Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

THE GRILL THE QUESTIONS THEY REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO BE ASKED… 1 Volvo is a responsible employer. Why join with Uber, considered by some to be a notoriously bad “employer” and one that increases urban congestion? We’re not in bed with them. We just sell them cars. It’s a way for us to understand robotaxis. 2 But you have been talking about your own autonomous drive systems. So when will an autonomous Volvo come? Ours will not be a robotaxi. It’ll be a premium car with very advanced highway cruise. And it’ll be safer than it’s perceived – we won’t give the impression it’s automated when it isn’t. 3 So not an autonomous car. And not yet. When? In our next-generation XC90, which is from 2022. At first it’ll operate…

Lego Technic TopGear Rally Car Fellow Lego nerds, rejoice! We’ve joined forces with the folks over at Lego Technic to bring you this little bundle of joy: an app-controlled rally car. Oh yes. The Lego Technic TG Rally Car begins its life as a 463-piece model, which includes an XL motor and a Bluetooth-controlled smart hub. Then, once you’ve built the thing and downloaded the Lego Technic Control+ app, you can pretend your living room is a rally stage, thanks to full driving functionality along with multitouch and gyro controls. The app also features a number of different challenges, records your achievements and even lets you play inspirational videos to help you feel like a mini Sébastien Loeb. The car, which we helped design, offers a satisfyingly challenging build for…

Odd bunch, right? Traditionally, a BMW 3-Series would lord it over driver-pleasing, junior-exec expresses like a Jaguar XE and Alfa Romeo Giulia. A Volkswagen Passat’s role in life is giving Mondeo man something to aspire to. And the Mitsubishi Outlander is the motoring equivalent of the outdoorsy hiking boots and puffer jackets sold in the middle lucky-dip aisles at Lidl. You’d like a Land Rover really, but the, erm, Outlander – though the most expensive car here – is just too much car for too little money to turn down. So, these cars are not rivals. And yet… Throwing some plug sockets into the mix blurs the lines. These three are the front line of the plug-in hybrid family-car war. The all-new BMW 330e, substantially revised VW Passat GTE and…

£75,470 FOR Great new engine, classier handling, fresher tech AGAINST A fairly light rejig means it still has a tiny bootU Upsizing. It’s not a word that’s yet entered the automotive lexicon, but if this refreshed F-Type proves to be pioneering, it may do so soon. See, Jaguar’s sports car has had the biggest rejig of its seven-year life and those controversial new headlights aside, the biggest news story sits in the engine bay. Gone, in the UK at least, is the 3.0-litre supercharged V6 engine that powered the sweetest of all the Fs, replaced by a 5.0-litre V8. Just as nigh on every single carmaker is trimming the size of its engines to desperately limbo under increasingly lower emissions regulations… You’ve still got the option of a friendlier, four-cylinder…

LAZENBY FILM DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN IS A HUGE FAN OF ON HER Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969’s orphan Bond movie. “What I liked about it, is there’s a tremendous balance of action, scale, and romanticism and tragedy and emotion,” he told Empire. “Of all the Bond films, it’s by far the most emotional.” One wonders what emotion its star, George Lazenby, experiences these days. An Australian model who blagged his way into an audition only to land the most coveted role in cinema, he later failed to toe the party line, grew his hair out and added a beard, and in the era of Easy Rider reckoned Bond was irrelevant. He reckoned wrong, and talked himself out of a promising career. The truth is, both Lazenby and OHMSS are surprisingly good. We…

BMW’S DEAL WITH BOND PRODUCERS YIELDED THE UNPROMISING Z3 in GoldenEye, and a 750iL in Tomorrow Never Dies (an E38 and arguably the best-looking 7-Series, but still a big silver limo), before hitting pay dirt in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough when 007 gets his hands on the Z8. It’s not in the film as much as it should be, nor do we get to see BMW’s 394bhp, rear-drive retro-roadster do what it’s undoubtedly capable of: going heroically sideways. Instead, Bond drives it through an Azerbaijan oilfield and later watches as it’s eviscerated by a helicopter fitted with spinning saw blades. This lack of screen time is largely down to the fact BMW hadn’t finished developing the Z8 when the producers decided this was the car they needed, and…

1 It’s Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond TOPGEAR: SO, HOW ARE YOU FEELING? DANIEL CRAIG: I’m good. It was emotional to finish; it always is to finish a movie that you’ve been working on for two years, with a bunch of people you get very close to. I’m just immensely proud of the whole thing, of the five movies. What I’ll miss most is the collaborative process that goes on when you make these films. The Bond ecosystem is unique. TG: WHAT DID YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE THIS TIME? IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH THE SCRIPT, DOESN’T IT? DC: When I finished Casino Royale, I thought, “We’ve made a good movie.” But I was quite prepared to go, “That’s it, I did one movie, swing and a miss,” and walk…

“Here’s what it is, man. I want to build really bad-ass stuff, but if you’re a craftsman who is actually a technologist, you need to create the right tools. I want this car company Czinger to be five blocks ahead of anybody else on the planet in creating these tools and expressing them as the cutting edge of the mind.” Meet Kevin Czinger, founder of Czinger Vehicles. Not your average CEO. A man of humble beginnings from Cleveland, Ohio, the first to go to college from his “very working class family”, where “nobody cracked open a book”, who cites watching Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man in 1973 – a BBC-produced series that plotted the history of humankind, showing art, creativity and technology were entirely interwoven – as the point…

The KS8, a BMW 850i with 510bhp courtesy of a new supercharger and near 200mph vmax. A Willy waver In 1992, Lamborghini showed a topless Diablo concept at the Geneva Motor Show. Then didn’t make it. Koenig did If you wanted to ball out back then, you needed your R129 with a bodykit and in Barney the Dinosaur purple The first KOENIG-SPECIAL. Unhappy with Ferrari’s new flat-12 supercar, Willy turbocharged it and turned it up to 11…

TG RUNS A YOUNGTIMER HELP THE AGED 306 RALLYE: PART 12 Get a specialist involved. It makes things so much more straightforward. Took the 306 to Andy Reid at ARM Motorsport after ATS had failed to sort the wheel balance (I think they knew, since they offered it FOC). Anyway, had a phone call later that morning to say it was done. And you know what? This time, it actually was. “These are tricky wheels to balance”, Andy told me. “Mounting them on the machine is a skill in itself because there’s no wheel centre – you have to use the four-bolt pattern. Anyway, the nearest wheel was 20g out, the rest more.” I took it for a drive to celebrate. It honestly felt like a different car. Not only…

This achingly Nineties top-down racing game had a career mode that, we’d venture, hasn’t been surpassed in driving games since. In addition to racking up your championship points as usual, against such legendary drivers as ‘Ayrton Sendup’ and ‘Crashard Banger’ no less, you were as busy off the track as you were on it. In between races you’d find yourself badgering your sponsor for more funding, avoiding the attention of environmental activists and rolling the solicitors of wealthy relatives for extra dough. It’s like Derek Trotter, the motor racing years. You’d need every penny you could scrape together too, not just for repairs, but for an arsenal of weapons that would make Rambo blush. In the very lightly sanctioned world of Super Cars II, if your driving skills aren’t quite…

REPORT 3 £40,995 OTR/£50,555 as tested/£465pcm WHY IT’S HERE A 3-Series estate is one of motoring’s ultimate yardsticks DRIVER Andy Franklin THOSE OF YOU WHO READ GARAGE UPDATES EVERY MONTH WILL know from my first report how I had a plan to fit my young family of five into an estate car. A car like a 3-Series Touring, at this stage of my young family’s life, is essentially useless to me. Why? Because all three of my children (ages eight, five and two) are still in kids’ seats, and it’s impossible to fit three child seats across the rear. But what if you really want a 3-Series Touring, and refuse to compromise? Well, there is a solution. Kevin Macliver (think James Dyson of vacuum-cleaner fame) created a genius answer when…

REPORT 3 £85,865 OTR/£103,815 as tested/£1,086pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s one of the world’s cleverest PHEVs. But will it stay relevant? DRIVER Charlie Turner MONTH THREE OF LIFE WITH THE BIG PORSCHE PHEV AND IT continues to impress. I love the fact that every control and switch feels like it will outlast my time on this planet. The more miles we accumulate, the more the unparalleled build quality is affirmed in the way the Panam tackles any journey. It oozes solidity and dependability, and manages one of the most complex powertrains with a mass of processing power that makes it one of the most broadly talented and fascinating cars I’ve ever driven. But, despite its brilliance, try as we might, we simply can’t get the Panamera beyond 38mpg in normal…

WHO KNEW? It’s the first hot Leon ever not to be offered with a manual. In the Nineties, that would’ve been as alien as Apple CarPlay… A hot hatch should be all things to all people. Sporty, practical, safe, affordable, chuckable… and economical? Traditionally, that’s where a hot hatchback’s biggest compromise elbows its way in. But what if your hot hatch was also a plug-in hybrid? Silent electro-running for the school gates, turbocharged fury for when school’s out. Enter the new Cupra Leon eHybrid. The best of all worlds, and best for the world, surely? Seat’s sporty racing offshoot hasn’t invented this idea. The old Mk7 Golf had a GTE version, and VW’s already confirmed it’ll be back for the Golf VIII. Seat’s old Leon Cupra didn’t get a look-in…

Two years ago, Aston launched the new Vantage. Now, Gaydon’s got the jaws of life out and lopped off its roof, replacing it with one made of fabric. And retractable. In fact, the powered Z-fold mechanism is the fastest cloth roof in the game, capable of lowering itself in 6.7 seconds and raising in 6.8 seconds at up to 31mph. To be honest, we didn’t know anyone was keeping tabs. Because of a shallow design, this new retractable roof still leaves plenty of room in the rear for whatever you want to throw back there… 200 litres of stuff. Which, we’re told, is enough to stow a full-sized golf bag and accessories. Mechanically, it’s business as usual. The Roadster features the same AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 (but recalibrated by Aston)…

The genius of Diego Maradona as a footballer was never in doubt. His status as a style guru is still up for debate. In recent years, he has regularly been spotted wearing identical luxury watches on both wrists, something he does when travelling abroad, with one watch always set to home time back in Argentina. Maradona’s favoured double-wrister is made by Hublot, a Swiss watch brand that is something of a maverick genius in its own right. It was started in 1980, at a time when it looked like expensive mechanical watches were going to be edged into irrelevance by cheap quartz. Not only are fancy watches here to stay, said Hublot, they are about to get a whole lot fancier. The name means “porthole” in French and the first…

The recipe for this free, mobile phone version of Nintendo’s legendary racer is much the same as it was in the Nineties – drifty, fiercely competitive kart racing with the addition of an arsenal of colourful weaponry. The difference here is that the single-thumb control system means you could play this while walking a dog, making a pancake or, more likely, clinging on for grim death on a packed bus. There are a bunch of classic Mario Kart circuits, allowing gaming veterans the advantage of local knowledge to offset the disadvantage of crippling RSI. Like most free-to-play games, Tour does nag you to spend money on optional trinkets, but crucially it never stands in the way of you playing another race. For that reason, and the promise of multiplayer coming…

HYUNDAI VELOSTER eTCR FOR Looks wild, but is welcoming to drive. And it’s a real racer AGAINST eTCR isn’t – yet – a customer race series NISSAN LEAF RC FOR The best-looking Leaf ever. Also easy to drive AGAINST It’s nowt more than a development car. Boo Racing cars usually have an aura about them. They sit brooding in their pit garage, intimidatingly slick tyres stacked up nearby, looking ready to bite the uninitiated. But this is different. The aura surrounding the Hyundai Veloster eTCR is palpable, not least because of the warning hangars and actual cordon surrounding it. It’s charging, y’see. This is an electric racing car – Hyundai’s first – and all of the training for its mechanics has come from the company’s motorsport HQ in Germany. It’s…

£64,088 FOR Boxster and Cayman have the motor their chassis deserves AGAINST But only on more expensive trim levels Porsche has never been afraid of a public U-turn. Its latest – and perhaps greatest – backpedal comes in the form of this new 718 GTS 4.0. This is Stuttgart waving the white flag and acknowledging that, for enthusiasts at least, putting a four-cylinder turbo in Boxsters and Caymans wasn’t cool. Mind, the flat-four engine continues in lower trim levels. Its diminutive engine size is so compliant with China’s stringent tax rules that the 718 now holds an almost 90 per cent market share for two-seater cars there, while it’s snared an unlikely amount of first-time Porsche buyers elsewhere, as fans of effortless turbo power delivery step up from Audi TTs…

“JAMES BOND IS A BLUNT INSTRUMENT WIELDED BY A government department”, his creator Ian Fleming noted. “He is quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic and fatalistic. He likes gambling, golf and fast motor cars.” Fleming’s character co-ordinates would be well-observed and liberally interpreted across the 24 films the world’s highest-profile fictional spy has appeared in over the past 58 years. Now, Bond 25 is imminent. No Time To Die arrives in cinemas next month, allowing Daniel Craig to flex his actorly muscles as he signs off from playing 007, putting him through the emotional wringer, while the film’s stunt crew and production designers reimagine the very essence of a car chase yet again. Apparently No Time To Die features the most brutal one ever seen in a Bond movie. Which made us think.…

BOND FILMS REFLECT ERAS. NOT JUST THE GEOPOLITICAL ONES unfolding during production, but also the one that was the backdrop to your first 007 viewing experience. And if you happen to be a child of the Seventies, then Roger Moore’s your man, and the Lotus Esprit is the car. Elon Musk is such a fanboy he paid almost $1m for one of the prop cars at an auction in 2013. When asked in a 2019 Tesla shareholder’s meeting whether he’d consider creating an aquatic car, he replied, “Funny you should mention that… we do have a design for a submarine car like the one from The Spy Who Loved Me…” Honestly, what’s not to love? Giorgetto Giugiaro designed it, Colin Chapman engineered it, James Bond turned it into a submersible.…

WINNER BEST BOND CAR… EVER CRAIG IN SPECTRE, BOND GOES BESPOKE. NEVER MIND Q’S VARIOUS modifications, this time 007 ends up with a clean-sheet car, the DB10. Originally allocated to 009, Bond snaffles it, uses it to gatecrash an emergency meeting of the world’s most evil villains, gets embroiled in a startling car chase through the streets of Rome, unleashes a flamethrower, then parks his Aston at high speed in the River Tiber having just parachuted to safety. Hell of a test drive. Ten DB10s were created for SPECTRE, three hero cars and seven stunt units, each running a set-up according to its role in the chase sequence. The one you see here is a seriously naughty-sounding, super-slidey example, beefed-up with a roll cage and a hydraulic handbrake sprouting out…

Things were looking properly dodgy for Aston Martin in the first weeks of 2020. They couldn’t even get the DBX crossover into production without new borrowing at interest rates so punishingly high it was just kicking the can of financial agony a bit further down the road. This month, though, a rescue was led by Lawrence Stroll, saving the DBX and a range of supercars to come. The company can breathe easier. But not relax. Number one task is to make damn sure the new range of cars will be fit to rival Ferrari. At the same time, number two is to run the company tightly enough that it doesn’t revisit the financial precipice it’s just peered over – for the umpteenth time since it was established in 1913. The…

Warrrrrggghhhhhhhh The now unmistakable sound of a Lockheed Martin F-3 5 Lightning II briefly causes Steve – my tour guide – to raise his voice, but its startling acceleration means he quickly reverts to normal volume. The occasional, mightily short take-off is the only intrusive noise as we traverse the F-3 5 ’s factory in Fort Worth, Texas, on the back of a golf buggy. It’s otherwise as hushed and calm as a Sunday evening of tai chi. Two weeks and 4,75 6 miles later in Woking, Surrey, a 4.0-litre V8 burbles into life and stunts the flow of conversation on the McLaren Speedtail production line with all the drama of a muted cough in a church service. The composure of the environments in which two of the quickest, most gobsmacking…

WHERE TO START? SITGES-TERRAMAR, NOW THERE’S A TRACK THAT NEEDS ITS OWN STORY TOLD. First time I’ve ever seen a car slide sideways down a slope. Then there’s the people. Andy Wallace, he of nonchalantly-doing-300-in-a-Chiron is here, so too legendary chassis guru Loris Bicocchi. Couple of my heroes right there. I have lunch sat between them, eating Chinese brought here by a Smart ForTwo with the numberplate EB110 GT. That’s an odd one. The next day I drive a Veyron to a monastery to ask permission to shoot on their road. That was peculiar too. It is, by any measure, not a normal story. So to help ground myself I’m going to tell you a back story. History records that no Bugatti, since a Type 57C driven by Pierre Veyron…

An important couple of years are in prospect for F1. 2020 sees the 70th anniversary of the ‘modern’ championship, and the last year of the current hybrid format. New rules and a new look kick in for ’21, a big overhaul designed to promote overtaking by cleaning up and redirecting the ‘dirty’ air that comes off the car in front. At least the new-gen cars look cool: back in 1998, grooved tyres and a much narrower track width were introduced to peg cornering speeds, and left the cars looking misbegotten. Though not all of them. Arrows, founded in 1977, was the perpetualF1 minnow that was making some real headway by the late-Nineties. Motorsport legend Tom Walkinshaw bought the team in 1996, and stunned the paddock by hiring reigning world champion…

THAT’S… A SUPRA? Thanks to a starring role in the first of (too) many Fast & Furious films, the A80-generation Toyota Supra is one of the most recognisable cars in the world. But its ancestors, the cars that coined the name, barely get a look in. Take the A70. Toyota sold more than 18 times as many A70s in the UK as it did A80s, but it gets only a tiny fraction of the attention. WHY’S THAT? WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT? Not much, as far as we can see. The Supra name dates back to the Seventies A40. The A70, the first Supra built on a bespoke rear-drive platform, arrived in the UK in 1986 and, like the A60 before it and A80 after it, was somewhat ahead of its…

GOODBYE £31,835 OTR/£36,185 as tested/£455pcm WHY IT’S HERE Meh first impressions. Can RenaultSport redeem itself over time? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle IT’S TIME FOR MEGXIT. NO, NOT MEGHAN AND HARRY BINNING OFF the Royal Family in favour of poutine and ice hockey… rather, time for the Megane to exit TG. And, given its ride quality, this really is a hard Megxit. It arrived six months ago with some baggage. Specifically, a big fat loss for the lesser 280 spec in our hot-hatch group test. Somewhat of a bitter pill as, up until this generation, fast Meganes had wiped the floor with the competition. Would some extra power and sportiness make a difference? Living with something often plasters over the cracks of crapness, and I’ve been a victim of this. When I…

Greg Potts: I hadn’t expected to bond with our Juke quite as much as I did. The Essex-orange interior has to be used daily to be appreciated and the extra space over the old generation is welcome. That DCT gearbox though… bad. HELLO £25,295 OTR/£25,295 as tested/£350pcm WHY IT’S HERE To see if the original baby crossover can reclaim its crown DRIVER Esther Neve I’LL ADMIT IT RIGHT NOW… WHEN IT WAS MOOTED I’d be running the Juke, I wasn’t totally overwhelmed. Trouble being, I have very vivid recollections of the original Juke – terrible ride, cramped interior, literally NO boot and, being kind, a polarising design. I vented my concerns to Paul Horrell, who went on the New Juke’s launch. He tried to allay my fears by reassuring me…

Let’s be honest. With a name like Clay Regazzoni, you’ve a fair shot of making anything cool. Even the item of clothing YNBACA had always believed was known as the ‘Liam Gallagher Circa 1996 Bonnet’, but discovers is officially called a ‘bucket hat’. This is no mean feat. Many have attempted to sport the bucket hat with insouciance. Almost all have failed. Then again, Regazzoni was no regular hat wearer. This was the man who spent the Seventies piloting monster F1 cars flat out, mostly for Ferrari, developing a) a reputation for unparalleled bravery, b) an admirable aversion to the traditional racing driver physique, and c) an even more admirable moustache. This was the man Enzo Ferrari described as “a bon viveur, dancer, footballer, tennis player and, when he had…

WHO KNEW Has there ever been a car not improved by putting skis on the roof? Roger Moore, look what you started Welcome to the best thing we’ve seen so far this year – a higher-riding, wider Alpine A110 inspired by the rally cars of the company’s past. Shame about the name. Unfortunately, the SportsX is not a third A110 derivative, to be sold alongside the standard car and stiffer, lower, more focused A110S. It’s what the company calls a styling exercise – a car cooked up by presumably bored engineers and designers that “explores a new facet of sportiness”. Sexy sportiness, presumably. Based on the base-spec A110 Pure (which is actually all the A110 you really need), the body and track are 80mm wider than standard – meaning the…

You’re not imagining things. Hummer is indeed back. At least it will be in 2021, when General Motors sticks the name it killed a decade ago on its first-ever electric pickup. Hear that thump? Somewhere in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has just fainted with excitement. Needless to say, electric pickups are all the rage right now. As yet, none are commercially available, but many are on the horizon – Ford’s doing an electric F-150, there’s the Rivian R1T, the Bollinger B2 and, of course, the fabled Tesla Cybertruck to name but four that have a sporting chance of making production. And, plainly, GM wants a piece of the zero-emissions truck action, so it’s buying itself some instant publicity and kudos by cashing in its heritage with the Hummer name. It shall…

01 Nissan Micra C+C The bug-eyed Nissan Micra was never top of the chic list, so it was obviously not a suitable candidate for a folding hard-top roof that made it look like Barbie’s pickup truck. Worse still, Nissan decided that it would offer pink as a paint option. 02 Lexus IS-C The old Lexus IS was already a fairly left-field choice, but at least it was fairly inoffensive to look at. The IS-C, meanwhile, is so dumpy at the back, it looks like a snake digesting an antelope. 03 Mitsubishi Colt CZC Another classic of the ‘no-one wanted the hard-top version of this car, so why would they buy a heavier, more expensive version that made it impossible to hide in?’ genre. Plus, the Colt CZC has one of…

MERCEDES-AMG A35 £35,580 FOR The engine’s a firecracker, techno-toy overload AGAINST …if you can live with the wheelbarrow-spec ride BMW M135iT £35,555 FOR Comfy, easy-going and easy to go fast in AGAINST Suspect looks, cabin materials, synthesised joy This is a very different new M135i. No more 6cyl engines, no more RWD. The new range-topper here is much more in the Golf R/Audi S3 mould. Under the bonnet, a 2.0-litre turbocharged 4cyl engine. Most of the time, to conserve fuel, it only bothers the front wheels with 302bhp and 332lb ft. Only when the computers give leave are the rears entrusted with up to 50 per cent of the poke. The new Merc-AMG A35 is the cheapest, least powerful AMG you can buy – though £35k basic and £44k as…

PORSCHE MACAN GTS £58,816 FOR Fast SUVs get no more agile to drive AGAINST Quite an image to give off these days, though The GTS is for people who like to shout about the performance of their Macan. So while this version uses a detuned variant of the Turbo’s 2.9-litre V6 (itself derived from the Audi RS4’s bi-turbo engine), its exterior is bolder and its exhaust more vocal. A 15mm suspension drop also makes it “the lowest Macan to the ground ever”, which defeats the point of an SUV, we’d say. But it also makes this the neatest, nimblest car to drive of its ilk. SD AUDI SQ7 £76,360 FOR Diesel isn’t dead - you just need this triple-charged V8 AGAINST Buttonless interior a step back over the old one…

WHEN THE PRODUCERS BEGAN CASTING FOR THE FIRST BOND FILM, 1962’s Dr No, Cary Grant and James Mason were both approached, but neither was overenthusiastic, nor indeed quite right. “To be candid, all the British actors I had interviewed, while very talented, lacked the degree of masculinity Bond demanded,” producer Cubby Broccoli said. “To put it in the vernacular of our profession: Sean had the balls for the part.” Although the first two films were box office hits, it wasn’t until 1964’s Goldfinger that Bond went blockbuster, and Sean Connery became a superstar. Bond personified a particularly British and increasingly marketable sense of confidence. Goldfinger united the elements that generally define a great Bond film: the villain, the locations, a great female co-star, and, of course, the car. The Aston…

REPORT 6 £159,900 OTR/£200,345 as tested/£3,000pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is living with luxe all it’s cracked up to be? DRIVER Ollie Marriage YOU LISTEN TO STUFF IN YOUR CAR. OF COURSE YOU DO, IT’S WHAT helps pass the time. So do I, almost exclusively podcasts and audio books. Until the Bentley arrived. It has the Naim Audio system in it. It’s a £6,595 option, so clearly a massive extravagance. Well, until you put it up against the price of other Bentley options. Or the price of other Naim Audio kit. Its top-line Statement system costs more than a Conti GT. But here’s the thing: it’s fundamentally changed my listening behaviour. I now listen to music rather than spoken word, simply because it sounds so sensational. I’ve run plenty of other…

REPORT 4 £31,995/£34,940/£377pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is the Fiesta ST’s bigger brother just as magical as a daily? DRIVER Ollie Kew OVER THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS, THE ST’S MILEAGE CLIMBED PAST 6,000. Now, it’s as if the engine’s been lubricated with greased silk. A fluke? I’d previously struggled to haul economy beyond 28mpg. Now the Focus stubbornly returns low thirties. A small but important psychological gain, meaning 300 miles per tank is the norm, not the exception. So, to Wales… On the average-speed-camera-blotted M4, the ST won Dry January with a claimed 40mpg. I got 380 miles from that tank. Props to the immense torque – 310lb ft from a burly 2.3 litres means the ST can be coaxed along like a minicab, labouring from 30mph with the motor on tickover.…

REPORT 2 MAZDA CX-30 A wintry trip down to the end of Cornwall gives the CX-30 a chance to prove its credentials as a long-distance family wagon. Credentials proved, at least from the perspective of ‘behind the wheel’. The CX-30’s driving position is great and economy is a consistent 40mpg for motorway driving – as good as I’ve seen from a petrol engine. That my three travelling companions slept the entire journey must indicate it’s comfy and quiet for passengers. Space inside? Far roomier than a Mazda3 hatch, but the roofline does cut into bootspace a little. SP REPORT 4 SUZUKI JIMNY Hailing as I do from the north-east – a land where the use of coats has only recently been legalised – it’s taken me a little while to…

REPORT 5 £135,550 OTR/£146,625 as tested/£2,090pcm WHY IT’S HERE Because the TG Garage must have an AMG V8 at all times DRIVER Rowan Horncastle MY FRIENDS ARE CATEGORICALLY NOT CAR PEOPLE. THEY’RE THE TYPE who think a pound-foot of torque is the latest cold cut at Whole Foods’ deli counter. That’s why it’s fascinating to plop them in a car and get their opinion. On a weekend in the Peak District, I got them to muse over the AMG GT 4dr, and it had them stumped and impressed in equal measure. They loved the two tablet-sized hi-res 12.3in screens that dominate the cabin. They cooed with intrigue as the ambient lighting changed with the car’s temperature. And were convinced the way the adaptive high-beam system masks out oncoming traffic and…

REPORT 5 £58,335 OTR/£74,755 as tested/£613pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is this the thinking family’s Bentley Bentayga? DRIVER Adam Waddell WE HAD AUDI’S 4.0-LITRE V8 SQ7 IN THE TG GARAGE RECENTLY AND I thought it might be interesting to compare it with our Touareg, given that they share a platform. A better comparison would have been with the Vorsprung edition Q7, which has all the cosmetic stuff the SQ7 does, but is powered by a much more sensible 3.0-litre V6 engine, just like our VW. The Vorsprung Q7 comes in at £80k – £6k more than our fully loaded Touareg – whereas the SQ7 we drove was specced to a staggering £100k. For me, Audi does interiors better than anyone and its material usage is superb. However, I prefer the single…

KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP WITH BOND IN ITALY WHO: CHARLIE TURNER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF I spent all night in Rome with the second unit from SPECTRE when they were filming the DB10 and Jaguar C-X75 car chase down the steps. Before the cameras rolled, I walked the course with Mark Higgins. That alone made me realise how terrifyingly steep it was. That night, they ran that stunt six times, dropped a C-X75 into the Tiber and eventually packed up at dawn. The most interesting all-nighter I’ve ever pulled… BEST BOND CAR. AND BEST BOND WHO: CRAIG JAMIESON, SUB-EDITOR There’s not a great deal of love for Timothy Dalton as Bond, but, for me, his brief two-movie stint was some of the best in the besuited spy’s oeuvre. And as for his…