Índex per November 2018 a Evo

‘RACE ON SUNDAY, SELL ON MONDAY’ can trace its routes back to a time when race cars were little more than road cars with numbers stuck to their doors, but the adage remains true today. We may scoff at F1’s relevance to road cars but by the end of next year Mercedes will present Project One, an F1 car with enclosed wheels and a roof. Around the same time Aston Martin will deliver the Valkyrie, a road car designed by Adrian Newey with not an insignificant amount of input from his colleagues in Milton Keynes. Today’s damper technology owes so much to the World Rally Championship, and ultra-high-performance tyres wouldn’t be the remarkable things they are without years of development on track. Endurance racing has a lot to be thanked…

‘THE PB 18 NOTABLY ESCHEWS AUTONOMOUS FUNCTIONS’ AUDI SAYS ITS PB 18 E-TRON CONCEPT – also revealed, as its name hints, at Pebble Beach – is ‘destined to push boundaries’. While we’re unlikely to see its kind on the road any time soon, it’s indicative of the brand’s desire to leverage its huge experience in endurance racing and increasing involvement in electrified power trains to develop its future product line. Low, wide and flat, PB 18 features several technic al details first seen on Audi’s Le Mans-winning racers, and notably eschews autonomous functions – an internal working title of ‘Level Zero’ was used to differentiate it from the Society of Automotive Engineers’ well-publicised autonomous driving ‘levels’. 1 DRIVETRAIN PB 18 pairs a single electric motor up front with a brace of…

MERCEDES-BENZ ARRIVED AT PEBBLE Beach with this retro-inspired concept. Called the EQ Silver Arrow, it combines styling cues from the marque’s illustrious racing past with the kind of electric drivetrain that will play an important role in the company’s future. The car’s styling is directly influenced by Mercedes racers of the 1930s,’40s and’50s – from the aluminium bodywork-aping Alubeam Silver paintwork, through to the single-seat layout. Within the compact cockpit is a similar mix of new and old, with traditional materials rubbing shoulders with futuristic elements. So there’s saddle-brown leather covering the seat and steering wheel, and aluminium highlights and a walnut floor, but these are offset by a very modern head-up display projected onto the slim wraparound weather-screen. Under the carbonfibre skin is an electric drivetrain producing 739bhp. It’s…

AFTER WEEKS, NO, MAKE THAT months, of a blazing heatwave that’s turned every single blade of grass in England to bleached yellow, the road to Malvern today is uncomfortably cold, annoyingly blustery and experiencing the kind of relentless precipitation that reduces visibility on a motorway down to 100 yards. I am driving a Lexus LS 500h limousine. Well, I say driving, but it’s very much in the modern, uninterested sense, where the quality of the hi-fi is the most notable aspect – an absurd yin to today’s forthcoming test drive yang. The Morgan Plus 8 50th Anniversary Edition does have a sound system, but the Alpine head unit looks like it dates from 1991 and I can’t conceive of any possible situation, bar parked, where you’d be able to hear…

AUDI HAS ITS A5, S5 AND RS5 Sportbacks and BMW its 4-series Gran Coupe, but if you want a Mercedes C-class with five doors that isn’t an estate you’ll need to head down the SUV route, and if you want an RS5 Sportback rival it will need to be the AMG GLC63 S Coupe as driven here. All £76,860 of it (or £90,925 as tested). Wearing a ‘63’ badge means, of course, that this coupe-SUV is equipped with the most utilised engine in performance car history this side of the Volkswagen Group’s 2-litre TSI unit. This AMG GLC has 503bhp and 516lb ft of torque to call upon and drives through the company’s nine-speed Speedshift MCT gearbox and 4Matic+ all-wheel-drive system. The standard air-suspension has its work cut out controlling…

AS TESTS GO, THIS IS A BIGGIE. FOUR different takes on the ultimate track-biased road car, lapped head-to-head against the clock. Same circuit (Anglesey Coastal), same day (warm and sunny) and with the same driver (yours truly) behind the wheel. Fortuitously, they even have the same tyres – Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s. We’ll be dividing our time evenly between the cars so as not to show favour by having ‘one last run’ to try to shave off potentially test-skewing tenths of a second. And, though the cars are supported by their respective manufacturers, there will be no plugging-in of laptops between runs. Finally, to see how these cars would behave on the way to your circuit of choice, we’ll also be taking them for a run on some of…

WITH FOUR SUCH different takes on the hardcore supercar we were never going to arrive at a straightforward conclusion. Especially when our primary focus in this test is their outright ability on track. The Lotus may be slowest, but it’s punching way above its weight getting anywhere near the AMG and Ford. Physics is its friend, yes, but still it shouldn’t manage to summon such speed from so little in the way of firepower and cubic capacity. On the road it strikes an enviable balance between rawness and refined precision, and while its a tougher proposition in which to cover big miles and feels like big money for an evolution of the once humble Elise, when you’re in the moment on a great road it’s a special car. As Merc’s…

‘IF THE NEW FIESTA CAN BEAT ANY OF THESE PAST MASTERS IT’LL DESERVE A PLACE AMONG THE GREATS’ HARD ACT TO FOLLOW, THE OLD FORD Fiesta ST. Previous hot Fiestas were patchy affairs, but the ST of 2013-2017 was Ford returning to the top of its game. With the good fortune to coincide with a rare lapse from Renault Sport with the auto-only Clio 200 and average efforts from the likes of Volkswagen, Mini and Peugeot, that ST was an easy class leader. Affordable too, which is at least part of the reason why every second Fiesta you see seems to be one. Officially it’s one in ten, and if Ford has got its sums right the latest ST should match that figure. On early evidence, there’s little reason why…

AS THE DAY GROWS LONG, THE glaring sun lies at its most inconvenient, illuminating the sprawl of dead bugs on the Subaru’s windscreen like tiny diamonds. It has been a long haul. There were those who expressed pity when I told them of my plan to drive the WRX STI Final Edition to Scotland, an indication of the common perception of this car, but the A1 is being dispatched, and there’s the palpable sense of a machine beneath me, not just modern white goods. We have an understanding already; a bond, essentially, and I’m partisan about it – protective even. With evo celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, it feels so right to be in an Impreza once again, truly, as the model is part of the very fabric of…

WHAT MAKES A GREAT SUPERMINI? Lots of fancy technology? I don’t think so. Some tough looks with red highlights inside and out? They may be common, but they’re not really necessary. A low kerb weight? Certainly. A powerful engine? Perhaps, but not entirely essential. A keen, eager and lively chassis? Now that’s an absolute necessity. Pore over the specification of the Suzuki Swift Sport and it looks to tick all of those boxes, so as a long-term prospect it’s very encouraging: all the excitement of a compact hot hatch but with a few everyday comforts. Or lots of them, as it turns out. Our new Swift Sport is totally standard, with no options to increase its price from the basic £17,999. Yet it still comes with satnav, climate control, DAB…

FOR PETROLHEAD NIRVANA, THERE’S little in my book that beats driving an Italian supercar in Italy, and especially so when driving such a car back to where it was built. So with tickets booked for a tour of the Lamborghini factory, the Aventador Roadster was was pressed into action to reprise its recent Italian Riviera performance (see evo 250). It would once again be joined by a Black Fleet Brit, but this time it wouldn’t be the McLaren 720S. Instead the tunnels and viaducts would be subjected to the sonorous wails of two V12s, as doing aural battle with the slightly unhinged Aventador would be the charismatic Aston Martin DBS Volante. I’ve been lucky enough to do this trip a few times and now know some great routes that involve…

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, THE Ford Mondeo was considered a small family car, the average engine size was somewhere around 3.5 litres, and models such as the VW Golf were ostensibly ‘girls’ cars’. You see, as evo’s resident Aussie, my experience with cars, and specifically their size, is probably a bit different to that of most of you locals. So when I was asked to live with our Fast Fleet Caterham for a week, I won’t lie, there was a little bit of trepidation. The warnings from others about the feeling of vulnerability on motorways and other such hazards associated with driving the Seven only served to confirm my fears, and once strapped in the intimidation factor didn’t waver. Sitting virtually at road level, legs stretched out into the…

FORD REACHED A MILESTONE in August when it produced its 10millionth Mustang. Building that many examples of any car is a feat in its own right, but for a performance car it really is something to be celebrated. Production began back in 1964, and from a shrunken, simplified platform shared with the mid-sized Falcon, Ford created the very idea of the ‘pony car’, a class of accessible performance cars that transcended trend and time. Over the years the Mustang became immortalised in films such as Bullitt and Gone in 60 Seconds, making the model an accessible blue-collar hero for generations of fans in North America. It has outsold its American rival, the Chevrolet Camaro, almost twofold, and consider also that the ubiquitous Mazda MX-5 ‘only’ crossed the 1million threshold after…

‘It feels explosively rapid at any speed and in any gear’ SOMEHOW THE ITALIANS HAVE mastered the art of successfully hacking the roofs off hardcore, trackhoned supercars. Whereas the thought of a convertible Porsche 911 GT3 has you thinking ‘Nein danke,’ the mere mention of the drop-top Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta has you yelling ‘Si, molto buona!’ at the wind-in-the-hair thrill of it all. So it came as no surprise when Lamborghini revealed it had lifted the lid on its Huracán Performante. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get closer to that magnificent V10? Compared to the palaver that is going topless in an Aventador Roadster (Driven, evo 251), lowering the hood on the Huracán is child’s play, with nothing more taxing than the prod of a button required to…

IT’S FUNNY THE THINGS YOU see in lap traces. The stopwatch may never lie, but what you feel from behind the wheel can paint a different picture to that delineated by the cold, binary heart of a Vbox speed trace. First the overriding truth: no car here punches from apex through corner exit to the next braking area with the ferocity of the GT2 RS. When its wheels are straight the Porsche is ballistic, pulling a noticeably steeper upward curve than even the Ford GT. Likewise, nothing quite matches the Ford for consistent stopping power; the plunging line charting truly epic levels of retardation combined with consistency. The traces also reveal oddities that become character traits across the course of a lap. There are significant moments where the GT2’s ability…

‘WALTER RÖHRL DECLARED IT THE BEST HANDLING CAR THAT PORSCHE MADE’ THE MOST FAMOUS EXAMPLE OF road car evolution at Porsche is, of course, the 911, but I’d argue that the transformation of the 924 into the 968 Club Sport deserves admiration. My first witness for the prosecution is the two-time WRC champion and latter-day consultant to Porsche, Walter Röhrl, who declared in the early’90s that the 968 Club Sport was the best-handling car that Porsche made. It helped that some key elements were there from the start, notably the transaxle – the rear-mounted, combined gearbox and differential – which conferred a near-50:50 weight distribution. Lots of other components that helped create the Club Sport what it is made their debut on other models. For instance, the slant-four that is…

CROWDSOURCING. IT’S ALL THE rage these days, whether you’re looking for a name for a new Antarctic research vessel, or if you make crisps and you’ve run out of good ideas for flavours. While I’ve no intention of renaming our i30 N Hatchy McHatchface, and I’m pretty sure I can come up with a better crisp flavour than Cajun squirrel, it struck me that several colleagues have had the pleasure of thrapping around in the Hyundai recently, which seemed to me like a good opportunity to try crowdsourcing some opinions. Editor Gallagher took the wheel most recently, quickly tweeting his approval and returning full of praise for everything but the clutch, which ‘is too light and has no feel’, and noting a few concerns over seat support and the dull…

THE UP GTI AND I HAVE BEEN pretty much inseparable in the two months since it was delivered. I’ve done umpteen airport runs, bombed my local back-roads, made trips to numerous racetracks and completed countless shopping runs. Lived life, in other words. If I had any misgivings about downsizing they were rooted in the literal lack of space, but also the scaled-down performance. The former concern has been comprehensively allayed, thanks to the Up’s brilliant packaging. I especially like the false floor in the boot. It’s perfect for stowing work bags, race overalls or anything else a bit squidgy. With the hinged floor in place I can then pile more bags on top, and if I have to carry a big kit bag I simply fold one half of the…

THE MUSTANG JOINED EVO’S FAST Fleet on a groundswell of Mustang Mania. Once a Stateside curiosity imported by dedicated fans, this generation of pony car was the first to be designed with a world market very much in its sights. It’s easy to see why people fall in love with the idea of a Mustang. It’s a handsome brute, even with the famous fastback swapped for a canvas notchback. True, it’s big-boned, but that’s the point, and it’s nicely proportioned, with plenty of road presence. The interior was less easy to love, largely because it had that uniquely American ability to look a bit basic and cheap, yet it proved to be nicely functional and well put together. The ‘Shaker’ stereo was punchy and the satnav was easy enough to…

WE’VE ALREADY DRIVEN THE GENTLY updated Cooper S, at the model’s international launch in Mallorca (evo 248). However, when a car has Union flags embedded within its tail lights, you can’t really consider it fully assessed until it’s been tested on a British B-road. So here goes. If you’ve driven an R53 or R56 Mini, the familiar environs of this £20,635 F56 Cooper S will initially put you at ease. But the driving position, although much lower than that of many rival superminis, isn’t as ground-hugging as you might recall, and the still-very-upright windscreen feels a few feet further away, too. The 189bhp 2-litre engine is full of torque, and quickly spins to a plump mid-range. Hold on to the throttle, though, and the torque recedes faster than you might…

‘THE DIVO IS MADE FOR BENDS’ IS HOW Bugatti president Stephan Winkelmann describes its latest hypercar, which was unveiled at Pebble Beach. Based on the Chiron but with significant changes to its aerodynamics and chassis settings, the Divo – named after the French WWI fighter pilot turned mechanic and racer Albert Divo – trades top speed for cornering prowess: it’s lapped Nardò 8sec quicker than the Chiron. Only 40 will be made, at €5m (c£4.5m) apiece. All have found homes. 1 AERODYNAMICS Intakes at the front of the car create air cur tains to smooth the air flow along its sides. Front and rear spoilers and a diffuser contribute to a 90kg increase in downforce over the Chiron, making 456kg in total possible. Additionally, each brake has its own cooling…

IT SEEMS LIKE WE’VE WAITED AN AGE for a new Z4, but finally BMW has rolled out its all-new roadster – so far only in flag ship M40i M performance form. This is the third-generation Z4 and by now you’ll no doubt know that it has been twinned in development with the incoming Toyota Supra. Spreading the cost of developing a niche model has meant that the previous Z4’s pseudo - GT vibe has been replaced with a more aggressive, back-to-basics approach, which we’re hoping will have a positive effect on the driving dynamic s. The new Z4 goes on sale next year. Here’s every thing you need to know. 1 ENGINE & GEARBOX Only the M40i M performance variant has been revealed so far, featuring BMW’s 3-litre TwinPower turbocharged…

‘The plentiful grip provides encouragement to dial down into the car’s inherent good balance’ WHEN IT COMES TO A HISTORY of high performance, Hyundai is barely out of short trousers. Not that this is having any impact on its ambitions. The i30 N hot hatch – itself worthy of mention in the same breath as Peugeot’s 308 GTi and, whisper it, VW’s Golf GTI – is only the beginning: in the pipeline is a product range as far reaching as a crossover and a bespoke N performance car. Next to arrive from the firm’s Nürburgring test centre, however, will be this, the i30 N Fastback. As its name suggests it’s a hot version of Hyundai’s recently launched five-door coupe. It’s intended as a more mature proposition for buyers who want…

I’LL ADMIT I HAD BECOME A LITTLE JADED with print journalism, thinking: ‘Why pay good money and wait weeks for new car reviews when I can watch YouTube the second an embargo is lifted on the next big thing?’ Then I read your Senna drive in issue 252. The Senna. A car that I had little interest in, that I don’t like the look of and that I feel is completely irrelevant in this age, where safely overtaking has become socially unacceptable. However, the way Adam Towler and Aston Parrott transported me to the Scottish Highlands and put me right there in the car with them was a brilliant reminder of why I have subscribed to evo for so long and what makes it so unique. Fantastic writing and amazing…

‘AVENTADOR ASIDE, I’VE NEVER DRIVEN AS OUTSIZED A VEHICLE AS THE FORD GT ON THESE ROADS’ THE ROADS OF NORTH WALES HAVE BEEN evo’s hunting ground for 20 years, so although this quartet is honed for the track, because they are also legit road-legal machines we couldn’t resist taking them to our reference road routes to see how they fair. I start in the Ford. On the road it’s an intimidating machine. You know you fill every inch of your lane, often a little more as the kerdunk-kerdunk-kerdunk of the right-hand wheels hitting the catseyes telegraphs. Lamborghini Aventador aside, I’ve never driven as outsized a vehicle as this on these roads. On the more open sections you can let the GT flow a little. Chippings clatter round the wheelarches, while…

IT’S A GOOD TIME TO BE SÉBASTIEN ERPHELIN. WE are sitting in a hotel courtyard, yards from the picturesque Dieppe beach. In his pocket he has the key to the head office at the Alpine factory across town. Having taken over from Michael van der Sande, Erphelin is interim managing director, as well as programme director. No pressure then. We’ve had positive feedback. We are meeting customers who come back to us with a big, big smile on their face. And that, to me, is what is most important,’ he says. ‘We have good momentum, we are clearly happy, but we all know we need to go step by step.’ The numbers for the first step speak for themselves. Production of the new A110 began in December 2017, over 1000…

WE GET ALL SORTS ROLLING INTO evo’s car park, from superminis to supercars, but few cause quite such a stir on their entrance as our RS3 did when it first arrived. It wasn’t the bassy gurgle of its sports exhaust-equipped five-cylinder engine that had people out of their seats, but the car’s Viper Green paint finish. Throughout the Audi’s six-month stay with us the £2400 (yes, really) hue was a constant talking point, and most of the chatter was positive. Wherever I went with the car it would start a conversation or elicit eager thumbs up. There were exceptions, of course, such as the lady who mouthed an extravagant ‘horrible’ from behind the wheel of her VW Touran (that said, she could have been talking about me), but overall it…

‘To add insult to injury, the punctured tyres were just five days and 250 miles old’ SLOWING TO A CRAWL FOR THE first red light on the approach to Norwich, I was suddenly aware that the Civic’s low-speed ride felt even firmer than usual. I hoped I was just being paranoid; perhaps the tyre pressures had increased during the sustained 70mph run up the A11 in baking summer temperatures and I’d somehow tuned in to the difference. But just to be on the safe side I pulled over, hopped out and circled the car. The driver’s side was all good, but upon reaching the passenger side my heart sank. I could hear air escaping… in stereo. Both nearside tyres had punctures. I cast my mind back over the last couple…

THE NEW LEXUS LS IS NOT AN AUDI A8, BMW 7-series or Mercedes-Benz S-class, and for some people that will be reason enough to buy it. Not many, admittedly, but then Lexus UK only plans to shift 100 LSs in 2018. Those buyers will find several features to reassure them of their decision to eschew the Germans. First and foremost is the styling. It’s an acquired taste, largely down to the now-signature Lexus ‘spindle’ grille design that suggests the Predator might be one of the hundred early adopters. But it’s a handsome car in profile, imposing on the road and just conservative enough overall to not frighten off more traditional customers. The cabin is also a highlight, avoiding the ostentation of an S-class or the relative dourness of an A8.…

BENTLEY’S ORIGINAL CONTINENTAL GT was a car not transformed, but significantly improved upon when Crewe fitted it with a V8 engine. Yes, the V8 model had less power, fewer cylinders and a considerable drop in cubic capacity compared with the W12 it was sold alongside, but it felt no slower. It was a sweeter steer, too, lighter on the nose and keener across all four corners. Now Aston Martin’s DB11 has followed the downsizing philosophy. The original V12 was an admirable machine, but it never excelled in any single area and always felt a bit undercooked (hence why it’s been replaced by the DB11 AMR – see evo 250). So when the time came to install Mercedes-AMG’s 4-litre twin-turbo V8 in the DB11, Matt Becker and his team also set…