Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

People often say, “Hey Timo! Visiting exotic locations, driving supercars as fast as possible – you must have the best job in the world!” To which I reply, yes I do! If by ‘exotic locations’ you mean ‘Finland’s frozen Arctic Circle’, and by ‘supercars’ you mean ‘a ‘North Korean budget supermini’, and by ‘as fast as possible’ you mean ‘at 50mph exactly, non-stop for an entire day’! Yes, it’s been a big week in our development programme, culminating in the Cheery Bong II’s 24-hour reliability test. Normally such a test would be undertaken by a team of four drivers, but Rong Un Motors runs a lean operation. Our team comprises a) me, and b) Jari, who collects my reports twice a week and dispatches them to North Korea. Having written…

FOUR QUESTIONS THEY REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO BE ASKED… 1 Last year you introduced cars in hot parts of the market, the I-Pace and E-Pace, and still Jaguar sales barely edged up. Why does Jag do so badly? The I-Pace was the end of the year, and the E-Pace wasn’t a full year, either. But more generally Land Rover does better than Jaguar because it has grown its portfolio more consistently. Jaguar has moved in fits and starts and had design changes. 2 We all like driving the XE, but it hasn’t sold well. Any reason? The customer wanted a more special interior, which we’ve addressed in this facelift. More generally, we’re still relatively new to this sector. The BMW 3-Series is a safe default choice. Our name is connected…

THE GOOD I WILL drive this… watch me! Ernie Fourie I think Mercedes are currently on a roll design wise. New 8-Series aside, BMW seem to be designing ugly cars on purpose in some sort of Bangle-era throw back. Kieran Self LOOKS WAY BETTER THAN THAT UGLY BENTAYGA AND THAT CLOWNISH, LONDON TAXI ROLLS THING Robert Middleton THE BAD If you guys really want to see a big luxurious SUV check out the new Lincoln Navigator. There’s a big one and a small one. The small one is bigger than this. Nick Rebman RANGE LOOKS BETTER BUT THE FIT AND FINISH OF A RANGE IS SHIT. AND FOR THOSE WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND THE BIG SUV THING, I SUGGEST YOU TRY MARRIAGE AND 3 KIDS. Jean Yang THE UGLY Pointless ego…

Tamiya HKS Nissan Skyline GT-R r/c car This is radio-controlled model manufacturer Tamiya’s way of saying happy 50th birthday to the iconic Nissan GT-R. It’s a detailed replica of the R32 Skyline that raced under the brilliantly bonkers psychocamo colours of tuning company HKS in the 1993 Japanese Touring Car Championship. camo That car certainly wasn’t the most successful racer ever, in fact it only won one race that season and the title was taken by a different Skyline altogether. However, a livery this cool is clearly the one you want to have immortalised in model form. The pint-sized GT-R comes with a polycarbonate body, four-wheel drive and doublewishbone suspension, as well as slick tyres for maximum grip. In short, it’s a properly serious bit of kit. The electric motor…

MERCEDESBENZ C-CLASS £39,410 VOLVO S60 £37,935 BMW 3-SERIES £39,165 You know that rebarbative comment you might make to a friend, “You’ve changed…”? Well the same could be said about BMW’s 3-Series, now into its seventh generation. Changed and become way more complicated. If the Eighties E30 is lodged in your mind as the definitive example – compact, rear-drive – it’s worth noting that an ’85 323i I briefly owned didn’t even have power steering. Now look at it. Just as BMW’s range has ballooned into a gazillion different segments, so the car that provided the brand’s centre of gravity is now a much bigger deal. In every sense: a multi-million bestseller, it long ago shifted from being an aspirational outlier to a global staple, its focus now on Beijing as…

“ON THE ROAD, AWESOME REFINEMENT IS ITS MAIN APPEAL” £72,280 FOR Super-refined, comfy, smooth, safe. Good bundled charging and payment apps AGAINST Doesn’t take advantage of EV design and packaging. Feels its weight Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsche says this car matters because CO2 reduction does. He reckons “mankind’s greatest achievement” is the Paris climate accord. As the conversation moves on, I fail to make the obvious riposte. Tesla is a company that has dedicated itself to decarbonising the car, whereas the EQC has a problem: green-minded customers won’t want to buy their carbon-light car from the guys who build the G63 AMG. But then, Tesla seldom makes money. Mercedes is old enough to have learned that selling environmentally catastrophic V8-engined SUVs to the short-sightedly selfish is good business. It generates…

£48,784 FOR Drives well on-road, brilliantly off it, a well-executed extension of the Raptor branding AGAINST 4cyl diesel is lacking, and you can’t claim back the VAT on this pickup The Ford F-150 Raptor is a bit of a legend. Built as a manufacturer take on a desert pre-runner, it captured the imagination of those who needed – or thought they needed – a full-warranty, off-road V8 monster with semi-race suspension, big tyres and an extra ego of attitude. But where an F-150 works in the wide-open USA, it definitely doesn’t work in a rural village in Berkshire. Or commuting through the medieval meander of London streets. Or with UK petrol prices, for that matter. The solution, according to Ford, is to apply the Raptor brand and attitude to a…

From £999pp* WHAT’S INCLUDED FOUR DAYS OF DRIVING AND FIVE NIGHTS of resting up at 3- or 4-star hotels. All breakfasts and dinners included. Lunch stops will be at scenic spots en route.** TWO TOUR MANAGERS ON HAND TO MAKE sure you get the maximum out of the most iconic roads in Scotland. The convoy’s route includes the Old Military Road through the Cairngorms and the Kylesku Bridge (main image). DRIVE YOUR CAR LIKE IT’S A RENTAL ON some of the finest roads in the UK with fellow petrolheads.** EVs allowed too. MEET TOPGEAR MAGAZINE’S EDITOR in-chief, Charlie Turner, who will be attending the welcome dinner.*** THE ULTIMATE GOODIE BAG? OF COURSE it is, if there’s some TG stuff and a Petrolhead Tour polo shirt in it. YOU’LL BE LENT A FULLY PROGRAMMED Garmin satnav featuring all…

HONDA TYPE Rs BUY OUR PICK 1998–2001 Honda Integra Type R DC2 (UK) up to £15,000 Like Japanese knife masters or ryokan innkeepers, the people who develop Type Rs are borderline obsessive in tracking down engineering tweaks for driving precision. A Type R isn’t just a regular Honda with a bigger engine and crudely stiffened springs. No, it’s a feast of detail-freakery most honourable. Delete that ‘borderline’. If a lightweight back seat, titanium gearknob, hand-balanced engine, braced shell or thinned soundproofing will help, that’s what they get. Hang the expense. There are a few non-official Japanese domestic market (JDM) Type Rs around, such as the little 1997 EK9 Civic, or the FD2 saloon, and Integras unknown to British eyes. Or indeed the amazing NSX Type R, of which a solitary…

Junichi returned with bags full of West Coast swag and set up a little shop – Paradise Road – in Nagoya. 32 years later, it’s still running, albeit in a bigger location in the Meitō-ku district and is home to the Pharaohs car club, Japan’s oldest lowrider club, of which Junichi is president. Paradise Road is an absolutely impenetrable Aladdin’s cave of automotive Americana. Every available inch inside the enormo corrubox is scattered with rare car parts and memorabilia, while Mexican lowrider imagery and stickers fill the gaps like some sort of south-of-theborder grouting. Upstairs, there are enough parts to build your own car from scratch. While outside, a steady stream of mates – more baggy T-shirts and slip-on Vans – perpetually rock up in custom hot rods and lowriders to…

“PEOPLE FEAR US IN THE STREETS, BUT THERE’S NO VIOLENCE AT ALL” To see how big this Japanese Chicano family is, we’re invited to a ‘Toy Drive’ organised by the Japanese chapter of the Old Memories Car Club. It’s a charity cruise (to help wash away the stigma that lowriders are just for gangsters), specifically for ‘Bombs’ – pre-1955 cars loaded with period options that are a nod to the first wave of customs in the Thirties. The scale of the Japanese lowriding scene really comes into focus when we arrive at the meeting point. More than 80 incredible cars show up and, unlike most Japanese social occasions, there’s no formal bowing or confusing business card rituals – it’s all fist bumps and man hugs. It’s a family affair, too. Wives, girlfriends…

What you want is a specialist. If a business has a focus, you trust it. Dine at a restaurant with a long rambling menu and you’re being a fool to yourself. Perhaps, somewhere in the world, the kitchen does exist that simultaneously excels at Napolese, Gascon, Sichuan, Bengali and Mexican cooking. But far more likely at a place with too many options, the arrival of your main course will be heralded by the ping of a microwave. There are, metaphorically speaking, no microwaves at McLaren. (Only autoclaves.) McLaren’s specialism is the carbon-tubbed, V8-engined, two-seat supercar. It does it brilliantly. But does the world congratulate Woking for that strategy? No, it wants a one-stop-shop, endlessly pestering them for a front-engined car, or a four-seater, or a bloody SUV. And, to be…

Alfa Romeo’s F1 comeback is welcome, even if it’s a superficial branding exercise. It might be the best-looking car on the grid, too. But it pales alongside one of its forebears, 1976’s Alfa-powered Brabham BT45, a car designed by a youthful Gordon Murray on behalf of team boss, the rather less youthful Bernie Ecclestone, and raced by South American superstars Carlos Pace and Carlos Reutemann. Well, we say pales: sadly, the BT45 was less effective than the Cosworth-powered BT44 which had won three GPs during the 1975 season. But it looked awesome. Bernie, ever the deal-maker, blagged the Alfa Romeo engine (a 500bhp, 3.0-litre flat-12 whose horizontally opposed configuration allowed Murray to site it low in the chassis) for free. Alfa was also a jingoistic match for the new sponsor,…

POOR SCUD. HASN’T AGED WELL, HAS IT? It’s not an especially pretty car, the 430. It wasn’t when it was new in the late Noughties, and nor is it now, sat alongside its modern-day equivalent some 10 years later. Looks old, inside and out. DOES IT FEEL OLD, TOO? Well, it hails from an era before turbocharging supercars became fashionable (and ultimately necessary), and flappy-paddle gearboxes got peerlessly good. So yes, kinda, but in a good way. The Scud has a nat-asp 4.3-litre V8 producing 503bhp, and a 6spd automated-manual gearbox. For the 430’s replacement, the 458, Ferrari switched to a DCT. Then the 488 added two turbochargers into the mix for upwards of 700bhp. Which is just unnecessary. WHAT DIFFERENCES DOES THE NEW TECH MAKE? On a narrow public…

Big news, driving geeks: the Aston Martin Vantage now comes with a manual gearbox. To grab some attention it’s being introduced with the limited-run Vantage AMR you’re staring at here, but will be offered as an option on regular Vantages from 2020. Much like the V12 Vantage S that featured a cameo-appearance stick shift in the car’s previous generation. It’s a seven-speed transmission with a quirk: it features a dog-leg first. So first gear is left and down, with gears two to seven in the H-pattern road cars more commonly use – cue much stalling at the lights because you think it’s in first when it’s actually in second. Good news is you don’t need to be a heel-and-toe master to get the most out of it – it’s equipped…

You could use the Citroen 19_19 to play concept car buzzword bingo. You’d shout “House!” almost immediately, too, given just how electric, autonomous and connected it is. Far better, though, to channel our energy into excitement. Citroen is going nuts again, and we’re all for it. We’re all for its stonking 30-inch wheels, too. While a set of 22s may butcher the ride of family SUVs, those don’t possess the 19_19’s ‘suspended’ cockpit and hydraulic suspension, which is inspired by the Citroen Xantia Activa, only now with the modern addition of cameras and sensors that allow it to adapt to the terrain ahead. The Activa is one of many cars this centenary-celebrating concept pays homage to. Other references range from the obvious (the old DS) to the absurd (Citroen’s rotary-powered…

If you want a nice watch, you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it, right? Well, just like in the car industry, there are plenty of companies who are more than happy to relieve you of almost limitless quantities of money for things that are lovingly fettled over many hours of highly skilled toil. But that’s not the only way. If you don’t care much for how a watch is made, life is easy: you simply go to a big shop – probably at an airport – that has aisles filled with cheap, batterypowered watches and choose whichever one catches your magpie eye. That approach works perfectly well for most watch buyers, who are not looking for a watch to pass on to the next generation, just something that…

The box might say Dangerous Driving but, make no mistake, this is a Burnout game in all but name. Specifically, it’s Burnout 3: Takedown, the point on the venerable PlayStation 2 where we reckon the series peaked. It’s not a complex recipe: just some cars, a track, big crashes and enough velocity to peel your eyeballs like an onion. Don’t expect a deep and involving career mode for your 25 quid, instead you get a straightforward list of events to complete across a series of varied but not particularly memorable courses. A free update that will introduce multiplayer to the mix is promised, but in its current form there are fewer trimmings than a jailbird’s Christmas lunch.…

“IS THERE A MORE EASILY CAJOLED AWD SYSTEM ON THE MARKET?” £75,335 FOR Subtle looks, for a super-SUV. Manages to do luxury and rowdiness… AGAINST…just not both at the same time. Really feels its heft, too The F-Pace SVR was meant to launch last summer, but something cryptically described as a ‘critical parts supply issue’ means we’re driving it – and you’re able to buy it – a long time after Jag first promised. Which, when you’re competing in the performance SUV market, is potentially a bit of an issue. No corner of the car world seems to have acquired so many combatants so quickly, meaning the SVR launches to a potentially angrier pack of rivals than it should have. Up front is Jaguar’s familiar s’charged V8, here possessing 542bhp…

“MOST WHO END UP WITH A CAMRY WILL NOT DO SO BECAUSE THEY’VE CHOSEN IT” £31,295 FOR Spacious, comfortable and economical (assuming you drive it right). Lots of spec AGAINST CVT gearbox, interior quality and infotainment, pure unremarkableness In the same way Europeans default to a Ford Focus when they just want “a car”, most of the world defaults to the Toyota Camry – a biggish ‘sedan’ not offered here since the mid-Noughties, when it was axed for not selling well. I mean, why have a big Toyota saloon when you could have a Lexus? And why have a Lexus when you could have a Mercedes, BMW or Audi? We didn’t think anyone missed it, especially now everybody wants SUVs anyway. But apparently we were wrong, because after a 15-year…

The window for a comeback is always narrower than you think. The music industry normally provides us with a timely reminder of this, as some washed-up Eighties unit decides to relaunch a career that never really happened in the first place, and only a few of us saddos actually remember who they were. As for a car, how long can you leave something – a name that truly resonated for an entire generation – before it feels like the moment has passed? The last A80 Supra was built between 1993 and 1998 (although it soldiered on in Japan until 2002). It was the archetypal Japanese sports car, a 928-sized bruiser deified on the cover of Max Power – vapourising Bridgestones and swaddled in VeilSide scoops. It was an instant legend,…

YOU HAVE TO REWIND BACK TO FIFTIES SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA to find the not-so-humble beginnings of lowriding. Back then, young Mexican Americans (Chicanos) in Los Angeles started using their cars not as a source of transport, but ethnic statements. See, during the economic boom post-WWII, a lot of white Americans were hot rodding (jacking cars up and slotting the biggest engine they could find in them), but wanting to refuse the notion of being Anglicised, Hispanic communities did the exact opposite, as a four-wheeled F-you. They’d chop springs or lob bags of cement in the boot to slam their cars to the ground. Then drive slow in an act of nonconformity and rebellion. Or, purely because they had big bags of cement in the boot. But they’d also go overboard with…

“I always respected America’s Sixties Kustom Kulture,” Junichi says. “People like Von Dutch and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth didn’t seem constrained by anything – the cars they made were wild and looked to the future. I wanted to see if Japan could do that with some added lowrider flair.” Over the years, Junichi has built a few cars, but Galaxian – a wild 1927 Ford Model T – is his crowning glory. With bamboozling proportions, perfect stance and wild angles, it’s pure Wacky Races. But this is no spit ‘n’ shine show car – Junichi throws me in the bathtub-esque passenger seat, thunks the hinged roof down on my head and fires the big Chevy V8 up. Leaving the shop in a one-tyre fire, he cackles behind the wheel as…

If cars did internet dating, the Ferrari 812 Superfast and Aston Martin DBS Superleggera would be swiping right hard enough to crack a phone screen. They come from similarly aristocratic backgrounds, have similar outlooks on life and even similar hobbies – hobbies that centre around being head-swivel noisy, making people stare, and accelerating fast enough to edit distance in a jump-cut. A short film featuring painfully compressed vertebrae and anime-wide eyes. High end? Both cost more than normal people can afford to spend on something they can’t live in. If you want to be less metaphorical about it, both are front midengine V12s, both have horsepower figures that start with a seven, although the 812’s number is dangerously close to starting with an eight. Both are two-door grand tourers, both…

WHO KNEW You can lower the Gravity’s windscreen and tie it flat, for those who think it looks too claustrophobic For 53 years, Jeep has held its Easter Safari in Moab, Utah – the owners’ meet of all owners’ meets and the site of multiple unveilings. Namely Jeep’s Easter concepts. This year’s are all based on the new Gladiator pickup, and boy, has Jeep gone to town. Top left is the Flatbill, with “an unmistakable, loud and rowdy appearance”. Never before has a car been aimed so directly at the less mature end of the TG office. As well as containing a pair of motocross bikes, it has been designed to look like one, with decals you’d expect on a two-wheeled toy. Want to do proper off-roading? You won’t want…

WHO KNEW VW has confirmed its smaller EV hatch will be called ID.3, and have a range of up to 342 miles. Pre-orders open now When is a fully electric, self-driving, futuristic-looking SUV with seven seats not a Tesla Model X? When it’s this! The VW ID Roomzz concept! Look how cool it is, with its not-a-typo zed-tastic name and interior designed to resemble – you guessed it – a lounge. Yep, there’s a whiff of your dad dancing at a wedding to the ID Roomzz. A slight hint of a politician doing a party-policy rap. It’s VW, one of the biggest, most traditionally play-it-safe carmakers in the world, trying oh-so-very hard to be down with the kidz. We’ll let you be the judge of the results. What the ID…

Lancia 037 Stradale Can a car with a 2.0-litre four-pot really be a supercar? Well, when the car in question weighs only 1,170kg, had its engine mounted in the middle, is supercharged to churn out 208bhp and was the last RWD car to win the World Rally Championship, you’ve got to say yes. Honda NSX The NSX was benchmarked to beat the Ferrari 348. Even though its 3.0 V6 only made 274bhp, it had titanium con-rods and revved to 8,000rpm, which is exotic enough for us. Until the Audi R8, this was without a doubt the most sensible supercar of all time. Ferrari 208 GTB Back in the Eighties, Italy slapped a tax penalty on any car over 2,000cc. Cannily, Ferrari took the 308 and plumbed in a 1990cc mini-V8.…

01 JAMIE CHADWICK Pretty much the perfect weekend for the 20-year-old Brit who took pole by two seconds and went on to take a dominant win in the female-only W Series opener at Hockenheim. 02 BMW 2002 WITH A V10 This is Gruppe5’s BMW 2002, clothed in the mother of carbon bodykits and stuffed with the S85 V10 from the E60 M5 in either 5.8-litre, 734bhp, or 5.9-litre, 792bhp trim. Crikey. Take my money. 03 ‘EXPLODING’ AUDI R8 Latest in Fabian Oefner’s ‘disintegrating’ series is an R8 with back-end issues. Each component is photographed individually then comped together. We’re not worthy. 04 NISSAN GT-R ANNIVERSARY EDITION 50th anniversary special marks the return of Bayside Blue, the R34 Skyline’s signature colour, and one we’ve not seen since 2002. It rocks. 05…

“FOR TWO REASONS, THIS IS A SHOCKINGLY DECENT LEXUS” £33,900 FOR Razor-sharp styling meets decent hybrid driving experience. At last! Real-world 50mpg too AGAINST Awful infotainment, as always with Lexus. And it’s dark and cramped inside The UX is a small hatchback riding a little bit taller than Lexus’s ancient entry-level offering, the CT. It wears plastic wheelarch cladding to look all tough and outdoorsy, and as usual for Lexus, the rest of the bodywork is an earthquake aftermath of cracks, creases and wrinkles. The USP is there in BLOCK CAPITALS on every digital billboard in the land. “NEW LEXUS UX. SELF-CHARGING HYBRID”. Clever branding, really, if irritatingly worded. Obviously, Lexus has not skewered the laws of thermodynamics and made a perpetual-motion car that never needs refuelling. But if you’re…

LEXUS RC F TRACK EDITION £79,990 FOR Possibly better than the BMW M4 AGAINST $32,000 is a lot for a sports package We hoped the first RC F would be a chip off the LFA block. It had fabulous build quality and a superb nat-asp V8. But it understeered like a limo and ate tyres like a child eats raisins. With this limited Track edition, Lexus has shown it hasn’t forgotten what we want from a sports coupe. It now makes a huge noise, does 0–60mph in under 4.0secs, has launch control and can be steered not just by the wheel but by the throttle, too. PD JEEP GLADIATOR From $35,000 FOR A machine born for adventure. Or a trip to B&Q AGAINST Careful with that configurator – extras add…

It’s normally a few months after a car goes on sale that potty tuners get their grubby hands on them and start sending power figures into the stratosphere. Not the new Supra. The bosses at Toyota understand that the tuning industry helped give the old Supra a leg up into the Automotive Hall of Fame, so is embracing the aftermarket from the outset. Before the new Supra was even unveiled, Toyota posted a handful of them to tuning shops. One of those was Fat Five Racing, which just so happens to be owned by Japanese drift driver Daigo Saito. This year, the former D1 Grand Prix champ will pilot the new Supra in Japan’s top-flight skid series, but he had to make it fit for purpose. First job? Siphon as…

WEDDINGS, FUNERALS and the potential threat of jury duty. These are the only reasons I have a suit in my wardrobe. But today it feels necessary to scrub up and have some sartorial decency. See, Toyota may have recently got into bed with BMW in order to rummage around each other’s parts bins to produce the Supra, but there’s one car in the firm’s armoury that remains staunchly Japanese: the Century. Internally, it’s considered the company’s halo product. Introduced in 1967, it was Japan’s first domestically produced luxury chauffeur car, one named in honour of the centenary of the birth of the company’s founder, Sakichi Toyoda, and it’s only ever been available in its home market. Developed from scratch and wrapped in a restrained yet stately design, the Century has…

“I am nothing to do with a gang,” Genbu, the owner of an utterly stunning 1965 Buick Riveria tells me while taking a toke of a cigarette. “I just think these tattoos are cool. They tell my story – my struggle.” He’s covered in ink. As is his friend, Taku Kawakami. Which, considering tattoos still have huge social stigma (having been outlawed in Japan due to their links to organised crime), is a bold move. But these guys are the next step. They’re the ones that are pushing social boundaries through lowrider culture – just like the Chicanos in LA back in the Fifties. But what’s getting them there is very Japanese. It’s their obsessive otaku nature, the Japanese trait of neurotically investing time and effort into a single passion.…

HELP THE AGED TG RUNS A YOUNGTIMER 306 RALLYE: PART 2 It’s not staying in the garage, so let’s get it out and have a look at it. I prepare myself and try to push it out. No can do. The tyres are flat. I spend 10 minutes and quite a lot of effort with a bike pump reinserting air. No immediate hissing, which is good. We roll it out. This is possible because the brakes haven’t welded themselves on, and with untypical foresight I’d left the handbrake off when I parked it up three years ago. It’s a sorry sight. The garage roof has leaked, so there’s water damage, discolouration and mould. A cobweb spans the gap between roof and aerial. I twist the key in the ignition. Nothing.…

REMEMBERING RETRO GAMING GAMING THE CLASSICS SEGA MEGA DRIVE, 1994 The next time you’re at breakfast and someone starts making ramps out of breadboards and pots of jam, don’t panic – chances are they just spent too much time in their formative years playing this game based on the supremely swallowable model cars. Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament managed to turn even the most mundane domestic tableau into a dramatic racing circuit, complete with liquid hazards, hastily constructed jumps and the occasional dizzying drop from the table to the linoleum floor below. Lewis Hamilton might be a great driver, but has he ever had to swerve at the last minute to avoid tumbling down the pocket of a pool table? Exactly. Turbo Tournament built on the original Micro Machines game…

SWEATY, DEGRADING, FRENETIC… WOOK’S NOT A FAN WHO: TOM FORD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR I’m not a huge fan of the Caterham Experience, if I’m honest. The time I attempted to visit Le Mans in a CSR with only enough money for fuel didn’t help. Great feature, harrowing, sweaty and slightly degrading experience. Or there was that time I was shooting with Jamie Lipman in central London in an R500. The policeman who stopped me was annoyed that I was wearing a helmet painted like the Predator. But there is no windscreen, I argued. Then my visor was too tinted, the car was too loud, the way I left the traffic lights too aggressive. He asked me to rev it for a ‘noise test’ and I tried to be careful, but when…