Table of contents for March 2018 in Evo

THE LAST DECADE HAS SEEN THE art of creating the special performance car that appeals to the dedicated enthusiast and less so to the mainstream buyer, all but vanish. Unless you look to the very peak of the automotive pyramid, of course, and fraternise with those cars with GT, RS, LT and TDF in their names. While we’ll be the first in the queue to grab their keys, it’s the more attainable specials that excite us as much. A run in a Mégane R26 R or Golf Clubsport S can be as intoxicating as any drive in a 675 LT, but the former have been the exception rather than the norm. Happily, a glimmer of hope shines for those of us who look for a little something extra from a…

JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER AS THE HEADLINES FILL WITH news of plunging car sales and airfields fill with unwanted diesel-engined cars, the automotive industry continues to race ahead at an unprecedented rate with new model launches and announcements. Alpina’s new B5 Biturbo 5-series-based saloon and estate are both now available in the UK. Priced from £89,000 they are not exactly an affordable alternative to a 320d Business Edition, but both will crack 200mph thanks to their twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre V8 producing a whisker under 600bhp and 590lb ft of torque. As per BMW’s new M5 – deliveries of which start in the spring – Alpina’s hot new 5-series is also four-wheel drive. You’ll have to wait a little while longer for Alpine’s brilliant…

LET’S BE CLEAR – 800BHP IN A muscle car is an extremely silly idea. Especially if that car is being driven on UK roads. So if you’re going to almost double the power output of a Mustang, it’s best if the work is carried out by someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone like Shelby. Carroll Shelby created his first fettled Mustang, the GT350, in 1965. Since then numerous high-performance variants have borne his name, and following his death in 2012, the firm he founded – Shelby American – has continued to build cars and develop new models worthy of that name. The scale of the business has grown significantly in recent years thanks to Shelby’s reputation as the company to tune V8 Fords and now there are franchises across…

YOU REALLY CAN’T FAULT Hyundai’s ambition. With no real high-performance heritage to speak of, the Korean brand has climbed up to the highest board on the diving tower and taken aim at the deep end. It could have stuck to doing what it does best, which is churning out worthy but dull hatchbacks and SUVs that are long on warranty but short on fun, but the company wanted to inject some excitement into its rather humdrum image, and the result is the i30 N. This isn’t some tepid toe-in-the-water exercise like sister firm Kia’s warmed over Proceed GT, either – this is a proper, no-expense-spared job. How proper? Well, former BMW M head honcho Albert Biermann has been the technical driving force behind the i30 N, and his back catalogue…

‘The Yaris GRMN is powered by the superchared 1.8 used by the current Lotus Elise’ WHOEVER THOUGHT WE’D BE getting so excited about a Toyota Yaris? Then again, whoever thought a supermini hot hatch could cost over £26,000? There you go, I’ve mentioned the price, and to be honest that’s the last time I’m going to bring that subject up in this story, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because all 400 Yaris GRMNs sold out in 72 hours, and now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think Toyota believes it could easily have sold double that number or more (100 will come to the UK out of that 400, plus a further 200 re-styled cars – called the Vitz – destined for Japan). But perhaps most importantly, the engineering…

Market SIMPLY REMAPPING A CAR’S ECU TO extract more power from its engine is fraught with complications: altering one part will have a dramatic effect on other elements. That’s why tuners offer a wide range of upgraded mechanical parts to complement the extra power liberated from the engine’s new map. Take Revo, for example, which made its name extracting more performance from Volkswagen group products and has more recently turned its attentions to Fords, too. Currently it offers a range of engine and chassis upgrades for everything from the 1-litre Fiesta to 5-litre Mustang and, of course, the current Focus RS. Revo’s most comprehensive kit for the RS is its £2060 Performance Pack. It includes the tuner’s Stage 2 software upgrade, a carbonfibre air intake and foam filter, a larger…

‘IS IT ANY GOOD?’ ‘WHAT’S IT REALLY like?’ ‘Would you have one over an M3?’ ‘Would you buy one with your own money?’ Running an Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio is never a lonely experience: it’s a car that draws admiring glances and invites inquisitive conversations. Life with the Giulia remains good. Very good. 17,000 miles in and I still get a feeling of heightened anticipation every time I settle into the brilliant Sparco seat, thumb the starter button on the base of the steering wheel spoke and wake that twin-turbo V6. Those initial moments remain special. And for an Italian car company to have nailed the ergonomics so well is worthy of special praise. There’s a simplicity to the cabin that allows you to focus purely on enjoying that 500bhp and…

‘With its V8 hammering away out of fast bends and down long straights, this Mustang felt far happier, and so did I’ I MUST CONFESS THAT I HADN’T exactly been desperate to have a go in our Mustang. Far from it, in fact. I’d driven a coupe version of this sixth-generation model a while back and, to be honest, I found it a bit disappointing. It seemed as if at least a third of its 410bhp was missing, and its automatic transmission was of the kind that used to make a manual ’box the only option worth considering for true petrolheads. But as deputy editor Towler had borrowed ‘my’ RS5 for a few days, I had no choice but to drive the Ford. Well, actually that’s not true. There was…

YOU MAY NOT WANT TO HEAR it, but 25 years have elapsed since Nigel Mansell won his FIA Formula One World Championship in 1992, and then the following year took the CART IndyCar World Series crown, the only driver ever to achieve back-toback titles in these two disciplines. During his career he amassed 31 victories in F1 alone. British fans may well have dubbed him Our Nige, but the Ferrari faithful had a much more appropriate nickname for a racer with such a ferociously competitive spirit – Il Leone, the Lion. Mansell is to be celebrated at this year’s London Classic Car Show (London ExCeL arena, 15-18 February), as the event’s ‘Icon’ – last year Ferrari at 70 was similarly honoured. On display it’s expected that there will be a…

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE, GIVEN THE firm’s recent run of form, that AMG could produce any vehicle that would feel like a spare part. And yet, wallet-shredding price tag or not, that’s precisely what the S63 Coupe has felt like in the past. It’s always been that bit noisier than the non-AMG versions, but lacked the sophistication, jaw-dropping engine stats and all-out range-toppingness of the frankly ludicrous, V12-engined S65. That ends now, though, and it’s all down to a change of engine. Because gone is the old S63’s 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8 and in slots Mercedes’ latest 4-litre unit. Now, in principle this is closely related to the motor that powers the new S560 Coupe and Cabriolet, but while the lumps in the front of those cars come out of Sindelfingen,…

‘The Carrera T has the air of a car with a sense of fun about it’ PORSCHE IS RETURNING TO THE Monte Carlo Rally.’ Yes! I digest the first line of Porsche’s Carrera T press material and my heart rate soars: images don’t come much more seductive than that of a factory-entered 911 Carrera broadside on compacted snow and sheet ice, its flat-six hysterically headbutting the limiter as it battles with a treacherous Col de Vence stage. The thought alone gives me goosebumps, and I’m designing the car’s livery in my head already. Sadly and of course inevitably, this is not going to be the case, as the second line confirms with depressingly corporate bonhomie. It reads along the lines of ‘your test drive route today will take you to…

VAUXHALL SUPERSALOONS I CAN’T HELP BUT SMILE when I spot the Carlton. Parked in a leafy corner of the car park, dappled in sunlight, it looks smaller than I remember, like Curly Wurlys do. It’s hard to imagine the outcry that met this car when it was revealed in the early ’90s, the terror it fermented, due in part to the fact that it was a Vauxhall saloon car with 377bhp that could do 176mph. You’d think it was going to eat babies and tilt the world on its axis. Where would it all end, came the cry – little hatchbacks with 400bhp? SUVs with 600bhp? Well, um, anyhow… It did, however, tilt one world on its axis. Mine. I fell in love with the Lotus Carlton the first time…

JONATHAN DIDN’T MESS AROUND getting into performance cars: rather than buying just any Mini for his first set of wheels, he found himself a 1275 GT. He then progressed through hot hatches, a homologation special and a pair of sports cars, before taking a big leap forward in terms of pace with a Porsche 911 Turbo. This 911 was one many evo readers will be familiar with, too, being C8 UFO, the 993 owned by Harry Metcalfe and reported on in Fast Fleet from 1999 to 2001. Later Turbos followed for Jonathan, as have some more exotic supercars, but he hasn’t fallen out of love with more humble machines: he’s also owned two of evo’s favourite hot hatches – the Renault Sport Clio Trophy and Ford Focus RS500 – and…

‘You’re fighting a stone-cold ’box with no second gear and wondering what mood it’ll be in today’ IT’S BEEN SOME TIME SINCE I LAST wrote a report on ‘Trigger’s Broom’, but I’m told evo’s readers keep asking after the quarter-million-mile (and rising) Lambo, so here’s an update on how it’s been fairing since its nut and bolt rebuild. Despite a few small teething problems since the wide Pirellis were reacquainted with tarmac early last year, I’m pleased to report the Murciélago is running amazingly well. Of course, being an old-school supercar it still possesses an obstinate dislike for second gear, which it refuses to engage when cold, despite the whole ’box being rebuilt in not so ancient times. I learnt many moons ago to simply ignore this cog and skip…

Remember Fisker? If you do, it’s probably for the wrong reasons. Its brief but turbulent history resulted in one relatively unsuccessful luxury saloon, the electric Karma, a couple of concepts and an unhealthy quantity of malaise. Production Karmas suffered build quality issues, but the worst was yet to come: Fisker’s battery supplier went into administration causing build delays, and when Hurricane Sandy hit the US east coast in 2012 – destroying hundreds of vehicles waiting at port – the company’s insurer refused to pay up. Like Sideshow Bob stepping from rake to rake, founder Henrik Fisker then left the company in early 2013 and redundancies at Fisker soon followed, the firm finally filing for bankruptcy in late 2013. Chinese firm Wanxiang Group later bought the rights and tooling to the…

SUBARU WRX STI FINAL EDITION // SHELBY MUSTANG SUPER SNAKE // MERCEDES-AMG S63 COUPE // ALPINA B4 S BITURBO THIS IS IT – THIS IS THE END. AFTER the best part of a quarter of a century, the fast Subaru saloon (it was also occasionally a hatchback and an estate) is finally being consigned to UK history. From a virtual unknown it grew into a bona fide global superstar with solid-gold motorsport credentials, before events overtook it and it spent the last ten years of its life slowly slipping back into obscurity. When it was at its peak in the late ’90s, the Subaru Impreza was a key part of evo’s beginnings. It was one of the cars that defined ‘the thrill of driving’ and delving into our archives reveals…

THE BMW 4-SERIES HAS RECENTLY been treated to a bit of a midlife nip and tuck, so it’s no surprise to find that Alpina has followed suit with its B4. Yet while the main changes to the BMW donor car are largely cosmetic, Alpina has taken the opportunity to give its coupe a more thorough going over, so there’s now more power and some subtly tweaked suspension settings. Oh, and to make sure nobody confuses it with the old model, its name has gained an ‘S’. The B4 S Birturbo starts life as a standard BMW 440i before it’s shipped to Alpina’s Buchloe factory, where it’s effectively rebuilt from the ground up and emerges as a car with the performance to have an M4 breaking out in a cold sweat.…

ONE CRISP AUTUMN morning you decide you want to drive your Ferrari Daytona through the Alps then down to the Amalfi coast. But the car’s not kept at your house, instead it’s in a museum, because it seems a shame to keep a car like that hidden from admiring eyes. No problem, you simply drive to the converted former agricultural factory where it’s on display, open the main doors with your key, activate the car lift and make your way to the bay that your 365 GTB/4 is kept in. Visitors move to the sides as you drive down the wide corridors towards the Ferrari’s sharp, Plexiglas-dominated nose. The same key that let you through the main door – a black plastic item with a chip at one end –…

‘I think our Superb is a fine thing, so for an extra £4375 the Arteon ought to be fairly exceptional’ OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES OR so, platform sharing has become a way of life for the car industry, and no company has embraced this philosophy with greater gusto than the Volkswagen Group. Almost every single model in the Audi, SEAT, Skoda and Volkswagen line-ups has a very strong dose of shared DNA, yet clever marketing and brand separation means that most buyers are unlikely ever to realise that their very expensive Audi is very closely related to a machine from a firm that used to be the butt of every comedian’s car jokes. Our Skoda Superb and the VW Arteon are a case in point. On paper, in equivalent…

THE 2002 IS FINALLY IN A PLACE appropriate for a car – a workshop. As amusing and as ludicrous as it was having a half-built BMW in my conservatory, the big temperature fluctuations made it an unpleasant environment to work in. It was nowhere near any tools, either. The car’s relocation has coincided with the arrival of its freshly rebuilt engine. I bought the new parts for the motor many years ago, but the actual build was delayed when I got carried away having the car painted. I decided not to build the engine myself; the car’s previous engine was assembled at home, but to do the new parts justice I thought it was better to assign them to the expert hands of Steve Campbell at Thunder Engineering. The specs…

LOTUS TAKES ON PORSCHE Can the exceptional Evora GT430 topple the mighty 911 GT3? PLUS: Renault Spor t Mégane RS & Volkswa gen UP GTI driven Is the f uture of the per formance car four-wheel drive? Anatomy of a BTCC Super Touring car evo (USPS 024-183) is published monthly by Dennis Publishing Ltd, 31-32 Alfred Place, London, WC1E 7DP, United Kingdom. For subscriptions in the USA and Canada, visit www.imsnews.com, phone 1-800- 428-3003, fax 1-757-428-6253, or email cs@imsnews.com. U.S. Agent Pitney Bowes International Mailing Services, 158 Mt Olivet Avenue, Newark NJ 07114-2114. Periodicals postage is paid at Paterson NJ and additional mailing offices. US POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Pitney Bowes International Mailing Services, 158 Mt Olivet Avenue, Newark NJ 07114-2114. Subscription records are maintained by Dennis Publishing…