Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2017 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

“AMG can build a better supercar than Ferrari,” announced a clearly very excited and animated Lewis Hamilton in our exclusive interview with him shortly after he stepped off stage from revealing the Ulti-Merc, aka the AMG Project One, to its awaiting public at the recent Frankfurt show. It’s a bold statement, but then again the AMG Silver Arrows have spent most of recent history handing it to Ferrari on the F1 circuit. More importantly, the Project One features the power unit from Lewis’s 2015 F1 car (revving to 11,000rpm rather than the 12,500 in his F1 racer) combined with two further motors on the front axle delivering torque vectoring and AWD performance. With a technical spec that boggles the mind, it’s clear that, though it’s still in concept form, this…

Soon we’ll be testing the new Audi A8 – the frst production car with level three autonomy. Next, three or four years down the line, comes level four with the ability to summon your car, or for it to totter of and fnd its own parking space. Then it’s the big one, level fve, that’s no steering wheel, swivelly chairs and Netfix. Is it such a bad thing, such a threat to our penchant for driving interesting cars? Perhaps not, after all, there are occasions even today – after, say, 14 pints – when only a taxi will do. Therefore, we at TopGear embrace our autonomous overlords, especially given the sheer variety of electric pods-on-wheels we were treated to at the Frankfurt show.…

The frst car I ever owned was an Eighties Dodge Aries. I was living in Savannah, GA for about four months, training for the 1996 Olympics, and needed a car. There was very little funding in those days, so we did a deal with the local secondhand car dealer to buy this Aries for about $400. It was a clapped-out thing, and every time it started raining – which it does often, with all the thunderstorms in Savannah – the electrics would cut out and I’d be stuck at the side of the road waiting for it to dry out. I did a Google search this morning to remind myself of the Aries – it’s not the most attractive-looking thing. This one was a custard-cream colour, too. But I’ve got…

Think Rolls, and what words come to mind? Likely cool, classy, refined… words that cannot describe the design you see here. It’s a Wraith that’s been taken – probably against its own will – and given a makeover by Spofec, a Rolls-specific part of Novitec, who you’ll know from wild supercar spruce-ups of yore. Perhaps realising they’ve got carried away with the styling, it’s called the Wraith Overdose. Clearly the intention is to scare off the aesthetes, to make a bullying coupe that intimidates traffic wardens outside Harrods and shrugs off the tickets they try to slap on its windscreen. We, though, would quite like to free the poor Wraith trapped beneath it all……

Genesis G70 3.3 Turbo Sport £TBC “L et there be a premium sub-brand,” said Hyundai, and lo, Hyundai begat a luxury ofshoot called Genesis. It’s been working its way down the posh-saloon size chart, selling 150,000 cars in three years along the way. First up was the G90 (S-Class über-barge), then a G80 in 2015 (E-Class and 5-Series executive express) and now the G70 (target: 3-Series, C-Class and beyond) completes the triple threat. Under the handsome proportions and toothy face is a platform shared with the reasonably talented Kia Stinger, which means a short, stif body, either AWD or RWD and the possibility of a 3.3-litre V6 Turbo Sport version with 367bhp and a top speed of 168mph. That makes it faster than an M3, all out. It’ll knock of 0–62mph in…

“This brain-fryingly complex bundle of tarmac-melting power is pretty well exactly the unit that ran in F1 in 2015” A s we reported live from the Frankfurt show on the unveiling of the Project One, topgear.com’s comments threads lit up with the inevitable hue and cry: you guys must get this thing into a comparison test with the Aston Martin Valkyrie. Or the Koenigsegg, or the Bugatti, or the 918 or whatever. And of course we will. But really, we’re well beyond the realm of consumer advice with these cars. Every one of the 275 production examples of this AMG that will ever be built has already been sold. No doubt each of those buyers will already own every other hypercar that ever took his or her fancy. There is a…

ÒThe firmÕs growth rate is astonishing. ItÕs gone from domestic joke to global superpower in under 40 yearsÓ “N ot wizout snochens”. It’s the answer to every question I’ve asked for the past couple of minutes. “But we don’t want to go that…” “Not wizout snochens” comes the interruption. “But it’s not even…” “Not. Wizout. Snochens!” “Can’t we just…” “NOT WIZOUT SNOCHENS!” Maybe it’s the only English the lady knows, but body language is universal, and I’m having no trouble translating hers. Face like thunder = not coming through. This is inconvenient. We’ve just driven 500 miles across Germany, nine hours that have shattered any myths about empty, limit-free autobahns, and now our rate of progress has ground to a shuddering halt at a toll booth at the base of the…

Hello Mini Cooper S Works Edition 210 £22,155/£29,430 OTR as tested This very much a grey-area car. It’s not entirely made by the factory, but it is a factoryadvertised model. It’s called a Cooper S Works Edition 210, and squeezes into the admittedly thin gap between a regular 192bhp Cooper S and the full 230bhp John Cooper Works. It takes the S’s 192bhp engine to 210bhp/ 221lb ft via a chip and a new exhaust. You can get this powertrain enhancement as an aftermarket job via your dealer for £1,813 with three hours’ ftting time, but the new-car list price includes ftting. It’s still technically aftermarket, because the work is done at the dealer. Wonder what they do with the brand-new exhaust they remove… I’m doubting that this set-up has…

Report 6 McLaren 570GT £154,000 OTR/ £199,485 as tested It’s not a GT, this. Well, not compared to the DB11 that’s been my usual commuting companion for the past few months. That does long-legged luxury very well indeed. This is for shorter sprints So Charlie Turner and I have swapped cars for a while before we get together to have a discussion (i.e. argument) about whose car is better. I think the McLaren is more ‘me’ than the Aston, but, as a daily driver, it’s not as slick. The Aston’s relaxed athleticism won me over, the McLaren is more work, more of the time. It constantly bombards you with information, y’know, like a proper sports car. Which is, despite the side-hinged tailgate, what this is. The glass roof means the…

Hello Mercedes S500 cabriolet £111,215 OTR/£126,520 as tested O ver half the Mercs sold in the UK are A-Classes. Hooray for the afordable lease. And MB is making headlines with F1-derived hypercars and an all-electric ofshoot range. So it’s almost easy to forget that the classic, most deliciously overt expression of the big, brash Benz still exists. Which is why we’re spending a few months looking after an S-Class cabrio. This can’t possibly be a worthwhile, relevant piece of kit in 2017, can it? Actually, it might be among the most gloriously charming cars to come out of Germany in the past few years. Now, strictly, TopGear’s S500 cabriolet is “the old one”. No sooner had the £111,000 leviathan made port in the ofce car park than Mercedes had facelifted…

B ugatti will attempt to set a new production-car speed record in the Chiron at some point next year. But as a continued reminder of the car’s unhealthy ability to compress spacetime, it’s launched a Chiron from zero to 249mph (400kph) and back in 41.9 secs. That’s a world record, in case you’re wondering, probably because only a tiny handful of cars are capable of replicating it, let alone topping it. The man behind the wheel? Ex-F1 driver and two-time Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya. TopGear: How did this new relationship come about? Juan Pablo Montoya: Mr Dürheimer called Roger [Penske] and Roger sent me a text saying there’s something cool that I think you should do, and I thought OK. He said he was going to send me…

M eet the all-new, 21st-century TVR, the frst since a wealthy consortium – headed by entrepreneur Les Edgar – wrested the company away from Nikolai Smolenski in 2013. The name is familiar: the Grifth frst appeared in 1963, but reappeared in 1991. That model is probably the defnitive TVR. In many other ways, this stunning-looking new car – side-exit exhausts, sculpted front wheelarches, and swoopy body – stays true to TVR’s homespun, old-school recipe. It packs an atmospheric 500bhp 5.0-litre quad-cam V8 usually seen in Ford’s Mustang, but thoroughly overhauled by Cosworth to deliver more power and torque. It’s dry-sumped to lower the centre of gravity, has 50:50 weight distribution and uses a Tremec Magnum 6spd manual (even that sounds manly). With a dry weight of 1,250kg, the new car…

Formula One. It’s quite literally one of the motorsports on the planet. What it frequently lacks in overtaking excitement, F1 more than makes up for in self-importance, incoherent marshalling decisions and technical lingo. But before you attempt to decipher what on earth Eddie Jordan’s talking about, make sure you read TopGear’s Guide To Understanding What’s Going On In F1. It won’t help you to understand what on earth Eddie Jordan’s going on about, but hey, it might kill a few minutes. Paddock Enclosed area behind the pits, providing parking for team motorhomes and closed to the public. On account of all the horses. Tyre compound High-security facility in which Pirelli stores all its tyres for the upcoming season. Degradation The drop-of in viewer interest when TV commentators begin discussing tyre…

Volkswagen Polo £16,500 approx. W hen I were a lad, lazy headline writers would label any new Polo version as “Freshly minted”. Or “Sweet”. A proposition “Free of holes” but that maybe “Cost a packet”. If those lame puns were ever OK, they certainly aren’t now, because the word association goes in the opposite direction: if you say Polo to someone, they will automatically think of a hatchback automobile, not a small white toroidal item of confectionery. Nor even malletwielding posh people charging about on horses. The Polo used to be an expensive and rare small car. These days it’s mainstream. In August it outsold every small car bar the Fiesta. Even though everyone surely knew this fresh one was coming. It is very fresh, having an all-new platform, chassis…

This is what the power race has come to... Yes, a 376bhp A-Class. That’s 376bhp from two litres, after the facelift prompted by the arrival of the MkII Audi RS3, which briefly held the record for world’s most powerful hatch. A45 v1.2 also has optional Comfort/Sport suspension, a limited-slip rear diff, a parpier exhaust and shorter gearing. In turn, this is the tweaked Audi RS3. A lighter aluminium engine block, hollow crankshaft and shrunken bearings have lopped a huge 26kg from the nose-heavy mass, and shed so much friction the 2.5-litre turbo 5cyl dishes out a massive 394bhp and 354lb ft. Audi Sport is back on top. Worth the money inside? Ah yes, money. A45s start at £41k; this one’s £52k. Normal A-Classes are quite shoddy inside, but the bespoke…

I t’s hard not to grin when you hear it. About a mile away, up here in the dense pine forests of the Californian high desert, the three cars have turned around and are now charging back towards us at full chat, the mechanical barks and howls ricocheting of the steep rock faces that line the road. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it, this is automotive music. There’s the distinctively gruf four-trumpet blare of the Corvette curling into a snarl as it heads towards the rev-limiter. The swirling, operatic tenor of the Maserati V8 flling in the middle and high notes. And then there’s a diferent, but equally mesmerising, V8 voice. It’s slightly buzzier, more controlled, smoother, zapping up through the gears. That must be the Lexus.…

Imagine the scene: Jürgen Eberle shows up to work one morning as an engineer at Daimler AG, ready to do his usual engineering job as the man who makes sure that all the stuf that is supposed to ft in the front of a Mercedes-Benz E-Class – the electronics, headlights, cooling and all that important stuf – actually fts in the front of an E-Class. On his way to his ofce, he spots a G-Wagen 4x4² – the one with the portal hubs instead of a traditional axle set-up. And he starts thinking. Possibly muttering something along the lines of “Ich frage mich, ob...” The words “I wonder if…” that – when uttered by an engineer of any stripe – invariably lead to bent bits of metal and complicated drawings that…

Report 5 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV £61,000 OTR/ £73,505 as tested DNA. In human speak, it’s the carrier of genetic information that either makes you a square or bonkers. In Alfa speak, it’s a four-stage rotary knob that either makes the Giulia Quadrifoglio a square or bonkers. See, unlike its competitors, the Alfa does not have confgurable driver settings (why?!). Instead, there are four DNA settings that shift the character of the QV from a cylinder-deactivating fuel-sipper to a noisy thug capable of a ’ Ring lap under 7:40. In ascending order of madness, you start with A, or Advanced Efciency. It slackens the steering and throttle of and encourages the engine to shut down a cylinder bank to save fuel. Then there’s N (Normal). It’s a little fat, with…

Report 2 Ariel Nomad £36,538 OTR/£55,313 as tested You have a choice if you choose to drive an Ariel Nomad every day. You can either weatherproof yourself or the car. Or, if you’re a beltand- braces type, both. For £420 Ariel will sell you a cover. You’ve seen how complicated the Nomad’s scafold structure is. Imagine being the frm tasked with developing a cover for it. Nightmare. Anyway, the ft is impressively tight and the hood is beautifully made, but thick around the A-pillars, which makes visibility awkward and obscures the wing mirrors. The ‘doors’ have to be zipped up once you’re in. I don’t have triple-jointed elbows, so this is nigh-on impossible. It doesn’t keep all the water out, either: a trickle still comes in around the windscreen. Solo,…

I t’s the group that just keeps on giving. No sooner has the tail-happy Focus RS been deposed as the TopGear hot-hatch of choice by the magical new Honda Civic Type R, and already there’s a gaggle of contenders looking to steal its alpha status. Step forwards the new, third-gen Megane RS. Always at the sharper end of the hatch spectrum, the Megane RS has something to prove after the slightly soggy, auto-only Clio RS... it states its case with technology, but keeps the faithful happy with the option of a manual ’box. And let’s not discount the perennial bridesmaid either – the Seat Leon Cupra – now with more power, better brakes and styling accents to match your steampunk table lamp. If circa 300bhp and usable rear seats are…

HUMMINGBIRD BIKE Prodrive is not known for its folding bicycles. But you have to start somewhere, so it’s partnered with the Hummingbird Bike Company to build what is apparently the world’s lightest folding bike. The whole thing weighs in at just 6.9kg – Hummingbird says that makes it three kilos lighter than its nearest competitor. That’s thanks to a carbon frame that’s manufactured using the same techniques Prodrive uses to build bits for its race and rally cars. A threestage mechanism means folding the Hummingbird takes five seconds flat. £3,495; hummingbirdbike.com SPECIALIZED S-WORKS ROUBAIX McLAREN Designed with McLaren Applied Technologies, so it’s got custom hubs, one of the stiffest and lightest frames Specialized has ever made, Future Shock front suspension and paint to match your 570S. £9,995; specialized.com DIAMONDBACK RANGER…

Want a fascinating stat? Fiat sold 751 Barchettas during the roadster’s 10 years in the UK. In the 124 Spider’s frst year on sale, Fiat has shifted 1,194. There are no doubt numerous reasons for this – the Barchetta was a left-handdrive curio, after all – but the Mazda MX-5’s role feels central. Leaf through car magazines from the mid Nineties and while the Barchetta won praise for its pretty styling, it was always beaten by the more fun Mazda. “If you can’t beat them, join them,” some say, and, two decades later, Fiat’s roadster is an MX-5, at least under the skin. Get the two together, though, and you’ll conclude the Barchetta had a tougher time than it deserved. It looks brilliant, especially in the orangey launch colour of…

BEST BIT Petrols are smooth and quiet and have wide rev ranges WORST BIT It’s likely to push most cars toward auto transmissions Last August, diesels made up more than 47 per cent of the cars sold in Britain. This August, they plummeted under 40 per cent. It’s not just spooked reaction to proposed new city charges, it’s also dawning on people that petrols are just… nicer. Smoother and quieter, more freerevving, but also with the new wave of turbos, generous with the low-rev torque diesel drivers love. But the industry will have to fnd more efective ways of making petrols as economical as diesels. Mild hybrid is one. Volvo, in announcing its move to an all-hybrid and EV line-up for models after 2019, said a three-pot petrol with 48V…

Aston Martin DB11 V8 £144,900 Downsized engines are all the rage. They make cars cheaper and more fuelefcient, after all. But sometimes a downsized engine ofers more than that. Sometimes it’s a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 made by AMG. That’s what Aston Martin has popped in the DB11, dropping its big GT’s price by £13k compared with the V12 version. It still costs £144,900, mind. But there’s a reason to choose it over the V12 beyond negligible value-for-money claims: it’s a more exciting car. Perhaps we should have expected that, given where the engine comes from. Namely a whole range of Mercedes- AMG products, including the GT on p65. Aston has tuned the engine to its own tastes, with diferent computing and a new exhaust system. It sends 503bhp and 498lb…

Mercedes-AMG GT C Edition 50 £139,460 What does C stand for? Nothing, really. It denotes the model that sits directly beneath the rabid GT R in the AMG GT line up, but Mercedes doesn’t claim any specific meaning. That’s not important, though. What matters is the GT C is the pick of the entire AMG GT range. So many letters... why is it the best? It’s very nearly as exciting as the fearsome GT R on a winding road or a race track, but it’s easier to use every day and it’s cheaper, too. It also gets AMG’s brilliant rear-wheelsteering hardware as standard, plus it borrows the GT R’s aggressive swollen rear arches. The lesser GT and GT S models look a bit weedy by comparison with their skinny, low-fat…

VOLVO XC90 D5 R-DESIGN Price: £51,855/ £60,655 as tested Engine: 1969cc, 4cyl TD, 235bhp, 354lb ft Transmission: 8spd auto, 4WD Performance: 0–62mph in 7.8secs, 137mph Economy: 49.6mpg, 149g/km CO2 Weight: 2009kg LAND ROVER DISCOVERY Td6 HSE Price: £64,195/ £75,965 as tested Engine: 2993cc, V6 TD 258bhp, 443lb ft Transmission: 8spd auto, 4WD Performance: 0–62mph in 8.1secs, 130mph Economy: 39.2mpg, 189g/km CO2 Weight: 2230kg AUDI Q7 TDI QUATTRO S LINE Price: £53,670/ £65,615 as tested Engine: 2967cc, V6 TD 268bhp, 443lb ft Transmission: 8spd auto, 4WD Performance: 0–62mph in 6.5secs, 145mph Economy: 47.1mpg, 158g/km CO2 Weight: 2060kg S orry, but there’s a limit to how helpful we can be here. Sure these are all nominally seven-seat of-roaders with diesel automatic powertrains and a heavy dose of poshness, but they don’t exactly compete…

Report 6 Aston Martin DB11 £157,900 OTR/£187,005 as tested After six happy months and over 7,000 miles in Woking’s answer to grand touring, the 570GT, I now fnd the Aston’s hefty great keyfob in my hand. Does it have to be this massive? And where do you put it? It needs a proper slot. The whole ambience of the DB11 is softer, from the moment you ease yourself into it. The seats are there to cosset, support and relax, not merely hold you in place like those in the 570GT. The cabin feels overtly luxurious with its brogued leather, metal touch points and opiniondividing chopped carbon, rather than sparse and functional as in the McLaren. In that I was always aware its dynamic side was keen to get out. The…

Goodbye Renault Scenic £25,445 OTR/£28,080 as tested Deep in Renault’s Techno Centre, design vice president Laurens van den Acker gestures to a graph. Sales last year were up 12 per cent in a market that was up seven (it sold almost 3.2m cars in total). Signifcantly, Renault is making more money on every unit sold, and design is the main reason for the uplift. “The most beautiful line is the rising line of the sales chart,” Laurens says, quoting his great design forebear Raymond Loewy. The French have a history of making their most functional cars look cool... the Renault 4 and the original Espace, to name two. The latest Scenic is right up there, duking with Peugeot’s 3008 for honours in a class that vies with drying paint for…

Goodbye Citroen C3 £16,825/£18,710 Nissan Micra £18,010/£18,560 “Lots of folk respond well to the C3’s buggy looks and fresh thinking” Ollie Kew: I think living with these two is a great example of why long-termers are fascinating things. Both engineered to hit the same eco targets and to cost similar money, and both packing some brilliance and kneecapped by seriously annoying faws. So, University Challenge Time. If you were going back to uni now, would you be wanting to load up the Citroen or the Nissan? Tom Harrison: Ideally not the Nissan – its powertrain is so weak I’m convinced that, with the amount of beer I’m lugging to my fctitious halls of residence, you couldn’t get it moving without roasting what’s left of the clutch. I’ve done more than…