Table of contents for April 2019 in Evo

WHAT MAKES A CAR A LEGEND? Are there any hard and fast rules to be adhered to? Is there an application process they must go through? Ultimately, who has the final say on what should and should not be classed as a legend? That’s an easy question to answer: you do. Cars are emotive objects. They mean different things to different people, and in my eyes, at least, there isn’t a wrong answer (although I would need a lot of convincing about the MGF). Whether you champion a Golf Rallye G60 as the greatest ever rally car, or McRae’s WRC97 Impreza as a rallying legend, it really doesn’t matter. If the mere thought of it quickens your heart rate or the slightest glimpse stops you dead in your tracks, it’s…

IN THE END, IT’S ALL ABOUT ONE LITTLE button. The one down between the LT’s flab-free, vice-like bucket seats; the trigger that operates the electrically powered roof mechanism, right? Nope. Well, not for me at least. For me it’s a different button. Yes, the provision to lower the LT’s roof will tempt many. It’s obvious why Spider versions of supercars are so popular, isn’t it? It’s that ability to combine immense performance with the sun’s unfiltered rays and the rush of sweet, fresh air battering the follicles at some illicit mach number. Not to mention that the supercar – and let’s be honest here – is an unmatched ego-boosting trinket for many, and if you can be seen to the outside world more easily, then that’s mission accomplished before you’ve…

MEET RAY, AT NO. 1 ACACIA CRESCENT, middle-Englandshire. Ray lives behind an entirely normaldoor, in an entirely normal village. It’sfairto say he doesn’t get out much, but one thing he does enjoy is a holiday once a year to America, or more specifically, Colorado Springs. Mountain climbing is his unlikely passion, see – he’s been twice, and the locals for some reason seem to know him on sight. The perilously thin air doesn’t affect his lungs much, but why would it, for Ray is not a slacks-wearing septuagenarian enduring retirement; Ray is a car. A thoroughly modernised evolution of the most ferocious Audi ever conceived. Ray has nearly 1000bhp. Of all the incredible vehicles built in homes across the British Isles, this must be one of the most ambitious and…

IT’S RARE THAT A CAR MANUFACTURER passes up an opportunity to celebrate an old stager with an all-new model, but 2019, the 50th anniversary of Nissan’s ‘Z-car’, will be gone before the now decade-old 370Z is succeeded. The brawny, naturally aspirated Z is an anachronism in the new car market, but when its great-grandfather appeared in 1969 it was fresh, modern, and an instant, stellar success. Born and bred in the USA, the original S30-generation Z-car remains one of the most desirable Japanese models to this day, a darling of collectors and drivers alike. It is Japan’s 911. Yet the 240Z was seen as a bit of a risk at the time. Its success can be traced back to Yutaka Katayama, who became responsible for sales of Nissan cars under…

THERE ARE MANY BENEFITS OF A lightweight car and the stock Alpine demonstrates most of them, from enhanced performance and economy to a lack of dynamic inertia and the option of a supple, lithe, long-travel ride. Up the engine output and the effects seem greater, too. Litchfield’s remap of the A110’s 1.8-litre in-line four boosts power from 249 to 296bhp and torque from 236 to 290lb ft. Healthy gains, and their effect is enhanced by the Alpine’s low 1103kg kerb weight; its power-to-weight goes from 229bhp per ton, which is a fraction better than the base Porsche Cayman’s 225, to 273bhp per ton – more than that of the Cayman S (259). Getting back into an A110 after not driving one for a while, you can’t help being struck first…

CAN LESS REALLY BE MORE? WE’VE already driven the flagship 630bhp Mercedes-AMG GT63 S 4-Door (evo 254), and it’s a fine thing, but take a look at the numbers and you’ll discover that its £14,200 premium over the 577bhp ‘entry-level’ model doesn’t buy you a massive increase in performance. Want examples? Well, the standard GT 4-Door is only two-tenths slower to 62mph, taking a hardly shabby 3.4sec, while top speed is lower by 3mph, meaning you’ll run out of steam at ‘just’ 193mph. OK, so there’s a bit more to it than that. For instance, the basic 63 lacks the S’s Dynamic Plus package, which brings active engine mounts, the Race driver mode and the hooliganish Drift mode. Oh, and not only is it down on power, it’s also 74lb…

IN A STRANGE SORT OF WAY THE latest entry-level Porsche Macan is a spiritual successor to the firm’s 914 and 924 models. Yes, it’s a world away conceptually, but what it does share with those ’70s sportsters is a heart that’s pure VW – in the Macan’s case the venerable 2-litre turbocharged EA888 from the Golf GTI. While the 242bhp unit isn’t the most charismatic, it’s smooth, unobtrusive and blessed with a meaty torque curve, with 273lb ft all yours from just 1600rpm. Combined with the seven-speed PDK gearbox it makes for surprisingly swift progress (6.7sec to 62mph), even when you’re simply stroking it along (you can rev it out to near 7000rpm, but such is the mid-range twist and the bland engine note there’s no real point). Point-to-point there’s…

I’M FEELING A LITTLE BEREFT AT THE moment; a little lost. For the first time in seven months there’s not a Caterham in my life. I tried to hold on to it for as long as possible (the loan was supposed to be for six months), but in the end I ran out of excuses, and hiding places. ‘Our’ Seven was, and still is to my mind, the perfect spec, the 310R packing just enough power and grip for both fun on the road and composure on the track. No one dynamic force unbalanced the other, making it a hoot to drive whatever the occasion. Unlike many examples, which spend much of their time nestled away in covered storage, like a working dog our Seven lived outside, facing the full…

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME HEADLIGHTS have been mentioned in these pages in recent months, or indeed this month, but it’s for a good reason: we’ve entered an age where more and more cars are being equipped with set-ups that offer beams so bright that the need to squint ahead into a half-light has been entirely eradicated. This is particularly useful when you’re talking about a car with over 400bhp, as I got to appreciate on a recent late-evening cross-country run along a couple of my favourite B-roads. Long story short, I found myself having my best drive yet in the M2. I don’t think I can ever recall having a ‘best drive’ at night before, but BMW’s optional (£790) ‘Icon’ adaptive LED units made it possible. Rather than what…

THANKS TO EXTENDED SERVICE intervals and the increase in six-month (rather than twelve-month) loan periods from manufacturers, I can’t remember the last time I took a long-term test car for any kind of routine maintenance. But when the Up’s ‘oil service’ indicator began to bing whenever I turned the ignition on, I was forced to sniff out my local VW dealership and give them a call. Much against my pessimistic instincts the whole process was super-slick and extremely professional. Right from the first phone call the staff at Robinsons Volkswagen Peterborough were courteous and helpful, offering me a while-you-wait service slot at my convenience. The check-in process was simplicity itself, and I was quickly ushered to an office booth in the showroom where I could do a bit of work.…

WE’RE LIVING THROUGH A GOLDEN era for hot hatchbacks. Ford has hit it out of the park with the last two Fiesta STs, Honda’s Civic Type R is remarkable on road and on track, and Hyundai has appeared from seemingly nowhere with one of the most entertaining front-drivers on the roads, while Peugeot’s recent efforts have felt like a rekindling of its ’80s and ’90s heyday. And then there’s Volkswagen. The Up GTI was one of 2018’s bargains… if you could get hold of one, with year-long waiting lists at launch a symptom of its £14k affordability and GTI cachet. Stylish, eminently useable and amusingly brisk, nothing else at its price point delivers as much good old-fashioned entertainment. The less said about the Polo GTI the better, but Volkswagen’s other…

‘TORR-MEH.’ ‘TORR.’ ‘MEH.’ ‘TORR-MEH!’ Here comes the red car. I’m not known for my vocal impressions and my Colin McRae ‘turn’ encompasses just that one word, the Christian name of his most formidable rival. Any more and this ‘Lanarkshire’ accent traverses three entire continents in five words, and even an Evo can’t cover ground at that rate. From my roadside vantage point in the motionless P1 I can see most of this Welsh valley stretching out before me, and what was a little red dot moments earlier is rapidly gaining in size. Suddenly it’s cresting the nearest rise on this cruelly demanding road, the surface constantly pitching up and down in amplitude like a rug that’s been tripped over in front of the fireplace. other until the last agonising droplet…

‘At 4000rpm the engine note hardens to that classic air-cooled howl and the car digs in and goes’ ‘I’M A BIT OF A PERFECTIONIST,’ EXPLAINS Paul Stephens as he carefully scrutinises the engine bay of his Le Mans Classic Clubsport for any blemishes. From where I’m standing I can only agree, because the air-cooled, dry-sumped flat-six looks flawless, the green blades of the cooling fan grabbing your attention almost as much as the individual billet throttle bodies that are topped by a 996 GT3 plenum. Then there are the internals of the 3.4-litre unit (taken out from 3.2), which include Mahle pistons and barrels, a lightened and balanced crankshaft and con rods, ’73 RS-specification cams, electronic ignition and a programmable ECU. All in, it develops 300bhp, which is useful rather…

HYBRID VEHICLES HAVE BEEN around for more than two decades, but in that time very few manufacturers have committed to making ones that are genuinely fun to drive. The latest Lexus RC coupe (£38,800), revised with a more cohesive nose, trim improvements, steering and suspension tweaks and new tyres, could be the car to change that. It’s rear-wheel drive for a start, and the 2.5-litre hybrid powertrain develops a combined 220bhp, with the electric motor alone contributing 221lb ft of torque. There’s also double-wishbone suspension at the front and a multi-link rear, and when you climb inside you’re ensconced in fantastically comfortable and supportive seats, with the wheel and pedals just where you’d want them. At a moderate pace the RC 300h is quiet, swift and handles fluently, with accurate…

IT WAS AN ENLIGHTENING TIME, PUTTING the MX-5 into service as transport over Christmas and the New Year. Storage space, although titchy on paper, proved just about commodious enough for a week’s worth of luggage for one, plus pressies and other general tat. My holiday-period location was in much closer proximity to decent driving roads than my usual digs, providing the perfect opportunity to get to know the Mazda’s full repertoire a little better. And it was while doing so that the engine started to show its real capability. As I mentioned last month, the 2-litre’s recalcitrant attitude has steadily ebbed away as the miles have piled on, and we expect it’ll only get better. But it’s the MX-5’s handling that’s now in the spotlight – and not for all…

THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY’S definition of ‘mundane’ is ‘lacking interest or excitement; dull’. It could also say ‘having to walk around Ikea looking for furniture’, which is an activity that has dominated my weekends of late thanks to me moving into a new property. Luckily the Stelvio is far from dull and keeps me entertained between trips to this Mecca of all things flat-packed, and often on the journey there too. It’s also pretty handy when it comes to transporting your purchases home. With the back seats pulled down, the available space can swallow-up a healthy stack of full cardboard boxes, which inevitably return to the same space a few hours later, now empty, for their trip to the recycling centre. It was here that, much to my surprise, the…

‘The 993 was making hard work of keeping up with a Nissan Qashqai’ I RECEIVED SOME SCARY NEWS RECENTLY whilst the 993 was in for a service. One of the offside rear control arm bolts was hanging on by its last thread and could have come loose. This certainly did not inspire confidence in the rest of the new suspension recently fitted by Design 911 (evo 234). After asking some friends if they could suggest a company who could check over and correctly set up my car’s suspension, the name that kept coming back was Center Gravity in Atherstone, Warwickshire. It seems they are go-to guys for car geometry, especially when it comes to 911s, so I made an appointment and headed over early one morning to meet technician Pete…

WHAT IS IT ABOUT SMALL, BRIGHTLY coloured Japanese cars that seems to get a certain type of British car enthusiast stirred up? The Swift Sport was one of last year’s most anticipated launches, and this year Suzuki has once again grabbed the headlines in other areas of the motoring press with its all-new Jimny, launched in – you guessed it – a particularly punchy chartreuse yellow. Most car manufacturers who aren’t launching an all-new hypercar can only dream about this level of coverage, but it’s something Suzuki seems to have mastered. How does it do it? Contrast, it seems, and not just of the paintwork. The Jimny stands apart from its affordale 4x4 SUV rivals – in fact what even are its rivals? – and has certainly enjoyed sales success…

AFTER LAST MONTH’S BUMPER AND wheel repairs, life with the superwagon has returned to vaguely normal – bar another wretched puncture, although this time it could be repaired, thankfully. We just don’t seem to have had much luck on the Fast Fleet with tyres in recent months. Anyway, editor Stuart Gallagher borrowed the car again the other day, and while he had it sent me a message to the tune of: ‘Had a good drive in really wet conditions today and can’t think of much that would have coped better, or been faster. Is this the car’s USP?’ It made me think again, I must say, about where the RS4 really sits in my affections. As regular readers will know, we really like our RS4, we just haven’t fallen madly…

FROM 1972 TO 1986 AND ACROSS 53 INDIVIDUAL chassis numbers, the John Player Special tobacco brand revolutionised sports marketing and also adorned some of the most iconic racing machines ever to be produced. With the launch of a new book on the subject – Black & Gold, The Story of the John Player Specials by Johnny Tipler – supported by a gathering of 15 JPS Formula 1 cars at the new Classic Team Lotus HQ at Hethel, Norfolk, we talk to Clive Chapman, son of visionary Lotus founder Colin, about the cars that mean the most to him. Lotus 72 chassis no. 5 1970-1975 The JPS livery debuted in 1972, although the car that sported it, the Type 72, had already been racing since 1970, when Team Lotus’s lead driver,…

IT’S MORE THAN 40 YEARS SINCE THE GOLF GTI first sent the established sports car set into a tailspin, its mix of pace, poise, practicality and price making the traditional roadster fodder look antiquated overnight. Now in its seventh-and-a-bit generation, the current GTI is signing off with the TCR, which is a very nice thing indeed. But is it the very best Golf GTI? Probably not. We think there are a couple of others that get closer to earning that accolade, which is why I’m fending off frostbite on a snowy Welsh hillside as a large lorry slowly disgorges a Clubsport S and Mk5 GTI, each as brilliantly white as the landscape surrounding them. I know what you’re thinking: what about the rest? Well, the Mk1 was a genuine game-changer,…

A MOONLESS SUNDAY EVENING, HEADING FOR Rhayader, mid-Wales, on roads that the satnav system has chosen. They’re new to me but, as ever, I’m taking the predicted ETA as a target time to beat. (Don’t we all?) It’s a challenge the Fiesta ST is up for; it’s so willing, so grippy. The character of the route changes frequently and at times the little Ford flows beautifully, dissecting the road with an economy of effort that makes me grin. The Fiesta was the working-class hero of our recent evo Car of the Year contest (issue 257), a car that seemed as honed and focused as the supercars it was up against, but at a fraction of the price. I got to take it home afterwards and have since put another 5000…

ARE YOU THE KIND OF PERSON WHO IS torn between the idea of a hot hatchback and a fast estate, and wishes there was something in-between? The size of that demographic is debatable, but what is certain is that they will be delighted by the arrival of the new ProCeed range, crowned by this GT model. Following on from the third-generation hatch and Sportswagon Ceeds introduced last year, the ProCeed (note the dropping of the grammarian’s nightmare ‘pro_cee’d’ stylisation) occupies the hinterland between the two. Sitting on the same platform as its siblings, it is nonetheless the longest and lowest of the three whilst providing boot space close to that of the Sportswagon. Taking a different tack from its three-door-hatchback predecessor, the new ProCeed bears at least some resemblance to…

POPPING UP TO CLEETHORPES TO SEE my folks after Christmas on a crisp, clear day, there was only one choice of route – cross-country. From near Peterborough there are a few options early on, but the key part of the drive remains the same, and that’s over the Lincolnshire Wolds beyond Horncastle, past Cadwell Park. It’s a journey I’ve made in many cars over the years and it’s entertaining in anything and enthralling in something very powerful. The Fiesta – three-up – was somewhere in the middle, having the legs to deal decisively with dolly danglers across the vast, flat Lincolnshire plains that stretch from Sleaford to Horncastle, and then really feeling at home on the twisty bits over the Wolds. When the roads are dry and warm(ish) the little…

SO MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. UNLESS we’re talking about my MX-5, which has barely left my garage since February 2018. It has recently emerged, however, the reason for which I’ll get to in a moment. But first I should mention a few changes that were made to the car before and during its hibernation. The ‘before’ changes involved a trip to Blink Motorsport in Cheshire. I’d been mulling over a couple of very minor engine upgrades to try to enliven the 1.6-litre motor, and also some stiffer bushings in preparation for more comprehensive chassis changes further down the line. One of Blink’s engine tweaks involves optimising the ignition timing and making changes to the air flow meter to account for the motor’s tendency to run rich (and therefore…

IT’S FAIR TO SAY 2018 WASN’T A VINTAGE year for world events, but if there was anything to enjoy it was the UK’s long, hot summer. I’m sure there’s a sinister environmental subtext to persistent sunshine that wouldn’t have looked out of place in southern Spain, but it certainly took the sting out of whatever soul-crushing news story had broken that day. Better still, the winter got off to a mild start too, making driving during its early weeks a rare pleasure. The flip side was that when the roads did eventually turn cold and damp, they took on the frictional properties of wet soap, which highlighted one of the GT86’s major deficiencies. It first manifests itself as a surprising lack of traction, even when the roads are virtually dry.…