Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov-22 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

It’s a car of massive, mighty numbers, the new AMG C63. Take the power outputs: 670bhp, and a frankly baffing 752lb ft of torque. Welcome to a world where a Mercedes C-Class has more power than a Ferrari Enzo. Yet it’ll also do a claimed 34 miles per gallon and emit just 156g/km of CO2 – about the same as a Golf GTI. And that’s because instead of a thumping great V8, the C63 now has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, and F1-inspired hybrid boost under its nostrilled bonnet. Because this requires a battery and motors – and because Mercedes has also heaped in tech like rear-wheel steering, adaptive suspension, four-wheel drive with rear-drive only Drift Mode, and not one but two gearboxes… it’s heavy. The saloon is 2,115kg heavy. The…

Most watches are on the fat side. A trend for big watches that started way back in the Nineties has eased off a bit, but not entirely. If someone drops serious coin on a watch, they generally want people on the other side of the hotel bar to know. But not everyone wants a watch the size of Big Ben. In fact, an ongoing quest for slimness is one of the toughest tests for watchmakers. While fatness is governed by personal taste, thinness has to wrestle with physics. A mechanical watch contains lots of small parts moving in harmony with each other, and there are limitations to how much you can shrink them without compromising efficiency and durability. However, the watchmaking community loves a challenge. The granddaddy of modern watches…

F1 Manager 22 The first F1 management game in over two decades, F1 Manager 22, out now on PC, Xbox and PS, is clearly a product of Drive to Survive’s glamourisation of F1 team principals. Sure, insight into the psyche of elite drivers operating at the top of their game is engaging, but what we’re really there for is Toto Wolff and Christian Horner’s pantomime bickering. F1 M 22 isn’t for the faint of heart though. The tutorial eases you in with race strategy guidance, but then cuts you loose in a galaxy of seemingly tiny engineering decisions, all of which add up to potentially seconds’ worth of pace. It’s like a playable anxiety dream. If the last time you played a management game it looked like a jumped up…

01 Hyundai Staria The coolest boxy Hyundai honour belongs to not the Tucson, but this: the Staria. Yes, it’s a minivan, but it’s as streamlined as a Japanese bullet train, as minimalist as a vegan’s lunch and has a certain Darth Vader menace about it. Sadly it’s not being offered for sale in the UK. Yet. 02 Ford Supervan Ford’s mad takes on its workaday Transit through the years have included a GT40-based MkI and a MkIII with a Group C racing engine in the middle. The latest version has GT-style aero tunnels, is all electric and the most powerful yet with 2,000bhp. 03 Hyundai iMax N A ‘drift van’ is an idea not even Hollywood dreamt up for the third instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise. So, Hyundai…

Congratulations! If you’re reading this – the boxiest of all the twin tests – with great interest then you must have a real talent for reproduction. Perhaps you’ve even got pairs of twins, hence the need for a proper seven-seater. But what if you’re also interested in preserving the future of our planet for said twins? If that is the case, you’re probably thinking about going electric with your next car purchase. However, here’s where you hit a stumbling block. Up until recently your only real seven-seat option would have been to splash £100,000 on a Tesla Model X, complete with falcon wing doors and fart noises. You’re forgiven for not taking the plunge… Even seven years after the Model X finally made it to market, there’s still a dearth of…

“THE HANDOVER BETWEEN ENGINE AND MOTOR IS SUPREMELY SLICK” £80,325 FOR Swish plug-in hybrid options, plusher driving experience than rivals AGAINST Price jump, oddly sited number plates, sheer weight Meet the third generation of one of the performance SUV pioneers. The Range Rover Sport first launched in 2005, back when quick 4x4s were still in their infancy. Now everyone is at it, giving the lads and lasses in Gaydon a tougher task than ever keeping theirs relevant. The Sport follows a few months after the full fat Range Rover’s reinvention. It’s 35 per cent stiffer and sits 20mm lower – to help justify its suffix – and comes with four-wheel drive as standard, hooked up to an array of petrol, diesel and hybrid powertrains. Yep, diesel soldiers firmly on here,…

Not safe. Not safe. Not saaaafe. Two words chanted through clenched teeth and with increasing intensity as snatched glances reveal the the speedometer in the centre console flickering itself above 125mph, as if nervous about what the next digit might bring. The front tyres are skinny but resolute, chattering away back down the steering column and into my locked forearms where tendons are trying to seek shelter somewhere behind my elbows. The single rear wheel is bouncing across expansion joints and leaving the road, and the lack of aerodynamics of any particular sort means that the wind rush has grabby little fingers under the chinstrap of my helmet yanking it backward. We manage an indicated 128mph until a car appears on the horizon and I back out, an excuse that…

Imagine buying a 50in smart TV while water pours from your ceiling every time the toilet flushes. That wouldn’t make any sense as a homeowner, so why is it perfectly acceptable as soon as it’s a car? I refuse to believe I’m alone in this thinking. Maintenance is a bit boring. Yes, it’s necessary and often costly, but more annoying than that is the fact you don’t get anything ‘new’ in return. Whereas buying something unnecessary and pointless? Phwoar, sign me right up. Last year I bought two Brabus W126 Mercedes because I’m greedy and oblivious to the work required to keep (two) near 40-year-old cars on the road. I sold one to a friend in America because it needed too much work. But the other one? Well that only…

PLAYSTATION/SATURN, 1995 Traditionally here at TopGear we like our racing games to feature wheels, preferably four of them. We are, however, prepared to make an exception for Wipeout, which doesn’t feature a single wheel. Well unless you count the cartwheel an opponent does when you hit them with a homing missile. Arriving at the same time as Sony’s groundbreaking PlayStation console in the mid Nineties, this futuristic hover racing game was a key element in making being a gamer, if not cool, then at least marginally less embarrassing. That’s because it featured a thumping techno soundtrack ripped straight from the clubs, including The Chemical Brothers and Leftfield, and an aesthetic that was painstakingly curated by graphic design house The Designer’s Republic. Unlike at the club, though, you’d want to make…

Ferrari said not so long ago that it would never build an SUV. So what does that make this newcomer, the Purosangue? In Ferrari’s words, it’s not an SUV or a crossover – it’s a sports car. The first four-door, four-seater in Maranello’s history. While you dwell on the looks, allow us to pick apart the spec and try to work out what the Purosangue actually is. Firstly, it’s very powerful and fast. Thanks to a 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 mounted behind the front axle under that enormous clamshell bonnet, you’ve got a titanic 715bhp and 528lb ft to enjoy on your way to 8,250rpm. Ferrari says the definitely-not-an-SUV can hit 62mph from rest in 3.3 seconds, scorch from 0–124mph in just 10.6 seconds and top out beyond 192mph. It…

My first car was a Seat Ibiza which I ended up writing off trying to avoid a deer. That wasn’t ideal. I worked a job waitressing and pot washing to save up and buy it myself. I was proud of the accomplishment at a young age and I used to drive it into sixth form and think I was the coolest thing ever. Clearly not, but we can always dream. Anyway, I travelled quite far for training as I was playing for Sunderland at the time, so it was late when I was on the way home and the deer just jumped out in front of me. I swerved and managed to miss it, but I hit the grass and it made the Ibiza spin and then roll three times.…

Love camping but hate sleeping in what is essentially an oversized raincoat? Love campervans but hate the idea of driving a van? Well, you’re in luck, because TG has found the perfect solution to your woes. The Egoé Nestbox Camper is a gloriously designed kit that turns your everyday car into the perfect campervan with a slide-out kitchen section in the boot and a wood-framed double bed that stretches over your rear seats. How cool is that? The Nestbox Camper is compatible with a huge list of MPVs, SUVs and estates and you can even use said rear seats on the journey down before popping the bed together when you arrive (looking very smug) at your chosen camp site. egoe-nest.eu; €3,676 excluding VAT…

1 THERE’S EVEN MORE POWER Expensive fuel, EVs incoming and ICE power on the way out. Does that mean the MkVII Stang is downsized or electrified? Pah. Not only does the 5.0-litre V8 remain, it’s more powerful than ever. Ford won’t say how much yet, but we do know you’ll be able to rev it using the key fob. 2 IT’S A BIG STATEMENT Ford’s big boss Jim Farley said it himself: “Investing in another generation of Mustang is a big statement at a time when many of our competitors are exiting the business of internal combustion vehicles.” So the Mustang is absolutely a petrol car, and Ford’s not ready to put its big stud out to pasture just yet… 3 SHOULD BE EVEN BETTER TO DRIVE We are glad to…

£43,950 FOR Delightful cabin, logical tech, strong all-round package AGAINST Doesn’t really dazzle, plug-in power needs work This is “the most important car I’ve ever been involved in launching”, reckons Jeremy Thomson, MD of Mazda UK. Quite a statement for a company man of more than 20 years, but one that makes total sense against a backdrop of registrations that are down 42 per cent year-on-year for obvious COVID and chip-related reasons. Sitting on Mazda’s new, uninspiringly named Large Product Group platform, the CX-60 launches exclusively as a plug-in hybrid for now, with 6cyl petrols and diesels to come. Yes, really. Here a 2.5 4cyl petrol is twinned with an electric motor that gets its own clutch, and so offers permanent all-wheel drive through an eight-speed auto box. Combined, the…

£31,220 FOR Turns out hybrids can be decent to drive after all AGAINST A sensible purchase, doesn’t get the pulse racing Sunshine, smooth roads and good times – driving a car abroad can be like a summer fling that fades to grey as you return to real life. We were worried that the 11th version of the Civic would be the same – great on European tarmac, chic in foreign climes, but how would it cope with the dull reality of a Sainsbury’s car park in Gloucester? Pretty well as it goes. The chintzectomy that Honda’s done with the styling hasn’t greatly improved the rear visibility, but all UK cars come with front and rear parking sensors and a camera as standard, so that’s useful for avoiding errant trolleys. There’s…

£36,245 FOR Eye-catching exterior redesign. Range and efficiency AGAINST Entry level 2 trim gets quite a basic interior You wouldn’t know it at first glance, but this striking thing is Kia’s second generation Niro in its all-electric form. Quite the glow-up for what was previously a worthy but impossibly dull crossover. There are clear similarities to 2019’s HabaNiro concept that debuted at the New York Auto Show and we’re big fans of that Audi R8-style side blade. The interior has been given an overhaul too, with Kia’s new age two-spoke steering wheel happily staring you straight in the face as you drop onto the basic but comfortable seats. In both ‘3’ and ‘4’ grade versions you get a ‘chopped carbon fascia’ that looks like it came from the bins at…

It may have been an Eastern Bloc nation, but the Czech people loved racing. So they raced around the town of Most. The first layout, in 1947, lapped the brewery. Probably wisely, things moved on. By the Seventies a temporary circuit ran from the new railway station and included a nearby motorway. But Most had plenty of waste land available. The Autodrom was built between 1978 and 1983 on the site of an open cast coal mine. The team charged with designing it took inspiration from Hockenheim and the Nürburgring, and 100,000 people turned up to the first race. Since then it’s had its ups and downs, periodically attracting major race series, and then falling off the calendar. It’s now on the comeback trail, heavily upgraded and hosting everything from…

History weighs heavy on the landscape among the Ore Mountains in northwestern Czech Republic, named after rich deposits beneath the surface that’ve fuelled multiple mining rushes for tin, silver and even uranium over the centuries. Welcome to the ceiling of the old Sudetenland, the disputed German-Czech territory ceded to Hitler on the eve of war, later the epicentre of the regime’s doomed plot to create an atomic weapon. At the summit of Klínovec, the highest point of the Ore, you’ll find a derelict mountaintop hotel infested with wasps and its 19th century observation tower, now dwarfed by a 56-metre-tall television transmitter looking out over the naked ski slopes. Wiry mountain bike enthusiasts clamber out of sleeping bags in knackered, fogged-up estate cars and prepare to hurl themselves down the 1,200m…

Every carmaker wants it all – to have its lifestyle cake and eat it. A sporting SUV, an off-roading lifestyle convertible, or a stylish MPV. Perhaps Jeep invented that first one with its Jeepster concept back in 1998. The name might seem a bit derivative, but not everyone could have pulled it off. A Ford Fordster, sure, but could you imagine a Volvoster or a Kiaster? It just wouldn’t work. Jeep actually admitted it was originally called “Project Grizzly”, so it could’ve been a lot worse. But jeepers, the name actually had some heritage in the company’s illustrious history – the Jeepster was an attempt in 1948 by Willys-Overland to create a commercially viable ‘civilian Jeep’ that was less austere than the famous military version. There was a wagon, a…

WOWSERS… Pretty special, right? You’ll surely know the pedigree by now: Aston’s biggest engine, shoehorned into its smallest car. To the right we have the gorgeous original V12 Vantage, the star of one of Clarkson’s and TGTV’s greatest ever features (S13 E7 – if you haven’t watched it, go check it out on iPlayer immediately), and to the left the latest and last ever Vantage that’ll carry a 12-cylinder engine. REMIND ME OF THE SPECS The old one features a 6.0-litre nat-asp V12, producing 510bhp and 420lb ft of torque, whereas the latest model gets a 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 with 690bhp and 555lb ft of torque. More numbers? Zero to 62mph takes 4.2 seconds and 3.5 seconds respectively, while a top speed of 190mph in the former plays 200mph in…

I find myself sad and angry on multiple levels since clapping eyes on the new Dodge Hornet. You might have seen it, but if not, here’s the elevator pitch so you too can join me in righteous indignation. It’s an Alfa Romeo Tonale with a nose job. Same interior as the Alfa, same profile and glass and all that. Just a slapped-on fake Dodge front end and tail lamps. It’s exhausting how often we’re obliged to get pissed off with Alfa Romeo. The Tonale itself is, sickeningly, basically on a stretched Fiat 500X underneath. But I tell myself to forgive it because it has different engines from the Fiat, somewhat different suspension, and crucially feels different (if not exactly excellent) to drive. And it has a full done-in-Milan Alfa styling…

£28,495 FOR Excellent residuals, good to drive, well equipped, cheap(ish) AGAINST Seats aren’t the best, some functional feeling bits It’s not often that TG would get all hot ’n’ bothered about an inoffensive little electric hatch by a Chinese über corporation, but bear with us here, because the MG4 is something of a belter. At launch there’s a standard range base SE with a 50.8kWh battery and 217 miles of range (168bhp, 184lb ft) that weighs in at the headline £25,995, then two long range versions, SE and Trophy. An extra £2,500 on the SE brings you the 61.7kWh battery and 280-ish miles of WLTP range, plus 201bhp and the same torque figure. But the long range is a smidge slower to 62mph (7.9 plays 7.7) because of battery weight,…

£41,621 FOR Looks. Brilliant as an urban CV. Potential conversions AGAINST Volkswagen spoiled the dash. No LWB edition Any electric van is perfect for urban delivery duty, obviously. With this one you advertise your business as not just low carbon but design led too. Rival e-vans are adapted diesels, and they don’t look this smart. We voted the Buzz Cargo’s passenger carrying twin as our electric car of the year. This is exactly the same underneath – 204bhp at the back axle, 77kWh in the battery. What could possibly go wrong? This: the people carrier has a beautiful dash and cabin, evidently designed by people who loved it. The Cargo’s dash is hard boring black plastics. Doubtless the excuse is less cost and more robustness. But more conventional shapes predominate…

FORD FOCUS ST £34,960 FOR Gutsy engine, great chassis for dodgy UK roads AGAINST Button-erasing facelift has wrecked the interior Facelift time for the hot Focus doesn’t herald any more power, but the unusually large motor in the ST was never short of torque. As a drive, it’s still the unsung dark horse among family hot hatches: naughtier than a Golf GTI, but more rounded than an i30N. Pity then that Ford’s binned all the buttons inside, replacing them with a Tesla-style 13.2in touchscreen. Even swapping driving modes requires a prod of the overgrown iPad these days. OK VOLKSWAGEN T-ROC CABRIO STYLE £31,495 FOR Handy in a heatwave, far improved ride on smaller alloys AGAINST Usual VW infotainment gripes, being seen in one Our T-Roc Cabrio happened to arrive during…

“IT HAS A SENSE OF HUMOUR, AND THAT’S A RARE THING” We didn’t start with the Praga. We started in a pair of Skoda Enyaqs and a VW Multivan, crawling silently around Autodrom Most in the semi-darkness of the previous evening. A track day had just finished, the pulsating echoes of motorbikes had stopped reverberating off the grandstands, silence had returned. And in our cars there’s no radio chatter or banter, we’re all quiet and circumspect. Because even at 20mph it’s clear this is a Big Boy Pants track. The corners are numbered, not named. Less evocative. It’s harder to express fear and trepidation when reverentially whispering about turns 4 and 19, rather than some mythically titled bend such as Pouhon or Paddock Hill. But ultra fast, ‘are they really…

REPORT 4 CITROEN e-BERLINGO I’m slowly getting used to the EV shortcomings on the Berlingo; human nature is good at adapting. But there is one thing I can’t adapt to. The brakes – they are either on or off, there’s no middle ground. However, I have found a temporary solution… which is to drive like Jean Alesi and be the last of the late brakers – problem solved. Quick too, even if you do look like an idiot. AF REPORT 3 DS 9 Underneath the screen, just behind the gearlever, is a compartment which contains the DS 9’s wireless charging pad. I like a wireless charging system (it means I’m never caught short on battery) but sometimes I close the lid on the compartment and forget to bring out my…

GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR MORE MIND-BLOWING MANUFACTURER GUIDES What’s Peugeot and when did it start making cars? Peugeot is one of the French big three. Or should that be grands trois? Rival to Renault and Citroen (though it’s actually part of the same company as Citroen now) Peugeot was founded (pun intended) as a steel manufacturer way back in 1810 by Émile Peugeot. Originally, the company started out making saws, then kitchen equipment, like coffee grinders, and eventually branching out to bicycles. How Parisian is that? The first Peugeot car was a steam-powered three wheeler in 1889, though only four of them were actually made. Petrol power came along in 1890 (courtesy of a licensing deal with German firm Daimler) as well as a fourth wheel. A little family fall-out saw…

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. 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. 3. VW e-UP PRICE: From £24,085 RANGE: 159 miles It’s always been one of the finest city cars out there, but you’ve got to be sure you could cope with all of the Yorkshire-accented jokes that…