Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2018 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Welcome to Speed Week 2018, our annual celebration of the greatest performance cars of the year. With an eye-watering total value of £4,052,991 and a combined 48,312cc of displacement delivering a total output of 7,640bhp to 36 driven wheels, our 14 contenders represent the most competitive group we have ever assembled for our annual festival of fast and are a testament to the diversity of performance cars the automotive world has delivered in the past 12 months. They range from the sublime in the form of the £2.5m Bugatti Chiron (there on ambassadorial duties in its home nation as our, erm, pace car) to the controversial but ridiculously capable 641bhp Lamborghini Urus and everything else in between. But such is the breadth of the field this year and the diversity…

Audi Q3 2.0 TFSI Sport S tronic £32k approx WE SAY: ALL IS NEW ON THE Q3 – GREAT NEWS, EXCEPT FOR THE ENGINES Often, an all-new Audi is such a dead-ringer for the old, it barely impinges on your consciousness. This is not one of those times. The second-gen Q3 is bigger, better-proportioned, and a lot roomier than before. It had to open up a gap from the Q2, which arrived late in the old Q3’s life, rendering it borderline redundant. Can’t miss the new look. A chunky grille frame, another variation of Audi’s scary-goth LED eye make-up, and metalwork fashioned into sharp creases, amped up by a dose of Ur-Quattro over the arches. Inside it’s all screens now. Not even the base version has hardware dials. Gone too…

£20,530 Engine 1199cc, 3cyl, FWD, 110bhp, 151lb ft Performance 0–62mph in 11.9secs, 109mph, 51.4mpg, 125g/km CO2 Weight 1356kg This is Vauxhall’s first entry into the mid-sized, vanbased SUV market and it’s a good one. The crucial question for this type of car is whether it can fit three kid seats across the back, two adults and all their belongings. The answer to that is yes, comfortably. The steering is nicely weighted at high speeds and light and tactile at low, giving enough feedback when you need it. The 1.2 petrol is punchy enough, even when well loaded. The cabin is spacious, airy and ergonomically sound. Bootspace is large for a car this size – the packaging is exemplary – but while the sliding doors and wide tailgate are practical, they…

MERC-AMG G63 | PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS | BMW M2 COMPETITION The Germans’ splendidly literal language is not short of ways to brand someone a wimp. Try Schattenparker, or ‘someone who parks their car in the shade.’ Don’t like it? You’re quite the Beckenrandschwimmer – ‘one who only swims around the edge of the pool’. Exposed to this pathological intolerance of fear or caution, it’s small wonder that Germany cultivates the most diverse crop of alarmingly intimidating cars. Welcome to Team Deutschland, literally über alles. We’re up in the clouds because while I could detail how these three behave on the boring m’way slog from their fatherland, it’s hardly box-office. Dragging a gazebo wing through the air atop a 691bhp arse doesn’t stop the Porsche 911 GT2 RS returning 29mpg.…

PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS vs FERRARI 488 PISTA vs McLAREN 600LT A big one, this. Porsche vs Fer rari vs McLaren. Last time we refereed this inter-marque fight the contenders were hybr ids collectively referred to as the Holy Trinity. That was a couple of days I won’t forget. Mainly for praying the rain would stop falling. This time my prayers are focused on the barriers. Whoever thought concrete was the right protective barrier for spindly Seventies F1 cars? Emerson Fittpaldi must have thrashed around here in the full knowledge that the only impact cushioning would come from his sideburns. “Titanium. Carbon. Inconel. Magnesium. It’s all here. Almost everywhere you look” Wings, turbos and 700bhp. Yes, car safety has moved on in the last 50 years and the electronics are…

Report 3 VW e-Golf £28,230* OTR/£31,965 as tested What does it cost to run an electric car? It’s actually very easy to work this out. Also important, as it’s my electricity bill that’s currently feeling the pinch. Odd though it seems to be sharing details of my domestic energy supply with you, I’m currently paying 16p for every kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity (I’ve no idea if that’s good value, so now usage has shot up, I’m shopping around). Anyway, in normal driving, the e-Golf does around four miles per kWh. Which means a mile is costing me roughly four pence. Expressed a more meaningful way, it costs me £2.40 to drive the 60 miles to work. If I were in a combustion engine car averaging 50mpg, at current fuel…

Report 5 VW Arteon £40,305 OTR/£47,810 as tested Volkswagen will sell you a Caravelle camper, but the Arteon is almost as roomy inside, although you’d have to improvise the sleeping arrangements and the cooking facilities are a bit rubbish. The Arteon is 4.8m long, 2.8m of which consists of wheelbase, resulting in palatial rear quarters. France is also big, especially if you do an entire lap of it. Which we did, inadvertently: Cambridge to Aix-en-Provence, Aix to La Rochelle, then Calais… Factor in some cocking about in between, and you’re talking 2,000 miles and a total of 24 hours on the move. Look it up on a map. I wish I had before we set off. That’s a proper test, and the Arteon is quasi-Merc S-Class/CLS, not just in terms…

Report 7 Jaguar F-Pace £44,615 OTR/£61,590 as tested The Jag is now on its third windscreen. The second one got an even bigger chip than the first. When I wrote here about the previous replacement, I got a telling off from Auto Windscreens because I didn’t have the driver-assist sensors, mounted in the screen, properly re-aimed. The consequences of that neglect might be bad. You won’t know a safety system is off whack until too late. So this time I got them to fit the new screen. But they say they won’t do the recalibration because it’s a franchised dealer job. So why not get the dealer to change the screen too? Jaguar dealers don’t change screens. So you have to line up two appointments. At least Auto Windscreens came…

Hello Suzuki Swift Sport £17,999 OTR/£17,999 as tested I’ve still got a red, turbocharged, Japanese hot hatch in my life. I’ve just downsized, that’s all. The tremendous Civic Type R has departed for a new life outside of the TopGear garage, and its place has been taken by the third-gen Suzuki Swift Sport. It’s like I’ve donned Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. So many fewer startled glances and turned heads on the first few drives home… Not that the Swift Sport is short of fake carbon fibre and mock grilles – there must be a job lot of black plastic going spare in a Tokyo dock, sullying all Japanese fast cars from here to the Honda NSX – but it’s refreshing to be back in something subtle. Although, according to the…

You don’t have to wear a helmet to drive Ferrari’s new Monza SP1 or SP2. We would, though, unless you enjoy the very specific sort of pain which can only be inflicted by a pigeon to the face. Maranello will build “less than 500” examples of this latest limited-edition. Yep – despite appearances, this is not some hyper-exclusive ten-off. A few might even get driven on a somewhat regular basis. Wouldn’t that be a thing? Why give us this news now, and not at a motor show? Because the SP is the first in Ferrari’s ‘Icona’ series of cars, and that’s a big deal and worthy of its own news cycle. Sitting above the sports (488), GT (GTC4 Lusso) and ‘Special Series’ (488 Pista) models in its line-up, these cars…

The iNext is the autonomous, electric BMW crossover for the road ahead. The production version, BMW says, will happen in 2021. At the front, the double-kidney grille is enormous, and its two halves are joined together. So, not a double kidney… and not actually a grille – it’s a smooth panel. There are two modes. Ease is the autonomous one. The steering wheel and pedals retract, but switch to Boost mode and they come back out. The electric drive serves up a range of 400-odd miles, although the human, having more fun, would probably go less far. The iNext won’t be the first electric BMW crossover. There’s an electric X3 at the end of 2019. There’s also a low-slung saloon, the i4 (think, if you will, Tesla Model 3) that…

Just like the original quattro, Audi is leaving numbers and letters behind to make a branding statement in the all-electric SUV market. Most notably, taking the fight to Tesla’s Model X, Jaguar’s I-Pace and Merc’s impending EQ C. Utilising a 95kWh lithium-ion battery and dual motors good for 300kW of output (402bhp and 490lb ft of torque), the e-tron can reach 62mph in less than six seconds and goes on to a limited top speed of 124mph. However, it’s also capable of 150kW DC fast charging – meaning you can juice it up to 80 per cent in 30 minutes. That’s the real race when owning an EV. But where Jaguar pushed the boat out with the I-Pace’s radical proportions, and Tesla got all the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ with the…

The i30 range provides a contemporary classic choice of models. Hyundai describes this line-up as its ‘DNA model’, a car that defines its future direction in terms of design and, to some extent, production. It’s a car – and a line-up – that feels familiar, and one big reason for this is because it’s a car that has been designed, developed and built in Europe. It was also tested – extensively – at the Nürburgring, the famous circuit. This commitment to making the i30 fully European friendly is evident, inside and out. Build quality is indiscernible from German standards; the materials used have that reassuringly solid, premium feel. Specifications are equally impressive, as evidenced by those ‘must have’ features of the moment: Apple CarPlay™/Android Auto™ with wireless smartphone charger available…

Cupra Ateca 2.0 TSI 300PS DSG 4Drive £40k est. WE SAY: CUPRA GOES IT ALONE WITH A QUICK CROSSOVER What’s this? Cupra’s first solo effort since undocking from the Seat mothership – it’s now a brand in its own right, not just a boot badge for fast versions. So Cupra comes first, then the model name. But while Cupras swap the Seat badge for one resembling a dubious tattoo, underneath the new veneer you’ll still find adrenalised versions of regular Seats. In this case, the Ateca, the company’s best-selling crossover. What’s it packing? It gets the familiar 2.0-litre TFSI – you know, the one from any other fast VW Group thing – making 296bhp and 295lb ft. Top speed is 152mph and 0–62mph takes 5.4 seconds. There’s 4WD, DSG, adaptive…

ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE | McLAREN 600LT | LOTUS EXIGE CUP 430 | FORD FIESTA ST First stop: the white cliffs of… Saint-Jouin-Bruneval. No sign of an oiseau bleu, but here they are, just as impressively dramatic and imposing as those on the other side of the Channel. Stands to reason, when you think about it. Let’s call this the trip of home comforts. White cliffs, followed by Le Mans, the latter a path trodden by some 100,000 British race-goers every year. Even some of the péages are set up for right-hookers. A southerly leapfrog that will put us at Circuit de Charade tomorrow evening. “You know the bruises you get from karting?” says Andy Franklin, tenderly unwinding himself from the Exige at the base of the cliffs, “I’ve got the…

“Good line-up of cars, boys, good line-up of cars,” says Chris Harris, rubbing his hands as he walks the pitlane. That’s something we can all agree on – amazingly, it won’t be the only thing, either. More on that much later. Yes, this year’s Speed Week shoot-out contains some absolute humdingers, covering every price bracket, power level, engine layout, body type and so on. It’s a fantastic group containing some proper battles. Any trends? Well, the rise of the SUV has breached its final barrier – we’ve invited three along to fight it out, one of which has captured Harris’s attention immediately. The Merc-AMG G63 has that effect. More excitingly, we’re able to conduct the ultimate hardcore supercar test, as the twin-turbo triumvirate of the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, Ferrari…

HYUNDAI i30N vs FORD FIESTA ST Badge snobs will have flicked straight past this page. Their loss. Now you’re in on Speed Week’s best-kept secret. I don’t want this to sound too ‘school sports day’, but these two are already winners. Difficult second album syndrome didn’t strike when the old Fiesta ST made way for this prettier, more mature, downsized-engine sequel. Meanwhile, Hyundai has come from nowhere to build an authentic first hot hatch that sweats credibility. These two are by no means the token bargains of Speed Week; they’ve earned their pit garages at Charade. It’s no accident that, in the supermini stakes, the new Polo GTI is absent, and the Hyundai’s pinched the latest Megane RS’s family-hatch-sized grid slot. Leaving the i30N to be curiously pored over by…

ALFA STELVIO Proved SUVs know how to move. Less rigid than the Urus, more fun Price: £69,500 Engine: 2891cc, V6 turbo, 503bhp, 443lb ft Transmission: 8spd automatic, AWD Performance: 0–62mph in 3.8secs, 176mph Economy: 31.4mpg Weight: 1830kg BHP/tonne 275 McLAREN 600LT Want to dissect every corner into a million pieces? Take the McLaren Price: £185,500 Engine: 3799cc, V8 twin-turbo, 592bhp, 457lb ft Transmission: 7spd SSG twin-clutch, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 2.9secs, 207mph Economy: 24.1mpg Weight: 1356kg BHP/tonne 437 ALPINE A110 Was described as ‘poetry in motion’, despite our ham-fisted driving Price: £46,905 Engine: 1798cc, 4cyl turbo, 248bhp, 236lb ft Transmission: 7spd DCT twin-clutch, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 4.5secs, 155mph Economy: 46.0mpg Weight: 1103kg BHP/tonne 224 FERRARI 488 PISTA Wanted to skid almost as much as Chris Harris. New tyres please!…

Post-track debate. 10pm. Village Hall. It’s a weird dog-leg part of TopGear’s self-catering gîte with a built-in stage. Some members of the team have convinced themselves that, with the black faux-leather sofas and oddly sited shower in the corridor, it’s also used as a… well, never mind. We’re eating. It’s gone better than the previous night, when Charlie Turner had the barbecue’s rev-counter way beyond the red line and we had to rifle through cars for a fire extinguisher. Tonight has been calmer. This is good. This remote hamlet is tiny and utterly silent; we can barely squeeze cars down the track past the ancient stone barns, and it wouldn’t do to upset the neighbours. But tomorrow morning we want to do sunrise about half an hour away, and two…

Report 5 Audi RS4 £72,175/£77,145 Quite why a fast Audi estate gets me a bit sweaty and breathless but the equivalent coupe or saloon does very little is one of life’s little mysteries. But after some thorough research I have traced the roots of my rapid-wagon soft spot to the Audi RS2, a car I have long-since coveted but, until now, never had the chance to drive. The reasons for my desire are many. Not only does it look perfect – enough subtle enhancement to convey there’s a hooligan under there, but not so much as to ruin the family-friendly vibe. Then there’s the backstory – the Volvo 850 T5 may have arrived a year earlier, but this was the first fast estate that really caught everyone’s attention. And because…

Goodbye Ford Mustang $64,740 Dang it… as they’d say in the US. Somewhat annoyingly, my time with the Hennessey Mustang GT350 R is up. And it’s all down to that pesky and rather inconvenient thing called ‘The Law’. See, being a left-hand-drive, US-registered car, we could only ever drive the track-focused super Stang in the UK for six months. After that, it has to be subjected to Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) – an assessment to make sure it’d comply with Blighty’s roadworthy rules and regulations. Which, among other things, would mean changing all the lights and indicators, adding awkward fog lights and numberplates (ruining its clean look) and making sure it passed protrusion and noise tests. Which, given it’s got quite a few sharp edges and is the loudest thing…

Tesla has come a long way since the introduction of the Roadster back in 2008. The boss, Elon Musk, is regularly characterised as part Tony Stark, part Bond villain, depending on what side of bed he’s climbed out of. But whatever the case, the Model S and Model X have upended the automotive world in a way few would have imagined a decade ago. Thing is, no one ever bought a Tesla for pure driving kicks. Not until now, anyway. The Model 3 isn’t just the Tesla that turns the company into a genuine volume player, it’s also the one that aims to stick it to the likes of the BMW M3 for driving dynamics. Which is where the new Track mode comes in. Over to Tesla to elaborate: “Since…

There was a time, back in the Seventies, when 150mph+ top speeds and six-second sprints to 60mph were supercar stats. How times change. Back in the Seventies, the Hyundai Motor Company was still very new and only just preparing to launch its first ‘proper’ model, the Pony. Four decades on, Hyundai’s first hot hatch, the i30 N, has hit the streets and, boy, was it worth the wait. That single capital letter may not mean much to you now but, trust us, it’s going to. N is “Born in Namyang, honed at the Nürburgring (or, more appropriately still, perhaps Nordschleife?). Nicknamed the ‘Green Hell’, the infamous old F1 circuit has become the world’s favourite test track and the place where Hyundai’s debutant performance model has been honed, relentlessly. “Choose the…

Suzuki Jimny SZ5 1.5 £n/a WE SAY: DON’T EXPECT SOPHISTICATION AND YOU’LL ADORE THE FIRST NEW JIMNY IN TWO DECADES Meet Jimmy, as every smartphone and laptop auto-correct feature insists on calling it. Good luck Googling one of these if you decide you want one. ‘Want one’ tends to happen about three seconds after clapping eyes on the new Jimny. As sturdy looking as the Mercedes G-Class but at six-tenths the scale. The old Jimny lasted 20 years. In those two decades, three things boomed in popularity: SUVs, downsizing, and retro. Job done. Underneath, the Jimny is still based around a ladder-frame chassis, but it’s a stiffer foundation for 2018, supporting rigid front and rear axles with separate differentials, and a four-cylinder petrol engine with 100bhp with 200cc more capacity.…

Lexus UX £30,000 est WE SAY: LEXUS’S SUV GOES FOR BOLD DESIGN AND ECO TECH THAT DOESN’T NEED A PLUG… As almost every other brand in the world has already launched a compact SUV, Lexus had to come up with something new for its take on the segment. Fortunately, the UX genuinely does, as a hybrid-only model with a bold, angular exterior design that can’t be mistaken for any other. It’s a big deal for Lexus too, the UX is expected to quickly become the brand’s top UK seller, outgunning its NX and RX SUV brothers. Longer than any premium compact SUV rival, lower than most and with a lower seating position too, the UX feels car-like to manoeuvre. It will be sold alongside the ageing CT hatch, contrary to…

Audi A6 Avant £40,740 WE SAY: OK, PANACHE ISN’T ON THE MENU, BUT THERE’S MORE THAN ENOUGH TO MAKE UP FOR THAT… A nice, big Audi estate car. That’s all. No delving into previously unheard-of new sectors, no busting of niches. It’s a new A6 Avant, and it is very nice. So I may have spoiled the verdict a little, but bear with me: this is the latest generation of Audi’s do-it-all estate and the progress is very much on the evolution side of revolution. Saying that, it is notably new. Sharper surfaces, the Audi familial face apparently modelled on various sizes of faintly angry robot, a decidedly technological look, the new A6 Avant is a bit slinkier, but just as practical. Broad brush stuff: it’s bigger on the inside…

Jeep Cherokee £40,000 est WE SAY: FACELIFTED CHEROKEE LOOKS BETTER, BUT WE’D STRUGGLE TO RECOMMEND IT Just like Trump’s White House, the Jeep Cherokee has a problem with communication: it’s difficult to explain why you’d buy one over a Compass, let alone the more regular rivals. The main issue is that the car lacks identity, it just doesn’t have the inimitable Jeep attitude that, say, the Wrangler has by the shed load. However, what this facelift does have are new headlights. Also, the rear styling has been tweaked, the satnav has been updated as part of an interior refresh (the Cherokee now has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), there are minor suspension alterations and, in Europe at least, the front-wheel-drive option is now available with the nine-speed auto ’box. Annoyingly,…

Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy £240,000 WE SAY: AN ADVERT FOR THE POTENTIAL OF JAGUAR’S ELECTRIC CAR We like the Jaguar I-Pace. It’s a terrific electric car. Now it’s a racing car as well. It’s a little less successful at this, but for reasons I’ll come to, that hardly matters. It’s built in-house by Jaguar’s SVO team. The mechanical package is mostly carried over from the EV400 road car, so there’s an electric motor on each axle generating a combined 395bhp. It’s no lightweight, though. Racing drains batteries fast, so the cells that promise a 292-mile range on the one hand, should enable a mere 25 minutes of fast lapping on the other. More work has gone into tweaking the software to cope with the demands of racing. Teams will have a…

As you well know, we’re sticklers for regulations here at TG. So when we decided that we ought to have a pace car at Charade to appease the track authorities and our insurers, I went straight away to the big book of FIA regulations and looked up the requirements for a Formula One safety car. Because that’s how we roll. In among all the claptrap about “taking up position 20 minutes before the start of the formation lap” and needing to “be driven by an FIA-appointed driver and carry an FIA observer” was the vital information: “it must be able to maintain a minimum speed level to prevent the tyres and brakes of the Formula One vehicles from excessive cooling and the engines from overheating”. Allow me to translate: it…

BMW M2 COMPETITION vs ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE Two cars separated by 99bhp, £70,000, eight-tenths from 0–62mph and 40mph at the top end. Not much competition when it comes to image, either: the Vantage is a tailored suit; the BMW, a pair of off-the-peg Levis. Yet draw away from the details and they play much the same role. Both are rapid rear-drive coupes, both aren’t cut out for family life (although the BMW can claim rear seats) and both are just as capable at squashing huge distances as they are vaporising a set of rear tyres. Fortunately, our patented Speed Week scoring system (the car which makes us grin inanely the most, wins) takes price, power and any other numerical comparison out of the equation, levelling the playing field nicely. Unsurprisingly,…

MERCEDES-AMG G63 vs ALFA ROMEO STELVIO QV vs LAMBORGHINI URUS Spoiler alert: none of these SUVs is the winner of Speed Week. Despite their best efforts, no carmaker has yet managed to engineer its way around the laws of physics. A bigger, heavier car is almost always less capable than a smaller, lighter one, and so it will remain until someone figures out how to make a chassis out of antimatter. Or candyfloss. But that’s not to say these three are here merely to make up the numbers (or because we couldn’t fit all of Rowan’s camera gear in the 488 Pista). While none are quite right for the ultimate award, each is tremendous in its own way, and thoroughly deserving of a place among our favourite performance cars of…

Hello Audi Q8 £65,040 OTR/£85,565 as tested Niches sliced so thin that they become almost indistinguishable from each other, design language so striking and recast it starts to get confusing as to which model you’re actually looking at without holding up a pound coin for scale – that’s modern Audi. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that: the idea is that you buy the right Audi model for your lifestyle and that bigger doesn’t mean better, or posher. Except here, because the TopGear Garage Q8 is very big, and quite posh. And it’s also very goldy-orange. Officially it’s called ‘Dragon Orange’, but I’ve settled on ‘Arghmyeyes Orange’, because in strong sunlight situations it’ll sear your retinas and leave an afterimage of a massive Audi burned into the back of…

Report 6 Citroen C3 Aircross £18,845 OTR/£21,975 You know when you look in a paper or online at dealer offers and there’s that one amazing deal that all the other less amazing deals are hung off? That deal is known as the loss-leader. Too good to be true, it’s the exact car you want at a bargain price. Only thing is, it’s in a weird spec. I fear this ignominous situation is the imminent fate of our super-reliable, comfortable, economical C3 Aircross. It’s great in many ways, except the colour combination is too terrible to behold. Yes, we specified it, but evidently on a bad day. With our eyes closed. Not surprisingly, no one has had the temerity to admit to fathering this particular child only a mother could love.…