Table of contents for July 2018 in Evo

ASTON MARTIN COULD BE FORGIVEN for leaving its DB11 on the back-burner after the launch of the new Vantage, but instead it has unveiled a new flagship variant called the DB11 AMR. This is the third product under the AMR (Aston Martin Racing) banner, after the previous-generation Vantage AMR and the very limited edition V12 Vantage AMR Pro. Utilising a subtly upgraded version of the 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 from the standard DB11, power has been lifted by 30bhp to 630bhp. This makes the DB11 AMR the fastest Aston Martin on sale, reaching 62mph in 3.7sec (0.2sec quicker than a standard V12 DB11) and ableto hit 208mph (8mph faster). A more vocal exhaust system is also fitted, emphasising the AMR’s role as a sporting coupe, rather than a more relaxed GT.…

1 Reduced charge air temperature The temperature of the air entering the engine was a major focus for Ferrari’s engineers. A reduced temperature is desirable as it allows more spark advance before ‘knock’ sets in. This, in conjunction with higher valve lift for more turbulence, means faster combustion, improved efficiency and, ultimately, more power. Repositioned engine air inlets compared with those on the 488 GTB allow for larger intercoolers ahead of the rear wheels, and the radiators in the nose are tilted so the hot air exiting them doesn’t find its way to those intercoolers. All that accounts for a six-degree drop in intercooler outlet temperature. Next, a new, smaller carbonfibre air plenum and shorter runners feature ‘intake detuning’ at full load, making the air in the cylinders some eight…

‘With the roof open, sensations are heightened as a new wave of sounds wash over you’ BMW HAD NO INTENTION OF offering its i8 as a roadster, but such was customer demand that the company’s engineers literally took a saw to the carbonfibre roof of an i8 coupe to see what would happen when they cut it off. Unsurprisingly, the carbon tub didn’t fold in on itself like a ’70s British sports car at its first MOT, and so the i8 Roadster was born. What followed was a development process never envisaged when BMW launched its plug-in hybrid coupe four years and 13,000 examples ago. While removing the roof was relatively straightforward, it did present a handful of new issues to overcome. Chief amongst these was airflow. The i8 coupe…

FOR SEVEN YEARS NOW, EACH APRIL and October, BMW engineers and their prototypes have been coming to north Wales, drawn by the roads, their unique and varied surfaces and the challenges they present for a chassis, and because the area is never too busy. Today, evo is here as well. We’ve been invited to sample a pre-production version of the 523bhp, four-wheel-drive M850i, which is in the final throws of development ahead of its June launch. Beneath the camouflage wrap is a virtually off-tool car, with just a few prototype body and trim parts. Its chassis is evolved from that of the 7-series xDrive (not the new M5 with its two-wheel-drive mode) and it features adaptive dampers, rear-wheel steering, a new e-diff and, on this particular example, active anti-roll bars.…

‘TO MEET ITS OBJECTIVES LAMBORGHINI HAS HAD TO PULL ALL OF ITS TOYS OUT’ LAMBORGHINI’S CHOICE OF HOTEL for the launch of the Urus is all marble-and-gold Italian luxury. A towering and formidable edifice of ’60s extravagance on the outskirts of Rome, its grandiose entrance, complete with de rigueur fountain, must have looked little different when it was newly constructed, complemented by some suave playboy pulling up to the concierge in his factory-fresh Miura. Transport yourself back to standing in the still heat of a Rome morning 50 years ago, and imagine suggesting to our Persol-adorned lothario that the same company which created the first, true manifestation of the supercar would one day create a vehicle like the Urus. What would Dallara, Bizzarrini and Gandini, young men burning midnight oil…

VOLKSWAGEN, CONTRARY TO what you might have read elsewhere, is not the world’s biggest car maker. True, it may have produced 10.7million cars in 2017 – enough to put it ahead of Toyota and Renault-Nissan – but there’s one company, celebrating its 50th anniversary on 19 May, that can match that figure virtually every week. I’ll not draw out the analogy too much longer as the images on this page will have given the game away somewhat, but just as Lego makes more rubber tyres than any other company on the planet, so Hot Wheels can stake a pretty good claim to being the world’s largest car maker. Gimmicks aside, is it a company deserving of space in evo? Absolutely. Ahead of even Scalextric, Tamiya, or videogames such as Gran…

AUDI FIRST. THERE’S A feeling this might be the TT’s best shot at showing the others how it’s done. On the road it seems to have boundless grip and traction, and the in-line five feels the strongest engine here. And indeed it feels pretty quick around the lap, punching out of corners on full throttle with very little understeer. Once the nose is hooked into a curve, the fat, low-profile Pirellis hang on tenaciously – it’s everything you’d expect of a compact and powerful four-wheel-drive coupe. There is a small amount of adjustability into the fastest corners that finish the lap (O’Rouge and Tower), so you can get on the power very early and accelerate flat-out all the way through. The clock stops at 1:25.2, which doesn’t seem to reflect…

CHOOSE YOUR SPEC WHILE THE 996 WAS LAUNCHED AS just one model with the rear-wheel-drive Carrera, it wasn’t long before additional variants arrived. Buyers soon had the choice of the Carrera 4 drivetrain, which from the outside looked all but identical, and then Cabriolet and later Targa variants, the latter continuing the sliding glass roof idea first seen on the 993. The later C4S 996 (there never was a 996 C2S) used the wider body of the Turbo, and this was carried over with the ‘4’ 997s which used the wider body in both regular and S guises. All the cars were available with either a six-speed manual or five-speed Tiptronic torque converter auto ’box, with the latter replaced by the first-gen PDK ’box on the 997.2 in 2008 Both…

M5: A LETTER AND NUMBER COMBO that raises the eyebrow of many a car enthusiast. And while the debate will continue to rage as to which car was the original supersaloon (some older folk look wistfully at Jaguar’s Mark 2 for this), the M5 is most certainly the model that defined it, and has done for over 30 years. It is an enigma. An icon. The undisputed champ. And the latest member of the evo Fast Fleet. With our M5 being sourced directly from BMW UK’s media activities, the opportunity to spec it came down to selecting which exterior and interior colour pairing we preferred. The exterior choice was Donington Grey, Rhodonite Silver or Black Sapphire. Despite suggestions to the contrary, I didn’t select that last option just to cause…

‘It wormed its way into our affections in a way even the Toyota GT86 might not have managed’ THE FOURTH-GENERATION MAZDA MX-5 received a frosty reception when we first tested it at evo. While I understood the reasoning (it lacked dynamic focus next to some of our favourite performance cars), it never really harmed the fun factor for me. As such, it gives me a quiet satisfaction that a few others at evo have also become MX-5 converts during our time with VN66 ZHR, a 2-litre MX-5 RF Sport Nav that joined us after a twin test back in February 2017 (issue 234). While it finished runner-up to the Toyota GT86 on that windy day in Wales, it spent the following 12 months worming its way into our affections in…

THERE AIN’T NO REPLACEMENT FOR displacement, as the old saying goes. But when it comes to a family of four’s week away it’s boot capacity rather than engine capacity that’s king. So when the time came to book the ferry to Jersey, it was our Skoda Superb’s registration number that was top of my list. As expected, the big Czech machine proved to be the perfect companion. Its vast, 690-litre boot swallowed everything I threw at it, while the relaxed ride and hushed refinement made mincemeat of the motorway drag down to Poole, where we jumped on the ferry and headed to the Channel Islands. Once there, the blanket 40mph speed limit and narrow, wall-lined roads meant that chances to exploit the car’s 276bhp blown four-pot were few and far…

IT’S BEEN A FAIRLY BUSY MONTH for the mean green machine, with family trips to North Yorkshire and South Devon helping to make fairly straightforward work of the running-in period. As a result, I’ve finally been able to unleash the star of the RS3’s dynamic package: the engine. Until recently, the 394bhp turbocharged five-pot has been kept on a tight leash, with restricted revs and a careful eye on the oil level. A tall seventh gear meant that fast motorway cruises were OK, while the lowdown torque delivered more than enough poke to pull clear of traffic elsewhere. But it’s only beyond 4000rpm that this engine really gets into its stride. It’s not just the electrifying acceleration I crave, it’s the noise, too. As the needle on the digital rev…

LOTUS IS MARKING ITS VICTORY in the sports car category of last year’s evo Car of the Year competition with a limited-run Elise Sport 220 evo Edition. Based on the Sport 220 that won said award, it has a kerb weight of just 904kg and is powered by a 1.8-litre, 217bhp supercharged engine. Limited to just 15 examples, the evo Edition is available in two colours – metallic orange (in homage to the Series 1 Elise that appeared on the dummy ‘issue 000’ of evo 20 years ago) and metallic black. The Sport 220 won our hearts for its real-word performance and its modest dimensions. As Colin Goodwin concluded: ‘The Lotus Elise Sport 220 shows not only how it used to be done, but how it should still be done.’…

‘While there’s no everything-off drift mode, it will oversteer wildly given the space’ DOES THE WORLD REALLY NEED another 600bhp, four-wheel-drive BMW supersaloon? Time was when Alpina’s take on the Fast Five recipe used a different engine, and gearbox for that matter, and its character differentiation was blatantly obvious. Not any more. Look at the spec sheet of the new G30-based B5 and you’ll see the familiar 4.4-litre biturbo V8 engine, and an eight-speed ZF auto ’box as well. Those are the same core ingredients found in the new M5. Yet the answer to the above-posed question is emphatically ‘yes’. It’s no coincidence that the B5’s tailpipes poke out discreetly from under the rear valance, unlike the M’s four bazookas; it speaks volumes about how these cars go about their…

THE DRIVE THE PORSCHE AND THE AUDI ARE ALREADY parked, side-by-side, waiting for the Alpine to show. In bold colours, sitting on 20-inch wheels, they look solid and well made, confidently hewn. When the A110 arrives and swings in next to them, I’m shocked at how small and low it is. It’s the first time I’ve seen one in the metal and it never occurred to me that one of the reasons it’s so light is that it’s small, with small wheels – 17s as standard, 18s on this, the launch edition. Feedback from the A110 launch was highly complimentary, with many experienced testers, including our own Steve Sutcliffe (evo 244), claiming that the Cayman’s dominance was under threat. Well, this is where we find out just how credible the…

evo ratings THE TT HAS THE MOST POTENT and easily the most charismatic engine here, all 394 warbling horsepower of it, and for that we love it. But it’s not enough. If you enjoy the process of driving and the feeling of engagement with a car, the Audi delivers the least of these three. It’s very fast and easy to drive quickly, which is what most people would expect of a grippy, quattro Audi. But there’s little interaction, and the optional 20-inch alloys with even lower-profile tyres do more harm than good on our B-roads, adding grip, sure, but also adding an extra degree of agitation and tactility to a ride that’s already firm. This is a two-car battle for top honours. The A110 is a breath of fresh air,…

AMONGST CAR ENTHUSIASTS, I reckon there are three main groups when it comes to the Porsche 911: those who have always wanted a 911; those who pretend they hate 911s but secretly really want one anyway; and those who are blissfully unaware of what they are missing out on, but who often – although not always – succumb when they try one. This rear-engined institution of complex contradictions may not be for everyone, but there aren’t many who can avoid falling under its spell at some point. The trouble is, the words ‘value’ and ‘Porsche’ have become increasingly distanced of late, as you may have noticed. No marque has benefited more – or suffered, depending on your viewpoint – from the classic car boom. Aren’t old Porsches all about investment…

THESE DAYS £77,891 BUYS you a new 911 Carrera, the root of the 911 family tree, and the lowest-powered, humblest version of the world’s favourite rear-engined coupe. On evo, we never get to see such a car, because the press office likes to spec cars that show off the additional technology and customisation features available. Similarly, walk into a Porsche Centre tomorrow and the salesperson will be only too keen to indulge your wishes for more of everything – at a cost, of course, noting that it ‘really is necessary for resale values’. And anyway, on a PCP finance deal it’s easy to tick boxes and worry tomorrow. This is why the £100,000 911 is the norm these days. Feels expensive, doesn’t it, for a ‘base’ 911. Manufacturers rely on…

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO THE BIG Lambo and I found ourselves in a sunny but bitterly cold Sweden, heading towards the Norwegian border at Halden. I’d always fancied touring this part of the world, so a week or so earlier I’d taken the ferry from Hull across the North Sea to the Netherlands, from where a 1000-mile trek north began. It had been a pretty bad winter, even by Scandinavian standards, with far more snow than usual. Although, unsurprisingly, Scandinavia was far better prepared for severe weather than we are in Blighty. So apart from an all-over layer of caked-on rock salt, which I guess would have a garage queen’s owner in tears, the Murciélago fared rather well. Which is more than could be said for me. A couple…

LAST MONTH I INTRODUCED OUR i30 N with the promise of delving into the car’s driving modes and settling upon a custom set-up – one that brings out the best in the car without going full ‘N’, which can prove a bit extreme, particularly on roads slick from springtime rainshowers. Driving modes come up frequently in evo office conversation, usually in frustration when a particular car fails to offer the perfect combination for a person’s personal taste. At this point, someone will invariably don their rose-tinted spectacles and pine for the days when buttons were things you used to fasten a Caterham’s roof into place and to make a car feel sportier you simply selected a lower gear. But if we’re to have driving modes then you might as well…

‘OW! MY SPINE!’ CRIED MY WIFE, somewhat melodramatically, from the passenger seat. ‘Can’t you do something to make it more comfortable?’ I already knew the answer, but I glanced in the instrument binnacle just to double-check which mode the Honda was in. Yup: Comfort. When it was first suggested that this latest Civic Type R would be more useable than its predecessor, and would even gain the aforementioned Comfort mode, some fans of the old model, myself included, feared that the CTR might be about to ‘turn soft’ and in the process lose a big part of its appeal. This clearly hasn’t happened. In its default mode of Sport, the maximum amount of suspension travel feels not dissimilar to what I recall from the previous-generation Type R that I also…

REMEMBER WHEN THE BOXSTER was an affordable entry point to a brilliant sports car? Me too, but this new GTS costs £61,727, which sounds like a price that should be stuck to the windscreen of a 911 Cabriolet. Then again, today’s cars are expensive because it’s all about the deposit and monthly payment. In Porsche terms this equates to £12k down and £500 a month. For three years. Not cheap either, but have you seen the cost of a pint of beer these days? Regardless of how you pay for it, Porsche’s 718 Boxster GTS is a gem. It follows the familiar GTS recipe of a little more power and some additional components fitted as standard that would cost you extra to add to an S, such as the PASM…

McLAREN SENNA // BMW i8 ROADSTER // ALPINA B5 // SUZUKI SWIFT SPORT THE FIRST SERIOUS MOTOR RACE I went to at Silverstone, ‘our’ track when growing up, was the then WEC equivalent World Sportscar Championship round of 1988. The era of Group C. Big cars, He-Man aero, even bigger power. Given I was a car-mad youngster, my life was never the same again after that day. Today, as the McLaren Senna’s butterfly door clicks shut above my head, and the thud of the V8’s baritone exhaust blare instantly switches to a deep hum down the ear canals and a tingle in the back, that bitterly cold spring day in 1988 flashes across my mind: here I am, in a brutish, mid-engined machine, wraparound screen and pared-back pod of a…

‘IT’S A GUNSLINGER OF A CAR: ARMED, CAPABLE AND UNAFRAID’ HOW MUCH BETTER THAN THE 991.1 GT3 RS can it be? I mean, really, how much better? That’s what I was thinking when Porsche unveiled the 991.2 GT3 RS at the Geneva motor show. Well pass me a knife and fork because I’ve got an extra-large portion of humble pie to eat: the new RS is a sensationally good car. Was I foolish to succumb to superlative fatigue when it comes to Porsche’s ramped-up product cycle? Possibly. But was I right to be sceptical at just how meaningful an improvement could be made on the already fabulous Gen 1 991 RS? Absolutely. And yet, the new car proves me wrong. Just how good Weissach-Flacht’s newest export is will become abundantly…

AUNCH CONTROL IS THE order of the day for all three of these cars, making straight-line figuring fairly straightforward. Schoolboy French is needed to translate the Alpine’s instructions (Sport or Track mode, left foot on the brake, pull both paddles, then mash the throttle), but once sorted it sets a respectable 4.6sec for the 0-60mph dash – although the engagement of the clutch is always a little slurred, suggesting a few tenths are literally slipping away The Cayman gets away more cleanly, managing an impressive 3.9sec. Yet neither car can catch the all-wheel-drive Audi here, its combination of total traction and awesome firepower helping to record a mind-boggling 3.5sec time. Think about that. There are bona fide supercars that are only a biscuit faster to 60mph. A different picture emerges…

IT’S A SMALL CAR, THE FIESTA ST, BUT it’s got some big shoes to fill. The previous version of Ford’s hottest Fiesta was something of a phenomenon, providing way more performance and driving fun than its bargain-basement price tag would have you believe. It was a hugely entertaining drive, and simple with it – no driver modes or chassis configurations, just press the starter button and go laugh yourself silly on your favourite road. And it wasn’t just us. People bought them as quickly as Ford could build them. At the car’s 2012 Geneva motor show unveiling, one engineer let slip that, as far as he and his colleagues were concerned, this was the best performance car they’d created since the Escort RS Cosworth. Think about that for a moment.…

MY MATE DAI DAVIES AND I sing from very much the same hymn sheet when it comes to 911s. The want from childhood: the poster of the red SC with tea-tray rear wing, squeezing onto the Porsche stand at late-1980s motor shows, model 911s, the wonder of 911s in the movies with brick phones in the centre console, and that ludicrous black 935-alike in the hopelessly cheesy flick Condorman, with his 911-driving henchmen. In a way, the Porsche 911 has been an integral part of our lives, and as Dai says: ‘I always said, one day I will have one.’ ‘Over time the 996 just grew on me,’ he reflects, ‘and I came to love its beautiful curves and compact proportions. It was unloved for a long time, but I…

HAVING GOT TO KNOW THE Ibiza a little better, I’m finding its interior is full of contradictions. While the bang-up-to-date design is sleek to look at, it’s also very dark, with enough gloss black plastic to put Darth Vader’s helmet to shame. At least being a warm FR means the interior gets a smattering of brighter accents. The black Alcantara seats (£365) certainly look the part with their contrasting red stitching – also used on the handbrake, gearlever gaiter and steering wheel. Strangely, though, SEAT’s online configurator won’t let you spec anything other than rather plain-looking Nora Black FR cloth seats, so check with your dealer if they take your fancy. Meanwhile, the chunky, flat-bottomed steering wheel gets an FR logo to match those on the front grille and tailgate.…

THE THEORETICAL CLOCK IS TICKING, and when it chimes-in New Year’s Day 2040, the days of traditional petrol and diesel cars will finally be numbered. So where will that leave us, the sort of people who seek genuine driving thrills? Well, more than likely we’ll be behind the wheel of a hybrid machine, like our Golf GTE. This was the second plug-in performance car we’ve had on Fast Fleet, but unlike the sub-supercar i8, the Volkswagen is more of a car for, well, the people. So, after six months of hard and varied use, what’s the verdict? It turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag, really. First things first – the GTE isn’t really a hot hatch. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. The Golf GTI styling…

THE C43 CONTINUES TO impress, although I’m now wise to the fact that it has a more subtle way of getting under one’s skin than other cars on the evo Fast Fleet. Perhaps I was almost too successful in downplaying the exterior when we specced our car, for as soon as it attracts a layer of grime – which is very quickly with black paint, predictably – it tends to merge into the background. But that’s to underestimate the depth of the C43’s appeal. For me, it’s the combination of mid-range grunt and pliant ride quality that are the cornerstone of its terrific real-world pace. I don’t know about the area where you live, but my usual journey to the office is almost constantly punctuated by potholes. It is actually…

THERE AREN’T MANY DIESEL ENGINES we’ll miss when the government bans them during its next bout of blunderbuss-selected legislative decisions, but we might shed a tear for units like Mercedes’ latest ‘OM 656’ in-line six. In CLS400d form it’s the company’s most powerful diesel ever, producing 335bhp at 4400rpm, and putting 516lb ft to all four wheels from 1200 to 3200rpm – good for a 5.0sec 0-62mph time. The figures imply an effortless drive and that’s exactly what you get. The straight-six pulls lustily from idle to a few hundred rpm short of its red line, but it’s equally happy hammering along in the mid-range, kept there with flicks of the wheel-mounted paddles and kept in check by powerful, progressive brakes. Even the tone is satisfying, sounding much like a…