Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com My name is Jack Rix and I am a car design ignoramus. Sure, I probably know more about Hofmeister kinks and Fuchs wheels than the average person in the street, but by and large I judge not on historical references and the designer’s CV, but on my own raw reaction to seeing something for the first time. And I’m fine with that, because that’s what makes car design so endlessly fascinating: there is no single formula for what makes one vehicle an absolute stunner and another a hideous waste of natural resources. The new Renault 5 and Honda e are a curious case study because while both radiate cute retro vibes with a layer of tech on top, the Renault is a direct reboot of the original R5,…

THIS IS THE RACECAR THAT will be taking on Le Mans and pretty much every prestigious endurance race you care to mention in 2024. This new Vantage GT3 uses the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, but of course it’s subject to Balance of Performance rules on track so figures of 656bhp and 590lb ft go out the window here. Think somewhere upwards of 536bhp and 516lb ft – less than the road car. Now, take a moment to admire the aggressive aero package that has been designed to address – and brace yourself for some commendable honesty from Aston – the “old car’s more challenging handling characteristics”. The suspension has been heavily revised, with double wishbones front and rear, adjustable anti-roll bars and five-way adjustable dampers. Alcon brakes are six-pot front…

Welcome to the Porsche Taycan v2.0: a car that’s lighter, quicker to charge, packed with more range than its predecessor and fast. The range topping Taycan Turbo S will go from 0–62mph in 2.4secs. It’s a full 0.4 seconds faster than its predecessor, while the base Taycan is 0.6secs quicker, hitting 62mph in 4.8secs. The redesigned rear axle motor delivers up to 107bhp more power. Some more numbers. It’ll now travel further, the new ‘Performance Battery Plus’ offering 105kWh (up from 93kWh) which in the rear-drive Taycan, is now able to travel up to 421 miles (678km) on a single charge. That’s a full 109 miles more than before. There’s better software. An upgraded thermal management system. A next-gen heat pump. Better recuperation from braking energy. Faster recharging (for example,…

Speed Crew The term ‘cooperative’ is regularly used to describe multiplayer games where all players are united in attempting to achieve a common goal. But while you might well describe Speed Crew, out now on all platforms, as a cooperative game, it feels a little too rose-tinted for an experience that so quickly descends into shouting acrimonious finger pointing. Speed Crew sees you and up to three mates attempting to solve complex, multi-stage tasks under intense time pressure, in this case repairing racecars as they slither into the pits. As the jobs pile up, the stress levels rise and the friendships implode, usually in highly entertaining fashion. It’s worth noting you can technically play Speed Crew on your own, but this is absolutely pitched as a party game and that’s…

01 Saab 900 Aero Turbo Saab had a rich seam of form in three spoke wheels, with various models right up to the early Noughties 9-5 saloon being available with handsome triple-spoke rims. Our favourite are the thickset, almost monobloc-looking wheels fitted to the 900 Aero Turbo from the late Eighties. 02 Dodge Viper Well if you’re building a car that does without a roof, exterior doorhandles, driver aids or airbags, then its only right and proper you do away with a wheel spoke or two. The Viper’s swept three-spokes with imitation centre lock lug nuts are peak early Nineties chic. 03 Vauxhall Nova SR A car from a more innocent time. Wait, innocent is the wrong word when you’re talking about a joyrider classic. The Nova is as quintessentially…

£50,670 FOR Easy to drive and to use – a true VW at last. Well equipped AGAINST Pricing is confident. Heat pump’s extra For now the ID.7 is a hatchback, and a very useful one. Better still, it can be had as an estate. Just not yet. The design is recognisably part of the ID.3/4/5 family, which will sadly leave it marooned in a few years’ time. The company’s designers have lately said that the next wave of Volkswagen electric cars will, to paraphrase, look like Volkswagens not like electric cars. Maybe at that point they’ll give it a sensible name like, I dunno, Passat, and let us drop that annoying full stop. Anyway, the body shape has an aim beyond your aesthetic sensibilities. Low drag is critical if it’s…

£34,685 FOR Nice to see Toyota being bold, best hybrid version yet AGAINST Some of the day to day driving niggles are annoying The weird thing about Toyota is its different personalities. You’ve got the mainstay home appliances – your minicabs and grey family cars – the crazy eyed sporty stuff, the go-anywhere peacekeeping off-roaders. A stranger notion of late has been the expanding set of cool Toyotas, the sheep in wolves’ clothing. The first gen C-HR crossover was a gamble – Toyota didn’t know if there would be a market, but then over 300,000 of them a year rolled out the factory. A conservative second generation was thus guaranteed, but it’s a nice surprise to see the latest is more bonkers looking than the first. It nails the season’s…

PORSCHE CAYENNE E-HYBRID £79,800 FOR As much Cayenne as you’ll ever need, frugal running costs AGAINST Nitpicking here, but a tad thirsty when out of e-range There are now three hybrid Cayennes available to buyers: the base spec E-Hybrid as tested here is the one you’ll commit to if you’re purchasing with your head. For good reason too, because it’s more Cayenne than you’ll ever need: 464bhp, up to 46 miles of e-range, and around 60mpg real world. That’s triple the economy we’re seeing in our Cayenne S lifer, and it would save you around £9k in list price, tax and fuel over 10,000 miles too. A no brainer? PR JAGUAR F-PACE P400e £56,080 FOR Still looks street smart, competitively priced AGAINST Rivals offer more range, this is a heavy beast…

“IT’S THE BEGINNING OF RENAULT LIGHTING THE RETRO EV AFTERBURNERS” If I were Gilles Vidal, Renault’s design boss who spent the past three years sculpting the new electric 5 into a block of pugnacious retro perfection, I’d be rightly annoyed that a wicker basket is getting more attention than the car itself. We’re in a trendy industrial unit turned events space on the outskirts of Paris, and the world’s media have just clapped eyes on the new 5 for the first time. Unfortunately, they’ve also just learned about the single greatest optional extra ever: a porte baguette to hold your favourite tubular loaf and stop it shedding crumbs all over your car. It’s a masterstroke in sucking the seriousness out of a new car launch and simultaneously confirming that the…

“COME ON GUYS. THE PLANE’S WAITING. LET’S GO!” With all the spritely finesse of a global megastar, Sir Lewis Hamilton climbs back into the DHC-6 aircraft he’d jumped from just a few minutes earlier. Old parachute still unpacked, we’re being urged to get on board with him. Unfortunately for the seven-time world champion, I’ve only just left the hangar. Strapped to me is a very polite Spanish instructor who now resembles some kind of swaying, 30-stone science experiment with four legs and two heads. Blurting out “Get in there, Lewis” while pointing to the plane seems like it would fall on deaf ears. Instead, I opt for the token thumbs-up which isn’t so much Top Gun as it is hitchhiker trying to get a lift down the A14. Inside the…

SMART ROADSTER (2004) Price now: £4,495 Harris says: It wasn’t all that long ago that 80bhp was considered plenty for a little sports car. The Smart Roadster was even available with a 60bhp version of its 698cc 3cyl turbo engine. The key was its ultralight 790kg kerbweight. CITROEN AX GT (1991) Price now: £8,950 Harris says: Want a lesson in how to style a hot hatch using only a ruler? Just take a look at the AX GT. And if you’re looking for tips on how to make the same car drive well, try an 86bhp 1.4 four-pot, a manual and 722kg of mass. ROVER MINI COOPER SPORT (1997) Price now: £10,500 Harris says: OK, you’ll have to put up with a worryingly Nineties-spec interior if you go for one of…

REPORT 6 ALFA ROMEO TONALE A few weekends ago, the time came to test the Tonale’s e-AWD system. This was not planned or even intentional, it was simply happenchance – a rough unmade track combined with a steep slope and a wheel off the ground saw the Tonale’s e-AWD system scrabble momentarily for grip, then find it and propel the car upwards and onwards. EN REPORT 6 AUDI TT FINAL EDITION The Audi TT should not have driving ‘modes’. Although, I was recently running low on fuel so popped it into Eco and it sipped… economically. Then I did a motorway schlep and in Comfort it was… comfortable. One time, I encountered a series of corners and in Dynamic it performed… dynamically. On reflection, I think the Audi TT should…

01 Subaru Impreza WRX STI Version 1 Known simply as the WRX STI Version in 1994, this GC8 had 247bhp, a new intercooler, uprated brakes, stiffer springs and a louder exhaust. Giggle about sexually transmitted infections all you like, but this car started a dynasty. 02 Subaru Impreza WRX Type RA Before the STI, Subaru offered the first Type RA to the Japanese domestic market. You bought this Impreza to go racing. It was lighter, with the sound deadening removed, manual windows, a stronger engine and shorter gearing. 03 Subaru Impreza Series McRae One of many Prodrive specials, the Series McRae was based on the Impreza Turbo and was built in the UK to celebrate Colin McRae’s 1995 World Rally Championship title. Finished in the appropriate Rally Blue paint with gold wheels, too.…

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Electric cars are all the rage right now, but what you can’t do is turn a petrol car into an EV just by clipping a 4kg box to it. But in the bike world, that’s exactly what you can do thanks to Red Bull Advanced Technologies and a British inventor’s Very Good Idea. The Skarper clips to the back wheel of almost any regular bike with disc brakes and turns it electric. The detachable drive unit contains a 240Wh battery mated to a 250W motor – the clever part is the gearbox contained within Skarper’s ‘DiskDrive’ replacement rear brake disc. This allows the brakes to operate as normal, but torque to be delivered to the back wheel through the hub. The claim is 37 miles of range and a 2.5hr recharge.…

1 IT’S COMING HERE… AT LAST! After much cajoling, persuasion and a few threats, the Spring is finally coming to our shores. About time too. Launched back in 2021, Dacia says the Spring was the third most sold electric car in 2022 and 2023, and claims more than 140,000 have been registered worldwide since launch. Its arrival marks the first time a right-hand-drive variant has been offered. 2 IT SHOULD BE SUPER CHEAP The Spring is billed as “the most affordable new all-electric car in Europe”. We’ll have to wait until mid March to find out the prices and specs available in the UK, but given it starts at just €18,400 over the Channel, it’s expected to be more than reasonable in good old Britain too. Indeed, speculation is it’ll…

Good grief. For a minute there, they had me. I thought the MPV was back. I mean, look at the new one-box silhouettes. The Lexus LM is here, the Volvo EM90 is out in China, and so is the closely related Zeekr 009. The LEVC taxi people will have one soon. But the resurrected one-box isn’t a puke-stained family wagon. It’s luxury transport for the chauffeured. A market that’s been prised wide open by fleets of black painted, tint windowed, polished alloyed Mercedes-Benz V-Classes. It’s now possible to spend £200,000 on a froufrou’d-up Merc van by Brabus, Clive Sutton or Senzati. These have long since jettisoned the definition of ‘people carriers’, not least because step one in their fitouts is to evict the minibus seats. In their place go fewer…

“IT COVERS GROUND WITH MORE PRECISION THAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOMETHING THIS BIG AND HEAVY” £171,460 FOR 6D hydraulic suspension does a remarkable job of keeping 2.6 tonnes in check AGAINST It weighs 2.6 tonnes. And don’t have the carbon wheels, they’re pointless SV replaces SVR, and with the loss of a letter comes a gain in image. The old Range Rover Sport SVR was a brash, boisterous car for brash, boisterous people. The new one has curated wellness tracks. The signature colour is now an understated bronze, not a punchy blue. Someone’s pinched the exhaust’s lips closed. And applied technology to the handling. The hottest Range Rover Sport has been civilised. So naturally you’re thinking the old supercharged V8 (one of the thirstiest beasts in the automotive jungle) will…

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A COMBINATION OF DESERT DUST COATING THE DASH, A HUGE INCLINE AND BRIGHT MIDDAY SUNSHINE HAS RESULTED IN PRETTY MUCH TOTAL BLINDNESS APPROACHING THE BROW OF THIS PARTICULAR HILL. I’m not actually in the desert, but Porsche hasn’t washed the 911 that I’m driving. Just can’t get the staff these days, can you? Although in fact, this particular car won’t be washed ever again, because in December 2023 it climbed the west summit of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile and set a new world record for the highest altitude driven by a wheeled vehicle. And that’s ‘wheeled vehicle’ rather than ‘car’ because Porsche nicked the record off two Mercedes Unimogs. Impressive. So, the volcanic rock stuck in the wheelarches is now officially known as patina and the blinding…

“AFTER TWO FAILED W126 PROJECTS THE PLAN FOR THIS CAR WAS TO DO IT PROPERLY” “Have you had your boiler serviced at all? The pressure’s reading quite low, which could suggest there’s either a leak or it needs repressuring.” This suggestion came from Charlie, a tradesman pricing up various repairs in our home due to subsidence. “I’ll have to check the paperwork,” I told him. This of course was a lie. The boiler was replaced five years ago and the idea of servicing it only became a consideration immediately after the words left Charlie’s mouth. Unfortunately, this paints a fairly terrible picture of my current priorities. Because I can tell you exactly what each of my cars currently lacks – and what needs servicing – despite having not used most…

REMEMBERING RETRO GAMING THE CLASSICS ARCADE, 1997 There have been many attempts to capture the world’s most famous endurance race in video game form and all of them have had to grapple with the problem that no one wants to risk deep vein thrombosis to play a racing game for 24 hours straight. With that in mind, the arcade, where you usually get a meagre minute and 30 seconds or so of gameplay in exchange for your shiny pound coin, seems like a terrible fit for Le Mans. That didn’t stop Sega attempting it in 1997, though. Le Mans 24 certainly isn’t as well known as Daytona USA or Sega Rally, but its format was totally unique. As soon as the arcade cabinet was switched on in the morning, the…

READY TO MAKE THE SWITCH? WE SEPARATE WHAT’S HOT FROM WHAT’S NOT CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. 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. 2. 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 further than that. 3. SMART EQ FORTWO PRICE: £22,225–£25,795 RANGE: 80 miles Yes, range is terrible, but as city cars go the Fortwo remains a…

This is the new 656bhp Aston Martin Vantage – and the big question is, has it been stuffed with too much power? The ‘baby’ Aston has taken a massive leap up from 500bhp, gaining a DB12-style interior revamp on the way. Aston’s decided every car it makes should be the most powerful in its class, so it’s had a good look at the new Mercedes-AMG GT (577bhp), Ferrari Roma (612bhp) and Porsche 911 Turbo S (641bhp) and whacked the 4.0-litre twin-turbo AMG V8 up by over 150bhp. Besides bigger turbos, 50 per cent more cooling and new camshafts, Aston has signed a new agreement with AMG that allows it more engine tweaking. Now you have proper supercar pace, with 0–60mph in 3.4 and a top speed of 202mph. You’ll get…

In the main, there wasn’t much to hate about the MkIV Renault Megane. It drove nicely, came with a range of economical engines, wasn’t an SUV, and also wasn’t a Nissan Pulsar. On balance, solid effort from Renault. But FOTC hasn’t stayed in business by embracing wishy washy concepts like ‘in the main’ or ‘on balance’. FOTC is petty and vindictive, and will remain so until someone finally makes one of those libel accusations stick. The problem, then, with the MkIV Megane? That rear light signature: the meandering, glowing red strip stretching the width of its posterior. No doubt the designers intended this sweeping light motif to evoke, say, the silhouette of a majestic eagle in flight. Or perhaps the sturdy horns of an African buffalo. This was not the…

How often do you see a car that you don’t recognise? The answer depends on your level of enthusiasm, but even for a novice it’s not too hard to get your head around the manufacturers selling the models that account for most cars on the street. A comprehensive overview of the watch market is not so easy. There are hundreds of watch companies, lots of them producing hundreds of models each. I would challenge the Dungeon Master of all watch geeks to know every watch out there. There are good reasons for this imbalance. When you buy a car, you may care about various things like power, style and fuel economy. But you also expect a car that can withstand a small collision without bursting into flames. While there are…

“ELECTRIC CARS DIE YOUNG” Even in 2024 you will occasionally hear someone say “I don’t want an electric car yet. I’ll wait until I can be sure they’re robust.” I’d like to reassure you, nervous late adopter, they’ve been robust since, well, ever. The DVLA has freely downloadable databases of the numbers of all car models, when they were registered and how many were still taxed or SORNed every quarter year. It’s very unwieldy though, so we can all be grateful to howmanyleft.co.uk. This is an amazing project by Olly Smith, which tidies up the data and makes it more accessible, not least by letting you crunch all cars of a specific model together rather than having to total up each trim and limited edition. Right, let’s dive into the old…

“TOWNS BUILT FOR THE HORSE AND CART ARE A NIGHTMARE FOR THE XC90 OR EV9” It’s easy to spout simple dumb cliches about the way different cars are used or the character of their buyers. But I’m confident this is verifiable observation: the Volvo XC90 is the default car for fecund prosperous families. See these tall Scandi barges lined up outside expensive private schools, disgorging well-scrubbed well-spoken children. See them engorged with ski clobber, cruising the A40 Autoroute blanche towards the Alps come February half term. Unsurprisingly, Volvo has no intention of giving up this territory with the arrival of the electric age. The battery powered EX90 is coming soon. Maybe not soon enough though, because Kia has other ideas and the EV9 is here right now. Boy, you won’t…

£27,185 FOR Hugely spacious. Surprisingly good to drive AGAINST Not the most flexible seating. Fiddly climate controls In some ways, what you’re looking at here could be described as the new Ford Fiesta. OK, that’s a stretch (literally), but the Tourneo Courier uses a platform and plenty of other bits from the Puma, and those bits originated in the now dead Fiesta (RIP). Ford says it has “SUV inspired styling”, but we’re delighted that it looks very much like a return to the proper boxy MPVs of old. At launch all Tourneo Couriers come with Ford’s familiar 1.0-litre 3cyl EcoBoost petrol engine. That can be combined with a 6spd manual or 7spd dual clutch auto gearbox, and because it has those Fiesta underpinnings it’s actually very enjoyable to drive. The…

£34,290 FOR Old school, durable, will take you further off road than most AGAINST Sluggish performance, tired infotainment, a little pricey Once upon a time a new Subaru would have had us dreaming of a roadgoing rallified special, but these days it invariably means another SUV. And lo, meet the Subaru Crosstrek. So what do we have here? The Crosstrek is essentially a heavily revised version of the Subaru XV, only it now adopts the nameplate already used in other markets. Whatever the name, it’s the third generation in the family tree and the firm’s smallest SUV offering. There’s just the one powertrain option available in the UK: a 2.0-litre four-cylinder self-charging hybrid setup. It’s noisy mind, with the engine grumble enough to wake the neighbours on startup and, not…

It was supposed to be une promenade dans le parc: hop into Renault’s own meticulously prepared 1978 5 at 5am on a Monday morning, take some nice pictures and a putter down memory lane, eventually arriving in Paris around lunchtime for a first encounter with the new electric Renault 5. Instead, the hour is 5.30am and I’m on the hard shoulder of the M23 on the outskirts of Crawley, being buffeted about by lorries and freezing mes nipples off just 14 miles from where we started. Rewind 30 minutes and the mood was more upbeat. There’s me, sleepy eyed but full of spark and purpose, tiptoeing out the house like a burglar, taking every possible measure not to wake le woofer, or the kids. I slip into the driver’s seat,…

THE STIG IS CURRENTLY SURROUNDED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE. I HAVE ND IDEA WHY. I also have no idea why they’d ask me if they can take a selfie with him, or what this represents for the future of international relations. Everyone seems very excited apart from The Stig, who shows about as much emotion as an oversized ball bearing. We’re outside Heathrow Terminal 3, nothing makes sense, it’s raining, and for some reason The Stig is not getting wet. Still, after mere moments, the white suit strides over to my car, opens the back door, ducks awkwardly under the roofline, fastens the belt and folds pronoun unspecific arms. My satnav pings with a set of coordinates somewhere a very long way away, and I raise my eyebrows.…

Rest in peace the muscle car? The Capitol insurrection’s got nothing on this. Amend the constitution! You can pry my V8 from my cold, dead hands. Erm, no. Outside of California’s stringent tailpipe laws America is still potty for these things. Sales are steadfast and there’s a huge generation-spanning community. The reaction to our Challenger was universally jingoistic. Unprompted, they reel off the tale of the cop from Detroit. And because Americans are born able to discern model years and memorise engine codenames, anyone who stopped for a chat knew the Mustang we brought along to crash the Challenger’s funeral party was a bit special. Think of it like an M3 CS – sharpened, honed, dipped in choice options. Black Ghost versus Dark Horse. The most malevolent sounding face-off in…

Funny to think back at cars that turned a company’s fortunes around – those make or break moments. The first Volkswagen Golf, the Porsche Boxster, the new Mini, the Nissan Qashqai, all arrived in the nick of time to rescue their makers from the doldrums. Hopes were high in the early Noughties that bumbling stalwart Rover might manage something similar. It had really been through the wringer, its long arc encapsulating the dominant highs of the UK’s grip on the global car industry and the humiliating lows of its ponderous mismanagement. In its final guise as MG Rover from 2000, after BMW had cut and run with the best of the lineup, there was plenty enough goodwill to keep it going. The 75 saloon managed half the job of bringing…

THE NINETIES CALLED, IT WANTS ITS CAR BACK Ah yes, a time when public discourse focused on the optimism of what a new millennium might bring! But also the unbridled fear of what a new millennium might bring! Good times. There was a partial reset, mind and… yep, you can see this coming a mile off. The reveal of the TT Coupe concept in 1995 heralded a new chapter for the brand mit der four rings. Before this handsome two-door strutted into view, Audis were generally very worthy, very respectable cars, but not exactly desirable. HOW DID ONE CAR DO ALL THAT? US designer Freeman Thomas – under the guidance of then-Audi design boss Peter Schreyer – unveiled a car that screamed Bauhaus from the rooftops. Or whispered it, actually,…

GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR MORE MIND-BLOWING MANUFACTURER GUIDES What’s Subaru and when did it start making cars? Subaru began back in 1918 as the Nakajimi Aircraft Company, founded by engineer Chikuhei Nakajima. It was Japan’s first aircraft manufacturer, but forced to close in 1945 after defeat in World War Two as the Allies banned aircraft production in the country. Broken up, five of the companies came together in 1953 as Fuji Heavy Industries. Fuji used to make buses, train carriages, bin lorries, wind turbines and engines for snowmobiles and other utility vehicles, but these days its two main divisions are cars and aerospace. The 1500 was Subaru’s first car in 1954, but only 20 of them were built before the car was reworked. The 1958 360 was a cute city car that…