Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Porsche has (official industry term here) ‘done a Zonda’. In the Oxford Dictionary, that’s “building ever more extreme versions of your old sports car while forging ahead with a new one”. So, while building the new 992-gen 911 and making sure collectors get their hands on the 935 special and 991 Speedster, Porsche has also found time to turn the current 911 GT2 RS into a track-only monster. Meet the Clubsport. Only 200 will be made. The single-seater keeps the same 691bhp, 3.8-litre bi-turbo flat-six and seven-speed PDK as the road car. It’s also rear-wheel drive, but shod in 310mm-wide slicks. It has a gargantuan wing and weighs 155kg less, all for a heavyweight £357,000.…

This is the Kia Soul EV, and, no, you don’t have to have it in lurid green. The liquid-cooled, 64 kWh lithium-ion battery pack comes from the bigger e-Niro crossover. It’s DC fast-charge compatible and gives a total of 201bhp and 295lb ft. Kia says it’s still testing to see how far the new Soul can go on a single charge, but it ought to be close to the Niro’s claimed 301-mile range. Either way, the Soul will go much further than the old Soul EV, which had a 155-mile range on the less realistic NEDC cycle, thanks to a much smaller 30kWh battery.…

Another motor show, another Audi e-tron. Audi’s been churning them out recently – not just the e-tron SUV and e-tron Sportback, but the PB18 e-tron supercar and the self-driving Aicon. The message from the carmaker is clear – it’s going hard on electric and getting in there before rivals. Except Tesla. Saturating the automotive airwaves with product means BMW and Mercedes have to work hard to make themselves heard. The chatter isn’t going to subside anytime soon. Between now and 2025, Audi will add 12 all-electric cars, giving it across-the-board presence in a diverse range of shapes and sizes. Last year, Audi sold over 1.8 million cars. In seven years’ time it reckons a third, some 600,000, will be electric. If that’s the case, we’re in for a turnaround of…

I passed my test third time. I didn’t have to buy my first car, because Lancashire [County Cricket Club] had a deal with Lookers Rover and you paid one per cent of the car’s value per month on a rent, so it was like £150 per month, and another £33 for insurance. But they wouldn’t give you a 220 Turbo. So I had 216 Coupe, in blue. At 17 years old. I was the nuts. I didn’t drink, so I used to take my mates home and I’d get stopped by the police in Preston every night without fail. Because in Preston, that car, a 1.6 Rover, was the equivalent of driving a McLaren in Chelsea. I swapped it for a Cabrio, but they’d sent the wrong car – it…

Unplugged Tesla Model 3 $ n/a WE SAY: TIME TO TRY A MODEL 3 BREATHED ON BY A COMPANY THAT KNOWS ABOUT TUNING You might not have heard of Unplugged Performance, but they’re a big deal. They’re run by Ben Schaffer, the man behind Bulletproof Automotive. His Tesla-tuning venture came about by circumstance, when he moved onto the same business park as Elon Musk’s Californian HQ and got chatting with the neighbours. Unplugged is now 90 per cent of Schaffer’s business. Tuning an electric car is different than tuning a traditional petrol car, and so the Unplugged Model 3 has no powertrain modifications, the focus instead being on its suspension, brakes, wheels and tyres. When 0–60mph takes as little as 3.3secs, you could easily argue additional power is pretty low…

Mercedes-AMG A35 £35,580 WE SAY: CAN’T WAIT FOR THE A45? A250 TOO BORING? STEP THIS WAY… Having sold about twice as many A45s as it initially expected, AMG won’t be killing it. Another one will be along in a year. But first, AMG is sharing the love with a cheaper addition, the A35. This deploys 306bhp to drive headlong into the not inconsiderable gap between the fervid A45 and the pedestrian A250. The gap hitherto occupied most excellently by the VW Golf R. Progress, eh: the claim is it’ll corner and stop as well as the old A45. It may not accelerate as hard, but 0–62mph in 4.7 is hardly shabby, is it? Keenly shaking off any off-boost lethargy, the engine’s well up for any trip to the red line,…

Renault Megane RS 300 Trophy £32,000 (tbc) WE SAY: RENAULT SAVES YOU THE EFFORT OF TICKING THE BOXES Take one Renault Megane RS, add all the good bits of the options list, a fruitier exhaust and power bump to 296-ish (up 20bhp) thanks to a new ceramic-ball-bearing turbo, and you have the Trophy. Basically a handy aggregation of RS goodness without all the box-ticking. For four grand more than the stock 280, you get the Cup chassis (usually a £1,500 option), which includes stiffer springs (30 per cent), dampers (25 per cent) and anti-roll bars (10 per cent), the lighter bi-material braking system (saving nearly 2kg per corner and usually £900), 19in wheels (a £950 option) and some other desirable bits. Then there are optional Trophy-specific items like some even…

Basics. You might want a sporty two-seater, but if you have kids and a dog, it’s going to be either impractical or incredibly illegal. Do you really need an SUV when a more efficient and fun-to-drive estate would make more sense? Do you have to streetpark regularly and live in town, where having a tiny car would make every day that little bit more relaxing? Do you live up a mountain and need diff locks? If you do, a secondhand BMW M3 Competition is not going to cut it. Don’t get worried about the two days every three years we have snow and buy an expensive high-spec 4x4 for that ephemeral 48hrs of smug – it doesn’t make sense. A set of winter tyres will likely see you through more…

New Renault Alpine A110 // £46,500–£52,000 + Super-light, looks great, goes like stink, remarkably good at the boring stuff - Little luggage space to speak of, punchy new price A brand-new 250bhp Renault Alpine A110 lists at around £46.5k for the Pure, so make that £50,000 with a couple of options. It’s light but not stripped-out – making it an absolute poster child for the benefits of light weight – comes with plenty of character and handles like a dream; the kind of slick wits that you get from a Lotus, but without the feeling of fragility. Even the semi-auto ’box is impressive, and you don’t miss a manual all that much once you get used to which mode does what. It’s very new, attracts much attention, is the current…

New Jaguar I-Pace // £63,495 + New, slightly exotic, looks great and drives very well indeed, AWD - Costly, not as practical as a combustion engined car until you get used to charging According to the Jaguar website, £63,495 will drop you into a new, slickly brilliant I-Pace with up to 292 miles of WLTP range, 0–62mph in 4.5 seconds and up-to-the minute environmental street cred. It’s comfortable, great to drive, has a suitably upscale cabin, and has recently won a TopGear Award for being the best EV in the 2018 crop. With a bit of orientation and planning, running an EV like this really does have huge advantages. But that’s still a lot of cash. OR Pre-loved Tesla Model S // £55,000У70,000 + Ludicrous mode actually is. Barf. Seven-seat…

New Bentley Conti GT // £159,100 + It’s fast, comfortable, brilliantly made and super-charismatic. Now with added technology - Eats fuel if you push on, it isn’t even remotely subtle, costs a lot A brand-new Continental GT will set you back a not-insignificant £159,100, and that’s even before you’ve delved into the Bentley personalisation programme or fiddled with your granite veneers. For that basic price, you get an old-school British handcrafted vibe, backed up by decidedly new-school technology, making a genuinely exciting and fun car to tool about in, and probably one of the best moneyed dailies out there. There’s all-wheeldrive security and subtle tech married to handmade deliciousness. You just can’t argue with it. OR Pre-loved R-R Phantom Coupe // £168,990 + Monster presence, monster engine, actually quite startling…

In 2015, Giugiaro swapped the sprawling industrial modernism of Italdesign’s HQ for the classical Villa Cantamerla in the hills above Moncalieri, and set up Giugiaro Architettura. He’s 80 now but still works, still rides his trials bike regularly, and looks as spry and stylish as you’d hope. Giugiaro also only speaks Italian, in a curiously compelling high register. But you listen, and you listen hard. “Italy is a long country, with different types of weather, a mixture of different cultures, a meeting point of different experiences, so perhaps this was an advantage for the atmosphere of the post-war period… it allowed the beauty to grow,” he says, when I ask whether there was something in the water back in the day. He’s also rather more pragmatic than I’d expected, charting…

The Ötztal Pass is one of many wondrous European mountain roads that isn’t the quickest way anywhere. Unless you’ve got skis strapped to the roof. That means it operates opening hours, and despite my obsessive checking of its webcams and timings, as we pull up to its toll booths after two days of driving from London, their barriers are all down, red Xs illuminated above them, with not a member of staff in sight to explain why. An ominous sign when it’s pass number one in an outrageously ambitious Three Peaks adventure I’ve concocted to put some proper miles on our i30N long-termer, to see if it really is as much of an upset to the establishment as we think. It seems to have duffed up every hot hatch bar…

Goodbye DS 7 £38,990 OTR/£41,640 as tested Aside from it being lauded as perhaps the most beautiful car of all time, the 10-year-old me knew two things about the original Citroen DS. One: it had futuristic headlights that swivelled as you turned the steering wheel. And two: it had hydropneumatic suspension that raised and lowered the car, giving an incredible ride. Unlike its predecessor, the DS 7 Crossback’s looks might not be topping polls 60 years after its launch, but it does have equally cool lighting and suspension systems. I have covered the lighting in previous reports – active headlights might not be unusual these days, but you’ll struggle to find another car that greets you with such a theatrical display when you unlock it at night. The active-scan suspension,…

Williams F1 has announced Robert Kubica will partner rookie George Russell for the 2019 Formula One World Championship season. Kubica made his F1 debut towards the end of 2006 with BMW Sauber. The first Polish driver to ever compete in F1, he scored his first podium in only his third race. To date, he has achieved 12 podium finishes and one win. The 33-year-old hasn’t raced in F1 for eight years, after sustaining serious injuries in a rallying crash in Italy in 2011 where his right arm was partially severed. But after years of rehabilitation and recovery, Kubica tested for Williams in 2017, and was named its reserve and development driver for the 2018 season. He said getting back into F1 was “one of the greatest achievements of [his] life”,…

The Alpine A110 was recently crowned TopGear’s Sports Car of the Year 2018, fending off heavy-hitting competition with its poise, precision, styling and lightweight engineering – uniting the judges in a way few cars have managed before. Of course, Alpine is no stranger to success. In 1971 the French company rocked the world of rallying when the original A110 Berlinette won the famously treacherous Monte Carlo Rally, also taking second place for good measure. It won the event again in 1973, this time with a top-three podium lockout en route to winning the WRC manufacturer’s title the same year. And it wasn’t just a rally star. In 1978 Alpine took outright victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans too. In fact, Alpine has built no fewer than 70 single-seater…

The shortlist for Top Gear’s Magazine Car of the Year 2018 included all sorts of creations, from lottery-win supercars to tyre-smoking hot rods. Yet of all the cars that could have won the top prize, the ultimate victor wasn’t the most powerful, nor the most expensive, but a humble hot hatch that had everybody fighting over the keys. It was of course the all-new Ford Fiesta ST. But what is it about this 197bhp daily driver that the judges loved so much? Let’s look at the evidence… IT FILLS SOME VERY BIG BOOTS Th e previous Fiesta ST was a smash hit, not just with anyone who ever drove it down a British B-road, but with the critics too. Its predecessor won Top Gear’s Car of the Year back in…

BMW 330i £37,660 WE SAY: THERE’S A REASON WHY THE 3-SERIES IS A HARDY PERENNIAL The 3-Series is one of the great oaks in the automotive woodland. You can name them: Golf, 911, Range Rover, S-Class. And 3-Series. They mature but don’t change; they define the landscape. So if you’re BMW, you don’t cock about with the 3. Sure enough, after 40 years this new generation declines to ambush us with any great surprises. Yet its component parts are basically all new. Pretty much all that’s been handed on from before are the engines and transmissions. But we defy you to find much wrong with that particular inheritance. One of the aims for the designers was, ‘Don’t make it look like a 5-Series’, which is good because when I saw…

Porsche Macan £46,344 WE SAY: SMALL, CLEVER TWEAKS TO THE MACAN PROVE HOW RIGHT PORSCHE GOT IT FIRST TIME Not an all-new Porsche Macan, this, but one with a wraparound tailgate striplight to pay homage to the latest 911’s XXL lightsaber. A few fresh colours (be brave – ditch monochrome and pay £1,676 for Miami Blue) and a 12.3-inch version of the Cayenne’s snappy, sharp, slightly fiddly touchscreen. But thankfully no touch-sensitive centre console. So, eyes-free operation of the heater, sports exhaust or suspension-altering buttons isn’t a feverish, fingerprint-ridden struggle. The hardest task for the facelifted Macan is cushioning the blow of Dieselgate’s fallout. You can’t buy a diesel-powered Porsche at all any more. The Macan is the bestselling Porsche in Britain, and would you care to guess which version…

New Range Rover Evoque // £31,600–£44,750 + Brand-new, relatively frugal, ultra-modern interior - You can’t get one for a bit, then they’ll be everywhere Interesting one, this, seeing as the new Evoque has gone a little bit mini-Velar (especially on the inside) and thus feels much more modern. It’s also on a revised version of the ‘D8’ platform, and a bit bigger – and therefore roomier – than before. But the fact remains that this is one of Land Rover’s biggest-selling cars because it’s more reasonably priced. The fact that it now essentially looks like a clone of the much more expensive, upmarket older brother is just a bonus. Prices have just been released, and while a boggo Evoque with standard kit will set you back a surprisingly reasonable £31,600, it’s…

“WANT TO CARRY KIDS, DOGS AND BAGS? GO KODIAQ OR SANTA FE” Modern life is filthy. Not in the adverts, of course – there, the kitchen work surfaces gleam, and your hair always looks like you’ve just stepped out of the salon. Similarly, there’s never been a car advert that showed ancient apple cores rolling out from under the back seats, what mucky football kit actually does to a boot carpet or what happens if, having just waded back to a Discovery Sport through thick sludge, you climb in and thoughtlessly, vigorously, knock your boots together… Family cars have it tough. And we expect a lot of them: seven seats, phone connectivity, a big boot, relaxed road manners, comprehensive infotainment, low ownership costs. The last thing we probably expect is…

Often the approach roads are better than the money-shot mountain roads, the Stelvio Pass being a prime example. Once we arrive on the tight, blind and strangely busy Bonette, the same appears to ring true. It’s a road for stopping and taking in the views – and reaching Europe’s third-highest piece of tarmac – not driving like a modern-day McRae. Lee’s delighted, of course, and the area’s glorious tranquillity is soon punctuated by the clicks and beeps of drone assembly. Our second peak is just 27m off our first and yet it feels a world away, a mix of luscious greens, oranges and yellows. If I had watercolours I’d whip them out and paint while Lee takes his pictures. We’re barely halfway up, mind, and as we ascend further, seeking…

Hello Audi A7 £56,955 OTR/£73,875 as tested Goodbye Audi Q8 £65,040 OTR/£85,565 as tested Over six thousand miles in the Q8, and I’ve really enjoyed the big orange weirdo-barge. It is slick, techy, interesting, makes an impression (adoration-versus-outright-hostility running at roughly a 50:50 split), does everything perfectly well and impresses in lots of areas. There’s just one problem: I don’t know what it’s for. I can’t figure out the Q8’s USP. In fact, the only thing I can think the Q8 offers that you can’t get in another car, is the way it looks. And while that’s an entirely valid reason to buy something, it has left me feeling a little bit disconnected from it. It’s not even that it does anything badly. It’s a big car with decent space…

Report 3 Volvo XC40 £34,570 OTR/£41,495 as tested These past couple of weeks we’ve had a few visitors in the TopGear car park – a Land Rover Discovery Sport, Skoda Kodiaq, Hyundai Santa Fe and Honda CR-V. Ostensibly, they were in for a group test that you can read on page 84, but for me it was a good opportunity to try out some of the other carmakers’ offerings. Obviously the XC40 lacks the extra-seat capability of these four, but let’s just park that anomaly. I only got to explore the Disco Sport and Kodiaq, but what I noticed when I got into each of them was how traditional they felt. How leather-and-plastic the cabins were. The Volvo is so fresh and modern that, put simply, it makes others feel…

Goodbye VW e-Golf £28,230 OTR/£31,965 as tested Nissan Leaf Tekna £28,390 OTR/£30,575 as tested For the past six months we’ve been running two electric cars, the Volkswagen e-Golf and Nissan Leaf, side by side. Time for a final points tally up. OM: Nul points for yours, eh? TH: Not quite nul. The Leaf isn’t without merit – it’s got a better app than yours, for example – but it has issues. I can’t understand how they made the driving position so bad, and it simply isn’t very efficient. I couldn’t get it over 4.0mpkWh. OM: It’s telling that mine’s done over a thousand miles more – it’s one of those cars that people borrow and come back eulogising about. And then ask to borrow again. Mine often topped 4.0mpkWh, but needed…

Report 3 Kia Stinger £40,535 OTR/£41,180 as tested I’d been driving the Bugatti Chiron (clang) half the morning. A leisurely lunch with Andy Wallace (double-clang) and then I departed Molsheim, on the far side of France, at 3pm. I still wanted to avoid an all-autoroute trip. So I sent the Kia off up the same hilly roads where I’d taken the Bugatti. There’s a sentence you never thought you’d read. But I still enjoyed myself. It’s not a hardcore sportster, but it’s got a swift gait and a real connection with its driver. They say the Stinger is a grand tourer, so that sort of work should be in its repertoire. So should the A-roads leading to the autoroute. And then a slog back to Calais. The big V6 just…

For those who reckon the regular GT R isn’t quite tough enough, you’re mad, but also this one’s for you – the new range-topping Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro. While it uses the same 577bhp twin-turbo V8 as the GT R, there are standard carbon-ceramic brakes, lightweight forged wheels and redesigned aero, much of its addenda crafted from carbon fibre. There’s even a carbon roof. Note the dive planes integrated into the front splitter, the rear spoiler’s new Gurney flap and the freshly louvred front wheelarches, à la Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Indeed, it’s easiest to think of the Pro as a GT3 RS rival, where the regular GT R battles the standard GT3. New coilover suspension can be adjusted every which way by clicking its dials (no toolkit needed) and…

Audi e-tron £71,495 WE SAY: AN ELECTRIC SUV FOR FUTURE FRIENDLY FAMILIES This is a very conventional Audi. That’s probably the first thing to note about the e-tron. It’s an electric car that doesn’t seek to blur boundaries or act radically, but simply persuade regular SUV buyers to make the jump. It’s Q7-sized (but only seats five) and uses a heavily modified version of that car’s MLB Evo platform. There’s an electric motor on each axle, the rear slightly more powerful than the front, for a total of 402bhp and 490lb ft, and in between a 700kg, 95kWh battery pack. Surprised it’s not a bespoke electric platform? That’s in the pipeline, a joint project with Porsche known internally as PPE. That will form the base for the VW Group’s larger…

Audi A1 30 TFSI £18,540 WE SAY: WELCOME TO THE BOTTOM OF THE AUDI PILE. IN A GOOD WAY… The cheapest way in to Audi ownership, right? Indeed, from £18,540 – less when the entry-level versions arrive next year. But no one pays that since 95 per cent of A1 buyers upgrade from SE to either Sport or S line models. By the way, this is the second-gen A1, following eight years after the original. Like that car, it does a successful job of disguising the fact it’s based on the same toolkit as the VW Polo: different proportions, more sporting stance, a desire to stand out. Like a Mini? You got it. A more serious mindset, but same focus on premium image and quality. Four engines, all petrol. Diesel’s…

New Audi R8 V10 Performance + Naturally aspirated V10, solid-not-scary handling traits, price, reliability - One of the subtlest supercars, which is both good and bad Recently rebranded, refettled and generally sharpened both stylistically and technically, the Audi R8 remains one the greatest underrated supercars in the world. With 564bhp for the ‘standard’ model, up to 613 for the Performance, the R8 is full of 5.2-litre V10 charm. It really is a joy to drive, without the feeling that it’ll a) spit you off into the nearest hard thing, or b) explode at any second. These are good things. And at £141,200 for that top model, it’s actually a fairly savvy buy for the brilliance. You get calming Audi quality and reliability with mental Lamborghini performance (it shares the V10…

New BMW 320d // £33,610–£38,710 + Frugal, decent to drive, inoffensively stylish, easy to sell on - Not a particularly creative choice, the new one isn’t the prettiest, spec-sensitive For years, a BMW 320d has been the go-to choice for an all-rounder. A decent-to-drive, well-built, covers-most-bases small saloon, and the newest iteration is as rational and brilliant as it always was. A lot of motoring journalists recommend them, and there’s a reason for that. It’ll deal with everything, never embarrass you, and be competent in most areas. There’s also always a market, even with all the diesel malarkey. But with a 320d Sport looking like it’ll be weighing in at around £35,000 on-the-road direct from BMW (without any options), there’s a little super-saloon niggle that might make your mind wander.…

“We wanted to do a limited-series car, to create a demonstrator” Even if you could draw a rear end as complicated as the one on the Zerouno, it would surely be impossible to manufacture. But Italdesign, 50 years old in 2018 with a back catalogue that makes it the Beatles of car design, has managed to do both. It’s not quite a Möbius strip, folding in on itself in a mathematically unorientable way, but it’s fantastically over-the-top. It’s also fully functional, conceived to hustle fast-moving air into suckering the car to the ground and cooling hot componentry, but as this is one of just five ‘pieces’, it’s an abstract sculpture too. And the entire engine cover comes off, doubling as a superhero shield/portable wing. It really works, too. The road…

“We play chicken with the flare stacks: if you smell your eyebrows burning, you’re close enough” No camping beyond this sign, reads the least necessary warning in the history of mankind. I move in for a closer look – no quad biking or motocross either. Fortunately, neither Mark nor I fancy sleeping under canvas or breaking out the fast, flammable toys, given we’re parked in the middle of an oil and natural gas field, surrounded by flare stacks the size of rockets, a swarm of pipes and a landscape that looks like a pilot run for Elon’s Mars colonisation plan. Every few minutes, a truck of quizzical looks trundles past. It feels distinctly like we shouldn’t be here, but apparently clueless strangers roaming around large-scale industrial facilities in a 671bhp…

After weeks of chasing and being passed from one contact to another, we’ve been given the all clear to visit the biggest private supercar collection in Bahrain. First, we’re given a general area to head to, a short drive from the capital, Manama, then told to wait for a dropped pin detailing the exact location. We’re eating a burger when the message comes through… I half expect it to self-destruct after reading. I can understand the owner’s caution. If you had £100 million worth of unicorns stashed in your garage you would be, too. We’re not even allowed to mention his name, which is curious given you can follow him on Instagram @the_collection1. Still, his cars, his rules. I’m just happy to be here, and can’t stop grinning like a…

It’d be easy to assume us Brits aren’t big fans of Europe if you don’t dig much beyond headlines (or four per cent vote swings), but every yard and minute of this journey has been a glorious reminder of what a wonderful continent it is. Well, until we reach the most seethingly angry Spanish man I’ll likely ever encounter as we home in on our third and final peak. We’re already nearly 3,000m above the sea, having sailed up most of our highest climb with the kind of carefree swagger that’s only ever followed by comeuppance. Upon establishing our high-vis, hard-hatted enemigo speaks even less English than we do Spanish, I reach for a translation app and politely ask, if he wouldn’t mind, explaining why we shall not pass. “CORTADO,…

Hello VW Up GTI £14,055 OTR/£16,330 as tested Could be a good thing, this. While the Leaf’s reports migrate to TG.com, I’ve got a new VW Up GTI – a TopGear award winner, and all-round tremendous thing. We weren’t overly enamoured with the Leaf; I expect this will prove more lovable over the next six months. Already covered in a thick layer of winter grime, the Up arrived with under 70 miles on its odometer. It’s up to 600 or so now, but the real fun begins at 1,000 miles, when it’s been properly run in and we can let the mighty 115bhp 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine loose. Not long to go. To the basic spec, we’ve added the Cruise and Park Pack, which for £300 gives cruise control and parking…

Report 8 BMW M5 £89,645 OTR/£101,900 as tested Back in issue 312, I got the M5 together with Alpina’s B5. Same money, same power, slightly different philosophy. I decided that although the Alpina was the smoother-riding devourer of autobahns, I’d rather have the M5’s more sporting feel. This month I’m putting the M5 through the wringer again – this time a battle royale against the old foe, Mercedes-AMG’s E63S. And the result this time is that… Hang about. We’ve done this twin test before and given the nod to the M5 because it handles a bit better. And it does. But that’s the advantage of long-term reports – they give you time to develop a more personal relationship with a car, to see if you fit each other properly. Much…

Hello Mazda MX-5 RF GT £27,795 OTR/£28,815 as tested Cars are getting too lardy. While something with 500bhp that weighs a tonne is a far more appealing prospect than a car that has 1,000bhp and weighs twice that, staying skinny isn’t easy. Like Alpine’s sublime A110, the Mazda MX-5 RF is an antidote to the auto-obesity. It weighs 1,148kg dry, and measures 3.9m stem to stern. Retrieving it from the TG car park was like foraging down the back of the sofa, sandwiched as it was between two (mid-size) SUVs. And even then I wasn’t sure I’d fit in it. Not comfortably, anyway. I do, just. You wouldn’t want to be much above 6ft 3in or a regular down the pie shop, though. There’s no getting around the fact that…

Report 4 Suzuki Swift Sport £17,999 OTR/£17,999 as tested Nothing too taxing for the Swift Sport this month. Just a battle with the best-selling car in Britain, and TG’s 2017 Supermini of the Year. This Fiesta is an ST-Line (sporty-looking) X (with posh kit) Ecoboost 140 (fastest one before you get to the ST). With 138bhp, a 0–62mph of 9.0 seconds and finance deals bearing it to your driveway for a mere tenner a month more than the Swift Sport, it’s a dead-on rival on paper. Unfortunately for Suzuki, we don’t drive on paper. The new Fiesta is easily the most fun-to-drive supermini money can buy, and this ST-Line, thanks to slightly firmer suspension, is even sharper, keener, more agile, but with the edges rounded off the full-fat ST’s boisterous…

There have been many fast Fords, but the Racing Puma may be the oddest of the bunch. It never technically raced, for starters, and while its body was significantly pumped up over standard, it used the same 1.7-litre engine as standard Pumas, with only the lightest of upgrades. It also didn’t sell particularly well. Ford planned to make 1,000, cut that to 500, then still had to sell some of those internally to make sure every Racing Puma found a home. The reason? A £23k asking price. That would seem extortionate for a 153bhp hot hatch now, never mind in 1999. Especially when a 30bhp-lighter Puma 1.7 sold for £10k less. Now, the price difference is even more stark. While you can pick up a scruffy but usable Puma 1.7…