Table of contents for December 2018 in Evo

HOW WOULD YOU CHART THE evolution of the supercar? Forty years ago, when I was testing the strength of skirting board fitted to new-build homes, the genre had a very clear formula: low, wedge-shaped design, preferably drawn by an Italian; mid-engined with a dozen cylinders and capable of unimaginable speeds to someone who travelled to school in a 2CV. It took many a year to accept that, despite the location of its engine, the less-than-inspiring design and the fact that it only had six cylinders and a piddly 3-litre engine, Porsche’s 911 (930) Turbo could also consider itself a signed-up member of the supercar elite, even if it was a ratio short of a full ’box. Norfolk’s mid-engined wedge? A supercar through and through, despite its engine having the same…

WITHIN WEEKS OF CONFIRMING THAT HE will float Aston Martin on the London Stock Exchange, CEO Andy Palmer has revealed the company will launch its third hypercar and the next Vanquish by 2021. And before that there will be a limited run of DB4 GT Zagato Continuations and DBS GT Zagatos. Codenamed 003, the hypercar will come from the same stable that brought us the Valkyrie (001) and Valkyrie AMR Pro (002) and will be mid-engined, carbon-tubbed and feature a 950bhp turbocharged 3.5-litre V6. Active aero and suspension will provide the coupe with its downforce and dynamic agility, with performance expected to be a step below the Valkyrie’s but considerably above that of the current DBS Superleggera and the all-new Vanquish. Adrian Newey and Red Bull Racing will be involved…

‘It still sounds like an AC Cobra should, with a decent V8 rumble that rises to a proper roar over the last 2000rpm’ COBRA AFICIONADOS WILL NO DOUBT be apoplectic about AC’s latest take on its own legendary sports car from the 1960s. Why? Because it is powered not by a Ford V8 but, shock-horror, by a 6.2-litre (or 378-cubic-inch) GM V8 that’s been lifted straight out of the engine bay of a Camaro. Once they’ve picked themselves up off the floor, however, even the Cobra diehards might eventually admit that AC’s all-new but still 100 per cent authentic-looking Cobra is, in fact, still a deeply appealing car. Especially if they open the bonnet and see just how nice a fit the GM-sourced engine is, and realise how neat and…

YOU KNOW THE SCORE BY NOW. Covered truck arrives at circuit, disgorges brand new Ferrari along with a set or three of tyres, a test driver and an engineer. This time it’s the turn of the 812 Superfast, which has been shipped from Maranello to north Wales for fast laps and filming at Anglesey’s Coastal Circuit. This is my first time in the Superfast: quite an introduction to the most powerful front-engined Ferrari ever made. I’ve driven its predecessor, the F12, on a number of occasions – none of which led me to feel at any point that it could do with a bit more performance. Fortunately Ferrari isn’t as easily pleased, which is why it built a new V12 engine (stroked from 6.3 to 6.5 litres), sharpened up the…

’DO YOU FANCY SOMETHING WITH two seats?’ Words always likely to pique my interest. Having owned three MX-5s down the years, road test editor James Disdale’s offer of an Abarth 124 Spider as my new long-termer was an opportunity I wasn’t about to ignore. How could I say no to the chance to spend serious time with Abarth’s version of Fiat’s interpretation of Mazda’s take on a small, lightweight and affordable drop-top? I’m genuinely intrigued to find out for myself how this car measures up to its Japanese counterpart. Two things stand out straight away. First and foremost are the looks. For a car that shares so much of its underpinnings with the aforementioned MX-5 – it’s a ‘calzone with a chicken teriyaki filling’ according to web content editor Jordan…

IT’S TO BE EXPECTED THAT THE 4.4-litre, twin-turbo V8 lurking behind the M5’s kidney grille is going to generate levels of heat normally associated with my living room when someone ignites the fire and forgets to turn the central heating down. What I didn’t expect was how much cooling it requires post engine shutdown, no matter what the length of journey. Nor how much noise is generated in the process. In the early hours, after a late-night run back from evo HQ, the M5 can get a bit of a pant on and doesn’t hold back on the decibels (around 88), and it can be a good five to seven minutes before it’s sufficiently cooled. Only Mercedes’ new AMG G63 has annoyed the neighbours with more of the same and…

GOODBYES. FEW ENJOY THEM, AND I know I certainly haven’t gained any satisfaction from handing back the key to our C43 wagon, a true staple of the evo Fast Fleet over the past six months. Naturally, I’ve been mulling over the Merc’s strengths since it left us recently, and I think the key was how it combined a supremely practical, undemanding nature with genuine speed but also, crucially, a sprinkle of naughtiness in its personality. An Audi S4 Avant is a very good car, able to level-peg the C43 in many areas and possibly exceed it in a few, but it simply doesn’t have the character that elevates the C43 in the desirability stakes. That big, brash personality is the DNA that runs through all the cars that come from…

SO FAR, THE STINGER HAS BEEN fault-free, which is just what you’d hope for from a car that wants to be considered alongside an Audi A7, Jaguar XF or BMW 5-series. There’s been a remarkable level of interest in the Stinger since day one, which suggests Kia’s designers have hit the target. And when I tell interested people that there’s a 356bhp twin-turbo V6 under the bonnet, give them the highlights of the standard equipment list (cooled seats, head-up display), mention how well it drives and, finally, reveal how much it costs, the admiration only ramps up. Good job, Kia. I’ve also been able to tell people that it’s well built, so it’s a little disappointing that there’s now a rattle from the back somewhere. Such noises can be notoriously…

HAS ANYONE EVER GOT ONE OF those foot-waving boot-release sensors to work? Great in theory, allowing you to sling shopping, bags of rubbish, dogs, children and so-on into the back of a wagon or SUV hands-free, but in practice it always looks like you’re trying to shoo your neighbour’s cat out from under the car. Or perhaps you’re trying to remove the fake exhaust outlets Audi has styled into the rear bumper of its new A6 Avant. The firm is going through a phase of adding frivolous details to otherwise sound designs, and sure enough, a walk around the car reveals more creases than an un-ironed shirt, with errant lines that look like someone leant on the clay model and nobody caught it before production. It remains a handsome shape…

AMG’S GT HASN’T HAD THE smoothest of rides since it arrived in 2015. If looks were the only factor it would occupy every step of the podium; even three years on it remains aesthetically pleasing, melding modern and retro, and elegance and menace, where so many often fail. A shame, then, that the GT – in regular or S trim – has fallen short on the driving front. There’s not a single area that’s fundamentally flawed, rather the parts don’t add up to the sum AMG tried to calculate. The steering’s too quick and the damper settings struggle to deliver the serene qualities expected of a GT or the precision of a sports car – although we’ve never complained about the 4-litre V8’s sprinting prowess and soundtrack and the seven-speed…

PEOPLE ARE STARING. OF COURSE THEY ARE – I’m driving a Jaguar E-type. Even in Monterey in the middle of Car Week, where scissor doors and velocity stacks outnumber SUVs, an immaculately restored example of one of the world’s most recognisable automotive shapes still turns heads. Those facing away as I approach get a little less time for their eyes to linger, however, as they won’t know I’m there until the silvery-gold flash enters their peripheral vision. That’s because the E-type Zero is electric powered, and unlike even the silkiest of straight-six versions, it’s virtually silent. You may already be familiar with the E-type Zero, if not the earlier concept from 2017’s TechFest event in London, then as driven by the Duke of Sussex after the royal wedding earlier in…

AS TALES OFAUTOMOTIVE EVOLUTION go, the Mazda MX-5 isn’t quite up there with the Porsche 911 and Chevrolet Corvette, but 29 years and almost 1.1million sales prove, once again, that the best ideas tend to stick around. This is a mid-term refresh for the fourth-generation run of the much-iterated front-engined, rear-drive, petrol-only two-seater and, although there are numerous tweaks and mods, the big news is 181bhp for the 2-litre version. That’s 23bhp more than before. And you thought the MX-5 was all about feel and finesse. The car we’re testing here is essentially what will be the SE-LNav+ model in the UK, which means it doesn’t have the Bilstein dampers and strut brace of the Sport Nav+ and GTSport Nav+ range-toppers, but does have the limited-slip differential standard on all…

‘There’s bags of grip and the GSi takes a satisfying foursquare stance through bends’ YOU’D BE FORGIVEN FOR THINKING that Vauxhall had given up on the whole high-performance thing. With the VXR brand seemingly moribund and the supply of rear-drive Holdens for rebadging cut off permanently, the list of cars from Luton worth the consideration of people like us is depressingly short. Yes, there’s the Insignia GSi (Driven Too, evo 246), but quick and composed though it is, it’s more mildly racy repmobile than it is serious sports saloon; a car that looks and feels only marginally more exciting than the standard version, which is to say not very. So the omens aren’t good for the new Corsa GSi, which aims to fill a much-needed hot hatch hole in Vauxhall’s…

‘THE SPEC IS TAKEN UNEDITED FROM THE SPORTS CAR RULEBOOK’ ALPINE A110. BMW M2. PORSCHE Cayman GTS. Audi TT RS. Ford Mustang GT V8. Sounds like an evo Supertest in the planning (with fewer mugs of tea and packets of Hobnobs). But it is also the list of rivals that Gazoo Racing assembled for its engineers and development teams to test, experience, pull apart and benchmark when it was instructed by Toyota to develop the company’s first volume performance model since the GT86 arrived in 2012 – and its first Supra since 2002. There is as much anticipation within Toyota for this car as there is amongst the enthusiasts who have been waiting 16 years for a replacement to the iconic A80 and the three generations of Supra that came…

THERE’S A FAIRLY SMALL HANGAR close to evo’s offices, the type of which you’ll find on any number of England’s sprawling ex-RAF airfields, themselves now so often cauldrons of engineering endeavour in that uniquely British ad-hoc manner. Nothing unusual so far, but step behind its doors and you’ll truly enter a new world: one with a unique blend of advanced technical excellence and engineering pragmatism, where virtually anything in that extreme F1 bubble suddenly seems possible. Spend just five minutes inside here and, for me at least, the million-euro track-only hypercar takes a massive torpedo amidships. After all, why would you buy something like that when you could have one of the fastest four-wheeled circuit cars ever conceived for your exclusive, expensive, trackday fun? Before I met Matt Faulks and…

I KNOW, HERE I AM IN THIS ISSUE (page 130) getting all misty-eyed about the loss of our beloved C43 estate, but it must be said, an even faster wagon can dry those eyes surprisingly quickly. I have a feeling the RS4 Avant will cause more controversy than the C43, though, partly because expectations are higher. Audi UK offered initial customers of the new RS4 the ‘Carbon Edition’, and that’s what we have here. This adds various bits of carbonfibre trim (front splitter, sill inserts, door mirror housings, etc) and, intriguingly, a set of otherwise unobtainable milled alloy wheels. More on which later. I’d never normally go crazy with the options list, because adding weight and complexity rarely does anything for the driving experience. However, the RS4 is a car…

IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED BY MY colleagues that my disappointment with the Suzuki is partly because my last long-termer, a Peugeot 208 GTi by Peugeot Sport, was such a super-focused, finely-developed corker of a hot hatch. It was a car aimed at a relatively small market of dedicated driving enthusiasts and so, I am told, I shouldn’t expect the same sort of brilliance from the Swift – a more affordable model that aims to appeal to a broader audience. There is probably some truth to that, and I have tried to forget about the 208 and focus on what the Swift is really like. But, you know what? I’m still not convinced. What I have come to enjoy is its engine. Rather than feeling like a 1.4-litre turbocharged unit, it…

WOW. WAS THAT REALLY SIX months? It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was handed the key to our SEAT Ibiza FR and the prospect of seeing how it compared with the only other warm hatch I’ve had in the family – my wife’s Mk1 Suzuki Swift Sport. An older car, maybe, but would this new arrival be the same hoot to drive (and hopefully with a more compliant ride quality and less tiresome engine note)? On the surface, summing up a car such as the Ibiza FR should be easy. After all, it’s a mildly breathed-on hatch with a few shiny bits and bobs, right? Except a warm hatch often occupies that awkward middle ground in a range – a no man’s land between the plain vanilla ice cream…

THE UP GTI IS A CAR THAT PROVOKES conversation. From race paddocks to car parks to filling station forecourts, the boxy little VW always elicits a positive comment or considered question. All of which suggests it has quickly embedded itself in the consciousness of people like us. And no wonder, for as well as enjoying the halo effect of being the Golf GTI’s smallest sibling, it genuinely qualifies as one of 2018’s great new car bargains. Coupled to the characterful three-cylinder turbo motor, slick manual transmission and good old-fashioned handbrake (no infuriating e-brake switches here!) it’s an antidote to the modern obsession with complexity and excessive power outputs. So it’s a cool, classy and credible car. But is it any good when you throw it down a great A- or…

Austin Metro City X ‘This was my first car and I loved it as much as I hated it. I owned it for three years and used to race from London to university in Sussex in it.’ BMW 320 Auto (E21) (1) ‘I inherited this from my grandfather, and apart from a glassfibre repair in the boot floor it was immaculate and looked incredible on multi-spoke Alpina wheels. Shame about the awful auto ’box, though.’ Renault 5 GT Turbo (2) ‘With some savings and the help of a student loan I was able to buy a GT Turbo. I absolutely loved it until plumes of white smoke started billowing from the exhaust after the turbo blew. I couldn’t afford to keep it so I had to sell it immediately after…

MOTORWAY MILES TICK BY, BUT EYES grow heavy. A can of something sweet and caffeinated staves off slumbering, but not for long. Some services. A corner of the car park. Recline the seat and… sleep. This brings a whole new meaning to ‘waiting at the lights’. Everywhere you look there are flashing, static or strobing specks with colours seemingly spanning the known spectrum and beyond. From the muted, mundane glow behind office windows to bold advertisements on screens and the wacky warning lights that mark out roadworks like miniature funfairs, everything is lit up. Exacerbated by the night, it’s a fluorescent soup that your eyes struggle to drink in. Painted on the road are big white zebra stripes to channel human traffic across wide open tarmac spaces. But there are…

FIFTEEN NEW MODELS, OF WHICH 60 PER cent will feature hybrid power trains; a new V6 engine and further development of its V 12; a handful of hand-crafted specials; all of the existing line-up replaced and a couple of new GTs introduced; and not an SUV in sight – not a conventional one at least. Ferrari’s new four-year strategy is certainly a busy one – busy enough to keep customers and analysts happy. Headline news from the Italian firm’s Capital Markets Day was that new CEO Louis Camilleri abhors the term SUV and the vehicles it represents. So Ferrari won’t be making one. Instead, the 7 1-year-old company will focus more on its past and investing in and growing its range of GT cars, which will include the ‘Purosange’. A…

MERCEDES-AMG HAS REVEALED THE first of two hot versions of the new A-class. The A35 is aimed directly at the Audi S3 and Volkswagen Golf R and uses a new 302bhp version of the ‘M260’ 2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine found in the A250. Delivering its power through a dual-clutch transmission and a four-wheel-drive system, the A35 is able to send up to 50 per cent of the available torque to its rear wheels. A 0-62mph time of 4.7sec is promised, with top speed limited to 155mph. Driver modes accessible via the AMG steering wheel will enable the fine-tuning of various components, including the steering, three-stage adaptive dampers, throttle response and stability programme. Also contained within these driver modes is a new system that, in Sport and Sport+ modes, uses the…

‘The GT S is behind only the SL65 Black Series as AMG’s most potent model ever’ IT’S A MOMENTUM CAR, THE Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door. Not in the traditional keep-it-pinned, door handle-shaving sense of something modestly motivated such as a VW Up GTI, of course. More that as your two-ton bolide hurtles towards a hairpin, you’re momentarily conscious of just how much momentum you’re carrying and, by extension, how much you’ll have to lose in order to make that corner. The truth of the situation is a little more nuanced. You are carrying obscene amounts of speed and you do have to stand on the left-hand pedal a little sooner and for a little longer than you might in something with less meat on its bones. The difference is in the…

THIS IS AWKWARD. HOW CAN YOU objectively assess a car with your name emblazoned all over it? It’s a conflict of interests, surely? Fortunately we’re professionals here at evo, so we won’t be swayed by something as flattering as having our logo liberally applied to a limited-edition Lotus Elise. But if you still have any lingering doubts, it might help to point out that the model upon which this special edition is based – the regular Sport 220 – is already a five-star evo car and was awarded the Best Sports Car accolade in our 2017 eCoty issue. This evo Edition is in celebration of that fact and will be limited to just 15 examples. So, what have we got? evo logos adorning the wings, rear bumper and seat backrests,…

WE’VE GONE BACK TO OUR ROOTS FOR this year’s TCoty, shifting our focus away from the kind of extreme race cars we’ve sometimes featured in the past to concentrate on road-legal models. Why? Simply because there are now so many ‘mainstream’ (to use the term loosely) performance cars that have been designed to attack a track from the outset. This is good news for people like us, because these cars deliver a duality of purpose that means you can roll up to a trackday, enjoy as may laps as you desire, then slip off your helmet and drive home again. Sounds good, doesn’t it? For 2018’s test we’re at Rockingham for two days with 12 tempting contenders, covering every class of car and every price bracket. To make things even…

‘THIS IS NOT A CAR TO BE WASTED ON THE HUMDRUM OF THE DAILY COMMUTE’ I BET YOU STILL BELIEVE IN THE concept of the GT car. I know I do. Well, I want to, at any rate. I really, really want to. It’s a deeply romantic notion that lies at the very root of our love for performance cars and the driving of them: the freedom, setting your own pace away from the crowd, consuming miles with panache. Wouldn’t it be great to consign the entire horribleness that is modern commercial aviation to the skip and replace it with visions of deserted routes nationale, two columns of gently swaying trees stretching to the horizon in their own lethal organic Armco; roads where getting clocked at 150mph isn’t a crime…

ANOTHER DAY AND ANOTHER Octavia vRS joins our Fast Fleet. Skoda’s go-faster family car seems to be an almost permanent fixture at evo, not least because the model has one of the most varied line-ups on sale. Hatchback or estate, two- or four-wheel drive, manual or automatic, petrol or diesel – there’s a vRS for virtually every taste and budget. In fact it’s been over a year since we last had a vRS amongst the ranks, and during that time the Octavia has been refreshed. The car you see here is the new entry point to vRS ownership: a 227bhp petrol hatchback, priced at £25,690 basic. Options-wise we have a DSG gearbox (£1250, and the most common choice), an electric sunroof (because photographers demand it; £860), keyless entry (£405) and…

WITH THE EXCEPTIONALLY HOT weather this summer it’s been interesting to see the rear-mounted ‘bat wings’ on the Murciélago almost permanently in the raised position – something I’ve seen only very rarely in the UK. On past trips to warmer climes I’ve clocked that they usually rise up to aid cooling only when the outside temperature reaches about 29deg C. Travelling south during summer on the continent they invariably make an appearance when passing the French city of Lyon, staying raised from there on until reaching Lyon once again on the trip back. They certainly weren’t seen in action in beautiful but bitterly cold Norway, which is where I last reported on the Murciélago from (evo 249). I actually called time on that trip a day prematurely because the heater…

WITH OUR SCALES OUT OF THE store cupboard and set up to weigh the Mégane RS, Civic Type R and Golf R for the Supertest in evo 253, I took the opportunity to weigh my Rallye too. Back in issue 240 I weighed my Mazda Eunos (MX-5), which came in at 959kg with three-quarters of a tank but no spare wheel, no radio and no passenger seat; not bad against an official figure of 971kg. But I was really intrigued by the Rallye, a car that Peugeot quoted as being only 865kg back in 1998. And as the liquid crystals stopped flickering, I had the answer: 889kg, with a full tank of unleaded. That’s a remarkable 70kg lighter than the Mazda, despite the Peugeot having a proper roof, all that…

I’VE GOT A BIT OF A SOFT SPOT FOR Minis. At university my introduction to track driving was in one of the early-noughties BMW-era Cooper Challenge cars, and the first classic I ever drove was a rally-prepared 1965 Cooper S. I followed that up a couple of years later when I hired a late ’80s Mayfair lightly dressed up as a 1960s Cooper, with a bright-red carpet and some low-backed Cobra buckets. The talent of these cars wasn’t dynamic perfection, but democratised fun. You could spend as much or as little as you liked on a Mini, but even at its most unadorned the compact dimensions, modest weight and kart-like steering squeezed joy from the most mundane trips. Alongside a Caterham, it’s the only car that legitimately ‘handles like a…