Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2022 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com This month I have been mostly lusting after the Ducati Desert X. This, as the name implies, is Ducati’s new Dakar-inspired adventure bike that blends chunky retro lines with all the latest tech to make blasts across the wilderness as easy as popping to the shops. The press images are strong – consisting of five-time world enduro champion Antoine Méo, immaculately dressed in the Desert X capsule collection, firing himself into the great blue yonder off the top of some sand dunes. It’s a powerful sell – the promise of adventure, of unbreakability, of new skills waiting to be honed. And refreshingly it’s not all marketing flimflam because this isn’t some hipster scrambler conversion, it’s supposed to be ready to race across inhospitable terrain out of the box.…

The good news is, it looks like a car. Mercedes’ new ultra-range electric Vision EQXX concept car doesn’t look like an SUV. And better yet it doesn’t look like some science project. The aim here is to get a nice round 1,000km (621 miles) of range. Now the obvious answer to that would be a huge battery. With today’s tech that would mean a vast underfloor box, which could only fit under an SUV. The weight and drag would spiral upward, and so would the price. The EQXX’s approach is the opposite. Low weight, low drag, sky high effciency. More range from a smallish battery. Every part and system has been given the beady eye, looking for savings in weight, aerodynamic drag, friction, heat and electrical resistance. Right down to…

THE GOOD I don’t mind the design, it’s groundbreaking and only mildly offensive Robert Ndegwa I really like the back seats Mat Gallacher Love it! In your face. Great powertrain and finally a real luxury interior Cornelius Sommer I think it looks amazing. Welcome to the future Winston Nugara It will surely stick out in a crowd. I like it Richard Narindra Barsati Balkissoon THE BAD Gopping Ciaran Jefferies NO, MAKE THEM STOP! MAKE THEM STOP! Super6 How can BMW’s execs sign off on these designs?! Are there no car enthusiasts working there anymore? ABR BMW has totally lost the plot Gary Kenley Every time you think BMW’s design department has hit rock bottom… Andrew Robinson THE UGLY Just when I thought current BMW design could not get any more…

£83,355 FOR Fast, grippy, confidence inspiring and good looking AGAINST Not happy on rough roads, not the lightest of cars The recipe here is a good one; a BMW Convertible seasoned with excellent xDrive four-wheel drive and sharing pretty much everything with the hardcore M4 Competition Coupe. So that’s the 503bhp, 3.0-litre straight-six turbo, monster brakes, useful interior and pleasingly racy dynamics. Except in this case, there’s a fabric roof – some 40 per cent lighter than the folding metal hard top in the last-generation M3 – and a rear end that gets a much cleaner shape because said roof can stow smaller (and at speeds of up to 30-ish mph). It looks neat and stylish roof up or down, and we’ll leave it up to you to decide whether…

£104,990 FOR Crisp steering and handling, sleek looks AGAINST Using it for the family? Get the Cross Turismo instead No one can accuse Porsche of failing to make the most of the Taycan platform. First there was the saloon, then the lifted Cross Turismo, and now that’s been slammed back down and had the plastic cladding ripped off to create the Sport Turismo estate. The difference, at least initially, is that there is only this one GTS model in the Sport Turismo range. And since it has 20 per cent more roll stiffness than the Turbo S, it’s likely to be the raciest Sport Turismo of them all and therefore the furthest removed from the Cross Turismo – which won’t ever get a GTS variant. Under the skin the chassis…

BMW 4-SERIES GRAN COUPE £35,785 FOR Polished powertrains and chassis, mostly versatile body AGAINST Those nostrils, again. No PHEV for the BIK crowd OK, at heart it’s just a five-door hatch. But it does it so well, a brilliant blend of drivability and usefulness, a slinky alternative to a 3 Touring albeit with a smaller engine choice and worse space efficiency. We tested the M440i xDrive, but 3-Series experience tells us to look hard at the nimbler 30i RWD. Beware the slightly stiff-legged ride, but otherwise enjoy the lovely powertrains, composed cornering, great seats and dash. A terrific all-rounder. PH LEXUS NX 450h+ £57,800 FOR Good bits have been kept, interior upgrades welcome AGAINST A brave choice to go for considering the competition The new NX will satisfy Lexus fans…

Officially this is the G-Class now, but to us it’ll always be the G-Wagen. There’s no reason for this car to exist in the Mercedes portfolio any more: if you want a five-seat 4x4 with a big boot you can have a GLE. The G-Wagen only continues to exist because it’s built such a cult following as it’s morphed from utilitarian army surplus to Chelsea school run chariot, Mercedes has deemed it worthy of a ground-up redesign that’s modern underneath, but still looks reassuringly boxy. The aerodynamics are atrocious, the windows archaically flat, the door locks still sound like a firing squad cocking their weapons and inside, amid the multi-colour ambient lighting, hi-def widescreens and quilted leather, the dashboard centrepiece is three (beautifully knurled) buttons for locking the G’s front,…

When we named the Defender Car of the Year in December 2020, the protests – which oscillated between “How can you award something that will break down every five minutes?” to “They’ve totally cocked up the design” – were deafening. Now the kneejerks have died down… I’m sorry internet, we were right. There’s something so right about the way the Defender looks, operates and goes that fills you with confidence. It’s not just the warm, fuzzy glow of heritage, the attention to detail is obvious. Our test car was a 3dr 90, D250 SE (£61,125 as tested) with the 246bhp straight-six diesel (our pick of the engines) with all the off-road goodies: raised air intake (£649), front underbody protection (£844), off-road tyres (£255), air suspension (£1,615), electronic active differential (£1,020)…

> Edd Cobley is a veteran of UK off-road racing, having started in trials as a young boy and progressed to competing in wild Bowler racecars like the Nemesis, Wildcat, Bulldog and EXR. He won the British Cross Country Champs in 2021 and came first in class at the Scottish Hill Rally, the equivalent says Edd, of “taking a shire horse to the Grand National”. Edd’s racecar is affectionately known as ‘Skippy 2.0’. It’s a highly modified 2005 Td5 Land Rover Defender with a terrifyingly prepared Td5 diesel motor, Fox Racing shocks, sequential box, brakes from a Porsche GT3 (yes, really), all-aluminium Allisport cooling and super aggressive Davanti ‘Terratoura’ tyres. And it flies. Literally. EDD’S TOP TIPS FOR OFF-ROAD RACING 1 Preparation is key. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail…

SHERP 1 It looks like a toy, but Ukrainian company Sherp’s motto is “Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path!” which gives you some idea of its off-road ability. It’s essentially a UTV on steroids, but can carry around a tonne, or up to six people, depending on configuration. SHAMAN 8X8 2 A TG favourite, the Russian Avtoros Shaman is priced from £140k without options, but what price unstoppability? Yes, it’s amphibious, yes, it’s proper 8x8, yes, it’s only got a 3.0-litre Iveco diesel, but that’s all it needs. There’s even an online configurator to make it your own. RIPSAW 3 OK, so it’s a civilian tank, really. Or ‘tracked vehicle’, more accurately. It’s also road legal (those tracks are rubber), can do 55mph and turn in just 2.4m –…

“It’s not like the endurance side of “I things; hybrid isn’t something that’s been slowly coming in for the past couple of years,” says Craig Breen, who’s moved from Hyundai to lead M-Sport’s assault on the championship. “It’s the first exposure we’ve got to it so we’ve got a lot of things to learn. It’s definitely taken me a little bit of time to get myself up to speed.” Will drivers be braking in corners they might usually take flat? “There’s definitely a bit of adaptation that needs to be done,” says Breen. “It’s a trade-off; we want to unlock as many boosts as we can but obviously every time you’re braking, you’re slowing the car down. So you need to be realistic about where you’re genuinely better off braking a bit…

“WHILE I STILL CAN, I’M GOING TO MAKE IT THE BEST POSSIBLE EXAMPLE” If you’ve never owned a Japanese sports car from the Nineties, the experience is a bit like dating an MMA fighter with a sugar addiction. From the outside, it all seems quite exciting. There’s a strong element of danger, but the combination of turbo noise and TikToks dubbed over Teriyaki Boys makes it feel like a great idea. Right up until the point it all goes horribly wrong – preferably without any warning. Your friends will say that they’re not worth it; leave them and meet someone nice from Stuttgart or Wolfsburg. But this sounds very boring, because fundamentally you’re an idiot. And this relationship will (definitely) be the exception if you can give them one last…

What you’re looking at here is a retro game that was already retro back when it was first released in 1997. That’s because Interstate ’76 was set in 1976 and featured polygonal characters that were purposefully designed to look old school, even at the time. It’s certainly the best excuse for terrible graphics we’ve heard yet. Fortunately, the cars themselves looked slightly better. Interstate ’76 was a vehicular combat game that carved off huge chunks of the American Southwest and turned them into vast arenas for balletic automotive shootouts between heavily armed muscle cars. We’ve discovered the answer to traffic congestion, folks, and it’s a roof-mounted, auto-targeting napalm turret. While there were no officially licensed vehicles, there were plenty of familiar silhouettes. The Courcheval Manta was a thinly disguised Corvette…

REPORT 6 £74,000 OTR/£86,745 as tested/£1,260pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is BMW’s mighty M3 still the performance saloon benchmark? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE NOW DRIVES ITSELF. WHICH IS a worrying state of affairs given the BMW M3 is meant to tickle the purist’s pickle. But the autonobots have been taking over at a rapid rate. Which isn’t good news for us weirdos who don’t see cars simply as a way from getting from one place to another; rather, a way to be entertained, intrigued and enthralled while getting from one place to other. I’m not sure about you, but it feels like legislators are starting to side more with the ones and zeros than us fleshy sentient beings. And BMW is getting onboard with this as it offers…

REPORT 2 £27,995 OTR/£30,132 as tested/£257pcm WHY IT’S HERE What’s it like to live with an urban EV without home charging? DRIVER Vijay Pattni AN UNEXPECTED BOON OF RUNNING AN ELECTRIC CAR OVER WINTER IS the heating. It works instantly. No need to wait for the combustion engine to get up to temperature to then circulate its warm air around the cabin. In TopGear’s long-term Fiat 500, we simply maxed the temperature and in a matter of seconds it was pumping out toasty, comforting heat. This has come in enormously handy now that the UK has been dusted with snow and plunged into icy temperatures. Less excellently, the cold snap has destroyed the range, but then that was never really going to be a surprise. After a bit of a…

HELLO £55,795 OTR/£55,795 as tested/£830pcm WHY IT’S HERE Fast Peugeots are usually best kept small. What about a fast PHEV wagon? DRIVER Charlie Rose HERE WE ARE THEN, THE FIRST HIGH-PERFORMANCE PEUGEOT IN OVER five years, and the first to feature those three letters in its name: PSE. What do they stand for, I hear you ask? Peugeot Sport Engineered, the brand’s new performance division, and with Peugeot’s upcoming return to Le Mans, the PSE division has a promising future ahead of it. Our particular model comes in estate guise, which is just as well because it will spend the coming months with myself, TG’s fresh-faced video chief, lugging cameras around. Although it will spend a lot of the time behind the lens being chased down by all manner of…

REPORT 4 £26,605/£27,200/£321 WHY IT’S HERE Is this the comfiest family car you can buy? DRIVER Sam Philip THE C4’S EXTERIOR BOASTS many, many corners and curves and angles. On the inside, however, the designers have gone in very much the opposite direction, with a dash that sits proudly upright, straight, vertical: no wraparound cockpit here. I have been enjoying the effect this slab-dash creates, making the C4’s interior feel open and airy rather than cocooning its front seat occupants. However, it does create one minor drawback, for me at least: I can’t actually reach the central touchscreen. As problems go, very much a first-world one. Luckily, Citroen has extricated its climate control functions from the touchscreen, and onto a row of easily accessible physical buttons and dials below. Not, however,…

Bentley makes some of the most luxurious cars in the world, competing with carmakers like Rolls-Royce to meet the needs of the wealthiest drivers. No budget hatches or family crossovers here – if there’s no billionaire in the back and a chauffeur at the wheel, it’s probably not a Bentley. Unless it’s being timed… The company was founded by Walter Owen Bentley in 1919. Preferring to be called WO, his journey began as a nine-year-old when he bought and then dismantled a bicycle, just to see how it worked. An apprenticeship with Great Northern Railway followed, and when World War One broke out, WO used his know-how to great effect in the Royal Naval Air Service, fitting fighter plane engines with aluminium pistons to greatly improve their power and reliability. When…

As the news of Sir Frank Williams’ passing filtered through, the world of F1 went into mourning. When one lists the legends of the sport, it is usually the drivers – Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Schumacher, Senna and others that trip off the tongue. But there are a handful of team owners and constructors who also deserve a place on that list and like Enzo Ferrari, Frank Williams is one of them. Although Sir Frank and family finally sold the team to Dorilton Capital in 2020, the Williams name has been ever-present in F1 for 53 years. The early years were tough, and Williams famously ran the team from a local phone box for a while having been unable to pay the bills at the factory. Only Ferrari has won…

What do horse racing and stargazing have in common? Well, they are the two pursuits that helped launch the most popular watchmaking complication of all time: the chronograph. Two hundred years ago a French watchmaker called Nicolas Rieussec was commissioned by Louis XVIII to make a device for timing the king’s horses. The ingenious solution was a clock with an ink-tipped nib that would mark the start and end point on the dial. This groundbreaking piece of tech was accurate to within a fifth of a second and Rieussec named it chronograph after the Greek for “time writer”. There were obvious limitations to this system, though. Not least the fact that you had to wipe ink off the dial before you could use it again. And fill up the ink.…

Cruis’n Blast If you’ve got fond memories of the flashing lights, the thumping audio and the uniquely sticky carpets of arcades, you might recall classic racer Cruis’n USA. Well it turns out they kept making those games, and a mockery of apostrophe placement, right up until 2017 with this game Cruis’n Blast. Which just arrived on Nintendo Switch, four years later. While that all sounds like ancient history, that’s sort of the point: they don’t make games like this any more. Blast is a completely over the top arcade racer, with an almost psychedelic visual style. There are colours we’d forgotten even existed after years of playing realistic racing sims. Turquoise! Who knew? There are real cars but otherwise this is pure, unbridled nonsense and all the better for it.…

01 On the tailgate Yep, the OG, the standard way for Jeeps, Land Cruisers and Discoverys the world over to lug a spare tyre around. Extra points for making sure it’s encased in a novelty spare wheel jacket, or, in the case of this G-Wagen, shrouded in a cocoon apparently modelled on a designer wristwatch. 02 On the damn bonnet Only really works on flat-bonneted old Landies, this. It wouldn’t suit a BMW X6. By topping the bonnet with a spare tyre, an old Land Rover keeps space free on the rear for, well, another spare wheel. If it’s good enough for James ‘the name’s Bond’ Bond… 03 On the side running boards Back in the pre-war days when cars had curvaceous running boards cascading down from the front wheels like a crested…

MERCEDES-AMG A45S £57,195/£59,145 as tested AUDI RS3 SPORTBACK £50,900/£60,460 as tested There’s an oft-memed line from Jurassic Park where one of the main characters unlikely to get eaten admonishes one of the dino-nerds with the zinger: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” In a world going electric, 25mpg hyper hatches are dinosaurs. Did Audi and AMG get a bit carried away? Lose their minds? Yes. Is that necessarily bad? Let’s find out. The Audi RS3 has had this much wallop for a while. The last version packed 400 metric horsepower (394bhp), and while Audi has managed to keep the headline act 2.5-litre straight-five engine for one last dance, offcially it’s no more powerful than the previous car. Torque…

£90,000 (est) FOR Exemplary ride and handling, magnificent interior, charismatic powertrain AGAINST Fuel consumption, expensive options In the Steve Martin film LA Story, his character Harris Telemacher’s existential crisis is amplified by his job: he’s a TV weatherman in a city in which the weather is always the same, warm and sunny. Well this is Harris’s lucky day, for LA’s famous palm trees are being bent double by a mighty storm, the rain is bouncing off the freeway, and the sky is apocalyptically gloomy. Good for Harris, not so much the new Mercedes SL. This seventh generation of the company’s signature sports car reintroduces a classic soft-top roof after a 20-year dalliance with a bulky folding hard-top. It’s done wonders for the SL’s looks but it’s staying firmly in place…

Before we get tucked into the numbers, you may be wondering why it looks a bit softer and tamer than other bulbous bull-barred Broncos you’ve seen. Well, Ford made the Bronco infinitely speccable. You have a choice of two or four doors, seven separate trim levels, three kinds of roof, plus five separate packages. And that’s before you’ve even got to the options list that’s the size of the Argos catalogue. There are two engine flavours: a 2.3-litre 4cyl EcoBoost with 270bhp and 310lb ft or a 2.7-litre V6 with 310bhp and 400lb ft. We’ve got the smaller four pot with a 10spd auto. It can also be had with a 7spd manual that includes a crawler gear for when things get super gnarly. Could’ve done with that. Being a…

> Driving and mobility away from the tarmac is always going to be needed. From rescue to recreation, the necessity to travel where the roads don’t always lead is likely going to be with us forever, with the types of vehicles morphing depending on their specific environments. For rescue, long-range or utility purposes, a long-range fuel tank and transportable extra litres will probably hold sway for quite a while. And those vehicles will likely have airless spring tyres (like chain mail) or Tweel-style rims. But for recreational off-road, electric is having the same sort of impact as on our roads, and for obvious reasons. One, most off-road excursions are not ‘overlanding’ – more weekend or day-long jaunts, so don’t need incredible range. Two, electric motors are simple, can be completely waterproof…

Lots of carmakers over the years have tried tackling the Germans at their own posh car game in Europe. Remember Infiniti? Even Lexus and Jaguar have struggled. Maybe this is the answer – land with an EV that looks quite sharp and has some weird and wacky gimmicks inside. The GV60 shares its platform with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 – two of the best EVs launched in 2021 – and it means a 77kWh battery that’ll charge from zero to 80 per cent in 18 minutes on the fastest units. Max range is 280 miles for the RWD model and around 229 on the Performance version. While the Ioniq looks retro and the Kia more sporty, the GV60 has a softer look, with a clamshell bonnet and…

HANG ON, WHY ARE WE COMPARING A 2 WITH A 3? Good point, well made. The RS3 we have here is the Sportback – the baby of the RS range these days despite having 394bhp – while the RS2 was the genesis of fast and large Audi estates. We have a lot to thank it for. And yet, both are turbocharged five-cylinder Rennsport cars from Ingolstadt with massive power and large price tags. The RS3 Launch Edition here retails at just the wrong side of £60,000, while the RS2 cost £45,705 when it launched back in 1994. That’s over £92,000, inflation adjusted. Yikes. SURELY THE STATS MAKE FOR GRIM READING FOR THE RS2? Kind of, although every time we drive an RS2 we’re reminded just how quick it really is…

HELLO £45,900 OTR/£58,900 as tested/£660pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is the Polestar 2 the thoughtful & better alternative to a Tesla Model 3? DRIVER Tom Ford I LIKE THE POLESTAR 2. WHICH IS KIND OF HANDY, SEEING AS THIS will be my co-conspirator for the next few months. Yes, it may be based on the same basic skeleton architecture as Volvo’s XC40, but it has actually managed to carve out a personality niche all of its own. And it’s even more impressive because it has done so not by being wacky and attention-seeking, but by being sober, understated and calm. Calm is good. But that’s not to say that the P2 Dual Motor we have here can’t deliver when it comes to going that little bit faster. Over 400bhp and 487lb ft…

REPORT 2 £40,025 OTR/£48,450 as tested/£390pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can the fastest, priciest Golf finally make us fall for the MkVIII? DRIVER Ollie Kew BACK ON PAGE 34 YOU’LL SEE THE NEW AUDI RS3 DO BATTLE WITH AMG’s super hatch and you might think “hang on, why isn’t your Golf R here?” Well, it was. The Golf R journeyed to Wales, but was barred from the main test, partly because it’s considerably less powerful, and partly because even with its as-tested price it’s £10k too cheap to be a true hyper hatch. It was an interesting lens to reappraise the Golf R through, though. How cheap and nasty its interior feels, how its false hi-fi engine noise detracts from the character, and how the Golf is by far the most subtle…

GOODBYE £24,455 OTR/£25,085 as tested/£273pcm WHY IT’S HERE The old Mokka was appalling, has the new version impressed us more? DRIVER Esther Neve FULL DISCLOSURE: I LAST SPENT ANY MEANINGFUL TIME IN AN EV back in 2003 or 2004. And even that wasn’t a proper, road-going EV. Nope, it was a concept. Since then, I’ve read a lot about EVs, and the news and statistics sound great (though whether they are the silver bullet the industry is looking for remains up for debate). However, the fact is that I have absolutely no way of charging an electric car at my home, and just a three-pin socket at work. As a result of this lack of experience, I have serious anxiety about electric cars – they are truly a foreign land to…

01 Bentley 3 Litre The car that started it all for WO Bentley. Not only did the 3 Litre win Le Mans in 1924 and 1927, but owner and adventurer John Duff would also set 21 world records in 24 hours in 1925 while behind the wheel. 02 Bentley Flying Spur (2019) The first two generations of modern day Flying Spur just didn’t look right, but the current one is so good that it usurped the Mulsanne as Bentley’s flagship and still manages to be compelling to drive. 03 Continental Supersports Convertible In 2011, Bentley decided to prove the talents of its soft-top Supersports by streamlining the styling and firing rally ace Juha Kankkunen down an ice lake at 205.48mph, collecting the world ice speed record in the process. 04 Bentley Arnage T “The…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £28,215–£30,715 RANGE: Up to 136 miles TG’s reigning city car of the year has retro-tastic styling, but the range isn’t great. No worries – you don’t need to drive anywhere, just sit inside it. 2. MINI ELECTRIC PRICE: £26,000–£32,550 RANGE: Up to 145 miles The electric version of the home grown favourite squeezes the BMW i3’s powertrain into a familiar package. Range not massive, but the car’s still fun. 3. FIAT 500e PRICE: £20,495–£27,495 RANGE: Up to 199 miles The latest version of the 500 offers sharper looks, good value and decent range – and a parcel shelf full of soft toys shouldn’t hurt the battery too much.…

TopGear Top Fact! The phrase “the empire on which the sun never set” was first used to describe not the British Empire, but the Habsburg Empire of the 16th century: an empire on which, you won’t fail to notice, the sun has indeed long since set. As it has on the British Empire, and every other apparently all-powerful, everlasting imperium in history. And so to 2012’s Clio RenaultSport, the car historians will surely regard as the sundown moment on one of the greatest fast car bloodlines of them all: the Hot Clio Dynasty. Viewed in isolation, the MkIV Clio RS was… fine. Decently rapid, looked lairy enough, navigated corners without plummeting into a storm drain. Problem was, you couldn’t view the MkIV Clio RS in isolation. Because it was heir…

1 IT’S NOT ACTUALLY REAL This is the latest in a line of concepts developed specifically for Gran Turismo. It started back in 2013 with a Mercedes, and now it’s Porsche’s turn, having joined the Japanese racing game in 2017. Porsche says it made the car because gaming is “where automotive dreams are born”. 2 THEY TOOK IT VERY SERIOUSLY “The Germans are a serious bunch,” said exterior designer Ingo Bauer-Scheinhütte. “We decided to do something that feels real and which you imagine seeing on the road in a few years.” This extends to the vegan interior – so you can rest assured that no animals were harmed in the pretend making of your virtual racing car. 3 IT’S A BIT OFF THE WALL Alright, so it’s not totally realistic,…

£66,280 FOR Handsome enough, capable of yee-haw antics AGAINST Doesn’t justify price hike over standard Mach-E The Mustang Mach-E is a good electric crossover. Stands to reason then that the quick one will be another superb fast Ford. And yet… Instead of the 360bhp you got in the quickest regular Mach-E, the GT generates 480bhp. It’s considerably more powerful than the 5.0-litre V8 plumbed into the nose of the Mustang Mach One coupe, currently the most powerful Stang on sale in the United Kingland of Engdom-on-sea. This is a 2.2-tonne machine, but it can go from 0–62mph in just 3.7 seconds. It’s actually quicker than a Bentley Bentayga Speed. And that’s billed as the world’s fastest SUV… Claimed European endurance is 310 miles – 25 miles less than a standard…

PERFORMANCE STEERING ‘Performance’ wheel from AMG gets three sets of twin spokes, touch sensitive controls and two AMG buttons to spice things up ALLOYED FORCES The SL55 gets a set of 19-inchers as standard, while the 63 gets 20s. There are 21s available on the options list and even aero wheels ROOFLESS INTENT The three-layer Z-folding fabric roof stows in 15secs at speeds up to 37mph and saves a useful 21kg over the old car’s metal number FINGER PRINCE Check out your track data on the 11.9in screen, which also offers useful connectivity via Merc’s latest MBUX software…

£299,400 FOR Improved handling, still sublime refinement AGAINST Costs more than a three-bed semi in Rotherham Black Badge Rollers now account for more than 27 per cent of all sales, and the idea is still in its infancy. Wraith and last-gen Ghost were the first models to get Black Badge variants in 2016, followed by Dawn in 2017 and Cullinan in 2019. In layman terms it’s a trim level that adds more luxury, more power, improved handling and a darkened aesthetic, but really it’s all about appealing to a younger multimillionaire. The Spirit of Ecstasy and Pantheon grille are present and correct, but get a darker chrome plating, while the 21-inch wheels are made up from a carbon-fibre ‘barrel’ with a forged aluminium hub bonded to the rim. On the…

You join us in a remote cottage in the woods, where pizza and beer have just been consumed. Well, Ollie Marriage turned up with kegs thoroughly shaken in the boot of a Defender. There was a minor kitchen detonation when they were unpressurised, but it would have been rude not to have toasted our safe arrival in a location known only to lost ramblers, murderers and able readers of OS maps. Welcome to a world beyond. To a world of grease in your winches, grit in your britches and army surplus. Outside lurk today’s four most capable off-roaders. Representing Europe we have the Land Rover Defender and Mercedes-Benz G-Class, from America the Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler. Normal practice would be to take them to a quarry and see which…

I like my history. The latest Merc G-Class tips its feathered hat to the Geländewagen military vehicle first sold to the public in 1979. The Bronco pays homage to a rudimentary American truck founded in the mid-Sixties. And the Defender is the spiritual successor to an icon which can trace its empire-rambling ancestry back to a drawing in the sands of Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, in 1947. But none of them would exist at all if not for the Jeep. The car that won the war. Since 1941, synonymous with getting you places where failure is not an option. So it’s interesting that the Wrangler – which most closely follows in the tyre tracks of the Nazi-conquering Willys – is the silliest car here, by ooh, a good three litres.…

SAND WHERE NAMIBIA/DUBAI/DESERTS Dune-bashing is part art, part skill and part science. But generally on sand, momentum is key and a higher gear than normal for off-roading is appropriate – keep going at all times, and park facing down any kind of slope, or you won’t move again. You’ll also need to air-down your tyres quite a bit. Oh, and you don’t really need brakes – the car will use the sand itself to slow. Recovery is best done with another vehicle, because there’s not usually many objects around to winch from. SNOW WHERE ICELAND/ARCTIC When we say ‘snow’ we mean serious drifts rather than the two inches of instant traffc killer we get in the UK. And for that, specialist gear is necessary. Usually that means a modified 4x4, with huge…

“LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE VERY RICH,” wrote F Scott Fitzgerald. “They are different from you and me.” He went on to write a pile of novels based on this very premise. We’re concerned with merely their cars, not their whole psychological terrain, and at TopGear we’ve always studied at length how different those cars are. But what about the buying of them? Might we assume the very rich, or just the rich, do it differently? Do they turn up at a car dealer, wave a black AmEx card or open a Louis Vuitton bag of fresh £50s, and depart with their chosen supercar paid in full? Mostly not. By choice they do what the rest of us are pushed by circumstance into doing. They buy on finance. No…

You have to feel for the car company futurologists (car designers) who have to produce eye-catching glimpses of the future (concept cars) at motor shows where their employers don’t have any fresh production tat to show off. Some concept cars are a thinly veiled preview of an upcoming car – they’re so long in development that 12 months before a car is officially launched you can lop off the wing mirrors, add a set of 24-inch shiny wheels and Bob’s your uncle. But some concept cars are an attempt to get ahead of the zeitgeist, to create a design buzz around a brand and show that they’re ready to shape the future. The future can’t have been looking too bright back when the Detroit show happened in 2000 (or the…

SUZUKI SAMURAI (1988) Price now £4,000 Harris says The latest Jimny is a triumph of cute retro style over outright talent, and continues to demand considerably over its new RRP. So head back in time to a dinky 4x4 that’s actually worth as much as it looks. TOYOTA LAND CRUISER (1997) Price now £7,995 Harris says Our budget snares Land Cruisers of all shapes, sizes and age depending on how shoddy you’re prepared for the bodywork to be. So how about a posh one that’ll complete a school run via the local swamp? MERCEDES UNIMOG (1964) Price now £12,750 Harris says The gentrification of the G-Wagen means they’re now increasingly rare at anything approaching bargain money. The Unimog, though? This ex-fire service example costs less than an Aygo… Honest Harris'…

REPORT 2 £57,030 OTR/£58,180 as tested/£1,503 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is an electric family SUV charming enough to be a ‘Mustang’? DRIVER Jack Rix FORD WILL PROBABLY BE DELIGHTED WITH THIS PHOTO. THE MUSTANG Mach-E sandwiched between a sports car and a proper belt and braces off-roader. That’s exactly how Ford wants the Mach-E to be viewed, a hybrid between the tyre-eviscerating muscularity of the Mustang badge and the usefulness of a mildly raised, four-door, hatchback body. So does the marketing wishlist actually match the finished product? Sort of. The skew is most definitely more towards a comfy, quiet, family friendly SUV than anything actually sporty, but I can’t deny that the Mach-E’s shapely haunches and galloping horse logos everywhere do start rubbing off on you. You feel like you’re…

REPORT 7 £158,000/£185,000/£1,899 WHY IT’S HERE It’s the car to save Aston Martin - is it good enough? DRIVER Adam Waddell YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN Mansory’s pimped DBX in last month’s TopGear magazine, but not feeling the need for 800bhp, a lowered ride and a lairy bodykit I decided to go back to the Aston configurator and see what could be done to make a factory car stand out a little more. I found a range of paint colours that would put a Dulux catalogue to shame – 53 choices in total – and seven different brake caliper finishes. Inside the car you can choose between six different seatbelts, 12 carpet choices, six trim inlays and no fewer than 38 shades of leather – and that’s before you start getting into…

REPORT 3 £110,325/£110,325/£1,841 WHY IT’S HERE It’s the world’s default super limo but is it too clever for it’s own good? DRIVER Jason Barlow IN A PREVIOUS UPDATE I WROTE about the Mercedes Me app and its myriad features. Well I discovered another one a few weeks ago and rather wish I hadn’t. After an evening event in London, I return to the S-Class. Inside, the main screen fires up with an unexpected top-view graphic of the car that says: collision detected. The rear end has sustained a “moderately severe impact”. The app pings to tell me the same thing. Eh? It’s diffcult to see in the half-light of a London side street, but running my hand across the full width of the rear bumper reveals no sign of any…

REPORT 3 £24,995 OTR/£25,545 as tested/£311pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is TG’s Car of the Year as great to live with as it is to drive? DRIVERS Stephen Dobie THE HYUNDAI i20N HAS THUS FAR PROVED UNFLAPPABLE. I therefore felt compelled to present TG’s overall Car of the Year with the sort of challenge nothing registered in 2021 could apparently muster. Namely the best hot hatchback ever made. Big words, but I’m willing to nail them to the 2009 Clio RenaultSport 200 Cup. On paper it’s a dead heat, the Clio’s 1,204kg/197bhp playing the i20N’s 1,220kg/201bhp. Their length, width and wheelbase are even closer pegged. And crucially both feel developed with the same nerdy detail. Buzz the Clio to 8,000rpm and you’ll wish for nothing else on four wheels. Seriously. The 200…

WHAT: FORD BRONCO WHERE: SOUTH WALES, UK Whoever was driving thought Ollie Marriage was giving them parking directions, turned out he was trying to get rid of a cheeky wasp. WHAT: FERRARI DAYTONA SP3 WHERE: MARANELLO, ITALY Security was extremely tight for our Ferrari shoot – Mark had to blag his way past a piece of paper clamped to a light stand to get in. WH0: SAM BURNETT WHERE: BMW HQ, GERMANY It’s a huge building you can see from all over Munich, and yet we still managed to find ourselves on the wrong side of an eight-lane road. WHAT: AUDI RS Q E-TRON WHERE: INGOLSTADT, GERMANY When you think you’re doing someone a favour by holding the lift and then they show up with a whole car and squash…