Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-22 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com It was the 355 Spider that got me. Rosso paint, crema leather, manual gearbox, *chef’s kiss*. As a teenager I had a model I would ogle for hours. Couldn’t find a bad angle, still can’t. Close my eyes at night, that’s the one I’d see – me driving, a not-unattractive person in the passenger seat, V8 howling, unnecessary gearshifts to revel in the click-clack… full fantasy mode. Still never driven one with my eyes open, might have to keep it that way. For me, Ferraris hit different. Porsches epitomise precision engineering, rarely do they give you a reason to shop elsewhere, McLaren’s road cars have flirted with genius but prove that pace and consistency of product isn’t easy and Lamborghini has shown with a series of run-out Huracáns…

Alpine has revealed a new version of its A110, which the French firm has badged ‘E-TERNITE’. No need to shout, we hear you loud and clear. Except we won’t hear it, because it’s a fully electric Alpine A110, built to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the model. Alpine turned to the Renault Megane E-Tech for the battery, and plugged in 12 cells wrapped in bespoke casings in order to fit it into the A110’s internal architecture. They add 392kg of mass, but thanks to other measures like building panels from a material called ‘flax’, it weighs 1,378kg, compared with the regular car’s 1,100kg. The total battery capacity is 60kWh, with 268bhp of power available. Alpine reckons on a 0–62mph time of 4.5secs, which is not far off the ICE car,…

F1 22 When we said we wanted to be an F1 driver, we weren’t talking about the bit where they pop to the shops for a pint of milk in their daily or browse material swatches for a new rug in their minimalist living room. Strangely enough, the biggest new additions to F1 22, out now, are very little to do with actually driving Formula One cars. The new F1 Life mode allows you to customise a fancy living room, which is more The Sims than driving sim, and there’s now a modest stable of road-going supercars to drive. While the inclusion of supercars isn’t a bad idea, unfortunately they handle with all the grace and poise of a broken shopping trolley. Fortunately, what the F1 series does best… er,…

1 THAT’S NOT A SPELLING MISTAKE Remember back in 2012–2016 when Mini sold the 3dr Paceman SUV? This concept isn’t that, it’s completely different. Mini’s knocked the P off the front of its name and its got two extra doors. Plus it’s going to be all-electric, likely using the powertrain gubbins from BMW’s iX3. 2 IT’S THE DAWN OF A NEW DESIGN ERA Not our words, Carol, but the words of Mini, which says the stylings of the Aceman concept will be translated through to the final car (don’t hold your breath too long), and that this is how all-new Minis are going to look from now on. Tell us, does the Queen get royalties every time the Union Jack is used? It’s even on the roof-rack. 3 IT’S A…

£32,950 1.5T 3cyl +e-motor 155 bhp 1spd auto 7.9 secs 53.3 mpg 119 g/km FOR Hushed, smooth, and a doddle to potter around in AGAINST Ride and handling compensate for extra weight The third-gen Qashqai has been with us little over a year, but already there’s a new version. It’s arguably a version it should have launched with, being a pioneering take on hybrid technology that’ll almost immediately account for half of Qashqai sales. The e-Power suffix might suggest it’s a fully electric car, but the truth is a little more complex. The front wheels are powered solely by a 187bhp electric motor but the battery that feeds it isn’t fed by plugging the car in overnight, rather there’s a 155bhp, 1.5-litre petrol turbo engine in the traditional spot under…

£212,000 5.2 V10 631 bhp 7spd DCT 3.2 secs n/a mpg n/a g/km FOR Genuinely awesome engine, terrific chassis, performance AGAINST HMI not totally user friendly, driving position bit odd Another Huracán? Yep. The aim here is to locate the sweet spot between the fabulous Evo RWD and the track oriented STO. So you get the 631bhp V10 in a more amenable rear-drive chassis with rear steer, in a cleverly revised body. While the Ferrari 296 GTB and McLaren Artura form a bridgehead to the new generation of hybridised ‘super sports cars’, the Huracán Tecnica actively benefits from not having the latest tech. Never mind e-motors and batteries, this thing doesn’t even have a turbo. Efficiency isn’t top of the list here, it’s true. But aside from Ferrari’s V12 or…

JEEP COMPASS S 4XE PHEV £40,895 FOR PHEV is the economical option in the range AGAINST Interior is a bit of a mish-mash, so-so powertrain 1.3T 4cyl +e-motor 236 bhp 7.3 secs 148.7 mpg 44 g/km A plug-in hybrid powertrain should be the ideal thing for a large thirsty SUV these days, shouldn’t it? This one works on paper, less so in real life. A wheezy petrol engine is coupled with an underpowered e-motor, so you can’t rely on either in isolation, but they make a decent team, even if in practice you get a lot less than the claimed 30 miles of range. Strangely for a company of Jeep’s pedigree the PHEV is the only 4WD option in the range. SB MERCEDES-AMG EQE 53 4MATIC+ £125,000 FOR Pointlessly, brilliantly…

1 IT COULD BE HANDSOME (FOR AN SUV…) It’s not a given that Ferraris are gorgeous. Maranello went through a design wobble in the mid-Noughties with the F430 and 612, but got back on track with the gorgeous 458 Italia and innovative FF. The current range, overseen by design boss Flavio Manzoni, boasts some real gems: the Roma is a gorgeously executed classic GT and the 296 cleverly melds nods to the 250LM with modern dimensions and downforce needs for a properly pretty supercar. Manzoni and co’s best work is done when they’re sketching a new car from the ground up, rather than reworking timeworn offal – that’s why the 488-facelift F8 Tributo was too fussy and the 812 Superfast isn’t quite as handsome as the older F12 to which…

Magnum K.R. What’s a driver to do during a red flag? Stretching exercises? Mental drills? Not if you’re Kimi Räikkönen. When the Malaysian Grand Prix was stopped for torrential rain in 2009, the Finn decided to keep himself fueled… by munching on an ice cream in the garage. And lo, the Iceman was born. The race never resumed, but the iconic footage will stay with us forever. Bwoah. Ferrari’s Monza miracle The death of Enzo Ferrari in August 1988 was a sombre moment, compounded by the great man having little to enjoy on track in his final weeks as McLaren won literally every Grand Prix. But when F1 visited Monza a month later fate (aka Prost’s engine failure and Senna’s backmarker crash) gifted the Scuderia a heaven sent 1-2. At…

It’s one of those gristly German words where you have to chew through the consonants and spit out the vowels. Its translation – ‘special wish’ – is positively light-hearted and amiable, but it’s not some charity. Rather, the genie that can grant you any Porsche wish of your dreams. And today, I get to rub the lamp. Stumbling around Exclusive Manufaktur (an atelier and autocorrect nightmare repurposed out of a historic Porsche Racing repair shop in the courtyard of Zuffenhausen) is as close as you can get to physically walking down your keyboard and into one of those time-sapping online configurators. It’s just this one has seemingly endless boxes to tick and many drains to pour your money down. See, Sonderwunsch is the top level of customisation that Porsche offers.…

PHWOAR, THAT Mi16 LOOKS LOVELY… Doesn’t it just? A sporty saloon that’s stood the test of time. Launched in 1988 it featured a few subtle tweaks over the original Pininfarina-designed 405, including new bumpers and side skirts, a rear spoiler, sport suspension and five-spoke alloy wheels, while power initially came from a 1.9-litre 16V engine with 158bhp and 133lb ft of torque. The Phase II made its debut in 1992, before this special Le Mans edition was presented in 1994, to celebrate the Peugeot 905’s victory in the Le Mans 24-Hour Race a year earlier. WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT THE LE MANS SPECIAL? Just 500 were built for starters (this one, in immaculate condition, is #485), meaning you’re unlikely to ever see another one. According to the How Many Left?…

GOODBYE £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 “IT’S GORGEOUS,” COOED PASSERS-BY AS I WAS SAT CHARGING BabyCar – sorry, TopGear’s long-term Fiat 500. Where every other car on the road appears to be ‘shouting’ at you – to paraphrase what Polestar boss Thomas Ingenlath told us recently – the 500, with its puppy dog eyes and adorable proportions, feels like a reason to smile. Is this why we like it? Objectively, there are a few important things to consider. It’s a car built for the city, but if you actually live in the city chances are you won’t have access to home charging. I did live in the city, and I didn’t have access…

REPORT 3 £19,400/£21,925/£273 WHY IT’S HERE  Does relentless all-round competence get boring? DRIVER Vijay Pattni TG’S LONG-TERM SKODA FABIA IS a humble three-cylinder supermini with five doors, a manual gearbox, some red paint and a rather annoying lane assistance system that you must turn off. Every. Single. Time. But not all heroes wear capes, and in times of crisis they rise from the most unexpected places. Places like the bowels of a 1.0-litre, 108bhp engine. Its frugal nature has been a welcome boon during the recent spike in fuel prices. At the time of writing, the little Fabia’s clocked just over 400 miles since I last filled it up to full, and there’s an eighth of a tank left. Admittedly, at least 200 of those miles were conducted on motorway slogs,…

GOODBYE £36,125 OTR/£37,270 as tested/£450pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can millions of Qashqai owners be wrong? DRIVER Peter Rawlins AS OUR TIME WITH THE QASHQAI COMES TO A CLOSE, TIME FOR ONE final test: a face-off against one of its many crossover competitors, namely the recently facelifted Vauxhall Grandland. Size wise it’s slightly bigger than the Qashqai, measuring 52mm longer and 14mm wider, but whisper it, we reckon it’s the slightly better looking of the two. Here, we’ve got the 1.3-litre Qashqai with 156bhp and auto box, and the 1.2-litre Grandland with 128bhp and six-speed manual. Both are very quiet (the Qashqai particularly so), refined and economical, averaging around the 40mpg mark. The Qashqai is arguably slightly better to drive – it steers smoothly and suppresses all but the harshest bumps and…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range SUPERMINIS You drive mostly around town, with occasional need for longer distances? Try these for size FAMILY HATCHBACKS A good electric family hatch needs decent range without compromising interior space FOR ALL THE FACTS, STATS AND IN-DEPTH REVIEWS FOR EVERY NEW CAR ON SALE GO TO TOPGEAR.COM/REVIEWS READY TO MAKE THE SWITCH? WE SEPARATE WHAT’S HOT FROM WHAT’S NOT COMPACT SUVS Small, but perfectly formed. These cars are a perfect second motor or teeny family wagon FAMILY CARS Slightly larger electric cars that are designed to cope with everything you can throw at them PREMIUM SUVS Go big or go home, we say. Wafting along in style is perfect for an electric…

Nestled among the multitude of excellence that emerged from fabled Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro sit both the DeLorean and the Hyundai Pony Coupe; the latter influencing the former, according to Hyundai. So you could say the company’s gone back to its future, because the Pony has now influenced this. Hyundai calls it the N Vision 74 concept, a car that revives that Coupe and propels it so quickly into the future you’ll be shrieking 1.21 gigawatts in no time. Well, not quite 1.21. There’s a 670bhp hybrid drivetrain on board that allows for a 155mph top speed, hybrid here referencing the 74’s battery and hydrogen fuel cell set-up. The battery is a 62.4kWh unit with 800V rapid charging capability, while the hydrogen fuel cell is said to be “the most…

SCANDI-LESS I’ve not needed this technique much, but every rally driver has it in their back pocket for slippery conditions. It’s a flick of the wheel in the opposite direction to the corner, to send the car’s momentum in that direction before transferring it back towards the corner, creating a pendulum effect. Rally cars used to have pretty poor brakes so it helped slow the car before releasing the momentum in the desired direction in a controlled slide. IS IT USEFUL? Absolutely. On slippery surfaces it’s stylish and fast. You had to be aggressive with older rally cars (especially FWD), using weight transfer to find the grip and avoid endless understeer. The flick also helps you to feel the grip first, instead of braking super late and committing to the…

Renault is set to bring back the brilliant little 5 hatchback with a new, retro-styled EV in 2024, but the original turns 50 this year and to celebrate, Renault is bringing back another Seventies icon – the portable cassette player. You might even call this a restomod, because alongside the standard 3.5mm headphone jack there’s also Bluetooth 5.0 and USB charging that provides up to 10 hours of battery life. It’s not all new-school tech though, Renault will throw in a blank 60 minute cassette and a pencil to rewind it. Now where did we put those Kate Bush tapes? theoriginals-store.renault.com; €189.00…

“YOU HAVE TO CHARGE YOUR ELECTRIC CAR EVERY NIGHT This myth pops up often when talk turns to public infrastructure, and also the capacity of the grid. People do the following pointless calculation. “All cars are electric” x “all cars plug in at 7pm every night” x 7kW = “catastrophic grid armageddon meltdown”. But let’s stand back. The average UK annual mileage is 7,000. EVs drive further, probably because they’re on average newer, so let’s say 8,000. You’ll probably charge about every 200 miles to be safe. That’s 40 charges a year. You might do four of them as rapid motorway charges on holiday. So that leaves 36 overnight charges (or over-day if you’re plugging in at work). Which is once every 10 days. What if you have the shortest range…

“THIS 3 MANAGES TO BE BOTH FULL OF CHARACTER AND BRILLIANT TO DRIVE” £41,995 1.5 3cyl 118 bhp 5spd manual 7.0 secs 40.0 mpg 130 g/km FOR Revvy 3cyl suits the car perfectly. Looks bonkers. Handles brilliantly AGAINST Not cheap. Accessories push the price up even further The Super 3 is the latest in a long line of tripod Morgans that stretches back to the formation of the company in 1910, and despite the retrofuturistic look it’s arguably the most modern thing ever to come out of the firm’s Malvern factory. The previous 3 Wheeler resembled a bathtub that’d crashed into a v-twin motorbike engine, but you get the sense that a lot more work went into the looks of the Super 3. The design is inspired by the mid-to-late…

Tom Ford: ‘Road of Death’ in a 599 If driving a Ferrari 599 mostly off-road across Ecuador wasn’t enough, try negotiating the infamous Andean ‘Road of Death’ (basically a 180m cliff with a car-width, barrierless road stitched into the side) while suffering from intestinal issues from eating a local delicacy: guinea pig. It’s not the kind of thing you forget in a hurry. The food or the drive. Jason Barlow: Queensberry rules Ferrari is a company with a powerful origin story, and many plot twists. I’d met former CEO Luca Montezemolo a few times, but nothing prepared me for the moment I found myself sandwiched between LM and the man who ousted him, the late Sergio Marchionne, backstage at the 2014 Paris Motor Show. It was like being a referee…

1958 FERRARI 250 TESTA ROSSA The 250 Testa Rossa elevates itself on a purely statistical basis thanks to its three overall wins at the Le Mans 24-Hour Race (in 1958, 1960 and 1961), which led to constructors’ titles for Ferrari in those same years. But the TR is also about as drop-dead gorgeous as any racing car has ever been. The best known Testa Rossas were among the first 34 made, and featured the dramatic ‘pontoon’ bodywork, whose scooped out front wings were an improvised aid to brake cooling that was carried out by legendary Modenese fabricator Sergio Scaglietti. When this configuration proved insufficiently stable at high speeds, more conventional bodywork was introduced. This most feted of endurance racing cars initially made do with drum brakes, a robust chassis (although weighing…

IT’S 1971, AND ENZO FERRARI HAS A PROBLEM Racecar shakedowns at his factory’s local track are no longer an option. Ever faster machines are igniting safety concerns at the antiquated Autodromo di Modena, and whenever a prototype noses out of the pits, colour film-wielding spies lurk out the back of the circuit. The Scuderia’s secrets are available to the highest bidder. Ferrari hasn’t won the Formula One constructors’ championship since 1964, and it’s now innovative Cosworth-engined Brits like Lotus and Tyrrell in the ascendancy. Meanwhile, even in Italy, even in the Seventies, it’s becoming increasingly ‘frowned upon’ to test racing cars on public roads. A decade previously, the hills around Modena would echo with the shriek of motorsport V12s. Times are changing, and Enzo needs somewhere to hone his thoroughbreds…

Passengers don’t enjoy my driving. Being pitched about, hunting for the phantom brake pedal, regretting that recent banana, the conviction that brace, brace, brace is the next instruction. And the thing is, I don’t enjoy having them there. Aware of their jostling and grimacing I change the way I drive. End result: disgruntlement reigns, tension across the cabin. To be clear here, I can take my family and friends out without making them violently ill – the kind of driving I’m referring to is the driving for driving’s sake kind. Which raises the question of why sports cars have to have two seats, when only 50 per cent of the occupants are going to enjoy the experience. Unless they’re approximately 12 years old. BAC clearly realised this 10 years ago…

One of the most frustrating things for the makers of a forgotten concept car must be seeing the exact same idea rock up into production a year or three later and smooching the zeitgeist like the final scene of a particularly bad romcom. A prime example would be this delightful little Opel Maxx, a car developed while what would become the Smart City-Coupe in 1998 was going through development purgatory. The innovative Maxx was unveiled at the Geneva show back in March 1995, and then again at the Birmingham Motor Show that October with Vauxhall badges hastily glued over the Opel lightning bolt, highlighting the modular design that ran through the car at every level. Indeed, the Opel Maxx concept offered a modular platform, innovative new methods of aluminium construction,…

HELLO £18,745 OTR/£19,640 as tested/£313pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can the cheapest MPV cut the TopGear mustard?  DRIVER Sam Philip A DACIA JOGGER HAS JOGGED GENTLY ONTO THE TG FLEET, AND I am giddy with excitement. Which I realise could read a little… sarcastic – after all, it’s a budget MPV, not a thousand horsepower mid-engined firestorm with butterfly doors – but it’s really not. I am genuinely, totally pumped for this reddish-brown Romanian people carrier. Because, yes, of course there’s great joy to be found in a car that’ll hit 60 in the time it takes you to say “plummeting residual values”, but there’s also great joy to be found in a car that’s utterly fit for purpose. A machine that does exactly what you need of it, and no more.…

HELLO £157,800 OTR/£198,790 as tested/£1,700pcm WHY IT’S HERE  Does downsizing and plugging in a big, luxurious SUV actually work? DRIVER  Rowan Horncastle HEAR YE, HEAR YE! CAN EVERYONE PLEASE BE UPSTANDING FOR the latest addition to the TopGear Garage: a Bentley Bentayga Hybrid. Believe it or not, Crewe’s luxo SUV is now seven years old. To counter the seven-year itch, this new hybrid Bentayga (the bestselling model) arrived as part of an extensive 1,000 new component midlife facelift. A facelift any plastic surgeon would be proud of as it’s taken some age and flab out of the bodywork and significantly sharpened the looks. More importantly, the fact it’s a hybrid helps move the game on as it’s the first stepping stone to Bentley’s greener, electrified future. By next year every Bentley…

REPORT 2 £31,995 OTR/£33,870 as tested/£519pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can a van with windows triumph as an EV? DRIVER Andy Franklin I’VE BEEN A BIT SPOILT THIS MONTH AND BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO spend some time in Jason Barlow’s BMW iX. And what a lovely thing it is. It also has a huge range, getting me to Bristol and back (a 320-mile round trip) on one charge… it even had 50 miles left when I got home. Then, after a full charge, it gave me a whopping 393 miles range the next day – that is the kind of EV motoring that is becoming a game changer. On average, I get a 120/130-mile usable range from the Berlingo. When Jason and I discussed our cars on the changeover, we agreed there…

Seen in the context of working vehicles, the Defender seems to have been plucked straight from a marketing brochure. Cars are given reputations by what they do and how they do it. The new Defender, like it or not, is not a working vehicle. And the box and ladder could – should – have been so much better designed and engineered, not just flimsy, awkward additions that can’t be removed and serve little purpose. But for leisure pursuits it’s a knockout. Comfy and relaxing to drive, loads of USB ports, storage and 400W of Meridian hi-fi. REPORT 2 JAGUAR F-PACE SVR The F-Pace’s trip computer tells me I’ve averaged 25.5mpg over the 1,302 miles I’ve done this month. But the trouble is, I haven’t. Using 257.8 litres I’ve actually averaged 23.0mpg.…

What’s Nissan and when did it start making cars? In 1911 a fellow called Masujiro Hashimoto started a company in Japan called Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works, building its first car in 1914. That was called the DAT, based on the initials of the three main investors’ surnames. The marque became DAT Motors by 1925, making trucks and cars. The 1931 Type 11 was a smaller car than it had built before, and termed a son of DAT, or Datson (tweaked to Datsun because ‘son’ sounds like a lot like a word for disadvantage in Japanese). DAT had meanwhile merged with Tobata Casting, later swallowed up by a holding company called Nihon Sangyo, founded by Yoshisuke Aikawa in 1928. Phew. The Nissan Motor Co name was established in 1934, and the Datsun…

“A luxury solution to urban motoring in a unique and innovative format,” Aston stated proudly in 2011, “Cygnet was conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin.” All very enticing, save for one tiny issue. It was cobblers. The Cygnet wasn’t conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin. It was a Toyota iQ with a chinny new grille and a bullock-worth of leather upholstery. An exercise in badge engineering with the cynical aim of lowering Aston’s average fleet emissions. Which, in its own way, was kinda fine. As cynical strategies to lower fleet emissions go, aristocratic Aston giving a tiny Toyota the full Love Island makeover is, at the very least, an original one. And the standard iQ, while embodying exactly none of the traditional Aston brand values,…

What is Italy’s greatest contribution to the watch industry? It has a growing number of watch companies, several of which would doubtless like to put their names forward. But the correct answer is a titan of business who had no direct involvement with the watch industry: the late Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli. In the late Sixties, reformed playboy Agnelli took over the company started by his grandfather and turned it into one of the main drivers of Italy’s post-war boom, making him the country’s richest man. But as successful as he was in business, Agnelli is remembered as much for being an icon of style, whose impeccable custom-made suits see him regularly included in those lists of the best-dressed men of all time. One fashion quirk was wearing a watch…

01 Subaru BRZ The twin car to the Toyota GR86 isn’t being brought to the UK – despite Toyota’s allocation of boxer-engined RWD coupes selling out faster than tickets to a hot cake convention. Come on Subaru, we won’t even ask you to paint the bodywork blue and bolt on some gold wheels. 02 Nissan Z The new Z has a 400bhp bi-turbo V6, the choice of manual or automatic gearboxes, and no tickets to a British port either. Still, the Toyota Supra is now available with a manual gearbox and it’s getting better through the corners, so that makes the Zed’s absence a little less painful. 03 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing America’s premier supersaloon offers 668bhp of supercharged 6.2-litre V8 fury. If you ditch the 10spd auto and go for…

Starting with the glaringly obvious; this test doesn’t make sense. There’s a new super-sporty Bentley Bentayga S with a walloping 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 petrol engine and a price tag over £200k that makes you suck air through your teeth, a new Range Rover with a six-cylinder diesel that’s over £60k cheaper in basic trims, and a battery powered BMW iX that’s nearly as fast as the Bentley but ‘only’ £94k basic. There are different models from all three manufacturers that can – or will – match up more precisely (you could save money by having a standard Bentayga, for instance, or up the iX’s game with the iX M60), but these three throw up some interesting questions about what it means to be a luxury SUV. So what’s the deal…

£60,500 2.0T 4cyl 408 bhp 9spd auto 4.6 secs 31.0 mpg 196 g/km FOR Powerful, linear, covers ground quickly with ease AGAINST Steering lacks real feel, the sound is synthetic Complicated one this, but we shall attempt to boil things down a little. This is the new Mercedes-AMG C43 4Matic+, the less flash baby brother to an as yet undisclosed C63 (with rumoured 600+bhp), and comes in saloon or estate guises. And a lot has changed from the previous generation. So out goes the old bi-turbo V6 (385bhp/383lb ft), and in comes a 2.0-litre four-pot bolstered by a 48V mild hybrid system. Which sounds a little anaemic, until you realise that this system chucks out just over 400bhp and 369lb ft, so up on power, down a bit on torque.…

£26,115 1.2T 3cyl 128 bhp 6spd manual 10.0 secs 49.5 mpg 126 g/km FOR Looks great inside and out. Strong standard kit list AGAINST Smaller than an Octavia Estate. Lacks character The eighth-generation Vauxhall Astra is a car we very much like in its generic hatchback form. It might not be the most exciting thing in the segment, but anyone looking for trusty transport will find many of their boxes ticked. At first glance, it looks as though that might have translated through to the Sports Tourer too. The estate certainly looks handsome. Vauxhall’s signature is that striking Vizor front end and you’ve got sharp creases on the bonnet and over the wheel arches. Plus, the Sports Tourer gets a redesigned rear end with the numberplate moved up onto the…

To lift or not to lift, that is the pressing question as I exit La Source hairpin and hug the pit wall like a comfort blanket. Pros: the conditions (warm and dry), the car (a highly sophisticated V12 mid-engine Ferrari) and the race situation (I have the track to myself). Cons: circuit knowledge (I’m a Spa newbie, never driven Eau Rouge let alone taken it flat) and driver talent (I’m Jacky Rix, not Jacky Ickx). Pros have it. I steel myself, shuffing an inch lower in the seat – simultaneously dropping the centre of gravity and hiding behind the binnacle. Downhill straight crashes into towering incline, left-right-left, it takes every ounce of concentration to ignore my rational mind and prevent my right foot from retreating. A bead of sweat sidesteps…

1958 FERRARI 250 GT CALIFORNIA SPYDER The 250 model line was the foundation on which the mighty Ferrari edifice was built, and by the late Fifties the company’s potent mix of glamour and performance had won it a global fan base. The California Spyder was dreamt up by John von Neumann, Ferrari’s US West Coast agent, who figured a racier convertible would suit his rapidly expanding showbiz clientele. Luigi Chinetti, a former Le Mans winner for Ferrari and a key consigliere, persuaded Il Commendatore to back it. Launched in 1958 in long wheelbase form, the car soon morphed into the 200mm shorter, 30mm lower SWB car, an unfeasibly cool looking home for Giacchino Colombo’s eternally magnificent 3.0-litre V12. Although Pininfarina was by now Ferrari’s couturier of choice, the Cali Spyder…

Ask anyone in Maranello about marketing and they’ll tell you that Ferrari doesn’t ‘do’ traditional display advertising. It’s true, it does things differently. Ferrari will claim F1 is all about developing tech for road use, which is also true up to a point, but really it’s the world’s most expensive ad campaign, and a highly effective one if you can muscle your car to the sharp end of the grid. Originally, Enzo saw it differently, only building road cars because he needed funds to feed his racing addiction, but when your badge is as worshipped as Ferrari’s, brand exposure reaches waaaaay beyond just F1. And we’re not just talking about overpriced caps. You’ll know the TV shows – the Testarossa will forever be associated with Miami Vice (despite Ferrari suing…

Picture the scene: northwestern France, summer of ’65. England has yet to win the World Cup and the Apollo space programme is still four years shy of the moon, but Ferrari? Ruling the globe even in the face of bloodthirsty competition. And its own hobbled prototypes. You see, everyone expected Ford’s six GT40s (including two 7.0-litre monsters) to muller the opposition, but in the event none of them lasted beyond the sixth hour. And when Ferrari’s main challengers followed suit later on, it was the NART entry of Masten Gregory, Jochen Rindt and (depending on who you believe) reserve driver Ed Hugus that triumphed in a car that had qualified almost 13 seconds off the pace. Staggering. Anyway, imagine looking Old Man Enzo in the eye and telling him –…

ENGINE MODS The heart of the matter is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder with a single turbo’s worth of forced induction goodness. A familiar recipe that’s been refined and upgraded in line with the calmer exterior styling, don’t be fooled into thinking this isn’t still a rev happy little monster. Some 170bhp per litre seems about right, giving the new Type R an output of around 330–340bhp. Honda hasn’t revealed the exact figure yet, but that’s TopGear’s guess. Place your bets please! If the Civic Type R were a pop star, it would be Taylor Swift. Or possibly Harry Styles. Talented youngster grows up in the public eye, goes through changes, has a bit of an experimental/outrageous phase and then settles into a happy bout of maturity and broad appeal. There’s a…

“THE VIPER IS A SNAPSHOT FROM WHEN THINGS WERE ALL A BIT DIFFERENT” There’s a single poster still hanging in my old bedroom. A poster once surrounded by angry nu-metal bands and foldouts from Max Power magazine which now wouldn’t look out of place in a museum of Woke. But as tastes in music changed – and a girl appeared who wasn’t printed at 300dpi – one by one these posters started being removed. All bar one; the very first poster I ever hung up nearly 30 years ago. And the only poster my late mum never had the heart to tear down. Clearly you can see where this is going. The silly red car pictured above makes it obvious, otherwise it’d be weird if I suddenly said that poster…

HELLO £46,100/£50,415/£686 WHY IT’S HERE Can a luxury French car cut it against its established rivals? DRIVER Esther Neve MEET THE NEWEST RECRUIT TO THE TG Garage. Do you know what it is? Anyone? Fine, we’ll stop teasing – it’s a DS 9. And though we don’t expect to see many others – sadly, history and experience show that fancy French saloons just don’t sell as well as their German counterparts – we do still expect it to wow us. It’s got off to a great start; it has a stack of standard equipment too vast to mention the individual items. However, there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest as my favourite thing – DS Active Scan Suspension. This super smart system uses a camera to…

REPORT 3 £94,000/£115,670/£2,259 WHY IT’S HERE This is BMW’s techo flagship, but what’s it like to live with? DRIVER Jason Barlow IT WAS ABOUT HALFWAY ROUND the M25 – rarely the scene of many epiphanies, it must be said – when I decided that the BMW iX was officially ‘The Future’. There is arguably no more comfortable and thought-provoking car than this currently on sale. At a steady motorway lope, it’s so refined that it’s almost possible to achieve transcendence. It makes the torture of that road, and its ilk, tolerable. And any car that can enliven your mood when you’re struggling along clearly has something going for it. Another observation: this is an electric car whose software algorithms calculate its range accurately rather than basing them on pie in the…

REPORT 4 £46,035 OTR/£49,400 as tested/£659pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s the bedrock of Volkswagen’s all-electric future push DRIVER Paul Horrell Audi Q4 e-tron REPORT 2 £55,435 OTR/£61,955 as tested/£690pcm WHY IT’S HERE  Is the Q4 e-tron superior to its VW Group siblings, or just pricier? DRIVER Jack Rix JR: MR HORRELL, WE MEET AGAIN… EXACTLY AS WE DID 18 MONTHS ago to compare the Honda e and BMW i3. PH: Indeed. And we have some new cars to argue about. The i3 and e were both designed as short distance compact cars, but they met that aim by very different technical and design solutions. Not so this time. Here we’ve got two family electric crossovers that are exactly the same technically. They’re even made at the same plant in Zwickau,…

REPORT 4 £32,260 OTR/£36,035 as tested/£443pcm WHY IT’S HERE  Does Honda’s eco champ stand out from the crossover crowd? DRIVER  Charlie Rose HAVING JUSTIFIED THE HR-V AS A SUITABLE WORKHORSE FOR THE TG video department, this month I had my sights set on something far more testing: Glastonbury. Love it or hate it, it’s the holy grail of the British festival scene and with 200,000 revellers descending on a field in rural Somerset, you better be sure you come prepared for every eventuality. Having toyed with the idea of catching the train down for no more than a second, my wife and I set about accumulating as much camping equipment as we could physically stuff into the HR-V. A large tent, inflatable mattress, gas cooker, cool box, chairs, table… the…