Innholdsfortegnelse for Apr-22 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

Editor @jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com I am a simple man, who likes simple things. I stick religiously to a fruit-based company’s phones, tablets and watches because they magically populate with my photos, emails, diary entries and Deliveroo preferences the moment I unbox them. I like to wear plain white T-shirts, sometimes plain black if I’m feeling wild. As a species we’re programmed to embrace simplicity, find efficiencies and the shortest routes to our goals – be they developing a vaccine, or ordering a Chinese. It’s why the relentless march of technology and the furious complication behind it is all about making our lives easier and more convenient. If a gadget isn’t foolproof to operate and doesn’t shave a minute off our routine, what exactly is the point? Cars are in on it…

Dear TopGear, As chairman of the British Official Vel Satis Owners Club (BOVSOC), I am saddened to learn you consider the Vel Satis a ‘fail of the century’. A failure? How dare you? Before the Vel Satis, many asked if France could ever break the German stranglehold on the executive segment. After the Vel Satis, they certainly knew the answer! Have you never sampled its cabin? Having owned a Vel Satis from new, I can report it is a truly luxurious environment, a place where one’s worries simply melt away, particularly those worries related to having paid BMW 5-Series money for a Gallic depreciation catastrophe. And how about the design? Have you ever seen anything like it? Exactly! No one has! Every morning, when I open my curtains, the Sat’s…

Why do you want to go spending all that money on a watch? It’s a question that would probably come from the sort of person who can’t understand why you would pass up the fuel economy of an entry-level Honda Civic for a thoroughly irresponsible Type R. But in case you do ever feel the need to justify your choice, let’s have a crack at the question in light of recent developments in the industry. Watch companies often disagree over what constitutes value. Every new upstart brand talks about inflated prices among “certain watch companies”. But despite the infighting, people are buying watches like never before, just with an accelerated shift online. Strong sales across the board indicate that the public perception of value is still strong. Current success, however,…

If, like us, you feel like half the fun of F1 is all the bickering that goes on before and after the races then Grid Legends, out now on Xbox, PlayStation and PC, may well be the game for you. Building on the solid arcade racing foundation of 2019’s Grid reboot, Legends adds a substantial new story mode complete with Drive to Survive-style live action cutscenes starring accomplished actors, including Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa. While the entire thing could easily have been crashingly embarrassing, it’s actually executed surprisingly well and offers the sort of connective tissue between races that was sorely lacking from the last Grid game. Once you’ve finished the soap opera, there’s a more conventional career mode, 22-car multiplayer and a wealth of options to run custom races.…

1 Bugatti Veyron Bugatti committed to building its 250mph, 1,000bhp showstopper in 2001. And then the fun began. Cooling, tyre safety, brakes and steering issues all delayed the project, so the first working prototype didn’t move under its own power until 2003. It wasn’t until 2005 that the Veyron went into production. 2 Lexus LF-A Infamously, the LF-A took so long to get from the drawing board to millionaire’s bunker that Lexus actually facelifted the concept car. There was an LF-A concept in 2005, which was restyled in 2007, before a roadster was shown off in 2008. Lexus gave us the 552bhp finished product in 2011. 3 Honda NSX Honda first promised it would build a successor to its first-gen NSX in 2007. A year later, Honda cancelled the project…

The story isn’t new. This is a highly powerful electric saloon car from Silicon Valley. It seems to be that new electric start-ups are only valid if they’re birthed here. The Lucid Air’s USP is that it isn’t taking on the Tesla Model S, Lucid instead claiming it’s an electrified rival to the Mercedes S-Class. Opposition for the Mercedes EQS, then, plus anything BMW and Audi can put up. So its headline figure isn’t its 0–62mph time, but its range: up to 520 miles. Just like a big old tank of diesel used to provide. To get it you have to have the right version of the five available, from Air Pure (480bhp, 406 miles of range) through to Dream Edition R (933bhp and 520 miles, the car in the…

£35,315 FOR Looks and interior, decent chassis, low costs AGAINST No hot ones, cramped in the back An Astra comes to us all. If you don’t buy one, someone in your family might. Or you’ll be given one for work or take a holiday renter. Midsize hatchbacks are a staple part of wheeled life, the Astra one of the most prevalent. It’s just… there. Even so, this review isn’t a foregone conclusion. This is the eighth Astra generation. Some of the previous seven have been fine for their eras, others absolute donkeys. Besides, this is the first Astra to have been developed in Vauxhall/Opel’s post-GM era. Under the skin it has a lot in common with the new Peugeot 308 and the DS 4. But it doesn’t look like them.…

£14,795 FOR Chunky looks. Much safety tech AGAINST Lack of power. Not exactly revolutionary The Aygo X is here to prove that city cars do still exist – they just look a little bit different these days. Oh, and before we get started we should probably point out that the X is actually pronounced “cross”, despite not being written out in full like on the back of Toyota’s new Yaris Cross. Strange. Anyway, the X is identifiably Aygo with that glassy rear hatch and contrast roof, but it’s smartened up with new LEDs, 17 or 18-inch wheels and 11mm more ground clearance. The crossover treatment is completed with black plastic cladding around the arches – which look odd here as we drove a pre-prod car. The X replaces the previous…

Seeking shelter during a particularly stubborn Welsh deluge? ‘In A Lotus’ has to be right up there with ‘Huddled Under A Sieve’ on the list of places you don’t want to find yourself. But I’m sitting in The New Lotus, while the team valiantly splashes about outside getting cameras set up, and all is well with the world. My bottom is cradled by an electrically operated leather seat, there’s warm air keeping the window fog at bay and barely any water penetrating the door sills. This is startling progress, and it’s still a prototype. And yet, the new Lotus Emira isn’t a huge technological achievement. It’s not made from strange and exotic materials, it doesn’t rethink aerodynamics or debut some whizz-bang e-assisted powertrain capable of running on bin juice, it’s…

I can get on board with this new age Lotus. No, literally. Fascinating as the engineering was behind the aluminium tubs that supported the Elise, Exige and Evora, clambering out with any dignity gave you some idea of the experience of a wartime POW tunnelling for freedom under the wire. Back when I owned an Elise S2, I read up on the car’s gestation and discovered an early design proposal featured no hinged doors, favouring a solid-side, Caterham-style step-in structure. It showed. The Emira welcomes you. Tug a pop-out handle (instead of poking the lock). The glass drops (having created a proper seal) and the door opens wide, revealing a McLaren-like low sill. My size 12s settle freely into the footwell. The left nestles on the footrest without fouling the…

9th ALFA ROMEO F1 TEAM CAR: C42 / ENGINE: FERRARI VALTTERI BOTTAS FIN (3) GUANYU ZHOU CHN (N/A) CHANCES The only all new line-up for 2022, Alfa has a known entity in Valtteri Bottas and an unknown in Guanyu Zhou. Latter is China’s first F1 driver, and finished third in F2 last year. But COVID means he’ll have no home race until 2023 at least. Livery TBC at time of going to press. SEASON GOAL Work through the vast drinks cabinet left by Kimi Raikkonen. LIVERY RATING 6th SCUDERIA ALPHATAURI CAR: AT03 / ENGINE: RED BULL PIERRE GASLY FRA (9) YUKI TSUNODA JAP (14) CHANCES Gasly starred in ’21, but Red Bull ties mean he’s stuck in the junior team. Teammate Tsunoda crashed a lot in his rookie year but…

BMW 7-SERIES E65 (2002) Price now £1,990 Harris says Yes, you really can pick up a flagship Beemer for less than two grand. It’ll have to be a Bangle era E65 with the first-gen iDrive, but you’ll still be able to choose between a 730d or a 735i at this price point. JAGUAR XJR (2006) Price now £9,495 Harris says The ultimate bad guy’s car. You’ll get a high mileage X350 on our budget complete with a supercharged 4.2-litre V8. Go for one in black with big wheels for extra menace. TOYOTA CENTURY (1997) Price now £12,495 Harris says The JDM-only Century has been around since the late Sixties, but it’s only had three generations in that time. The V12-engined second gen is the one to go for. Replacement parts…

HELLO £51,295 OTR/£74,146 as tested/£1,004 pcm WHY IT’S HERE To live the life most Defenders can only dream of DRIVER Ollie Marriage THE NEW DEFENDER HAS A PROBLEM. IT’S BECOME YET ANOTHER family SUV. Don’t think that’s a problem? Imagine how life is for those Defenders, the ones on the biggest wheels with the blackest paint, doing nothing more strenuous than a full-lock lap of a Waitrose car park. All that capability and engineering, consigned to a life of furious urban kid carting. They must dream of wide open spaces, of getting out there, of being used. This one is going to live that life. So it’s a three-door 90, as that immediately differentiates it and it’s that bit nimbler and more engaging to drive than the big fella. A…

GOODBYE £40,535 OTR/£42,305 as tested/£644pcm WHY IT’S HERE To expose ‘sports crossovers’ as the silly idea they are. DRIVER Paul Horrell OK, LET’S GO BACK AND TRY, AFTER HALF A YEAR’S USE, TO SEE IF I can answer the question posed at the beginning: did it expose ‘sports crossovers’ as a silly idea? Yes. Absolutely. Look at the ‘sports crossovers’ at this size and power. BMW X2 35i? Ah. It’s £53k if you add the options to match the Cupra’s spec, and there’s no delete option for the standard-fit crashy ride. The Mercedes-AMG GLA35, same issues. VW T-Roc R? Cramped. Tiguan R? Lardy. The Leon is an actual car. You sit nice and low, and that means the ride, though firm, is basically vertical. Crossovers, because they’re extra stiff in…

REPORT 5 £110,325/£110,325/£1,841 WHY IT’S HERE It’s the world’s default super limo but is it too clever for its own good? DRIVER Jason Barlow SOME OF THE TECH IN THE MERC drives me nuts. See if you can spot a theme: Traffic Stop Assist, Active Lane Keep Assist, Evasive Steering Assist… actually, the intervention on the last two is less intrusive than on some other cars, but even so. Does the whole interior really need to flash red when you inadvertently cross the white lines? And the emergency braking when an obstacle is spied is borderline terrifying, too. Maybe that one time out of 30 when it saves you from stuffing it on the motorway is justification enough. There’s also facial recognition to monitor driver drowsiness, which triggers one of…

REPORT 2 £36,125 OTR/£37,270 as tested/£450pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can millions of Qashqai owners be wrong? DRIVER Esther Neve FASHION AND DESIGN ARE POLARISING, NO TWO WAYS ABOUT IT. AND what’s especially notable is how willing people are to give you the benefit of their wisdom regarding how things look. The internet is filled with opinions. What’s equally notable is how those opinions change from one moment to the next. I suggest that part of this is down to environment. Hands up who thinks that the Qashqai has startlingly good styling? A few, but not the majority. But clean it up, show it some love and put it in the right location, like the one in the photo above, and people increasingly pause for thought. This is nothing new. Companies…

1 Kia Elan After Lotus ended production of the Elan in 1995, it sold the tooling and production rights to Kia. Around 1,000 Kia Elans were then sold in South Korea and Japan, with the engine a twin-cam 1.8-litre 4cyl making 149bhp. 2 Kia EV6 The all-electric EV6 is essentially the sister car to Hyundai’s retro Ioniq 5, but Kia has gone with swoopier styling and an über fancy rear lightbar to create a sportier coupe-like crossover. 3 Kia Stinger The swoopy sports saloon for those who want to avoid the obvious (and don’t really want a saloon). GT S gets a 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6 that sends 365bhp and 376lb ft to the rear wheels, and 0–62mph in 5.1secs is not to be sniffed at. 4 Kia Cee’d Reasonably Priced…

Kia sold 2.8 million cars worldwide in 2021, a year on year increase of 6.5 per cent. Its Sportage was the bestseller worldwide, with 363,630 of them finding new homes. The company has plants in eight countries, with manufacturing facilities in West Point, Georgia in the USA, Zilina in Slovakia, Nueva Leon in Mexico, Penukonda in India, Chu Lai in Vietnam, Karachi in Pakistan and Yancheng in China. A whopping 54 per cent of Kias sold in Europe are built at the company’s plant in Slovakia – this is where the Ceed and Sportage are built – just over 300,000 of them a year, as it goes. What’s the best concept Kia’s made? Kia tends to play it fairly straight when it comes to concept cars, using them more like…

In the world of racing video games there’s little more exciting than the arrival of a new, numbered Gran Turismo title. Social schedules must be cleared, weeks off work must be booked and significant others must be informed that their use of the big telly will now be referred to as ‘visitation rights’. It’s hard to believe, but it’s been the thick end of a decade since Gran Turismo 6 came out on the PS3 and while GT Sport did a fine job of keeping the flame burning, it was lacking an important – perhaps the most important – element, GT Mode. GT Mode, for those unfamiliar with the series, is the car collecting campaign mode that forms the meat of any mainline Gran Turismo game. In Gran Turismo 7,…

It may not seem it at first glance, but the all-new Super 3 is a super modern Morgan. Yes the tri-wheeled configuration harks back to Morgan’s beginnings, but this is the Malvern-based firm’s first clean sheet design since the Aero 8 in 2000, the first Morgan to use a monocoque structure and a radical diversion in three-wheeler strategy with an inboard engine that has more than two cylinders. The design is recognisably Morgan and pleasingly retro, but this time around there are more modern ‘jet age’ influences. Plus, from head-on those side-mounted cooling packs look like they’ve come straight off an F-35 Lightning. They house radiators up front and then stretch back past the aero-spec front wheels to be decked out with panniers, luggage racks or graphics. The engine is…

When I was a kid we had VW Beetles as family cars, but it was always bikes for me at an early age. I started out with a 1978 Moto Guzzi T3. After that I bought a Ducati, and then I was able to get a lock-up and I ended up with some old Spanish Ossa dirt bikes. I bought my first ‘proper’ car when I was in Australia doing Moulin Rouge and the second Star Wars film. A member of the crew had a 1972 Ford Mustang Fastback and he wanted me to buy it. I found out about another Mustang that was being sold in Sydney at the time – a 1965 convertible. It was cream with a light blue roof. I fell in love, bought it and…

Everyone’s favourite radio-controlled car builder Tamiya has unveiled some of its new products for 2022, and we are obsessed with this recreation of the Ford Bronco. Just look at it. Tamiya says that this will be an assembly kit for people to build at home, and that the end result will use an electric motor and four-wheel drive. Yep, it’s technically a Bronco EV. The plastic model is almost 50cm long and comes with some fantastic details like that adventure-spec roof rack, 12-spoke wheels and a Bronco-branded spare wheel cover. Tamiya.com; n/a…

1 IT’S THE FIRST BESPOKE LEXUS EV Lexus announced its 2021 financial results recently (six per cent up on 2020, a fairly decent job all things considered) and along with the announcement that it would go all-electric by 2035 were a few pics of its first bespoke EV, the RZ, arriving later this year. 2 NO GRILLES ALLOWED Sure, the Lexus UX EV has been on sale for almost two years, but that car has petrol and hybrid versions while the RZ has been designed as electric only from the very beginning. See, look at that bluff front end. No combustion engine cooling needed here. What do we even call that bit of the car now? 3 IT’S A TRIPLET We’re used to seeing a bit of platform sharing among…

£16,595 FOR Cheap, cheerful and charming seven-seater AGAINST How cheap are style led buyers prepared to go? A moment please to lament the passing of a no-nonsense brand – Dacia’s gone all lifestyle, rebranding around an angular logo and khaki green palette. Subdued, to fit current times, but with an outdoorsy feel. Fine, because who doesn’t go outdoors every now and then? Wouldn’t need a car otherwise. And so Dacia’s new Jogger, neither MPV nor SUV nor estate, is not merely the cheapest way to drive around with seven seats in your new car, it’s a companion for your active lifestyle. Let the marketing department have its fun, because the Jogger actually delivers. It remains no-nonsense – there are three trims (including a special edition) and the only options are…

£31,445 FOR Strong looks, big boot, posh interior AGAINST Mild hybrid lacks oomph when you demand it The new Sportage is certainly not shy. It’s the second car after the all-electric EV6 to be designed around Kia’s “opposites united” philosophy, and there’s a clear family resemblance. The Sportage is slightly boxier than the swoopy EV6, but from the rear many of the creases are the same. That aggressive face is another matter altogether, but it seems as though the public is onboard – according to SMMT data, the Sportage was the bestselling new car in the UK in January 2022. That success might have been helped by the sheer amount of choice you get when speccing a Sportage. There’s a dizzying array of powertrains that includes basic 1.6-litre petrols and…

BENTLEY BENTAYGA S £179,600 FOR Loosening the ESC makes it much more fun to drive AGAINST The sports exhaust pops and bangs a bit much for us The S is the sportiest Bentayga you can buy. It uses the 4.0 V8 twin-turbo engine (542bhp and 568lb ft) and is good for a 180mph top speed and 0–62mph in 4.5secs. So it’s fast. It also drives really well. Its dynamic tweaks are all in the details, but the end result is a real entertainer. It never truly shakes off its 2.4 tonnes – there’s no four-wheel-steering or suchlike to artificially shrink it on a winding road – but it nevertheless handles with real swagger. SD LEXUS NX 350H £38,250 FOR Suited to calm driving, vastly improved touchscreen AGAINST Engine sounds dreadful…

Back in the day, the definition of a desirable car was if it was worthy of being printed on a poster and – to your parent’s displeasure – stuck to your bedroom wall. The Minecraft generation doesn’t do posters, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have ‘poster cars’. Nowadays they’re slapped onto their smartphones’ home screen, put in a WhatsApp profile pic, minted into an NFT or driven around a similar-looking-but-legally-sound one in GTA 5 or Roblox. And there’s one car that rules them all – the quintessential supercar for Gen Z: the Lamborghini Huracán. Luckily, they’re two a penny in North Wales. Which was handy when we rocked up cold, wet and bedraggled to the sight of an eye-searing matte green Lamborghini Huracán Evo opposite the Hoffi Coffi café…

WHAT’S NEW FOR 2022? Many F1 fans (and some drivers) have spent years moaning about dull races. Symptoms include falling alseep on the sofa and a compulsion to complain about it on Twitter. Luckily Dr Ross Brawn MD MS (managing director, motorsports) and his team have diagnosed every ailment, and prescribed the following remedies. Here’s to a clean bill of health for 2022… REAR WING Old F1 cars lost half their downforce when following closely, making overtaking hard. This curved rear wing should scoop air up into the, er, air, and make setting up moves much easier. Now who’s brave enough to run nose to gearbox through Eau Rouge? SAME ENGINE, NEW FUEL Engine development has been frozen until 2025, so no cheeky performance upgrades. Reliability fixes only. E10 fuel is…

“WITHOUT A BIG WESTERN BUFFOON LIKE ME INSIDE, IT TIPS THE SCALES AT 840KG” Have you ever wondered just how (and when) you could possibly find use for an armour-plated BMW all the way from Bulgaria? What do you mean no? It’s a question that’s plagued me for the past year, though only after I’d gone and bought one. The answer is not very much. Not at all, in fact. Because for 12 months I’ve owned this 3.2-tonne BMW E32 7-Series and for 12 months it’s only ever moved briefly around a dusty farm shed in Northamptonshire. And that feels like a complete waste, given that its previous job was to chauffeur Bulgaria’s finance minister around. I’d love to reel off a load of excuses why, like the DVLA being…

TOCA Touring Car Championship was the first officially licensed game based on the racing series that is the scourge of wing mirrors everywhere, the British Touring Car Championship. Conveniently, this beloved PlayStation title coincided with the fan-favourite Super Touring era: a period in motorsport when the idea of the Williams F1 team taking time out to fettle a humble Renault Laguna into a championship winning racecar seemed perfectly sensible. What TOCA nailed right out of the gate was the distinctive, knockabout racing that the BTCC was famous for. Packed grids of Ford Mondeos and Honda Accords meant you were constantly busy jostling with other stripped out, heavily sponsored repmobiles and while the handling isn’t going to have iRacing waking up in a cold sweat these days, at the time it…

REPORT 4 £27,995 OTR/£30,132 as tested/£257 pcm WHY IT’S HERE What’s it like to live with an urban EV without home charging? DRIVER Peter Rawlins FOLLOWING GREG’S RECENT LESS-THAN-POSITIVE EXPERIENCE, allow me to talk you through my first adventure in BabyCar. You don’t need me to tell you that the Fiat 500, with its maximum 199-mile range (or, more realistically, around two-thirds of that), isn’t best suited to long journeys. So, facing an 86-mile trip to Salisbury on a freezing cold morning, I decided instead of having to charge at the end of the day, I’d get there early, find myself a fast charger, and enjoy a coffee to warm (and wake) myself up. I arrived with around 50 per cent charge, plugged in at a fast charger and around…

REPORT 6 £26,605/£27,200/£321 WHY IT’S HERE Is this the comfiest family car you can buy? DRIVER Sam Philip HAVE MADE A CONTROVERSIAL C4 discovery. While treating the C4 to a thorough vacuum, I remove the boot floor to find… another, lower boot floor. (This isn’t the controversial bit. I mean, why have one boot floor when you can have two?) So I remove the second boot floor to discover, where you’d expect to find the spare wheel, a subwoofer instead. (This also isn’t the controversial bit. Many cars don’t bother with spare wheels nowadays, preferring the foam-and-fingers-crossed approach instead.) Here’s the controversial bit. In addition to a subwoofer, the wheel well also contains quite a lot of water. Like, a generous mugful of the stuff. It’s been a rainy few…

REPORT 3 £55,795/£55,795/£830 WHY IT’S HERE Fast Peugeots are usually best best kept small. What about a fast PHEV wagon? DRIVER Charlie Rose THE TG TEAM ADORES THE SWANKY exterior styling of the 508 PSE, but it’s time we gave a mention to the interior. You really need to experience a car in multiple scenarios to become truly accustomed to its interior. Fortunately, I’ve ticked many boxes over the past few months: the commute, the long motorway drive, the early morning airport run… I’m pleased to say the interior does feel sufficiently premium. The dark tones of the squishy faux carbon, gloss black panelling with chrome accents and contrasting kryptonite stitching make it feel a damn sight more elegant than you might expect from Peugeot. The i-Cockpit 12.3in display and…

REPORT 4 VW GOLF R Winter should be the Golf R’s manor. Performance-wise, it is. Praise be for the matrix LED headlights which peer through the 5pm darkness. The floor mats are holding up to the grime much better than the Civic Type R we ran through winter a few years back. Just a pity road dirt coats the door handles and totally flummoxes the keyless entry and locking. OK REPORT 2 SKODA ENYAQ Believe it or not, I’m having a few electrical problems with the Enyaq, which is surprising given Skoda’s reputation. The volume on the infotainment (which is slow to warm up) sometimes doesn’t work and then the indicator volume was so loud it was ear-piercing. I stopped the car a few times to try to reset it.…

GOODBYE £158,000 OTR/£185,500 as tested/£1,899pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s the car to save Aston Martin – is it good enough? DRIVER Adam Waddell AFTER 11,000 MILES, IT’S TIME TO HAND BACK THE KEYS TO THE DBX. Its looks have drawn both praise and shrugs of shoulders in equal measure but, personally, I think it looks great – prettier than a Bentayga, less of a whiff of Championship footballer than a Urus and far less common than a Cayenne. And while the new Range Rover might be a bit of a looker itself, it makes no attempt to appear sporting in the way that the DBX does. The DBX delivers on those sporting looks too. With 542bhp, 0–60mph in 4.5 seconds and a top speed of 181mph, it might not quite…

The imaginatively named Picanto 1 opens the bidding at £11,450, for which the company will throw in front electric windows, remote central locking, USB ports and a selection of airbags. Amazing, right? At these low, low prices you’d be grateful to have seats. And of course you’d think that the company’s most expensive car would be the extravagantly hairy chested 3.3-litre V6 Stinger five-door coupe, but actually it’s the plug-in version of the Sorento SUV that tops the list in ‘4’ spec. That car comes in a fetching shade of brown as standard and is kitted with a range of goodies including 19in alloys, LED headlights, adaptive cruise and fancy ventilated electric seats up front. That’ll set you back £54,195 before you go crazy on the options list, adding such…

BEING MODERN RUINS THE FUN In modern cars the one thing I hate is the lack of a manual handbrake. If I had a penny for the number of times I’ve reached down to grab a lever in a moment when I really needed it, I’d be rich… I’ve now learned to check before going full send. In rallying, it’s actually a safety blanket too, by giving it a tiny yank in high-speed corners you can kick the rear out and get an extra bit of rotation if you’re coming in hot with a few too many mph. SPEED IS YOUR FRIEND The number one mistake I’ve noticed when teaching people to handbrake turn is they’re afraid of carrying enough speed. Try to carry a bit more momentum into a…

THE GOOD Wow this looks better than every other crossover on the market Thagonizer THIS IS A HUGE STEP UP FROM THE CONCEPT, IT’S QUITE BEAUTIFUL HypercarAddict I think it looks amazing for what it is. Tesla can’t get close to a design that good in that kind of car Alex Ó Cobhthaigh It looks good for a car in that segment Alex Lawrance Best looking compact SUV. I really hope it does great for Alfa James Finnie THE BAD It looks. .. bland for an Alfa. It’s not bad looking but it’s not pret ty either TBP Is it just me or are the proportions completely out? James Finnie A generic looking Alfa, where’s the Alfa Romeo sparkle gone Steve Street ANOTHER ‘VENDING MACHINE’ CAR. THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME, JUST CHOOSE YOUR…

“PEOPLE WON’T BUY EVs UNLESS THEY HAVE LOTS OF CHOICE” It’s entirely likely that by the end of this year, Tesla will be manufacturing cars at a rate equivalent to two million per year, spewing out of plants in California, Shanghai, and by then Texas and Berlin. All that with just four models, with no new ones at that point. Actually, almost all Tesla’s sales are just two very closely related cars. In the last three months of 2021, deliveries of the 3 and Y combined outnumbered the S and X combined by a staggering 25 to one. Tesla buyers don’t want choice, it seems. But other older carmakers see choice very differently. They’re used to having big ranges. Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi recently made a big fanfare about their plan to use…

£126,885 FOR Best-balanced V10 R8 ever. What a noise AGAINST Erm… cheap and nasty gearshift paddles Did you hear? Audi’s announced this car’s successor (not ‘the new R8’, because it’s not necessarily recycling the name) won’t keep this magnificent 5.2-litre V10. Or a V8, or a V6, or even a two-stroke lawnmower engine. Audi’s next supercar will be all-electric. A wheeee-tron. And that makes this latest addition to the R8 line-up – the entry level RWD version with 30 more horsepower and minor handling tweaks – something more than a quick buff-up from the marketing department. To most people, this looks like the same Audi R8 we’ve known since 2014. Smart, purposeful, and reasonably understated. Avoid the matte red paint, which makes it look like the sort of novelty eraser…

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1983 Red Bull design boss Adrian Newey reckons the 2022 rule changes are the biggest since ‘ground effect’ aerodynamics were banned almost 40 years ago. Having been introduced by Lotus in the late Seventies, huge downforce was created, sticking the cars to the road and massively increasing cornering speeds. Outlawed on safety grounds in 1983 when Nelson Piquet won the championship for Brabham, a form of ground effect returns in 2022. 1994 Electronic driver aids such as active suspension, traction control, launch control and ABS were hugely expensive and were considered to make the cars too easy to drive. When they were banned for 1994, the cars were more edgy, and Ayrton Senna predicted a lot of accidents on the horizon. Tragically he was proved correct. Benetton produced the most…

“IT’S A SOUND YOU’LL LOVE HAVING POURED IN YOUR EARS, RICHER TONED THAN THE F8” “IT’S A BIT OF A REVOLUTION THIS, FERRARI’S FIRST EVER PRODUCTION V6” The bends never end. Mile after mile of golden third gear curves, diamond-like chippings in the road twinkling in the sun, dappled shade rushing by, surface scrubbed and polished, tarmac twisting onwards, writhing back and forth, up and down, views bubbling at the fringes. Numbing in its monotony, if you couldn’t appreciate the perfection of it. I have to self-administer mental slaps to stop myself thinking I’m in a dream sequence with a chorus of angels on accompaniment. The car’s not helping. The rhythm of this road is one the Ferrari 296 GTB slips into effortlessly. It compresses in, then springs out, a…

It’s easy to get a little hot around the collar at the prospect of venerated carmakers producing dreaded SUVs, but it’s also easy to forget that these companies need to make a little money to fund their habit of building cars that enthusiasts love but can’t afford. Maserati joined the SUV club in 2016 with its Levante model, and there’s – gasp – another on the way later in 2022. The Levante was extensively trailed ahead of going into production by the Kubang concept, the Italian sportscar manufacturer predictably nervous about going ahead. But join us back at the Geneva Motor Show in 2000 and there was a very real chance that Maserati could have ended up with an MPV model. The Buran concept car was a bizarre fusion of…

OH, LOOK AT THIS PAIR! AREN’T THEY CUTE? There may be a near six-decade age difference between these two, but as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. First launched in 1957, the Nuova (new) 500 measured just 2.97m long by 1.32m wide and 1.32m tall, weighing in at 470kg, while power came from a 479cc two-cylinder, air-cooled rear engine producing 13bhp and good for 53mph. It would remain on sale for the next 18 years, with nearly four million rolling off the production line. THE NEW ONE DOESN’T QUITE LOOK SO SMALL With every generation the 500 has piled on a few pounds, and this latest version measures 3.63m long by 1.68m wide and 1.53m tall. It weighs in at a comparatively hefty 1,365kg, but let’s…

REPORT 3 £45,900 OTR/£58,900 as tested/£660pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is it the thoughtful and better alternative to a Tesla Model 3? DRIVER Tom Ford DON’T, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE, DOWNLOAD THE POLESTAR SPACE Warp arcade game if you have a Polestar. Not even because it’s any good, but because it’s stupid and addictive and hugely pointless. And yet addictive. And yet pointless. In the way only crappy space games really are. It’s also perhaps the worst possible use of the Google-infused multimedia and operating system in the P2, whose breadth of ability is properly unlocked once you start downloading some apps. Vivaldi web browser is downloaded, as are some of my favourite mapping applications and the like. And the voice control really works, at least for my accent, which is so bland…

REPORT 5 £84,870 OTR/£93,646 as tested/£1,010pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can ‘the only sports car you’ll ever need’ turn its hand to anything? DRIVER Ollie Marriage WHEN McLAREN LAUNCHED THE GT, THE CLAIM WAS THAT IT WAS ABLE to transport such unusually shaped objects as skis, golf clubs and guitar cases. And it can. Which, if you’re both a supercar addict and a juggler of unusual and ungainly items, might be the best news you’ve ever had. But this made me think. The 911 is very useful, but being rearengined (the GT’s load bay is on top of its mid-mounted motor) doesn’t really have an area that can take long items. So far, I’ve used Seasucker racks and the roof. Which spoils the easy 32mpg cruising economy. Typically enough, it all…

REPORT 5 £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? DRIVER Stephen Dobie I RARELY DISCUSS THE AESTHETICS OF A CAR. IN A WORLD WHERE the BMW X7 consistently finds buyers, I feel it’s not my place; beauty is unequivocally in the eye of the beholder. I also rarely dip into the bottom half of the internet and into the murky world of comments. But I’m breaking both rules this month. And it’s all thanks to @Troyfrancis25, who used his TopGear.com account to spout forth about the i20N. “The rear doors absolutely ruin the lines on this car,” says Troy. “The rear doorhandles should have been hidden in the C-pillar; they look wonky compared with…

REPORT 5 £78,425/£95,370/£1,640 WHY IT’S HERE The M3 has gone 4WD. Is it good enough to steal sales from the RS4? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle THE BENEFITS OF HAVING AN all-wheel-drive system are simple: it adds more traction and therefore performance (4WD M3s need just 3.5secs to reach 62mph from zero, making them 0.4 seconds quicker than a RWD equivalent). Not only that, 4WD also adds security while making the car more usable in a wider spread of conditions; something that’s especially useful in a 500bhp performance saloon, as I’m finding during the grip deficient roads of winter. However, there are drawbacks. As soon as you start adding longitudinal power and drive through the front wheels there is less capacity for lateral forces. So you usually get understeer. Understeer = bad.…

Kia started out inauspiciously in 1944 as Kyungsung Precision Industry, making steel tubing and bicycle parts. It changed its name to Kia Industries in 1952 (the firm says that its name comes from two Korean characters that roughly translate as ‘rising from the east’) and started building Honda-licensed motorbikes in the late Fifties. Its first car came along in 1974, but it was a rebadged Mazda. Interestingly, Kia didn’t design and build a car fully in-house until 1992’s Sephia, sold in the UK as the Mentor. The Asian financial crisis in 1997 ended up with the company declaring itself bankrupt, and Hyundai stepped in to take over a 51 per cent chunk of the firm, outbidding Ford, which had owned a share of Kia since 1986. A new approach since…

Kia’s flagship performance model is the V6-engined Stinger, a real statement of intent to the German establishment. Not least because it’s a true autobahn muncher, maxing out at a dizzying 168mph. Back in 2019, Kia’s UK division decided to have a bit of fun with a pre-production model that was destined to be sent to the crusher once it had finished its testing duties. Kia then set it up as a racing-style car, putting a bit of effort into tuning the already potent 3.3-litre V6 engine and ditching 150kg of dead weight. The Stinger GT420 – named for its new power output of 420bhp, up from the standard 361bhp – is presumably the fastest ever Kia, but it’s never actually been officially put to the test. Don’t tell anyone, but…

Kia Elan / 1996–1999 / £12,000–£15,000 What is it? We now know Kia as a forward thinking, aesthetically cocksure brand that we recommend without sarcasm or a wry smile, but rewind 25 years and it was different. Kias were cheap and basic, so the range needed something that said “those people actually like making cars”. That involved buying the tooling for the M100-generation Elan off Lotus. Replaced in 1995 by the wondrous Elise, its kit and instruction manual headed east where it was pumped out by Kia between 1996 and 1999. Around 1,000 of them were made, sold only in Korea and Japan. It wasn’t a mere badge swap – then owner General Motors refused to share parts, while the Korean authorities demanded some local input. So in came a…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £34,365–£37,465 RANGE: Up to 136 miles This TG favourite has retro styling and a brilliant interior, but it’s a smidge expensive and the range isn’t great. Somehow we can’t help but love it… 2. MINI ELECTRIC PRICE: £27,000–£35,050 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 500 PRICE: £23,835–£33,835 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. 4. V…