Innholdsfortegnelse for Aug-22 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com Car design is always dodgy ground for motoring journalists. Facts are facts, quotes are quotes and describing an experience with authority and colour is all part of the job. But passing judgement on the way a car looks? That’s entirely subjective, isn’t it? Eye of the beholder and all that. And yet sometime the beauty of an object is so radiant and obvious for all to see that we report it as fact. Similarly, when a car is so hideously ugly the mere idea of anyone thinking different is absurd, it becomes unwritten law that scorn must be poured. But that shouldn’t be the case. If you’ve got eyes in your head and the pictures (or video) you’re looking at is half-decent, you can happily make up your…

When the Youabian Puma was unveiled at the 2014 LA Auto Show, it provoked many strong reactions among journalists, the public and innocent bystanders. Shortly thereafter, the Puma’s creator, an actual medical doctor named Kambiz Youabian, issued cease-and-desist letters to those who had published less-than-positive reactions, claiming that to describe the Puma as, for example, “elephantine” or “nightmare inducing” was to defame him and his creation. So, not wishing to provoke the legally eager doctor or his legally eager lawyers any further, Fail of the Century shall here stick to the undisputed facts of the case. Which are as follows. The Youabian Puma was a vehicle. It was 20 feet long and eight feet across. It weighed 3.5 tonnes and had a folding hard-top. Somewhere in its midst resided the…

What would life be like if we were never afraid? There would be definite advantages. With no fear of rejection you might finally write the groundbreaking novel that you’ve definitely got in you. Or with no nagging concerns you could reach a state of monklike nirvana and spend the rest of your life peacefully contemplating the wonders of the universe. Of course, it might not work out. Your book might be rubbish. Or you may wander blissfully in front of a bus. We talk about fear as something to be conquered, to be overcome. But we don’t really know what we would do without it. People selling us watches and cars have long realised that people are drawn to fear. We are full of admiration for anyone who does brave…

Retrowave Looking like a playable version of a Kavinsky album cover, Retrowave is a modestly sized PC game that sees you blasting along a series of endless highways in a neon-lit Eighties vision of the future. This is probably what Robocop’s commute looks like. Your goal is simple, carve your way through traffic for as long as you can before you accidentally stuff your crisp, white Faux-rari F40 into the back of another car. It’s a weirdly soothing experience and accompanied by a soundtrack of appropriately understated synthwave beats. There’s even a VHS filter to recreate the experience of squinting at your video games on a blurry 19-inch Trinitron. There’s not loads here, but it costs a mere three quid, which is considerably less than a pint these days. Unlike…

01 Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss A token of the partnership between Mercedes and McLaren in F1, the McMerc SLR was built from 2003 to 2009. This ’09 special edition remembered Sir Stirling’s 1955 Mille Miglia win – ditching the roof and other bits meant 200kg saved, and the 75 $1m+ cars were limited to existing SLR owners. 02 Range Rover Evoque Victoria Beckham In case the Evoque needed a bit of spicing up, chanteuse-turned-fashion designer Victoria Beckham was on hand at the Chinese launch of the car in 2012 to unveil her poshed up special edition. This mainly involved rose gold interior trim pieces and a matching luggage set. 03 Chrysler Imperial Frank Sinatra Edition Lee Iacocca became Chrysler CEO in 1978 and resurrected the swanky Imperial, enlisting Frank Sinatra to help shift…

And the award for Most Improved Normal Car of the Year goes to… the 11th-gen Civic hatchback. It’s taken football pitch sized leaps and bounds over the previous car, which drove with a certain verve but had a laughably amateur hour interior riddled with dated displays and naff switchgear, wrapped in bodywork best described as ‘busy’. The new Civic is calmer and cleaner to look at. It’s 35mm longer overall so passengers enjoy extra legroom, and it is indeed roomier out back than a Focus or a Golf. The biggest change is in the powertrain department: it’s now a class of one. Honda insists the 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol with full-time hybrid assistance is more frugal than the old 1.0-litre turbo triple, while offering superior torque to the previous diesel and…

You join me sweating like a brisket in the Texas sunshine, despite the aircon’s best efforts. A quarter mile of wobbly heathazed tarmac stretches out in front of me, behind an idling V8 burbles away like a T-Rex puffing on a pack of B&H. The whole car rocks back and forth on its springs as I stare, brow furrowed, at the mannetino-style toggle in front of me. In the distance, the Venom F5’s entire development team waits patiently, wondering whether I’ve fallen asleep or had a coronary. For every extreme pursuit – be it big air snowboarding, bullfighting, aerobatic piloting or, as it turns out, driving a lightly disguised dragster with 1,817bhp – there’s a ‘hold my beer’ moment. An unavoidable plank walk into the unknown. Your first solo loop…

Clarkson’s V8 blender? No idea why that didn’t catch on, because at its core the idea was sheer perfection. Souping up any mechanical device with a lot more power than it strictly requires is always going to have joyous results and get two thumbs up from TopGear. Or two thumbs off in the case of Clarkson’s Corvette Magimix. Take the Dodge 8300 Tomahawk from 2003, a motorbike powered by an 8.3-litre Viper V10, nothing wrong with that. How about the 24-litre aero-engined Napier-Railton that’s broken 47 separate land speed records, or Jonny Smith’s 800+bhp Enfield 8000 EV conversion capable of sub-10secs quarter miles? You see, it’s a formula that works. Especially when the chassis’s top hat is as inappropriate as possible. Pick something that has no business going quickly, make…

Some manufacturers will brag about how they develop their cars for drivers, or make a fuss about how their latest elegantly mangled crossover will keep families happy. But for many households there’s another member of the entourage to look after (mainly so they don’t throw up over the boot). Someone barely considered until Honda came out with its WOW concept at the Tokyo Motor Show back in 2005. The name stood for “wonderfully open-hearted wagon”, extending a long Japanese tradition of essentially meaningless yet endearing car names. It was meant to “bring people and their dogs closer together”, by cramming them into a small car for long journeys. Just what every pooch wants. The WOW concept was designed to be easy access with low wooden floors (genius – open up…

WAIT, THESE TWO ARE RELATED? Indeed. Just over 20 years separates the sharp, narrowed eyes of the M240i and the slightly ratty, foggy headlights of the (slightly rusty) 328i Sport. Moreover, both cars sit one level below their respective range toppers: the M240i will bow of course, to the incoming M2 Competition, while the 328i Sport takes second billing to the slightly unloved E36-generation M3. HANG ON, ONE’S A 2-SERIES AND ONE’S A 3ER. WHAT GIVES? Not to get bogged down in BMW model history, the 3-Series was available as a 2dr right up until 2013. At which point it morphed into the 4-Series. And with the embiggening of each successive generation of 3- and 4-Series, the smaller 2-Series Coupe that arrived in 2014 is closer in both spirit and…

REPORT 6 £36,125 OTR/£37,270 as tested/£450pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can millions of Qashqai owners be wrong? DRIVER Elliott Webb I’D LIKE TO QUOTE OUR LONG TERM QASHQAI DRIVER ESTHER. “Maybe it’s the moment to see how it stacks up as family transport. It should obviously be brilliant. We shall see…” A roadtrip to the Norfolk coast with all the family onboard awaited. One dad (me), one lapdog (a cockapoo who prefers her own seat, usually up front), one brilliant new mother (annoyed because the dog called shotgun) and an eight-month-old who comes with more luggage than the entire McCallister family on a Christmas break. The Qashqai was deployed. “This will be a doddle,” the enthusiastic new dad thought. All of the vast 504-litre boot capacity was used, and by simply…

HELLO £79,090 OTR/£83,060 as tested/£942pcm WHY IT’S HERE  Does a V8 super-SUV still have a legitimate role to play? DRIVER Ollie Marriage IN 2025, JAGUAR WILL RE-EMERGE, BUTTERFLY LIKE, FROM ITS chrysalis. A brand reborn for an all-electric future. So the existing range has to soldier on for the next three years, without update or facelift. Tough gig. It’s meant Jaguar is slipping off our collective radar. It still sells the XE – did you know that? It does an F-Pace plug-in hybrid, too. It promises 33 miles of e-range, a stepping stone into that brave new world. Uh, this isn’t that. Because what we have here is an F-Pace SVR with a supercharged V8. Once again: supercharged V8. I can’t say it without smiling. Partially out of self-conscious guilt, if…

REPORT 2 SKODA FABIA Skoda prides itself on the simple stuff, and praise be, it has actual, simple physical buttons! Despite boasting a rather impressive touchscreen, there are three knobs: one for the temp, one for fan speed and one to direct the air. Plus there’s an aircon button too. The best ones? Scrolly things on the steering wheel to control the audio and dash info. Nice for such a simple car.VP REPORT 3 VOLKSWAGEN ID.4 A busier month with some longer journeys. Derbyshire, Cornwall, the south coast. It was carrying just me at times, more people at others, and various cargo. Generally then the very things a car of this kind this was designed for, and that’s how it felt. It’s really roomy inside and the boot is big…

GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR MORE MIND-BLOWING MANUFACTURER GUIDES Who’s Maserati, and when did they start making cars? Three Maserati brothers started a workshop in Bologna in 1914. They made aeroplane engine tech in World War One, then found themselves spannering racecars for manufacturer Diatto. They started making their own in 1926. They sold up to local steel magnate Adolfo Orsi in 1937, and he moved the HQ to Modena near his existing factories. The brothers stayed on to lend their engineering expertise. The first Maserati road car was the 1947 A6 1500, with a 1.5 in-line six and body designed by Pininfarina. The motorsport activity continued through to the Fifties, with Juan Manuel Fangio winning the 1957 F1 title in a 250F, but the firm retired all of its factory…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £34,420–£37,520 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: £29,500–£33,610 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…

■ # NEW CARS ■ # ENTERTAINMENT ■ # CARCULTURE ■ #CELEBRITY ■ #GADGETS ■ # GAMING Very rarely does a new Pagani special edition fail to impress, but this one might just leave you more than a little flabbergasted. This is the very special, very limited and very, very expensive Pagani Huayra ‘Codalunga’. It’s the work of Pagani’s freshly minted Grandi Complicazioni division – that’s the special projects department – working in close collaboration with the client who had long requested a long tail version of the turbocharged V12 hypercar. Using the “simple linear style” of the Huayra Coupe as its base, the team then took inspiration from the gorgeous Le Mans long tails from the Sixties, “which had very clean lines”. It took two years to finalise the concept,…

Welcome to Hoonigan and Subaru Motorsports’ latest one-off: a modified Subaru GL Wagon set to make a flying debut in the next instalment of Gymkhana. Travis Pastrana, of course, takes over helmsmith duties from Ken Block, a man so allergic to straight lines he travels everywhere sideways. About the flying bit. “The GL Wagon is an iconic Subaru that I thought would be rad to see flying through the air,” explains Pastrana. The team took a 1983 GL Wagon and slotted in a flat-four Scooby motor modified to punch out 862bhp. Then comes a sequential six-speed gearbox, long-travel WRC-spec suspension and a new diff package. The drivetrain is packed inside a tubular spaceframe shod entirely in carbon fibre body panels. Added to this carbon-fibre suit are a few concessions to…

I was always very young when I moved up classes as a kid. I always wanted to race against the best rather than staying down a year to potentially win a championship. From the age of eight my target was Formula One. I set a record when I became the youngest ever Formula Three racer. It was a weekend at Donington Park in the British F3 Championship and I got special dispensation from the FIA to qualify on the Saturday, which was my last day of being 15. That meant it was my 16th birthday on race day, so that will never be beaten. I ended up doing a full year in the British F3 Championship before I had a road car licence. Once I turned 17 I passed my…

It’s not just ginormo-grille Merc S-Classes that design boss Gorden Wagener pens for the Maybach sub-brand. He has now been roped into the world of high fashion, with his crayon-wielding team responsible for these shockingly bad branded sunglasses. There’ll be 10 colour combinations when they go on sale this summer, with 22-carat gold, rose gold or platinum plating combined with “sustainably sourced natural horn”. Titanium is used in the construction too and there’s plenty of Maybach badging, though we’re a little sad they didn’t squeeze in any quilted leather. Shame. Maybach-luxury.com; €2,400+…

1 IT’S A PROPER ELECTRIC SUPERMINI Remember the bewinged Cupra UrbanRebel is it looks like a very attractive 4dr supermini. Sadly, though it may look almost there, Cupra concept we saw in September 2021? Well, this is it without the wacky racing bits, and the big news is still sticking to its original 2025 release date. 2 IT’LL SPAWN OTHER VW GROUP EVS When it does finally arrive, the UrbanRebel will be built on the VW Group’s upcoming MEB small platform that’ll also underpin the Volkswagen ID.1, although we’ve only seen a very basic sketch of that so far. Expect a Skoda iteration too à la Citigo, Mii and Up, but with Cupra leading the development this time around. 3 THE STATS ARE IMPRESSIVE Along with these latest concept pictures, Cupra…

There have been hybrid McLarens before. The P1, for one, and the Speedtail. But they were limited number, specialist cars. The Artura points the way to the future for the whole brand. It doesn’t shout about its significance. In fact it’s an exercise in familiarity: the nose, flying buttresses, indeed the overall stance, proportions and even the colour. It’s challenging to work out if this is a new car – which must make it a tough sell for existing customers thinking of upgrading. And there’s more. Recently McLaren’s technical approach has attracted some criticism because all its cars have largely been based on the same kit of parts: a two-seat carbon tub, with a twin-turbo V8 engine bolted on the back, driving the rear wheels through a twin-clutch gearbox. OK,…

BM W M240i xDRIVE £47,515 AUDI RS3 SALOON £57,900 Noticed the mirrors on the new BMW M240i? They’vegotthesamebizarre twin-support-but-only-one-touches-the-car motif as a proper M Division car. Why? Simple. BMW says it’s so fast, it deserves them. With four-wheel drive as standard, eight forward speeds and a 369 horsepower wallop, the new M240i needs only 4.3 seconds to get you from 0–62mph. That’s as quick as the original M2, and faster than the old V8 M3 GTS. That’s why we’ve broken the rules on engagement. Strictly the hierarchy goes like this: normal A3 vs normal 2-Series, S3 vs M240i, and the RS3’s traditional rival would be the full-fat M2. But the M240i is now so powerful, so fast and so four-wheel drive, this is a more interesting fight. The new-gen M2…

£47,005 The Genesis GV60 is the South Korean firm’s first EV and one of three that it’ll launch in the next year. It’s also the car that should have introduced Genesis to Europe. Forget the recycled US-spec saloons and SUVs, this is a proper forward-thinking product and proves that it’s here for the long haul. If you’re thinking it looks strangely familiar, that might be because there’s more than a hint of Pontiac Aztec in there. It may also be because it’s based on the same E-GMP platform as the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5. Hyundai went super retro with its blank sheet design, but the Kia and Genesis share similar coupe-crossover shapes. There are three versions of the GV60 – Premium, Sport and Sport Plus – but just…

“YOU DON’T CLICK YOUR FINGERS AND THE PASS IS OPEN.” The voice is weary, but also full of wonder. “But look at this place, the mountains, the road. It is hard work, but a privilege to have this as my offce.” We’re standing, somewhat incongruously, on an old tennis court halfway up the Stelvio Pass. It’s the biggest bit of level ground I’ve seen in the past two days. The conversation lulls, as it inevitably does in the face of such scenic magnificence, and our eyes are drawn up again. Up and up the bare cliff face and the impossible strand of engineering tacked on to it. Then down, to linger on an exotic wedge of supercar. The wind has picked up again, the cloud is closing in. The weather…

Juggling imperial measurements has always been a struggle – the only reference I have to something being weighed in pounds is a baby. And, with my rough maths, John Hennessey has just ordered an average-sized newborn’s worth of sausages, brisket, ribs and chicken. We’re in Hinze’s BBQ, a smokehouse in Sealey, Texas. Here – more than anywhere – felt appropriate to grill the incredibly hospitable and enthusiastic John Hennessey on the F5 and his future plans. RH: You announced the F5 in 2014. Have the intentions of the project changed since then? JH: No… and yes. No, it hasn’t changed as the original concept was to be the fastest car in the world – we’re still intent on that. The yes is that we’ve changed course slightly and made the…

Close your eyes, what do you see? Black. Planets are born out of black, and life succumbs to it. No other colour has an emotional response quite like black. The first colour we used to paint (using animal fat and charcoal) was black. It’s worn by priests and penitents, but equally favoured by both fashion designers and fascists. Black is the primordial colour. The OG. It came before light and has had negative connotations ever since. Black is a void, deathly and not suitable for life. But it’s also a constantly conflicted colour, being a mark of both holiness and sin, wealth and poverty, good and bad. Black is also associated with secrecy and stealth (Black Ops, for all you Call of Duty fans) and Yves Saint Laurent said, “Black…

NISSAN 350Z (2004) Price now £5,995 Harris says It might not have got the best reception when it launched, but the V6-engined, RWD 350Z feels pleasingly raw these days. Good ones do anyway. Big mileage, early cars are available on the cheap. NISSAN PULSAR GTI-R (1994) Price now £15,500 Harris says Rally homologation rules meant that 5,000 road-going GTI-Rs had to be built in the early Nineties. With a 2.0-litre turbo 4cyl sending 227bhp and 210lb ft of torque to all four wheels, it was like a GR Yaris for the Britpop era. NISSAN GT-R (2009) Price now £39,990 Harris says The R35 GT-R has finally gone off sale, so now’s the time to pick up an early one for the bargain price of almost £40k. You’ll do well to…

REPORT 5 £51,295/£74,146/£1,004 WHY IT’S HERE To live the life most Defenders can only dream of DRIVER Simon Bond WE’RE NOT LONG INTO OUR journey and the Defender has thrown up a low coolant warning. A thorough scout of the engine bay doesn’t reveal anything drastic. The coolant level is sat below the minimum fill line. No cracks, no loose hoses. So, a quick top up and we’re on our way. The temp indicator hasn’t budged off the middle of the gauge. The next day, the amber coolant warning bongs again. It’s dropped a litre and a half overnight. Our route takes us past Sytner Land Rover of Bristol so we try our chances and call in, maintaining generic customer credentials. They point us to Land Rover Assist. A bit of…

GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR EXTENDED TG GARAGE REPORTS, AND TO EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE REPORT 8 £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  Greg Potts LOOKING BACK IT’S FAIR TO SAY THAT THE LITTLE FIAT RECEIVED A mixed reaction when it first arrived. The optional rose gold paint – a £600 extra – has been a source of much conversation. It’s certainly a brave shade, but Fiat isn’t the first to use it as an exterior colour, and it just so happens Bentley has a similarly specced Continental GTC Speed on its press fleet – the perfect excuse for a twin test. Yes one might be an electric city car with 117bhp while the other is a 208mph convertible…

BMW iX xDrive M Sport REPORT 2 £94,000 OTR/£115,670 as tested/£2,259pcm WHY IT’S HERE This is BMW’s techno flagship, but what’s it like to live with? DRIVER Jason Barlow THIS FEELS REMARKABLY LIKE DÉJÀ VU. HAVING RELUCTANTLY GIVEN one M3 back to BMW (the Isle of Man Green 2WD car), it’s now time to hand back its 4WD replacement. And it hasn’t got any easier. In fact, this time, it might be harder. But before I hand it back, there’s one car I’ve wanted to compare it to: the BMW iX. This too has a BMW badge, but I don’t see it as being anything like the BMW I’ve been driving. And if people have taken umbrage at the way the M3 looks, I don’t know what they’re going to…

GOODBYE £66,280 OTR/£67,430 as tested/£836pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does more power mean more fun when it comes to EVs? DRIVER Jack Rix THERE ARE CERTAIN CARS, ACCORDING TO THE UNWRITTEN CODE OF motoring journalism, that under no circumstances are you allowed to openly enjoy. Large, fast and thirsty SUVs are definitely in there, as is a swoopy electric family SUV with Mustang badges plastered all over it. I jest, but the backlash when Ford first revealed the Mach-E was swift and clear – this was a misuse of a nameplate forged in the fire of over-engined muscle cars, and to use it on a silent, jacked-up crossover was heresy. Amazing how time softens opinions, isn’t it? Because a few short years on and all but the most strident Stang fans…

SMOOTHLY DOES IT Heel and toe is a way to smooth gearshifts, and ultimately your entire driving technique in anything that uses a manual gearbox. It’s particularly important in racers where being smooth not only keeps your speed up, but prolongs the life of components too. I recently did a tuition day with Rob Wilson, a coach who has worked with many F1 drivers – we talked a lot about it and how it’s the most efficient way to get the fastest lap time. NEW SCHOOL Of course, these days we have the accelerator on the right and the brake in the middle, which makes the action a little different. Forget using your heel at all, you want to push the brake with the ball of your big toe, and…

THIS MONTH: ACURA NSX TYPE S HEY, GOOD LOOKING Aesthetically I think Acura nailed the NSX. The silhouette still looks super modern and the Type S add-ons like the NSX GT3-inspired diffuser, the spoiler and the bigger front grille add to the sense of occasion. This is one of my favourite looking cars of all time. From all angles. PARDON? Acura says that it has tweaked the sound profiles in all of the NSX’s modes (Quiet, Sport, Sport+ and Track) for the Type S, but sadly it still isn’t the best sounding car in its class. More noise please! Shout out to the NSX – it had a good run. The glorious second gen eventually arrived in 2016 and sat somewhere between the sports car and supercar markets with its…

Back in the day a car used to be finished before you bought it, but in this brave new world of over the air updates and pervasive electronics you could end up with a very different car by the time you’re finished driving it around. Volkswagen is very excited about how its latest OS update makes its EVs charge faster and answers some of the criticisms about the set-up (it’s all relative – the lane keep assist has been moved to a slightly closer sub-menu). But of course you can’t magic any physical buttons inside over 4G. Nor can you improve the slightly disappointing interior quality. At any rate, the new ID.5’s hardware is familiar, cribbed entirely from the ID.4 SUV and enjoying much in common with the Skoda Enyaq…

£29,995 Meet the follow-up to the GT86, now with know-how from Toyota’s motorsport-conquering Gazoo Racing division. The GR86 is still a frontengined, 2+2-seater coupe with a Subaruderived flat-four boxer engine driving the rear wheels, designed to tempt younger buyers (and the young at heart) away from lobbing £30k on a hot hatch or a lifestyle crossover. Tyres. Normally we wouldn’t start here, but there’s an interesting nugget to ponder. With the old GT86, Toyota made a big hoo-ha about its decision to fit the same sort of Michelin Primacy rubber you get on a Prius hybrid – in an effort to reduce overall grip and keep its skinny tyred 200bhp coupe playful. The flaw in this plot was the eco tyres made heavy braking a bit sketchy and didn’t do…

MERCEDES-AMG GT 63 S E-PERFORMANCE £173,705 This is the first AMG to use its new performance-biased modular PHEV set-up. It’s a hell of a lot of money, but the battery tech is genuinely cutting edge and bodes well for the C63 later this year, plus it covers a load of bases. An electric car one minute, an aggro supercar the next and in the middle a practical, longlegged four-door family car. Hitting Merc’s claimed 35.8mpg and 180g/km figures? No chance… but you’ll have a lot of fun trying. TOYOTA GR SUPRA MANUAL £53,495 Toyota was so adamant it’d never build a manual version of the BMW-derived Supra that when it broke its foolish promise, it had to totally revamp the centre console so your shift hand didn’t bang into…

“THAT’S THE THING WITH STREAMLINED SHAPES: THEY LOOK GREAT BUT THEY’RE DIFFICULT TO EXECUTE” We know what you’re thinking, has Hyundai’s design department just dropped the ball spectacularly for the first time in years? To put it kindly the new Ioniq 6 is, er, challenging, but you may need to do a bit of internet cross-referencing to fully assimilate what you’re looking at here, because this is a car that doesn’t shy away from its influences. And what influences they are. Hyundai’s HG Wells-style time machine stopped off in the mid-Seventies for the rapturously received Ioniq 5, but this time we whirl further back to the Twenties and Thirties, a spectacularly creative time for automotive and transport design. Back then, streamlining was all the rage, and the results were often…

NEVER HAS A MORE GLORIOUS ARRIVAL RECOVERY TRUCK Children are agog. Mums with prams retreat while dads puff out their cheeks and nod heads in synchronised appreciation. The most powerful road-legal truck in the world has made its grand entrance at Britain’s biggest, most enduring lorry themed festival. Pity it wasn’t moving under its own power. Caution: this story is now reversing. I’m rewinding a month, to when the TopGear offce received word from Texas that John Hennessey was sending his latest four-wheeled metaphor for America on a pond-hopping foreign exchange. A picture of the most preposterous dandelion yellow pickup truck detonated into TG’s group chat. What exactly do you do with a Dodge Ram TRX which left the factory blessed with a 702bhp Hellcat V8, went south to Hennessey…

“I DON’T THINK THERE’S A BETTER ALL-ROUND DAILY FOR THE MONEY” The heart wants what the heart wants. Which – in the case of a new daily – is two turbos, eight cylinders and a very low APR rate. Because my trusty 2015 E63 AMG has departed ways for a 2017 E63 S AMG. And not just any E63 S AMG either. This one’s obviously a wagon, but also the very same car Mercedes-Benz UK ran on its press fleet a few years back. The same car that TopGear used to tow the Bloodhound LSR, and the same car which has seen more drag launches than a RuPaul/SpaceX collab destined for Mars. For many people an ex-press car would trigger alarm bells. Thankfully I’m a bit thick, so it barely…

F1’s got the wrong idea. Rather than closing off the streets of Monaco for your race, why not leave the place rammed with traffic and littered with street furniture for a bit of additional challenge? That was arcade game GTI Club: Rally Côte d’Azur’s approach, allowing you to hare recklessly around an approximation of the principality during a normal afternoon. Something you’d never be able to do in real life without accidentally running over several automotive vloggers. For the most part, the cars on offer were slightly less glamorous than your usual Monte Carlo fare, mind you. Befitting of its name, GTI Club focused on hot hatches that were retro even for 1996, so you’d be hustling Renault 5 Alpine V6 Turbos, Mini Coopers and, of course, the MkI VW…

REPORT 3 £32,260/£36,035/£443 WHY IT’S HERE Does Honda’s eco-champ stand out from the crossover crowd? DRIVER Charlie Rose BEING TG’S STAFF VIDEOGRAPHER, one of the key things I look for in a car is a big boot to transport all my camera gubbins. So how does the HR-V stack up? Well, 319 litres of bootspace isn’t great. In fact, ours has only 304 litres due to one of the side compartments being occupied by a subwoofer which comes as part of the range-topping Advance Style specification. Hmmm, things aren’t looking particularly good for all my camera gear. Fortunately, Honda retains its Magic Seats USP, with cinema-style flip-up squabs to aid versatility. They also look the part with grey herringbone cloth on cream synthetic leather with orange stitching. The rear seating…

HELLO £55,435/£61,955/£690 WHY IT’S HERE Is the Q4 e-tron superior to its VW Group siblings, or just pricier? DRIVER Jack Rix HOPPING FROM A MACH-E TO A Q4 e-tron will be interesting. Both serve similar purposes, cost similar amounts, but go about their work in very different ways. The Ford is keen for you to notice it – all those Mustang badges, the elongated bonnet, an excess of horsepower– the Audi is happy to be just another smart SUV with a toothy smile, and a focus on quality and serenity, not scalp-peeling acceleration. We have a Q4 e-tron S line 40 with 201bhp, RWD and a claimed range of 308 miles. It’ll do 0–62mph in 8.5secs and hit an underwhelming 99mph, but venture that far and you’ll be gobbling electricity faster…

GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR EXTENDED TG GARAGE REPORTS, AND TO EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE GOODBYE £40,130 OTR/£46,850 as tested/£595pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is it the thoughtful and better alternative to a Tesla Model 3? DRIVER Tom Ford SIX MONTHS AND NEARLY 15,000 MILES AFTER IT FIRST ARRIVED, and the Polestar 2 has turned out to be all that we hoped it might be; reliable, serene, good looking and a properly useful daily electric car. Less flash than a Tesla certainly, not quite as good to drive as a BMW i4, not as imposing as a whopping great big electric SUV, but nestling comfortably in the sweet spot where the car doesn’t particularly say anything about the owner’s insecurities. This is good. This is where Polestar needs to be. Everything seems to have…

What is it? The Maserati 3200GT was revealed at the Paris Motor Show in 1998, a curvaceous return to form for the firm, complete with twin-turbo 3.2-litre V6. Finally a new Maserati that would help everyone to forget the past 20 years or so, the first new car from Modena to be produced under the supervision of Ferrari. Its name was a tribute to the beautiful 3500GT from the Fifties, its styling a move away from the right-angles that began with Marcello Gandini. It wasn’t a complete break with the past – the styling was done by Italdesign, headed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, who penned the Ghibli, Bora and Boomerang concept back in the day. The late Nineties was a bit of a classic era for luxury GT cars looking back…