Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

When I was growing up (a long time ago, back in the days when TV had four channels and driver aids consisted of a travel sweet and a road map), the forecast for ice or, even worse, snow on the roads would cause much muttering from my dad and complete fear from my mother. At the same time, it would cause mild optimism in the young me about a day at home because the journey to school would almost certainly result in a shunt. The following morning, after a good 20 minutes of swearing had managed to defrost the Rover Vitesse, Dad would slither his way off up the road to do “business” having helpfully reminded Mum that injudicious application of the brake pedal would result in certain death. It…

This is the brand new Jaguar D-type. No, really. This Longnose-spec racer is the engineering prototype for a box-fresh run of 25 more D-types. Why? Well, because it’s excellent business and because it’s the completion of a story that started more than 60 years ago. The original D-type was a fabulously successful (not to mention exquisitely beautiful) racing car based on the earlier C-type but with low-drag aerodynamics (for the age) specifcally aimed at Le Mans success. That box was mightily ticked with a triplet of 24 Heures du Mans victories in 1955, 1956 and 1957. However, while Jaguar originally intended to produce 100 D-types, only 75 were completed before the car became uncompetitive. So, following in the sold-out tyre tracks of the six Lightweight E-type and nine XKSS recreations,…

How do you reinvent a hero like the Mercedes G-Wagen? By making it look exactly like the old one. No surprises there, because despite being close to its 40th birthday, sales have improved year on year of late. There are new LED lights, but all the hallmarks are there: exposed spare wheel, prominent indicator lights, protective exterior strips, aerodynamics of a cube. Merc has even kept the endearingly old-fashioned, “characteristic closing sound” of the doors. The G is 170kg lighter than before, but bigger – 53mm longer and 121mm wider. Inside, the passenger’s dashboard grabhandle stays, as does the driving position that puts your face right in the windscreen. The dials are all digital, while the media system gives haptic and audio feedback as you twiddle its controls. It launches…

Lexus might be trumpeting bleeding-edge technology for this LF-1 Limitless concept, but it’s the design that’s bleeding edge. Yep, Lexus has invoked the spirit of the Japanese sword – ‘molten katana’ – to infuse the LF-1’s lines with a liquid-metal-meets-samurai-sword effect. Its proportions – 5m length, 2m width, 1.6m height – have been masked by a low stance, and tight arches and overhangs. There’s a continuous stroke running from front to back, many creases and the trademark spindle grille. Inside, there’s less swordsmanship, more omotenashi (hospitality), meaning a welcoming, chiffon-white leather-bound sanctum fitted with haptic controls, 4D nav and a touchpad. Though Lexus hasn’t detailed what provides power in this concept, “the LF-1 concept could be powered by fuel cell, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, gasoline or even all-electric,” we’re told. We…

I was quite old when I passed my test, I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I was 21 or 22. I used to live in Wandsworth when I first moved to London and used the tube all the time. Then my wife and I moved to Surrey, so I did a one-week crash course. The first car I bought was a Volkswagen Polo, and I still have it. One of the guys I work with drives it regularly, but I still love that car. When I stopped driving it my wife told me I needed to sell it, but I couldn’t – it’s strange, I haven’t had that feeling towards any of my other cars. After that I got a Golf GTI – it felt like a big…

Aston Martin DB11 V8 Volante £159,900 WE SAY: DOES THE NEW ROOFLESS DB11 V8 HAVE ALL THE ATTRIBUTES OF A CLASSIC GT? Assuming it’s not breaking a drought, rain is one of the frustrations by which we British define ourselves. Rain falling upon us in the South of France is a higher scope of vexation. And rain in the South of France when there’s a British 510bhp Aston Martin to be driven? Now that is just really bloody annoying. But I did it so you don’t have to These photos were shot under kinder skies, and doesn’t it look glamorous, eh? The front and rear of it are clearly as per any other DB11. What mattered intensely, obsessively, to the designers was that the middle region around the folded hood…

Litchfield BMW M2 Pack £6,361 upgrade Litchfield Audi RS3 Pack £2,058 upgrade WE SAY: THE SECRET IS OUT. IF YOU FANCY GIVING YOUR AUDI RS3 OR BMW M2 A FACE-BENDING TICKLE, HEAD TO LITCHFIELD Some cars roll of the production line with so much power you’d have to be in one hell of a hurry to need even more performance from them. The Audi RS3 is not a big car – it’s slightly smaller than a Ford Focus – yet it has 395bhp in factory tune. The BMW M2, meanwhile, doesn’t lag too far behind, equipped as it is with a 365bhp turbocharged straight-six. Neither Audi’s junior RS nor BMW’s pugnacious little coupe is crying out for more shove. But that hasn’t stopped tuning specialist Litchfield from turning up the…

WE SAY: MERC’S PLUSH PICKUP TAKES ON LAND ROVER’S SEMINAL SUV How’s the image? Affluent builder. Of course Merc wants it to be more than that, to be a family lifestyle truck, and inside and out it’s done a good job of hiding the Nissan Navara that lurks underneath. But it’s still a pickup. Just with slick PR. Country set. Yes, despite the slicker panelling of the new Disco, this is still the default choice for the Home Counties. Can be had as a pickup-rivalling commercial, but it’s just as pricey unless you’re VAT registered. Which has the best clanky bits? If you want clanky, you’ve come to the right place. X-Class uses the Navara’s 2.3-litre diesel and ladder-frame chassis. Coil-sprung and with switchable 4WD, it has a wider track…

Audi A7 55 TFSI quattro S line £58,040 WE SAY: THE NEW, A8 TECHENCRUSTED A7 IS AS ALOOF/ BEGUILING AS AUDIS GET When Audi decided, about a year ago, to launch the MkII A7 in Cape Town, it could scarcely have known that come January, the Mother City would be three months from completely running out of water. Drought and inefficiency has brought the Cape to the brink of running out of mankind’s most precious resource. 21 April is D-Day, and every billboard, motorway matrix sign and radio ad begs tourists and residents to save as much water as they can. Don’t flush. Ninety-second showers. No baths. It’s a modern day man-made crisis-in-waiting. Doing more with less is a state of mind the car industry has embraced like few others…

ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE Price: £120,900 Engine: 3982cc, V8 twin-turbo, 508bhp, 505lb ft Transmission: 8spd auto, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 3.6secs, 195mph Economy: 26.9mpg, 245g/km CO2 Weight: 1429kg We finally get the Vantage started. It turns out that if you leave a prototype Aston Martin in a trailer for three days while driving it to the middle of Sweden through temperatures that drop as low as -25ºC, you have issues – a frozen starter motor currently being the most pressing. Neither a hot pan of water nor a blowtorch does the trick. It’s only once it has been rolled inside the barn at Kall’s woodyard and left for an hour that we can coax life into it. This is the life of a prototype. This is why you do winter testing. Coming…

TYRES We once tried driving a Porsche 911 Turbo on ice wearing its standard tyres. After a little practice we had the speedo needle beyond 200mph while the car itself wasn’t moving at all. Strap two bars of wet soap to the bottom of Usain Bolt’s feet and he’s not going to win the race to the far end of the tiled changing room, is he? To move you need friction. On ice, this means cold-weather tyres, although we usually refer to these – incorrectly – as winter tyres. Yes, they are designed to cope with snow, but first and foremost they’re designed to work when the average daily temperature drops below 7°C. That’s because the key difference is the one you can’t see – the compound. Cold-weather tyres have…

“I could spend months on an ice lake and not stop grinning” This is going to be hard. Perhaps impossible. The power wars between M Division and AMG have been raging for a long time, and with the pair’s latest 600bhp four-doors, they appear to have reached some kind of deadlock. The new BMW M5 and Mercedes-AMG E63S both have clever all-wheel-drive systems that make them usable in winter, but with a naughty rear-drive Drift mode to appease the purists. Each has a twin-turbo V8 engine with around 600bhp, each one mated to a long-legged but snappily reacting automatic gearbox. Both have a suite of driver modes and traction-control settings to make them malleable to all talent levels and handling tastes. I’m professional, though, and I promise I’ll reach a…

Report 2 Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer SRi VX-Line £27,350 OTR/£34,575 as tested If you’ve been anywhere near a telly recently, you’ve probably seen the trailer for the new series of TopGear, which starts on 25 February. It was filmed at the TG track and at various farm and countryside locations nearby in early January and features Matt, Chris, Rory, Ivy the cow (you kind of need to see the clip), a Volvo digger and around £40m worth of supercars. Our long-term Insignia estate doesn’t feature in the trailer, but we did use it as a support car for the day. Granted, it’s not as good-looking as the Aston Vantage Zagato, the McLaren 720S or Porsche 918 in the background, but it’s still a handsome thing (I particularly like the crease…

Goodbye Peugeot 3008 £27,595 OTR/£32,410 as tested That’ll teach me. There I was saying that I’d been using the snow setting to deal with wet grass, and the following week, just before the 3008 was due to go back, actual white stuff began falling out of the actual sky. Which means I am now in a position to tell you the snow setting works very well on snow. This may come as a surprise to the Grip Control doubters, but we always had faith in the Peugeot’s ability to deal with slippy stuff. Now we’re at the end of our custody of the 3008, my thoughts have turned to the past eight months. I’ve been trying to think of an occasion when the Peugeot failed me, when it let me…

Goodbye Skoda Kodiaq £29,960 OTR/ £33,895 as tested Six months ago when I found out I was going to be running the Skoda Kodiaq, I was secretly over the moon. Yes, over the moon about an SUV! Oh how my life has changed. You see, it’s one of those cars that just ticked all the boxes for my family needs (one ball and chain, and three monkeys). Seven seats, practical, VW/Audi engineering quality and at a jaw-dropping starting price of £23k. I was a genuine punter for this car and still am. So what’s it been like? Well, in short, fantastic – but personally disappointing, too. I went into this thinking it could be the next Franklin wagon. And while it might be down the line, it’s just not right…

THINGS WE’VE LEARNT THIS MONTH If this limited-edition Ford Mustang Bullitt hasn’t immediately topped your must-buy-for-2018 list, you may need to check your vitals. A surprise reveal ahead of the Detroit motor show, the new Bullitt is a special edition that marks 50 years since Steve McQueen fred up his gorgeous, Highland Green Stang and decided to lay down one of the best movie chases the world has ever seen across San Francisco in 1968’s Bullitt. “It’s my favourite Mustang,” explains the Stang’s chief designer, Darrell Behmer. “Devoid of stripes, spoilers and badges. It doesn’t need to scream about anything, it’s just cool.” And that, it most certainly is. We start with the classic 1968 Bullitt Mustang’s exterior hue being deployed to excellent effect here – Dark Highland Green –…

“The real value here is to make the customer happy. It's not a rational investment, it’s an emotional one.” Dany Bahar is a survivor. He’s also someone with an amazing ability to gather top-tier talent around him when a business idea strikes. The former Red Bull and Ferrari marketing man, who later and controversially gambled on a massive expansion plan as CEO of Lotus, has just formally opened his next project: Ares Design, a contemporary carrozzeria/coachbuilder based in the heart of Italy’s motorsport valley in Modena. For anyone who still doubts Bahar’s motivations, Ares Design’s HQ is a pretty effective means of shutting down the naysayers. Housed in an 18,000m2 former Fiat and Alfa Romeo dealership, Bahar and his principal partner in the business, Waleed Al Ghafari – a telecoms…

A new CLS, a new number for AMG: 43s. 45s and 65s… and now the 53 A Hybrid Gasp. A 3.0-litre straight-six produces 429bhp and 384lb ft. while an EQ Boost starter-alternator motor between the engine and transmission delivers 21bhp and another 184lb ft to neatly fill the turbo lag ana boost fuel consumption to 33.6mpg. Permanent 4WD and a nine-speed auto all sound a little un-AMG, but 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds redresses the balance. The CLS 53 AMG comes with 19in wheels as standard, 20s optional, and a subtle body kit. Don't want a swoopy four-door? The 53 powertrain simultaneously drops into the E-Class coupe and convertible and slots neatly above the V6-only 43s.…

“Unforgiving design in pursuit of absolute performance.” That, in McLaren’s words, is the styling direction of the Senna. It’s not a conventionally beautiful-looking car, and the comments section of the internet has been only too happy to point that out. It looks far better in the metal, though. Honest. “The design is a reflection of what the car’s intentions are,” says design director Rob Melville. It’s claimed to be McLaren’s most extreme track car still able to wear number plates. “With only 500 cars, we can be super-extreme in our approach. But the proportions were a tricky thing to handle,” he adds. “On a mid-engined car you normally have a 2:1 ratio on front and rear overhang length. On this car, the ratio is maybe 3:1. The reason is more…

U-9 GRAND PRIX CAR MODEL Forget Lego – this is a build-your-own kit that takes it to the next level. Beautifully crafted with wooden components, the U-9 Grand Prix Car model set produces a fully functioning and moving machine with a transmission switching the modes between idle, reverse, and race ahead. Under the bonnet you’ll find a delicately crafted 16-valve V8 engine, plus spring-mounted suspension fork and rubberised wheels ensuring smooth but rapid acceleration and a long driving range. All things your pet hamster will appreciate from the driver’s seat. £50; ugears.online BAMBOO BICYCLE CLUB KIT Carbon fibre? Old news. This DIY kit lets you construct a road, mountain or track bike frame out of bamboo. Weekend courses help you perfect your craft, but be warned – the price only…

Derek Bell 1970 My first set visit was a few weeks into the shoot. I’d never been involved with anything like that before, and had no idea what I was getting into or what it would become. I was in the pit lane and the world and his wife was there. Then Steve walked down, very casually, and shook hands with everyone. He was so laid-back, there was no sense of the superstar thing, and that’s what came through with us the whole shoot. He didn’t want to be an actor – he wanted to be a racing driver. Every spare moment he had, he’d sit with us. He wanted to glean every bit of information he could. He loved breathing the racing atmosphere. It became a way of life.…

Volkswagen Up GTI £13,750 WE SAY: VW’S ENTRY-LEVEL GTI HAS LANDED. AND IT’S TEMPTINGLY PRICED Is this the long-awaited production version of the Up GTI? It is indeed, all 113bhp of it. More importantly, we now know prices too, and they start at just £13,750 (or £400 more if you want the kids to have their own doors). Ooh, that sounds a tempting price. That’s because it is. An Abarth 500 starts at £15,510, a base Mini Cooper is £17,340, even a 110bhp Renault Twingo GT is £14,250. And it’s not like the Up is poorly equipped, either. Six-speaker stereo, USB, aircon, Bluetooth, heated seats, DAB – it’s all standard. The Up is available to order now, first customers will have theirs by the end of February. Will they be…

BMW X2 £33,980 WE SAY: MUNICH WANTS A BIG SLICE OF THE EVOQUE PIE (OR IS THAT TORTE?) The X2 is, to no one’s great surprise, a counterpart to the X1, for people who are willing to swap some space for more singular looks. You know, like the X4 is to the X3 or the X6 to the X5. What is surprising is that the man at BMW responsible for the project was prepared to say that its main rival is the Evoque. Usually the big three German luxury brands mention only each other. Since the Evoque’s sales have so thickly buttered Land Rover’s bread, you can assume the X2 will do the same for BMW. In 2017 the X models accounted for one in three of all the BMWs…

Volvo XC40 D4 £39,905 WE SAY: WATCH OUT, RIVALS – VOLVO HAS GOT SERIOUS ABOUT THE CROSSOVER CLASS First things first: don’t be scared by the price you see above. That’s for the flagship First Edition model. The car you’ll actually buy, indeed the model that makes more sense, is a mid-range 150bhp D3, probably with the £1,590 auto ’box. So you’re looking around the £32,000 mark. Why not the D4? Because it’s not an exceptional diesel. It’s gruff at low speeds, has a lethargic turbo and never feels as quick as it should with 190bhp. Better to let the XC40 live a more relaxed life. Because the XC40 is a very good crossover. I know it’s not cool to like these things, but they are the way the market…

“ A grizzly RRS taking on an Ignis Care Bear” It’s not always easy being Goliath. Here you are, the top player, big, muscular and with form in the game. Powerful and proven. You shouldn’t even be challenged by a skinny kid swinging a sock with a rock in it, let alone struck down. But sometimes, those Davids can be really annoying. In this case, we’ve got the best 4x4xFar versus a relatively pasty little hatch with AWD pretensions. A grizzly of a RRS taking on Suzuki’s Care Bear of an Ignis. This, one feels, will be bloody. But when it comes to properly low grip coefficients, what really wins – heavy, powerful and clever, or light, modest and simple? The stats very much emphasise the depth and breadth of…

Hello Nissan GT-R £83,875 OTR/£85,650 as tested Godzilla is back in the TG Garage. Not the rampaging sea monster (that was an interesting day at the office, though), but the latest and greatest GT-R. See, keen readers may remember that many moons ago we ran an R35 Skyline on the feet. That’s when it first kicked down the door that read Supercar Performance with a size 13 boot of technology. It actually did more than that – way more, in fact – as the GT-R shook up the scene by setting new standards for point-and-shoot performance at an enthrallingly accessible price point. The R35 instantly became a bang-for-your-buck yardstick and YouTube icon. At just over £50k it’d consistently and effortlessly eviscerate more prestigious and expensive supercars. But that was nearly…

Report 4 Tesla Model S P90D Ludicrous £111,900 OTR/£78,400 (s/h) This month we suffered extreme range anxiety for the first time during our running of the Model S. Mr Rix, having borrowed the car over the weekend, returned to the TG Garage with 18 miles left. As I was heading down to the local Supercharger at lunch, we left it unplugged, safe in the knowledge that 18 miles range would easily get us there. I duly returned at lunch to discover that the cold weather and background power usage (the Tesla uses some battery when sat still and range is significantly affected by the cold) had reduced that to five miles. Still, with the supercharger just down the road, all would be fine. Well, it would’ve been if the supercharger…

Goodbye Alfa Romeo Giulia QV £61,000 OTR/ £73,505 as tested “ The Giulia is lit up; grinning like a madman as it incinerates its rears” I don’t know exactly how many photographic frames of our Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio have been committed to SD cards over the past nine months (“a lot” is the easy answer) but the glorious shot here is my favourite. Taken by Mark Riccioni on our first group test of the new Audi RS5, it sums up what I love about the QV in one easily-saved-to-my-desktop-wallpaper image. Where the Audi looks mopish as it apathetically walks a tightrope of understeer, the Giulia is lit up; grinning like a madman as it incinerates it rear tyres with 503bhp and sensational chassis balance. It looks fun. And makes…

How did this all come about? Ford wanted a third-generation McQueen to introduce the third-gen Bullitt Mustang. I’m only the eighth person to sit in the original car, I think. It smells like… history, like a car should smell. What was it like growing up knowing you had the coolest grandfather in the world? I don’t want to sound jaded but I grew up in LA, among lots of celebrities, so my grandpa was always just… my grandpa. There were lots of stories about him, like most people have about their grandparents, but they were really cool stories, y’know. Was there cool memorabilia around the house? Oh yeah. There was an old Bullitt script in a drawer, covered in Steve’s hand-written annotations, with line after line of dialogue crossed out.…

So, the new A-Class – Merc’s biggest seller in the UK, and the smallest Mercedes that isn’t technically a Smart. Only now it’s bigger than ever: 30mm longer, with a 14mm wider front track, more shoulder-, head- and elbow-room and a more voluminous, more easily accessible boot than the car it replaces. Good news, we’re sure you’ll agree. But there is better, more interesting news elsewhere… News, for example, of the all new MBUX infotainment system, which employs machine learning to “adapt to suit the user” and “create an emotional connection between the vehicle, driver and passengers”. So, for example, if you regularly switch to Radio 4 at 6pm for the news, the car will remember this and remind you. Like the S- and E-Class, the A’s swish interior is…

Ladies and gentlemen, the Land Rover Defender has returned. Sort of. This is the Defender Works V8, built as a limited-run special edition that both pays homage to those early V8 performance Defenders, and to the Land Rover marque’s 70th anniversary. And it is simply excellent. Of this, there can be no disagreement. The idea emerged only a few years back, when in 2014, while the old Defender was still busy trundling of LR’s production line and into your hearts, the company recognised the sheer need for something packing a haymaker. Thus, we come to the Defender Works V8’s powerplant: a 5.0-litre naturally aspirated unit with 400bhp and 380lb ft; a far cry from the regular Defender’s 120bhp. As such, this Works V8 will reach 60mph in 5.6secs, and top…

I’m Simon Coggle, Head of Agitation at Caliburnus Automotive, and I’m here to tell you all supercars look the same. Ferraris, McLarens, Porsches: if you can even tell the difference, you should probably be running this company instead of me! Which is why, as our mission to build Wales’ – and indeed the world’s – first 300mph production car gathers pace, I decide not to enlist the services of a recognised car designer or styling house to bring our vision to life. Instead I call upon Joël Canape, avant-garde furniture maker to the rich and famous. Carl Woodcock, my co-founder, suggests that, before finessing the design, we should nail down a few of the car’s mechanical basics. Like its drivetrain. And transmission. And engine. “Carl,” I say. “When that Jackson…

Every new car that matters, rated or slated Megane RenaultSport £30,000 (est.) WE SAY: THE BATTLE FOR THE HOT-HATCH CROWN IS ABOUT TO GET WAY MORE DRAMATIQUE... For a car with such a defined mission statement, the new Megane RS is multi-faceted. You can choose between a Sport or Cup chassis, and a 6spd manual or dual-shift EDC ’box, although the motive power is supplied by a reworked version of the group’s turbo’d 1.8-litre engine, good for 277bhp and 288lb ft, whichever one you go for. Motorsport trickle-down is present in the Diamond-Like Carbon in the valve-gear and mirror bore coating inside the cylinders, Renault reckons. Emissions have been cut by 11 per cent to 155g/km CO2 (on the smallest wheels), fuel consumption is up eight per cent for a…

£38,260 8 10 Engine 1995cc 4cyl turbo, RWD, 280bhp, 295lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 5.7secs, 149mph, 46.3mpg, 141g/km CO2 Weight 1429kg While the M3-baiting Giulia Quadrifoglio is all noise and arm-waving frivolity, the petrol-powered Veloce that sits below it is a calmer, more measured thing. There’s no Race mode and its 280bhp 2.0-litre turbo four is quiet to the point of meekness. It rides very softly on modest 18in wheels, while the 8spd auto is wonderfully smooth. So it’ll be easier to live with than any previous Italian 4dr, but it still has the handling nous. Its composed ride feels tailor-made for UK roads, while keen reactions come from being 100kg lighter than rivals. Cheaper than an Audi S4 or BMW 340i, it’s also a sports saloon without needless aggression, and…

Caterham Seven Super Sprint £29,995 WE SAY: WHAT IF TOAD OF TOAD HALL FANCIED A TRACK DAY? We’re a nation suspicious of good business. Nothing like doing a bit too well for yourself to lose friends and alienate people. Caterham ought to be careful. It’s had two record years, and is fresh from punting its fastest-selling model (and one of its slowest cars) ever. The Sprint brought twee running boards and pastel paint to the turbo’d Seven 160. But what if you are – and I refer verbatim to Caterham’s website – “the discerning chap or chapess who prefers the unbridled thrill of the race track to the constraints of public highways”? Someone enterprising has filled that niche by adding lashings of retro and a heady 15bhp boost to the…

It’s a beastly business, going fast. It’s all serotonin overload, adrenal glands, pumping hearts and throbbing bits. Nerves crackling and eyes that water themselves right through an inability to blink. Fear. Triumph. Aggression. Joy. A piña colada of excitements gulped direct from your own hormones. And it’s that adrenaline that goes on a murderous rampage through your organs, over-revving biological systems and probably carving a couple of days of your meagre life expectancy with every misjudged braking point. Or at least it is on a road or racetrack. Transfer to an ice lake, and somehow, in the dropping of temperatures and the unclenching of the ability to find traction, it all gets slightly more serene. Quieter, certainly. Mainly because deploying absolutely everything a car has to offer in terms of…

Though my grasp of maritime law isn’t all that firm, I’m reasonably sure Kvarntjärnen, our icy home for these few halcyon days, doesn’t count as international waters. So let’s call this a technicality. You join me cloaked in thermals, hiking boot resting on the pedal of a Nissan GT-R. I’m not strictly allowed to drive it. Seriously. In the UK, press demonstrators of Nissan’s ultimate speed machine come shackled to an over-30s-only insurance policy. It can be negotiated, but for my entire life so far, I’ve been too young to drive one on a public road. But atop a metre of frozen water walled by trees hiding kamikaze elk, surrounded by expensive sports cars and a certified lunatic on a snowmobile, this is legit. Funny old world. First things first:…

“ The skinny pillars give excellent visibility of, well, a lot of snow” The cold does funny things to your brain. It’s why I decide to warm my hands on a scalding-hot chimney, melting my gloves and giving my colleagues much ammunition with which to attack me for the next two days. It’s also why, I maintain, at first I struggle to find third gear in Below Zero Ice Driving’s Tuthill-prepared Porsche 912. My instructor Simon Redhead just used it, as he demonstrated the correct and most consistently sideways way of guiding the 912 around a short, twisty circuit that feels barely one and half times its width. But the first few times I go for it up the back straight, it’s first or fifth. I nail it after 20…

We start with a drag race, because that’ll give me a clue what I’m up against. I’m in the Ariel Nomad, and beginning to suspect we’re both out of our depth. Yes, the Nomad as well as me. I know, I know, it’s wearing spikes ’n’ spots and looks about as at home out here as the snowmobile. And around the other cars, the ordinary cars, it looks epic, ready for an expedition to the North Pole. Just hook it up to a team of huskies and say mush. Frame the Nomad against the M5, the NSX, even the Ignis, and it looks Scandi-native. But now change the frame and view the Nomad against the backdrop of an RX2 ice racer and a Polaris 800 Switchback XCR. Both are products of…

Report 5 Land Rover Discovery £66,595 OTR/£77,970 as tested Snow at home. It’s the season for it, after all. So we planned an afternoon walk with friends up on the hills. Seven of us piled into the Disco – well, once we’d fafed with the electric folding seats and crammed wellies into the tiny boot slot – and of we went. Keen to demonstrate winter tyres and proper clanky 4x4 bits we travelled by the littler lanes, aiming for a particular spot where I suspected the snow would have drifted across. It had. Excellent. But we weren’t the first there. Ahead, a van, stuck fast and a bloke on a quad bike trying to tug it loose. No chance. Out we climb, deploy the towbar (electrically of course), attach the…

Hello Hyundai i30 Tourer £24,155 OTR/£25,740 as tested Hyundais are, as we all know, Really Not Rubbish nowadays. The i30 has graduated from left-field choice into a credible rival to the VW Golf and Ford Focus... a car with no glaring weak points. But here’s a question. Though there may be no reason NOT to buy an i30 in 2018, is there a compelling reason TO buy one? In other words, does it have what it takes to move from the “ought to consider” to the “must have” column of your shopping list? To find out, we’re testing an i30 Tourer for a few months, because TopGear likes estates. And I reckon this one looks pretty tidy, by small estate standards. Sleek and understated, without being utterly anonymous, and adorned…

Report 7 Ariel Nomad £36,538 OTR/ £55,313 as tested Being the practical device that it is, there are plenty of solutions for carrying things on your Nomad. True, most of them involve ratchet straps, but I did say on, not in. Speaking of in, the Nomad does have an element-proof boot. It’s under the bonnet and about the size of a shoe box. I use it for storing those essentials everyone carries with them: ratchet straps, bungee cords, tie wraps and gaffer tape. In the past, I have strapped more tyres to the spare tyre, but most of the time it’s a bike wheel that sits on there. The rest of the bike gets to travel on the £357 rack. It’s a standard roof rack, but Ariel has fabricated the…