BBC Top Gear Magazine June 2025

Sucker car, fan car, cheat code, call it what you like, but the McMurtry Spéirling has fundamentally shifted our understanding of aerodynamics, performance cars in general and how quickly something on four wheels can get around a racetrack without coming unstuck. TopGear’s relationship with McMurtry goes way back to Speed Week 2021 at Dunsfold, when we had the Spéirling along, but only for a static shoot. To be honest, it was little more than a lofty idea at that stage, a theoretical disruptor. Clearly it had the right financial backing and some incredibly smart people working on it, but did we think it would come to fruition? We did not. Fast forward a year to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and a little shoe shaped car breaks the 23-year-old hillclimb…

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“There’s bespoke and there’s bespoke… and there’s complete one-off bespoke, which is where we fit in.” Chloe Dowsett is demonstrating how she provides Rolls-Royce’s clients with the most bespoke interior detailing service since someone ushered Michelangelo into the Sistine Chapel and asked “Reckon you can make this gaff look mint?” In minutes she turns a chalk outline into the most vivid 2D kingfisher we’ve ever seen, so lifelike that it might leap off its leather canvas and flitter around the room. Chloe works in the interior trim centre in a super secret studio deep within Rolls’ Goodwood HQ, off limits to prying eyes and, er, TopGear photographers. To understand how she wound up there, we need to rewind. Born into a creative family, Chloe spent her childhood painting, drawing and…

NO ONE, AFTER DRIVING FERRARI’S 818bhp 296 GTB hybrid, comes away saying, “What that needs is a bit less weight and a bit more power.” Not a single person. Except, it seems, Ferrari engineers. Because the new Ferrari 296 Speciale has dropped 60kg and increased horsepower to 880bhp. OK, so they’re relatively modest increases on what was an already very powerful ‘baby’ Ferrari, but probably more pertinent is the fact that Ferrari is talking about the Speciale being more fun – and intense – to drive. The horsepower uplift is largely inconsequential for a turbocharged hybrid, 37bhp soothed from the engine via different boost strategies for the turbos – inspired by the 296 Challenge car’s mapping – and a whole host of forged pistons and titanium crankshafts. The electric motor…

Piero Ferrari – son of Enzo – once spoke about being mindful of the responsibility that comes with the family name. Which means this new 296 carries the whole weight of Maranello on its shoulders. Speciale. Just sounds… proper. Should sound proper too, because the turbocharged V6 – nicknamed 'piccolo V12' – is now even more powerful. Not that anyone ever asked for more power from the 296, – 880bhb should do it. As should the lightweighting. If it’s anything like that glorious 458, this should be molto Speciale indeed. “The turbo V6 is now even more powerful” A few months back I heard a rumour. I shanít disclose which little birdie told me, but the news was off the scale exciting. The forthcoming lighter, faster, more speciale 296 would…

ARE WE LOOKING AT THE NEXT GENERATION C9 CORVETTE? Yes! And also no! This new concept car will definitely influence the styling of the next gen Corvette, but it’s not quite as simple as sticking on some numberplates and giving it the thumbs up. It’s the work of GM’s new Advanced Design Studio in Leamington Spa and one of three Corvette concepts that will be shown this year. The second will come from GM’s Los Angeles based studio, and finally – probably around August – we will see a concept made at the Detroit studio that uses elements from both… and is a proper preview of the C9. And let’s just get this out of the way early: yes this is imagined as a fully electric Corvette. But despite all…