f6u d

CZINGER 21C: flat out in the w orld’s first 3D-printed hypercar

OCTOBER 2021

Nissan Qa s Ford Pumhqai Tesla Mod a Vauxhall C el 3 o VW Golf rsa F

ive sale Five TG tes juggernauts sts or reject to approve them!

£5.25

ARE BRITAIN’S BESTSELLERS ANY GOOD? Chris Harris on the Polestar 1

The genius of Valentino Rossi

Tesla Model S Plaid decoded

Why he’s never driven a hybrid... until now

Suzi Perry profiles the MotoGP megastar

Marques Brownlee on his new car. Biased? Nah

NEW 508 PIONEERING PERFORMANCE AGAIN 360 hp – CO₂ From 46 g/km* – All Wheel Drive

Official Fuel Consumption in MPG (l/100km) and CO₂ emissions (g/km) for the new 508 PEUGEOT SPORT ENGINEERED range are: Combined N/A – 138.9 (0.0 - 2.0) and CO₂ 0 - 46 g/km.

The fuel consumption or electric range achieved, and CO₂ produced, in real world conditions will depend upon a number of factors including, but not limited to: the accessories fitted (pre and post registration); the starting charge of the battery (PHEV only); variations in weather; driving styles and vehicle load. The plug-in hybrid range requires mains electricity for charging. The WLTP (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure) is used to measure fuel consumption, electric range and CO₂ figures. Figures shown are for comparison purposes and should only be compared to the fuel consumption, electric range and CO₂ values of other cars tested to the same technical standard. The figures displayed for the plug-in hybrid range were obtained using a combination of battery power and fuel. *Figures shown are for the new 508 PEUGEOT SPORT ENGINEERED. Information correct at time of going to print.

Visit peugeot.co.uk for further details.

GET YOUR FIX

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Ed i to r @jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com

If you’re finding it hard to get to the shops

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then order your next copy online

y wife has a problem. Well, two if you count me. She finds ordering at a restaurant disproportionately stressful and will often change her mind at the very last moment, just before our waiter falls asleep standing up, to go for the same thing as me. I’m flattered if I’m honest, what do I care if she wants the gnocchi too? And I get it, there’s safety in numbers, comfort in following the herd, solace in knowing that if you’ve made a terrible decision you’re not the only one who’s going to look like an idiot.

And so it is with cars, where being a bestseller perpetuates bestseller status. How else can you explain the Vauxhall Corsa being near the top of the sale charts for decades, despite wild fluctuations in quality from one model generation to another? This got us thinking, whether the cars we can’t get enough of in the UK are any, y’know, good?

First job: break them down into chart toppers from the most popular categories. Second job: test them. Not on sweeping mountain roads with postcard views, or at a racetrack, but in the real-life situations these cars were made for... albeit blown out of all proportion. Because nobody wants to see us actually parking a VW Golf, they want to see two grown men in romper suits fighting over parking spaces at Tesco. That’s common sense. The verdict?

By and large, we Brits aren’t as stupid as recent global events would lead you to believe.

Well, I say that, but there’s clearly something in the Malvern water supply, because Morgan has out of nowhere produced the silliest car of 2021 – a Dakar-inspired Plus Four.

That’s like trying to flog a pair of steel toe cap slippers. Fortunately, Ollie Marriage had the opportunity to give it a thorough thrashing and can confirm that while the pricetag is loopy, the CX-T isn’t in fact madness, just British eccentricity at its best. It might even help to make future Morgans better cars.

And the final word for Suzi Perry’s brilliant profile on Valentino Rossi, who’ll be hanging up his leathers at the end of this season. I wanted someone with a personal relationship with this god-on-two-wheels to try to articulate why his influence transcends sport, why he’s a hero to so many and whether he deserves genius status. Suzi’s answer is emphatic, her writing a breath of fresh air and my respect for Vale’s achievements now as unequivocal as his talent.

Enjoy the issue,

“THERE’S SAFETY IN NUMBERS, COMFORT IN FOLLOWING THE HERD”

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# E N T E R T A I N M E N T

# C A R C U L T U R E

# C E L E B R I T Y

# G A D G E T S

# G A M I N G

E V E R Y O NE I S TA L K I N G A B O U T

PORSCHE’S SILENT ASSASSIN Meet the Mission R – a bespoke 1,037bhp e-racer that points the way to an all-electric Cayman

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30 mins racing, 15 mins charging.

It won’t wins Le Mans, but it’ll scare a GT3 Cup car

P

orsche is planning on its own customer electric race series from 2025. And this is the concept for the car: the Mission R. Well, you might have expected as much from the makers of the Taycan, competitor in Formula E and LMP1 hybrids.

The Mission R makes no excuses. No need for short races, or battery swaps. They say it’ll do the equivalent length race to a 911 Carrera Cup round, which is 30 or 40 minutes depending on the type of circuit.

And the lap times will be faster, matching the current 911 GT3 Cup. They won’t spend long plugged in in the pitlane. Battery recharge time to 80 per cent is just 15 minutes, using a special 350kW charge unit each team would take to the track. That’s basically a second huge battery. The car equivalent of a mobile phone power bank, if you like.

Serious kit then.

It gets even more intriguing when it comes to the design. Usually Porsche’s customer racecars start out as production bodyshells. Not here. The Mission R is the product of the design department and the GT race department working together.

There’s no production car analogue.

Well, not yet. We know Porsche is close to deciding on whether to make the next Boxster/Cayman an electric car. The Mission R is Cayman sized. Surely there could be a connection. Is this the new Cayman in disguise? At this point in the interview the designers go quiet. Except, says Ingo Bauer-Scheinhütte, who’s head of advanced exterior design at Porsche, “You will see elements of this in future production cars.”

The Mission R is a nuggety little thing. Bauer-Scheinhütte calls it “an end to the arms race where everything is bigger and heavier”.

He points to the low bonnet, fast roofline and muscly haunches, and then concedes that “all Porsches have those, you’ve heard it a million times”. So he launches into the loving details.

First, the roll cage is carbon fibre, and instead of being wedged inside the roof pillars, it forms the roof support itself, like an exoskeleton. That saves weight and space, making the car lower overall. OK, carbon roll cages are illegal at the moment, so he concedes they’ll have to negotiate with the FIA, or change it.

Next the cutaway areas behind each wheel, and the louvres. All very purposeful. A drag

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reduction system is aimed, as it’s an EV, more at cutting resistance than increasing top speed.

The front lights are Porsche’s usual quartet formation, but instead of a glass cover they have vents to cool the LEDs. The rear light strip embodies 3D Porsche lettering, and forms the rear spoiler.

Inside, the seat pads are 3D printed to match each driver’s backside. The displays and main switches populate the steering wheel. Cleverly, the helmet holder incorporates a dryer and disinfecting agent. Very post-pandemic.

Here’s the post-petroleum spec. It has a staggering 1,073bhp (or 800kW) in qualifying trim. For a half-hour race it would run at 600bhp or so. Still pretty handy with an overall weight of 1,500kg. It’s AWD: they say it could be as fast with just a rear motor. The main job of the front one is to allow four-wheel regenerative braking, so it can race for longer before going flat. The motors are essentially Taycan Turbo S jobs, but uprated thanks to running at 900V instead of 800V, and oil cooled to save them from meltdown at that higher stress.

The battery, weighing 150kg, sits behind the driver, hence the visual proportions of a mid-engined car. They’re confident of the performance numbers, having had factory hot shoes Lars Kern and Timo Bernhard testing a mule. And by 2025 they expect a new generation of batteries that’ll be able to improve range, or alternatively cut weight for the same range.

Officially, Porsche’s line is that an electric platform for customer racing is another logical step into a sustainable future of motorsport.

Or, in the designer’s words: “We will find a way to realise a car such as this.” Paul Horrell

FA I L O F T H E C E N T U R Y # 9 6

COFFEE BREAK

SUBARU B9 TRIBECA

What we’re watching/ listening/doing, while we should be working

C

onsider, just for a moment, the sheer number of people involved in getting a new car from drawing board to the road.

Engineers, designers, accountants, technicians: hundreds of lavishly qualified, lavishly skilled humans, doubtless educated at the globe’s finest institutions, bringing literally centuries of combined experience to the table.

Consider, as that new car makes its slow journey to production, how many meetings must take place to ensure that what’s being created is a fine, desirable, competent motor vehicle, and not, for example, a gurning, wallowing abomination of an SUV bearing the face of a beaver deeply shamed by his new moustache. Consider how many opportunities exist for any one of those qualified, talented employees to say, “Um, hang on a second guys. Is it possible we’re making an utter cowpat here?”

And consider, finally, that once everything’s done, several highly paid company bosses must cast their eyes over the finished product before signing it off with a flourish. “That’s it, that’s the one, cast-iron hit. Order the yacht, honey, this year’s bonus is gonna be a cracker!”

Consider all that, and then attempt to understand quite how the Subaru B9 Tribeca (total United Kingdom sales: 746, literally what was any one of those buyers thinking) ever reached production. And this, wise reader, is why the human race is ultimately doomed.

No Time To Die Finally, no really, finally. Bond returns 30 September in the UK. A wait that has been excruciating for 007 fans.

You’ve all bought your TG Bond Cars book in the meantime though, right?

Foo Fighters @ The Hammers Tickets have gone on sale for the return of the Foos to the London stadium in June 2022. Moyes on backing vocals?

TopGear magazine fix You can download the latest edition and back issues direct to your phone or tablet from the App Store. Because when life gives you lemons... settle in and read TG

Schumacher, Netflix

Candyman Slasher-horror gets a 2021 remake.

Written by Jordan Peele of Get Out and Us fame, this promises to be a film that brings back the fear of the bogeyman in the mirror and will ensure you never look at your reflection ever again...

I M AG E : M A N U FAC T U R E R

Released 15 September, this documentary about Michael promises to show an intimate view of the icon rarely seen. Rejected titles may include I Am Legend and The Red Schus

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ctable e l l o c and Unique seen y l n o – covers ibers r c s b u s by our ntee a r a u g back Money el at c n a c an – you c e any tim

x very si e 5 1 £ t Pay jus ving 49% on , sa issues price* p o h s l a the usu g car n i l l e s t t s bes d direc e Britain’ r e v i l ine de magaz door to your Y SIMPL : Y S A SE BING I I R C S SUB

NE O ONLI G R O C ALL

1 2 0 1 P G T / m o c . s n o i t p i r c s b u s y bu **

0

0 3 1 2 6 1 0 3 3 3

21

TGP10 e t o u and q

d lcu la te a re ca li c of vings b a u s p ll e A R 1. e a nd a ny e r 2 02 Eu ro p a rt of Oc to b : £63 / d as p d s 13 s e n e d e u s lu r in c ffe 12 is ri ce. O pti o n . n d a re hop p r 02) a u bscri sua l s g 01 o f the s u in o e rt th rm ta (s te on ot the te. m be rs r ce nt a nd n r m in u ne nu 49 pe 5p pe fixed li issu es aving 5 s f rd d o – n a r s a d e n b p ue e r sta een 3 six iss e num as oth eve ry n o u r th st betw sa m e ay £15 wil l co wil l h o e p s e l th e il t w n s w , y u co ho quenc b il e p lls wil l il it y. Yo U K ca e in fre om mo va il a b $115. ** rg es fr c t to a ch a n g A : r a je d h e b n c u rd ll o a a la is s azin e g es , c ew Ze ly a n d e mag and N pa cka es o n e ca ll stra li a d ress o u ld th e u h d fr S A a f . / o e ry 4 e ri c 10 live O u tsid hop p a : U S$ UK de anad ta ri ff ). e fu ll s rs . e n to hone and C g hou e of th p r is o p A in g r e S n u ff ta U e o n o / p y e 4 o y rc 11 b e $ e *Th is : ic d p d rv re o rl u nded (i f offe m e r se f the W as a ro a n ces r custo Res t o ta c t fo s a ll ow : €76 / n te d o u n c / in la om Ire free m ti o ns .c ive o r bscri p in clus b u ys u it is v e Pleas

DR: I spent the summer break over in LA, and there’s nothing I love more than getting out into nature. The walk up this mountain was pretty tiring, but the view from the top was awesome.

LN: Spent some quality time with my bro over the summer. It’s always nice to get away for a bit, really helps to recharge the batteries and get ready for the second half of the season.

DR: Getting back to F1 for my 200th Grand Prix at Spa. I can’t say that’s how I imagined the weekend going, with the race being called off after a few laps because of the rain. Rubbish for the fans.

BEHIND THE SCENES

LANDO & DANNY’S F1 DIARY

LN: Not how I expected to be spending my afternoon on race day in Spa. We really wanted to put on a good show but the rain was just too heavy. Gutted.

DR: Catching up with mates in the USA, two-legged and four. I was very happy to see her, she doesn’t look as pleased.

McLaren’s dynamic duo pull back the curtain on the life of an elite driver

DR: If I wasn’t an F1 driver, I’d have been a motocross rider. Getting the bike out in the summer was a great way to unwind.

DR: Trying to keep warm while waiting for the rain to pass. We only get a 10 minute warning to tell us the race will resume, so you’ve gotta stay ready.

LN: Testing my golf skills against the best.

And Zak. Awesome to play with Justin Rose. I’d like to say I won, but I’d be lying.

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VAUXHALL CORSA

C L AS S : S U P E R M I N I // C A R : VAU X H A L L C O R SA // TAS K : L E A R N I N G TO D R I V E

How much is it possible for a novice to learn in a day in Britain’s most popular learner motor?

WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE

PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

UNDER £5,000

RE SER V O IR H Y DR O SP HERE Reservoir is best known for rev counter style watches, but this new one is inspired by a diving pressure gauge. Minutes are told by a retrograde hand, with the hour indicated by a jumping digit at what would normally be six o’clock. Bronze case, limted to 50 pieces. reservoir-watch.com; £4,600

AROUND £1,000

ME I S T ER S INGER NE O The German company specialises in single-hand watches, basing its business model on the idea that enough people have had enough of rushing around and don’t want to always count the minutes. A large face with five-minute graduations on the dial means you can tell time accurately enough. meistersinger.com; £1,090

BLOW THE BUDGE T UNDER £100 B UL G A R I GÉR A L D GEN TA In watchmaking circles the name Gérald Genta is uttered with the reverence that a car nut might hold for Enzo Ferrari or Gordon Murray. Prior to his death in

L UC H ONE-H A ND WAT C H

2011 his company was acquired by Bulgari, and the watch pictured here pays

If you thought a fancy face was just for the fancy

tribute to Genta’s design legacy. Under the hood, the Arena Bi-Retro Sport

people, think again. Minsk-based Luch sells one-

watch has a mechanical in-house movement, but the centrepiece is the

handers for such a small amount that you wonder if

retrograde minute hand, which rises from zero to 60 before snapping back to

you have miscalculated the exchange rate from

the beginning at the top of the hour. The hour is indicated by a jumping digit at

Belarusian roubles. With 38mm stainless steel case

the top, and the date with another hand at the bottom. bulgari.com; £13,100

and hand wound mechanical movement. luch.by; £68

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FORD PUMA

CYCLING So cards on the table, this was my favourite hobby of the day. If you’ve got the £200 optional roof bars fitted, a Thule ProRide bike holder for just over £100 will handle pretty much any bike. It’ll need to be relatively light, mind, seeing as you have to lift it onto the roof to secure it. Not a problem in this case, seeing as we managed to get hold of an absolutely gorgeous Canyon Spectral 29 LTD trailbike.

With a carbon frame, it only weighs just over 13kg, and the ‘Triple Phase’ rear fully adjustable suspension looks suspiciously like a four-link to me. Couple that with Fox Racing shocks, and you’ve basically got the Trophy Truck of mountain bikes. Which is pertinent to my interests. It’s got a pneumatic seatpost which can be adjusted for height on the fly and a gearset that looks like the innards of a Swiss watch. But the best bit? I never realised how much difference a really good bike makes to ease of use. Offroad humps and bumps? You can style them out every time, and keep up with a badly driven Ford Puma on a farm track.

In fact, the only fly in the ointment is that it lists at £6,499...

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T HE G O OD There are going to be some truly epic group tests in the next year or so.

Bolide / Valkyrie AMR Pro / Gordon Murray T.50S anyone?

Andrew_Robinson

They just made my dream come true. Insane Aron

You would almost think they might be going for a future Le Mans entrance... maybe, if we’re lucky!

Alex

What an absolutely absurd machine, I love it TBP

T HE B A D

Hideous Magnus Oxer

Another pointless supercar which only a few ultra-rich will buy David Remmington Hopefully they actually prove its capabilities otherwise it’s quite pointless, we need some good last hurrahs before the world goes pretty silent

Bob Bobby Bobson

IT MAY BE FAST BUT IT’S RIDICULOUS LOOKING

T HE UGLY Highly disappointed that they lost their balls and chopped 200hp off the engine all the way back to the standard Chiron SS spec

Paul Esthète

That’s one solid looking banana WA Sim EVERY BORING, LOW-RENT VW, SKODA OR SEAT SOLD PUTS MONEY INTO THE POT TO BUILD THIS RUBBISH OR PAY DIESEL CHEATING FINES

FluffyTeeth

David Bussabarger

Not a hope in hell it’s going anywhere near 300mph with that wing Stephen Blyth

COMMENT S

BUGATTI

I BET IT COSTS A MILLION A YEAR TO OWN. THEY CAN KEEP IT Jacque Langston

Yiannimize will end up wrapping one a stupid colour

issue, Halfords will remap for £99 Richard Docherty

L

ast year, Bugatti showed us what the ultimate iteration of its hypercars could look like. The Bolide was a design study and 1,824bhp track special that melted our poor little minds. And now it’s real. Or at least will be soon. Bugatti is making 40 of them, sold at €4m apiece (around £3.5m) with deliveries scheduled for 2024.

It’s a bit of a change from Bugatti’s usual ‘heavy but fast’ philosophy. It’s still very quick, though not quite as quick as

first promised. That mighty power figure was yielded with 110 RON fuel, and we don’t dare ask where you’d get that from. Plug in the 98 RON stuff you get from most UK petrol stations and the quad-turbo W16 pumps out 1,578bhp.

The Bolide is described as “the ultimate driving machine for track”, and weighs a scant 1,450kg. Golf GTI levels of mass are totally acceptable with 1,600bhp providing motive force, we’d vehemently argue. Stephen Dobie

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It might be the first V6 Ferrari since the Dino, but the downsized 296 GTB dares you to call it entry level WORDS PAUL HORRELL PHOTOGRAPHY STEFFEN JAHN

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I start with a spot of sheep herding.

Trickier than it looks, especially when two stand their ground, presumably as bemused by what’s doing the herding as I am to be doing it. By midday bemusement has given way to amusement. At the end I look as though I’ve had a vigorous dust bath during which elephants have gustily hosed me with powdery silt, an experience I seem to have thoroughly enjoyed. No seem about it, I did.

Although what ‘it’ is, is an altogether tougher nugget to crack. Definitely, as we shall discover, an endangered species. But not one that should ever be cooped up and simply ogled. Well adapted for its environment, too.

Although I think even Darwin would struggle to identify which branch of the evolutionary tree this particular leaf sprang into life from.

But as is ever the case, a peer back towards the dawn of time holds the answers. The dawn of automotive time that is, when Morgan was already well established and something called ‘trialling’ was what got its owners’ pipes huffing like steam trains. These were events designed to test a car’s robustness and durability, and as the machines became more reliable, so the tests got more challenging: mud and ruts, rock crawl, grassy slopes. A veritable run through Land Rover’s Terrain Response system.

Trialling is still around if you look hard enough, and accounts for the T of this Morgan CX-T. And no, CX isn’t some confounded twist on cross country, but instead refers to the aluminium chassis that underpins all new four-wheeled Morgans. This one is based on a regular Plus Four, complete with its BMW-sourced 2.0-litre turbo and six-speed manual gearbox. But that doesn’t really explain why, having spent 80 years swirling through a wormhole, trialling has suddenly popped this Morgan into existence.

A sketch on the wall. That’s what’s to blame. A design team doodle was spotted by one of Morgan’s investors in the studio, he liked the look of it and put Morgan in touch with a firm called Rally Raid UK. It’s run by Mike ‘Beady’ Jones and Paul Round, who between them have done something like 25 Dakar races, the company specialising in prepping cars for overland expedition races. Trialling, but on a global scale.

Rally Raid UK is very handy with welding and off-roading, but not even it could get a Morgan to abide

by Dakar regulations. Instead this car is for “overland adventure”. You don’t have to have it kitted out like this.

You could swap out the spare tyres, sand ladders and fuel cans for mountain bike or ski racks, stick a roof tent on top alongside your kayak. It’s up to you. The steel exoskeleton means the CX-T is basically a mobile pannier rack.

Beady, a talker so straight you could use him as a plumb line, tells me all the regular Plus Four’s deficiencies and

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EIGHTIES HEROES

V OL K S WA GEN GOL F G T I MK I I (1990)

LESS THAN £5K

R EM EM B ER IN G

RETRO GAMING

#32

TH E C LA S S IC S

MEGARACE PC/3DO/SEGA CD, 1993 P ORSCHE 9 4 4 (1998)

LESS THAN £10K

You can’t control when inspiration strikes, so it must have been a blessing and a curse when Cryo Interactive came up with a concept for a grand sci-fi racing game in 1993, a time when most home computers could barely render your family finances spreadsheet.

Instead of the development team attempting to construct a full, Blade Runner-esque dystopian cityscape out of the four or so polygons available to them, they instead landed upon a cunning plan. Rather than real-time 3D graphics, the swooping, sweeping circuits would actually be a much higher quality pre-rendered CGI video, with the car sprites overlaid on top. Your accelerator acted less like pressing a gas pedal and more like fast forwarding a VHS copy of The Lawnmower Man. Against all the odds MegaRace played pretty well, particularly as this was less about expertly clipping apexes and more about

MERCEDE S 190E C O S W OR T H (1985)

LESS THAN £15K

strafing your fellow racers with machine gun fire. As the “enforcer” your goal was to chase down and eliminate the “pack leader” of a “vicious speed gang”. All things that we’re sure sounded desperately cool back in the early Nineties.

Tying the whole thing together is a futuristic reality TV show conceit, anchored by purposefully odious live-action TV presenter Lance Boyle, whose truly awful sense of humour is matched only by his atrocious dress sense. His sole purpose appears to be to preload you with road rage before the race has even started.

It’s all good clean fun, though. The game takes great pains to make clear that all this futuristic televised bloodsport stuff takes place in virtual reality and that the contestants only have to deal with the psychological damage of getting smeared across the asphalt on some distant planet. And let’s be honest, that’s probably still less traumatic than getting dumped on Love Island. Mike Channell

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CAR NE W S

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE..

RENAULT MEGANE E-TECH ELECTRIC A handful of facts on Renault’s new full-electric hatchy crossover thing

1

IT ISN’T A HATCH OR A CROSSOVER Like with the revivals of the 4 and 5, the Megane will be electric only. It’ll also be the first French car based on the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance’s CMF-EV platform. There are lots of crossover tropes – narrow windows, 20in wheels and plastic arches – but it’s only 50cm taller than the current Megane.

2 3 4 5

THE RANGE IS DECENT That low roofline and the low centre of gravity are thanks to super slim 110mm battery packs.

They can be either 40kWh or 60kWh in their capacity, with the larger of the two providing a WLTP range of 292 miles. There’ll also be two motor options, with either 128bhp or 215bhp being sent to the front wheels.

THE INTERIOR IS RECYCLED AND RECYCLABLE Renault says 27.2kg of visible and invisible interior parts are made from recycled plastics and the upholstery is made from 100 per cent recycled materials. Plus, 95 per cent of the whole car can be recycled at the end of its life.

IT USES GOOGLE TECH The reborn Megane will get what Renault is calling its OpenR multimedia system. For top spec versions that means a 4K 12.3-inch dial display is paired with a 12-inch multimedia screen in an upturned L shape. It’ll run a Google operating system based on Android Automotive OS that deploys the search giant’s maps, apps and voice assistant.

IT’LL BE BUILT IN FRANCE The Megane is the first car in the French brand’s ‘Renaulution’ strategy. It’ll be built in the Renault Group’s new hub at the Douai factory in France.

Known as ‘ElectriCity’, the factory will soon be Europe’s largest EV producer with a goal of building 400k cars per year. Pre-orders open in February 2022.

WO R D S : G R EG P OT T S

Megane is the forerunner in Renault’s plans to be Europe’s largest EV producer. We’ll wait for the retro 5

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THIS MONTH: C HU T E ’EM UP Say you go to an NHRA sponsored drag strip. If you do the quarter-mile in under 10secs or over 150mph, you need a parachute. The Plaid does a standing quartermile in 9.3secs at 154mph, so you’d get kicked out.

CR A Z Y R I GH T NO W Performance is bonkers, as you’d expect. It’s electronically limited to

MARQUES BROWNLEE

163mph pending a software update, but it launches crazy

HARD DRIVE

fast off the line – 0–60mph in 1.99secs with a one foot rollout. But everyone knows EVs can do that – the most impressive part of the car’s performance, which I didn’t think I would notice, is the continuous pick-up after that.

We download YouTube’s #1 tech expert on whatever he’s been driving this month

H

alo cars are exciting, aren’t they? It’s 2021, and in my opinion Tesla is still at the top of the EV pile. This Model S Plaid is the best, newest and most expensive thing that it makes. Greatest electric car in the world, then?

Well, essentially this is just a facelift with a new powertrain (but what a powertrain). The Model S retains its general shape – it’s a big, four-door hatch with tonnes of storage – which I think still looks great. You’ll notice the wider tyres on the Plaid – 285 on the front, 290 on the back – and wider arches to accommodate them. The whole car itself is slightly wider too.

All the chrome has been blacked out except for the logos front and back, and the Plaid gets an updated front end with a bigger front splitter and new fog lights that match the Model 3 and Model Y. The rear spoiler is also just that little bit bigger.

You want to know about performance, though, don’t you?

There are three motors (with carbon-sleeved rotors) sending a total of 1,020bhp to all four wheels. Ridiculous. The battery is also new, with a massive range of 396 miles according to Tesla.

You can order one in the UK today for £118,890, but only Elon knows when the first examples will roll off the boats.

Deliveries have already started in the USA.

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DOPE TECH M B ’ S FAV O U R I T E F E AT U R E

The new landscape screen up front is great. It’s integrated into the dash better than the Model 3, and the software is newer and more responsive.

SE T T HE JU I CE L OO SE On a 600-mile roadtrip I did straight after collecting the car, I hooked up to this V3 supercharger with exactly four miles of battery left (ideal for fast charging) and saw it adding 900 miles an hour back to the battery at 250kW.

NO SEL E C T OR At low speed with your foot on the brake, a strip pops up onscreen where you can swipe up to drive, or down to reverse. It’s too narrow and my muscle memory hasn’t really dialled in yet. There are buttons underneath the wireless charger.

DIF F EREN T S T ROKE S The yoke... the shape isn’t the

QU A L I T Y S T REE T

problem, it’s

Fit and finish has improved

your hands

massively. The materials are

brushing the

better, the carpet thicker and the

haptic buttons.

leather (or fake leather) is softer.

V ERD I C T Mind-bendingly

C ONSUMER T E C H C OMPA R I S ON...

good and basically

M1 iPad Pro. Almost

a missile. My ideal

the same body on the

Model S wouldn’t

outside as previous

even have the

versions, but way

regular wheel – just

more powerful than

give me the yoke and

anyone can or will

some proper buttons.

take advantage of.

T HE T E CH:

T HE DR I V E :

T HE WA N T:

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TOPGEAR’S GUIDE TO THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING H MYT ER T BUS

“PLUG-IN HYBRIDS ARE ALL A SCAM” tax dodge. But the evidence says otherwise. Most PHEVs are connected to manufacturer-run apps gathering driving data. Volvo says that half the miles driven by its PHEVs are electric.

So, contrary to what you might believe, people actually do plug in.

Pure EVs attract flak because making batteries costs scarce resources and energy.

OK, let’s continue with Volvos. An XC40 PHEV has a battery of 11kWh. The pure electric version is 78kWh. That’s seven PHEV batteries for one EV battery.

If they all do 8,000 miles a year, the seven PHEVs will travel 4,000 miles each on electricity, or 28,000 electric miles total between them. Whereas the one XC40 EV will go just 8,000 electric miles total.

Which doesn’t sound like such a good use of precious lithium.

Of course the PHEVs still need us to build seven engines, transmissions, etc.

But even so, if used properly, they are a good way to remove oil-powered miles from the roads at little cost in battery manufacture. Paul Horrell

LATER

WHO KNOWS?

MERC-AMG EQS 53

GREEN CREDENTIALS

WHAT GOES AROUND...

AMG’s first EV gets 649bhp as standard, but 750bhp if you spec the AMG DYNAMIC PLUS package

Behold the exceptionally green Genesis GV60 – the second of three EVs Genesis will launch in Europe in the next year

This is BMW predicting how cars will look in 2040. The i Vision Circular uses all recycled materials and is all recyclable

NOW

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I M AG E S : G E T T Y, M A N U FAC T U R E R

E V U P D AT E

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Products & Services

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Car Sales

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Powerful grip and superior handling for high performance cars.

www.hankooktire.com/uk

Loads of batteries but no range? We’ve been getting hybrid vehicles wrong this whole time, says Chris

I L L U S T R AT I O N : PAU L RY D I N G

We’ve all suffered that moment of awful realisation that we’re mishearing a word, or delivering it so incorrectly, the embarrassment of being revealed as an idiot is too shattering to admit. Hell, Peter Kay (the funniest man from Bolton) even did a sketch about it. Of course, it’s happened to me before, but not like this. I have, until now, completely misunderstood the word ‘hybrid’.

This is partly my fault for being perennially stupid, but I lay the majority of the blame on the evil beast that is the motor industry.

I could have used my first experience of what I thought was hybrid motoring – Prius, 1998, ferrying drunk people down the Fulham Road – to inform what I understood to be the meaning of this new term: a petrol-engined car with many batteries that doesn’t seem to do much electric-only driving. But instead, like the rest of the world, I was blindsided by the PR waffle into thinking the electrons were doing as much as the fossil juice.

And it’s always been that way. A new car is launched, “It’s a hybrid!” they all scream, and we all hug each other and ignore the fact that it’s actually a normal car carrying a ton of batteries that will just about do 10 miles of silent motoring, with the acceleration of a Ford Anglia, on the hottest day of the year.

“I’VE BEEN FRAUDULENTLY TALKING ABOUT DRIVING HYBRIDS FOR 23 YEARS”

Hybrid cars are as dual purpose-competent as me saying I’m part-layabout and part-dentist because I once manually removed a child’s tooth (all smoothed over now with social services and I accept that the Land Cruiser was overkill).

But I have now driven something called the Polestar 1, and it is, on reflection and accepting that I’ve been fraudulently talking about driving hybrids for 23 years, the first hybrid car I have ever driven. It has a role as an electric vehicle and as a petrol driven vehicle. I had no idea such a thing existed.

The first clue to its usefulness appears when you switch it on.

My hybrid blindspot has for decades conditioned my mind to look at the electric range readout of all hybrids when it says “12 miles” and think “ooh, that’s good”. When it is in fact crap. The Polestar 1 says “75 miles” and you think: “I could actually use that.”

Matters improve even more when you realise that it’s pretty nippy in electric-only mode and the range doesn’t tumble like the remaining energy score of a late Eighties arcade shoot-’em-up. And all the while another readout is telling you there’s 300 miles of range available from the generously turbocharged 4cyl motor that you’ve yet to crack open. When you do, you have around 600bhp to play with, which is enough to annoy all the M3/RS4-type machines that people don’t seem to buy in the volumes they once did.

You can use the engine to replenish your batteries, you can coast, you can choose all sorts of rear or 4WD configurations – it’s a superb piece of engineering. It’s the only hybrid I’ve ever driven and it fits the template for what should be the next logical step for motor cars in the UK – electric in town, ICE for longer trips.

It only has a few drawbacks – the ride is a bit aggressive, and it costs £140,000. Oh, and the legislators want these things killed, which is mad, because this is first real hybrid that would fit most people’s needs.

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The tide is turning When it comes to ocean-bound plastic pollution, enough is enough. Step forward the unique C60 #tide. A superlative dive watch with a neon-like sapphire dial and chronometer certified movement, it delivers power, accuracy and toughness in equal measure. But that’s only half the story.

Thanks to our partnership with social enterprise, #tide, the watch’s case-back inserts and strap are made from 100% recycled ocean plastic (though you can also choose a marine-grade steel bracelet). Which makes for a healthier ocean. And a watch you’ll take pride in wearing.

You can read more about the C60 #tide in the new issue of Loupe, our complimentary watch magazine.

Sign up for yours at christopherward.com

christopherward.com

The greatest car year ever? Tough call, says TGTV script writer Sam Philip... has 2021 got a chance?

I L L U S T R AT I O N : PAU L RY D I N G

On 12 February 1809, in a grand house in Shrewsbury, England, a baby was born. His name was Charles Robert Darwin, and he would grow up to become – well, you know the story: natural selection, On the Origin of Species, yer nan was a Bonobo ape. Big science stuff.

On the same day, in a log cabin in Hodgenville, Kentucky, another baby was born. His name was Abraham Lincoln, and he would grow up to become – well, you know the story: four score and seven, all men are created equal, get out there and smash up some Confederates. Big politics stuff.

How mad is that? Two of the undisputed big dogs of history, born on opposite sides of the Atlantic on the very same Sunday. Odder still, the significance of that day in 1809 wouldn’t – couldn’t – have been apparent at the time.

Not until many decades later could anyone have looked back and thought, huh, decent day for humankind, that one.

So – in the words of that other great historical thinker, C Bradshaw – I got to thinking: what’s the car equivalent? For balance, I reckon we’re permitted a year rather than a specific date, what with cars stubbornly refusing to be neatly born on a single day. Thus, you could make a solid case for 1948 (Land

“MAYBE IN HALF A CENTURY WE’LL HERALD 2021 AS ANOTHER ANNUS MIRABILIS FOR CARS”

Rover, Jaguar XK120, Citroen 2CV) or maybe 1984 (Mercedes W124, Renault Espace, Ferrari 288 GTO, Toyota MR2).

But I’d vote for 1964, which saw the arrival of not only the Vanden Plas Princess and Bedford Beagle, but also – ready for this? – the Ford Mustang and Porsche 911. (Yes, some people will tell you the 911 first appeared in 1963, but that was a prototype badged ‘901’, and production didn’t begin until the following year, so ignore them.)

Sixty four! What a year! Two performance car icons that would literally define the shape of fast cars for the next half-century and more, emerging from the womb within a few months of each other. What are the odds? I guess maybe quite high: it was the Sixties, after all. Innovative, groundbreaking cars were rocking up left, right and centre. Maybe it was inevitable that two classmates would go on to achieve immortality. Even so, let’s chalk up ’64 as a good vintage.

Of course, as with Chaz ’n’ Abe’s shared DOB, that year’s historical significance wouldn’t become apparent for decades.

At launch, though both Ford and Porsche presumably had an inkling they weren’t about to serve up a pair of sales stinkers, they literally couldn’t have known they were in the business of changing car history. Hindsight provides new eyes. Who knows, maybe in half a century we’ll herald 2021 as another annus mirabilis for cars, saluting the Hyundai Bayon and Merc EQB as trailblazers for generations to come. Maybe not. As Darwin himself said, “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us.” And people say he was just about the monkey nans.

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#ThisIsYourTime

TISSOT prx automatic.

A SWISS MADE THROWBACK TO A FLAGSHIP TISSOT DESIGN FROM 1978.

TI S S OT WATC H E S . C O M

Motorway self-driving? I’ll pass, thanks, says Paul – but it’s creeping ever closer

I L L U S T R AT I O N : PAU L RY D I N G

I know this isn’t exactly a ‘car enthusiast’ thing to say, but I quite like motorway driving. Not just for the sense of the countryside rolling past, the changing weather above, the destination nearing or, sometimes, of the departure point growing more distant. No, my guilty pleasure is to enjoy the actual process of driving – planning ahead, reading other cars’ body language, spotting gaps before they open, making progress amid the stream. Oh and the mild satisfaction when I move back to the inside after an overtake and it actually nudges some brain-dead middle-laner to move left too.

But upcoming autonomous tech will deny me that. “Oh Paul, stop grumbling and just turn it off!” chorus the car industry engineers. Well, no. Even if I’m driving a base model Dacia, or a classic with no more advanced electronics than an RDS radio, I’ll still be hidebound by these automatons. We all will.

It only needs two of them. They’ll be conscientiously sticking to the speed limit as the occupants of their driver’s seats concentrate on doing emails and picking their earwax.

The first one moves out to the middle to overtake a truck.

Its sensors might be a bit out of whack, so it’s actually doing 69.9mph. So the robo-car behind it moves outside to overtake

“SELF-DRIVING WILL BE AN EXORBITANTLY EXPENSIVE AND LARGELY USELESS OPTION”

it. At 70.1mph. The pair create an impermeable moving wall for miles on end. All the other traffic – that’s you and me – will be stuck up their chuff. This is surely why traffic police do 65 on the motorway. They know full well we’ll drop to 70, ease past, then when they’re a dot in our mirror we’ll gather speed again.

Scarily, the government is proposing that motorway self-driving – called Automated Lane Keeping – is allowed later this year. Albeit only to 37mph. If the traffic gets faster, or the motorway ends, the car gives you a 10-second warning to resume control. It’s a huge conceptual shift. With all today’s assistance systems, the driver is always in the loop and in control.

Anyway, no one will buy these cars. It’ll be an exorbitantly expensive and largely useless option, because even clogged motorways do fluctuate above 40mph. Of course the car industry will want to use these few cars as a proof of concept, and this is a trial period and if it goes well the allowable speed will rise to 70. Maybe then it’ll become a sellable proposition for makers of top-end cars. Assuming there are no crashes.

Still, right now, I’m pretty relaxed. The homologation process for these new systems is Byzantine in its complexity.

Oh and by the way as the rules change, every car will have to be homologated as new. So any promise of selling the system hardware now and activating later via over-the-air updates is a very murky area. Hello Tesla.

Legal wheels grind slowly, and technology never comes as soon as it’s promised. Everything ever to do with autonomous cars is always perma-delayed. My guilty motorway pleasure is vouchsafed for several more years.

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DRIV FORD MUSTANG MACH-E

VOLKSWAGEN ID.3

£41,330 / £41,330 as tested

£28,435 / £31,020 as tested

The big test: everyday EVs Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 is unique: a hatchback with the cabin space of an SUV. Here it faces one of each WORDS PAUL HORRELL PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

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VES

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5

£44,945 / £48,320 as tested

F

ranz Carl Müller-Lyer didn’t design Hyundais. He was a psychologist, and he died in 1916. His relevance here is the optical illusion he identified. A straight line with outward-pointing arrows at the ends appears shorter than one the same length but with inward-pointing arrows. The Ioniq 5 is a wheeled optical illusion.

It’s actually the same size as the Mach-E. Yet something about it makes it look hatchback-sized.

Is it all the straight lines and arrowheads? Or the proportions, which closely match the Volkswagen ID.3? The VW and Hyundai look the same size when photographed singly. When parked side by side the VW is lost in the Hyundai’s outline.

The Ioniq is a cognitive illusion as well as an optical one. Hyundai mentioned it draws stylistic

inspiration from the company’s original car, the Giugiaro-designed Pony of 1975. We assumed the Ioniq 5 would be that small. The Pony was mechanically based on the Morris Marina, a dreadful crapbox itself based on the Morris Minor.

Fortunately outside our obsessive little circle, no one knows or cares about the Pony. Everyone else will take the Ioniq 5 at face value.

At face value it’s big. Wide, especially, in a way that’s quite intimidating (for the driver and everyone else) in tight urban streets.

The swivelling heads as it passes prove it’s truly distinctive looking, with a chiselled discipline that does indeed riff off Giugiaro’s super-influential Seventies ‘folded paper’ phase.

But back then there were no spangly LEDs, or walnut whip intricate alloys that could’ve been 3D

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“THE IONIQ 5’S SEATS ARE DESIGNED TO RECLINE FOR SLEEPING. I USE A BED FOR THAT”

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03

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1 1. All three have rear motors only, but can add a bit more oomph with extra front motors 2. In the VW, it’s surprisingly tricky to access essential EV info like efficiency. Materials are nice 3. Huge screen is the main attraction in the Ford cabin 4. Difficult to get comfy on the Hyundai’s seats. Flat and slabby

printed. Some of the ridged faux-metal exterior plastic ornament is frankly overdone and cheapens the effect.

Still, not much cheapens the Ioniq 5’s cabin.

It’s genuinely premium. Materials are at the same time not obvious choices, and yet well chosen. The ambient lit dash and door cards could have been uprooted from a cocktail bar.

A sliding console between the seats provides epic amounts of storage. The flat floor between the front seats is a mixed asset: put anything there and you fear it’ll slide into the pedals at the apex of a left-hander.

I’m afraid I can’t get comfy. These seats, flat and sofa-like, are an option. I’d go without.

They’re designed to recline for sleeping. I use a bed for that. They give me backache when driving. The steering wheel is too distant and I need to set it too high if I’m to see the instruments. And the centre screen is a stretch, especially its home button, which is top left. To match the upholstery, the two screens default to light grey. That’s dazzling. You’ll hastily

reconfigure to white-on-black. The wheelbase, a full 3m, does translate into pretty fine rear legroom, though with these optional bulky front chairs it doesn’t beat the Mustang. The boot is surprisingly shallow, and the front boot good for little more than charge cable storage.

As the Ioniq’s styling evokes an old Hyundai, so the Ford’s evokes another Ford: a Mustang.

Hence the long bonnet and tapering glasshouse, and the surfacing of its haunches. The lights too. But it’s a five-door crossover not a coupe.

As with the Ioniq, if it were a more successful visual mimic, it’d be a far worse family EV. It’s a Ford and an American car, so the expectations of the Ford’s cabin quality are unpropitious. In fact, apart from the Fiesta stalks, which work well anyway, there’s nothing to take issue with. Design is attractive and clean, materials apposite. A cloth beam crosses the dash like a soundbar, and the rest coheres simply with it. The big screen is like a Tesla’s, only easier to use. Seats and driving position are spot on. Rear room is fine, the boot the best

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HYUNDAI IONIQ 5

01

05

02

03

06

04

VOLKSWAGEN ID.3

01

03

05

02

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FORD MUSTANG MACH-E

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02 06

on test. The frunk is a biggish bin with a drain hole at the bottom.

The ID.3 departs oddly. Look at the design.

Its sides are too flat and it actually looks hollow and weak. And inside, too much hard plastic meets absurd infelicities in the touch controls.

We’ve dwelt on those capacitive sliders and buttons often enough when talking about the Golf. But the ID.3 adds to the idiocy by using a tiny driver’s screen which can’t show the energy efficiency info that’s critical to EV driving. That resides deep within the central screen. If using phone mirroring for nav or music, you have to keep jabbing at the screen to switch.

Still, if you choose colours well, the ID.3 has a simple and architecturally interesting cabin, if one where the materials got little love. The seats and driving position are fine and it feels agile just because you’re low. The back seat and boot are smaller than they are in the bigger crossovers here, but the gap isn’t night and day. Strangely, it has no frunk.

As specced here, all have rear motors only, although they can have more power by adding a front motor. The test Hyundai is the bigger battery option, at 73kWh, with 217bhp. The Mustang carries its smaller battery, but still a useful 68kWh, and 269bhp. This ID.3 has the

05

middle of its three available batteries, 58kWh, and a 145bhp motor. WLTP ranges are 264 miles (VW), 273 (Ford) and 298 (Hyundai).

Our summer driving pointed at a real world 230, 240, 250 respectively.

Driving the Hyundai, I can’t get one word out of my head. Audi. Its cabin matches Audi for soft feel, solid, hi-res design. And it moves down the road with stout feel, sitting foursquare on the road, deliberate in its movements.

Just like an Audi. Reassuring and refined, yes.

Engaging, not so much.

Numbers on the speedo spool up nicely, but it never exactly snaps forward. This is a heavy car gathering momentum, and it does tail off at outside lane speed. There are plenty of options for regeneration, and the blending of that with friction is well integrated. So gaining or losing speed is easily managed.

Getting the Ioniq around a corner needs a bit more care, even though the steering is well calibrated. Steer too suddenly and the understeer’s an issue, as is diagonal pitch.

You’re always aware of the weight, not just changing direction but over heaving surfaces too, where the dampers lose interest. Act smoothly though and it squirts nicely out of a corner or roundabout.

“DRIVING THE HYUNDAI, I CAN’T GET ONE WORD OUT OF MY HEAD. AUDI”

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Specifications

1 2 3

FORD MUSTANG MACH-E

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5

VOLKSWAGEN ID.3

POWERTRAIN

rear e-motor

rear e-motor

rear e-motor

TOTAL POWER

269bhp

217bhp

145bhp

VERDICT

ACCELERATION

TOTAL TORQUE

6.9secs

0–62

7.4secs

0–62

9.6secs

0–62

317lb ft

258lb ft

229lb ft

273 miles / 240 miles

298 miles / 250 miles

264 miles / 230 miles

CLAIMED RANGE / TEST FIGURE

TOP SPEED

111

115

99

1,993kg

1,990kg

1,812kg

1spd, RWD

1spd, RWD

1spd, RWD

402 litres

527 litres

385 litres

1,420 litres (seats down)

1,587 litres (seats down)

mph

mph

mph

WEIGHT

TRANSMISSION

BOOT CAPACITY

8 SCORE

10

8

10

1,267 litres (seats down)

7

10

The ride is a little nuggety at low speed, but the tyres are quiet and overall it’s a delightfully peaceful way to get about.

The Ford feels as much like a Mustang as an electric crossover can. It’s emphatically quicker to accelerate than the Ioniq. Pity about the brakes: they used to be indecisive but now they aren’t so sure. European Ford does great steering but US Ford doesn’t, so we get gluey weight and pointlessly strong self-centring.

Still, it feels more lithe than the Ioniq.

If you want a self-consciously rear drive car, here it is. Stick it in the so-called ‘Untamed’ mode (sport to you and me), which loosens the traction control, then go looking for what, back when we had gears, would have been a second-gear bend. On a twitch of your right toe it kicks the tail out like, well, like a Mustang.

It’s all good fun, even if there’s a rubbery imprecision in the reactions, perhaps a result of the tall profile 18-inch tyres. The ride’s not significantly different from the Hyundai’s apart from a tendency to pogo on B-roads rather than corkscrew. It’s the noisiest car among these three quiet cars, not just because of the (switchable) synthesised engine sound.

Tyres pitch in too, and at motorway speed the door mirrors whistle like the kettle’s boiling.

In the ID.3 it’s like your ears popped.

Everything is muted: powertrain, tyres, air.

This motor delivers little absolute acceleration, but it’s still responsive, so for getting out of junctions or round suburban obstacles, it has all the zip. Only out in the countryside do you wish you had the 204bhp option.

Smallness and lightness do it favours on a twisty road, as it’s decently damped and steers accurately. But it really is a bit of an appliance.

All its controls and reactions are accurate but numb. Its best quality is a superb ride.

For EV buzzword bingo, the Ioniq is your car. Its all-new platform is capable of charging at up to 350kW. It can also do vehicle-to-load discharge. Both of these are limited benefits at the mo: we managed only 130kW charge speed on an Ionity charger. So you might as well pay less per kWh and use the 150kW chargers, adding about 80 miles in 10 minutes.

The Mustang can accept charge at a peak of 115kW, the VW 100kW. If you used the Hyundai’s car-to-load system to charge either of the other two, you’d add about 10 miles an

hour. Not a great use case. But there are times when this ability to provide external power would be handy – like when you’re camping.

For a verdict here, you can’t ignore price. The Hyundai is £45k in Ultimate trim which includes a super fancy HUD and Bose sound system. But an efficiency pack (heat pump and battery heater that’ll both add range in winter) is extra. Like the Ford it has panoplies of effective driver assist.

At the other end, the VW has DIY seat adjustment, no reversing camera and less driver assist. It’s smaller. Obviously an ID.4, or indeed Audi Q4, on the same platform would be a closer rival for the Mustang and Ioniq, but we wanted to put some context around the Ioniq’s hatch-like styling. The ID.3 is well packaged and when you’re driving it the absence of bulk is an asset.

It’s cheap enough to get the plug-in grant and ends up at a little over £28k. Sure it’s slow, but you can remedy that with a 204bhp version for £1,320 extra – money fabulously well spent.

The Ford is £42k but misses out on a few gewgaws you get in the Hyundai’s top trim.

Still, it’s the quickest, the most engaging and the most useful. It’s not as intriguing or attentiongrabbing as the Ioniq. But it’s the one we’d have.

“THE FORD FEELS AS MUCH LIKE A MUSTANG AS AN

TO P G E A R . C O M

› O C TO B E R 2 0 2 1

043

8

10 SKODA FA B I A

Czech balance £18,300 (est) 1.0T 3cyl

109 bhp

6spd manual

9.7 secs

P

CO2

57.6 mpg

113 g/km

FOR Good value motoring at its most sensible AGAINST Only petrol options, could be more interesting

Y

ou won’t have noticed amid all that other hubbub, but Skoda canned the tiny Citigo mid-2020, so the new fourth-gen Fabia defaults to the entry point in an ever-popular, SUV-heavy range. Skoda’s proud of 4.5m sales in 22 years – it helped establish credibility after years of cheeky jokes.

To mangle Bob Monkhouse, they’re not laughing now. A modern Skoda guarantees relentless competence. But if you’re looking for any of that fancy electric stuff from a car this

044 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

size, you’ll have to go elsewhere – no EV supermini from the VW Group until 2025.

Five engines are available at launch, a 1.0 3cyl in four states of tune and a 1.5-litre 4cyl range-topper. The smaller one offers nat-asp 62bhp and 79bhp versions and turbocharged 94bhp and 109bhp flavours, while the 1.5 has 148bhp. The medium peri-peri Monte Carlo spec will bring a more powerful 1.5 in 2022.

Sadly no spicy vRS this time.

We drove the 109bhp 1.0-litre 3cyl, which comes with a six-speed manual or seven-speed DSG. There’s just the right amount of three-pot thrum, and it feels perkier than 0–62mph in 9.7secs suggests. The DSG’s a touch hesitant, though, and unusually coarse when the stop-start is doing its thing. The businesslike manual is definitely the better bet.

The whole drive is businesslike, actually – controls firm in that satisfyingly premium way, steering evenly weighted and the ride filtering out the worst excesses of the road. It’s by no means a hoot, but you’ll get there with no fuss.

The interior’s been smartened up, complete with dreaded Massive Touchscreen. Enough buttons stop you feeling short-changed, but still some unneeded redundancies have been made. Who wants to go into a sub-menu to change the aircon fan speed?

The interior plastics are more durable than plush, but Skoda hopes you’ll be distracted by the 42 ‘Simply Clever’ features it’s plastered about. There’s the umbrella in the door and ice scraper in the fuel filler cap – but new ones include a USB socket in the rearview mirror for your dashcam and nifty little pen loop and car park ticket holder in front of the gearstick.

Other fancy bits trickle down to the Fabia for the first time – heated windscreen, panoramic glass roof and safety tech out the wazoo.

Skoda isn’t going to announce prices until later in September before deliveries start in December, but it would be hard not to recommend the Fabia to anyone who isn’t already climbing into something electric and just wants a nice little car. Sam Burnett

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8

10

A

L AMBORGHINI HURACÁN STO

Noisy neighbour £268,012 5.2 V10

631 bhp

7spd DCT

3.0 secs

P

CO2

20.3 mpg

331 g/km

FOR Very aggressive, trackfocused dynamics, V10 still the star of the show AGAINST Raucous and demanding on road, and to look at

046 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

Lamborghini Huracán turned up to... well a good notch above the Performante. The new STO (Super Trofeo Omologata) claims to take the road-going Lambo experience a step closer to the GT3 racer – its first car, it claims, where track ability takes precedence over road driving. Pushed further than the Aventador SVJ, in a bid to tackle rivals such as McLaren’s 620R or 765LT, the AMG GT Black Series and whatever Ferrari chooses to name the inevitable hardcore version of the 296 GTB. As far as numbers go, the STO’s engine struggles to hold its head up in that company.

The 631bhp 5.2-litre V10 is unmodified from the Performante, but makes up in sheer ferocity, volume and 8,500rpm drama what it lacks in power. But then the alterations, most notably the removal of the front driveshafts to make the STO a pure rear-drive car. That’s only saved 20kg of the 43kg total drop, with 8kg reinserted by the new four-wheel-steering system, designed to enhance agility.

The aero, as you can see, has moved on more. And not subtly. Lambo says downforce is up 53 per cent compared with the Performante, which developed 350kg at 186mph. Interestingly, Lambo has abandoned the ALA technology that ingested air at the base of the rear spoiler’s pillars and blew it out along the trailing edge. This is a simpler strategy: a manually adjustable, three position

rear wing. Then there’s fins on the flanks, vents over wheels and a gaping roof duct which isn’t – as you’d assume – an intake for the engine. Instead it simply ducts cooling air down into the bay. Sorry Lamborghini, but that one’s a gimmick.

It does have a boot though. The one-piece front end (cofango in Lambo terminology) hinges forward to reveal a 38-litre area that will just about swallow a helmet. Elsewhere the tracks have been widened, there’s stiffer suspension bushes, new anti-roll bars and two-stage magnetic ride dampers. The brakes are Brembo’s CCM-R set-up, claimed to give a 25 per cent power increase. Sharp at the top of their travel, they’re fantastically effective and fade free, at their best when worked hard.

And the same is true of the rest of it.

The last car I drove on-road that constantly bombarded me with as many racecar signals was the McLaren Senna. If you buy one of these and drive it on-road, well, best of luck to you. There’s loads of road and tyre noise, the suspension is very stiff at low speeds and unsettled on roads that are only moderately uneven. It’s raucous and distracted, shows no willingness whatsoever to bow to your demands, and doesn’t have the compliance and smoothness of our favourite Huracán, the Evo RWD. The flip side is that it is a more serious and circuit-capable bit of kit than any Lamborghini

“THE HOWL, THE REVS, THE FURY – IT STILL HAS THE ABILITY TO TURN AN ADULT INTO A CHILD”

Did someone say 5.2-litre V10?

Can’t hear you over the epic Akrapovič exhaust...

I can remember driving. Better balanced than the Aventador SVJ, purer than a Performante, it’s very communicative through the suspension and chassis and although the variable ratio steering doesn’t have bundles of natural feedback, there’s so little suspension movement that you feel directly connected to the crisp edge of the front tyres. It constantly reminds you of its potential, makes you aware of how much more it can do and – crucially – makes you really want to exploit that.

The STO goads you. It’s not a car that feels disgruntled and unhappy on the road, so much as one eager to prove it could be having an even better time if only you’d open the taps.

And when you do, it drips lava in your ears.

The V10, now with new Akrapovič exhaust, is the highlight of this car, every bit as dramatic as the bodywork (anyone else picking up some hints of Sesto Elemento?). But actually it’s too

loud. When the exhaust baffles open at 4,700rpm you wince, aware that a) everyone within a mile radius knows exactly what’s going on or b) you’re about to get kicked off your track day. Trumpeting magnificence, but also rather obnoxious.

Accept that and you’ll love it – the instant response, the anticipation of what’s coming, the howl, the excitement, the revs, the fury – it still has the ability to turn an adult into a child. The twin-clutch gearbox does the job cleanly and well, the one element of the car that behaves itself immaculately at low speed.

There’s a lot going on at the back axle what with the rear-steer as well, but the way the STO gets its power through the mechanical differential is impressive. It’ll only squirm and fidget if the road is rough, but otherwise the suspension supports the traction very well.

It helps if you’re going fast, though. The STO

needs some speed before the suspension wakes up and is interested in helping out, it needs that level of downforce or movement to get some compression into the springs.

Oh, and never use Trofeo mode on the road.

Lambo has clearly realised building a race rep is good business. The options charged for stickers, carbon, paint, extinguishers and all the rest are sky high. Lessons learned from McLaren and Ferrari there, and elsewhere too. The STO fulfils Lamborghini’s ambitions for it – this is a car that wants to be on track, that feels like a racer, albeit one with the heavy dose of charisma that makes a Lamborghini what it is. But don’t let that drama, stridency and raucousness deceive you. Underneath, the Huracán STO really knows its way around a circuit. If you don’t take yours on track, then you’re missing the point. Ollie Marriage TO P G E A R . C O M

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047

MUST TRY HARDER BENTLEY B E N TAY G A H Y B R I D

£155,500 CO2

P 3.0T V6 +e-motor

443 bhp

8spd auto

5.5 secs

83.1 mpg

8

10

82 g/km

THE BENTAYGA HYBRID IS CREWE’S FIRST step towards the complete electrification of its entire range. The BIG PLAN, dubbed “Beyond100”, calls for an electrified version of every model by 2023, an entirely hybrid and EV line-up by 2026 and EV only by 2030.

Though Bentley’s big SUV has been around since 2015, the plug-in wasn’t

P O L E S TA R 2 S TA N D A R D RANGE SINGLE MOTOR

Star attraction

launched until mid-2019. A year later the Bentayga got a big facelift and the Hybrid was taken off sale. Now it’s back,

£39,900

mechanically mostly the same as before.

CO2

Which means it has the same problems.

First issue is that it’s not quick enough in EV mode. You’ll manage in town, just about.

64kWh battery

221 bhp

1spd auto

7.4 secs

273 miles

0 g/km

Elsewhere you’ll need to rouse the 3.0-litre V6 to make meaningful progress (it does shut off once you’re up to speed).

Be gentle and the only indication the engine has sprung to life is the rev counter.

But catch this thing unawares by asking for

FOR Well equipped and well priced. Fantastic interior AGAINST Only a £3k jump to the 335-mile Long Range Single Motor

a burst of acceleration in any mode that isn’t Sport (where the engine is always on), and you’re rewarded with a hiccup from the transmission and a pause that’s slightly too long before you’re fired down the road.

More problematic is the V6 itself, which just isn’t very Bentley. It’s nothing like as smooth, silky and refined as a V8 or W12.

While it’s effectively silent the majority of the time, you do feel a little bit of

5

10

048 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

P

olestar has its foot in the door in the UK and Europe, so it’s time for further variants of the Model 3 rival it calls the 2. Until now, we’ve had to make do with the full fat twin-motor AWD 2 with its 78kWh battery and barnstorming 402bhp. Poor us.

Prices for that Long Range Dual Motor kick off at £45,900, though, so to bring the entry price of ownership down, we now have the £39,900 Standard Range Single Motor. We’re big fans of this simplistic naming strategy.

A single electric motor is mounted up front and drives the front wheels alone with 221bhp and 243lb ft. It’ll do 0–62mph in 7.4secs and the 64kWh battery provides a WLTP range of 273 miles. At the time of writing the Standard Range Plus Model 3 – complete with its 5.3secs 0–60mph time and 278-mile range – costs £40,990. Polestar is coming out punching with the £1,090 price undercut.

The standard kit list is healthy and includes LED lights, Scandi frameless mirrors, 19-inch

wheels and heated seats. Then there’s the responsive infotainment, which runs Google’s operating system on an 11.2in portrait screen.

It’s really rather good. Climate control is erm... controlled via the screen but does get shortcuts along the bottom. Google Maps means you get a brilliant, recognisable nav too, but the range drops in 10-mile increments which can be disconcerting.

The rest of the interior is impressive.

Vegan textile seats are standard and the steering wheel is a nice faux leather. Bootspace remains the same – 405 litres with rear seats in place, despite the lack of a second motor back there – as does space on the rear bench.

You can’t have the £5,000 Performance Pack with its Öhlins dampers and gold Brembo brake calipers on the Single Motor 2, but it does still drive better than it needs to. The suspension is firm (but well damped so it isn’t uncomfortable) meaning there’s no real body roll, and there are mighty levels of grip through corners and off the line.

It’s not Model 3 quick, but 221bhp feels more than enough in the real world. There are no drive modes, but you can alter the weight of the steering and there are three levels of regen braking.

A cracking effort at a base spec 2 from Polestar – a company that technically didn’t exist as an independent entity until 2017.

Rapid progress indeed. Greg Potts

The overrun Small but perfectly formed reviews. The best of the rest from this month’s drives

7

LE XUS LC500 SPOR T+ PACK

6

10

Japanophiles ought to adore

So few options if you want to feel

F I AT 5 0 0 C ICON

‘takumi’, the philosophy that’s gone into crafting the sharply

the wind and save the planet.

Apart from cycling, of course.

styled LC. The “precision skills of

£87,925

Lexus’ master craftspeople” have

Bleurgh. The Smart Fortwo’s titchy

£27,645

range rules it out, so you’re left

led to “detailed refinement of

with the new Fiat 500C. Only the

FOR The takumi approach has

driving dynamics”. Fancy way

FOR One of the few chances

42kWh battery option with the

kept the LC feeling sharp

of saying the latest update has

to go electric in a soft-top

soft-top, but its 186-mile range

AGAINST It’s pricey, it’s niche and it surely has a shelf life

brought geeky tweaks and

AGAINST When’s the weather

is respectable. There’s decent

weight saving that make the

ever good enough, anyway?

interior tech, but the driving position is compromised, quality

LC500 subtly sharper to drive, P 5.0 V8

467 bhp

4.7 secs

24.3 mpg

CO2

262 g/km

and even more likeable. How

HONDA CI V IC T Y PE R SPORT LINE

CO2

long can thirsty nat-asp coupes survive, though? SD

8

42kWh battery

117 bhp

9.0 secs

186 miles

0 g/km

10

So, this is the Type R we’ve been asking for: all the potency, control and eyeball-drying pace of the

£35,400

class for half a decade, but with

patchy and room in the back is... cramped. Stick to town and the 500C is a perky companion. SB

7

P O R S C H E C AY E N N E TURBO GT

10

Porsche is sprinkling some of the fairy dust from its hallowed GT department on its cash-printing

car that’s topped the hot hatch

big SUV. Apparently this has been

£143,910

done ‘with the blessing’ of the

a smaller rear wing and the lairier

folks who do 911 GT2s and GT3s.

FOR (Still) one of the best drivers’

bits of red trim deleted. And... it

FOR Ludicrously capable for a

Hmm... Anyway, the revised V8 is a

cars in the world. Ever

doesn’t work. It’s still not discreet

2.1-tonne V8 hippopotamus

monster, and the handling is truly

AGAINST Amateur interior, dodgy

or elegant. The 19in rims help the

AGAINST If you build a sports car,

astounding, though the ride

styling, can you actually buy one?

ride, but the standard car is just

you don’t start with an SUV

suffers on British roads. And forget

more authentic. Regardless, now P 2.0T 4cyl

10

316 bhp

5.8 secs

36.7 mpg

CO2

176 g/km

trailering: there’s now a titanium

Honda’s shut the Swindon plant where these are built, you’ll have to be fast/lucky to grab one. OK

P 4.0TT V8

631 bhp

3.3 secs

20.0 mpg

CO2

319 g/km

TO P G E A R . C O M

centre-exit exhaust where the tow bar goes. A car for those who don’t ask “why?”; only “why not?”. OK

› O C TO B E R 2 0 2 1

049

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O T R T O C O E D R I R D OU Y

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ARE BRITAIN’S BESTSELLERS ANY GOOD? These are Britain’s blockbusters, each the biggest seller in its class this year. But does the fact that next door, your auntie and the postman have one actually mean it’s any good? Here are five carefully constructed examinations to see how the UK’s favourite cars fare at the tasks they were designed for.

It’s time to find out if bestseller actually means best TO P G E A R . C O M

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053

NISSAN QASHQAI

054 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

C LASS: L A RG E C R O SS OVE R // CAR: NIS SAN QASH QA I // TAS K: R UN N ING ER R A ND S

One in five cars made in the UK is a Qashqai, it’s part of the furniture. Time to find out why by visiting the factory and offering our services as a delivery driver WORDS STEPHEN DOBIE

PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

NISSAN QASHQAI

It doesn’t get much better than this – TopGear delivery driver

As the UK awakes from a COVID-induced slumber, ‘Sunderland to south of Inverness’ is hardly the dream roadtrip you’ve been craving for irresistible travel inspiration. But as the UK car industry also awakes from a

COVID-induced slumber, it’s a crucial one. Beaten and bruised by Brexit and a pandemic, it’s been craving good news. And right on cue, Nissan has served it up.

A billion-pound investment is bringing a battery gigafactory to the company’s Wearside plant, creating over 6,000 new jobs and turning Sunderland into a self-proclaimed “world-first EV manufacturing ecosystem”. The car you’re looking at here won’t yet be part of that, but it’s a vital stepping stone – gen three of the crossover OG, the Nissan Qashqai. A car designed, developed and then built in Britain, it was the first high

056 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

riding hatchback to truly infiltrate the UK bestsellers list – despite wearing a name not everyone’s confident saying out loud.

However, I’ve always made a point of talking friends out of buying one of these, instead recommending something sharper to drive (usually in vain, mind). That’s despite Mackem blood proudly pumping through my veins. If you’ve always wondered what Mackem means, by the way, it likely derives from the city’s shipbuilding days and a colloquialism of “we make them, they take them” – we mack ‘em, they tack ‘em. Nissan’s plant in Sunderland macks half a million

cars in a typical year – the 3.8m Qashqais pumped out so far accounting for one in five cars manufactured on British shores since 2007 – while supporting 35,000 jobs. And the British public is only too happy to tack them; 20 per cent of those 3.8m have been sold on our isles.

Today we’re an intermediary between the two processes, acting as part of the Nissan supply chain to whisk a Qashqai from the end of the production line and give its new owner – Colin McAndrew, nestled in Inverlochy in the Scottish Highlands – a bit of special treatment. A six-hour, 300-mile trek lies ahead of us, the

Raich Carter keeping an eye on another hero from Sunderland

Nothing concentrates the mind like a screen full of GIANT apps

aim being to slalom Colin’s car through the more abundant than usual sightseeing crowds quicker than any chock-a-block transporter can.

After a final inspection at the end of the line, we whack on some numberplates and hit the road, but not without a brief lap of the city so intrinsic to this car’s production. Since the shipyards and coal mines shut, Sunderland has had two major organs pumping optimism around it – its football club and its car factory. The former has been stuck in a third-division groove for years. The Mackem folk could do with the latest Qashqai being Premier League.

The first signs as we navigate the city’s cultural hotspots (don’t snigger, it was shortlisted for UK City of Culture 2021) is that Nissan has refused to rock the boat. There’s been no rolling of ergonomic dice like within Volkswagen Towers – in the Qashqai, buttons are plentiful and big. While this top-spec Tekna+ brings a large touchscreen and digital dials, their font sizes remind me of when you see older folk using magnified smartphone screens. You get in and operate everything without a moment’s hesitation. Not sexy, but eminently useful in a big family holdall.

As we leave the city and join the slip road onto the northbound A1, it’s clear that of this engine’s perky 156bhp and less perky 9.5secs 0–62mph claims, it’s the latter that best represents real world performance. While there’s mild hybrid assistance for the 1.3-litre 4cyl up front (here driving the front wheels through a 6spd manual), it doesn’t do much to fill turbo lag. But while this engine isn’t hugely punchy, it is quiet. Almost ludicrously so.

I recall the same unit buzzing away like a hedge strimmer in a Mercedes A-Class, yet here Nissan appears to have noise

insulated the engine bay with the keenness of a teenager feverishly sticking eggboxes to the wall ahead of their band’s first jam, only with genuine success. If there’s a mainstream petrol car that’s more hushed than this, I’m yet to drive it.

Surprisingly few of our 300 miles are spent on motorways, and after briefly passing the higher-rises of the Glasgow skyline – another industrial city with a newly cultural slant – we’re onto the A82 for the rest of the journey. And into a constant snake of cars driving at quite unpredictable pace as tourists flock to Glen Coe’s Icelandic

TO P G E A R . C O M

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057

Another Qashqai pounding the roads.

Not unusual in fairness

“Keep it clean” we told Stephen. He took it somewhat literally

aesthetic in lieu of a poolside all-inclusive. The Qashqai’s ease of use had kept my heart rate low until now, but I’m suddenly struck by the urgency with which we deliver this car in a state of shiny, Final Line Inspection flawlessness. Some of the UK’s greatest driving roads will be taken at snail-like pace. And this time there will be no hastily grabbed Greggs eaten at the wheel to sustain my blood sugar levels.

We pull in at the first (perhaps only) empty beauty spot for a snack break, the Qashqai’s height advantage over the dullsville Almera it originally replaced giving us a wide choice of lay-bys

to use. It’s doubtless not the key advantage that convinced Nissan to take such a bold punt on the crossover sector nearly 15 years ago, but it’s one us petrolheads can crowbar from a car that otherwise mildly offends our pernickety tastes. Photographer Jonny is doe-eyed with the light up here – it’s a gloriously summery day whose appeal is only diminished by an extortionate midge count – and begins extracting camera equipment from the boot. “It looks great, doesn’t it?” I assume he means the mountains, but it seems he’s referring to the Anglo-Japanese SUV.

058 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

Whether it looks as bold when there are a bazillion of them on British roads, I’m not so sure.

What’s certain is that it looks a tad more exciting than it drives.

There’s plenty of squidge in the suspension but a firm edge (especially on its new 20in alloys) should ensure it’s not nauseating for dinkier folk in the back. It grips well but inspires little enthusiasm to explore every last inch, while the manual gearshift is so featherweight that the engineers might well have used a 911 R as a ‘do the opposite of this’ benchmark.

But that’s the whole point. It’s all so quiet, light of touch, easy...

and subsequently the ideal car to take on slightly nerve-shredding delivery driving duties in. Perhaps not what the engineers had in mind, but it’s making the Highland hoards a doddle to negotiate. As enthusiasts we celebrate cars that require effort – handling that needs taming, a wheel or pedals that demand muscle – brushing off anything deliberately easy-going as a cop-out. The sales charts typically redden our faces, however, and this latest Qashqai feels tailor-made for settling back and taking in the scenery on a journey just like this. Right down to the seat massage function,

NISSAN QASHQAI

Everyone has something to say about the Sunderland legend

“IT’S ALL SO EASY, IT MAKES THE HIGHLANDS A DODDLE”

whose motors are probably the noisiest mechanical components Jonny and I experience all day.

It feels wrong to indulge in their intense relaxation even before they’ve kneaded Colin’s stresses away, but surely he wants his delivery driver as zen as possible while transporting the new McAndrew motor car?

Mind, Colin himself is as zen as anyone I’ve met, and living somewhere so unutterably beautiful I can see why. After a final fill up and a feverish wash, rinse and polish in Fort William – for peak new car feeling, despite the fact it’s now half run in – we pull into a serene little street to

be greeted by the Qashqai’s new keeper and his hench little minder, Hamish the French bulldog. One glances at the Ceramic Grey SUV with significantly more suspicion than the other, and reading the room, I switch across the blanket and bed from the outgoing X-Trail as quickly as possible so that he can reverse his bouncer-esque frame into place and see what’s what.

Hamish, not Colin. But you already knew that.

If running a Morgan in the TopGear Garage has taught me anything, it’s that how or where a car is constructed can be just as emotive a selling point

as how many g it’ll corner at.

The crossover market is one bereft of utterly dazzling star quality, almost all of its contenders offering a slightly different flavour of ‘decent’. So the argument for sticking with the original – the one designed, developed and built in Britain and thus made for our tastes while possessing a smaller carbon footprint – is undeniably strong.

A car so deliberately mainstream and people-pleasing will always find a place among the UK’s bestsellers. Frenchiepleasing too. Hamish is now fully relaxed and Colin’s so pleased with the roominess of the double

floored boot, he raises the possibility of getting a second dog to put in there. Hamish’s ears instantly prick up like antennae.

If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us. Next time a friend proffers a Qashqai as the car they want to lease, I doubt I’ll recommend them elsewhere. Now

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best car to drive in its class, but

it’s quite possibly the easiest to live with, which is surely what matters more. It’s made locally, too...

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TESLA MODEL 3

C L AS S : E L E C T R I C // C A R : T E S L A M O D E L 3 // TAS K : C O M M U T I N G

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Britain’s commuters went from 62 to zero when the pandemic struck, but that doesn’t mean staying in the house WORDS SAM BURNETT PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

TESLA MODEL 3

07:01 The commute begins. Think

07:04 Ah, creepy little YouTube

07:11 Design next issue’s cover.

I’ve forgotten my packed lunch.

algorithm, you know me so well.

Must remember to send to art desk.

07:29 Catch up with some reading over a toasty fire. Phew, it’s warm.

07:38 Time to Netflix and cool down with the window open.

07:49 Snack o’clock. It’s

It’s a weird car, though, the Model 3 – not simply for the fact that it’s the decade-long fruit of a tortured billionaire’s fever dream, but also because Elon has made such a fuss out of the car’s ability to navigate complex roads by itself. However, let us ignore for a moment that it appears not to be quite so good at this as the proud parent would have us believe... though I might feel like falling asleep after an early start, I certainly wouldn’t do it on the move. No way. Likewise, there’s been such an emphasis put on the 3’s interior as party central, that actually driving it has almost become a secondary function.

A distraction, even. You can do karaoke in a Model 3. Use the central touchscreen as a sketch pad. Or a log fire. You can

change the horn sound so the car lets rip a humungous fart that echos and rolls down the street. What madness is this.

People worked on that. Like, for their actual job.

You could spend 62 minutes fussing through the settings and getting everything how you like it. The admirably minimalist aesthetic (although I wouldn’t mind some dials behind the wheel) has been achieved by ramming basically everything into the 15-inch central screen.

When I picked up the car I spent what felt like as long trying to get the wing mirrors to point somewhere behind me – you have to use the left ball on the steering wheel, but one vaguely false move and it changes mirrors. Or swaps to another function entirely, like launching

Back in more innocent times (2019), a survey reported that the average UK commute had reached 62 minutes a day, with 15 per cent of workers spending more than 102 minutes on the move to and from the office. All moot in the end, considering within months most of us would be sat at home trying to work the office VPN and waiting for our sourdough loaves to rise.

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Ah, but weren’t we glad to get that hour back, for all of the creative home schooling, crochet and self-improvement.

Maybe even a Zoom quiz or two with the family. By week two it just meant longer in bed. I must admit that I used to enjoy reading a nice book on my commute, but it’s harder to get into a novel on the walk back upstairs after I’ve brushed my teeth and fed the cat. Whether you were humming away in traffic or trying to keep your face out of a stranger’s foetid armpit on the train, that was precious me time. A chance to gather your thoughts and refocus the mind. I reflected on all of this sitting on the drive in a Tesla Model 3, commuting precisely nowhere and frankly enjoying the hell out of it.

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exhausting work commuting again.

07:14 Would play some chess,

07:16 The game AI seems to be

07:23 Coffee arrives. Should

but my Czech mate is on holiday.

based on real-life Tesla drivers.

definitely be an app for this.

07:54 Humanity’s nadir will surely be surround sound farting.

07:59 There’s no point charging, I’m going straight back in after this.

space rockets. Maybe I’d just grow to enjoy the view of the passenger side roofline.

This pristine white vegan leather would last about 62 minutes before becoming irrevocably trashed in the mitts of an average UK family, but it’s a comfortable interior. Even cosier when I put the log fire screen on, which plays a crackling fire on the richly detailed screen. This is better quality than the creaking telly I have at home. This novelty function also runs the heating, as I realise a few minutes later, sweating in my cheap, ill-fitting suit like a henchman at a sentence hearing.

I use the internet browser to have a relaxing read of the latest insightful items on the TG website, but for some reason

the 3 thinks we’re in the Netherlands. In your face, car, because I spent a year at university learning Dutch. Maar ik was niet so good. Netflix, then.

Wait, that thinks I’m in the sweeping lowlands of northwestern Europe too. Turns out they don’t have anything good to watch over there. I spend a quarter of my commute looking for a good film, scrolling through endless categories of weirdly enticing word salads.

Human Connections, AwardWinning Feel-Good and Relentless Crime Thrillers. Who comes up with these? Probably the same creative agency Tesla consulted on fart names.

Perhaps the Model 3’s biggest draw, outside of the neck-weakening acceleration or telling people you have a Tesla,

08:03 Work’s calling. Might try and claim the last hour back in lieu.

is the variety of games to play.

Nothing to do with I Spy or yellow cars or did anyone see what that sign said back there.

Actual computer games.

Blowing things up in space, racing a cartoonish gaggle of Teslas round lavishly animated tracks, backgammon. I win a few rounds of BeachBuggy Racing 2, using the actual steering wheel to wrestle a tiny Model 3 about booby-trapped circuits. I saw away like Ollie Marriage on a Lambo shoot until I can no longer bear the

And with that my time is up.

Never feels quite so quick when you’re stuck in traffic or trying to elbow people out the way on Clapham Junction’s raised scrummage, but that’s Tesla for you. Rethinking everything whether you like it or not, including the passage of time.

At least when it comes to buying a Model 3 you can rely on full self-entertainment that comes as standard.

VERDICT could have disconnected the steering between coming up with the Short Shorts Ripper and Boring Fart. It boggles the mind that the trump campaign sucked up all the spare capacity.

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entertainment you’ll probably find

yourself looking forward to a chance to stop.

Do we need faster charging or just something better to do?

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VAUXHALL CORSA

C L AS S : S U P E R M I N I // C A R : VAU X H A L L C O R SA // TAS K : L E A R N I N G TO D R I V E

How much is it possible for a novice to learn in a day in Britain’s most popular learner motor?

WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE

PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

VAUXHALL CORSA

Little wonder that Ollie often confuses 60mph with 90mph

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These buttons are rubbish for winding up your mates in car parks

A Corsa would look strangely naked without its L plates

B

Britain’s bestselling car. Is also the car that teaches Britain to drive. This is not a coincidence.

Plenty of learners go on to buy a Corsa. They want transport and here’s a small, affordable, easy car that’s already familiar to them.

Tick, tick, tick. These people are not like you and I. But they are the majority. And the majority do not buy ‘good’ or ‘interesting’, they buy ‘ease’ and ‘value’.

Vauxhall supplies thousands of cars to driving schools every year.

I suspect it’s a profitable enterprise.

But how easy is a new Corsa to learn in? I’ve been asking myself questions like this a lot recently since I have a learner of my own at home. My daughter Sasha is now 17. She is not like you and I either. For a few days this Corsa shared driveway space with a Huracán STO. She needed a lift to volunteering. She chose the Corsa.

I wasn’t having any of that. I did have to agree to drop her very far away where no one could see her.

The only driving she has done before was when I nabbed her godmother’s VW Up and took her to a gravel lane to get her used to using a clutch. Then got her to bring it to a stop using only the

manual handbrake. That made us both grin. Realising my limitations today I’ve lined up someone proper.

Karen Bransgrove is the chief instructor of the Driving Instructors’ Association. The instructor’s instructor. The aim is to see how far we can get Sasha in one day using the Corsa. To passing standard, I’m hoping, as that’ll save me a fortune. From memory I had about 10 hours of lessons (and I do remember each lesson cost a tenner), but the guidance today is to expect to have 45 hours of instruction.

Which, at around £27.50 an hour, works out at over £1,200.

No wonder people aren’t learning to drive. And they’re not.

Back when I passed my test (1991 when, I insist on telling my kids, everything was more difficult, especially GCSEs and A-levels), 48 per cent of under 20s had a driving licence, now it’s 29 per cent. That’s a big drop, and cost rather than better public transport or everything happening online is the main reason cited. It’s also £23 for a theory test and £65 to do your practical – and less than half pass their test first time round...

Ease of driving is therefore crucial. But modern cars – and the Corsa certainly isn’t alone in this – aren’t straightforward. From 2022, all new cars will have to be fitted with further ‘safety’ features, including lane keep tech, reversing detectors, emergency braking and speed limit assist, attention warning systems and more. Let me tell you this: the thing most likely to panic any learner is the car doing something they don’t expect. They need to be in complete control. For

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you and I, having a wrestle with lane keep is irritating, for learners it is potentially lethal. And lethal again when you’re trying to find the button to turn it off.

And it’s not just the safety systems. At various times during the day Sasha gets confused by the automatic parking brake and the engine stop/start system.

To her, the car isn’t behaving consistently or logically. Even the gearbox is a puzzle to begin with, and it’s an auto. But the lever always returns to centre and it’s hard to spot the gear position info on a dash screen dominated by lane keep graphics. Why auto? Partly because I knew we’d achieve more in a day, partly to point out that although autos are on the rise (they’ve gone from accounting for five per cent of Corsa sales eight years ago to 25 per cent today), the vast majority (90 per cent) still learn in a manual. Glad to hear it.

Electric? Barely on the radar for driving instructors yet, and really, it’s just another auto. Mind the regen braking.

We’re at Millbrook. First on the steering pad for the starting, stopping and steering, then on the city course to introduce road furniture. This is learner heaven.

And it’s got me reminiscing. Back before I got driving I assumed there was this magical place where you went to learn, because surely they didn’t allow someone who had never been in a car before to go out and play on roads alongside trucks and pedest... oh, they do. My initial road legal driving experiences were at the back end of an industrial estate, chosen largely so my instructor could throw his fag

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067

“SASHA HASN’T BEEN TROUBLING THE TURBO – JUST ME THEN” butts out the window to lie concealed among the detritus of pallets, weeds and oil barrels. But then on actual roads, where 40mph felt as exhilarating and terrifying as pedalling my bike down a steep hill had only a couple of years (but obviously a lifetime of maturity) earlier, I couldn’t believe – during my constant mirror checks – that I was holding everyone up. How can they be keeping up? I’m going like the wind here.

Karen is similarly impressed with the venue and reckons Sasha is picking driving up three times faster simply because she doesn’t have to focus on anything else.

We’re 45 minutes in and she’s whipping around the outer circle, doing figure of eights and accelerating and braking smoothly.

We move on. The city course is super tight, which means lots of steering input. We need to talk shuffling. Karen tells me why it’s the correct method (keeps your body balanced in the car, keeps both hands on the steering wheel, prevents arms being in front of it should an airbag go off), and Sasha has no trouble adapting. I remember “have you crossed your arms yet?” being literally the first thing my mates asked me after I passed my test (second time round, all the best people etc). Yep. First thing I did as I drove out the test centre and I don’t think I’ve uncrossed them since.

The Corsa’s brakes are sharp and sensitive at the top of their travel and even I find it almost impossible to stop the car without that final lurch. It’s also got a turbo, which means power delivery isn’t linear, but runs away as the boost

comes in. Just me that has that issue – Sasha hasn’t been troubling the turbo. And few learners drive turbo Corsas: the biggest seller is the most basic, the 1.2 SE starting from £15,815.

Tiredness is starting to creep up on Sasha, but in a day she’s gone from basic novice to a driver that has full control of speed and direction, can manage the secondary controls (wipers, indicators and so on), recognise road signs and has started to develop that routine approach to hazards that we do without thinking. I decide to bite the bullet and ask Karen to sit next to me and tell me what I’ve forgotten over the last 30 years. The Corsa is parallel parked. Karen asks me to imagine I’m among normal traffic, and then instructs, “When you’re ready, proceed.” The phrase alone transports me back to my driving test. God that feeling is desperate, horrible. I churn inside, appear to have lost all processing ability, but finally get going. A pause, then, “So, what didn’t you do as you pulled away?” she asks. I grasp at nothing, “Would you normally check your blind spot maybe?”

“Well, um, absolutely,” I gabble.

“OK, but if this had been a test situation, Sasha would have lasted

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there (Fiesta) than the Corsa. But for

a novice it’s much easier to learn in an older car without the complex driver assist systems. Plus you’ll save money.

And insurance cost.

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Hands up if you corner like this? Unless you’re driving right now, obvs

VAUXHALL CORSA

Driving is much better when there’s no one else to get in the way

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VW GOLF (& ID.3)

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Take your seats, it’s veteran versus upstart in this car park battle to end all battles WORDS OLLIE KEW AND GREG POTTS PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

C L AS S : H ATC H B AC K // C A R S : V W G O L F (& I D.3 ) // TAS K : PA R K I N G

VW GOLF (& ID.3)

Disqualified. There’s no way you can get to the crisps aisle from there, Kew

Potts leads Kew in the race to find the best parking spot. Youth wins!

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“THE AVERAGE BRIT SPENDS 44 HOURS A YEAR SEARCHING FOR A SUITABLE PARKING SPACE AND ACTUALLY EXECUTING THE DAMNED MANOEUVRE”

B British specialities: weatherrelated small talk, public transport grumbling, and first in line: queueing. But before we can get to our politely lining up pastime, the car’s got to be left somewhere, and that’s a modern life bugbear that’s getting worse, not better. According to a recent survey, the average Brit spends 44 hours a year searching for a suitable parking space and then actually executing the damned manoeuvre.

Time and fuel wasted looking for parking costs the UK economy £23.3 billion a year. Your insurer’s annual bill is eye-watering too: the RAC estimates two-thirds of Brits have suffered a car park prang at least once, with 48 per cent of low-speed bumps occurring outside supermarkets.

Your car may have a Sport mode. Perhaps it was fine-tuned at the Nürburgring. But the most intense high stakes piece of precision driving it’s likely to ever face is this: Operation Supermarket Gauntlet. For a family hatchback, this is a hellscape. Threats lurk on all sides: the runaway trolley, the

distracted childminder. Barry, 43, desperately trying to make it to the flower aisle before closing time on his wedding anniversary.

A high-vis Volkswagen Golf is an ideal tool in this theatre of war. Relatively compact, with useful visibility. Practical.

Wieldy. So far in 2021 it’s Britain’s third bestselling car, and the country’s favourite family hatchback. But being a young and impressionable fellow, TG’s Greg Potts insists there is a new bestseller-in-waiting even better suited to the gnarly white-lined battlefield. Don’t you, Gregory?

GP: Crikey, 44 hours spent parking the car each year? I reckon we could halve that by driving EVs with their short overhangs and lightning quick 0–10mph sprints. All the more time to spend doomscrolling through memes or on the toilet – that’s what those surveys are usually about, isn’t it? The ID.3 is the natural heir to the Golf’s hatchback throne. Sales of fully electric vehicles have already overtaken diesels in the UK this year, and that 2030 ICE ban is edging ever closer.

VW really needs the ID.3 to sell in huge numbers. And to boost the margin, it appears to have raided Dacia’s trim offcuts skip for the interior. Your Golf’s cabin feels more solid, but I like my chances.

OK: I’m a firm believer in competition breeding quality, so I’ve devised a cunning stunt to settle this people’s car death match. Our inspiration is the noble work of one Gareth Wild

from Bromley, who revealed earlier this year the completion of a six-year quest to park in every single one of the 211 spaces outside his local branch of Sainsburys on his weekly shop.

A fine effort, but in the time it took you to read that, 17 more Brits have suffered parking calamities. We shall set the clock at 60 minutes. Electric vs petrol.

Manual vs automatic. Youth vs slightly less youth. Who can achieve the most successful parks in one hour? Penalty points for trolley dings, a bonus for an end space. Bags for life at the ready. Go! GP: I’m off the line in a flash.

This particular ID.3 is the relatively basic Life Pro with the 58kWh battery and only 143bhp, but it’s rear-wheel drive and still claims 0–62mph in less than 10 seconds. I’ve got you on toast from 0–5mph, which is what matters in car parks. It’s also tall – much taller than the Golf – with plenty of glass and split A-pillars that help spot me past this pushchair into the parent and child spaces.

OK: I demand the referee discounts that park as you’re closer to being a child than having one, mate. The Golf isn’t as instantaneous as the ID.3, but its bestselling engine, a 1.5-litre turbo, is an absolute peach. I did 60mpg on my way here. Though as a committed manual gearshift disciple I have to concede finding reverse in a hurry is a bit of a graunch-fest.

GP: I’ve got my own problems, analogue boy. Why are car parks always plagued by student

drivers tentatively learning how not to roast a clutch? An L-plater has stalled in front of me and wasted precious time.

Doesn’t he know this is the crucible of motorsport? Didn’t you pick the car park? That’s what I’d call a home advantage.

OK: I may have taken actual driving lessons on this very spot back in the mists of 2009.

Any other excuses?

GP: I can’t believe you’ve specced a reversing camera.

Real pros switch off their dim-witted parking sensors and look over their left shoulder...

OK: Ah yes, a £300 option on the Golf, but one that’s terrifyingly easy to become dependent on.

At least neither of these humbly spec’d examples have selfparking aids. Who, honestly, has the time for those pessimistic systems to tack their way into a bay?

GP: No idea. Have you noticed how your Golf whines like a Stuka bomber in reverse, whereas my ID.3 glides in either direction without doing an impression of a wounded animal?

OK: I’d call that a safety feature.

The weird pulsing ‘I’m moving over here’ bong that emanates from the ID.3 is like a badly dubbed Hollywood special effect. I wouldn’t mind your turning circle, though.

GP: I knew you’d be jealous of that. My futuristic powertrain packaging means I can whip round in a 10.2-metre gap.

Great feet for a big man and all of that...

OK: Don’t think I haven’t noted you driving the wrong way down

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VW GOLF (& ID.3)

“WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU DROVE 450 MILES FOR A PINT OF MILK?” the one-way system arrows to cop a shortcut advantage, Potts.

Technique straight out of the Michael Schumacher/Vauxhall Mokka school of unsporting supermarket parking challenge driving, there. Oh, and I’ve got enough petrol on board to last me 450 miles. How long before range anxiety means you’re popping inside to buy an extension lead and a value pack of own brand AAAs? GP: The ID.3 is mightily efficient at these kinds of speeds – I’m sure I could easily beat my claimed 264 miles of WLTP range if we did this all day. Plus if I upgraded to Tour trim with its 77kWh battery I’d get 201bhp and 340 miles of range. When was the last time you drove 450 miles for a pint of milk and a tub of Horlicks?

I know you’re old but you must know how to put your correct postcode in for click and collect?

OK: Impertinent. Anyway, age equals experience. Of previous Golfs, for one thing. I maintain the MkVIII’s interior buttonectomy has been a catastrophic mistake, but I have to give it to the Golf: even while budgeting for the ID onslaught, this still feels like a deeply well-engineered car. The controls are so slick and perfectly matched. The door shuts

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with heft and finality. I think if a sequin-jacketed man walked over now and told me I was customer number 10,000,000 and I’d won a Golf for the rest of my life, I’d still be quite chuffed. Thing is, this is as good as a Golf will ever get, whereas you’re driving what will one day be the most primitive, flawed ID Volkswagen ever stamped out...

GP: It’s really pretty good for a first attempt though. Beginner’s luck maybe. The steering is super light and while it’s not as involving to drive as your dino-hatch, that could be solved if VW sticks an extra motor in the hidden hole that’s been left up front. All-wheel-drive Golf R rival anyone?

OK: Right, I’ve got RSI in my left hand from going reverse-to-first half a million times and a nervous mirror-checking twitch. Scores time. How many parks you got?

GP: I make that 183 for the ID.3, although some of them might not have been ideally executed. Think ‘popping in for a packet of crisps’ rather than settling in for the weekly shop.

OK: I’m not saying that this has been a pointless exercise, but I managed 182. Normally I’d demand a rematch but 45 hours a year parking is enough for anyone.

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ID.3 does excellent work preventing Golf from its next manoeuvre

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sensible and acceptable answer to the “what car

should I buy?” question, but make sure you test drive an ID.3 while you’re down at the dealer.

HOBBY

C L AS S : S M A L L C R O S S OV E R // C A R : F O R D P U M A // TAS K : R E C R E AT I O N

How much lifestyle can you possibly squeeze into one lifestyle crossover? A day with the Ford Puma should do it WORDS TOM FORD PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

FORD PUMA

M

y kayak is very slowly deflating. I’m not sure whether that’s because I accidentally poked it with a chainsaw this morning while loading the car, because I’ve just stabbed it with my fishing rod, or possibly because it’s been lashed to the roof of a Ford Puma for the past four hours with too-tight ratchet straps (something you really should not do with an inflatable watercraft, I have subsequently discovered). Obviously this wouldn’t be a problem, except that I’m currently in the middle of a lake, I’ve managed to untwist my budget collapsible paddle into two stumpy oars and I am... not light. But that’s what you get for buying your adventure kit off the internet with the filter set to ‘lowest possible price’. I have to get to shore, simply because I have a date with a climbing wall at 10am, an exercise class immediately after, and the intellectual weight of Emmanuel Kant to plough through before lunch.

Still, nice day for it.

An explanation as to why we’re currently doing a rubbery, Happy Shopper impression of the Titanic on a small lake in Lincolnshire is probably necessary. And it goes a little something like this: if the Ford Puma is a genuinely popular car – the fifth bestselling car in the UK in

2021 with 20,853 registrations so far, according to the SMMT, and the bestselling small crossover of all – then what is it that makes it so appealing?

To figure it out, you need to ask yourself the basic question: what are the key factors that make a car popular? A tough to define set of parameters that no doubt gets bounced around product planning meetings the world over, with out of the box, blue sky thinking intent boiled down to far more simple execution. Popular cars don’t attempt to change the game, they just aim to play it well. And so you’re left with less sexy mission statements, but far more focus on things like reliability, price, practicality, broad-spectrum appeal and fitness for purpose. Mix up a cocktail of those ingredients and you’re well on your way to sales chart success. Probably.

And yes, the relatively humble Ford Puma works on lots of levels. Big Company backup and choice, in a package that’s in the Goldilocks moment of not-too-big and not-too-small. It’s an SUV-lite without the brash; decent to drive, economical and useful. It covers a lot of bases. And yet, how many bases can a Ford Puma actually cover? In true TopGear fashion, we decided to find out, using a chainsaw, a kayak, a £6.5k carbon-fibre mountain bike and a sewing kit as well as myriad other hobby-based props. Because we’re going to attempt to complete as many of the UK’s most popular hobbies as possible in a day. From a humble Puma.

“THIS IS A TALENTED CHASSIS EVEN IN BASIC FORMAT”

K AYA K I N G A N D F I S H I N G A quick jaunt to Tallington Lakes just outside Stamford in Lincolnshire allowed for a first brief but informative assessment of the Puma’s handling characteristics, albeit with a full roof rack and slightly flappy kayak bouncing merrily on the windscreen. And it’s good. This is a talented chassis even in basic format and with only 123bhp to play with. There’s something gently satisfying in the way it stays straight and level, and ekes out whatever grip is available – Ford’s chassis engineers having paid proper attention to damping and control. A quick paddle around on the lake, a few desultory casts of my £12.99 fishing rod (no fish), and we’re on to the next one.

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3 CRAF TING Another one of the UK’s most favoured pastimes, which encompasses a bewildering array of delicate appliqué and bedazzling. I plumped for rock painting, which requires very little explanation, and yet is bizarrely engrossing. About 45 minutes and three joyously graffitied rocks later and photographer Riccioni had to drag me away so that I could go...

CAMPING To be fair, having strapped the bike and kayak to the roof and stowed the rest of the kit in the car with the seats down, the Puma swallowed everything without breaking a sweat.

That’s 456 litres of hobby space seats up, some 1,200 seats down, though if you option the ‘Megabox’ stowage compartment under the boot floor, you can stand a set of golf clubs up in the back. Which is nice. The camping came up during the complex packing Jenga because it started to rain, and we took refuge in the tent. In a car park. Not that it looked dodgy.

READING One of the UK’s top hobbies, apparently, so tried twin-paging an old TopGear adventure drives book and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at the same time. Ended up mostly looking at the pictures in the TopGear book, if I’m honest.

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FORD PUMA

CYCLING So cards on the table, this was my favourite hobby of the day. If you’ve got the £200 optional roof bars fitted, a Thule ProRide bike holder for just over £100 will handle pretty much any bike. It’ll need to be relatively light, mind, seeing as you have to lift it onto the roof to secure it. Not a problem in this case, seeing as we managed to get hold of an absolutely gorgeous Canyon Spectral 29 LTD trailbike.

With a carbon frame, it only weighs just over 13kg, and the ‘Triple Phase’ rear fully adjustable suspension looks suspiciously like a four-link to me. Couple that with Fox Racing shocks, and you’ve basically got the Trophy Truck of mountain bikes. Which is pertinent to my interests. It’s got a pneumatic seatpost which can be adjusted for height on the fly and a gearset that looks like the innards of a Swiss watch. But the best bit? I never realised how much difference a really good bike makes to ease of use. Offroad humps and bumps? You can style them out every time, and keep up with a badly driven Ford Puma on a farm track.

In fact, the only fly in the ointment is that it lists at £6,499...

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B I R D WAT C H I N G Having ascended to my ‘hide’ to look for some sort of rare tit, it became apparent that the Puma as viewed from above is actually a pretty compact little thing. Even though it is 54mm taller, 71mm wider and has a 95mm longer wheelbase than the current Fiesta, it’s easy to park and deal with in car parks. Looks good in the optional £750 ‘Grey Matter’ paint too.

8, 9 T V AND GAMING A sort of combined application here, for two of the most popular hobbies. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stream to the Puma’s workmanlike but useful 8in Sync 3 touchscreen, but the physical controls underneath did the job of keeping me cool as I failed to get to the Luigi’s Mansion level of Mario Kart.

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FORD PUMA

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SEWING

BOOZE

Yes, the idea of the Megabox does also appeal if you like to have somewhere to store your sewing kit for on the go alterations or button rectification (the UK is really into sewing, knitting and crochet, who knew?), but I was actually more drawn to the idea of filling it with ice and...

Although not technically a ‘hobby’, having somewhere waterproof to store some ice and a non-driving alcoholic beverage at the end of the day is worth its weight in gold.

Just don’t attempt sewing in a busy supermarket car park, because people think you’re weird.

CLIMBING Coverage at the recent Olympics has seen a surge in interest in climbing, so it seemed pertinent to at least attempt to haul my sorry carcass up the beginner’s wall. I feel I would have been better at this discipline if the photographer hadn’t been trying to fly a drone into my head 30ft off the floor while I was clinging to a wall-nubbin the size and shape of a kidney bean.

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KEEP FIT The back seats of a Puma are relatively broad for this size of car, making it a useful five-seater capable of covering off most families’ needs. It also makes it able to accommodate a small weights bar and dumb-bell set in the footwells, for a quick workout in a field. Access to which was down a light farm track which highlighted the usefulness of the Puma’s slightly raised ride height. At 160mm it’s some 25mm further off the ground than a Fiesta, which means no graunching if you have a sloping driveway, but the taller, longer and wider cabin also makes it feel much bigger. It’s also got a usefully higher seating position, which helps when you’ve just popped a hip out doing some sort of newly invented barley yoga.

COOKING Being a more practical/industrial chef (I maintain a viable line in bulk cuisine, largely breaded, all the same oven time), I tried frying an egg on the exhaust manifold. With the actual hot bit stuffed down the back of the engine, this took a long time. Egg smelled disturbingly of burnt hydrocarbons. 1/10. Would not recommend.

VERDICT

APPR

O V ED

a very busy day of doing relaxing

hobbies, and seeing if the Ford Puma actually deserves to be one of the UK’s top sellers. And it does. It might not be the most vital of cars in the lower reaches of the range, but it’s got all-rounder appeal that works for lots of people, for lots

15 DIY

Something of a sore subject in the Ford household after the sink incident of 2019, I was banished to the garage to see if I could wire a light bar to the Puma’s roofrack. Which I could.

Immediately lost both the 10mm and 13mm sockets to the alternate dimension in which these things live.

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GARDENING

.

This is TopGear. I used a chainsaw for pruning.

of the time. For real people, with real lives. This isn’t about a car with a specific mission statement,

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but an impressive breadth of ability that encompasses pretty much anything you can throw at

WA L K I N G

.

Muddy boots? You really need that Megabox. Those extra 80 litres plus drain holes underneath the tiered boot floor are genuinely useful for all sorts of things.

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it. And, as it turns out, you can throw quite a lot at a humble Ford Puma.

THANKS TO TALLINGTON LAKES WWW.TALLINGTON.COM AND CANYON BIKES WWW.CANYON.COM

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MARCELLO THE GANDINI DOCTOR

BY SUZI PERRY Woods, Ali, Senna... Rossi? As MotoGP’s greatest showman prepares to hang up his leathers, the pundit who knows him best asks what is it that makes him so special?

PHOTOGRAPHY GETTY AND GOLD & GOOSE

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Ain’t no party like a champagne party... Rossi has had a few during his illustrious career

“WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT THE 42-YEAR-OLD ITALIAN MEGASTAR WHO HAS NEVER COURTED THE MEDIA?”

THE DOCTOR

alentino Rossi. A phenomenon who almost single-handedly created a global addiction to MotoGP, winning nine world titles and a demigod status to boot. We became as addicted to him as he was to racing bikes, and boy we couldn’t get enough. But he has now called time on his unprecedented career on two wheels, so why have we been so obsessed? What makes him so special?

Does he get a wristband to the exclusive club of god-like talent alongside Hunt, Sheene, Pele, Woods, Jordan and Ali? These choices are always subjective, but I’m calling yes.

Of course, everyone knows Valentino for his on-track success and his flamboyant off-track antics, but what do we really know about the 42-year-old Italian megastar who has never courted the media, preferring to let his racing do the talking? For context, I’m not here to pretend that I’m his bezzie mate, but I have been interviewing him for 25 years; a relationship built on respect and the odd post-race party. It’s a working bond that others have described as a special relationship, but really I’ve just been bugging him with questions for over two decades. I know him well enough to have wiped his face clean with my hand straight after he won a world title (I didn’t want him to have a snotty cheek during the interview) and to have ridden pillion with him around London, but probably not well enough to be considered a friend.

And still, after all this time, I always find Vale enigmatic. He remains a complex blend of breathtaking showman and slightly gangly boy next door, always engaging, always focused. He is fiercely loyal to his inner circle of mates whom he has known since he was a child, most still working alongside him, all of whom protect him equally ferociously. He is a thoughtful and compassionate person as well as being a ruthless bastard in race colours. It’s a heady mix.

But saying that, he has an uncanny ability to leave an indelible impression on a much wider circle. When a bike-turned-flying-missile was centimetres from taking him out in Austria last year, everyone was horrified. The race was restarted and we carried on as normal but afterwards the deeply shocked paddock reflected on how the outcome could have been so very different that day.

The likeability is probably in his genes, mind. Young Vale grew up around racing. His father Graziano was a colourful GP star from the late Seventies and a friend of our Bazza (Sheene). Signor Rossi Senior used to take his hen Christina for walks in the town, so you can see where his lad possibly took inspiration for his future (now infamous) celebrations. I know his dad, and in my early days at Sky he helped me get hold of his lad when I needed him for interviews. He is affectionately bonkers. And while his father is as effusive as he is, Valentino’s beautiful mum Stefania prefers a more private, measured approach to life. She wanted her son to be an engineer. Of course life

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“AS MUCH AS HE COULD PLAY THE CLOWN, MAKE NO MISTAKE, HE IS NO FOOL” had other plans for her firstborn, but family is at her heart and they never miss a celebration of Vale’s birthday, her ‘Peter Pan’ son who has kept a top flight career burning brightly for 26 years, far longer than anyone else in the world of motorsport.

That career has brought joy to millions, but the heart has always been at home. Il Dottore, The Doctor as he is now known, was raised in Tavullia; a 16-mile square village in the province of Pesaro and Urbino and they worship their revered son whose race number is 46. The speed limit is 46kph. Visitors flock to the VR46 fan club shop. They split a pizza at Vale’s restaurant and stop to give the clock tower a glimpse where they ring the bell every time he wins. It may have been quiet for a while now but there was a time when the place celebrated so hard, they forgot to switch it off and it chimed proudly for an entire night.

It wasn’t bikes in the beginning though. The ‘Rider’, as he has always called himself (a lighthearted nod to how Japanese refer to their pilots), actually began racing karts. The pathway to F1 looked too expensive for the family and just as the mini moto craze hit Italy, he hopped onto two wheels and the passion emerged. Truthfully, it’s more like a love affair that he has developed with his bikes, like Clapton and his guitars. At the start of each season Valentino places personally designed stickers of his pets and sponsors exactly where he wants them on the bike. At night he talks to his beloved machines and once, he even wrote his Yamaha M1 a love letter for all the winning championships they had shared. He is a rare gem.

And it’s probably his antics that have forged the legend as much as his brilliance. At the British GP back in 1997, because of its proximity to Sherwood Forest, ‘RossiFume’ appeared on the podium dressed as Robin Hood complete with bow and arrow. Already he was emerging as a natural born entertainer, not just a super talent on the track but a self-assured frontman, with a penchant to create theatre, which in turn saw Osvaldo

4

1. Rossi competed in the opening stage of the 2002 Network Q Rally in Cardiff 2. Valentino talking with F1 ace Michael Schumacher prior to the 2004 Australian GP 3. Being interviewed by Suzi Perry during the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed 4. Vale and his dad on their respective machines. Now that’d be an epic race

the chicken, toilet cabins, angel wings, a tenpin bowling strike and a speeding ticket all becoming memorable celebrations.

But as much as he could play the clown, make no mistake, he is no fool. He has never openly admitted that he made races more exciting by leading, dropping back and then winning, but... he possibly did.

He is an astute businessman, founding the VR46 Academy, and he runs a highly successful merchandise empire. The numbers make the point emphatically; nine Grand Prix world titles, seven Premier Class, 115 wins, 235 podiums (so far), 65 pole positions and – as of the Brit GP this year – 366 races. Within this, it’s worth mentioning that in his Premier Class career he took the title on a 500cc privateer bike before the series went into the four-stroke era.

Much was rightfully made of his switch from the championshipwinning factory Honda team to the ailing factory Yamaha team for the 2004 campaign. Most thought that he had lost his mind and that ego had got the better of him. He wanted to show that it was the rider who could make the difference and indeed he did. Victory came following a tussle with Biaggi at the first race in Welkom, South Africa. Those images of Rossi with his head slumped, sitting by his bike are unforgettable.

Many thought he was crying in disbelief, he was actually laughing. It was a master stroke from a master talent and one of his most cherished moments. For me it remains his biggest achievement. One thing is for certain: throughout the decades the Sunday Man has been a maestro of both machinery and mind games.

Just looking at the stats, though, completely misses the more subtle Rossi effect. His records can and possibly will be broken, but his legacy is unlikely to be surpassed. Very few transcend sport like he has. Every race has become a home race, such is his popularity and global fanbase. The obsession runs way beyond the Tricolore borders – a point well made in 2015 when Lord March called me with great excitement, exclaiming: “I’ve finally got hold of Valentino, he’s coming to Goodwood! He will be celebrating Yamaha’s 60th anniversary and I want him to do a balcony interview overlooking the grounds, can you host it?”

It was a stonking day. Rossi rode through the grounds and into the house. The sight was glorious, with a resplendent Vale on a Yamaha with a retro livery. My job was to whip up the crowd and do the big build up on the balcony while he was coming up the stairs. The place was packed, you couldn’t see a blade of grass. The preamble went on a bit, everyone was getting revved up, and finally Vale appeared. I was practically in a backbend shouting his name, he was laughing and everyone lost it when he finally graced the terrace. He was on top of the world and the chat reflected his mood. Afterwards he embraced me to say how much he’d loved it, Lord March did the same. I’ve never forgotten it.

I may have painted a rainbow picture. Valentino has made his mistakes. The Ducati years were a low point, there have been the injuries and lack of results in recent years and even though he is riding faster now, perhaps Father Time has caught him in the slipstream. But this has been one hell of a ride. He has inspired a whole generation of racers as he switches his race focus to four wheels. Le Mans 24hrs anyone?

Never say never... There’s plenty more to come from Papa Rossi.

THE DOCTOR

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GREATEST ROSSI MOMENTS

Highlights from two and a half decades at the top WORDS STEPHEN DOBIE PICS GETTY AND GOLD & GOOSE

01 FT II RT LSET (W19O9R7L)D Valentino picked up the first of his nine world titles at the tender age of 18. It was his second season in the world bike racing championship’s third tier – nowadays known as Moto3, in the late Nineties it was called the 125cc Championship.

After a consistent but unexceptional opening year, Vale really turned the screw second time around, winning not only 11 of 15 races on his Aprilia, but the hearts of most spectators with his vibrant celebrations – a number of them dressed as Robin Hood.

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Naturally, Rossi’s 125cc title saw him graduate up to the 250cc Championship, where history repeated itself and he took rider’s honours in his second season in 1999. Then it was up to the Big Boy class, named the 500cc Championship until it evolved into MotoGP in 2002. Again, Vale took the title at his second attempt, making him the last rider to claim 500cc honours and the last world champion from a non-factory team. He finished 106 points ahead of fellow Italian Max Biaggi. The Rossi legend was really starting to take shape.

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F I R S T YA M A H A W I N ( 2 0 0 4)

Having won the title in 2001, there was no stopping Vale – he did it in 2002 and 2003 too. But there were still doubters when he moved from Honda to Yamaha for 2004.

The season opened, somewhat unusually, at the South African Grand Prix in Welkom.

Rossi made history as the first rider to win consecutive races with different manufacturers, having ended 2003 with a Honda victory. After beating Biaggi’s Honda by 0.21secs, Vale was visibly emotional as he kissed his victorious Yamaha afterward.

W E T W I N AT DONING T ON (2005)

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Rossi and Yamaha soon became the most glorious of bedfellows, wins and titles coming thick and fast after that emotional day in South Africa. Highlights are abundant but among them was a particularly dazzling display at Donington Park. A sopping wet Donington Park. It’s a track Vale knew well and clocking up his seventh win there – at the 2005 British GP – was a doddle even in the damp. Rossi crossed the line standing aloft with not a soul anywhere near him. A masterclass akin to another motorsport hero around a moist Donington. A man called Ayrton.

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Donington was Vale’s 75th win, and he wasted no time in notching up number 76 at the very next round in Germany. This saw Rossi reach the podium of greatest bike racers, tying with Mike Hailwood in third spot. Obviously there was a charismatic celebration to mark his achievement, but with a delightful dose of class – Rossi carried a flag on his victory lap reading “76 Rossi, 76 Hailwood, I’m sorry Mike”. The season finished with Vale’s seventh title, which he celebrated with members of his fan club dressed as the seven dwarves.

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N E A R LY S H O W I N G UP SCHUE Y (2006)

The Doctor enjoyed numerous dalliances with Ferrari over the years, his ‘Italian world champ’ status earning him frequent access to F1 test sessions. He was lapping Valencia half a second behind Schumacher at one such event in 2006, fuelling rumours that Rossi would leave the world of bikes to drive for the Scuderia. It never happened, while WRC entries were never much more than cameos.“Vale would have been an excellent Formula One driver,” said Ferrari principal Stefano Domenicali in 2008.

THE DUEL OF C ATA L U N YA ( 2 0 0 9 )

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Not just one of Rossi’s greatest moments, but one of the greatest moments in motorsport full stop. Vale tussled with teammate and title rival Jorge Lorenzo throughout, but their battle came to a head in the final lap. Search for ‘Catalunya 2009’ and enjoy it for yourself, the precise opposite of F1 team orders keeping teammates a safe distance apart.

Jorge and Vale didn’t have the greatest of relationships, with the Yamaha garage split and data sharing halted at the worst of it, but the pair embraced at the end of this tussle.

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HONOURING MARCO S I M O N C E L L I ( 2 0 12 )

Vale had won at his home San Marino GP three times, but perhaps the sweetest moment of all was second place in 2012. Misano had been renamed Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in honour of another bright young local MotoGP talent who’d lost his life racing in 2011. Rossi was in his second of two seasons with Ducati, with just two podiums so far. From sixth on the grid he battled his way to a third Ducati podium in front of a dewy-eyed crowd who surged onto the circuit and partied to let off much needed steam. A truly special moment.

DRIVING LEWIS’ F 1 C A R ( 2 0 19 )

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Valentino and Lewis swapped rides for a private test session at Valencia, with press locked out so lap times would never be known.

It was a day of fun for two men with trophy cabinets the size of most public libraries. “It’s so awesome to see a legend like Valentino in the car. I’m excited for him, for discovering the car for the first time,” said Lewis. “I was a big fan of Lewis’ before but now I am even more,” added new BFF Vale. “We had a fantastic day where the two top classes of motorsports not only met but worked together. It was a proud moment for the team to share our passion.”

WORDS JACK RIX

This is the Czinger 21C – a 3D printed pedigree. We’re first to drive a very 090 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 › T O P G E A R . C O M

CZINGER 21C

PHOTOGRAPHY DW BURNETT

hypercar with Laguna Seca lap record early prototype. Prepare for take-off...

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I’ve just watched, hands on cheeks from the pitlane, as it ripped its own roof off down the straight at Willow Springs. A polycarbonate panel peeled back like a can of tuna and sent cartwheeling into the air... ta-da! The Czinger 21C Spider gets an early reveal. To be fair it did have one of our GoPros suckered to it (with Czinger’s permission) which at somewhere north of 150mph was clearly undoing the good work of that wing, and imparting some fairly serious lift. Cue a swift operation to reattach with black tack and gaffer tape. Good as new.

Apparently the beautifully finished bodywork, perched atop of this prototype chassis and powertrain, was only fitted a few weeks ago to give potential customers something to coo over at Monterey Car Week... and had only been driven up to 20mph until now. Oh well, such are the trials and errors of working with an early car.

Production of the 80 21Cs, costing $2m a pop, isn’t scheduled to start in earnest until 2023, but you don’t turn down the chance to be first to drive something this bonkers... even if it is a work in progress.

Rewind four hours and more fun and games. We’re on the road, about 20 minutes from Willow, surrounded by a forest of wind turbines whistling gently in the breeze. I’m behind the wheel, sweating like a sumo wrestler playing squash, and not because there’s no aircon yet... but because I’ve stalled on the wrong side

of the road while turning left. A minivan has just crested the hill and approaches at speed. Fortunately, Kevin Czinger (the boss) and Luiz Oliveira (head of powertrain) leap to my rescue from the car in front and flag the traffic down as I restart the engine, bung a load of revs at it and haul myself out of harm’s way.

You see, the 21C currently has a straight cut racing-style dog box and a hair trigger hand clutch for getting off the line, which makes things tricky, especially when you’re turning hard left and the paddle has to swap hands as you’re feeding it out. On the flat, you can employ the two e-motors on the front axle to get you rolling forwards, and use that momentum to smooth the process, but I’d stopped on an upslope which negated the creep. Fortunately, it’s a temporary solution – a new Xtrac single-clutch auto arrives early next year, which promises to make low speed stuff not quite as life or death.

Spool back further to the previous afternoon and we’re on Spunky Canyon Road – chosen for its topography, not comedic value – for perhaps the most bizarre moment of all. It’s my first taste of piloting the 21C: I’m drinking in the brilliance of the central driving position and the 360˚ visibility as the scenery rushes past the windows and the clouds slide by overhead. Propulsion, however, comes not from the V8 behind me, nor the motors out front, but by lifting my foot from the brake. Gravity is my fuel as we

CZINGER 21C

“I’M DRINKING IN THE BRILLIANCE OF THE CENTRAL DRIVING POSITION AND THE 360˚ VISIBILITY”

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The very pointy end of 320,000bhp... the Czinger makes do with 1,233bhp

If it can be 3D printed, it is. Could stare at this engine bay for hours, stunning isn’t it?

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CZINGER 21C

Fun fact: unlike the SR-71, no fuel leaks out of the 21C’s panel gaps. Well, not that we noticed

freewheel down a long hill to get some car-to-car photography in the bag. Why? Because Czinger’s new engine guru (former power unit engineer at Mercedes-AMG F1, a man who knows a thing or two about high-performance hybrids) Luiz Oliveira is on a plane back from his holidays in Hawaii and they don’t want to fire it up without his laptop close at hand. Fair enough. Fortunately, chapter one in the how-to-be-awriter-for-TopGear-handbook is entitled Whatever It Takes.

Rewind a bit more, and our 21C odyssey started earlier that day on a high – at the Blackbird Airpark in Palmdale, California. We arrive to find the 21C not being upstaged despite being the meat in a supersonic stealth plane sandwich. On one side the SR-71 Blackbird, on the other its precursor the A-12 – still the fastest manned planes to ever fly and hands down the most advanced aircraft ever, relative to the tech available at their conception. We stand gawping for several minutes before photographer Dave – clearly a fanboy – starts spouting random, mind-blowing SR-71 facts. I learn that the entire fuselage is a fuel tank, and because engineers needed to account for superheating and expansion of the titanium skin at cruising speeds, it leaked fuel through the panel gaps on the runway. I also learn the A-12, this crazy slice of reconnaissance perfection, was developed in under two years by a crack team of 135 engineers led by Kelly Johnson, and the SR-71 took flight a little over two years after that. This is significant.

Kevin Czinger claims he took inspiration from the SR-71 when he was devising the 21C – not for the styling or powertrain – but for the skunkworks mentality that made it possible to build a spy plane capable of cruising at Mach 3.2 at 85,000 feet in such an incredibly tight time frame. He wants his Californian hypercar, like this Californian plane, to be a giant leap... a tech reset that challenges everything we know about how we build cars. Except, the Czinger 21C might have four wheels and a windscreen, but it isn’t really a car at all, it’s a demonstrator for what’s possible with digital design and 3D printing.

Any part of this car that can be 3D printed is: the suspension arms, the crash structures, the dashboard, the exhaust mufflers to name just a handful of the Ctrl+P components, all printed from Inconel, aluminium and titanium alloys. Peer into the engine bay and it’s more anatomy lesson than automotive tradition – sinewy, organic shapes looking like tendon and muscle bolted to simple off-the-shelf extrusions. The immediate benefits are obvious – putting material only where you need it reduces weight and builds strength – but it runs deeper than that. By 3D printing the gearbox casing, for example, you can integrate the heat exchangers into the internal structure, rather than hanging them off the side, saving space and improving efficiency.

And when you have complete flexibility in the size and shape of components you can print, there’s complete flexibility in how you design and build that car with none of the costs and baggage associated with traditional car factories. A modular, fully automated car manufacturing system made up of 10m x 10m cells that can be switched to build one model in the morning, and a different one in the afternoon. That’s where Czinger’s going, licensing that tech, that’s where the big bucks are. But as Kevin Czinger told me when I first met him two years ago: “If you’ve got the tools to build something totally off the hook, go for it.”

Well, he went for it. Driven by Kevin’s love of superbikes, and his insistence on a 1+1 seating layout, the proportions are extraordinary:

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Coasting a priceless prototype down a hill? Not a problem, it’s doing it in reverse that’s the tricky part

The crowd was absolutely buzzing to see Jack stall the car. Again

CZINGER 21C

Welcome to the world’s wildest drag races. Don’t forget to like and subscribe!

Remember, always take pics of your rental to prove the damage was there already

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CZINGER 21C

Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

it’s long and low from the side then insectile from the front, with its 2m width cradling a sliver of a cockpit. Naturally, a front axle full of electric motors, a driver, a passenger and a V8 engine all in a line brings certain quirks. The position of the driver, pushed right into the nose like a Seventies turbo-era F1 car, is one; the world’s longest dihedral doors are another; not to mention the massively wide side sills (home to the twin 2.6kWh batteries) that you have to sit on and swivel to post your legs in.

The bare numbers are just bananas. A claimed dry weight of 1,240kg, a combined 1,233bhp from a hybrid powertrain consisting of an in-house developed twin-turbo 2.9-litre V8 revving to 11,000rpm, courtesy of Kawasaki cylinder heads, and two e-motors on the front axle, one for each of the wheels. In this high drag configuration Czinger claims it makes 650kg of downforce at 100mph, 2,500kg at 200mph and has a top speed of around 235mph, while in low drag spec top speed is 281mph, 0–62mph takes 1.9 seconds and 0–186mph takes 8.5 seconds... for reference a Chiron Super Sport takes 12.1.

Here we go then. I’m giving myself a run up to pull out onto the road – a series of smooth curves and elevation changes we’ve picked out with generous turning circles at either end. The CEO, on the lookout for other cars, gives me the thumbs up. I release the brake, let it trickle forwards then ease out the clutch paddle with an unsympathetic side order of throttle. A stutter, but I catch it and we’re up and running and wow, instantly, it’s all about the central driving position. I’ve never driven a McLaren F1 or Speedtail, but believe the hype, it not only laser focuses you on the job of driving but makes placing yourself on the road an art form. Whereas once I was blind, now I can see.

The data’s flooding in. From the ride quality (surprisingly supple) to the gearbox (now as clinical as it was truculent at low speeds, smacking in upshifts so long as you’re on throttle, banging down the gears with all the subtlety of an Anthony Joshua uppercut), the throttle response (some initial lag despite the electric assistance, giving way to a dam burst of torque as the turbos spool) to the steering (light, quick, but loading up properly in the turns). There’s potential and promise here, but we’re not in its happy place. What we need, is somewhere to really throw the shackles off...

As I wait in the pits – strapped in, helmet on, a small army of mechanics milling around checking vitals – I catch the eye of one of the more senior engineers. He smiles, gives me a thumbs up followed by the unmistakable international sign – palms down pushing towards the floor – for breathe, stay calm, and if you crash this thing I’m going to personally strangle you.

1+1 seating inspired by superbikes, fighter jets and tandem bicycles

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“THE BARE NUMBERS ARE JUST BANANAS – 1,233BHP AND A TOP SPEED OF 281MPH”

“THE ENGINE LIGHTS THE AFTERBURNERS ON THE STRAIGHTS, BUT PREFERS ALL THE REVS IN THE SLOWER STUFF”

CZINGER 21C

Message received, loud and clear. It’s around this time my mind wanders to the car’s recent achievement – this actual car – taking a two-second bite out of the McLaren Senna’s lap record at Laguna Seca in the hands of Joel Miller.

Today we’re at Willow Springs and there shall be no lap records.

Joel’s here (it was him doing the shakedown when the roof ejected itself) but there simply isn’t time to set up the car and give him a proper crack at another scalp. Besides, there’s some British journalist hogging all the seat time. A sighter lap of Big Willow, one of the oldest tracks in the US, confirms it doesn’t take any prisoners – an endless double-apex right hander here, an off camber crest directly into a downhill right hander there, a mammoth straight braking into a 90˚ left... it’s not a layout to be taking liberties on when you’ve got well over 1,000 highly boosted horsepower at your disposal, no traction control and rudimentary ABS. I feel my way in for half a lap, then start attacking a bit harder.

Immediately the ragged edges are smoother, the gearbox works better, the steering gets more talkative and the aero starts to work, pinning

you down in the faster sections. The manners might need refining, but the fundamentals are solid. The more confidence I find, the car matches and multiplies it. It’s up on its toes now, jinking and playing. The engine lights the afterburners on the straights, but prefers a lower gear and all the revs in the slower stuff (first gear runs all the way to 75mph). We’re too used to instant torque these days, this requires more flogging, but get it right and the results are predictably eye-popping. Out here, chasing lap times not traffic lights, is where the 21C was born to be and in a moment, none of the false starts and mechanical hiccups matter.

It’s simply a privilege to be tearing up the track, chasing the embers of the day, in something as genetically advanced as this.

Early next year a heavily updated 21C V2.0 prototype will be built – that means a new gearbox, rebuilt engine, carbon tub and as many cracks ironed out as possible. It’s a mighty undertaking, but the idea it represents and the inspiration behind it sets it apart from the vapourware pack. There are flickers of genius here and a road map to production, which is why I leave with ears ringing, hands tingling and hope. Imagine what it’ll be like when it’s finished.

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FERRARI 296 GTB

It might be the first V6 Ferrari since the Dino, but the downsized 296 GTB dares you to call it entry level WORDS PAUL HORRELL PHOTOGRAPHY STEFFEN JAHN

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Much as we love Ferrari’s front-engined V12s, with their unmatched patrician nature and historical resonance, the Maranello centre of gravity is the two-seat mid-engined V8. It’s been that way ever since 1975’s rather lovely 308 GTB. But the 296 GTB changes all that. It’s got six cylinders not eight. It is a plug-in hybrid. And it’s a solid step up in price, complexity and power from what went before.

Like, about another 100bhp and a PHEV system. Now you might question, as I think I do, whether hybridisation of a vastly powerful, seldom driven and rare car is, environmentally speaking, any more than a fig leaf. So it’s about performance? Well you might question, as I certainly do, quite what is the rational point of 830bhp in a road car, other than the bragging rights that facilitate Ferrari’s relentless ascent through the price strata. Sufficient power liberates; excess power frustrates. Then take it to a track, they argue. Well, no. At a track you want a 600kg special.

So as I sit here at my desk I recall, whenever I borrow a Ferrari for testing, the overwhelming sense of relief that always accompanies handing it back in one undamaged piece. And yet... I recall too that during pretty well every one of those days in a borrowed Ferrari, there has been some moment of transcendence, a time when somehow the magic of the machine has overcome all rational reservations like sunlight bursting out from behind a storm.

Ferrari’s engineers have an uncanny ability to make absurd power outputs feel usable, reasonable even.

The absurd output here comes from a combination of engine and motor. First the engine. It’s a new V6, with a bank angle of 120° – which is right and proper because it makes the firing intervals even.

Now, this angle – compared with a V8’s usual 90° – opens up space in

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the V for the turbos. This is why the engine is not just shorter but narrower than the F8’s V8, which had the turbos hanging off the outside. It’s a 3.0-litre, revving to a crazed 8,500. They’re proud of the sound, which is plausible even if we haven’t heard it. The flat-crank V8 made an interesting and exciting noise but not a beautiful one; the harmonics of this even firing unit should more closely resemble a V12. Ferrari had to all intents and purposes eliminated lag when it built the 488 Pista’s engine, and this one uses similar turbo technology so we can expect the same happy result. The cylinder heads and combustion chamber design closely mirrors what’s in the SF90’s V8, so we’re looking at astounding power for so small an engine, at 663bhp. On top of that we have the 167bhp and 233lb ft contribution from the compact

FERRARI 296 GTB

“IT’S ASTOUNDING POWER FOR SO SMALL AN ENGINE”

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FERRARI 296 GTB Design inspired by 250 LM. Intakes up on the shoulders, those buttresses... this is retro done right

“THE ENTRY LEVEL FERRARI IS A USED FERRARI”

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disc-shaped axial-flux electric motor, sandwiched between the engine and Ferrari’s existing eight-speed DCT. It can operate with the engine for power and generation, or separately from it in certain hybrid phases. Select pure electric mode, and there’s a quoted pure electric range of, ahem, 15 miles.

The 296 doesn’t just have fewer cylinders than the SF90, but no front motor or front drive. That makes it lighter of course. The structure of the two cars is similar, and it has no parts in common with the F8’s. But it’s still made up of aluminium extrusions, castings and sheet. The press release for the 296 is five times longer than this article but doesn’t once mention that aluminium structure.

McLaren’s for the Artura uses the words ‘carbon fibre’ 28 times in connection with its tub. The rival engineers will, when you ask, both argue the dynamic merits of their materials, but let’s instead assume their choices stem from the mundane fact that Ferrari has an aluminium factory while McLaren has a carbon fibre factory.

Whatever, the 296 GTB, while similar in weight to the F8, is about 70kg heavier than the Artura and they’re both 3.0-litre V6 PHEVs. The Ferrari has 150bhp more, mind. So in 0–62mph, where power to weight matters very much, their times are similar at just under 3.0secs. From 62 to 125, where it’s more about power battling drag, the Ferrari’s 7.3secs is one second quicker than the McLaren’s. Heck though, both are ferociously rapid.

The remarkably compact powertrain bestows a wheelbase that’s about 50mm shorter than an F8’s, which should help agility.

Overall it’s shorter too. And narrower, if only by a fraction – still, a step in the right direction.

It is – can we all agree? – beautiful.

The surfaces are softer and more voluptuous than the previous fashion. It’s utterly modern. Yet if you’re looking, it nods to Ferrari’s first mid-engined Berlinetta, the 1962 250 LM: see the wide front air intake, circular inlet ducts atop the rear wings, and the tunnel-like metalwork around the rear glass.

The front pillars are blackened, giving the impression of a single pane taking in the side glass and windscreen, like a helmet visor.

Aerodynamics go hand in hand with style of course. There’s downforce – at the rear thanks to an active rear spoiler, and at the front thanks to an incredibly complex set of flows around the splitter and bumper, which also channel air into an underfloor venturi which is made as effective as possible by reducing the ground clearance to the legal minimum. There’s a legal minimum for ground clearance?

Who knew? Behind the cockpit you’ve got turbo parts at 800°C and hybrid parts which need to be somewhere below 40°C. Another advantage of putting the turbo in the V is that all the really hot stuff is high up, and vents out through the engine cover, while the electrics are mounted lower down where it’s less fiery.

The ability of Ferraris to make you feel a hero on track is well known. It stems both from superb basic chassis mechanics, and electronics systems of brain-frying scope and reaction speed. Those systems are extended here. The Side Slip Control – aka oversteer for dummies – takes more data from the steering and the ESP, so it has more knowledge of available grip and acts faster and more accurately to hold the car just beyond the limit. But not irretrievably beyond.

The brakes are by-wire, so as to manage blending of the hybrid regeneration at the rear and disc braking in each of the four corners.

Some other hybrid supercars don’t do that. It means the 296 GTB should benefit from true hybrid efficiency more of the time.

The cabin embodies a self-consciously modern interface, similar to the ones in the SF90 and Roma. I find those touchpads on the

steering wheel maddening – I keep brushing them with the heel of my hands in bends. How silly of me to use the steering wheel for steering. They say you get used to it.

There are two cabin trims. The Assetto Fiorano version has race-type seats and less padding on the dash and doors. This package, with some extra aero kit outside, saves 15kg, and adds 10kg of downforce at big speed. You really wouldn’t notice either of those. But it also includes race-type Multimatic dampers and Michelin Sport Cup2R tyres, which you surely would.

There are no firm UK prices, but we’re given to understand £230k for the ‘base’ car and another £30k for the Assetto Fiorano pack. So the 296 GTB has carved a new space for itself, above McLarens and Lamborghinis created specifically to go against those previous mid-engined V8 Ferraris. (To be fair, the F8 Tributo still exists, but it’s no secret it’s going out of production in a year or so. With no replacement. Where does that leave it? As the pinnacle of that magical unbroken line? Or is it now just seen as obsolete, its basic structure a throwback to the 458? The market will decide I guess.)

The 296 GTB’s new position demonstrates the triumph of Ferrari.

Several bosses at the rivals – McLaren, Lamborghini, Aston Martin – have openly declared they’re following Ferrari’s strategy and trajectory. But they’re not succeeding. Ferrari has managed to keep making its cars ever more desired and rarefied. It keeps charging higher prices. And gets away with it: demand, for most models, stays just ahead of supply. Annual production doesn’t rise much, so even when the Purosangue crossover comes it’ll sell fewer copies than the rivals from Bentley and Lambo, but wear a price perhaps double theirs. It’ll be part of an exclusive, boutique, stratospherically expensive range of cars that satisfies Ferrari’s shareholders mightily.

In this, Ferrari is simply reprising its most successful historical periods. From about 2000 onwards it improved the cars and raised their prices under Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. You’d ask him about the idea of doing a smaller, cheaper car and always he’d always look you in the eye and proclaim “the entry level Ferrari is a used Ferrari”. And before him, Enzo Ferrari himself had an astoundingly modern feel for brand management and elevation. So when he built lower-formula racers and cheaper V6 road cars he declined even to call them Ferrari. They were Dinos. The diffusion line. The new 296 GTB might have a V6, but it’s definitely all Ferrari.

“THE 296 GTB HAS CARVED A NEW SPACE FOR ITSELF”

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Attention all fish: dangle above a 296 GTB, this is what you see. You’re welcome

FERRARI 296 GTB Central exhaust, no circular lights, vertical rear screen – back of the 296 is a rule breaker

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HEADLINER

PEAK PERFORMANCE Morgan gets in on the off-roader act with a Dakar-inspired Plus Four... we put it on trial WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

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“THE STEEL EXOSKELETON MEANS THE CX-T IS BASICALLY A MOBILE PANNIER RACK”

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I start with a spot of sheep herding.

Trickier than it looks, especially when two stand their ground, presumably as bemused by what’s doing the herding as I am to be doing it. By midday bemusement has given way to amusement. At the end I look as though I’ve had a vigorous dust bath during which elephants have gustily hosed me with powdery silt, an experience I seem to have thoroughly enjoyed. No seem about it, I did.

Although what ‘it’ is, is an altogether tougher nugget to crack. Definitely, as we shall discover, an endangered species. But not one that should ever be cooped up and simply ogled. Well adapted for its environment, too.

Although I think even Darwin would struggle to identify which branch of the evolutionary tree this particular leaf sprang into life from.

But as is ever the case, a peer back towards the dawn of time holds the answers. The dawn of automotive time that is, when Morgan was already well established and something called ‘trialling’ was what got its owners’ pipes huffing like steam trains. These were events designed to test a car’s robustness and durability, and as the machines became more reliable, so the tests got more challenging: mud and ruts, rock crawl, grassy slopes. A veritable run through Land Rover’s Terrain Response system.

Trialling is still around if you look hard enough, and accounts for the T of this Morgan CX-T. And no, CX isn’t some confounded twist on cross country, but instead refers to the aluminium chassis that underpins all new four-wheeled Morgans. This one is based on a regular Plus Four, complete with its BMW-sourced 2.0-litre turbo and six-speed manual gearbox. But that doesn’t really explain why, having spent 80 years swirling through a wormhole, trialling has suddenly popped this Morgan into existence.

A sketch on the wall. That’s what’s to blame. A design team doodle was spotted by one of Morgan’s investors in the studio, he liked the look of it and put Morgan in touch with a firm called Rally Raid UK. It’s run by Mike ‘Beady’ Jones and Paul Round, who between them have done something like 25 Dakar races, the company specialising in prepping cars for overland expedition races. Trialling, but on a global scale.

Rally Raid UK is very handy with welding and off-roading, but not even it could get a Morgan to abide

by Dakar regulations. Instead this car is for “overland adventure”. You don’t have to have it kitted out like this.

You could swap out the spare tyres, sand ladders and fuel cans for mountain bike or ski racks, stick a roof tent on top alongside your kayak. It’s up to you. The steel exoskeleton means the CX-T is basically a mobile pannier rack.

Beady, a talker so straight you could use him as a plumb line, tells me all the regular Plus Four’s deficiencies and

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These don’t come with the car, it’s Ollie’s actual weekly shop

Morgan’s really moving with the times – the buttons light up now

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All the world’s a rally stage, as the Bard almost said

STEP BROTHERS Similar vibe, but only three body panels are shared between the cars – the two doors and the nose cone. Everything else has been bespoke built for the CX-T. But answer us this: which one do you want most? Exactly. Shame it’s three times the price.

The car’s actually blue, needs a good wash now

“IT'S TERRIFIC, A BONKERS MASH-UP WITH A FREESTYLE JOB DESCRIPTION” what it’s taken to put them right while Morgan’s team squirms behind him. It’s quite a list. A standout one is rear suspension travel, “that was basically on the bump stops before we started, we’ve now got 140mm of rear travel”, he tells me.

It’s been gone through with a fine-tooth comb. The longer suspension arms from the Plus Six have been fitted to increase track widths and wheel travel, there are new rally spec springs and four-way adjustable Exe-TC dampers, ground clearance stands at 230mm which has necessitated longer driveshafts, there are new bushes all over the place, bigger 16-inch wheels wearing 215/70 Maxxis Wormdrive tyres, massive underbody protection and a Dakar-spec airbox disguised as luggage on the offside front wing, mimicking the actual luggage that sits opposite. Morgan insisted on buckle closures. I won’t repeat Beady’s opinion of buckles.

He’s hidden industry grade Velcro in there as well.

The powerplant still knocks out 255bhp and 258lb ft to the rear wheels, but the exhaust system has been tucked away and now exits the rear side so it’s less vulnerable. There are also

spotlights, solid towing eyes and a raised bonnet to improve cooling. The overall impression is of a steampunked Jurassic Park support vehicle. It’s terrific, a bonkers mash-up with a freestyle job description and an outlaw disposition.

But still a Morgan, which means that a certain sense of trepidation comes over me when I clamber aboard. Morgans, even new ones with the twice-as-stiff aluminium chassis, have a certain amount of wobble and shake. They do not ride particularly well. You sit too high and the steering wheel is too low. The seats are not Dakar-spec buckets, but only because if they were, I suspect it would be nigh-on impossible for anyone to get in and out of them.

So at this stage I’m still trying to work out how far Morgan has taken it, what the car can cope with, whether the rallying componentry has actually been tested and developed in anger or just bolted on for effect. Because one thing’s for sure, this place can push anything to the brink. And over, if I misjudge the bumps on the run across the cliff edge above the quarry.

So I start gently. Herding sheep in the top field. Without the

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CX-T: bit of an oldfashioned rock star, minus the leather trousers

upper doors attached (they bolt into slots on the roof, or alternatively get left behind) I can rest my elbow on the leather capped door as naturally as any trucker and extend my arm to gesture at the livestock. It takes a few attempts before they lift their heads from the grass and get the idea about running away from the peculiarly unfierce robotic hound, probably because when all’s said and done the CX-T doesn’t come across as a particularly aggressive device. It’s a car that’s on your side. And the sheep’s currently, which is inconvenient.

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The turning circle is good, the wheels aren’t fouling the arches, so I can be hot on the heels of the more reluctant ruminants if they decide to make a bolt for it. Thistles pose no issues to the steel deflector plates and the Morgan crawls about ably, riding calmly over the lumps, the four-cylinder humming mildly to itself and proving altogether very well mannered. It’s a pity it remains so as I start giving it a bit more of a workout.

Steep slopes. More for the engine to do, but let’s face it, with that much power pushing at 1,249kg (a couple of hundred up on a regular Plus Four), the tyres are going to be the weak link here. Not that they look it. Worth pointing out at this stage that the CX-T, unlike the standard Plus Four, is equipped with BMW’s electronic locking differential – only here you control it with a couple of switches in the cockpit. It stops the unloaded wheel spinning all the power away. And means it’s capable of pulling off some quite remarkable ascents. Grass and compacted gravel are dismissed effortlessly, but then I pull up to the bottom of a loose,

On the Dakar you have to bury your car overnight for safety

MORGAN CX-T Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl in-line turbo, 255bhp, 258lb ft Transmission: 6spd manual, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in 6.0secs approx, 130mph approx Weight: 1,249kg Price: £204,000

Wasn’t room for the whole engine, the rest comes in a bag

What do you call a man with an earful of dust?

Anything, he can’t hear you

rubbly incline that disappears out the top of the windscreen.

I set off, convinced a tricky reverse is coming up. But no, we bounce and fizz up as I’d seen Morgans do in vintage trialling clips. I’m actually really impressed – 230mm of ground clearance is taking me further than I thought possible.

So I go further still, have a clamber through a rock garden, yomp through a water splash. I pull my elbow in for that one, but because you sit well inboard of the protective front wings, nothing comes in. Probably just as well I elected to leave the roof on though. It can be removed, leaving you with just the roll cage, and in some environments I reckon that would be ideal. The warmer, but somehow less dusty ones. Such as tarmac. Which may not be the worst idea.

I’ll elaborate on that at the end.

In the meantime, I’ve got a rally stage to play on. And the CX-T is just as keen to play as I am. It’s a little lighter at the nose than the tail, but a bit of a bung soon cures understeer and once it’s moving around you can charge through corners and play with the angles on the steering and throttle. And

this comes naturally because you feel so connected to it.

There’s less play in the controls than normal, the chassis feels stiffer and the rally spec dampers allow the more distant front to calmly glide along. The back end, where your buttocks are, is busier, but hey, at least you’re not being slammed against the bump stops. What a ball though, looking through the narrow windscreen past bonnet louvres at rally terrain spooling through, while behind mirrors like monocles tell the tale of a towed cloud of dust and earth.

It’s a wonderful curiosity, the CX-T. Obviously there are overtones of Ariel Nomad in the exoskeleton construction and vague operational area, yet Morgan is only building seven of these. And yes, that does mean they’re expensive.

As in £204,000 expensive. I end the day a different, more camel-y colour, with gritty eyes, bogies harder than grape pips and hope in my heart: hope that the CX-T has a further role to play. Not as a shepherd, mountain climber or rally car, but that the smooth riding, longer travel dynamics rub off on the regular road cars. And the image, come to think of it.

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TOP F I VE

SEAT FABRICS

1964 PORSCHE 901 Porsche is well-known for its fabrics. Take the oldest 911 in its museum for example – that’s “Pepita” houndstooth for all you fashion fans

1976 LOTUS ESPRIT S1

CONCEPTS THAT TIME FORGOT

Lotus offered this glorious green and red Hunting Menzies tartan in the S1 Esprit, then teamed it with bright orange carpets. Woah

ITALDESIGN LUCCIOLA, 1993 1976 VW GOLF GTI In the same year, Gunhild Liljequist came up with the idea of using a tartan interior and a golf ball gearknob in VW’s new hot Golf

THE EIGHTIES PORSCHE 911, 924, 928 Like a chequered flag on acid, Porsche’s Pasha trim was available on the 911, the 924 and the 928 in the early Eighties

1992 ALPINA B12 5.7 COUPE Has a simple black interior ever looked so good?

Alpina’s classic green and blue stripes worked wonders on the Nineties BMW 8-Series

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“MY BRAIN IS WIRED TO ALWAYS GOES FOR THE MOST EXTREME OPTION AVAILABLE” uch m w o just h dworthy d e s i l roa rea 6 s ’ M k e r 14: Ma ed to get th t r o p Re equir r s i k wor

S

itrep on the M6. Or as it shall now be known by its codename, TopGear HS2. Because the timescale, budget and work required have all been massively underestimated by its project manager – me. It’s also now quite a large and expensive hole, so the only sensible solution is to throw even more of the above at it.

That isn’t a bad thing though; it’s officially classed as a long-term project now and that’s good news for my accountant because it means invoices are few and far between. Encouraging words when the bare shell is currently sat in a paint shop. If anyone needs me, I’ll be running TopGear’s first edition in the Cayman Islands.

There is good progress being made by Alan and the team at CNC Motorsport. All the nitty-gritty is now complete; bolts, fasteners and fixings have been replaced or zinc coated to ensure it goes back on the road in better condition than it left the factory. That includes the engine, which is next on the refresh list.

And seeing as the rest of the car is being approached so meticulously, there was absolutely no way I’d cut corners on the suspension. The stock items – although just about fine for an MoT test – felt saggy, had gained a helpful layer of rust and hadn’t been replaced in 30 years. Solution? More German engineering in the form of KW Automotive.

KW does many good things with suspension.

Like building the N24-winning dampers for Manthey Racing, which also runs KW items

Checking tyre pressures isn’t usually an engine out job unless you’re Mark

on its record-breaking 991 GT2 RS. But it’s the diversity of its range which really impresses me. Whether you’re wanting an M Performance upgrade or a Clubsport kit for your Seventies 911, KW has you well and truly covered.

What about the E24, then? For road use you’d always favour a Variant 3 which gives a good balance between performance and comfort. Unfortunately, my brain is wired to always go for the most extreme option available.

So, I’ve specced a set of two-way competition dampers from the motorsport department instead. The kind you’d usually find nestled under modern GT race cars.

That means you get 16 clicks of rebound adjustment and 12 clicks of compression, all wrapped neatly in a stainless steel damper which boasts “inox-line” technology to prevent corrosion over time. Ride height is continuously adjustable and there’s even spherical top mounts to allow easy camber adjustment too.

They’re nothing short of art, and it seems a shame to hide them away under the arches.

Isn’t that a bit overkill? Well if you’re going to spend money anywhere on a car destined for the track, let it be those components that keep you stuck on it. Tyres, brakes, suspension – everything else may as well be secondary when having a good time on track. And while the two-way dampers might seem excessive right now, wait until you see what CNC Motorsport has planned next. Mark Riccioni

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PROGRESS REPORT

(2005)

SKODA FABIA vRS vs SKODA OCTAVIA vRS

(2021)

Diesel versus plug-in hybrid – both fast Skodas were the future when they arrived

WASN’T THE MkI FABIA vRS... A DIESEL?

believed this means the humble vRS is quicker from 50–70mph than

When the first-generation Fabia vRS was launched back in 2003

a E90 BMW 330i, and as quick from 20–40mph as a Lotus Elise 111R.

it was unlike any other hot hatch its size. For it was powered not by a rev-happy petrol engine, but by a 1.9-litre turbodiesel plucked

IS IT FUN TO DRIVE?

from the VW Group parts bin. This, remember, was only a couple

There’s definitely quite a lot of weight on that front axle, so the

of years after the UK government introduced tax breaks for

Fabia vRS doesn’t feel as nimble or light on its feet as other small

diesel-powered cars, and a couple of years before Audi started

hot hatches. But it’s stable and surefooted. By modern standards

winning with diesel at Le Mans. In 2003, and up to and beyond

the steering is slow, but it’s reassuringly weighted if ultimately

the death of the MkI Fabia vRS in 2007, everyone thought diesel

a bit numb. While not particularly fizzy, the vRS is good fun. And

was the future. And boy were they wrong.

that big (relative to the size of the car to which it’s fitted, anyway), brawny diesel means it still feels quick even by today’s standards.

DIESEL ISN’T DEAD YET THOUGH, RIGHT?

It’s nothing like as refined as many of today’s four-cylinder oil

No, but demand is falling and it seems unlikely we’ll see many more

burners of course, but it feels willing and revs freely and flexibly

new diesel-fuelled performance cars. I’d be surprised if the few

up to its red line. Not that you’ll ever take it there.

still on sale survive beyond this generation. The future of fast is cars you plug in. So while Skoda still does a diesel-powered

DID THESE TWO CARS HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON?

Octavia vRS, it would undoubtedly much rather you buy the plug-in

These are altogether different kinds of cars. But there is a

Octavia vRS iV instead. It’s not thrilling, and the pure petrol/diesel

parallel here – both have powertrains not ideally suited to

are better to drive with less, erm, obstructive powertrains, but it

performance cars, so you have to adapt your driving style

makes sense if you can get the potential BIK savings to add up.

to get the best out of them. We know it’s possible to make a

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SURELY THE FABIA ISN’T VERY FAST?

Porsche 918, Polestar 1, Ferrari SF90, to name but four). But

The Fabia vRS has just 126bhp, but it only weighs 1,300kg and –

as yet there hasn’t been a totally convincing mainstream

here’s the kicker – has 229lb ft of torque. If the internet is to be

performance-oriented plug-in hybrid. Give it time...

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WO R D S : TO M H A R R I S O N P H OTO G R A P H Y: M A N U FAC T U R E R

plug-in powertrain work in a performance car (McLaren P1,

EIGHTIES HEROES

V OL K S WA GEN GOL F G T I MK I I (1990)

LESS THAN £5K

R EM EM B ER IN G

RETRO GAMING

#32

TH E C LA S S IC S

MEGARACE PC/3DO/SEGA CD, 1993 P ORSCHE 9 4 4 (1998)

LESS THAN £10K

You can’t control when inspiration strikes, so it must have been a blessing and a curse when Cryo Interactive came up with a concept for a grand sci-fi racing game in 1993, a time when most home computers could barely render your family finances spreadsheet.

Instead of the development team attempting to construct a full, Blade Runner-esque dystopian cityscape out of the four or so polygons available to them, they instead landed upon a cunning plan. Rather than real-time 3D graphics, the swooping, sweeping circuits would actually be a much higher quality pre-rendered CGI video, with the car sprites overlaid on top. Your accelerator acted less like pressing a gas pedal and more like fast forwarding a VHS copy of The Lawnmower Man. Against all the odds MegaRace played pretty well, particularly as this was less about expertly clipping apexes and more about

MERCEDE S 190E C O S W OR T H (1985)

LESS THAN £15K

strafing your fellow racers with machine gun fire. As the “enforcer” your goal was to chase down and eliminate the “pack leader” of a “vicious speed gang”. All things that we’re sure sounded desperately cool back in the early Nineties.

Tying the whole thing together is a futuristic reality TV show conceit, anchored by purposefully odious live-action TV presenter Lance Boyle, whose truly awful sense of humour is matched only by his atrocious dress sense. His sole purpose appears to be to preload you with road rage before the race has even started.

It’s all good clean fun, though. The game takes great pains to make clear that all this futuristic televised bloodsport stuff takes place in virtual reality and that the contestants only have to deal with the psychological damage of getting smeared across the asphalt on some distant planet. And let’s be honest, that’s probably still less traumatic than getting dumped on Love Island. Mike Channell

Bargain Corner TO P G E A R . C O M

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VW Golf GTI Clubsport REPORT 5 £37,380 OTR/£43,155 as tested/£325pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE It’s the easiest car in the world to recommend, isn’t it?

DRI VER Ollie Kew

HAVING SPENT THREE MONTHS AND 3,000 MILES IN THE ‘BASE SPEC’

242bhp GTI manual, we’ve swapped into a Clubsport. This ought to give us a more rounded idea of where the sweet spot of GTI life is.

To round off on the red car, we had no reliability or build quality issues in those 3,000 miles. The Moonstone Grey Clubsport arrives with over 6,000 miles on the clock already. And no, it hasn’t emitted any buzzes, rattles or squeaks either – despite life on £725 19in rims instead of 18s.

Along with the paint (£380), a heated front seat and steering wheel pack (£270), rearview camera (£300), £335 of curtain airbags, the £1,600 touchscreen upgrade and £785 of 15-setting adaptive suspension (plus a couple of tracker-related security add-ons) the total as-tested price for this exact GTI Clubsport is £43,155. More than the Golf R we ran in 2014.

You don’t get a choice of how to shift gears. The 7spd DSG is standard.

As is a power boost for the engine, which features a new turbocharger and leaps from 242bhp and 273lb ft to 296bhp and 295lb ft.

Inside, this is a GTI without tartan. Otherwise, there are no clues you’re in the most expensive Golf GTI ever made. No Clubsport badging.

Even the lazy graphic portrayed on the touchscreen is a standard GTI. Besides the upgraded brakes and tweaked aero, the CS rides 10mm lower, its flared side skirts and diffuser hugging the road. Front axle

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negative camber is increased 1° for a pointier front end. The gearbox and active locking diff receive a Clubsport specific software map. Wheel mounts, bearings and springs have been beefed up. I must only visit fuel stations with pricey super unleaded now. Clubsports prefer 98 RON. The red GTI was a pulled punch. We know now the Golf 8 has some annoying technical vices, but the 242bhp car wasn’t entertaining enough to offset them. With more pace, and a Nürburgring mode, is this?

SPECIFICATION 1998cc, 4cyl turbo, FWD, 296bhp, 295lb ft 38.3mpg, 167g/km CO2

GOOD STUFF

Clubsport loses the horrid ‘fivedot’ fog lights for a much more aggressive front. Grrr.

0–62mph in 5.6secs, 155mph 1,461kg

MILEAGE: 6,622 OUR MPG: 37.5

BAD STUFF

Expensive fuel. Keyless entry has already packed up. Grrr, again.

PORSCHE TAYCAN REPORT 6 £85,580/£100,722/£1,073

WH Y I T ’S HERE Because it’s the cool one that could make us all fall in love with EVs

DRI VER Jack Rix

HERE’S A TOP TIP. IF YOU DRIVE

something silver and you’re going to brush bumpers with a car during tight parallel parking, make sure it’s not bright green, the evidence is overwhelming.

To be fair to my mortified 18-year-old neighbour, he had no idea there’d been contact, and I believe him. It was a superficial scuff and why else would he park next to the scene of the accident?

He’s an honourable young man who immediately apologised and offered to wash the car for free.

A close inspection conducted with the sweaty teen hovering nervously had me reckoning itd buff out. So, disaster and a second insurance claim on the Taycan averted, and pleasure of running this car in no way diminished.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? This month: the e-tron GT’s wheels Ollie Marriage: These wheels. I really don’t like ’em. I get that the designers are trying to make them more aero efficient, but those ribbed panels? They’re inserts, not actually part of the alloy. Tap them and they rattle.

That’s cheap. Take them off (if that were possible) and I think you might reveal another Audi wheel.

So maybe that’s what this is, an old wheel, concealed. And yes, the tyres are brown.

I clean and blacken them, but within a few days they’re brown again. The Cinturato P7 is Pirelli’s first green performance tyre, so maybe it’s to do with an eco-friendly compound. If that’s the case, I should probably stop spraying the Back to Black around, as I can’t imagine that’s full of biodegradable compounds.

Vauxhall Mokka REPORT 3 £24,455 OTR/£25,085 as tested/£273pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE The old Mokka was appalling, can the new version impress us more?

DRI VER Esther Neve

LAST ISSUE’S COVER CAR WAS THE BEAUTIFUL, NEWLY REIMAGINED

Lamborghini Countach. A potent reminder of an era from 30 years ago that featured everything from rolled-up suit jacket sleeves to New Romantic ruffs and epaulettes. Happy days.

The Eighties speak loudly to me – those were my young formative years. The fashion, the music, the cars... I remember the XR3is, the SRis, the 5 Turbos. They were the distillation of style.

Anyway, a recent phone call with Adam Waddell – who briefly looked after the Mokka before he took ownership of the Aston Martin DBX – highlighted that there’s something of the Eighties about the Mokka.

Back in the day, if you had a fast Vauxhall, it absolutely had to be white and it absolutely had to look cool. Do you see where I’m going with this?

It seems obvious to those of a thinking disposition that the Mokka is the natural successor to those much sought-after Eighties Vauxhall hatches... plus, it’s white and cool. Case closed.

However, for those of you who steadfastly refuse to admit that a modern Vauxhall can be described as cool, I entreat you to please take a closer look at this specimen. Surely the style of the Mokka is an incontrovertible fact? You’d have to be looking in the opposite direction not to agree that this is a great looking car. It makes a proper statement and follows through with those other desirable car traits of comfort, verve and practicality.

In other Mokka news, the lane keep assist is driving me to distraction – I have to keep switching it off to keep cyclists safe as with it on, the car keeps pulling back to the left as I overtake them.

Frustrating for me; very scary for the cyclists.

SPECIFICATION

SPECIFICATION

Twin electric motors, 4WD, 93.4kWh battery, 483bhp

1199cc, 3cyl turbo, FWD, 125bhp, 169lb ft

3.4 miles per kWh, 289 miles

47.1mpg, 137g/km CO2

0–62mph in 3.8secs, 155mph

0–60mph in 9.2secs, 124mph

2,295kg

1,295kg

MILEAGE: 6,310 OUR MPKWH: 2.6

GOOD STUFF

Most cars have it, but so good to have auto door locking again – I’ve missed that.

BAD STUFF

MILEAGE: 4,950 OUR MPG: 44.2

TO P G E A R . C O M

The glovebox is very small.

Too small for the manual to fit.

Tell me that’s not ridiculous.

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Hyundai Tucson Hybrid REPORT 3 £37,400 OTR/£39,565 as tested/£425pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is Hyundai’s crossover as ambitious underneath as its looks suggest?

DRI VER Andy Franklin

A BUSY FEW WEEKS FOR THE TUCSON. IT’S MANAGED TO DO NOT ONE

but two summer family holidays in a short space of time. Which I know is a bit rich, but I’m only getting them in before the winter lockdown. I do often wonder if manufacturers send their cars to families before production starts to see how they cope – if they don’t they should, as it can be a brutal test.

For the first holiday we went as a full family in one car and then for camping in two cars due to the insane amount of equipment needed. So it was an all-round test for the Tucson. Those rear seats feel so humungous that even an S-Class would be envious. It’s comfortable, too, and while there’s loadsa bootspace for a family of four, larger families will want a roof box, which we opted for, although it adds considerable wind noise and you can’t open the sunroof. After two holidays the interior took quite a beating from three kids, but it’s robust. Although the tiny holes in the seats are a nightmare for removing sand...

I’ve mentioned the car’s tech before – it almost feels like overkill. You even get a warning to check the back seats when you stop, in case you’ve forgotten the kids. Thanks for reminding me they exist. Unfortunately I relied on the satnav, hell-bent on taking the most bizarre routes down some very tight country lanes. Those Lambo-esque rear arches never felt so wide. Eco mode is perfect for calm, refined motorway and urban

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driving, but on Devon’s hilly B-roads I often found when I needed more throttle I got a load of revs but not much more power, almost like driving a CVT rather than a normal auto. Best stick to Sport for those moments. It has responsive steering but I still can’t work out the ride. At low speeds it can feel really hard and then at cruising speeds it’s nice and soft.

But all in all it survived and for a family car at this price it really is an option worth considering rather than the default Nissan Qashqai.

SPECIFICATION 1598cc, 4cyl turbo, FWD, 227bhp, 195lb ft 49.6mpg, 130g/km CO2

GOOD STUFF

Lots of space inside and it’s quite comfortable too – perfect for family roadtrips.

0–62mph in 8.0secs, 120mph 1,685kg

MILEAGE: 3,874 OUR MPG: 42.8

BAD STUFF

There’s lots of cool tech onboard, but it doesn’t make life as easy as it should.

CUPRA FORMENTOR REPORT 5 £48,045/£48,660/£596

WH Y I T ’S HERE Just what is the Cupra Formentor... for?

DRI VER Tom Ford

GARAGE NUGGETS

Audi e-tron GT REPORT 4 £106,950 OTR/£107,080 as tested/£1,313pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is Audi’s Taycan a better all-rounder than Porsche’s?

DRI VER Ollie Marriage

FOR REASONS BEST KNOWN TO ITSELF, A RUBBER TRIM STRIP CAME

unstuck the other day. It just fell down when I opened the rear door. It’s a small thing, it stuck half-heartedly back on, but it speaks to a wider issue with the e-tron GT at the moment – I’m not convinced the behind the scenes quality is where it should be.

Superficially all is well. The materials are great, the design is clean and well executed, it feels expensive inside, right where it should be for a luxury electric car costing this much. As an object, I have no issues. But...

The speaker grille over the tweeter on the driver’s door buzzes. If I put my elbow against it for a second and release it, that cures it for a couple of minutes. Then it starts again. The other night the usually impeccably behaved matrix LED lights decided to blind cars coming the other way. The gearbox – the e-tron GT has a two-speeder on the rear axle – has recently started kicking occasionally during shifts, so I find myself bracing for it.

But of course when I do, it shifts seamlessly. The other day it refused to give me full power after I’d startled it at 25mph while trying to make the gearbox clonk. That cured itself with the usual turn-off-and-on-again routine.

I use CarPlay most of the time, but that currently only works over a wired connection – it should be wireless over Bluetooth as well. Because I use CarPlay it took me a while to realise the built-in satnav was only showing regular maps, not the satellite imagery it was supposed to. And I’ve still not got it to talk to the myAudi app on my phone.

The long and the short of it is it probably needs a full digital reboot.

So next week it’s off back to have a diagnostic lead plugged in and hopefully it’ll come back and chat happily with my phone. And if the trim strip still falls off, I can fix it with some double-sided sticky tape.

Rubber strip detatched itself from the rear door

Decent B&O hi-fi, but the speaker grille rattles if you start to turn it up

A CAR IS NEVER ACTUALLY TOO

small, you just have too much stuff. Or people. Anyway, here’s an interesting Rubik’s Cube of a problem: five people and a medium dog, bedding and camping gear, clothing and the random detritus of three teenagers, all packed into a Formentor for three days away.

Now, it may have similar bones to an Ateca (Seat’s small-ish family SUV), but it’s lower in the roofline and less square, so you have less interior volume.

Worth noting here that the boot is reserved for the dog.

An immediate solution comes in the form of a roof-rack or roof box, which means you basically decant the contents onto the roof.

Now I know these things are a bit ungainly, but if you consider that you can run a more appropriately sized car for the rest of the year, they make sense. Everything was covered in flies by the time we got there, but the Formentor killed it, and handled neatly as well.

Look at the fingerprints! And also the message...

SPECIFICATION

SPECIFICATION Twin electric motors, 4WD, 93.4kWh battery, 469bhp 3.5 miles per kWh, 298 miles

GOOD STUFF

1998cc, 4cyl turbo, AWD, 306bhp, 295lb ft

It’s still proving efficient and a thoroughly pleasant car to drive.

31.4mpg, 193g/km CO2 0–62mph in 4.9secs, 155mph

0–62mph in 4.1secs, 152mph 2,347kg

MILEAGE: 6,257 OUR MPKWH: 2.8

BAD STUFF

There’s been a few minor trim niggles, and a few major software gremlins.

This is as much info as my phone can tell me about the car

1,644kg

MILEAGE: 7,550 OUR MPG: 29.4

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BMW M3 Competition REPORT 3 £74,000 OTR/£86,745 as tested/£1,260pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is BMW’s mighty M3 still the performance saloon benchmark?

DRI VER Rowan Horncastle

THE THREE PEAKS CHALLENGE IS BASICALLY LE MANS FOR GORE-TEX

enthusiasts. The aim of the game is to climb each of the highest peaks in England, Wales and Scotland – Scafell Pike, Snowdon and Ben Nevis – in less than 24 hours.

It just so happens that in the shadow of these mountains are some of the UK’s best driving roads, and when you string them all together in less than a day, it makes for quite the proving ground. It’s exactly what I needed. Not the hellish hiking (well, the lockdown paunch may disagree) but a properly chunky drive of the M3.

See, the new BMW G80 M3 is such a hefty, complex and techy piece of kit (it’s now more of a shrunk down M5, rather than a genetically modified 3-Series) in the first few hundred miles I really struggled to get under its skin. This 1,300-mile trip was the chance.

Rear seats down to increase the 480-litre boot space in order to swallow some golf clubs and glucose gels, I left London and headed

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for Wales where it instantly became clear that the M3 is a lot softer than the initial ride would have you believe.

To get into the meat of the ride you need a bit of speed and movement to get the springs and dampers working. And considering the 1,805kg G80 is the heaviest M3 of all time (just 100kg lighter than the much larger, much more luxurious M8 Comp) its body control is remarkable. It cushions and catches the lumpy bits of Wales giving you the confidence to push the chassis and use the traction that e-diff gives you.

At times it was actually a bit too soft for Wales, often using up all its suspension travel and smacking its chin on the tarmac. Luckily the suspension is adjustable (as is the engine, gearbox, steering and – weirdly – the brakes) so you can firm it up. Yes, this sacrifices some of its languid movement and comfort, but saves you grimacing every time it drags its face across the floor.

Arriving at Pen-y-Pass, the tectonic plates in my head shifted: I no longer had an issue with the front grille. Casting a magnificent deep, dark shadow, the M3 just worked with the scenery. A high-horsepower emerald framed by Wales’ beauty. We climbed Snowdon the next morning and headed to the north of England via a bootlid Burger King (the carbon spoiler is a great dam for stopping stray chips).

An impromptu brake test to avoid a sheep also proved you don’t need to spec expensive ceramics as the steels are still muscular things. But I’m pretty sure the development team in Munich didn’t simulate a nine iron ejecting itself out of a golf bag at 60mph, as it gave me the ultimate sucker punch via the kidney cutouts in the carbon shelled seats.

The Lake District’s very old, very narrow, immovable drystone walls really showed the G80’s increased footprint. This isn’t a humble saloon anymore. It’s 120mm longer, 10mm wider and 2.5mm higher than the F80 but feels even more so thanks to the incessant, overactive parking sensors.

Now, this is where our lawyers would like me to tell you that I had some sleep. Genius sleep, no less. I parted the bags to one side, slipped in a self-inflating ground mat, got in a sleeping bag and wriggled my way down. Hey presto! A full-length bed. BMW doesn’t advertise that.

After Scafell we refuelled the car (averaging an acceptable 33mpg) with V-Power (recommended by BMW) and headed to Scotland. Full of lactic acid and tired, this is where the M3 really excelled, serving up luxury and convenience as well as speed in a familiar but appealing package. That’s what M3s do well. But this one is £87k, so doesn’t have the same accessibility as older models.

The ‘Visibility Pack’ makes up £1,500 of that price. Don’t worry, headlights come as standard. But if you tick this box you get the fancy frickin’ laser lights where if you’re doing over 45mph and it’s pitch black the full beam magically doubles its length to over 600 metres, like it’s taken some sort of luminary Viagra.

Can I recommend them? Well, I’ve read online some people have just specced them because the blue headlight eyeliner that defines them is ‘cool’ (true). But if you live in the wilderness where the skies are dark, the weather is wild and scenery is supersized, it’s the best money you can spend.

You’re only as fast as you can see remember. And just be aware that the adaptive element (where it can maintain full beam while blocking

out oncoming traffic or obstacles) hunts around a bit and isn’t as intuitive or reactive as the Mercedes system.

We arrive at Ben Nevis at 3am. But having forgotten to pack batteries for our head torches we nap and rise at daybreak. I couldn’t use the backseat bed, so had to settle for the carbon buckets on max recline. Not ideal.

We summited shortly after sunrise and came down again utterly broken. But the green machine was waiting for us and ready for more.

Had I finally got under its skin? Yep. And better than that, I’d formed a bond with it and really began to appreciate its bandwidth and the tech on board; especially the autonomous function on the 14-hour drive back.

Three countries, three mountains, 24 hours. One very green, very fast BMW. I think the M3 Peaks Challenge should become a thing, don’t you?

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

2993cc, 6cyl twin-turbo, RWD, 503bhp, 479lb ft

Even with all the sporty carbon fibre tropes, the M3 is still a perfectly practical car.

27.7mpg, 234g/km CO2 0–62mph in 3.9secs, 155mph

BAD STUFF

1,805kg

MILEAGE: 2,213 OUR MPG: 27.1

It’s too damn capable and fast. You really have to push it to feel engaged.

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WHAT ELSE WE’RE RUNNING

MORGAN PLUS FOUR

REPORT 4

ASTON MARTIN DBX

R E P O R T 12 DEARLY DEPARTED

£62,995/£71,245/£279

WH Y I T ’S HERE They claim the Plus Four is a modern Morgan. Time to see if it’s true

MERCEDES PROJECT E-AT Long-termers we still miss Tom Ford Rarely do project cars manifest exactly how you imagine, with engineering dreams smashing face first into both budget and timing.

But the Mercedes Project E-AT (E-Class All-Terrain) managed to be everything it needed to be and more. With small (er) aero wheels sourced from a base-spec German taxi, BF Goodrich off-road tyres, adjusted air suspension, a huge roof rack bearing fuel, spare tyres, tools and more lights than was strictly necessary, the E-AT managed to be both practical and capable of cruising to Eastern Europe at 120mph on the autobahn. Off-road it was magnificent: although low-ish, the all-wheel-drive system kept us going on forest tracks in the middle of nowhere, and such was its success and good looks, it actually ended up appearing in the TopGear special version of the Forza computer game.

Not bad, eh?

REPORT 6

MAZDA MX-30

REPORT 5

BMW 128ti

DRI VER Stephen Dobie

IT HAD TO HAPPEN EVENTUALLY:

after almost a year, our Mog finally developed quirks I couldn’t just shake off as ‘character’. So it went back to the factory, both for its 10,000-mile service and to have an iffy roof latch and dodgy driver’s door seen to. The latter had taken to staying locked no matter what I did with the key or blipper, leaving me to gracelessly squirm through from the passenger door to unlock it from the inside.

My own attempts to fix it – with wanton application of WD-40 – had inevitably been in vain. Latch and lock have been faultless since someone with a Morgan T-shirt and some actual mechanical nous got their hands on them, though.

There are other imperfections seemingly baked into the Plus Four, but the car has consistently tugged at my heartstrings. Niggles that’d make me call the Porsche dealer had I spent £70k on a Boxster somehow feel implicit to the Morgan experience, and thus easy to forgive. And oddly gratifying to work around...

SPECIFICATION 1998cc, 4cyl turbo, RWD, 255bhp, 258lb ft 39.0mpg, 165g/km CO2 0–62mph in 5.2secs, 149mph 1,013kg

MILEAGE: 10,688 OUR MPG: 45.5

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Mercedes-AMG E53 Estate REPORT 3 £67,515 OTR/£68,200 as tested/£1,065pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Does a semi-lairy hybrid AMG wagon make sense?

DRI VERS Jason Barlow

OPPOSABLE THUMBS ARE ONE OF THE THINGS THAT SEPARATE

humankind from animals and wildlife. Dolphins, we’re told, are unusually bright but they don’t have thumbs of any sort. This is surely an evolutionary fail. Fast-moving thumbs, meanwhile, are one of the things that separate the young and the old. I watch my 18-year-old daughter’s thumbs ablur on her smartphone as she uploads something and it’s like looking at that Quicksilver dude from X-Men. I haven’t yet asked her to try the touchpad or steering wheel controls on the E53 but I can only assume it’ll be second nature to her. My digits are substantially less keen. Mercedes is positioning itself right at the forefront of the user interface experience and the process is one of constant refinement, but despite the presence of a volume slider on the steering wheel, I almost always use the physical control on the centre console. It’s small and a bit fiddly but at least it’s there. One of the other wheel spars allows you to reconfigure the instrument dials, but once you’ve had a play how often do you really do that?

As for the trackpad, well, if the USB cable so much as breaches the airspace above it, the radio switches stations. Imagine what my stupid fingers are like on it. Someone in Mercedes’ ergonomic high command clearly thinks this is the way to go, but it’s just too sensitive.

The E53 suffers other sensitivities, its various sensors and cameras becoming hyperactive in urban situations. As with some of its rivals, if the car thinks you’re about to reverse into something it slams the brakes on with almost comical force. If it spots an object in its field of vision, it’ll issue a warning chime of disproportionate volume. Look, it’s clever stuff, and it’s also legislatively mandated as we head towards autonomy. Maybe one day I’ll be grateful it’s there. But right now it’s simply too intrusive.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

2999cc, 6cyl twin turbo, AWD, 429bhp, 384lb ft 29.7mpg, 216g/km CO2

Annoyances aside, the E53 remains a useful and well engineered car.

0–62mph in 4.5secs, 155mph

BAD STUFF

1,900kg

MILEAGE: 2,340 OUR MPG: 26.9

Hey Mercedes voice activation is state of the art but it still doesn’t have a 100 per cent hit rate.

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Seat Leon GOODBYE £26,025 OTR/£26,025 as tested/£267pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is this all the sensible car a sensible family could need?

DRI VER Sam Philip

SUMMER HOLIDAY TIME, AND WITH FOUR HUMANS AND A COUPLE

of bikes to transport to the opposite side of the country, that means something’s going on the roof. And – after a brief discussion with my wife regarding the merits of al fresco child seats – it’s agreed those somethings should be the bikes.

Which means... roof bars. Now, with no rails, tracks or fixed mounting points to be found on the Leon’s roof, I was intrigued – not to mention a little concerned – exactly how this would work. The official Leon roof bars (£210 from Seat) clamp into the door jambs, which sounds a bit precarious on paper. But I’m happy to report that in practice they’re entirely robust, and unexpectedly easy to install, even if you boast the DIY skills of a yak.

At speed, there’s the tiniest whisper of extra wind noise around the door frames, but nothing intrusive. And, most importantly, at the end of the 350-mile slog, the bikes remain happily attached to the Leon rather than strewn all across the M4, which is really all you can ask for.

The Leon proves itself a fine travelling companion: surprisingly capacious inside, and surprisingly willing to be off-roaded in order to reach a scenic lookout or some such. It’s a fine way to say goodbye to a car that has, in pretty much every regard but one, impressed during its time on Fleet TopGear. Economy from the 1.0-litre three-cylinder was stellar (at

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least when not wearing a bike hat), material quality felt much improved on that of Leons past, and driving manners – while never sporty exactly – remained pleasingly crisp. Small on surprises, but big on competence.

However. The fly in the ointment is – yes you guessed it – that infotainment system. The interfaces are baffling, the responses are laggy, and the temperature slider thingies are broadly useless. Come on, Seat. Sort out your infotainment, and you’re onto a winner here.

SPECIFICATION 999cc, 3cyl turbo, FWD, 108bhp, 148lb ft 45.6mpg, 127g/km CO2

GOOD STUFF

Rear seat legroom is far better than most C-segment SUVs I’ve tested.

0–62mph in 10.8secs, 119mph 1,330kg

MILEAGE: 3,620 OUR MPG: 47.0

BAD STUFF

Bolder paint options needed to set off the Leon’s smart lines.

EXHAUST BECAUSE KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MAZDA From greatest hits to lowest moments, everything you ever wanted to know... and a fair bit you didn’t W O R D S S A M B U R N E T T, J O E H O L D I N G , G R E G P O T T S

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I M AG E S : M A N U FAC T U R E R

What’s Mazda, and when did it start making cars?

Mazda is a Japanese carmaker that hails from Hiroshima in the south of the country. It was started in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co

by Jujiro Matsuda, manufacturing cork as a substitute sealing material. When demand dwindled it dropped ‘cork’ from its name in 1927 and began building machinery instead.

Its first vehicle was the Mazda-go, a threewheeler truck that entered production in 1931.

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The name originates from Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of wisdom, intelligence and harmony, but is also a nod to company founder Matsuda (the two names are pronounced similarly in Japanese).

A string of commercial vehicles followed, with production halted during World War Two. Hiroshima of course was devastated by the detonation of an atomic bomb in 1945: Mazda’s

base just a few miles away in Mukainada sustained only light damage, and so was used as a hospital and homeless shelter for a period after the blast.

Manufacturing resumed after the war, but it wasn’t until 1960 that Mazda produced its first passenger car: the R360 Coupe was a two-door, four-seater kei car that measured just 2,980mm in length and weighed only 380kg.

EXHAUST

Mazda’s greatest hits

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

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FACTOID

What’s the cheapest car Mazda builds... and what’s the most expensive?

The answer to both questions really depends on where you are and how a particular currency is performing against other major currencies.

In Britain the Mazda 2 city car is the most affordable route into the ownership club with prices starting at £16,475 for the SE-L version.

Mazda doesn’t do performance models or supercars, so none of its prices look astronomical on paper. The CX-5 is the steepest car on its books

with prices starting at £27,545 for the SE-L and climbing up to £38,785 for the full-fat GT Sport Auto version complete with all-wheel drive and a 2.2-litre diesel engine.

You might expect the electric MX-30 to dwarf these figures given that EVs tend to cost a pretty penny, but no: base models start from £26,045 and only the GT Sport Tech version creeps above the £30,000 mark.

Look closely at the lettering in Mazda’s logo.

Notice anything strange about it? All the letters are lower case except for the ‘D’, which is upper case.

You can’t unsee it now, can you? The reason for this is that Mazda wanted its emblem to give customers a sense of precision and reliability, and a lower case ‘d’ would’ve broken an otherwise clean line at the top edge of the logo. By using a capital ‘D’, it looks satisfyingly rectangular. And for some reason that’s better for sales. If this has sent your OCD into overdrive, we can only apologise.

What is Mazda’s fastest car?

Of the current crop, the MX-5 is the most sprightly with a 0–62mph time of 6.5secs.

Brisk, rather than breakneck, but completely in keeping with the car’s ethos. The Mazda 6 has the highest top speed of any Mazda currently

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on sale on these shores, topping out at 142mph.

However, you need to rewind past the turn of the millennium to find the fastest Mazda ever built. The RX-7 sports coupe enjoyed a production run that began

in 1978 and ended in 2002, encompassing three generations in that time.

The last of those – the RX-7 FD – was sold in the UK with 237bhp, enough for 0–62mph in 5.1secs and a top speed of 156mph. Not that it

was very successful: sales were so poor that they were halted in Britain in 1995, and almost all of the examples imported since have been Japanese imports. Which, by the way, were offered with more power.

EXHAUST

NOTABLE PEOPLE

Jujiro Matsuda He started a cork company, but had a vision for vehicles

Tsuneji Matsuda Founder’s son-in-law did deal with German brand NSU in ’61 to develop rotary tech

Henry Ford II Mazda had money troubles, and Ford bought a 25 per cent chunk of the firm in 1979

Where are Mazdas built, and how many are built a year?

1,175,139 The majority of Mazda’s cars are built in Japan, with plants in Hiroshima, Miyoshi and Hofu. Some models destined for the North American market are constructed in Salamanca, Mexico. Mazda also has facilities in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China and Russia, while a US base in Alabama is being built as part of a joint venture with Toyota. In 2020 Mazda built a total of 1,175,139 vehicles, 20,303 of which were commercial vehicles.

The overall figure represented a 21 per cent overall drop on the previous year, with factories shut down during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s the best concept Mazda made?

Bob Hall Car journalist who moved to Mazda and came up with the idea for the MX-5

Johnny Herbert British racing driver took the 787B across the line to win at Le Mans in 1991

Mazda has produced many stunning concept cars over the years – 1983 MX-03, 1995 RX-01, 2007 Taiki or the 2015 LM55 Vision...

The 2015 RX Vision, though, is quite possibly the most beautiful concept car ever built.

Revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show, it featured the ultimate expression of Mazda’s ‘Kodo’

design language and was built to fit a next-gen ‘Skyactiv-R’ rotary engine, as the company likes to periodically remind us that it has occasionally built cars with rotary engines.

No sign of a road car that looks like the RX Vision but you can drive it on Gran Turismo Sport if you fancy getting your PS4 out the attic.

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137

What’s been Mazda’s best moment?

What’s been Mazda’s worst moment?

Mazda is hardly the first name that springs to mind when it comes to talking about the all-time motorsport greats, but the Japanese brand can still count itself among the handful of manufacturers to have won the world’s most prestigious endurance race.

It triumphed at the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in 1991 as the 787B Group C prototype – driven by Volker Weidler, Bertrand Gachot and Britain’s own Johnny Herbert – finished two laps clear of the second-placed Jaguar XJR-12 at Circuit de la Sarthe.

Mazda was the first Japanese carmaker to win Le Mans and remained the only one to have managed the feat until Toyota finally bagged its first victory at the event in 2018.

Probably when its Furai concept car caught fire on a TopGear photoshoot and burned to a crisp. That was sub-optimal.

Let us take you back to the Detroit Auto Show in 2008, when Mazda presented its new concept with a name that meant ‘sound of the wind’. It was a tribute to the carmaker’s 1991 Le Mans win and was part of efforts to introduce a swoopy new design language it called ‘Nagare’.

It wasn’t a mere show pony, the Furai backed up its dramatic looks with performance thanks to the presence of a Courage C65 LMP2 chassis underneath and a three-rotor 450bhp rotary engine running on ethanol.

TG bagged an exclusive drive in August 2008 – mainly exclusive because the car caught fire during the shoot and was sent home in a bag. Whoops.

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EXHAUST

LOGO EVOLUTION 193 4 Company’s threewheeler debut model gets a simple logo

1 9 36 Three Ms for Mazda Motor Manufacturer and a hint of Ota river

19 5 9 Mazda’s first car gets a simple but stylish M logo on the front

What’s Mazda’s most surprising moment?

Perhaps the most surprising thing to know about Mazda is that it has spent a large portion of its history championing a completely different type of engine to almost everyone else.

It started developing the Wankel rotary engine in the Sixties to stand out from other Japanese manufacturers. Unlike a conventional engine where pistons move up and down to turn a crankshaft and drive the wheels, a rotary unit uses the fuel explosion to spin a central component.

Rotary engines were typically smaller, lighter and more potent for their size than piston engines, but unfortunately more vulnerable to wear, thirstier and produced higher emissions. They also struggled with low-end power and torque, which is why pistons reign supreme today.

Until recently it looked like the rotary was gone for good, but the format is set to return in upcoming range-extended electric Mazdas.

19 7 5 The company didn’t have an official logo for a couple of decades

199 1 This new badge represented wings and the sun, or something

199 2 Changed a year later because some thought it represented Renault

199 7 The logo we’re familiar with – stylised M meant to look like wings

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EXHAUST

Now you’re a Mazda expert, it’s time to buy one...

Mazda RX-8 / 2003–2010 / £1,000–£7,000 What is it?

For all its flaws – chiefly a rotary engine that needs absolutely flogging and troublesome reliability, issues which may be linked – the RX-8 remains an exotic thing to behold. The fact Mazda has brought back its doors for the MX-30 and has considered adding a Wankel engine to its maiden EV suggests something of the RX-8 legend still appeals. And if you can pick up a well looked after example for £3,000 or so, it probably still does appeal. Good luck...

Driving

WORDS STEPHEN DOBIE PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

It takes a bit of work to get the best out of the RX-8. This ought to be no surprise from a mere

glance at its spec sheet. There were two versions on offer when new: a 189bhp, five-speed version that kicked prices off at £21,995 and the one you actually wanted, a 227bhp six-speeder. Both delivered peak power well above 7,000rpm.

Mazda claimed a 146mph top speed and 0–62mph in 6.4secs for the more powerful car, which you see here in mid-life 40th Anniversary special edition trim.

Those figures look modest written down but they definitely feel accurate (and arguably a little optimistic) in the real world. If you’re at all accustomed to modern turbocharged sports cars, you’ll be frequently glancing down to check you’ve not left the handbrake on during your

Compression Only buy an RX-8 that’s had a professional compression test carried out. Make sure it doesn’t hesitate on start-up and that there are no flat spots in the power delivery

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Mileage The RX-8’s unofficial expiry date is 60,000 miles. Much maintenance is required beyond this point...

first few miles in an RX-8. There’s so little go below 4,000rpm you might reasonably wonder if something’s broken.

Its chassis is a delight when it’s loaded up, but you’ll need gumption to work the engine hard enough to reach that point. Do so and you’ll enjoy agile handling and quick, feelsome steering. No other contemporary coupe was quite this nimble, their weight figures notably higher than the Mazda’s. Though they undoubtedly had actual, tangible torque to compensate.

If you’re willing to trade sheer guts in the name of handling, the RX-8 might just float your boat.

On the inside Those unsure whether to make the leap from the practicality of a hot hatch to the glamour of a coupe had their anxieties quietened by this car. With two decently sized back seats – and a door beside each – this Mazda purported to be the best of both worlds.

The fact absolutely no one followed suit save for Mazda itself with the recently launched MX-30 (which is neither hot hatch nor coupe, of course) ought to tell you how much of a success it was deemed. But even the best part of two decades on, the whole TG team still coos over the Eight’s unconventional body.

Oil

Body

It’s really important to keep on top of your RX-8’s oil consumption. Mazda reckons on 250ml/1,000 miles, but it might ask for more

Check for rust, especially if it has/had a bodykit that may have trapped moisture and masked bubbling

Economy You have to drive the RX-8 hard. Constantly. Expect 20mpg. Road tax is hefty too. Not cheap to run

Next month: Ferrari

CITY CARS

These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range

SUPERMINIS

You drive mostly around town, with occasional need for longer distances? Try these for size

FAMILY HATCHBACKS

A good electric family hatch needs decent range without compromising interior space

1. HONDA e

1. BMW i3

1. H Y UNDA I IONIQ 5

PRICE: £28,215–£30,715 RANGE: Up to 136 miles

PRICE: £33,805–£34,805 RANGE: Up to 189 miles

PRICE: £36,995–£48,145 RANGE: Up to 298 miles

TG’s reigning city car of the year has retro-tastic

Remember when BMWs used to be cool? Well the

Hyundai’s newest addition is much bigger than it

styling, but the range isn’t great. No worries – you don’t need to drive anywhere, just sit inside it.

i3 does. Perhaps the only model in the company’s range where everyone else will be tailgating you.

looks in pics, but comes with solid range, loads of space and a host of life-enhancing touches inside.

2. MINI ELECTRIC

2. PEUGEOT e-208

2 . P O L E S TA R 2

PRICE: £26,000–£32,550 RANGE: Up to 145 miles

PRICE: £27,225–£31,475 RANGE: Up to 217 miles

PRICE: £39,900–£45,900 RANGE: Up to 337 miles

The electric version of the home grown favourite squeezes the BMW i3’s powertrain into a familiar package. Range not massive, but the car’s still fun.

The e-208 is competent and stylish, but ultimately you’ll fall into one of two camps: outraged about the tiny steering wheel or you don’t understand the fuss.

Undercover Volvo offers Scandinavian attention to detail paired with a level of build quality that would shame a number of much more expensive cars.

3 . F I AT 5 0 0 e

3 . R E N A U LT Z O E

3 . V O L K S WA G E N I D . 3

PRICE: £20,495–£27,495 RANGE: Up to 199 miles

PRICE: £27,595–£32,095 RANGE: Up to 245 miles

PRICE: £27,120–£38,800 RANGE: Up to 340 miles

The latest version of the 500 offers sharper looks, good value and decent range – and a parcel shelf full of soft toys shouldn’t hurt the battery too much.

They grow up so fast, don’t they? The Zoe’s not long turned eight, but a recent refresh has given the car a boost. The entry model is a touch underpowered.

VW has brought the impressive all-round skills of the Golf to bear on the EV market, with budget/range compromises that will suit everyone’s needs.

4. V W e-Up

4 . VA U X H A L L C O R S A - e

4. KIA SOUL

PRICE: From £21,055 RANGE: 159 miles

PRICE: £22,360–£26,745 RANGE: Up to 209 miles

PRICE: £32,445 RANGE: 280 miles

It’s always been one of the finest city cars out there, but you’ve got to be sure you could cope with all of

A Peugeot e-208 in a Vauxhall suit – the EV’s gone fully mainstream. This is the one to buy if you don’t

A lot of electric vehicles lack soul, but not this one.

There’s a distinct style/practicality trade-off, but Kia

the Yorkshire-accented jokes that plague the e-Up.

want anyone to notice you’ve taken the plunge.

also has sensible shoes if those are what you want.

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READY TO MAKE THE SWITCH? W E S E P A R AT E W H AT ’ S H O T F R O M W H AT ’ S N O T

COMPACT SUVS

Small, but perfectly formed. These cars are a perfect second motor or teeny family wagon

FAMILY FRIENDLY SUVS

Slightly larger electric cars that are designed to cope with everything you can throw at them

PREMIUM SUVS

Go big or go home, we say. Wafting along in style is perfect for an electric powertrain

1. PEUGEO T e-2008

1 . F O R D M U S TA N G M A C H - E

1 . J A G U A R I- P A C E

PRICE: £30,730–£38,580 RANGE: Up to 206 miles

PRICE: £40,350–£67,225 RANGE: Up to 379 miles

PRICE: £65,245–£76,695 RANGE: Up to 286 miles

Wait, when did Peugeots become so desirable

The Mach-E isn’t really a Mustang at all, or a men’s

The I-Pace is the electric vehicle you’ll want to

again? The e-2008 is surprisingly fun to drive and offers a chic interior with lots of nifty touches.

razor, but it looks pretty good. It’s definitely a Ford though, so relentless competence is guaranteed.

show off to your neighbours. If they’ll listen to you.

Decent range, solid performance and great looks.

2. HYUNDAI KONA ELEC TRIC

2 . S K O D A E N YA Q

2. BMW iX3

PRICE: £27,950–£37,200 RANGE: Up to 300 miles

PRICE: £31,995–£42,900 RANGE: Up to 330 miles

PRICE: £58,850–£61,850 RANGE: Up to 282 miles

The Kona is highly specced, offers a solid slug of range and looks pretty sharp too. Good value, good range and good looking. What’s not to like?

As usual, Skoda offers a down-to-earth and slightly cheaper alternative to whatever Volkswagen is pumping out. To great effect, as it turns out...

Slightly stealthier than some of BMW’s more aesthetically challenging EVs, this car is essentially an electric translation of the best-selling X3 SUV.

3 . V O LV O X C 4 0 R E C H A R G E

3 . V O L K S WA G E N I D . 4

3 . A UD I e-tr on

PRICE: £49,950–£56,700 RANGE: 249 miles

PRICE: £32,150–£55,540 RANGE: Up to 323 miles VW’s new electric SUV gets the basics right and

PRICE: £62,025–£88,425 RANGE: Up to 252 miles

‘Normal’ XC40 is a peach, and electric version adds Polestar 2 powertrain to great effect. Expensive, but you won’t have to explain to everyone what it is.

of the buttonless interior fence you sit on, really.

Audi’s effort is the safest premium bet if you’re worried about switching, but overall it’s a fairly conventional EV, just with cameras for mirrors.

4 . VA U X H A L L M O K K A - e

4 . A UD I Q 4 e-tr on

4. MERCEDES-BENZ EQC

PRICE: £29,340–£32,495 RANGE: 201 miles We’re not exactly sure how to feel about finding a Vauxhall stylish, must be the pandemic strain. New

PRICE: £40,750–£65,070 RANGE: Up to 316 miles Audi’s version of the ID.4 matches solid powertrain with predictably decent interior. Low-profile exterior

The EQC is terribly fancy, but loses out to rivals in terms of practicality and performance. It’s a comfy

Mokka-e gets PSA undercrackers, so it’s decent too.

too, if you don’t want to shout about going electric.

car, but doesn’t really move the game on in any way.

offers impressive range – just depends which side

PRICE: £65,720–£74,610 RANGE: Up to 255 miles

F OR ALL T HE FAC T S, S TAT S AND IN-DEP T H RE V IE W S F OR E V ERY NE W C AR ON S ALE GO T O T OP GE AR.COM/RE V IE W S

PERFORMANCE EVs

For when money’s no object and the sky’s the limit on car performance

SPECIAL MENTIONS

The EVs that have caught our eye, for all the right reasons. Who said they aren’t cool?

“I’VE BOUGHT ONE! WHAT NOW?” You have a home charge

1. RIMAC NE VERA

BEST FOR IN A HURRY

PRICE: £1.7m RANGE: 340 miles Brain-scrambling performance from the Croatian

The new Kia EV6 arrives later this year and with its 800V charging system you’ll be able to juice up with

entry, and sure £1.7m is a lot, but you’ll basically save that on petrol in no time. Welcome to the future.

60 miles of range in five minutes. That’s provided you can find a rapid charger that’s, er, rapid enough.

point. Don’t you? Well, get one. There’s a grant, so it’ll cost you less than £500. If you don’t have a driveway, to get an overnight or allday recharge check zapmap.com for posts near home or work that give between 5kW and 7kW. Always make sure that you know in advance the

2 . P O R S C H E TAY C A N

BEST FOR REINVENT ING THE WHEEL

PRICE: £72,850 RANGE: Up to 301 miles

Tesla polarises like no other carmaker, but it’s certainly exciting that the facelifted Model S is

The entry-level ‘affordable’ Taycan RWD is pick of the range – still a great powertrain and top notch interior, but it’s more laid back and easy to live with.

challenging some of the basics. Like why should a steering wheel be round? What was that? Safety?

supplier for the post you want to use, and register on its app or get its dedicated RFID card.

Rapid (DC) chargers, at a slightly higher price, are best used for long trips, like you’d stop for fuel.

They take roughly as long as filling with petrol and having a full English.

In winter, keep plugged

3. TESLA MODEL 3 PERFORMANCE

BEST FOR THE SUMMER

PRICE: £59,990 RANGE: 352 miles

Fancy a soft top to enjoy the sun? The choice is a

Ignore all of the Tesla hype and what you’re left with is a solid car with impressive performance. Tesla’s charge network means it isn’t just for early adopters.

500e Cabrio or a Smart ForTwo with a tiny range that

pre-warming the battery

probably won’t reach the seaside. Nice to dip your toes in the water while you charge up to get home.

and cabin increases range.

in until you drive away, as

When possible, choose heated/cooled seats over cabin heating and aircon.

Try to drop your motorway speed by 10mph: it’ll hugely increase range, getting you there far more quickly if it

4 . A U D I e -T R O N G T

BEST FOR SELF-CHARGING

PRICE: £80,850–£106,950 RANGE: Up to 298 miles

The versatile Sion from Sono Motors can add up to 150

If it looks like a Taycan and quacks like a Taycan it must be alright. Audi’s pitching this in a subtly

miles of range a week just by sitting out in the sunshine thanks to 248 solar cells glued all over. You can pre-

different way – more for touring than for sporting.

order it in the EU, but there’s no sign of a RHD version.

avoids a recharging stop.

F OR ALL T HE FAC T S, S TAT S AND IN-DEP T H RE V IE W S F OR E V ERY NE W C AR ON S ALE GO T O T OP GE AR.COM/RE V IE W S

TG’S BIG

BAFFLED BY ELECTRIC CAR JARGON? YOUR GUIDE TO DECODING THE FUTURE IS HERE EV

plug. Fast or level 2 refers

accurate than the old NEDC

Supercapacitor

Let’s start with a simple one.

Volts, amps and Watts

to the wall mounted AC

standard, but still optimistic.

Supercapacitors can charge

EV means electric vehicle, as

We’re going to go full science

charging boxes you can

opposed to one powered by

teacher on you and use an

install in your house or office,

petrol, diesel, used chip oil,

analogy. Imagine a river: the

which go up to 7.4kW on

Shorthand for ‘regenerative

for bursts of speed – and can

Chanel No 5 or magic.

Volts are how fast the river

normal 240V single phase

braking’. Electric motors work

tolerate more charge and

flows, the amps are how

AC, or 22kW on industrial

by using electricity and

discharge cycles, but they’re

much water is flowing, and

three phase. Rapid or level 3

magnets to spin a shaft. So,

still not as energy dense as

Must not be pronounced

the Watts are how easily it’ll

is the high-power, DC supply,

if you were to spin it manually,

batteries, so you’re unlikely

‘Bev’, like your favourite lunch

carry you downstream.

this is the sort you’ll find at

say, by coasting, you will then

to see them as direct battery

motorway services and

generate electricity, because

replacements. More likely

dedicated charging areas.

generators are basically

to supplement a petrol

motors operating the

engine’s performance.

opposite way.

See Lamborghini Sián.

BEV

lady, but ‘B-E-V’. It stands for battery electric vehicle. As

kW

and discharge more quickly

Regen

than regular batteries – good

opposed to what... steam-

Logical, metric countries use

fuelled? Just call them EVs

kilowatt to measure power

like everyone else.

from petrol and diesel

CHAdeMO is not the result

engines. For the rest of us a

of a cat walking across a

kilowatt is 1,000 Watts, and is

keyboard. It’s basically the

How far you’ll get in your car

The Congestion Charge

The internal combustion

the most common measure

fast-charging standard

from the amount of energy

Zone in London. From 7am

engine. Confusingly, ICE

of power in an EV. A kilowatt

Japan came up with.

you put into it. So, it’s been

to 10pm, it’s £15 to drive in this

can also stand for in-car

is equal to about 1.34bhp.

Competing standards

fuel from a tank for most of

zone. Used to be cheaper

include CCS and Tesla

your life, now it’s a battery.

and apply over fewer hours,

ICE

entertainment (ie the stereo, touchscreen and so on).

kWh Stands for kilowatt hours and

PHE V Plug-in hybrid electric

CHAdeMO

Superchargers, which all look reaaaaally similar.

can cut two ways – how much power you’ve used (which

Range

CCS

CCZ

but it’s been ‘temporarily’

Range anxiety

hiked to cover post-COVID-19

The fear of being very far

costs for the authorities. But,

from home, on a dark and

with an electric car you can

cold night, without enough

pay a one-off £10 for an exemption that lasts a year.

vehicle, or a hybrid with a

a utilities bill does), or how

The DC charger you’ll most

bigger battery that you can

much capacity there is in a

likely use across the UK and

power to make it to a

plug in to charge, giving you

battery. For instance, a Tesla

Europe. Works in everything

charging station. In the

a short, say 20-mile, electric-

Model S has 100kWh of

from a Tesla to a VW.

short term, the solution is

ULEZ

more rapid charge stations,

The CCZ is there to ease

in the long-term, better

traffic; London’s Ultra Low

only range. Amazing tax-

capacity, of which you’ll

dodging mpg figures in the

be able to use about 90,

Supercharging

official tests, not so amazing

because fully depleting

If it looks like a CCS charger

energy density and more

Emissons Zone is to ease

in real life... unless you plug in

a battery is a great way

and works like a CCS charger,

efficient cars should ease

pollution. The ULEZ is in effect

to ruin it forever.

it could very well be a Tesla

our furrowed brows.

every hour of every day, and

every night and use the car

Supercharger. But you can’t

exclusively for short trips.

AC and DC MHE V

use it unless you’re in a Tesla.

AC stands for alternating

mpkWh

will rain down with great

Li-ion

vengeance and furious

A contraction of lithium-ion,

application of a £12.50

which refers to the chemical

charge if you drive into

The mild hybrid EV, or MHEV,

current, and DC stands for

the very bottom rung of the

Batman comics... er, wait...

Not content with the unholy

make-up of a typical battery

the zone in a petrol car

electrified vehicle ladder. A

direct current. AC’s better for

union of litres of petrol and

pack. The 12V brick used to

that doesn’t meet Euro 4

small electric motor assists

long-distance transmission,

pints of milk, the UK’s uneasy

start your petrol-powered car

standards or a diesel car

the engine, but doesn’t have

because it can easily be

blend of metric and Rees-

is a lead-acid battery, but

that doesn’t meet Euro 6

enough gumption to push the

transformed (to higher

Mogg leaves us measuring

lithium-ion is now the global

standards. The good news

car on its own. MHEVs usually

voltage, lower current,

EV economy in miles per

norm for powering new EVs.

is that full EVs are exempt.

manage a fuel saving of

so fewer heat losses).

kilowatt hour. So, if you have

about 10 per cent compared

Transforming DC power

50 usable kWh, and run at

is a faff but, because DC

4.0mpkWh, you’ll do 200 miles

Solid-state battery

Fuel cell electric vehicles, like

charging stations can be as

before you’re stranded.

The next big step in battery

the Toyota Mirai. Separating

tech – holds more energy

hydrogen and oxygen takes

than an equivalent-sized

a lot of energy, but reuniting

li-ion battery, or the same

them in just the right way

with a pure petrol car.

RE X Refers to range extenders,

big as they need to be, they can employ high-voltage

W LT P

FCEV

or small internal combustion

power, giant transformers

Stands for ‘Worldwide

engines used as generators

and rectifiers and get huge

Harmonised Light Vehicle

amount of energy but in

releases energy. You can

to recharge EV batteries on

power – up to 350kW.

Test Procedure’. A way to test

a smaller and lighter pack.

burn hydrogen, but in a

new cars to see how much

They’re easier to cool, too,

hydrogen fuel cell you

which means you can charge

generate electricity to drive

the move. Engine can be converting fuel to electricity,

Slow, f as t and rapid charging

fuel, or energy, they use, how much greenhouse gas they

them quicker before they get

an electric motor. It’s also

which is fed to the motors

Slow or level 1 charging is

expel, and how far they get

too hot. At least five years

easier to move H2 over long

that supply the motive force.

when you use a regular wall

on one tank/charge. More

until any come to market.

distances than electricity.

run at its most efficient rpm,

F OR ALL T HE FAC T S AND S TAT S YOU NEED T O K NO W ABOU T E V ERY C AR ON S ALE IN T HE UK GO T O T OP GE AR.COM/RE V IE W S

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FortunaBeads Bracelets

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Socks Fuelled

by Passion

Grumpy Monkey is a UK based premium sock company that uses the latest in researched materials. All of our socks are designed to the highest possible standards to bring out the very best in comfort, and style. Our clothing and apparel is no different, expect high quality in everything we do! Perfect for all sports, leisure and lifestyle activities. grumpymonkeysocks.co.uk

With patterns inspired by the most iconic cars and racing liveries, Heel Tread is a brand for the ones that look beyond wheels and see art. From Le Mans, Formula I, and Rally legends to quintessential automotive icons, in an ever-growing collection tailored for the true petrolhead. Designed and produced in Portugal, we use seamless knitting to create high-quality, comfortable, and durable cotton socks.

See the whole collection at heeltread.com

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Originating from Devon over 30 years ago, we make handmade crumbly fudge daily.

Each batch of fudge is carefully made using traditional recipes and the finest quality ingredients.

For 10% off this month on orders over £25, please use the code OCTOBERFUDGE at checkout. rolysfudge.co.uk/shop

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Built with the same DNA as the original Leatherman, the Bond™ is a lightweight, UK EDC multi-tool that packs 14 essential features into a compact design. Inspired by Tim Leatherman’s original PST multi-tool, the Leatherman Bond pairs minimal design with highly functional tools for the job at hand. At a mere 5.8 oz, this stainless-steel workhorse provides 14 essential tools including pliers, a set of standard screwdrivers, and a durable, non-locking 420HC knife blade (2.9” blade length) that makes the Bond legal for everyday carry in the UK. The Bond’s handles are contoured to give you a comfortable grip while using the tools. Perfect for first-time owners or a great backup to existing gear. The Bond comes complete with a nylon sheath and is proudly backed by Leatherman’s 25-year warranty. leatherman.co.uk

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Roly’s Fudge

Lifestyle

Introducing the all-new range of orthotic footwear by FootActive: ACTIVE Orthotic Flip Flops and ELLA Orthotic Sandals! Built to contour your feet perfectly, our ACTIVE and ELLA range features a biomechanical arch support to help prevent over-pronation, restore the natural alignment of your body and help provide relief for Plantar Fasciitis (heel pain) and other common foot complaints. Save 15% on our ACTIVE Flip Flops and ELLA Sandals, with discount code: 15-GWM footactive.co.uk/footwear/flip-flops

Car Sales

Podiatrist-Designed Orthotic Flip Flops

New Leatherman EDC Multi-Tool

Insurance & Finance

Sometimes you need something extra special to express your personality and show the world who you are. FortunaBeads helps you to do just that with this unique red Leopard Skin Agate and green Rhyolite Jasper bracelets combo.

These and other bracelets are handmade in the Netherlands from genuine gemstones with a nickel-free spacer.

Stylish, comfortable and safe to wear.

Shop online at fortunabeads.com

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Loads to carry?

Expert Advice

Huge Choice

Fast UK Delivery

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Uk’s biggest range of roof boxes and roof bars

Products & Services

Web: roofbox.co.uk

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Full range of roof, rear and tow bar mounting bike carriers available

WH0: JAMES GOUGH WHERE: WILLOW SPRINGS, USA James is the official keeper of the pizza at TopGear. Best you never try to prise a box away from him. And never mention pineapple.

WHO: OLLIE MARRIAGE WHERE: BRYNSAITHMARCHOG, UK Not that he’s spoiled, but Ollie refuses to shower in anything but the finest French mineral water. Costs us a blooming fortune.

WHAT: TG CREW WHERE: BLACKBIRD AIRPARK, PALMDALE, USA Like meerkats, photographers will always migrate to the highest point... especially when there’s a supersonic plane to fit in the frame.

WHO: STEPHEN DOBIE WHERE: FORT WILLIAM, UK Stephen decides to head home for the weekend... the car decides not to play.

This may take some time.

WHAT: HURACÁN STO ENGINE COVER WHERE: STOWE, UK TopGear’s shoestring remake of Transformers: The Movie, wasn’t going well. We can see your hands Ollie.

WHAT: EVs WHERE: HYDE PARK, LONDON, UK Back in the day, TG crash-tested a G-Wiz... this year everyone is crashing into our long-term Taycan. That’s synchronicity, that is.

BEHIND THE SCENES

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