Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Over the centuries, all creative industries have seen a battle between the artists and the financiers. And so it is with North Korean budget superminis. Back at Rong Un Motors’s Pyongyang HQ sit the money men, pinching every won*, especially when it comes to signing off the necessary living expenses** of their test drivers. But out here, in the Nevada desert, stands a man with a grand dream. That man is me, and his dream is to make the Cheery Bong II the best-handling North Korean supermini bar none. All that stands between this dream and reality is the limit of my own imagination, and in a much more real and threatening sense, the Rong Un Motors management. Sure, some may see test drivers as nothing more than walking crash…

Welcome to the new Audi RS6 Avant. Power by turbo V8. Interior by Star Wars. Bodywork by The Incredible Hulk. The old 552bhp Audi RS6 was hardly a Q-car, but this new version is a whopper, 80mm wider overall than your manager’s A6 Avant. Those wheels? A huge 22 inches, to fit the biggest Audi brakes ever. A 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 delivers 592bhp, and torque’s up by 73lb ft to 590lb ft, because the new RS6’s gearbox can handle the twist. It has an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox and four-wheel drive, of course. You’ll go from rest to 62mph in just 3.6 seconds, and on to 189mph. Along the way, the body is automatically lowered thanks to intelligent air suspension, which also works to keep the RS6 level in corners. It’s…

Bugatti knows ultra-limited-run models are lucrative business… remember the £12m ‘La Voiture Noire’? The £5m Divo? Now, a run of 10 Centodieci, at £9m each. But this is more than just a cynical revenue generator, there’s a proper narrative at work. The EB110, a contemporary of the McLaren F1, was powered by a 550bhp, 3.5-litre quad-turbo V12, with a carbon-fibre chassis and active aero, manufactured in a state-of-the-art facility in Campogalliano, near Modena. Marcello Gandini drafted a shape that would redefine the Nineties supercar idiom. Former Lamborghini engineering supremo Paolo Stanzani was also key. Ex-Ferrari technical wizard Nicola Materazzi – the father of the F40 – was on board. Hell, Michael Schumacher celebrated his first F1 title by buying one in 1994. Unfortunately, not enough other people followed his lead,…

01 B Engineering Edonis (Bugatti EB110) When the Italian resurrection of Bugatti went belly-up, the engineers and designers made the B Engineering Edonis. Only two issues: 1) they removed the front driveshafts so it was only RWD, 2) they binned the four small turbos to fit two big ’uns, lifting power to around 700bhp. 02 Bristol Fighter (Dodge Viper) Bristol built its own chassis, but the engine came from the Viper – an 8.0-litre V10 with 523bhp. The gearbox was also carried over, but fettled by Bristol to be less truck-like. And they set about the engine too, to liberate more horses – over 600 for the ‘S’ model. 03 Devon GTX (erm, Dodge Viper) Founded in California in 2006, Devon Motorworks intended to rebody and power up the Viper…

Ireckon we make it 12 words into this without mentioning Tesla. Whoops. Autumn 2019 and, at last, there’s a big-hitting electric family car group test that doesn’t feature one of Elon’s Silicon Valley chip-chariots. Tesla always protested its mission wasn’t so much to build world-beating cars as to give the global auto-giants a crowd-pleasing kick up the exhaust pipe. Here’s their reaction. Audi vs Jag vs, well, not the first electric vehicle from the company that brought you The Car. But the first one to launch an EQ sub-brand that’ll duel the VW’s ID family, the next gen of iBMWs, and yep, Tesla. The Merc EQC is a very important car. Not that it looks it. It’s a blob. Current Merc design boils down to: “Sorry we blemished our cars…

“THE SWITCH TO DIESEL – PARIAH FUEL AMONG GOVERNMENTS – IS PUZZLING” £49,400 FOR Good kit levels, strong engine, right size and space, better than a fast SUV AGAINST Diesel is a double-edged sword these days, a few calibration issues This month, Audi revealed the all-new RS6 (see page 20), a properly pumped, steroidal super-estate. Hard to get excited about its cut-price sibling as a result, especially now it’s powered by diesel. Over the years, the S4 has been powered along by all sorts of kit: a 2.7-litre twin-turbo V6, a nat-asp V8 4.2, a supercharged 3.0 and a single-turbo V6. But this is the first time it hasn’t burned petrol in its cylinders. The switch to diesel – a pariah fuel among governments and one that’s previously failed to…

The metamorphosis of the sweet but humble 205 into steroidal gravel hoover was arguably the most unexpected in the WRC, not least because the engine went backwards into the area usually occupied by baguettes. In an era of considerable cool, the T16 was the guv’nor. Ari Vatanen and co-driver Terry Harryman debuted it in the Tour de Corse in May 1984. By the third stage, he was quickest, and outpointing the Audi Quattro. By stage eight, he was leading. A fairy-tale debut was crushed on the first stage of the final morning when the car crashed, and caught fire. The duo won three in a row as the season progressed, and in 1985, the team took constructor’s and driver’s titles, with Timo Salonen winning seven of the 11 rounds, while…

HAVE YOU PHOTOGRAPHED A TOY CAR? It feels like it. Any adult who’s attempted to commandeer one of the kids’ ride-ons in Toys’R’Us (RIP) will experience a sense of déjà vu as they squeeze their limbs into a classic Alpine and try to operate its three pedals independently, rather than together as one. THE OLD ONE MUSTN’T WEIGH ANYTHING It’s a teeny 790kg. You’ll have seen just about every car journalist declare the new A110 a breath of fresh air and a paragon for lightweighting, but parked beside its 300kg-lighter ancestor it suddenly seems a bit lardy and tech-laden. But it’s still a glorious exemplar for keeping cars skinny and simple, and a visit to see its granddad also gives credibility to its styling flourishes, even if it’s taken functional…

REPORT 7 £67,740 OTR/£72,145 as tested/£892pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is there more to the Velar than style alone? DRIVER Ollie Marriage LET’S GET THIS OFF TO A CONTROVERSIAL START. I THINK THE VELAR is perhaps the most competent off-roader Land Rover makes. Better than a Range Rover, a Discovery or even the upcoming new Defender. Because it’s all about expectation. And size, actually. The Velar is the right size. Well, it’s just a more sensible size. The right size, unless you just want to sit in the tyre tracks of those that have gone before, is probably a Suzuki Jimny. Start bashing about in a Discovery or Range Rover, and farm tracks start to feel very narrow, and you a very long way above them. Now, being well-distanced from what’s…

A DAY COMMUNING WITH NATURE IN THE YOUNGEST COUNTRY WHO: TOM FORD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR Once, for reasons that remain unclear, I was driving a – then new – Land Rover Defender around Iceland. It was a giant Defender, mind. One on massive tyres. We ended up on the shores of some isolated glacial lake where, after encouragement by my local guide, I drove said Defender into the lake, and gently shepherded a small iceberg to shore using the winch bar - ‘small’ being relative – it was about three times the size of the car. We then chipped ancient ice off the fresh ’berg for drinks. Seemed like a good idea at the time. HIDDEN SHALLOWS WHO: OLLIE MARRIAGE, MOTORING EDITOR First car I ever drove, but that’s not what…

1. The new 1-Series isn’t rear-drive and has no possibility of a 6cyl engine. Some people see that as a kind of sell-out. Most of the first- and second-gen 1-Series were 116 and 118. Customers of those cars didn’t notice; they didn’t care what wheels were driven. 2. If they didn’t care, why spoil it for the big-engine buyers by changing to FWD? Many of the big-engined cars were xDrive, and the new 120d and 135i are xDrive as standard. By changing to transverse engines there’s more space in the back, a bigger boot and it’s 30kg lighter. We care about the driving. We have multi-link rear suspension with all engines, not a cheap axle with lower engines. Plus we now have synergies with the X1, X2 and Minis. But…

“IT’S BUSINESS AS USUAL HERE – UNPRETENTIOUS BUT ALSO DEEPLY UNINTERESTING” £19,500 (est.) FOR Vast space, very comfortable if you avoid the needless ‘sports’ chassis AGAINST It’s just so derivative, in a way the lovable Skoda Yeti wasn’t The Kamiq is smaller and cheaper than the Kodiaq and Karoq, and completes Skoda’s triplet of SUVs. VW classmate Seat has the same set-up: teeny Arona, middle-sized Ateca and big-boy Taracco. VW has the T-Cross, T-Roc and Tiguan. You really ought to know the formula by now. These things are everywhere. All Kamiqs drive their front wheels. The spec list is simple: basic S trim cars should start at around £17,000, then there’s SE, and SE L levels to upgrade. Skoda reckons a mid-range 1.0-litre SE manual will be the bestseller, so…

“YOU REALLY HAVE TO EXPERIENCE IT TO APPRECIATE THE SCALE OF THE ACHIEVEMENT” £203,476 FOR Magnificent engine, stunning chassis and ride/handling balance, dramatic design AGAINST Software overload slightly pollutes the pure Ferrari experience, heinously expensive Sometimes the world’s most famous car company can come over a little… needy. Its 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8 has won a hatful of awards. The best engine of the past 20 years? Apparently so, according to the International Engine of the Year jurors, which hasn’t stopped its creators from reinvigorating it, wrapping it in a heavily revised body and calling it F8 Tributo. Abba got Bjorn Again. Now Ferrari is paying tribute to itself. And what tunes this thing can play. The F8 is a more user-friendly 488 Pista, broadening the special series car’s intense dynamic…

£34,250 FOR Faster, decent to drive, and actually a little cheaper than its main rivals AGAINST Bit too mature for a Mini JCW? Clubman still not a massively practical item Facelifts are usually accompanied by minuscule power increases – maybe 10 or if you’re lucky 20 horsepower if anything at all. The revised Mini John Cooper Works Clubman is, therefore, quite unusual. Because even though it looks the same as the old one, it has almost a THIRD more power and torque. That’s down to a new engine – the same 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged motor as the new BMW M135i. So where once you got a measly 228bhp and 258lb ft, you now get 302bhp and 332lb ft. Predictably, this increase has had a profound effect on performance – the…

It’s been like the build-up to a royal wedding. Anticipation is at fever pitch and everyone has their own opinion what it should be like. Yet on one thing we can agree: the somewhat entitled assumption that no other nation could do this quite like the British do. Well, the moment has arrived. The new Defender. How is it for you? Land Rover doesn’t permit us to imagine this pomp and ceremony is in any way hollow. The Defender is, above all, authentic. But authentically what, exactly? Let’s first suppress the clamour for this vehicle to be a reincarnation of the original. That’d be commercial suicide. The old one went out of production not just because it was dangerous and polluting, but because too few people wanted it. It’s a…

Speed is relative. If you’ve been lucky enough to fly off on holiday this year, you’ll have done 150mph as you trundle down the runway, then cruised at 500–600mph as you battle with the tray table and in-flight food options. I have no doubt some of you will have been to the toilet at this velocity – congratulations. Clearly, our perception of speed is skewed by the environment. Back on the ground, speed is currency. In a world where bragging rights drive purchase decisions, the ability to say “My car is faster than yours” matters. The Bugatti Chiron Sport has a claimed (and limited) top speed of 420kph (261mph). To date, no one outside of the Bugatti development team has experienced vmax in a Chiron. My task – if I…

WHEN IT COMES TO BUILDING AND, CRUCIALLY, SELLING MOTOR VEHICLES EN MASSE, VOLKSWAGEN HAS A BIT OF A KNACK. “INSIDE, THE ID.3 ISN’T FULL TESLA, BUT IT’S HEADING THAT WAY” It shifted well over 20 million Beetles and then, in the Seventies, introduced a car called the Golf… you may have heard of it. Seven generations, an eighth coming later this year, 35 million sold so far. Now we arrive at the ID.3, a car VW says marks the beginning of its third era (hence the name) and with any luck will sweep all of that Dieselgate nonsense under the carpet once and for all. This isn’t a toe in the water like the stopgap e-Golf and e-Up, it’s the fifirst model on a new, bespoke MEB electric car platform…

REPORT 2 £31,835 OTR/£36,185 as tested/£455pcm WHY IT’S HERE Meh first impressions. Can RenaultSport redeem itself over time? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, WE’VE ENTERED A SORT OF REAR-WHEELsteer renaissance. Everyone from Porsche to Lamborghini has started using all four wheels to help change direction, not just the fronts. It’s technology Nissan pioneered in the mid-Eighties, fitting HICAS (High Capacity Actively Controlled Steering) to the R31 Skyline. Being expensive, heavy and sometimes unreliable, this tech all but died out. But now it’s back. With cars getting bigger and heavier, there’s a proper thirst for fourwheel-steering to help hide heffalumps and make fast cars faster – 4WS is a useful way of killing two birds with one stone. At low speeds, the rear wheels turn in the opposite…

Cupra Ateca GOODBYE £35,900/£41,175/£344pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does this new Cupra brand thing work? And does a hot-hatch SUV? DRIVER Owen Norris Seat Leon Cupra R ST HELLO £37,975 OTR/£39,275 as tested/£551pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can you really have a proper family wagon and a hot-hatch in one? DRIVER Jack Rix JR: Time for a game of swapsies. I’ll do the honours and drive ‘your’ Cupra Ateca back to Seat, and at the same time I can collect ‘my’ new Leon Cupra R ST. Sound fair? ON: Wait. What? I have to give up the Ateca? You’ll have to fight me for the keys, Rix. I never thought I’d be saying that six months ago. I’m genuinely going to miss it. It’s really grown on me, this car. Other SUVs…

REPORT 3 £28,330 OTR/£29,400 as tested/£290pcm WHY IT’S HERE Do crossovers work best when they’re determinedly anti-sporty? DRIVER Paul Horrell THE AIRCROSS IS AN MPV MASQUERADING AS AN SUV. SO IT’S GOT three individual sliding/folding/reclining back seats. I figured I’d be needing to shift a couple forward because we were carrying a lot in the boot. A folding bike, for starters – a bulky one with 26in wheels. Alongside that was the kit for a moderately outdoorsy week for three people, the equivalent of about five or six airline-sized holdalls. But no, it all went in without having to disturb the seats at all. The boot is isn’t just big fore-aft, but amazingly so top-to-bottom, and still has a space-saver spare beneath. That’s an advantage of not having actual 4x4…

GOODBYE £34,410 OTR/£44,055 as tested/£433pcm WHY IT’S HERE We loved our XC40, but is the wagon better to live with? DRIVER Adam Waddell BACK IN MAY, WE WERE FILMING A PROMO CLIP FOR THE RECENT series of TG, and I took the chance to have our Volvo V60 photographed alongside one of the star cars from the show – Paddy McGuinness’s converted hearse. The irony is, if you drive a new Volvo, you’ll be unlikely to need a hearse yourself anytime soon, such is the company’s commitment to safety. Back in 2008, Volvo announced its Vision 2020 initiative, which aims to ensure that from next year nobody is killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo. Our V60 comes packed with all the safety features required to nab a five-star…

Slung low, wide of hip, its body melting over huge tyres and lazily slipping through the air, the Taycan has Porsche written all over it. But it’s spiced up by constituents shot from somewhere in the next decade: the floating headlamps, the huge curved instrument screen and the haptic interface. Its acceleration is quick enough to blitz nearly everything Porsche makes, with a 2.8sec thump from zero to 62mph and 0–125mph in under 10, executed with instant, uninterrupted thrust. The £115,858 Taycan Turbo and £138,826 Turbo S (see, normal Porsche names for not-normal Porsches) both kick out the equivalent of 625bhp from their front and rear motors combined. The Turbo S, in its Sport mode, gets ‘overboost’ via a more powerful front inverter, taking it to 761bhp. Off-the-line oomph comes…

Say hello to Siån (pronounced ‘Shh-ahnn’), the fastest and most powerful car to ever come out of Sant’Agata Bolognese. Yep, Lambo has gone hybrid. But not as you’d imagine… it’s juicing its beloved V12 with supercapacitor technology rather than lithium-ion batteries. Their main advantage is the ability to accept and deliver charge much faster and to tolerate many more charge and discharge cycles. Crucially, they’re also lighter and more energy-dense. The Siån uses a supercapacitor that is three times more powerful than a battery of the same weight, or three times lighter than a battery producing the same power, feeding a 48-volt e-motor, delivering 33bhp. Like other mild hybrid systems, it has been incorporated into the gearbox, meaning the e-motor can take the strain during low-speed manoeuvres. More importantly, it…

Back in the Sixties, people were suspicious of Japanese products. But when the ‘economic miracle’ got into full swing, the world had never seen anything like it. Just a few years after getting a horrendous pasting in the war, they focused their inner warrior into making stuff. Japan quickly became a manufacturing powerhouse, churning out vast numbers of cars, tellies and watches. One watch, the Seiko 5, shows the economic miracle in miniature. Seiko’s approach was the same as every Japanese-made product: borrow the best ideas from around the world; add a sprinkle of home-grown ingenuity; do everything to the very highest standard. They wanted a cool-looking watch with an automatic-winding movement that was robust enough to take a knock or two if you stumbled on your way out of…

Meet the Corsa-e Rally, an actual, proper rally car based on the showroom plug-in hatchback. It’ll be the star of the world’s first fully electric rally championship, the ADAC Opel e-Rally Cup. The Corsa-e Rally uses the road car’s powertrain – so 134bhp and 192lb ft of torque – but you can forget the claimed 200-mile range when you’re attacking rally stages at flat chat. Top speed is 94mph; 0–62mph takes 8.1secs. It weighs 1,400kg, which is heavy, but unavoidable with motors and batteries on board. The ESP and ABS have been deactivated, there’s new suspension and the front axle gains a Torsen differential.…

“I CAN’T THINK OF A BETTER £25K HATCH TO DO A LONG JOURNEY IN” £26,510 FOR Impressive new engines, good economy and refinement, smooth diesel, cabin space AGAINST Can you spot the difference? Still not very interesting to look at… or drive A new Vauxhall Astra. Could you not tell? Can you not spot the new grille and bumper? Look, here’s the score. Vauxhall is now owned by PSA Peugeot-Citroen, which obviously wants to save costs by integrating the model ranges as closely as possible. But that takes time. And by the time the deal was done, Vauxhall was already hard at work on the Astra, too far gone to make cancelling it economically viable. An all-new Astra, built on a PSA platform, with jointly developed powertrains, should be along…

“IN SPORT MODE IT’S ONE OF THE WILDEST VEHICLES ON SALE” £77,995 FOR A modern Morgan with strong performance and polite road manners AGAINST £25k more than a BMW Z4 or Toyota Supra. And much less practical This is an entirely new Morgan. Seriously. It may look like almost every four-wheeled car in the company’s history, but this is a clean-sheet design, and every component – bar the metallic stoppers that keep the bonnet shut – is fresh. Where the outgoing Plus 8 used a 4.8-litre V8 from a bunch of old BMW saloons, the Plus Six utilises the same 3.0-litre straight-six as the new Z4 and a little-known sports car called ‘Toyota Supra’, driving the rear wheels exclusively through an 8spd automatic box. Yep, this is Morgan’s first ever…

MASERATI LEVANTE TROFEO £124,900 FOR A Maser SUV with a Ferrari engine. Noisy, fun and a bit silly AGAINST Not as clinical as a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S Basically a Q4 4WD Levante with a Ferrari assembled and developed (but definitely not nicked from the Portofino) twin-turbo V8, it’s a wonderful mix of flair and slight obnoxiousness. It hustles and howls in equal measure, is a bit of a handful in the wet in the wrong/right mode, looks subtly handsome. There’s a grand dose of theatre about a not-Ferrari-engined SUV that TG has marked out as a Maserati-shaped guilty pleasure. RANGE ROVER SPORT P400 HST £81,250 FOR New engine does benefit both drivability and economy AGAINST Range Rover’s 48V tech is more limited than rivals Think of this as a…

BEFORE ANY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS WRITE IN, LET’S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT… We definitely faked our Moon landing. Total hoax. Never happened. TopGear can magic up many things, but parking a Land Rover on our lunar neighbour for a cover shoot is – for now – beyond us. Still, hell of an effort, don’t you reckon? I mean, proper Hollywood-grade fakery. But here’s the thing: it’s not quite as made-up as you might think. Some bits are so real you could almost touch them. Don’t believe me? You’re not alone. So allow us to let you in on a few secrets. For starters, to shoot the new Defender on the Moon, first we had to take it to Mexico. In hand luggage. Yep, the car you see on the cover is,…

For most, 262mph – the top speed of a ‘regular’ Chiron – would be sufficient. In the hypercar world, however, being the fastest takes on a whole new importance. It’s a fundamental selling point, and, while some of the metrics driving purchases are subjective, being the fastest is binary. In recent years, the battle to claim the title between SSC (256.18mph two-way average, 2007) Hennessey (270.49mph two-way average, 2013) and Koenigsegg (284.55 vmax, 277.87 two-way average, 2017) has brought the record within touching distance of the mythical 300mph. It’s also taken away Bugatti’s dominance since 2010, something the team from Molsheim is keen to redress. “Being the fastest is not the right expression,” says Stefan Ellrott, head of development for Bugatti. “Moving boundaries would be better. Bugatti is known for…

The guilty stench of clutch hangs about the entrance of the world’s only Mazda MX-5-themed hotel. I’m confident the pungent aroma of poor co-ordination isn’t emanating from ‘my’ brand new MX-5 30th Anniversary Edition. The only one in Italy. I dunno, maybe it’s the natural odour of the vineyards baking on the hillside, or some by-product of a local truffle harvest. The central Italian province of Perugia has until now been renowned for exports of wine and posh fungus. Now it has this place: Miataland. A hotel where you don’t just blag mini-shampoos and the branded slippers. You get the keys to the greatest compilation of Mazda roadsters anywhere on the planet with your breakfast. And it’s just become apparent the collection includes… a Solero-orange MX-5 30th Anniversary, basking in…

I was meant to be telling you about fixing the paintwork. Afraid not – the first quotes that came back for respraying both bumpers, the front nearside wing and rear offside panel were the thick end of £1,500. Instead this has been chasing-my-tail month. Summer is the time for driving, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Good stuff first: the Michelin Pilot Sport 3s have transformed the Rallye. I took the car out on a lovely summer’s evening and came back bubbling with enthusiasm. It’s not so much the grip as the precise line they hold, I exclaimed to the family, the way they add clarity to the handling, plus calmness to the ride. Turns out that’s not a dinner-time conversation starter. I went out eagerly the next evening. Didn’t…

In an era when most driving games either had you in a sleek modern supercar or a TNT-stuffed go-kart pedalled by a cartoon tortoise, Driver on the original PlayStation stood apart. This open-world game turned back the clock and pitched you as an undercover cop masquerading as a fearless getaway driver, in a plot pulled right from a Seventies heist movie. Or, at least it did as long as you could complete your legendarily difficult getaway driver audition, a mandatory piece of underground car park autocross that represented your very first mission for the mob. For less skilled players it probably also represented the entirety of the game as they tried and repeatedly failed to perform the slalom without slamming headlong into a concrete pillar. Conquer this surprisingly exacting ‘tutorial’…