Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com Due to some spicy festive deadlines, I’m actually writing this two weeks before Christmas in a fog of late nights and turkey lunches. The ideal moment, then, to reflect on what’s been a year of change. Change for us in the TopGear family as we adjust to the TV show being rested for the foreseeable, but also in the auto industry as a whole. Has there ever been a more exciting time to cover cars? I can’t think of one, but then again my brain is clogged with cranberry sauce. The themes are broadly what we’ve been witnessing for a while, but in 2023 somebody, somewhere pinned it because shifts are happening at an unprecedented rate. We know the Chinese are coming to steal everyone else’s lunch, but…

Not content with building rare hypercars, Bugatti has now teamed up with Adidas to create some rare football boots based on the standard Adidas X Crazyfast boots. Cue Ferrari frantically looking for a new name for its 812 Superfast successor. Bugatti says they are “engineered for speed” with a carbon inlay and Adidas’s ‘Speedframe’ sole that’s lightweight but rigid to allow for rapid acceleration. You’ll be able to outrun a Chiron in these things – most of those barely scrape 18mph on Park Lane in London. Bugatti says these boots will “remain rare and sought after by devoted collectors for years to come”. Just 99 pairs are available via auction. collect.adidas.com/bugatti…

1 IT’S A ‘SPORTS UTILITY COUPE’ Carmakers are always trying to shove their cars into lifestyle niches. We’re not sure which lifestyle the new Smart #3 is aimed at, but it’s a small electric SUV with a swoopy roof. Smart is owned 50:50 by Mercedes and Geely, so through the magic of modern carmaking, the #3 is based on the same bits as the new Volvo EX30. 2 THE YOUNG PEOPLE WILL LOVE IT At least that’s what Smart is hoping. Every #3 comes with a 12.3-inch infotainment screen as standard, which includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and all the over the air updates that you can shake a stick at. Plus the fancier specs come with a 13-speaker Beats sound system as invented by the world’s favourite physician…

£243,500 FOR Even more spectacular to drive, less annoying to live with AGAINST Noise is a little drab, deja vu looks No one had a problem with how fast the McLaren 720S went. No one complained about its handling. And yet, McLaren’s added more power (and shorter gearing) to its replacement: the 750S. So it’s even more urgent in a straight line. The suspension’s been fiddled with: the components themselves are now lighter and the furiously clever software linking each damper has been recoded to be as comfy as a 720S when you’re commuting and almost as wild as a 765LT when you’re not. The result is a car that verges on genius. No other supercar combines such an uncanny level of comfort and user friendliness with such frightening performance…

Michael Schumacher is The Stig (…right?) The FXX’s Dunsfold power lap was only the second most remarkable thing about the first episode of series 13. Stig’s time – 1:10.7secs – put the FXX over six seconds ahead of the second placed car at the time, the Gumpert Apollo, but that’s not what anyone remembers. Because this was The One Where Stig Took His Helmet Off. And revealed himself to be none other than Michael Schumacher. The seven time world champion – pictured here reclining in the luxurious surroundings of the TG TV production office – had a strong personal connection with the FXX. He was involved in its development and was also the recipient of the 30th and last FXX, given to him as a thankyou for helping return the Scuderia…

Traditionally it’s trolls that lurk under bridges – or possibly Japanese oni in this case, seeing as we’re approaching an underpass on the outskirts of Tokyo. It’s certainly not a usual hangout for super cool Japanese young people. But when subcultures form, they tend to stick to the fringes of society, and this one is no different. The body language and capillary action of the cars is the same as any other car meet though – people drawn together in loose groups, pointing at bits of car, laughing and joking, standing back to admire, leaning in to inspect. Except that the cars themselves aren’t the usual highly modified or expensive representatives of the traditional scenes. In fact, they’re remarkably unremarkable. But that’s the thing here – in a society driven…

VOLVO XC90 (2004) Price now: £1,995 Harris says: Can’t bear to take the plunge on a potentially ruinous Rangie? This costs less than the average UK resident spends on holidays in a year. A week on a beach or a seven-seat Swedish SUV? Know which we’d have. PORSCHE CAYENNE S (2006) Price now: £3,900 Harris says: Looking for something a little more road-biased than a Range Rover? First-gen Cayennes are now worryingly cheap. Heck, this is a 4.5-litre V8-engined S for less than £4k. Just beware if anything goes wrong. CADILLAC ESCALADE (2007) Price now: £15,995 Harris says: Is an L322 just a little bit too small? Enter the Cadillac Escalade. You too could look like prime Rooney or just about any other Noughties Premier League footballer by buying this disgracefully…

REPORT 6 VOLKSWAGEN ID.BUZZ Small issues for me this month. I can’t open the tailgate if I attach a tow bar bike rack, and it’s not strong enough to have a tailgate mounted rack fitted. Meanwhile the 60:40 split bench is less versatile and imaginative than any MPV. OM REPORT 4 ALFA ROMEO TONALE Seems the Tonale is still a rare sight on UK roads… I’ve been asked if it’s a Stelvio more times than I care to say. Which makes me wonder how common both Alfa SUVs are – to my eyes they are very different propositions, but not, it seems, to others. EN REPORT 2 JEEP AVENGER Yes, that’s an identical Avenger parked next to me, proving what I already suspected – Jeep has nailed the ‘desirability’ brief.…

GOODBYE £14,795 OTR/£15,445 as tested/£213 pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s no longer the UK’s cheapest new car, but is it still a TG hero? DRIVERS Greg Potts THE DACIA SANDERO IS LEAVING THE TG GARAGE. IT’S HARD TO believe it’s been with us for six months already, and that probably says a little about how competently it can cope with pretty much any situation, plus a little about how forgettable it is. The latter shouldn’t really be an insult, though. The Sandero may be a little bland but there’s a very good reason for its simplicity. Firstly, it keeps the cost down. This may no longer be Britain’s cheapest car at the time of writing (the Kia Picanto pips it by just over £100), but it is absolutely still one of…

HELLO £67,100 OTR/£81,600 as tested/£524 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Has Lexus squandered its lead in the posh hybrid SUV race? DRIVER Jason Barlow INSIDE MY HEAD: LEXUS IS THE LUXURY OUTLIER THAT’S PERMA-skirting the arena occupied by the big players – Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Land/Range Rover. In reality: the first generation RX dates back to 1999, thus pre-empting the Noughties SUV boom. A pioneer. It was certainly the first to introduce hybrid tech to the sector, upscaling parent company Toyota’s farsighted eco adventures with the original Prius. Flagship of a now heavily expanded range, the RX is into its fifth regeneration. Aside from the LFA and IS-F V8 saloon, Lexus has rarely fanned the flames of driving desire. But having recently just scored my first speeding conviction in 18 years,…

GOODBYE £54,075 OTR/£63,795 as tested/£773 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can an electric BMW look, feel and drive… like a BMW? DRIVER Ben Pulman THERE’S A BARRAGE OF QUESTIONS TO fire at the BMW i4. “Why isn’t the range as good as a Tesla Model 3?” “Why isn’t it as innovative as the BMW i3 and i8 from a decade ago?” “Why does it have the silly Big Face Grille?” But let’s take a breath. We could dismiss almost every electric car if it were judged only on range, and while those early is (that’s i, plural – blame Apple) were clever carbon things, they weren’t a sales success. As for the third question… I don’t think anyone outside BMW knows why it persists with such a facial cul-de-sac. But the i4…

01 Chevrolet Bel Air Built from 1949 to 1981 over five iterations, the bulbous original encapsulated the Fifties and the car grew fins then chrome over the decades. The second version was a perfect fit for Chevy’s small block V8, which is still on the go. 02 Chevrolet Impala Introduced in 1958 as a plush coupe version of the Bel Air, the Impala then spawned a whole range. The SS (Super Sport) arrived in 1960 with what would become Chevy’s go faster badge. Recent 10th gen was more of a rental car special. 03 Chevrolet El Camino The third generation of this car-based pickup in 1968 was a classic late Sixties/early Seventies. The SS version came with a 6.5-litre V8 engine producing a bonkers 325bhp, and more powerful versions came after. Later models…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £37,395 RANGE: Up to 136 miles This TG favourite has retro styling and a brilliant interior, but it’s very expensive and the range isn’t great. Somehow we can’t help but love it though… 2. FIAT 500 PRICE: £28,195–£37,195 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. CITROEN AMI PRICE: £7,695–£8,695 RANGE: 47 miles Say hello to your little French friend. The pared back Ami is the perfect car for the city streets, as long as you don’t have ambitions to go…

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Don’t be a hostage to fortune. Just because you’re delighted your new spaniel puppy has mastered a) sitting on command, b) walking to heel, and c) not lavishly defecating into your high-tops, probably best not to rock up on national radio declaring she’ll be the first canine chess grandmaster, and also a shoo-in for the 2028 Nobel Prize in Physics. Underpromise, overdeliver, that’s what we’re saying. Advice sadly not heeded by Maserati at the launch of the Ghibli in 2013, where the ever optimistic Italians announced this would be the car to boost their UK sales by literally ONE THOUSAND PER CENT. Yep, tenfold. In 2012, Maser shifted a paltry 300 cars in the UK, but promised that by 2016, that figure would leap to 3,000, the coquettish Ghibli luring…

Serious-minded people like to think they know how the world works. Logic is the key to understanding, as some philosopher probably once said. But the world is not a logical place. These camouflage watches illustrate the point. Watches themselves defy logic. On the face of it they are about telling time, but if you’re late, a wristwatch is never to blame. In a similar way, cars defy logic too. A car provides a useful function, sure, but is that why you are reading this magazine? You could probably get by with Uber and a bus pass, but instead you want metallic paint, alloy wheels and a GT sport pack. For most people, a car is not a logical purchase, it’s emotional – you want a car that makes you do…

There’s been a lot of noise lately that EVs, because they’re heavier than ICE cars, wear out their brakes and tyres faster. And tyre and brake pad particulates are like exhaust particulates – very bad for health. But in cities, where the people are breathing the air and where they’re closer to the traffic, vehicles move slowly and hardly wear their tyres. So tyre particulate emissions matter less than on faster roads – at least from the point of view of lung health. And brakes? EVs hardly use their brakes, because most of the slowing down is done by the motor, in regeneration. So, in places where the biggest number of people are breathing the biggest amount of poisoned air, EVs definitely help. In short they remove from the equation…

There was a time not so long ago when BMW really pushed boundaries, failed spectacularly to play it safe, embraced innovation hard enough to make bones creak. But back then it wasn’t an exercise to see who could make the ugliest front end – the i3 was so far ahead of the game it had packed up and gone home before others caught up. The i8 was a hybrid sports car so experimental it had customers searching for an appropriate safe word. But things have changed. Where the new BMW 5-Series now has an electric version – the i5 – this G60 shares a platform with internally combusted brethren, which invites inevitable compromise. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz has produced a bespoke architecture that intends to make best use of electric motivation – the…

£160,000 (approx) FOR New found smoothness and practicality, composed road manners, thumping V8 AGAINST Lost a little character in the process, fiddly menus and screen graphics, cost You remember the AMG GT. Super long bonnet, cabin parked on the back axle behind growling V8, fairly frenetic approach to life. Yeah, that one. Well, the badge is back but the car has changed. No longer a supercar, now a super GT. There are two seats in the back and a bigger boot. Customer demand apparently. I ask one of the AMG execs if owners were threatening to go off and buy Porsche 911s. There’s a rueful non-denial. So it’s returned as a Germanic alternative to the Aston Martin DB12 and Ferrari Roma. Or a Porsche 911 Turbo of course. Think it’s…

£39,990 FOR Interior quality finally catching up with the tech AGAINST Steering wheel buttons, self-driving, the image Can you separate the art from the artist? Elon’s abrasive antics have taken the shine off a Tesla, but somewhere in there there’s a car company crying to be taken seriously. This new facelifted 3 does look good though – sharper, more assertive and resolved. It’s improved inside, too, with a sense that the quality of materials and overall design is finally catching up with the tech. You will still have to drive the car yourself though, sorry about that. The 3 comes with Autopilot cruise control as standard, but you can spend £3,400 for the ‘Enhanced’ version and £6,800 on ‘Full Self-Driving Capability’. The latter isn’t actually available, it’s more a hope…

“TURNS OUT SIMPLE, BINARY, SHOVE-IN-THE-BACK G-FORCE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PURITY AND HEDONISTIC CHARISMA” When I first drove the SF90 back in the weird summer of 2020, and in the hills not far from here, what blew me away was how fast it got itself out of corners. Inside, I felt like a tennis ball: roundabout, thwack, tight bend, thwack, open curve, thwack, hairpin, thwack. It was a physical bombardment and I was in the firing line. And now Ferrari has built a faster SF90. More aero. More grip. But how it gets itself out of corners remains the most remarkable thing. At least dynamically speaking. But put dynamics to one side and there’s something even more remarkable: that the car exists at all. My God there must have been…

It occurs to me, as I sign a scrap of paper, swipe my credit card and hold out a palm in a slightly scabby rental booth on Staten Island, that this probably constitutes world record levels of irresponsibility. Short of free guns with every Happy Meal or spiking the punch at a school disco, this is the situation statistically most likely to end in disaster. For just a few hundred dollars, Hertz will hand over the keys to a Shelby tuned Mustang, with more power than a Ferrari 812 Superfast, to any old Billy that walks through the door. Today, that Billy is me. I grasp the keys and make a bolt for it before the lady behind the desk realises she’s made some horrible clerical error. You know the…

“WHAT’S THE POINT IN OWNING A FERRARI RACECAR WHICH LIVES ITS LIFE ON THE ROAD?” For nearly four years I’ve owned a road legal Ferrari 360 Challenge racecar, and for nearly three of those it’s been completely off any road. This is because of many reasons, the main being that racecars really don’t enjoy being used outside of racing. The ride is dreadful, the noise deafening and its turning circle on par with a vessel that reads ‘Maersk’ down the side. All quite entertaining in short bursts. Less so on a daily commute. But the biggest single issue is down to its maintenance. When I bought it from Japan in 2020, it came with very limited history. And given its intended use, you have to assume that nothing has been…

REMEMBERING RETRO GAMING THE CLASSICS While legendary Sega developer Yu Suzuki is best known for Out Run and Daytona USA, in between those he created the lesser known Power Drift. Utilising what was known as ‘super scaler’ technology, Power Drift constructed its elevated, rollercoaster tracks entirely out of two dimensional sprites but then blasted them at your eyeballs so rapidly that they resembled a solid, three-dimensional structure. On the initial menu screen, you select not just your preferred circuit, but also one of 12 different drivers who is then craned directly into their car, which is a service that would be extremely welcome after a substantial pub lunch, now that we think about it. Once you hit the track, the handling was just as slidy as the title of the game…

HELLO £42,895 OTR/£43,545 as tested/£439 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Three months with a ZR-V: can we figure out what it’s actually for? DRIVER Greg Potts BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN HATCHBACKS RULED UK ROADS and the ‘crossover’ category only included strange creations like the Renault Scenic RX4, TopGear magazine would have brought you long-term reviews on every single permutation of the Honda Civic’s multiple specs and powertrains so you could decide which engine, gearbox and interior trim was right for you. These days, Honda only sells the standard Civic with a single hybrid powertrain and we already ran one of those (and very much liked it) earlier this year. Of course, there is the 2.0-litre turbocharged 324bhp Type R now, but we’d have to sell a job lot of…

GOODBYE £48,380 OTR/£50,030 as tested/£629 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can Mazda join the large/luxe SUV party? DRIVER Andy Franklin AFTER 12 MONTHS OF LIVING WITH THE BIGGEST, MOST EXPENSIVE, most ambitiously positioned Mazda yet, it’s time to say sayonara. We started out with a petrol 2.5-litre plug-in hybrid petrol, and replaced it with this old school diesel. That was a good call, as the hybrid version never felt quite sorted. The gearbox, hybrid motor and engine often busied themselves with marital breakdowns resulting in some embarrassingly jerky driving. Even jerkier when you factored in the bouncy, unsettled ride. The diesel is a better effort. The 3.0-litre straight-six has a smooth but raspy tone when floored. It’s quick, yet returns impressive mpg, and has lots of torque which came in handy when…

REPORT 3 TOYOTA bZ4X Instead of 20in smooth trainers, the bZ4X now has a set of BF Goodrich Trail Terrains (235/60/R18). They are ‘severe snow rated’, have decent sipes and toughened up sidewalls to deal with some gravel/off-road use, and are generally a bit tougher. TF REPORT 4 AUDI TT FINAL EDITION The TT’s Alcantara/leather seats are fantastic. They strike a good balance by offering a deep, thickly padded, expensively cushioned feel, while hugging your hips just enough to better enjoy its handling smarts. More on that next month… VP REPORT 4 PEUGEOT 408 I’ve grumbled before about the messy operation of this engine and automatic combo, fitted to dozens of cars across the Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Vauxhall ranges. In a city, which is where most of my trips begin…

REPORT 3 £45,635/£57,995/£686 WHY IT’S HERE Can Hyundai’s posher offshoot stand out on the saturated SUV scene? DRIVER Charlie Rose OH DEAR, HERE I AM WONDERING why we’re not seeing more Genesis like our GV70 on UK roads, only to find out that Genesis Motor UK has kicked the bucket. Genesis will cease to be an independent company in early 2024, at least on British soil. OK, that sounds more dramatic than it actually is. It will be merging its operations with its overlords at Hyundai UK, and there should be no impact on current or future Genesis owners. In fact, next year will see Genesis partner with several dealerships to establish a franchised dealer network throughout the UK. One could speculate that ploughing money into new company operations may not…

Chevrolet’s US range consists of 13 SUVs, four pickups, a saloon and a sports car, which gives you an idea of the car market over there. The Trax SUV is the cheapest, starting at $20,400 (£16,200) in LS spec. It comes with a 1.2-litre petrol, 6spd auto, 8in interior touchscreen with smartphone integration, keyless entry and 17in steel wheels. At the other end of the scale is the Corvette Z06, the performance version of the Corvette, which is advertised from $112,700 (£89,500) but maxes out at $134,245 before options for the convertible version in 3LZ trim. That car has a 5.5-litre V8 petrol and 8spd auto transmission, 8in interior touchscreen, keyless entry and heated seats. Among other things, obviously. The UK only gets the entry level Corvette Stingray, starting at…

If you ask someone to think of the quintessential American sports car, there’s a good chance that the Corvette will be on the tip of their tongue. Maybe after the Mustang or Dodge Viper, perhaps the Ford Thunderbird or Shelby Cobra. But certainly above the 1912 Stutz Bearcat. The Corvette story is of gradual evolution from a lazy Fifties runabout to a European-rivalling sports car with fearsome performance and dare we say it some top notch handling. It has grown over eight generations since it was first introduced in 1953 as a ‘dream car’ concept at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The fibreglass body was an exotic touch, but the 3.9-litre inline six engine was deemed to be a little underpowered at 150bhp, especially given that it was matched…

Now go and watch the video on topgear.com Although we’re big fans of the Dacia Duster here at TopGear, there’s a slight feeling of unease surrounding this all-new third generation. Why? Well, it looks a bit… too good, bluntly. A bit plush. A little too much equipment and swagger for what is supposed to be a cheap, no nonsense, working hero. But before we do the usual and jump headlong to conclusions, it’s probably worth a little delve into what we’re looking at. For a start, this is a properly new Duster. There’ll be three engines on offer, as well as front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive options. Already, we raise our collective eyebrow. But bear with us. There’s the Hybrid 140, which comprises a 1.6-litre, 94bhp petrol engine with a 49bhp electric…

Bugatti has unveiled the finalised interior for its track only Bolide hypercar, due later this year. It says the all new, lightweight monocoque is “stronger and stiffer” than the Chiron’s and promotes a racier, reclined seating position so you can live out your Le Mans fantasies with your ankles somewhere north of your ear lobes. Interestingly, not one single part in the car you see here has been carried over from the Chiron, everything has been crafted exclusively for the Bolide, with the outer ‘X’ theme continued inside – note the Farfalle steering wheel (complete with buttons to engage the Bolide’s various driving settings, including launch control and traction control) which is removeable, allowing you to turn the Bolide’s interior into a lounge of sorts. And if you’re wondering why…

A tribute to classic isometric arcade racers like World Rally and Mille Miglia, bizarrely titled PC game Super Woden GP 2 takes that straightforward gameplay and marries it to a more expansive career mode – the one from Gran Turismo specifically. To say Super Woden 2 borrows from ‘GT Mode’ is like saying the Great Train Robbers ‘borrowed’ £2.6 million. It works beautifully though, and exposes the straightforward brilliance of buying cars, tuning them up and flitting between races. While some of the early machinery feels sluggish, once you climb the ladder to the more potent vehicles you’ll be throwing them into corners with gleeful abandon. A game that costs a shade over a tenner shouldn’t be this much fun. Apparently, Super Woden GP 2 is mostly the work of…

01 Peugeot RCZ The original TT was a styling classic, but Audi never really innovated it afterwards. Peugeot was brave enough to fit a double bubble roof and humped rear window which apparently improved airflow over the RCZ. And gave it some properly head turning clout. 02 Citroen C6 The beautiful Citroen C6 was the last big luxury barge to wear the double chevron badge before ‘DS’ became a thing. The inwardly curved glass allowed Citroen to design a conventional saloon-booted car with the sleekier profile of a hatchback. Who needs a rear wiper? 03 Chevy Corvette Stingray C2 The second-gen Corvette’s split rear window may have been inspired by the iconic ‘spine’ of the Bugatti 57SC, but the Stingray’s interpretation is arguably the more famous. It only appeared on the 1963 car,…

£50,000 (approx) FOR Stylish if you don’t mind getting noticed. Road biased. Great cabin. Good value AGAINST Less of a full-on 4x4 than it looks Are you seeing what we’re seeing? A 2004 Discovery, that masterpiece of sheer-sided Geoff Upex design and unstoppable off-road adventurism? Yeah, there’s some of that here, a body shaped with minimalist style ethos but maximalist space efficiency. The Hyundai Santa Fe is a family SUV, about as big as you could possibly want for British streets and car parks. It’s got seven seats with cargo space beyond that, and it’s a solid tow car. But actually it’s a slightly different proposition from an old Land Rover. It’s only optionally 4WD, and doesn’t have a low ratio transmission or diff locks. For most people it’s better…

£43,000 (approx) FOR Good to drive and ride in. Handsome. Long range AGAINST Doesn’t have the versatility of early Scenics You can see why they wanted to revive the name. The Renault Scenic was a massive hit with car buying families in the Nineties. But that was that and this is this. It’s a longish wheelbase long range electric family car. The original Scenic is history and so are its one box profile, and three individual folding and sliding rear seats. Fair enough – people gradually stopped buying those MPVs, and unused seat mechanisms just add weight and cost. These days the sales are in crossovers and so doubtless Renault wouldn’t mind if you mistook this for one. Actually it’s less than 20mm taller than an ID.3. Renault has another…

MERCEDES-BENZ CLA 250e SHOOTING BRAKE £45,360 FOR It’s a decent car if you accidentally end up buying one AGAINST Interior fiddliness, smaller inside than it first looks The A-Class facelift trickles onward – we’re not entirely sure what the point of the CLA Shooting Brake is, but it’s nice once you’re inside it. Look past the modish styling and it’s a decent enough A-Class estate. We’d happily do without the steering wheel touch controls, but this mid-spec AMG Line Executive PHEV makes for a decent motorway cruiser. The plug-in option now makes better sense with around 40 miles real world from its 16kWh battery. SB VOLVO XC40 B4 FWD ULTIMATE £45,520 FOR Still very stylish, some nice practical touches inside AGAINST Big gap between petrol and electric options Volvo’s entry SUV…

XX. Not so much a range of cars as perhaps the most exclusive automotive club there’s ever been. Membership: about 116. Cars, that is – probably considerably fewer people given many will own more than one. You, me and 99.999999 per cent of car nuts are not members of this club. And if you’re anything like me, you’re not sure that you want to be either. The problem is that Ferrari can often come across as arrogant and aloof, it often doesn’t feel like a company that cares about you and me. It’s a global luxury brand, it’s for the wealthy, we see the branding, the merch and the stores and it leaves us cold. Where, you wonder, is the passion you’ve heard all about? The stuff that makes the…

Caterham CEO Bob Laishley seems pathologically wary of the usual political gibberish, a man whose media training amounts to saying – after he’s told you a juicy secret – “that should probably be off the record”. I like Bob a lot. He’s a straight talker and a terrible liar. But even he might have a bit of a job convincing diehard Caterham fans that an electric mini-supercar might well be the future of the brand. Although given the Project V, it might not be as hard as it sounds. Mainly because the Project V – ‘V’ standing for voltage or velocity – is a pretty car in the metal, with a wasp waist and three bubble profile, strong shoulders and a simple rear end. There’s a distinct lack of 21-inch…

IT’S SWELTERING ON THE PAFURI LANDING STRIP. In the distance, an African fish eagle calls while a kudu munches on a dry tuft of bush grass. Almost in biting distance, a bask of crocodiles lie in the late morning sun, menacingly half submerged. All is as it should be in the Kruger National Park until the buzz of a Cessna Grand Caravan closes in on the rough and rutted gravel strip. The plane touches down in a cloud of orange dust and rattles its way over to a line of shiny new Ineos Grenadiers. The engine cuts, the door flips down and a familiar looking, streaky 6’4” figure emerges. Familiar, that is, if you have even a passing interest in business, football, Formula One, sailing, cycling or cars. “Ah, you’ve brought…

It’s an expensive business, motorsport – executive boards demand results and brands have to justify spending vast amounts on paying short Europeans to drive in circles. The dream is to demonstrate a sort of trickledown effect, for dealers to point at a lardy SUV and claim a rich racing heritage. Something like the X5, perhaps. A risky move for BMW when the urbane pseudo off-roader came out. This was the company’s first SUV, and while Mercedes and Lexus had beaten it to the punch, BMW’s reputation as the maker of ultimate driving machines was at stake. Not to mention that it had decided it was going to build this German-badged monster in a new factory in South Carolina. Yikes. In entirely unrelated developments, come 1999 BMW found itself committed to…

AH, ROTHMANS VS ROUGHROADS. THAT SHOWS PROGRESS DOESN’T IT? Cigarette branding might be heavily frowned upon now, but you can’t argue they knew how to do a good motorsport livery 40 years ago. The 953 arrived at the height of Porsche’s association with Rothmans, and looked as good on the Dakar contender as it had on the 956 Le Mans car. But enough about the way it looks. As far as 4WD Porsches go, this is their genesis. The first ever. Before the Cayenne was so much as a twinkle. As much as a competition car, it was a rolling test bed, paving the way for the 959 in 1985. WAS IT SUCCESSFUL? Too right it was. Porsche entered three in the 7,000-mile Paris-Dakar in 1984 and this very car,…

GOODBYE £137,435 OTR/£144,175 as tested/£1,650 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is the world’s most luxurious SUV actually the world’s best luxury car full stop? DRIVER Ollie Marriage THIS IS THE LIFE. BACK SEAT. MASSAGE ENGAGED. TILTED BACK and stretched out. I might get the laptop out in a bit. Might. Right now I feel a nap coming on. Must be the mysterious smoothness of my professional chauffeur, Colin Hitchcock. No relation, apparently. The other side of the double glazing and electric window blinds Gloucestershire is currently slipping silently by. Next comes… well, I don’t mind really. Colin knows where he’s going. My eyelids really are quite heavy. Over the past six months I’ve driven 15,000 miles in this LWB Rangey, and until recently I’d not done a single mile in the back.…

REPORT 2 £55,440/£57,231/£599 WHY IT’S HERE Does a posh double-cab pickup make the ultimate family SUV? DRIVER Sam Philip I DON’T MIND A DENTED PICKUP. But, in the case of TG’s Amarok, I wasn’t necessarily planning on those dents arriving quite so soon, or quite so… dentily. Yep, the big lad got shunted. The crashficionados among you will doubtless recognise the indentation in the rear of the Amarok as the work of a MkVII VW Golf. Driving in the middle lane of the M4, I slowed for the traffic ahead, while the Golf directly behind me… didn’t. Turns out a large slab of blue metal is tough to miss in every sense. It was a hefty bump that, as you can see, made a small mess of the rear of the…

GOODBYE £29,995 OTR/£30,960 as tested/£295pcm WHY IT’S HERE Drifting’s great, but is Toyota’s RWD hero also a great daily? DRIVER Ollie Kew GEEKS KNOW THAT ‘GR’, TOYOTA’S GO-FASTER DIVISION, STANDS for ‘Gazoo Racing’. I think it should’ve been called ‘Mojo’, because that’s what the GR Supra, GR Yaris and GR86 have really existed to do: turn Toyota from Uber-making dishwasher-in-chief to a car brand that a new generation of car nuts will fantasise over. According to the likes of us at TG it’s largely job done, but what about if you’re an owner? If you’ve spent money buying, maintaining and modifying your very own? To find out, I arranged a little get-together with some GR fanatics at Harlow Japanese Autos, Britain’s premier Japanese car specialist. Our own Mark Riccioni has a…

Chevrolet was started on 3 November 1911 by Swiss engineer Louis Chevrolet along with disgruntled General Motors founder William C Durant, who’d recently been ousted. The first car in 1912 was the Classic Six, with a price equivalent to £54k today. It didn’t even have windows. Durant and Chevrolet clashed, the former with a vision for a ‘people’s car’ that could be sold cheaply. Louis quit the company in 1913, leaving just the name behind. Financial shenanigans saw Durant leveraging his Chevy stock to take GM back over in 1916 and Chevrolet merged into it in 1919. Its HQ had been in New York, but shifted to Detroit in 1921. Sales topped 125,000 in 1917, which was also the year Chevrolet introduced its first V8. The 10 millionth car was sold…

The Corvette Z06 is the clear speed queen in the Chevrolet lineup, with a whopping 195mph vmax. You’d need to find a long enough road, of course – we can think of one in Colorado that might work. It’s not the fastest ever Corvette, that honour goes to the final iteration of the previous generation (C7). That car was badged the ZR1 and only 300 of them were made back in 2019 as that version took its final bow. It featured a 755bhp 6.2-litre V8 with a massive supercharger and a windtunnel developed aero package that took it to a 215mph top speed. A ZR1 model of the current C8 Corvette is coming in 2025 with two turbos bolted on to the car’s 5.5-litre V8 engine. And of course following…

Chevrolet’s had some fun concepts – often a bit flighty, but usually thinly disguised production cars. The CERV (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle) models are our favourites. Come the third one in 1990 it offered an exciting glimpse of the next Corvette. Cars were starting to move past the angular wedges of the Seventies and Eighties into something a bit more fluid and high-tech. CERV III had the kitchen sink thrown at it to show what exotic lightweight materials and the latest computer tech could do – 0–60mph in 3.9secs and a top speed of 225mph – but of course it all got ditched for the production C5 Corvette in 1997.…