Table of contents for Car of the year 2016 in Evo

CATCH THE NEW BMW 5-series at a glance and you’ll probably mistake it for the larger 7-series. Of course, that’s been the case with many previous generations of 5-series, but like its Mercedes-Benz E-class rival is to the S-class, the ‘G30’ 5-series is also closer than ever technologically to the range-topping BMW saloon. That extends to the new car’s lightweight structure, though contrary to expectations BMW has not used the i3- and i8-influenced ‘Carbon Core’ technology from the 7-series to cut weight and increase stiffness. Instead, the structure is a cocktail of aluminium, high-tensile steels and magnesium, realising not only a more twist-resistant shell but also a 100kg weight reduction. The outer panels are also lightweight, with aluminium used for the bonnet, bootlid, roof and doors, as well as…

WHAT HAPPENS inside the cylinders of an internal combustion engine isn’t an easy process to comprehend. exploding pressurised air and fuel makes for a hostile environment, and it’s contained in inches of cast metal. Yet understanding how these reactants move as valves open and pistons retract is incredibly useful if you want to design an engine. Determining the perfect angle for the valves and the optimum position for a spark plug isn’t guesswork anymore, but that’s only because years of testing and endless prototypes have helped inform engine designers. today, however, Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD, is used to provide an insight into the flow patterns of liquids and gases that are difficult or expensive to study using traditional techniques, and it can be used to give engine designers a…

letters@evo.co.uk @evomagazine @evomagazine DESPITE HIS COLUMN BEING TITLED Petrolhead, Richard Porter made the most non-petrolhead statement I’ve ever read in evo 228 when he wrote: ‘If I was ordering a Boxster I’d have to think very, very hard about which gearbox I went for.’ His reasoning appeared to be that there’s no point in having a manual gearshift because 90 per cent of the time you can’t be a driving hero because of today’s busy cities, traffic, late drives home and other such nonsense. Well, in my opinion the roads and congestion aren’t going to improve anytime soon and therefore great driving opportunities will become fewer and fewer, so all the more reason to be prepared to seize the moment and properly drive when those fleeting moments do arrive. Maybe,…

Test location: Bustard Hill, kimbolton GPS: 52.314251, -0.405332 Photography: Aston Parrott I know It’s wrong to anthropomorphise technology, but I can tell that the satnav is getting annoyed with me. If it was powered by some Discworld Imp then it would be huffily tearing up maps by now, infuriated at my continual refusal to follow the suggested route. the trouble is that I’m enjoying the GT-R track Edition far too much to simply take the path of least resistance. Every time I reach a junction and the arrow on the screen points towards dual carriageway, it just seems more sensible to steer the GT-R’S big bluff nose towards more interesting, more testing tarmac. Earlier this year we drove the new nissan GT-R in standard spec out in Europe (evo 224).…

 Test location: aynho, Oxfordshire GPS: 51.994850, -1.255762 Photography: Aston Parrott Of all the cars currently on sale, the Mazda MX-5 must surely be the one that seems most ripe for tuning. It looks great, the size is perfect, it only weighs 1000kg and the combination of rear-wheel drive, a manual gearbox, a limited-slip diff and a naturally aspirated engine seems like the perfect drivetrain. Yet to me it has never felt like it has fulfilled its promise as a drivers’ car. It’s a bit like a soup with no seasoning. enter Brackley-based (just behind the Mercedes aMG f1 team) BBr Gti and its super 200, which has quite a lot of seasoning. assuming you paid list price for a £21,095 2-litre MX-5 and then asked BBr to fit all this…

Test location: B660, Cambridgeshire GPS: 52.31981, -0.40718 Photography: aston Parrott It’s the Inverse of an american muscle car. that’s the conclusion I’ve reached about the new Cayman. In a Detroit dream, people will put up with an essentially shonky chassis in order to be in charge of a big-hearted engine. for some, just hearing and feeling a big v8 rumble on start-up is enough to make the financial outlay worthwhile. You will get no such warm, fuzzy feeling when you twist the key in a 718 Cayman, but you will get a deep sense of satisfaction from almost everything else about the car. to drive a Cayman has always been to experience wonderful balance and supreme fluidity, with the small, mid-engined Porsche getting down a twisting road with more grace…

TO GRAB HOLDOF A Bentley Mulsanne and drive it hard across the toughest, most entertaining roads you know is to find yourself questioning whether Andrew Unsworth, Bentley’s head of chassis dynamics, has made a pact with the devil. That or he’s in possession of some long lost and unpublished works of sir Isaac Newton. Whatever it is, Unsworth clearly holds the secret to bestowing a 2.5-ton super-luxury limousine with outrageously good handling, for much against expectations, this vast car is so entertaining you’d swear there should be a law – Newton’s or otherwise – against it. We’re up on the evo Triangle – home of the wicked compression, inviting curve and tricky transition (sometimes simultaneously), and though it might have become something of a cliché, this three-sided test route remains…

 WHEN WE CREATED THE EVO Leaderboard video series we did so in the hope it would foster a competitive spirit amongst the sports and supercar manufacturing community. Pride, ego and the challenge of going quicker than your rivals is catnip to engineers and test drivers. It’s also great fun (for us at least), and perfect fodder for evo’s YouTube channel. Judging by our most recent laps I think it’s fair to say we’ve captured the industry’s imagination. In recent months we’ve fired some seriously, er, serious metal around Anglesey’s Coastal Circuit. McLaren’s scintillating 675LT laid down an impressive 1:12.8 lap, only for Ferrari’s 488 GTB to match it to the tenth of a second. In retaliation McLaren went nuclear, letting us loose in the P1 GTR – the slick-shod, aerodrenched,…

IT’S BEEN OVER A YEAR since we took delivery of our Focus ST TDCi Estate, and now it’s gone. It wasn’t your typical evo long-termer admittedly, but it was a very welcome member of our fleet all the same. Being an ST-3 our car came equipped with just about everything Ford can fit to a Focus. The final bill added up to £29,470, but that bought kit such as the Blind Spot Information System, Premium Sync2 navigation, a reversing camera, a ten-speaker Sony sound system and Recaro sports seats. With 476 litres of boot space with the rear seats up, the Focus proved perfect for carrying my ever-growing bundle of camera equipment. The turbodiesel engine perhaps wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I have to admit that the 182bhp,…

IF EVER A LONG-TERM test car has demonstrated the value of long-term tests, our Honda Civic Type R was it. When it joined the Fast Fleet in January 2016, I had no idea how this latest Type R would fare as a longterm proposition. Perhaps the fact that Hondas so infrequently make their way into the evo universe, and that this was a different type of Type R to those that had gone before, made it hard to call. That I didn’t really consider myself as a Honda kind of person may have added to the uncertainty, too. After nine months and 13,000 miles, however, there was no uncertainty whatsoever. I was totally hooked on the Type R. With every passing mile (and corner) my admiration had grown. And I…

OUR PEUGEOT 308 GTi 270 by Peugeot Sport recently spent two weeks being driven by other members of the evo team, and I’ve been told that I’m wrong to complain about it. Thing is, they don’t need to ‘live’ with the 308 GTi 270 by Peugeot Sport, or work from it. Driving to and from the office like your hair’s on fire, or back-to-back testing with similar cars on the UK’s nicest three-mile stretch of B-road isn’t real life. This is the exact reason that we have longterm test cars, to see what they’re like to live with. Little things you can shrug off on a quick hoon become tiresome with big mileages. There are quite a few things that I don’t like about the Peugeot 308 GTi 270…

GO TO ANY MEETING OF supercar owners and you’ll probably hear claims of these cars being surprisingly affordable to own. But is this realistic? Just what are the financial implications of stabling a prancing horse or raging bull in your own garage? Your first cost is actually buying your car, or perhaps more accurately the depreciation of the car you’ve decided to buy. If you’re buying it outright with cash then the latter is obviously a cost you’re only going to feel further down the line. And yet, if you’ve a specific period of ownership in mind, say three years, and you can be pretty certain that the car is going to lose £30,000 over that period, then there’s no escaping that figure on the man-maths balance sheet. However,…

EVER SINCE THE ORIGINAL APPEARED in the late-’90s, the 330d and its 335d big brother have been the acceptable face of oil-burning. With the current F30 generation, BMW has taken the now-familiar formula to a new level: superb performance, brilliant economy, outstanding handling. And, in Touring form, very practical, too. This may not be every car you’ll ever want, but it’s close to being the only car you’ll ever need. As a used buy, it’s also very decent value for money. All too good to be true? We’re about to find out… The first F30s appeared in early 2012, the 330d M Sport arriving a year later. With a 3-litre single-turbo straight-six developing 254bhp and 413lb ft, it was a seriously muscular machine, capable of 0-62mph in 5.6sec (top speed…

FORZA HORIZON 3 (X box One / Microsoft Windows, £49.99) attempts to fulfil even the most obscure of driving fantasies by throwing you an unbelievable toolbox of roads, cars and racing. Fancy driving a G-wagen off a cliff into the sea? Or how about sliding a Lamborghini Centenario through a forest? It’s all possible in the latest Forza Horizon. If you’ve never played a Horizon game before, the idea is that you’re part of a virtual car festival and have been tasked with making a name for yourself amongst competing drivers. It’s a completely open world, where you can drive on- or off-road in a vast number of different cars and essentially do whatever you want. This time around, things are slightly different – you’re now the festival manager and…

Test location: b660, Cambridgeshire GPS: 52.31981, -0.40718 Photography: Aston Parrott James Coburn owned a Ferrari California – a 1961 250GT swb model. at weekends, Coburn and fellow actor friends steve mcQueen and James Garner would tear along the Hollywood hills in their Ferraris, testing their skills (and the cops’ patience) to the limit. The new-era California is a car that has, and likely always will, create tension within the evo office. The pragmatists espouse its virtues as the car in the Ferrari range that gives it scale and, ultimately, profitability. They say that while speciales, F12s, TdFs and LaFerraris emerge during the same period, it should be considered an oK thing. Then there are others who hate it. and I mean really hate it. one who shall remain nameless said…

Test location: B645, Cambridgeshire GPS: 52.256606, -0.311083 Photography: Aston Parrott IN TERMS OF PERFORMANCE, the M235i always seemed unnervingly close to its fullblown M counterpart, the M2. In evo 223 we even concluded that it has 90 per cent of the M2’s performance for just three-quarters of its price. And now the M235i has been updated with a new engine and a new name: M240i. the engine is still a 3-litre straight-six fed by a twin-scroll turbocharger, but it produces 14bhp more, taking the total to 335bhp. that’s just 30bhp behind the M2, while the 369lb ft peak torque figure (up 47lb ft) is equal to the baby M-car’s. other than the name badge, there’s nothing new about the way the M240i looks on the outside, and inside it’s…

WATCHING A HUGE, PEACH -coloured harvest moon rising over the dark hills as a 4-litre flat-six idles lumpily behind me. Chasing the glowing tail lights of an NSX as they jink and weave like fighting lightsabres through the Galloway forest at night. Feeling momentarily weightless as the ground drops away and the tyres lose contact with the warm tarmac over first one crest and then another. Dropping down into an unfamiliar bucket seat for the first time, gripping an Alcantara-clad steering wheel and feeling instantly at home. Standing in a remote valley and listening to two V10s in the distance, their howls piercing the silence as they scale angrily up and down their rev ranges. All these wondrous experiences and more will materialise over the next few days, but right…

12TH BMW M2 Voted into last place by five of the seven judges, the M2 finishes right at the bottom of the order. There are no bad cars at evo Car of the Year, but there are some that get exposed in the heady company of the very finest performance cars of the last 12 months. ‘The M2 just doesn’t excite me,’ comments Stuart Gallagher. ‘The rear suspension is hyper-sensitive to the smallest lump or bump and it takes too long to settle. The engine is impossible to engage with, too – it does the numbers, but there’s no substance to it.’ 11TH MERCEDES - AMG C63 S COUPE As a group-test winner just a couple of months ago, many of us expected more of the Mercedes. David Vivian and…

THE STEERING WHEELisn’t just unusually small. Depending on your stature and seating position it might completely obscure the digital speedometer, too, forcing you to crane your neck high or dip your head low to catch a glimpse of it, or otherwise observe the passing trees and lampposts like Christopher Columbus charting the stars just to vaguely approximate your velocity. For some people, and perhaps not unfairly, that obscured speedo is reason enough to dismiss the Peugeot 308 GTi for good. I can see the speedo, as it happens. Perhaps I’m tall enough, or just short enough, or maybe I sit upright enough. Whatever, the fact that I’m not forced to use a knotted rope and an egg timer to calculate my speed means I can approach the 308 GTi…

EIGHT MONTHS AND 10,000 miles in a Bentley Continental GT V8 S promised a vicarious taste of a motoring life few are fortunate enough to live. It began with a visit to Bentley’s famous Pyms Lane HQ in Crewe, Cheshire. Collecting the car was a real treat, and something I’d highly recommend if you’re ever in the position to order a new Bentley. Car factories are always fascinating places, but it’s the chance to meet some of the skilled, passionate people who put so much effort into making the cars that means the most. The Conti GT shines with their attention to detail and it’s impossible not to feel pride in what they have done. The V8 S is the most ‘evo’ of all Bentley’s series-production models. It’s not the…

LAST MONTH THE VXR8 GTS was whisking me across Europe and then howling around a wet Anglesey race circuit. This month has been much more mundane. The school holidays have meant more journeys five-up and have considerably upped the crisp-crumb count in the back seats. In fact, the VXR8 has been pretty much on family duties every day. So that’s GT car, unlikely trackday machine and now family car all in the space of two months. So how does it stack up when you can’t use the full 576bhp? Pretty well. Mostly because this car is a born entertainer. While many cars seek to deliver two very distinct driving experiences – at low speed characterised by an almost standard-issue highly polished effortlessness, at high speed by a clinical high-grip/flatbody-control…

THE FIRST FEW WERE easy. In one picture there was a dog, while in the other there was empty pavement. On the left the man’s moustache curled upwards, but on the right he looked like a grumpy hipster. Spotting the ninth and tenth differences, however, could drive you to distraction. I had similar feelings to the Sunday-paper spot-the-difference game when I first set eyes on the F-type SVR that had arrived at the evo office. Except that I didn’t have the second half of the pair for comparison. Editor Trott had half-inched my R, so I was left circling the SVR looking for the points of distinction. Obviously the rear wing and the dark, louvred bonnet vents were plain to see. The side skirts didn’t look quite as extreme as…

FOR THE SECOND MONTH in succession I’ve not seen a great deal of the Kia. Returned to me following its duties assisting with Track Car of the Year (coming to an issue of evo soon), I climbed inside to the glow of a tyre pressure warning light. Sure enough, the rear right had deflated to just 20 psi, and after inflation to the correct 34 psi, it became flat after only a couple of days. Sigh. The slow puncture was fixable, but the front right (the tyre that gets the greatest punishment at the anticlockwise Bedford Autodrome) was looking sorry for itself, so I stumped up for a replacement Michelin Pilot Sport 3 anyway. No sooner had I returned to the office than the key was once again snatched from…

IT’S A FIVE-STAR EVO CAR AND was overall eCoty winner in 2004, so why does controversy surround this handsome 911? Unfortunately, it’s because the original 997 Carrera models have gained a reputation for unreliability, principally to do with their engines. How much of this is fact and how much mere internet-based speculation is hard to judge, but it means that buying a 997 Carrera is not as simple as it might first appear (see expert view). The 997 replaced the 996 series in 2004, and although closely related to its forebear, under the skin there was significant evolution. Alongside the standard 3.6-litre Carrera was a new line, the 3.8-litre Carrera S. The 350bhp S didn’t just have more performance, it also got 19-inch wheels, PASM adaptive suspension and xenon…

+ = new entry this month. * = grey import. Entries in italics are for cars no longer on sale. Issue no. is for our most recent major test of the car (D = Driven, R = Road test or group test, F = Feature, FF = Fast Fleet). Call 0844 844 0039 to order a back issue. Price is on-the-road including VAT and delivery charges. Engine is the car’s main motor only – additional hybrid tech isn’t shown. Weight is the car’s kerb weight as quoted by the manufacturer. bhp/ton is the power-to-weight ratio based on manufacturer’s kerb weight. 0-60mph and 0-100mph figures in bold are independently recorded, all other performance figures are manufacturers’ claims. CO2 g/km is the official EC figure and EC mpg is the official ‘Combined’…

TWO THINGS ALWAYS accompanied the previous generation of Mercedes-AMG E63: noise and smoke. With a 5.5-litre twin-turbocharged V8 sending up to 577bhp through the rear wheels alone, a thunderous soundtrack was often just a prelude to the process of converting the rear tyres into a thick, white vapour. Equipped with AMG’s familiar 4-litre twin-turbocharged V8, the new Mercedes-AMG E63 will still provide plenty of noise. Smoke, though, will be notable by its absence, since both new E63s – the regular model and the brawnier S – send their power to both axles through the latest 4Matic+ all-wheel-drive system. Given that the standard car now produces 563bhp – just 14bhp less than the old S – and the new E63 S makes 603bhp, there’s certainly method behind the reduction in…

MANY OF TODAY’S new performance cars are delivered to their first owners wearing tyres tailored for that specific model, and manufacturers boast about the fact that their cars aren’t running on standard replacement tyres. the new audi R8 V10 spyder (see page 34), for example, wears ‘ao’ (audi original) P Zeros, while Porsche has been fitting n-rated tyres to its cars for over 20 years. But what really changes from a standard tyre to one that’s been designed to work on a particular car? Well, it could be everything, bar the basic construction. evo went to the Goodyear innovation Centre in luxembourg to follow the development of the dunlop sportmaxx Rt2 as it is honed for specific models. though relatively new, the Rt2 has already been homologated to work…

Test location: A4086, Gwynedd GPS: 33.03763, -116.87653 THERE’S A SMALL SWITCH positioned at the rear of the r8 spyder’s centre-console. it is behind the MMI control and the stubby gearlever of the new seven-speed double-clutch gearbox, and next to the switch for the engine’s auto stop-start and another that controls the opening and closing of the roof. it’s an innocuous-looking switch, but it results in pure aural automotive alchemy. with a little pressure from your index finger applied to this switch, a small screen over your shoulder, between the buttresses of the spyder’s roof, disappears into the rear bulkhead and the window to a 533bhp 5.2-litre V10 is opened. and the noises this small aperture lets in are as addictive as a bag of pork scratchings and a pint of…

Test location: B660, Cambridgeshire GPS: 52.40189, -0.37266 Photography: Dean Smith Where renault Sport’S Clio 220 trophy was once a line-topping special edition, for the 2016 model year it is now a permanent fixture at the apex of the Clio pile, which itself was plumped and refreshed earlier in the year. What’s new? not a great deal. as the name suggests, there’s still 220 pS, or in old english money 217bhp, and torque remains at 206lb ft. Sadly, the double-clutch gearbox remains too. as with the old trophy, the chassis is 20mm lower, the alloy wheels measure 18 inches in diameter and for £900 you can have an akrapovic exhaust fitted. Visually there are some changes, namely the chequered-flag-style driving lamps that debuted on the rS16 concept (Driven, evo 226). Inside,…

evo magazine, in collaboration with White Label Events, would like to invite you to the inaugural evo Great Drives of Europe Tour. This will be an unmissable event that blends one of Europe’s most spectacular hotels with sensational driving routes, fantastic food and wine and engaging, like-minded company. The tour will give you the opportunity to enjoy your car on the open roads of north-west Spain and stay in Frank Gehry’s masterpiece – Hotel Marqués de Riscal. The hotel, built around a winery, is five-star-rated, has a spa, a museum of viticulture and a wine shop. During the tour you’ll drive some of the best roads Spain has to offer, try the finest food and wines, plus you’ll have the opportunity to have your car and your journey documented…

MONDAY 12 SEP TEMBER , 8A M. DEEP breath. Take it all in. Imagine what’s about to happen. With rain dripping off the end of my nose and dark skies overhead, this is eCoty 2016. Nothing quite like it for flushing away the dregs of sleep and booting-up the butterflies. This morning’s inaugural ‘starting grid’, fractured into fascinating random clumps by the available parking slots, presents a game of spot and Instagram forthehandfulofcarparkwandererswho,bychanceorthecallofsocial-media jungle drums, are here to witness our 12-car convoy start up and move out. Although it never quite happens in unison as perhaps it should, the staggered rude awakening of this year’s 5749bhp, 82 cylinders, 13 turbochargers and 48 blaring, bellowing exhaust pipes is an opening ceremony fireworks display of sorts, and savvy spectators are more than…

THE PORSCHE 911 R CAME WITHIN A whisker of a unanimous victory – the two judges who didn’t place it first ranked it as their runnerup. It was the most convincing of victories, one that suggests an uncanny level of synergy between the judges and their voting habits. In fact, the reality could hardly be more different. The 911 R aside, this year’s evo Car of the Year test delivered as little consensus among the judging panel as anybody can ever remember. Some even suggested, with a wink, that one judge or another was flat-out wrong in his assessments. Perhaps the one car that demonstrates these differences of opinion better than any other is the BMW M4 GTS. While two judges, Nick Trott and Henry Catchpole, rated the raucous coupe…

I WAS PRETTY DISPARAGING WHEN MY MUM said she’d decided to spend a significant amount of money on a sodding camper van. I couldn’t fathom why she’d want to buy something so slow and dull when she could be buying something fun and/or fast and a hotel room. But now, as the wind seems to be trying its hardest to relocate the entire Irish Sea onto Anglesey Circuit and I’m cocooned by steel rather than wispy nylon sheets, I’m incredibly grateful. Because not only did she not listen to me, she has actually let me borrow it. Despite my sumptuous accommodation I still can’t sleep. The wind is rocking the van, not in a calm send-you-to-sleep manner, but in an erratic way like it’s trying to shake me awake. That…

AFTER TWO WEEKENDS in the Roadsport category and a further two in the Tracksport series, my Caterham racing adventure drew to a close at Croft as I competed in the Superlight R300-S championship. I’d been quietly dreading racing in the top-spec series all year, an anxiety that was compounded by my never having been to Croft before. It was both the massive performance of the car – close to 200bhp, stickier tyres, limited-slip differential and sequential gearbox – and the very experienced opposition that had me feeling intimidated. Getting comprehensively whupped in my two Tracksport rounds had also left me in no doubt that I wouldn’t be cut out for the R300-S series. Testing on the Friday more or less confirmed that suspicion. The car was so much quicker…

ONE OF THE KEY REASONS for running a car on evo’s Fast Fleet is to have the opportunity to get deeper under its skin than is possible during a regular seven-day loan for a road test. We use this extended time with the car to confirm our original findings or to reconsider our opinion if we uncover a flaw that wasn’t obvious during that early drive. It also allows us to reappraise a car that perhaps didn’t flick our switch on first contact but which we have an inclination might have more to give with more time behind the wheel. That was certainly the case with our long-term Civic Type R, which I for one didn’t ‘get’ initially but grew to appreciate more and more during the nine months it…

‘I’m just waiting for an MOT, but I’m almost faint with anticipation for that first drive’ PRAISE BE! MY SC NOW has an engine and gearbox instead of a gaping hole. And what an engine and gearbox! Fully rebuilt, with all key parts replaced and some sympathetic modifications, too. I’m just waiting for an MOT, but I’m almost faint with anticipation for that first drive. To recap, when the SC’s engine went pop after a misshift on a trackday, I knew that I should take the time to perfect the spec and make the right decisions on which parts should repaired, replaced or modified (or all three). Of the 12 months or so I’ve been without the car, 90 per cent of those have been related to my prevarication. Indeed,…

TWO NEW OVERFINCH MODELS made their debut at September’s Salon Privé Concours d’Elegance at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, cementing the company’s reputation for building the ultimate incarnations of Range Rover’s alreadyluxurious off-roaders. The one-off Overfinch London Edition is the most striking, thanks to interior detailing inspired by the London city skyline. Based on the Range Rover Autobiography LWB, it’s a rolling advertisement for the skills of Overfinch’s craftsmen – albeit one costing £249,990. Some 5500 individual pieces of veneer, abalone shell and stainless steel have been inlaid into the burr-walnut trim to create images of London’s most iconic buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, the Shard, the London Eye, the Gherkin and Tower Bridge. The woodwork alone took 250 hours, while several more hours were spent adding a subtle body…

WITHOUT WARNING, ANDREAS PREUNINGER’S GRIP ON the english language slipped. right when the envy of publicrelations departments industry-wide was talking evo’s henry Catchpole around the new gt3 rs, in fact. it was during the car’s launch at the 2015 geneva motor show, and Preuninger inexplicably described the radical-looking wheelarch vents as a ‘gimmick’. What a strange moment. Catchpole almost swallowed his tongue. had the man forsaken everything rennsport stands for and stooped to the level of Mercedes-aMg and its counterfeit exhaust tips? The man hadn’t, of course, because the charismatic head of Porsche’s gt-car division didn’t really mean ‘gimmick’. the phrase lost in translation was something more along the lines of ‘shockingly hardcore’, for while the ladle-shaped vents cut neatly into the gt3 rs’s carbonfibre front wings do indeed give…