; certina.com TIMEX + TODD SNYDER THE BLACKJACK WATCH Conflab between…

We all love driving, but at some point – whether for fuel, food, work or to escape the fetid talons of that hitchhiker you picked up on the outskirts of Letchworth Garden City – you’ll have to stop for a bit. And stopping means parking. But before you slot into that bay, make sure you read TopGear’s indispensable guide to vehicular stoppifcation! 1) Pick your space carefully Are there indecipherable parking regulations? Is the area poorly lit? Is the space in question rather shorter than your car? If you’ve answered “yes” to the above questions, congratulations! You’ve found a prime Parisian parking space. Bump on in. 2) Embrace technology Many modern cars are equipped with parking sensors, an audible aid to safe reversing. An annoying intermittent bleeping noise means “continue…

£28,985 8/10 Engine 1984cc 4cyl turbo petrol, FWD, 242bhp, 273lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 6.6secs, 155mph, 44.1mpg, 146g/km CO2 Weight 1390kg Interesting to drive the fastest Skoda ever in the same month Audi used exactly the same MQB Golf-plus-the-rest platform to make the most searingly quick hot hatch, period. The 245 isn’t in that league (poweror price-wise), merely adding 15bhp and a limited-slip diff to the vanilla vRS. Tell you what, though, it’s worth every penny of the £2k premium. At last, the vRS steps out of the fast VW Group shadows, unafraid to be responsive and tenacious; unshackled from status as a po-faced Golf GTI with cruddier trim. It’s so effective at putting down its poke, you’d think it was far juicier than the claimed horses. It trounces the…

Racing the Zephyr A TG RACE IN THE GRAND, OLD STYLE. WITH ADDED BONKERS The California Zephyr - a hippie train that meanders from Chicago to San Francisco, bubble-topped and filled with stories from back in the day when it was a favourite with musicians, artists and poets taking the slow train to enlightenment. And the west coast. A slow train - but also one that didn't stop much, the inexorable clackety-clack of the bogies thumping westwards over a period of a couple of days. And the timings were within the hour to what Google Maps said it would take to drive through some of the USA's most stunning countryside. If you didn't sleep, refuel or otherwise stop. Logistically, this was a mega plan. Satellite tracking on the train, a…

Fist-clenching power ballad at the ready. The hot hatchback’s journey since 1993 hasn’t been without drama, and makes for an inspiring story ft for an X-Factor style montage. It all started so well: TopGear magazine launched in the era of the Ford Escort Cosworth, Lancia Delta Integrale and Renault Clio Williams, some of the genre’s absolute icons. Heck, we even gave away Clarkson’s Cossie with issue one. But the Nineties were the hot hatch’s weakest decade. Insurance companies had got wise to their nickability and crashability, and their power outputs were wound right down as buyers focked to cheap sports cars and the decade’s most notable newcomer: the Subaru Impreza Turbo. Fast practicality arrived in a new shape, the rally-bred saloon. The hot hatch was properly on the ropes. Happily,…

I want to tell you about some of our project cars. You might recognise some of them, you might know their stories, but what you might not know is what they mean to us. For me, one project in particular stands out as possibly the best thing I’ve done in my career. 11 November, 2013, and I’m at Tilbury Docks in Essex searching for a basic Hyundai i20 among an ocean of 7,000 others [a]. It’s fresh of the boat from South Korea, four miles on the clock, white with grey cloth, no options and has been christened EY63 UGT. Come 16 November, 2014, I’m standing on the top step of a podium in Llandudno, Wales. EY63 UGT has just won its class at Wales Rally GB. Almost exactly a…

Forgive me, friends, but this isn’t going to be pleasant. Let me accompany you back to a dark and depressing age, when cars for the rest of us were either bad or boring. Often both. Montego estate: those two words sum up how grim things were for the ordinary person looking for a reasonably priced useful car back in 1993. Or how about Skoda Favorit? Its sole virtue was to be less grim than expected, so its adverts told us not to laugh at it – and because we were so cowed by the tide of mediocrity engulfing us, we complied. The British public lay supine before the car industry’s plot to foist wheeled gruel on us all. In the early years of TopGear, our nation’s car buyers allowed the…

Marc Newson is arguably the world’s most well-regarded product designer. He spends about half his time working for Apple, the rest on projects for clients like Louis Vuitton and Nike. He designed a piece of furniture – the Lockheed Lounge – that sold at auction in 2015 for £2.43m. He loves cars, but when I asked him to name a modern car he really admired, the answer was a long time coming. Finally, he replied. “What was that little Audi? I loved that.” The A2. It’s a very Marc Newson kind of car. Audi was so far ahead of the curve with this one that the curve in question has yet to materialise. Audi’s ASF (aluminium spaceframe) tech first appeared on the A8 in the mid-Nineties, but deploying it in…

Hello Ariel Nomad £33,000 OTR/£55,313 as tested As I write this, we’ve had the Nomad for exactly one week. I’ve done 900 miles in it. I haven’t driven another car. So far, it has done two unnecessary, early-morning milk runs, taken my brother and me to a Saturday-night party in London (walking into a pub with a steering wheel was a notable ice-breaker), it’s been the star at a local charity car show, been down to Exmoor for the mega test and was my transport to Essex for the £300 challenge. And no, the sun hasn’t shone for every mile. But remember, there’s no such thing as bad weather, there’s only the wrong clothes. More on that next time. I’ve documented my afection for the Nomad on many occasions previously,…

Report 4 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV £61,000 OTR/£73,505 as tested H uzzah! The Alfa is alive and skidding again. Yes, after not one, but two stints back at Alfa’s garage, the Quadrifoglio’s heart is beating properly, and the world is a better place for it. Thanks to a nose around the fuel system, wiring check and two new turbo overboost valves (plus a brake clean to stop low-speed squeaks and fresh rubber all round) it took all of a twist of the DNA knob to Race, a blip of throttle and a thrash along my favourite road to turn my frown upside down. See, like any slightly forgiving parent, I wasn’t angry that the Giulia went wrong. Just really, really disappointed. Unreliability is a stigma that has overshadowed the brand…

Report 7 Fiat 124 Spider £23,295 OTR/£23,645 as tested Such is the shortage of small, afordable sports cars, one of our 124 Spider’s closest rivals is made by Fiat itself. Well, Fiat’s performance car arm. For around £6,000 more, you can have the pumped-up Abarth 124. The extra cash not only buys you an aggressive styling makeover – with optional retro rally colour schemes – but an extra 30bhp (168bhp in total), a new suspension tune, a limited-slip diferential and more powerful Brembo brakes. And an obscene exhaust system. This car is louder aurally than it is visually, believe it or not. That is not a compliment. In town, pedestrians will stare at you, while on the motorway you’ll have to turn your music up really loud to disguise its…

Report 5 McLaren 570GT £154,000 OTR/£199,485 as tested With the bosses on holiday, they’ve left their cars for the kids to play with. So Rowan has taken charge of the Aston DB11, and I’ve been enjoying the McLaren 570GT. Plans change when you’ve got a supercar. Mine concentrate on two things: driving my favourite roads, and taking it to friends and family to sit in, prod buttons and enjoy. That involves leaving London and heading a long way north, something the GT takes the pain out of like few cars I’ve driven – even proper luxury saloons. I got in it knowing McLaren has set this up to be its most usable car yet, but even so, it staggered me with its ability to laugh of long distances. It’s so…