Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Ask people about their first car memory, and you tend to get a rose-tinted recollection of an early life spent in the back of the family car. If you’re from my generation, the passing of time will have chosen to redact the added frisson of parental map-reading responsibility due to lack of satnav (inevitable argument), velour seating (seriously, who thought that was a suitable fabric?) and a total lack of aircon. It was miserable, and normally lacking in excitement, but somehow the petrolhead mindset is pre-conditioned to remember it fondly. With the reality being such a passive, remote and uncomfortable existence, cars came to life on our TV screens and in the movies we watched. I still remember being glued to the screen when the General Lee kicked up red…

Busy year for Audi. After replacing the A8, A7, A6 and A1, introducing the Q8 and facelifting the TT and A4 – all within the past few months – it’s decided to give us a new Q3, too. And it’s about time. The old one’s been around for ages, and despite a couple of updates along the way, looks and feels its considerable years. This new car is still recognisably a Q3, only bigger, cleverer and more chiselled. Not a carbon copy of Audi’s other SUVs, which is A Good Thing. At least not in the looks department – all the engines should be familiar enough by now. There are four to choose from – three petrols and one diesel, ranging from 148 to 227bhp and from 1.5 to 2.0…

The Fiat 500 is 60 years old and, as befits the cutest motoring icon in all the world, it’s got a birthday present – a collaboration between Garage Italia and Pininfarina. Welcome to the Spiaggina by Garage Italia. As you can see, it’s based on a Fiat 500C but, thanks to hefty body strengthening work from Pininfarina, the 500’s gone fully topless this time. One roll bar, no roof rails and only two seats. Of course, there’s a historical angle to this. Four years into the original 500’s life, there came the 500 Jolly, aka the Spiaggina, or beach buggy. Sold between 1958 and 1965, the 22bhp al-fresco-mobile didn’t even have doors and cost twice as much as the standard car. However, it became a Swinging Sixties must-have. Garage Italia…

My very first driving experience was when I was eight years old. I was on the road, and my dad was sitting next to me. It was in a big, old Rover – not sure of the model – and I couldn’t sit on the seat because I wasn’t big enough. So I used to do the steering, and when I changed gear I lifted myself up using the steering wheel, put my foot on the clutch and changed gear, so I was standing all the time. We got stopped by the police, and the policeman couldn’t believe it at first. He told my dad off a lot more than me… I bought my first actual road car when I was about 13. I saved up all the money, I…

CALVIN KLEIN SWING Not a brand we’d normally feature. But we’re making an exception, because the Swing has a proper ETA automatic movement. And the skeleton design means you get to look at it all the time. calvinklein.com; £569 REC WATCHES P-51 RTR The carbon dial and forged carbon/aluminium bezel are recycled from the carbon bodywork of Vaughn Gittin Jr’s Mustang drift car. So each one is that little bit different. Cool. Until you have to explain it. recwatches.com; €1,645 BULGARI OCTO FINISSIMO Bit unusual, this one. Minute-repeater movement is überthin, and the case is made out of something called carbon thin ply, which is incredibly strong, light and looks… interesting. Limited to 50. bulgari.com; $160,000 AUTODROMO FORD GT OWNERS CHRONO If you don’t have a Ford GT, look away…

Hyundai Kona Electric £35,975 WE SAY: THESE NEWFANGLED ELECTRIC JOBBIES LOOK JUST LIKE THE REAL THING… Invariably, you tend to consider the usefulness of tech through the prism of your own need, and up to this point, any pure BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) that had less than 250 miles of range – a fairly typical round trip for me – didn’t make any sense. Anything with more, like a Tesla or a Jag I-Pace racked up £60k+ on the forecourt, so felt upmarket specialist. The Nissan Leaf’s 235 miles of possible range was so nearly there… but… But I have driven the commuting future, and it’s a Hyundai Kona Electric. Yes, we’re likely to see much more competitive EVs in the not-too-distant, but this is the first EV I could…

Audi TT S £45,000 approx. WE SAY: INGOLSTADT CELEBRATES ITS GAME-CHANGER WITH PREDICTABLY INCREMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS It’s 20 years since the Audi TT first went on sale. If you’re anything like us, that’ll make you more than a little wistful about the relentless passage of time. Audi’s likely over the moon, mind; it’s sold 600,000 in that time, while its image has risen exponentially. It’s now a company that regularly explores niches you didn’t think necessary. Imagine Audi getting away with diesel performance SUVs before the TT? To coincide with the car’s anniversary, there’s been typically restrained updates: more sculptured bumpers, new colours and a refreshed engine range. There’s no diesel anymore, all but the TT RS using a tune of 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo petrol. Outputs start at 197bhp, but the…

Jaguar Project 8 £149,995 WE SAY: FORGET THE SALOON BODYWORK, ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE XE IS NOT MUCH MORE THAN THE BADGE… You might think this was just a gussied-up XE, right? Wrong. Wrong turned up to 11. Push chief project director Dave Pook a bit and he’ll admit it’s 80 per cent new. The mission was to create the most capable track-focused Jaguar ever. The P8 can do 0–62mph in 3.7secs, 200mph all-out, uses JLR’s 5.0-litre s’charged V8, makes 592bhp, 516lb ft, and uses the F-Type SVR’s 4WD hardware. But it’s not that car in four-door drag. First, there’s the way it feels. Pook & Co. are upfront about their ambitions, to benchmark the BMW M4 GTS and aim for the Porsche 911 GT3. We’re now at Portimão, which…

A fist in the face often offends, but – on the upside – it doesn’t leave you in any doubt about the perp’s intentions. It’s the same thing with America’s latest muscle and supercars. They don’t bother with subtlety. They know you want as much power, speed and smoke as your dollar will buy and to not spend too long dressing it up, thanks very much. The net result is these three almost cartoonish cars you see here. Why these three? They are simply the trio of US performance cars which most impressed us over the past 12 months. Each of them, as discussed when we first drove them, expresses the term ‘performance’ quite differently. But each one melts your mind with the way it converts fuel into fun. There’s…

Report 6 Honda Civic Type R £32,995 How would a dealer go about making your new car’s first service as painless as possible? I guess that once the car flashed up the spanner icon, you’d phone up and get a callback within the hour. You’d pick a date and time most convenient for you, not the workshop, and still be welcomed inside when you arrive half an hour early to beat the morning rush hour. You’d be offered a comfy seat, quick wi-fi and all the complimentary coffee you can drink while your car is seen to. After an hour, a text would arrive with a video walkaround of your car explaining tyre, brake and underbody wear and tear (all fine) and after another 30 minutes, your freshly valeted car…

Report 3 Ford Mustang $64,740 “Left… yawn… left…” Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard the lazy cliches about US muscle cars’ cornering abilities. But if there’s one US car to disprove this Luddite theory, it’s the GT350 R. Honed for the track it generates 0.89g in the Yankee-loved figure-of-eight test and loves a bit of bent tarmac. But, annoyingly, the Mustang has recently played into the lazy cliche. With those steamroller front tyres, the Hennessey inherently likes to wander and sniff out cambers on UK roads. It’s like an overactive dog on a lead, but instead of reining it in and shouting “Heel!”, you tug on the wheel and shout: “Please stop before we crash!” But even while cruising on the UK’s best attempt at a smooth, flat motorway, I…

Rob Dickinson, former musician and genius behind Singer Vehicle Design, is walking towards me in an enormous, empty warehouse, sparking a fag. He’s wearing khaki shorts and cap, a wrinkled white T-shirt and dog-eared trainers. He stretches out his right hand, we exchange pleasantries, then it’s straight to it, discussing the car that he’s been obsessing over for the last four years, and the passion starts flowing out of him. We’ve managed to intercept both Rob and the first example of his most ambitious project to date, on their way to Goodwood. The car you’re currently gawping at is the product of a collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering to develop the ultimate, no-expense-spared, air-cooled 911 – resulting from the duo’s snappily named Dynamics and Lightweighting Study. Renderings were released months…

McLaren has revealed its plans for the next seven years… and there shall be no slacking in Woking. The strategy is codenamed Track 25 and features a £1.2bn investment, which will fund the delivery of 18 new models between now and 2025, with the range becoming 100 per cent hybrid by the middle of the next decade. With production of the Senna (the latest in McLaren’s Ultimate Series) currently ramping up and the three-seat BP23 coming soon, a third Ultimate Series vehicle has also been confirmed: a bona fide successor to the P1. With the Senna pitched as McLaren’s most track-focused offering and the BP23 chasing straight-line speed, McLaren’s Jolyon Nash says the P1 successor will be the “ultimate expression of McLaren’s technical expertise and prowess”. Or, to paraphrase, flippin’…

£45,600 Engine 1995cc, 4cyl TD, AWD, 190bhp, 295lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 8.0secs, 132mph, 50.4mpg, 146g/km CO2 Weight 1815kg It’s going to take you a while to convince me the X4 is a desirable expression of crossover style. So let’s move the conversation elsewhere: to the sacrifices it demands if you’re to be seen in this distinctive silhouette. You might be expecting reduced space. But no, not to any great extent. The back seat is nearly as generous as the related X3’s, and so is the boot (though the fastback tail inhibits the seats-down carriage of wardrobes). Strangely, the real problem is the drive. To make it ‘sporty’, the X4’s suspension has been clamped down and its steering stiffened up. That process has muffled and eroded its fluency versus the…

Honda CR-V £n/a WE SAY: IF YOU DON’T HAVE CHILDREN, LOOK AWAY NOW – NOTHING TO SEE HERE. BUT IF YOU DO… Honda makes exciting cars. Shame the CR-V isn’t one of them. From the all-new, fifth generation of the world’s best-selling SUV (yes, really), we’re promised better handling, more space, safety and tech and much besides. As indeed we’re promised from every car. But the big news is that this time around, Honda won’t offer a diesel engine. In a small SUV. Where, for all its sins, it still does the numbers. Brave. Until the hybrid arrives next year, your only option is the 1.5-litre 4cyl petrol from the Civic. It’s fine. Well-mannered as anything around town, although despite trick noise-cancelling tech, things get a little louder when you…

Mercedes-AMG C63S Coupe £72,000 est. WE SAY: AN ONSLAUGHT OF NEW MODES HELP YOU GET THE BEST FROM MERC’S ÜBER-COUPE… The C63 Coupe is the sort of car you make involuntary noises around. “Ooof” at the swollen wheelarches – which the four-door C63 saloon and estate do without. “Hnnng” at the front wheel’s negative camber. And for 2018, “hmm” at the Hannibal-mask front grille that’s been inherited from the AMG GT R. Then, an “errrm” when you drop into the thinly padded bucket seat and attempt to set it up. Hanging from the steering wheel are two new, cheapo-plastic toggles. The right-hand dial is AMG’s version of the Ferrari manettino. Twizzle it around and the car cycles through its factory-approved modes: Slippery, Comfort, Sport, Sport +, and in this C63S,…

CHANCES ARE, YOU’VE SEEN THE 11 – MINUTE CHASE SCENE FROM BULLITT, probably more than once. Movie buffs with Dominos on speed dial and poor social skills may have watched it several hundred times, poring over every frame, but I’ll bet precious few of you have sat through the full one hour and 54 minutes. I have, and let me save you some pain: Bullitt is 11 minutes of film-making genius wedged between one hour and 43 minutes of stagnant drivel. But that’s OK, because what the soggy edges of this sandwich do is bring the deliciousness of that filling into stark relief. In fact, I implore you to sit through the opening hour just to experience a movie move up three gears in the space of 30 seconds – it’s…

STARRING JAGUAR C-X75, FROM SPECTRE You don’t need us to tell you that it wasn’t a real Ferrari 250GT California that went flying out the back of Cameron’s dad’s garage in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, that the Audi S8 in Ronin was a lot more rear-wheel-drive than it ought to have been or that not even Bo Duke lands a Dodge Charger from low-earth orbit and gets to carry on driving. Movie cars are a different breed. Here’s how different. This is the Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre. It didn’t have electric motors, a carbon monocoque or the high-revving 1.6-litre turbo and supercharged engine that was promised for the ill-fated road car. Built for the film by Williams Advanced Engineering, this is what you found if you peered beneath the skin.…

Remember the Aston Martin Cygnet? It’s the city car Aston’s former CEO used as a leftfield loophole to lower the firm’s emissions back in 2011. Somewhat hilariously, the wishy-washy marketing described it as a “tender” – a sort of short-range urban dinghy to your DBS yacht. In reality, it was an utterly extortionate, £31k, rebadged Toyota iQ with a leathery interior that only lasted two years before being swept under the carpet. Quite right, too. It was one of the biggest jokes in motoring history. An April fool PR stunt made real. But it’s funny how perspective can change with time and the application of a 4.7-litre V8 engine. Looking resplendent outside Park Lane’s posh Dorchester Hotel, a glorious British Racing Green Cygnet is causing supercar spotters’ Whatsapp groups to…

Report 5 Jaguar F-Pace £44,615 OTR/£61,590 as tested We’ve just had a bit of a towing audit in the office. Turns out there aren’t so many people here who passed their driving test before 1 January, 1997. Anyone who passed their test after that has to do a supplementary towing test in order to tow something of any size. Which may go some way to explaining why Paul Horrell is the keeper of the only vehicle in the TopGear Garage to feature a towbar. He is one of the chosen few. He is a potential towist. As it happens, he has not yet towed with the F-Pace, so I have borrowed it from him and used it for a trip to La Belle France for a weekend. Dragging a 1949…

Report 3 BMW M5 £89,645 OTR/£101,900 as tested What do you actually want, if you’re buying a super-saloon – speed alone, or speed and handling? This is a question you’d do well to ask yourself before deciding the BMW M5 is the car for you. Now personally I think BMW has got the M5 bang-on this time round – I like the underlying positivity of the suspension as a reminder this is no run-of-the-mill motor – but I’d understand if you wanted something more… effortless. At which point, I’ll introduce the Alpina B5. At £89,000 it’s pretty much identical money to the M5, and although its 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 has humbler origins, Alpina has wound it up to a point where it actually develops 9bhp and 37lb ft more than…

Report 3 Volkswagen Arteon £40,305/£47,810 This isn’t a partly political broadcast on behalf of diesel, but before industry laziness, governmental sound-bitery, and consumer ignorance do for diesel completely, don’t dismiss it out of hand. The Arteon and its bedevilled powerplant have improved my life no end this past few weeks. Granted, this is an engine brought to us by the same company that was guilty of one of the great corporate scams of all time. But when you find yourself criss-crossing the country to the tune of approximately 1,300 miles in one week, an average of 50mpg and a fuel tank (66 litres) capable of giving an over-600 mile range are attributes that find themselves rocketing up the wanted list. Like everyone else, VW is currently grappling with the new…

Time for a fanfare. The Lamborghini Aventador SVJ has announced its arrival by becoming the fastest production car ever around the Nordschleife: 6m44.97s, almost 15secs faster than the plain-jane Aventador SV. We still don’t know exactly what it looks like, because Lambo isn’t revealing what’s beneath the origami-offcuts disguise until the end of August. Presumably some sort of origami-offcuts bodywork. There will be slats. But we do now know its vitals. And we have driven it. The very car that set the lap record. The Jota badge is saved for the most extreme Lambos, so much so it’s only been worn twice previously, by a Miura in 1970 and a Diablo in 1993. For the Aventador, Lambo took an SV, applied the learning of the Huracán Performante (ALA adaptive aero,…

This is Denmark’s premier brickmaker’s take on James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5. It features a functioning ejector seat, revolving numberplates, a pop-up rear bulletproof screen, axle-mounted tyre scythes, plus machine guns, radar and on-board phone. From Lego’s more traditional Creator range, hence its blocky, boxy and, let’s face it, fugly appearance, Lego says it “showcases the timeless elegance of 007’s iconic sports car.” We say it looks quite a lot like the David Brown Speedback. Oh dear.…

BOOSTED PLUS ELECTRIC SKATEBOARD If Tony Hawk was still a thing nowadays, he’d have a Boosted electric skateboard. Because why wouldn’t you? Electric and rechargeable, the Boosted Plus can scoot for 14 miles on a single charge, at speeds of 22mph. Which seems pretty nippy when you’re stood on a glorified plank. It can even take on inclines of 25 per cent – although the downhill will probably be the fun bit. It’s also Bluetooth-enabled, so you can control your speed and ride configurations via your app. Step down, Playstation. $1,399; boostedboards.com INFENTO MODULAR BUILD KIT It’s Meccano, right? Not just that – it’s giant Meccano for real kids. The kit allows you to build scooters, trikes, buggies and go-karts, with just a hex key and your imagin-well, an instruction…

Issue 234 – this month in 2012 Sorry to burst the bubble, but TG doesn’t have the luxury of being able to purchase every car we drive… mostly, we rely on manufacturers to loan us theirs. Unfortunately, Aston made a pledge that no media would be allowed to drive its ultra-rare, ultra-pricey 750bhp One-77, even when the full production run was sold out. This led us to get… creative. So, when Mr Al Ketbi, owner of Dubai dealership Al Ain Class Motors, told us he had purchased a One-77 and we were welcome to come and have a go in it in Dubai’s backyard, we were on a plane quicker than you can say third-degree sunburn. It’s an odd exercise, reviewing a car that’s already sold out – did anyone…

Aston Martin DBS Superleggera £225,000 WE SAY: WELCOME TO A WORLD BEYOND DB11. IT’S SURPRISINGLY FAMILIAR “It’s all about torque. Power numbers are interesting, but you drive torque.” So says Paul Barritt, Aston Martin’s vehicle line director for the DB11 and DBS, as he talks about the new DBS Superleggera, before going on to mention that it not only has 147lb ft more than the regular DB11, but 111lb ft more than the One-77. Oh, and half the fuel consumption of the latter. The DBS Superleggera, then, is the ultimate Aston Martin. At least until the Valkyrie rocks up. And even when it does, this is the car that epitomises Aston’s brand values better than any other. Massively potent twin-turbo V12 up front, RWD, 2+2 layout inside. How potent? 715bhp.…

Ford Mustang GT vs Kia Stinger GT S £41,745/£40,535 WE SAY: TOPGEAR HOSTS ITS OWN KOREA–US SUMMIT, AND THIS ONE’S MUCH MORE HOSTILE Conventional wisdom suggests the Kia Stinger rivals the usual German sports saloons. It’s got four doors, a £40k pricetag and a 6cyl engine, after all. The first time I drove one, though, it felt big-hearted and hairy-chested. It felt like a muscle car. Forty grand can already buy you a bona fide example of one of those, of course. We’ve been able to buy a Euro-focused, RHD Stang for several years, but it’s been hard to find a direct rival for its rather unique recipe. In the Stinger, I reckon we’ve finally got one. The Mustang’s just had a new round of updates, with a more aerodynamic…

BMW M2 Competition £49,805 WE SAY: THE BEST M CAR NOW GETS A BESPOKE ENGINE AND BECOMES EVEN BETTER They keep telling you that the M no longer actually stands for motorsport. Or indeed for anything at all. The division of BMW that does the M cars, and also the customised Individual cars and the armoured cars is just… M. The badge has no more significance than four straight lines joined at three acute intersections. Oh yeah. You and I know, don’t we, that really M is all about the Motor. Which meant it was not just a shame but an unfulfilled promise that the best BMW M road car currently made, the M2, went without an authentic BMW M engine. It was a near-obsolete N55 35i single-turbo six (albeit…

£29,628 Engine 2157cc, 4cyl TD, 4WD, 178bhp, 295lb ft Performance 0–62mph in n/a secs, 121mph, 35.8mpg, 211g/km CO2 Weight 2165kg As an SUV, SsangYong’s Rexton isn’t all that civilised against rivals. But the Musso takes its cabin, engine and front half and puts it in a pickup. That way it’s really nicely habitable compared with the Hiluxes, L200s and Isuzu D-Maxes of this world. It’s decently furnished, quiet, and well-equipped for its ridiculously low price – inc seven-year warranty. Musso means rhino in Korean. To back up that name, its rear half is all truck: a big loadbed and a live axle, not the SUV’s independent job. Result is an unmatched pickup load capacity – rated to carry a tonne and pull three-and-a-half, both at once. As you can imagine,…

Ever noticed that invisible plasma surrounding celebrities? The stuff that leaves us pie-eyed on fame and liable to stare, point and generally pander to what is just another human being with a familiar face. Turns out it applies to objects, too. Sean Kiernan, the car’s owner, has barely finished sliding the tarpaulin off and already his voice has been selectively dismissed by my brain. I start to circle this prize piece of Hollywood memorabilia, stroking its frozen-in-time patina, remembering to breathe only when I climb in and take a lungful of cracked leather, hunting for the stories I’ve heard so much about. There! Glue residue on the tachometer – a piece of tape applied by a nervous mechanic during filming, reminding McQueen not to rev the knackers off it. Another…

Some years are bigger than others. On current form, 2018 is shaping up to be one that’ll linger longer in the memory. But it still has some way to go if it’s to beat 1968. Journalist Mark Kurlansky managed to get a weighty, brilliant book out of it, 1968: The Year That Shook The World. The Paris riots, the Prague Spring, the Tet offensive, the assassination of Martin Luther King… the Sixties dream was under attack, the mood febrile. Culturally, it was significant too: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey blew minds, The Beatles’ White Album was released, Led Zeppelin formed. On opposite sides of the world, the car world also felt a notable ripple in the Force. In Turin, the prodigiously talented Giorgetto Giugiaro and his business partner Aldo…

Report 2 Mercedes-AMG GT R £143,245 OTR/£153,960 as tested Is there an angrier car on sale? I’m pretty sure there isn’t. But I’ve got a secret. If you want to neuter it, turn it from naughty to nice, all you need is some ribbon. With a close friend getting married in Germany this month, our big green Merc seemed perfect to get him to the altar on time, and fixing a beautifully tied white bow to the front suddenly made the AMG appear much friendlier. It even posed for pictures. The boss’s car suited the role for so many reasons, not least the chance to drive it in its home country, freed of the boring old British speed limits that sit embarrassingly short of its abilities. A nice empty three-lane…

Hello VW e-Golf & Nissan Leaf £28,230*/£31,965 & £28,390*/£30,575 These are not the first electric cars we have run in the TG Garage. Previously we’ve had a BMW i3, Renault’s Twizy and Zoe and a Tesla Model S. However – and here comes the crux – none of the first three had anything like the necessary range, and the last was a six-figure car. What the VW e-Golf and Nissan Leaf represent is a mainstream electric future: around £30k or £300 per month, and a range of at least 150 miles. So, to see how they stack up we’ve given them to the two people who live furthest from the office… OM: How far is your commute? TH: 75 miles. If I plough straight through the middle of London. Which…

Report 4 Hyundai i30N Performance £27,995 OTR/£28,580 as tested It’s surely impossible to name a performance-car hero that doesn’t have roots in motorsport. Whether you like its occasionally complex politics or not, it’s pivotal to the development – and marketing – of performance cars. The Hyundai i30N is no different. Long before we knew what ‘N’ meant, i20 rally cars were being flung around forests with Ns emblazoned on their bodywork, while the i30N effectively had its final sign-off at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. A perfect excuse to jump in ours and go and see some racing, then. First up, this year’s N24. Until I visited the Isle of Man TT, it was my candidate for the world’s most exciting motorsport event. On four wheels, it still is. There’s a…