Innholdsfortegnelse for Awards 2018 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

This is the new Welsh-built Aston Martin DBX. We can say that with certainty, because Aston has confirmed DBX is indeed the name it’s christening its first SUV with. No Vulcan/Valkyrie/Vantage alliteration here. It’s DBX. And it’s alive. Here we see the new five-door SUV – a stark contrast to the sleek two-door coupe DBX concept from 2016 – hard at work testing on the Sweet Lamb rally stage in Wales. And when we say hard at work, we obviously mean ‘pratting around sideways’. That’s Matt Becker, Gaydon’s chief engineer at the wheel. Working hard. And the work will be continuing all over the world, says Aston Martin. “Though simulation is an essential part of the DBX’s early development phase, this first prototype drive in Wales signifies the start of…

Welcome, everyone, to the inevitable: the new BMW 8-Series Convertible: a twin-turbo, convertible V8 BMW that’s over 100kg heavier and two-tenths slower to 62mph than its equivalent twin-turbo, coupe V8 BMW – a car where we’ve come away impressed by its ability but unsure of its specialness. Can a folding top tip the balance? It’s a folding-cloth roof said to offer superb sound insulation and one that “pulls taut over the interior when closed”. Well, you’d hope so. In any case, said roof can be opened or closed in 15 seconds, at speeds of up to 31mph. There’s a wind deflector and the option of neck warmers; like Mercedes-Benz’s ‘air scarf’, this handy feature blows warm out through vents in the front-seat head restraints onto your neck. Winter is upon…

PLAYFOREVER VERVE VELOCITA Welcome everyone, to a toy you’ll tell people you’re buying for your son or daughter, but is actually entirely for you. Manufacturer Playforever calls them ‘art toys’, and says they were inspired by its founder’s childhood, which was spent riding his bike around underground car parks looking for squirrelled-away supercars. All its toys are awesome, but our fave is the Velocita, which is styled after a Seventies F1 car. The main body is plastic, but coated in fade-free paint and then hand-polished to a shine. Playforever promises they’re ‘virtually indestructible’ too, which to a three-year-old is simply a challenge. playforever.co.uk; £25.30 PIAGGIO VESPA ELETTRICA Good news, those of you who know something about style. Now you can cruise around on the ultimate mobile fashion accessory, a Vespa…

BMW Z4 M40i £40,050 WE SAY: IS IT A ROADSTER? OR A SPORTS CAR? BOTH, SAYS BMW. LET’S FIND OUT… Folding hard tops were invented when soft tops were too easily penetrated by the weather and vandals with Stanley knives. These days, a well-done fabric roof really is all you could want for cosiness, and the yobs are too busily engaged in social-media bullying. So the new Z4 wears a cloth cap. So if there’s no hard top under there, I wondered aloud to a designer, why’s the tail so bulky? I kept silent on my opinion that it’s unbecomingly so. Aerodynamics is the answer I was given. At the other end of the car, the jutting jowls are designed to help capture airflow and usher it past the wheels.…

When the apocalypse comes and rains fire on these unholy lands, only five things are scientifically capable of survival. The first four are common knowledge: cockroaches, tinned Spam, MotoGP riders and that dried Weetabix residue when you leave your bowl out overnight. The other is the new Mercedes-AMG G63 – an impenetrable fortress of a car, just as capable of outrunning a nuclear blast as it is sitting tight, absorbing the impact then continuing its business, trundling nonchalantly across the debris. The Suzuki Jimny, judging by its three-star NCAP slap on the wrist, wouldn’t fare quite so well in the initial fireball, which is a shame because it would flourish in the aftermath. It might give away 476bhp to the G63, but the Jimny is a tiny, wilful, mountain goat…

As we creep towards the 50th anniversary of The Italian Job, it’s a truism that parts of this beautiful but ultimately unknowable country are indivisible from the Quincy Jones soundtrack. Let’s ignore for now that it doesn’t end well for the man in the orange Lamborghini Miura in the film’s opening sequence. The Aventador SVJ pulses with Miura DNA, not least in its 6.5-litre V12, the noise of which is reason enough to make it a 2018 TopGear award-winner, although this is also the most powerful V12 Lamborghini has ever made. The Boss (Charlie Turner, not Bruce Springsteen) selflessly volunteered to collect the SVJ from Sant’Agata, and many miles and hours later following a rendezvous near Turin, he’s sitting alongside me rifling through his iPhone for ‘On Days Like These’.…

Intercontinental Missile of the year A simple car, the DBS Superleggera. Might seem funny to say that about a £225,000 car lavished with leather and luxury, but allow me to explain. Its purpose is clear – it’s a super GT, a car dedicated to the art of going a long way and feeling special while doing it. Of being effortless, while making you aware of its abilities. Now, it can only do this if every component is pulling in the same direction. And pulling hard. Which the engine most certainly is. Ignore the 715bhp headline – it’s the 663lb ft of torque that matters most. Over 100lb ft more than a BMW M5, it defines the way the DBS drives. Fourth gear is good, you just vary the flex of…

Hot Hatch of the year Is this just what cars were like in the Eighties? I’ve no idea, mostly because I wasn’t there, but I refuse to believe brakes were this ineffective. I mean, how did anyone make it through the decade intact? The XR2 must have brakes of some form hidden behind those pepper-pot wheels, I reason. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway, as I all but push the middle pedal through the flimsy bulkhead trying to avoid an Uber driver who’s decided, quite unreasonably, to effectively do an emergency stop in the middle lane of the A13. Disaster avoided and Uber chap duly chastised, time to focus on the car, and begin our potted history of fast Fiestas. This isn’t a MkI XR2. Ford doesn’t have one of those…

Hello Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV £39,500 OTR/£39,500 as tested As TG’s newly designated plug-in hybrid correspondent (secret power: sniffing out any vacant public charge point within a fivemile radius), I’m moving up in the world. Quite literally: from the hatch-height Hyundai Ioniq, to a seating position a foot or so higher in the Outlander PHEV. Yes, Britain’s best-selling plug-in hybrid – over 40,000 shifted at last count – has joined the TG fleet. On paper, at least, it seems a slightly more confusing proposition than the Ioniq, which, after all, is an unabashed suburbanite. But a proper muddy-wellies SUV – don’t be fooled by the facelift, there’s still far more farmyard in the Outlander’s DNA than you’ll find in that of a Tiguan or Kodiaq – that’ll haul you down a…

Goodbye Hyundai Ioniq PHEV £29,295 OTR/£29,860 as tested Like you, I am a thrusting redblooded petrolhead, unburnt fuel coursing through bloodstream, thrum of V8 lodged deep in ear canal. Like you, I should not care for the Ioniq, perhaps the least petrolheadish, least red-blooded car on sale. But I really care for the Ioniq. After half a year with one, I confess: it’s brilliant. And not even with the caveat ‘for a hybrid’. It’s a properly coherent piece of engineering that makes no attempt at being a thrusting, petrolheadish sports thing. In a world where family wagons feel it necessary to bill themselves as ‘sports utility vehicles’, the Ioniq remains unashamedly relaxed. The integration of electric and petrol is seamless, progress always serene. I know it’s not a new trick,…

Goodbye Audi RS4 £72,175 OTR/£77,145 as tested Whoa, that went fast. Six months is up and the RS4 is no more. But if I’m honest, it’s left me more than a little bit conflicted. You see, I’m going to miss it terribly – as rapid, fuss-free family wheels go, it’s an absolute blinder – but it might also be the definitive fast car for people who don’t like fast cars very much. As someone who likes them a lot, so much so that I’ve pursued a career writing about the damn things, you can see my internal crisis. For me, a true RS, AMG, M, SVR, etc – one that will stand the test of time – has to have a certain level of compromise, a modicum of everyday usability…

McLaren’s meteoric rise over the past six years is well known. The MP4-12C heralded the arrival of McLaren Automotive, and while the superlative F1 and oddball Merc SLR sit on the family tree, this was a new dawn. A range of cars, made in numbers, to take on the old guard. Things didn’t start superbly. Reaction to the MP4-12C (renamed 12C partway through its life) was a tad lukewarm, with a bunch of people expecting the second coming of the F1 left unsated by a car that appeared to prioritise comfort and usability over prickling your neck hairs. But now that cars like the P1, 675LT and 720S have properly established McLaren in the supercar arena, and guaranteed it’s here for a long time to come, those early cars are…

Gerry McGovern, Land Rover’s chief creative officer, introduces the new Evoque punchily. “The acid test is this. Does the new car make the old car look old? Not different, but old.” He’s right that it isn’t conceptually different: the bloodline from 2008 LRX concept to 2011 first-gen Evoque to this new one could hardly be clearer. But given that the old one served Land Rover mightily well, is it a noble aim to make it look like yesterday’s chip-paper? Isn’t that an insult to his own back catalogue, and a slight on the existing owners? McGovern seldom displays the symptoms of low self-esteem, but his reply to my question is uncharacteristically hesitant: “I guess… I could have phrased that differently.” Then he’s back on track. “I might be wrong, but…

We don’t normally do motorcycles, but the Harley-Davidson LiveWire is a bit special… the brand’s first all-electric bike. On sale next year, Harley promises “incredible acceleration” from the permanent magnet motor, mounted low and drawing power from a lithium-ion battery which can be recharged from a standard household plug socket, or a fast charger. The styling follows Harley’s tradition of drawing attention to the engine – only here the engine is an electric motor, not a V-Twin. We await the Hell’s Angels reaction with interest.…

It’s officially official: Dodge has gone mad, and we love it. We have now reached the critical junction in humanity where Dodge will sell you a 1,000bhp, 950 lb ft crate engine to lob in whatever car you like. That, ladies and gents, is what we call progress. Better than that, Dodge has christened this monstrous engine of preposterous power and tremendous torque “Hellephant”. Yes, Hellephant – note the Demon-style logo. How sweet is that? All that oomph comes from a supercharged, all-aluminium HEMI block with a four-inch stroke and an increased bore of 4.125 inches. You can stop rubbing your thighs now, suck, squeeze, bang, blow fans. The name is merely a nod to the infamous 426 HEMI engine that was first introduced in 1964 and nicknamed the “elephant”…

Although I’m a Mercedes man, I grew up near Zuffenhausen, so Porsche was a presence in my life from early on. My father was always a sports car fan, and took me to Hockenheim for my first GP in 1977. Niki Lauda won that race. My first proper race was a club sport event at Zolder in 1990, in my father’s 911 Carrera 3.2. I remember how nervous I felt, because I’d never done anything like that before. But I just rolled up my sleeves and got on with it. I finished fourth. My first car was a BMW 320i cabrio. I was lucky to get such a cool car for an 18th birthday present. As soon as I could, I drove to the Nordschleife, and I did my first…

Citroen C5 Aircross £28,325 WE SAY: QUELLE SURPRISE! THE FRENCH DECIDE TO DO IT THEIR OWN WAY… You’ve got two choices when arriving late. One, slip in and try to go unnoticed. I imagine the Skoda Karoq turning up at the crossovers’ choir concert. It’s just like the rest and whispers, “What, me? Yep, been here ages.” Second option: style it out. That’s the C5 Aircross: “Of course I’m late – I’ve been rehearsing my solo.” Its design, inside and out, rejects the orthodoxy that mainstream crossovers should prostrate themselves before the altar of sportiness. Instead, its shape articulates an inner comfort and a cheery practicality. It’s not just a pose, either. While the Aircross is based on a familiar PSA Group platform (see 3008 and Grandland for details), Citroen deploys…

Porsche 911 Carrera T by Litchfield £10,339 plus donor car WE SAY: WANT TO GIVE YOUR 911 A BIT MORE BITE? HERE’S HOW Spotted the dropped ride height, did you? Think you need to get out more. This Porsche 911 Carrera T has been dropped 20mm at the front and 10mm at the rear as part of a package of upgrades designed to make it the best road-going 911 available – i.e. this side of a hardcore GT3. It’s been done by Litchfield, a UK tuning firm that has impressed us before with upgrades to cars as diverse as the Audi RS6 and Subaru BRZ. The Carrera T is already a lightweight, driver-focused version of the standard 911 with no more power (365bhp), but 20kg lighter with reduced sound deadening,…

WE SAY: VAUXHALL IS TARGETING YOUNGER CUSTOMERS WITH ITS NEW WARM HATCH, BUT MISSES THE MARK Are these two close rivals? Vauxhall hopes so: the Corsa VXR is no more, and this new lookalike GSi is aimed at winning younger, more fuel- and insurance-conscious buyers from the likes of the Ford Fiesta ST-line and Suzuki’s new Swift Sport. Meanwhile, the SSS has grown up too. It’s now a turbo for the first time, with easy-going torque, and it’s festooned with kit. Radar cruise control, lane-keep assist and Apple CarPlay/nav are all standard. Which wins on costs? Despite costing £1k more at base, Vauxhall insists it’ll have the cheapest finance deals in the class, and resistant depreciation. Problem is, the 18in wheels of this test car, the Recaro seats and even…

It has been a good year for bad news. I can’t remember 12 months when our annual review of ‘car world’ found the cheery stories so outnumbered by the depressing. Well, not since the global financial catastrophe of a decade ago. That’s not to say we haven’t been chuffed at a squadron of fabulous new cars. This issue is full of them. Of course, any great car this year is the result of work done in years past, but all the same, this is the year their arrival made us very happy. We’ve enjoyed being teased too, by carmakers whipping up a froth over machines still untouchable. Bugatti showed the Divo to potential buyers when it was just a full-size styling model and a set of clever engineer’s what-if calculations.…

Sensible suv of the year ÔSensible SUV of the Year’ sounds like damning with faint praise really, doesn’t it? Mainly because ‘sensible’ isn’t a word people associate with being particularly cool. Sturdy shoes are ‘sensible’. An anorak is ‘sensible’. Having a pension, chewing thoroughly and avoiding fatty foods is sensible. But doughnuts are delicious, especially when eaten messily in two massive bites. If people’s first reaction to my new car was “That looks sensible,” I’d think they were having a pop. And yet, this is really down to how you define the word. Is the XC40 sensible because it’s arguably the best-looking of the small SUV crop (Jag E-Pace, Merc GLA, BMW X2 et al), with its stylish angles and funky glass? Is it sensible because there’s liberal use of…

It was as if Levi’s had given up on denim. In 2018, Ford announced that it would eventually stop selling any saloons and hatchbacks in America. Survivors will be the Mustang, crossovers, SUVs and trucks. Because those are what Ford can sell right now. This from the company that put the world on wheels with the Model T. A bad year for cars, then. Bad news for Ford fans in Britain too. If its brilliant hot Fiestas and Focuses won’t be replaced in the US, will it be worth Ford’s while to engineer them so well if it’s only for over here? Oh, and no more Mondeo, because its US twin, the Fusion, is soon extinct. The Ford repmobile – once a motorway totem, now a dodo. When will the…

Object of desire of the year Describing sound in all its mellifluous detail with a keyboard is, by its very nature, a fool’s errand. Oh, car journalists will try. We’ll crack open our well-worn box of buzzwords – zing, burble, gargle, wail… occasionally a buttery thunder – and cobble something together as best we can, but really it’s a poor approximation of the actual waves pinging off your ear drums. Perhaps the best way to characterise the pummelling my cochlea is currently receiving is through the medium of emotions. Over the course of the past six seconds we’ve peeled off a slip road onto the A34 near Wantage and the noise has induced fear, mild pain and full-body euphoria… in that order. “And that’s three-quarter throttle at 5,000 revs,” shouts…

There is a quality found in a hot hatchback that no other car possesses. You could give Ferrari a billion euro and 10 years to develop a supercar designed to deliver the purest driving experience known to mankind (actually, hang onto that, it’s rather a good idea), but it still wouldn’t match the one thing a warmed-over shopping car can offer. But I don’t know what it’s called. I know, this isn’t a sensible admission from someone who is supposed to describe cars through the medium of words for a living, but I don’t have it pinned down. Let me put it like this. If you’re a certain age – let’s say an age that still allows you to look at Peugeots and remember something exciting rather than a bit…

Goodbye Skoda Karoq £28,415 OTR/£29,270 as tested As the Karoq departs the TG fleet, it’s time for me to wave goodbye and to deliver judgement on whether I’d give my hard-earned cash for the little Czech SUV. So I’ve decided to rate it against the three things I look for in a car. Which are: the ability to transport my family in a safe way, with enough space and be fun to drive. Being a family car is what the Karoq does best. There’s plenty of handy touches like the door bin, umbrella and boot hooks going on, but the most important would be the Varioflex seating system where the rear seats slide, recline and fold forward independently, which is very useful if you have children of different ages. Unfortunately…

Report 8 Hyundai i30N £27,995 OTR/£28,580 as tested There is no greater vindication of the i30N’s quality than this. RaceChip, buried deep in Germany’s tuning scene, has modified a Hyundai hot hatch rather than its usual Mercs, Porsches and VWs. An ECU remap and a new exhaust system lift the i30N’s outputs to 316bhp, identical to a Civic Type R, and 387lb ft, just 11lb ft off a Ferrari 458 Speciale. Yikes. There’s 15mm-lower Eibach suspension, 3kg-lighter OZ forged wheels and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. You can spec it all separately from €660, but the mods listed total five grand. Some big changes, then, yet they serve to amplify the i30N’s existing traits rather than reinvent its character, which is what I admire most in tuner cars. There’s the…

For the first time in two years, and just the third time in its 15-year history, Tesla has posted a quarterly profit. In the three months to 30 September, the company made $312 million from $6.8 billion in total revenue, largely thanks to 56,065 Model 3s being delivered. Not to be sniffed at, that. That said, in Q2 of this year, Tesla posted a loss of $718million. Which is also not to be sniffed at, for the wrong reasons. Still, as ever, the boss was chipper. In a call with investors, its CEO, who you might have heard of, said he also expected to post a profit in “all quarters going forwards”.…

Here’s one to ruffle feathers. Chevrolet revealed a 9.0secs drag Camaro at the SEMA show in Vegas… and it’s electric. The motors and batteries all link up to existing Camaro drivetrain parts, so you could slot all of it into any GM car. A crate EV conversion if you will. As a drag car, it makes perfect sense – electric powertrains provide instant and (often) humongous torque, with sledgehammer acceleration that no comparative petrol car can hope to match. Tesla saloons beat Ferrari sports cars. Thus as a way to propel nearly two tonnes of metal down a quarter-mile strip as quickly as possible, it’s ideal. Meet the Camaro eCOPO, then, riffing off the name of drag special Chevy muscle cars past. Chevy has partnered with Hancock and Lane Racing,…

TO EXPLORE MORE AND FIND YOUR EDGE, SEARCH 'NEW FORD EDGE' IT LOOKS LIKE AN SUV SHOULD The new Edge is a full-size, head-turning SUV with a bold silhouette and powerful proportions. It’s almost as if the designers ditched their pencils and sculpted the car with laser-guided power tools. The grille sits in a hexagonal frame, flanked either side by wraparound LED headlights and topped by a high clamshell bonnet. The Edge then draws your eye rearwards by a bold, horizontal beltline running beneath the windows, and the metalwork is pulled tight, like a slim-fit shirt. IT READS THE ROAD The new Edge has a quick-thinking collection of cameras, radars and ultrasonic sensors called Ford Co-Pilot 360, which work together to avoid trouble and take the strain in stop-start traffic.…

Hyundai Kona Electric 64kWh £29,440 WE SAY: WATCH OUT, MODEL X AND I-PACE, THERE’S A LONG-RANGE EV SUV AFTER YOUR SLICE OF THE PIE What’s the point? An electric game-changer. It’s a real-world 250-mile (300 WLTP) electric crossover that’s half the price of the similarly rangey Teslas and Jaguar. Good for a journey? Yup. It can use DC chargers up to 100kW to replenish its 64kWh battery to 80 percent in under an hour, or 75mins with the present network of 50kW posts. So a 400-mile trip, with one stop for when range drops to say 25 miles, is perfectly feasible. If that’s seldom your itinerary, or you have another car in the household, there’s also a 39kWh (or 194-mile WLTP) version for £3,125 less. Small, though? Yup, it’s no…

Audi A6 40 TDI vs BMW 520d £41,110 / £40,775 WE SAY: MIDDLE MANAGERS! YOUR NEW CARS HAVE ARRIVED. SO WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE? AUDI OR BMW? Few cars are as closely matched as the BMW 5-Series and the new Audi A6. The former has been around a bit already, which means Audi will have bought scores of them to tear down, study in microscopic detail, then throw away. Just to make sure its car is better than, or at least as good as, its Munich equivalent. So the new A6 should be hands-down better. Only it’s not. Allow us to explain… Audi’s new A6 shares a platform with the A8 and A7. That makes it bigger than the car it replaces by 7mm in length, 12mm in width…

Manufacturer of the year After decades of us telling you Hyundais have less personality than call-centre hold music, the South Koreans have pulled it off. Hyundai now boasts an arsenal of cars to make established conglomerates jealous. The mega-hyped i30N, launchpad of the entire ‘N’ operation, is rightly the poster child, thanks to the ex-BMW M Division brains who’ve morphed the worthy i30 into a more polished hot hatch than dab hands Renault managed with the new RS Megane, while keeping it as liveable as the evergreen Golf GTI. But the rise of Hyundai isn’t merely due to seducing petrol-headed folk with rorty hatchbacks. We tasted Hyundai’s audacious ambitions when it launched the Ioniq, a teardrop eco-hatch that’s smoother to drive than the iconic Prius, on account of having a…

lightweight of the year These dock cranes have stood guard over Prince’s Wharf since 1951. Bristol’s cobbled wharves and warehouses are full of such relics. Huge clanking pieces of industrial engineering litter the docksides: embedded railway tracks pound off into the distance, there are boilers the size of barns, chains that could surely hold the Earth’s crust together (even the bolshier bits), swing bridges, engines, wheels and gears. And rust. You could happily kickstart the Industrial Revolution if not for the rust. How much iron and steel has been poured into this place? It’s a city built of box-section girders and foot-wide rivets. A city that’s transitioned, still fully in touch with the past, and able to celebrate it despite having left it far behind. Standing here now, I can…

The Jaguar I-Pace gallops silently down the outside lane of the M5. Its seat is lightly toasting my back. My generic fruit-based device is charging under the armrest. The cause of my anxiety at this precise moment is not range. It’s the contents of a metal case over my shoulder that’s moistening my palms quicker than the heated steering wheel. TopGear is, and I don’t think I’m overstating this, on a mission to save the world. By the time you finish reading this sentence, there will be 15 more humans in the world than when you started it. Roughly, two people die per second, and five are born in the same instant. About 130 million humans join the race every year, as 55 million depart it, and by 2024, there’ll…

Racecar of the year “ The most impressive car I’ve ever driven in competition.” As statement’s go, it’s a bold one. When you learn it was uttered about a car that was cobbled together in under nine months and came from the mouth of a man whose more usual daily driver over the past few years has been a Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car, you sit up and take notice. Yep, Romain Dumas, a man who won Le Mans twice driving the Porsche, said those words about this, the VW ID R Pikes Peak. Why? What makes it so special? The answer to that begins with the event it competed in. The Pikes Peak hillclimb in Colorado is not like most racing events. Most racing events are governed around the…

Hello Mercedes A-Class £28,700 OTR/£30,830 as tested In September the new Mercedes A-Class was the third best-selling car in the UK – they shifted 8,005 of the things. In a single month. That’s more than the Focus, more than the Mini, more even than the Qashqai. Ker-ching. There must be reasons buyers are flocking to it like helpless moths to a flame, and our job is to find out what they are. So, no topspec peacockery here, it’s the best-selling, 160bhp 1.3-litre A200 petrol for us, in AMG line trim. The sacrifices we make… Good news first, Merc has made it mercifully easy to spec your A-Class. Trims are limited to Sport or AMG line (£1,200 more) then it’s a case of ladelling on the options, mostly grouped into handy…

Goodbye VW Arteon £40,305 OTR/£47,810 as tested This is one of those cars you have to live with for a while to ‘get’, and it demonstrates why VW still has the edge over its rivals in terms of showroom appeal. It’s a true GT disguised as a coupe that’s as roomy as a limo with an unexpectedly large vat of bootspace, while delivering greater overall fuel economy than many smaller, more apparently eco-friendly cars. Dynamically, it’s not particularly special. It’s too heavy, and even with its active damping it can feel paradoxically over-firm yet floaty once you’re off the motorway and onto the sort of roads we rhapsodise about but don’t use enough. Diesel, of course, is now beyond a dirty word. In fact, it’s fallen off a cliff in…

Report 3 Audi Q8 £65,040 OTR/£85,565 as tested At what point does technology become intrusive rather than helpful? This is the question beleaguering the Q8 at the moment, something that’s going to be debated on any car equipped with such a broad suite of electronic helpers. I’ve had incidences of pre-crash emergency braking activation (the car braked, and hard) approaching parked cars on my side of the road before pulling out, and one with a horse, which surprised both of us. I inevitably turn off the lane-keep – it has a habit of steering away from the centre line, which is very disconcerting on narrow country lanes, and the speed limit sign recognition is wrong around 30 per cent of the time. In one set of semi-permanent roadworks on the…

Report 6 Mercedes-AMG GT R £143,245 OTR/£153,960 as tested Regular readers will be surprised to see this report not being filed from a ditch somewhere en route to the office. As I may have mentioned last month, the AMG GT R doesn’t like to hide its performance potential in the wet, and as winter is coming we’ve been getting used to the slightly more ‘spicy’ side of the Hulk’s personality. And while the angry side of the GT R is always lurking (577bhp and RWD will tend to do that) it’s the daily usability of the AMG that has impressed during its time with us. Supercar ownership used to be about having a car you could deploy on high days and holidays. Only a few brave souls used the car…