Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Please sit down, and cease operating heavy machinery. You might shortly feel sensations of giddiness. Gordon Murray has released a sketch and details of his new supercar. He’s happy for it to be spoken of as the successor to the McLaren F1, three decades later. “We’ve been quietly working on the design of the car for 18 months and it’s now very well advanced. We’ve been speaking to potential customers and have had massive interest,” he says. Its codename is T50, continuing the successive type numbers of all his previous designs. It’ll be built, limited to 100 examples, by his new company, Gordon Murray Automotive. The plan is deliveries to start in 2022, at around £2.5 million a pop. The factory is in Surrey, and the engine and gearbox are…

The electric Vauxhall Corsa – the Corsa-e – has gone on sale for £26,490 post government grant. And that’s… not bad at all, given it claims 205 miles of range, and a 0–80 per cent charge time of just half an hour. Under the skin, it’s basically the same car as the new Peugeot 208 and DS 3, though it looks very different. But one of the things that CEO Carlos Tavares says is that some people simply will not buy a French car, which is why he was interested in having Vauxhall/Opel in the PSA group. In the metal, the new Corsa looks like a slightly loosened-up Audi A1, with hints of blistered wheelarches that recall the Nova and Mk1 Corsa. Inside, too, Vauxhall/Opel has had a lot of…

Does a limo need to be good to drive? Bentley certainly seems to think so. This is the new Flying Spur, and it’s had heaps of driver-focused tech thrown at it to ensure it’s the company’s deftest saloon car yet. Chauffeurs have never had it so good. There’s all-wheel steering to make it nimbler at low speed and more stable at high speed, while its active AWD system defaults to RWD, only utilising the front axle when things get really slippery. Even then, only 31 per cent of torque will be shuffled up the front if you’ve prodded the Spur into Sport mode. With its 6.0-litre twin-turbo W12 producing peaks of 626bhp and 664lb ft, there’s still more than enough left over for the slidey end of the car, not…

01 Yamaha OX99-11 Like most ‘F1 cars for the road’, the OX99 came about as a sort of road-going billboard for a company’s F1 efforts. Yamaha was supplying F1 engines back in 1989, so by 1992 it wanted to make a street car to celebrate that fact. 02 BAC Mono The most single-minded, gloriously selfish sports car made today is the sublime Briggs Automotive Company Mono. Slap on a wing and some oil giant sponsorship and it looks ready for the Monaco grid. Bet it would keep up with this year’s Williams… 03 Ferrari F50 The 4.7 V12 in the back of the F50 shared its basic block with the 3.5 V12 Ferrari used in the 641 F1 car, five years before the F50’s birth. And you worked those revs with a six-speed…

A standard TopGear group test goes like this: take cars of the same size, same price, aiming at the same buyers by doing the same job. Tease out which of them is best at that job. Write it down. But today’s group test, you’ll already have discerned, is different. A regular buyer’s guide kinda test this is not. Truth is, anyone contemplating buying any one of these three probably wouldn’t even begin to entertain any of the others. At first blush, they make a pretty much random convoy. Allow me to explain by drawing a Venn diagram in your mind. Two overlapping ovals. In one: ‘long-range EVs that don’t cost silly money’. In the other: ‘brilliant sporty saloons’. Wherever you look, these ovals are both pretty sparsely populated. If you’re…

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…

Long-term Ferrari watchers have had their work cut out keeping up with the company’s SUV. Rarely has a vehicle – for that’s what it is – been more rumoured, more denied, and ultimately (and reluctantly) confirmed. Even now, you’ll get little joy on the subject out of the top brass. The SF90 Stradale has just landed, there’ll be three more new Ferraris this year, and the Purosangue isn’t among them. We’ll see it in late 2021, and until then… nada. But let’s run through what we know. TG was right there when the late Sergio Marchionne ousted former Ferrari CEO Luca di Montezemolo, at an emotional press call during the 2014 Paris show. “He wants to build a truck!” the latter opined, with tears in his eyes, and it was…

As racetracks go, windswept, patchy Llandow is not one of the world’s greats. But it is somewhere we can cut loose. As driving roads go, Llandudno’s jogger-heavy Marine Drive is not one of the world’s greats. But it does look very pretty in photographs. These are our bookends. And they’re handily distant from one another. I might have almost planned it that way. What am I saying? I did. Because it’s what happens in between that’s important. On the B4268 and A470, the A494 and B4391, plus the B4501 that I desperately wanted to have time to do that day as we drove from morning in south Wales to a stunning sunset in the north, but didn’t. So we went there the next day instead. The Toyota Supra is a…

In the Sixties, big-brained engineers came up with all sorts of ways to shave a few seconds off lap times. Upside-down aerofoils, exotic monocoques, gas turbines, early ground effects – things that required an unsociable grasp of physics and a forehead best measured in acres. But one of the smartest breakthroughs came not from some virtuoso designer, but from an unknown Italian cobbler, whose invention – the world’s very first pair of speedy shoes – made everything else look somewhat over-engineered. Believe it or not, in the first 50 years of motor racing, nobody had ever thought to make a shoe for that purpose. Drivers were suited, but still clumpy-booted. From the top down, the typical uniform consisted of an open-face helmet, some comedy goggles and a baby-blue onesie, all…

For a team that’s done as much competing and winning as Ferrari, the Scuderia’s cars aren’t always front and centre when it comes to the cool factor. But this one is, not least because this is the car that carried Niki Lauda to his first driver’s title. In fact, you could argue that it was the great, and now sadly departed Austrian, who carried it, at least to begin with. When he arrived at Ferrari, he immediately called the car out for the overweight, dog slow munter that it was, and vowed to make it go faster. Rather than ushering him straight to the exit, Enzo Ferrari indulged him, and the rest is… history. Mauro Forghieri, rarely given the credit he deserves, reworked the 312 for 1975, mounting the engine…

A PAIR OF OPEN 911S. NOT THE ENTHUSIAST’S CHOICE… These are no ordinary open 911s. These are 911 Speedsters, and that makes them a purer, more athletic breed than your average Stuttgart tanning bed. On the left, the very first example, a 1988 G-Series 911 receiving the run-out special treatment courtesy of a voluptuously styled Speedster. On the right, a 2019 991-gen 911 receiving the run-out special treatment via… the same thing. I SUSPECT THERE ARE DIFFERENCES, THOUGH Oh, yes. Width. Power. Speed. The usual things that have swelled enormously in all performance cars across the previous three decades (228bhp playing 503). But also focus. The G-Series iteration may have had some thoughtful engineering poured into it, but the gradual hard-coring of Speedsters since has seen this latest 991 version…

Managing director, Vauxhall 1 You barely sell more cars than Mercedes in the UK (65k v 63k, Jan–Apr 19). At much lower price. How’s that a business? We were losing money. But since the PSA takeover, we’ve made a significant contribution to the European Opel profit [£750m last year]. We have raised prices and cut distribution costs. 2 How can you raise prices selling the same old cars? We found excessive discounting doesn’t actually bring more sales, oddly. And besides, it harms resale values. But really we can only price correctly and grow car sales when we get new cars, the Corsa and the next Mokka. 3 When you came to Vauxhall, you started the ‘British’ marketing. Is that honest when the cars are badged as Opels, and seen as…

THE GOOD I MUST BE THE ONLY ONE THAT THINKS THIS LOOKS RATHER GOOD. Oscar Interior looks great and rear tail-lights too. The rest… a 2-Series Tourer with bling wheels for pensioners. MG Most people honestly don’t have the driver skills to exploit rear-wheel drive, most will drive quicker in a front- or all-wheel drive. Plus the technology to deal with torque steer has improved. Mark Bennett Engine’s facing the wrong way, but it looks smart enough, particularly on the inside, I appreciate they’re offering it with a manual, and I’m sure it’ll be a sales success. James Bray THE BAD THE PIG FROM ANGRY BIRDS… Murat Wow, BMW made a Hyundai. Adam Wolff Had an X1 as a courtesy car. Turned into a corner shortly after leaving the dealership…

Fanatec Podium Racing Wheel F1 If you’re deadly serious about sim racing, like Lando Norris, a ‘direct drive’ wheel is essential. Rather than belt-driven, the rim is bolted directly to the motor, offering stronger force feedback, but also more detailed and immediate response. Up until now, though, direct-drive wheels have required a) an engineering degree to set up and b) a gaming PC. Not so with the Fanatec Podium Racing Wheel F1, which plugs directly into your PS4 or PC (and even Xbox One, with a compatible rim). This bundle pairs the housing with Fanatec’s sturdy Clubsport F1 rim, which bristles with buttons and arrives in pleasing, mid-Noughties BMW Williams blue. The kit is pricey, requires pedals and weighs about as much as a collapsed star, so mount it somewhere…

“IT BOMBARDS JUST ABOUT EVERY ONE OF YOUR NERVE ENDINGS” £211,599 ↑ FOR Glorious engine, exquisite handling, supreme attention to detail ↓ AGAINST A wee bit pricey and a touch blustery inside. Nowt else The needs and wishes of keen drivers and keen tanners rarely overlap, but overseen by Andreas Preuninger – affectionally known as ‘Mr GT3’ – this 911 Speedster has every bit as much credibility as Porsche’s motorsport-infused products. Up top is a slender part-electric, mostly manual roof that only flips up or down at a standstill. The chassis beneath is a cocktail of old 991-gen 911 Cabrio and GT3 bits, with the latter’s screaming 4.0-litre flat-six slotted over the back axle. Here, it’s tuned to be even sharper, even harder-cored. So while a new, cleaner exhaust system…

“ONCE YOU GET OVER THE SHEER SIZE OF THE THING, IT’S PRETTY EASY TO DRIVE” £69,000 est ↑ FOR Beautifully integrated and fairly effortless to drive. Now with shower and loo! ↓ AGAINST It’s a lot of cash for a bad night’s sleep. High top looks decidedly… odd You know what this is… it’s the formula Volkswagen applied to the Transporter van to create the California, upscaled to the Crafter. The Grand California. Name a bit pretentious? Show us a camper van badge that isn’t. Speaking of pretentious, Volkswagen says that, with its white cabinets and flooring that apes a teak deck, the design of the Grand Cali was inspired by luxury yachts. Of course it was. Most things are. The headline news, however, is a toilet. And a shower.…

£104,729 ↑ FOR Drives freakishly well with the right options. Tangible engineering depth ↓ AGAINST Less space for more cash, as per the SUV coupe norm This is a pointless addition to the automotive landscape. Or the Porsche you’ve been waiting years for. Which way you swing will depend on how you view the modern phenomenon of the SUV coupe. But all subjective baggage needs to be left at the door; the sheer sales figures and profit margins achieved by chamfering off your 4x4’s roof and sportifying its looks cannot be argued with, no matter how much of an enthusiast’s brand you are. It’s amazing it’s taken Porsche, one of the pioneers of the quick crossover, so long to produce the Cayenne Coupe. The rear accommodation is now a pair…

TIME WITH ANY RACING CAR TENDS TO BE FRAUGHT. Fraught in terms of the track window, of ensuring that all the temperatures are optimal, that you’re comfortable both physically in the car and mentally with its myriad operating systems. The variables are almost endlessly… variable. Yet we’ve added a few more today, and they’re big. As the man from Michelotto, the specialist that’s prepared and run Ferrari GT race cars since 1969, adjusts the belts on a seat designed for someone more snake-hipped than me, the Monza pit-lane beckons. Monza. The heartbeat of Italian motorsport. Home to some of the most romantically oil-flecked dudes ever to climb into a racing car. Stomping ground of the tifosi. Ahead lies one of F1’s most notorious chicanes, the Variante del Rettifilo, which flows…

“IT PROVES HUGELY CAPABLE AND, WITHOUT QUESTION, THE MOST FUN I HAVE HAD IN A SUPERCAR” The gun-slit-narrow rear view frames a huge Lamborghini-manufactured explosion of road detritus. The accompanying noise is a combination of dust, stones and rocks being thrown up by all four driven wheels and their impact in, around and under the car, and it is brutally violent. The road hits a rise which we crest and the car goes light, we touch down and I jump on the brakes, turn in and the car starts to rotate. I get back on the throttle and aim in one long sideways spray of dust, noise and V10 brilliance around the long left-hand turn in third gear. While for most supercars this would be the wincingly embarrassing paragraph describing…

TWO IN THE MORNING. DEAD OF NIGHT. The mission, should I choose to accept it, is to relieve myself behind the nearest bush. Stopping me is a profoundly sweaty back welded to my tent, a perilous ladder descent in flip-flops, blackout darkness, the thought of a thousand flying assassins waiting to feast on my clammy love handles and several pools of stagnant water filled with leaches keen to gnaw my feet to bloody stumps. And either a local is enjoying a vigorous scrub in the river, or a water buffalo is about to trample me for good measure. I decide against it and reach for a bottle. Trivial my camping problems may be, but to fully appreciate the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main supply route from North to South…

THAT MOMENT WHEN YOU JUST CANNOT BELIEVE YOUR LUCK WHO: CHARLIE TURNER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF When I was the junior designer at Car magazine, I was dispatched to collect a Ferrari 550 Maranello from the factory and meet legendary journalist Russell Bulgin, who would be heading north to meet me in a Lamborghini Diablo. I arrived at the iconic factory gates at first light to be met in the courtyard by Dario Benuzzi, Ferrari’s famous test driver, who was fresh from shaking the car down at Fiorano. It sat steaming hot, as the early-morning dew evaporated off its flanks. “Enjoy it” was the only instruction I was given. I successfully managed to exit the hallowed turf without stalling in front of the arriving factory workers and headed for the hills, scarcely believing…

Notwithstanding the whole ‘crumbling of the global political and social order’ thing, it’s a fine time to be alive. The weather is fine, the days are long, and TopGear is returning to your tellies with a shiny new presenter line-up. Yes, TGTV is back! Series 27 sees Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris tackling the fastest, hottest, toughest TopGear challenges to date: pushing their cars, and themselves, to the very limits of endurance. All because no one takes testing cars as seriously as TopGear. And also because they really should have checked the small print of their contracts more closely before signing. From the brutal heat of the Ethiopian desert to the sweltering Borneo rainforest, from the wilds of Iceland to, um, the pedestrianised shopping district of downtown Mansfield,…

This week, I have been busy fine-tuning the Cheery Bong II’s on-the-limit handling. The aim? To make the Cheery Bong II nothing less than the best-handling North Korean supermini of its generation. As a test driver, you must dare to dream big. First up, the industry standard ‘elk test’: a rapid swerve between lanes, conventionally simulated on a runway using a dozen or so cones. However, with my paymasters at Rong Un Motors insisting cones are ‘a tool of capitalist subjugation’ and also ‘surprisingly expensive’, I was told to perform the elk test using a live elk, Onni. Now, if you have only seen a picture of an elk, you might think it cute and fluffy and harmless. It is not. The elk, I am sorry to report, is a…

The BMW M8 is finally here, and it’s arrived in full-strength Competition form, possessing a mighty 616bhp and a frankly ludicrous 3.2secs 0–62mph time. It is also, by some stretch, the most expensive M car ever – the coupe costs £123,435 and the convertible another seven grand still. All before options. There’s four-wheel drive, but with a rear-drive ‘drift mode’, a new engine mounting to better reinforce the 4.4-litre V8 turbo within the M8’s structure, and all manner of braking, steering and stability assistance systems. The latter includes the introduction of BMW’s new adjustable brakes. Both the standard steel and optional carbon-ceramic braking systems come attached to a module which offers Comfort and Sport modes to “alter the amount of pressure on the brake pedal required to slow the car”.…

In the late Fifties, Elvis Presley made some decent films, like Jailhouse Rock and Love Me Tender. Then he got a taste for spending those royalties and he really started to churn them out non-stop, dozens of films, all involving a leading man with an uncanny ability to diffuse a tense situation through the power of song. The result was what The Guardian calls “26 of the most mesmerisingly awful movies in the history of motion pictures”. The film that is widely considered to have opened the floodgates was 1961’s Blue Hawaii, which sees Elvis leaving the army and swapping his G.I. uniform for skimpy shorts and lots of pre-Benny Hill chasing of swimsuit-clad women around the island. And, of course, lots of singing. Beyond a small hardcore fanbase, the…

Team Sonic Racing is the latest in a quietly successful, kid-friendly series of kart racers. It doesn’t have the effortless genius of Mario Kart 8, but like that game there are dizzying, colourful rollercoaster courses to negotiate and the mandatory four-player split-screen mode for cheerily vindictive couch-based multiplayer action. You’re racing in a squad of three now, and working with your teammates (via slipstreaming, side drafting and sharing items) is the easiest route to victory. It’s frustrating when you lose the race as a team, even though you finished first but if, as is likely, you’re playing alongside a little nipper who’s struggling to wrap their tiny hands around the controller, let alone drift around a corner, it allows you the option to cooperate and win together. Just remember to…

We’ve got nothing against modern tech, but the EZ-POD concept is designed to make us lazier. Renault calls it a “small, autonomous, connected and electric robo-vehicle, designed to transport people and goods over short distances.” It’s built on the same platform as a Twizy, so seats two adults, but the battery size is pared back to the minimum. There’s no word on speed, but Renault references electric scooters and the bicycle when describing the EZ-POD as a ‘limited-speed micro-mobility solution’. Renault says it could be used in pedestrianised environments such as airports, car parks or shopping centres.…

“THERE’S PLENTY OF ABILITY TO GO WITH THE HEFTY ENGINE, TOO” £55,035 (approx.) ↑ FOR Impressive pace, useful size, decent economy. A well-thought-out small SUV ↓ AGAINST Not cheap with all the toys, styling can be polarising… First, some basics. The new SQ5 is diesel-only, killing the previous petrol 3.0-litre V6 TFSI and replacing the BiTDI, in line with the new Audi penchant for all ‘S’ models to be similarly powered. So S7 and S6 Saloon and Avant along with this SQ5 all get the same motor, a clever single-turbo 3.0-litre V6 that drinks only the demonised derv. Single traditional turbo, technically, seeing as this iteration nicks plenty of bits from Audi’s bigger cars, and features both an EPC and MHEV. Yeah, that. It’s not really as complicated as it…

£76,505 ↑ FOR Punchy looks matched by mega noise and playful handling. Bags of character ↓ AGAINST Horribly firm ride. Interior now spoiled by overcomplicated infotainment £77,190 ↑ FOR Seamless gearbox when you’re going flat-out. Finally, decent M brakes! ↓ AGAINST Another horrendously uncomfortable SUV. Why would you live with it? These cars are the Vauxhall Meriva VXRs of 2019. I can’t help thinking that in as little as 10 years folks will look back in bafflement at this snapshot of motoring. “Hey, remember, when the entire industry was trying to sell electrification and efficiency, while they carpet-bombed fat crossover SUVs with 500bhp glacier-melters?” What hypocritical madness. And what a great piece of business. Mercedes builds AMG GLCs with V6s and V8s – that’s the 63 AMG, still packing 503bhp,…

AUDI S6 AVANT QUATTRO £62,000 (approx.) ↑ FOR Space, pace, range and under-the-radar looks ↓ AGAINST The fact that the four tailpipes are fakes grates a lot If you’re looking for a fast, useful Audi family wagon, then try an S6 Avant as well as an SQ5. It’s got the same brawny engine, quattro and well-matched ’box, goes just as fast yet has more loadspace. It also feels much more fluid and fun on the odd occasion you can stretch its legs, sounds better and looks nicer (with the caveat that it doesn’t look a whole lot different to an S line A6 Avant). It’s subtle, quick and has range an RS variant could only dream of. TF BENTLEY BENTAYGA SPEED £182,200 ↑ FOR Slightly faster and sportier than a…

TG RUNS A YOUNGTIMER HELP THE AGED 306 RALLYE: PART 3 An email from Matt Jobling at Pug1Off where the 306 went to be brought back to life. “You’re not going to believe this, but we’ve replaced the battery and the seized fuel pump, done a quick puncture repair on the nearside rear for the convenience of rolling it about the place and… she’s alive.” I’m lightly flabbergasted. A month ago 100 per cent dead in a lock-up and covered with cobwebs, but after the application of some automotive defibrillation, 100 per cent alive. I read on eagerly. Inevitably I shouldn’t have bothered. In my emotional state I’d read ‘alive’ and assumed ‘factory fresh and ready to roll’. Of course not. The rest of Matt’s email details the issues that…

REMEMBERING RETRO GAMING THE CLASSICS Before Sega Rally came along, this was as realistic as arcade rally games got. World Rally opted for a top-down view but benefited massively from a main sprite that was digitised directly from photos of a Toyota Celica GT-Four. Or at least photos of a scale model of a Toyota Celica GT-Four – it’s difficult to tell at this resolution. The game also had some fantastically throaty digitised audio samples from a real rally-spec engine, and when you dropped your pound coin into the machine you were treated to exactly the same start-up sound that Carlos Sainz Snr would have heard at the beginning of a day at the office. It was that audio that really sold the fantasy. You were treated to a burbling…

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