TopGear Magazine Electric Awards 2022 by tom.ts

“COMPLICATE, THEN ADD WEIGHT” LOTUS JOINS THE E-SUV PARTY

May 2022 / Issue 359

ID.BUZZ EXCLUSIVE DRIVE! VW’S HIPPY BUS IS BACK

MAY 2022

PLUS

TOPGEAR ELECTRIC AWARDS • PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 RS • ASTON MARTIN V12 VANTAGE • BMW M240i • THE BIRTH OF FORMULA ONE

ALL THIS INSIDE

RIMAC ON ICE

Nearly 2,000bhp, zero grip... get the insurers on the phone

ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS IN ONE PLACE

THE

Tesla Model Y has arrived. We organise the reception party

FREDDIE, PADDY & CHRIS PICK THEIR TOP EVs OF THE YEAR

£5.50

TOPGEAR.COM

AWARDS

Aston V12 Vantage & Cayman GT4 RS driven Well, we didn’t want petrol to feel left out...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... THE VOLTS ARE IN! THESE ARE THE GREATEST EVs IN THE WORLD

O T R T O C O E D R DI OUR Y

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xcuse me while I pop another Werther’s Original in my mouth, lean back on my rocking chair and remember a time when a car company announcing a new all-electric car was Big News. It was about three years ago. Things are moving at such a pace that rarely a day goes by without some manufacturer proclaiming it will produce a pure electric version of each model in its line-up by 2025, and a switch to nothing but electricity by 2030. They might as well save their breath and send out a release saying “Hello! We’re still in business!” Maserati is the latest, announcing a tri-motor, 1,200bhp GranTurismo will be the first pure EV Maser when it goes on sale in 2023, swiftly followed by an EV Grecale, MC20, Quattroporte and Levante, before giving fossil fuels the boot eight years from now. To make such a bold statement a few years ago would have been seen as reckless. Now, if you haven’t publicly mapped your path to EV enlightenment, you’re marking yourself out as a dinosaur. I get it. For anyone whose passion for cars – in all their oily, carbon belching glory – stretches back decades, it’s a stressful time. A period of change that feels more like we’re being strongarmed into EVs rather than nudged in their general direction. But while our inevitable electric future will be different, there’s still so much to look forward to. Which is why we created the annual Electric Awards – now in its third year – to point out the latest and greatest new EVs in the world, and celebrate them in a way that only TopGear knows how. Stuff like driving a 2,000bhp electric hypercar on ice... because the meaning of life could well be balletic, frosty four-wheel drifts. We sent Tom Ford to the Arctic Circle to check. Or introducing the UK’s south coast surfing community to the VW ID.Buzz – because the hippy bus is back! And if there was ever an EV more about vibes and hazy memories than metal and paint, this is it. The Buzz is an important vehicle because it shows that silent slabs of lithium-ion can conjure up emotions too. In our new EV landscape, perfect refinement, ease of use and acceleration are the new low-hanging fruit, what’s going to be harder is creating a connection to the shape that sits on top. Radical design (we’re looking at you Hyundai Ioniq 5) and retro resurrections like the Buzz are already proving to be potent ways of turning buyer’s heads. Who knows what they’ll come up with next. As I said, lots to look forward to. Enjoy the issue,

“THE MEANING OF LIFE COULD WELL BE BALLETIC, FROSTY FOUR-WHEEL DRIFTS”

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CONTENTS ISSUE 359 / MAY 2022

054 RIMAC NEVERA We’ve only gone and taken Croatia’s Most Anticipated New Car™ for a drive in the snow, because whyever not?

066 LOTUS ELETRE It’s the new car we’re most curious about driving in 2022 – it’s the first Lotus SUV and it’s electric. Shouldn’t be controversial

076 BMW iX vs MERC EQS

054

What’s the best luxury electric option out

113

there? Time to pit the bullish might of the iX SUV against the suave EQS saloon

082 MISC AWARDS “But surely you must have a collation of some of the minor highlights of the year?” you ask. Indeed we do

034

097 READERS’ CHOICE Did you choose your favourite in the poll to end all polls? TG readers voted in their dozens. Time to find out what won...

098 VOLKSWAGEN ID.BUZZ The new EV that could single-handedly change public perception of electric power. Is it the best electric vehicle yet?

098

ASTON V12 VANTAGE · MASERATI GRECALE SUV

CAYMAN GT4 RS · ENYAQ COUPE vRS · BMW M240i

DAWN OF F1 · MAZDA MX-5 · RICCI’S GARAGE

MACH-E GT · DEFENDER · HYUNDAI i20N · 911 · C4

The last new Vantage with a V12 – sob – Maserati’s latest SUV, and Polestar’s electric cabrio concept plus the latest driving tips from Catie Munnings

Hardcore new Porsche Cayman driven, does the Enyaq Coupe earn its vRS badge, plus new Citroen C5X and BMW M240i

Tom Ford goes right back to the beginning of F1 and it has Mazda underpinnings, plus Mark finds out just how expensive Skylines are

We’ve swapped Mach-Es, gone adventuring with the Defender 90 and we’re saying goodbye to the Citroen C4 and Volkswagen Golf R

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# N E W C A R S

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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

ASTON’S BRUTE IS BACK The last ever V12 Vantage is here, sporting a small car, big engine formula that’s worked miracles in the past. If it ain’t broke...

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Get an eyeful of that rear wing... don’t panic, you can delete it on the configurator

his is the end. Aston has revealed the last Vantage that’ll carry a 12-cylinder engine, bringing this unique line of over-endowed small sports cars to a close. Welcome to the last ever Aston Martin V12 Vantage. Aston calls it the “fastest” and “fiercest”, though judging by the er, ‘bold’ silhouette, perhaps it’s more aligned to the cinematic universe that also starts with ‘fast’. Y’know, the one with the tuna crusts. These muscular little Astons have always been engine cars. This Vantage gets the company’s 5.2-litre twin turbo V12, here producing 690bhp and 555lb ft of torque; figures you’ll agree are suitably voluminous. Indeed, its power to weight ratio stands at 385bhp per tonne. The quad-cam 60° V12 is mounted up front of course, matched to a rear midmounted eight-speed auto powering the rear wheels. There’s a proper mechanical LSD, and fully lit, Aston claims 0–62mph in 3.5secs and a top speed of 200mph. To keep in touch with that powerplant, the dual clutch ZF gearbox gets a few tweaks using learnings from both the V12 Speedster and Vantage F1 cars; adaptive software said to be responsive to both driving conditions and driver input. To better fit the massive-engine-insmall-car philosophy, lots of work has been

done on beefing up the chassis. There are new anti-roll bars, bushes, and spring/ damper assemblies. It runs stiffer springs, a stiffer body, a new steering tune for better feel and sharpness, and huge brakes. Aston has slotted in carbon ceramics all round as standard, complete with six-piston calipers up front and four-piston calipers on the back. Not only do these save 23kg compared with steel brakes, they also resist fade better for eye-popping stopping power. A convenient setup to talk about that hulking new aesthetic. Aston has deployed both barrels for this 2022 V12 Vantage. “Uncompromising” is how it describes the carbon fibre heavy widebody atop the V12, and it’s certainly that. The track is 40mm wider than a regular Vantage, said to improve cornering ability and stability, while the new full-width front splitter generates more downforce and aero balance. A new side profile brings with it a single-piece sill inspired by motorsport. You get the picture. Actually you don’t, because if you swing around back there’s more. A new unique rear bumper/diffuser provides yet more aero balance, sitting underneath a new rear wing offering up 204kg of downforce when travelling at 200mph. If you suspect the opportunities to go fast enough to generate 204kg do not present

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themselves regularly, there’s the option of binning that rear wing entirely. It’s standard Vantage fare inside, though here upgraded to better reflect the car’s halo spot. The standard seats are trimmed with additional quilting, while an optional carbon fibre-shelled seat saves 7.3kg. Though it’s all moot, because only 333 V12 Vantage models will be built, and each one has already been accounted for. Aston boss Tobias Moers said: “Right from the moment the first V12 Vantage RS Concept was shown back in 2007 our customers and fans around the world fell in love with the idea of fitting our biggest engine into our smallest and most sporting model. “Now it is time to bring this bloodline to a close,” he added. Like we said, this is the end. Vijay Pattni

FA I L O F T H E C E N T U R Y # 2 12

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

SUZUKI CELERIO

n this global, interconnected world, it’s notoriously tricky to come up with a new car name that’s (a) catchy, (b) original and (c) employable around the world without offending literally millions of people. Mitsubishi’s Pajero may have sounded jaunty to English ears, but Spanish speakers didn’t appreciate the insult. So maybe ridiculing the Celerio for its absurd, vegetably name is a blinkered, Anglophone viewpoint. Maybe Celerio sounds entirely sensible to non-English ears. After all, Suzuki claims the name derives from the Latin root ‘celer’, meaning ‘swift’ or ‘fast’, as in ‘accelerate’. Maybe, outside the Anglosphere, ‘Celerio’ conjures images of great speed and potency. Problem with this theory is: celery’s celery in a whole bunch of other languages. In German, French, Swedish, Uzbek, Walloon and many tongues beside, the word for celery is... celery. Or something very very close. In many, if not most, corners of the world, when people hear ‘celerio’, they’re going to picture the green stalky vegetable. And let’s be honest, if you’re naming a car after a foodstuff, celery’s not high on the list, is it? What did Suzuki reject? Broccolio? Swedio? Turnipio? Nothing against celery, a mirepoix base wouldn’t be the same without it, but it’s not the most glamorous of foodstuff, is it? Versatile, yes, but fundamentally a bit bland and watery. Well, at least you can’t accuse Suzuki of false advertising...

Morbius, in cinemas now Jared Leto stars in the next film set in the Spiderman universe. A biochemist inadvertently infects himself with a form of vampirism. Next slide please.

World Snooker Championship Yes there’s the F1. Yes there’s rugby. Yes there’s football. But when it comes down to fast-paced athleticism in dapper waistcoats, this is still the best. Seriously, it’s great fun. Starts 16 April.

Masterchef, BBC ONE So, 40 homecooks are whittled down to one winner. Another year goes by without our own Masterchef Ollie M’s dish of shredded rubber with a hot tarmac sauce being represented.

Record Store Day, 23 April

TopGear TV, BBC iPlayer Don’t forget that ALL of TopGear telly is ready and waiting on iPlayer.

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

The best day of the year if you love vinyl. Even if you just love music and want something extra special and tactile, take a look and see where your local store is and what’s going to be available. Fingers crossed Peter Andre’s B-sides are in stock!

› F E B R› UMA ARYY 22 00 21 9 2

T O P G E A R .TCOOPM GEAR.COM

015

CAR NE W S

FLYING HIGH New Polestar concept features a drone that’ll film you from above

ver get that strange feeling that you’re being watched from somewhere on high? Well, in the Polestar O2 concept you probably are. You see, this is Polestar’s new concept car that it says “envisions a new age for electric roadsters”. Looks the business, doesn’t it? That rear deck houses an “autonomous cinematic drone” developed by Hoco Flow that can be launched on the move (thanks to an area of negative pressure) and will follow the car at speeds of up to 56mph, filming you as you go. The drone even has drive modes, with ‘atmospheric’ apparently “great for a coastline cruise” and a sport mode that’ll major on action. This is Polestar we’re talking about, so there’s also plenty of focus on sustainability and recycling. For example, recycled polyester is the sole material used for all of the soft parts of the interior as using a

single material simplifies recycling. The different grades of aluminium used throughout the chassis are also labelled to make them easier to recycle. Polestar says that the O2 builds on the Precept concept’s design language, but it’s based on a bespoke aluminium platform that’s adapted from the one developed for the production Polestar 5 saloon. There’s no word on drivetrains or power outputs, but Polestar does say that the driving experience is designed to be “lively, light and full of confidence”. An EV roadster that looks like this? Yes please. Greg Potts

Y O U C A N ’ T B U Y TA S T E

GENESIS G70

Spec your new Korean 3-Series-wannabe as a dour saloon and it’ll be so anonymous you’ll probably forget you own it. But spec it as a Shooting Brake wagon in Sport Line trim and you’ll want to post pics of it on Instagram to broadcast its beauty to the world.

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CAR CONTROL.. WITH CATIE #3

DRIVING ON SAND

Extreme E driver, TV presenter and British rallying star Catie Munnings shares some driving wisdom

RESPECT THE DESERT

TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF

No two days are the same even in the same area of desert, the wind picks up overnight and blows the top layer of sand which can completely reshape a dune. The sun also plays tricks on you – at midday when it’s directly above you, it creates the illusion that dunes are flatter than they are. Locals’ tip: hit the dunes before 11am, and after 3pm; you’ll miss the heat and if you’re in Arabia, enjoy some of the best hummus of your life for lunch.

Lowering the tyre pressure will increase the surface area on the ground, reducing the load and making it easier to drive on top of the sand. I had my fair share of drama in the Extreme E Desert X Prix in 2021, having to make a full quali run on three wheels after my teammate had a blow out. Ironically, this was easier in the deep sand when climbing and diving off the dunes. Also don’t forget that lifting off in deep sand is like putting the brakes on.

HANG OUT ON THE RIDGE

SPEED IS YOUR FRIEND

The TV cameras don’t do the dunes justice. They are seriously intimidating. If you’ve watched the Dakar rally, you’ll have seen drivers turn and roll a few metres along the ridge, before diving down it. They do this to check what’s on the other side of the peak. The last thing you want to do is climb it straight on, and jump straight into a desert tree, rock or sand bowl that you can’t get out of... or even land on another competitor over the peak.

Driving sideways on a camber towards the top of a dune is the sketchiest part. You need enough momentum to get to the top, but not too much speed to jump over the top and nosedive. If you feel the momentum dipping, turn sharply downhill. At this point, the force of gravity on the car is greater, and if you’re climbing a reasonable angle It could mean tipping and rolling down the mountain. I may have been there before...

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WAT C HE S

BLEU BLANC ROUGE

When it comes to the greatest watchmaker of all the French have got a strong claim

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uiz question: which country produced the world’s great watchmaker? No, not Switzerland, France – a gentleman called Abraham-Louis Brequet. His diverse client list spanned high society from Marie Antoinette to Napoleon, and Breguet was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences and a chevalier in the Légion d’honneur – the French equivalent of a knight. He’s buried in the same cemetery as Edith Piaf and Marcel Marceau. Breguet did more to advance the science of watchmaking than anyone else. That science continues today, and the greatest living watchmaker is now an Englishman called Roger W Smith. But during Breguet’s day in the the 18th and 19th centuries, watchmaking was life and death, helping competing empires navigate the seas and coordinate armies. Beyond improving vital clockmaking functions, Breguet recognised the need to mix art with science. He made lots of inventions that increased efficiency, like innovative springs and anti-shock mechanisms, but he also crafted fancy carriage clocks for the world’s elite and even made the first wristwatch, commissioned in 1810 for the Queen of Naples. Perhaps his greatest feat was escaping the guillotine. Making expensive clocks for royalty while France sharpened the blades of revolution was dangerous, and Breguet did wisely spend a few years in exile. But when he came back to Paris, the new regime welcomed him home and he continued perfecting his craft until his death in 1823. Breguet may have survived the French Revolution, but the watch industry in France did not last so well as Swiss factories began to dominate. In the last few years, though, some new French watch companies have been springing up, and some old names have been revived. They are small steps, though, and aside from a few boutique watchmakers, French companies still rely on the Swiss to make their watches. But there is nothing wrong with a little sharing between neighbours. Because although Breguet did spend most of his working life in Paris, he was actually born in Neuchâtel – then a Prussian principality, which later became part of Switzerland. Despite signs of recovery, the watch industry in France is still tiny compared with Switzerland, as all the Swiss-built watches on these pages show. So under the circumstances the least we can do is let the French keep claiming Breguet as their own. Richard Holt

BLOW THE BUDGE T BRE GUE T C L A S S I QUE The modern company bearing the Breguet name is now part of the Swiss giant Swatch group. This Classique 5177 has a 38mm white gold case and an automatic movement. It is water resistant to 30 metres, which translates as ‘do not go swimming in a gold dress watch costing over £20k’. £20,600; breguet.com

UNDER £6K

HERMÈ S SL IM D ’HERME S Best known as a maker of fancy leather goods and scarves, the French fashion house Hermès also makes a very nice range of automatic and quartz watches. This one has a 39.5mm steel case and an automatic movement with 42-hour power reserve. £5,360; hermes.com

UNDER £4K UNDER £ 1K BEL L & RO S S BR 03-92 D I V ER In Paris in the early Nineties, two university friends called Bruno Belamich and Carlos Rosillo decided to put their heads – and their names – together to form a

Y EM A SUP ERM A N

watch company. Everyone needs a USP and theirs was watches that look like they

In 1982 Yema became the first French watch in space,

have been jemmied from the dashboard of an old plane. People liked what they

on the wrist of the first Frenchman in space, Jean-Loup

saw and the range has expanded to include a whole range of styles, including

Chrétien. Also known for diving watches, like this one,

divers like this one. Automatic movement in 42mm bronze case. Water resistant to

which comes with a stainless steel bracelet and a

300m. The concept is French, but the watch of course is made in Switzerland.

vintage leather strap. Automatic movement, 38mm case

£3,900; bellross.com

and water resistant to 300m. £820; yema.com

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THE KNOWLEDGE Need-to-know nuggets of automotive news

GAME OF THE MONTH

MACAN IN THE MIDDLE Porsche’s bestselling model has got a new trim – the Macan T might upset the purists, but it’ll sit between the entry model and the Macan S, gets the same 4cyl turbo as the Golf R and will start around £54,000

Gran Turismo 7

MANTA RETURNS

It’s hard to convey the excitement when a new, numbered Gran Turismo title lands. We’d have described it as

We loved last year’s retro Vauxhall

like a new Star Wars movie, if there hadn’t been approximately a hundred of those, of varying quality, in the

Manta concept, so imagine our

past few years. The big news is that GT’s sprawling car collecting campaign, which takes you from liberating

excitement when we heard

a secondhand road car from the classified ads to competing in the top echelons of motorsport, is back, but

confirmation it’s getting made.

your progress is now a lot more prescribed than it used to be. Whereas your choice of cars and races entered used to feel unique to you, GT7 now holds your hand tighter than a frightened four-year-old.

Then imagine our reaction when we heard it’ll be a small SUV...

Regardless, Gran Turismo 7 will handily hoover up hours of your life and it’s also heart-stoppingly beautiful on PlayStation 5 – you’ll complete a race and then happily sit through the full replay just to ogle the cars. Which is only likely to double the hours we spend with this enormous, brilliant game... Mike Channell

GE AR

TRACK CHANGES This is a first glimpse of the new

INDIAN EFTR HOOLIGAN 1.2

Ferrari 296 GT3 that’s set to debut in 2023 after a spot of testing and development. Unlike the 296 GTB road car it’s based on, this V6 racer is combustion only

Electrically assisted bicycles

Eco pedal assist mode.

are everywhere these days,

There are also Tour, Sport

but not many look as cool

and Off-Road modes, with

as this. The Indian eFTR

the latter offering 2,000 watts

Hooligan 1.2 is the result of a

of power (around 2.6bhp)

collaboration between US

and a top speed of 28mph.

motorcycle brand Indian

The styling is all Indian, with

and e-bikers Super73. The

chunky tyres, inverted front

IS IT ARTURA?

electric powertrain features

forks, an LED headlight and

British artist Nat Bowen has

a 0.96kWh battery that can

a blingy gold chain. Respect.

offer 75 miles of range in the

Indianmotorcycle.com; $3,999

managed to get her hands on a McLaren Artura in Dubai and given it her signature coloured resin treatment for her latest exhibition. An expensive canvas at £180k...

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TOPGEAR TOP 9

GENIUS RACING LOOPHOLES

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

McLaren’s extra brake pedal

Mercedes DASgate

McLaren’s F-duct

Every McLaren road car since the MP4-12C has

Mercedes’ 2020 F1 car featured Dual-Axis

Moveable aero devices (besides DRS, of course)

had a system called ‘BrakeSteer’. It’s inspired by

Steering, or DAS. By telescoping the steering

aren’t allowed in F1. McLaren got round that in

a system dreamt up for the 1997 F1 car, where a

column in and out by thrusting the steering wheel,

2010 with its F-duct, which relied on the driver

second brake pedal was used to slow wheels on

the drivers could adjust the toe-in/out angle of

moving their knee to cover a hole in the cockpit

one side of the car – and changed depending on

the car, reducing drag on the straights and

side and blocking the duct, stalling airflow over

whether there were more left- or right-handers.

aiding tyre warm-up under a safety car.

the rear wing when downforce wasn’t needed.

Brawn’s double diffuser

Toyota GT-One fuel tank

Gordon Murray’s Brabham fancar

With 2009’s cars subject to major aero rule

In the Nineties, the rules for endurance racing said

Gordon Murray employed a fan to suck air out from

changes and McLaren and Ferrari floundering,

you had to build a run of road-going homologation

under his 1978 BT46 F1 car, increasing its ground

the secret to Brawn’s success was the ‘double

cars. Part of the rules insisted the car had a boot big

effect even in slow corners and allowing higher

diffuser’ design which vastly increased the

enough for a briefcase. Toyota immediately declared

cornering speeds. It won on its debut by 34 seconds,

surface area of the downforce-generating

the empty space in the dry fuel tank be counted as the

before the sport’s governing body insisted it was

bodywork at the back of the car.

boot as it was capable of containing a briefcase.

withdrawn for the rest of the 1978 season.

Williams’ water-cooled brakes

Red Bull’s flexible wings

Smokey Yunick...

Want to run a lighter car than the official rules

In 2011 the RB7 was spotted to have wings that

The ex-WW2 pilot turned racecar driver and team

allow? Do what Williams did in 1982 and fit a large

bowed under load, sparking against the track

owner has a string of rule-bending innovations to

water tank in the sidepods supposedly there to

in the pursuit of increased ground effect.

his name, including hiding a basketball in a fuel

hold water needed for brake cooling. They never

Thanks to clever layering of the wing, it would

tank during scrutineering then deflating it after

actually ran that hot, and a few laps later the

remain firm during FIA tests but bend under

the inspection so his larger fuel tank could hold

water in the tank would evaporate or be dumped.

the higher loads experienced in the race.

more gas and the car needed fewer pitstops.

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CAR NE W S

MASERATI GRECALE

Another Maserati SUV hoping to galvanise sales and get the cash in

A CAR TO SAVE MASERATI. AGAIN Yup, the Levante SUV was supposed to sell in big numbers and challenge the Germans. So was the Ghibli. Both didn’t. Ah well, here’s the latest, the Grecale. It’s a crossover that’ll sit below the Levante. But not much below. It’s bigger than rivals like the Macan and X3.

Another er Maserati, Maseratii , another difficult-to-pronounce lt-to-pronounce name. FYI, it’s Gray-kA-leh

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2 3 4 5

BIG BROTHER TO T THE ALFA STELVIO It’s based on the Stelvio’s platform, but stretched. It also has its own V6 engine, derived from the one in the MC20, but detuned to a ‘mere’ 530bhp. The other engine is a four-cylinder 2.0-litre, with both a turbo and a lag-cutting electric compressor, which makes 330bhp.

IT HAS PLENTY OF USEFUL TECH Air suspension is optional, which will be useful to owners who take the ‘utility’ part of SUV literally. It can self-level, and rise up for rough terrain. The V6 model, called Trofeo, has complex torque vectoring. In the cabin, a new connected infotainment system is based on the Android Auto OS.

INEVITABLY THERE WILL BE AN ELECTRIC VERSION In early 2024 there will be a full-electric Grecale, badged Folgore – Italian for lightning – ready to face off against the electric Macan. No more details about performance on that one. But it’ll have to be nippy to beat the Trofeo, which does 0–62 in 3.7 seconds.

TECH MEETS TRAD INSIDE Apart from upper (infotainment) and lower (climate) touchscreens, there’s the main instrument screen and optionally a head-up display. Even the little dash clock can switch into a g-meter. But it all sits among Maserati’s usual plush leather, with some pretty sudden colour options and contrast sti stitching. itching.

WO R D S : PAU L H O R R E L L

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THIS MONTH:

PORSCHE TAYCAN TURBO S CROSS TURISMO

T OP S T EER It’s only 0.1secs slower to 62mph than the regular Taycan Turbo bo S. Throttle response e in Sport mode is incredible. In my opinion the Taycan has the best handling and best brakes of any EV.

MARQUES BROWNLEE

HARD DRIVE

NO T S O FA S T, S ON Interestingly the Taycan Turbo S isn’t the fastest Porsche, despite the instant response from an electric powertrain. The 911 Turbo and Turbo S still beat a Cross Turismo from 0–62mph, although only one can carry five and all their worldly possessions.

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

have spent a fair bit of time with the swoopy saloon version of the Porsche Taycan, but this is the Cross Turismo – a car that’s supposed to be a little easier to live with every day thanks to its slightly raised suspension, chunky cladding and of course that big old boot. It’s also the Turbo S, which means it’s ludicrously fast. The two e-motors send 751bhp to all four wheels in Launch mode and mean 0–62mph in 2.9secs. You’ll have to make do with 625bhp in the rest of the drive modes, though. Prices start at $187,000 in the US and just over £140,000 in the UK, with the lower, sleeker Sport Turismo estate just a couple of hundred pounds less. Oh, and on the subject of estates – there still aren’t many all-electric ones on the market. US company Alpha is promising one and Audi recently unveiled the A6 Avant e-tron concept which should eventually make it to production, but for now your options in Britain are limited to the Porsche or the entirely uninspiring MG 5. Think I’d go for the Taycan, even if the Turbo S only manages a claimed 260 miles from the 84kWh portion of its battery that’s usable.

024

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

The power opening charge ports. You just tap your finger on the port and it slides open. Love that. It’s on both sides too which can be very helpful

SHOO T ING BROK E I don’t think the Cross Turismo is the best looking car. I know the higher roofline allows for the extra headroom h and bootspace, but the st standard Taycan is just so low and futu futuristic. It looks like it’s from another planet, plan whereas the Cross Turismo is a little littl ungainly.

T HIR S T Y DR I V ING Driving the Cross Turismo in winter, I managed similar efficiency figures to the saloon in summer. Impressive. But then the numbers aren’t actually that good, especially at the start of a drive before the car has got warmed up. I got around 2.0mpkWh when I’m used to seeing 2.5mpkWh with the same style of driving in a Tesla Model S.

SPA C E A C E

PEDAL PO W ER

The rear seat’s roomy

There’s regen available

and can fit two adults

when you hit the brakes, but

comfortably, while the

I’d love a one-pedal option

hatchback-style boot

that slows the car more

is paired with a front

when you come off the gas. It

boot to provide loads

could extend the life of those

of luggage space.

expensive brake pads too.

Basically the complete

V ERD I C T

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

package of performance

The new Samsung

and practicality. The

Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Turbo S is bonkers fast

Big, powerful,

and a great everyday

similar to the

car, but not cheap and

previous version,

weirdly not my favourite

but just slightly

piece of design.

less attractive.

T HE DR I V E : 9 T HE T E CH: 6 T HE WA N T: 8

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

“ONLY LEGISLATION AND TAXES WILL GET US IN EVs” These days, most people accept manmade climate change is real – the evidence is simply too compelling. Some are even prepared to make the carbon-cutting changes the world needs to arrest global warming... but in truth most are secretly hoping science will ﬁnd a silver bullet. Stellantis, the company that owns 14 brands from Maserati to Vauxhall to Dodge and Ram, says that “73 per cent of buyers want their mobility choices to lower CO 2 emissions”. The sands are riddled with the holes of recently lifted ostrich heads.

Of course vaguely wanting a lower CO2 choice of car isn’t the same as being prepared to suffer more expense or less convenience or less desirability. But it does go to show that if carmakers can get electric cars to align with their own aims – cheap enough to sell at combustion engine-equivalent prices while still making a profit – then they or their buyers don’t need to be forced by government legislation to make the switch. (Even if it were just about legislation, note that most of us live in democracies

and we voted for candidates who said that they will cut CO2 levels.) Stellantis says that it can cut the manufacturing cost of EVs by 40 per cent in the next three years, achieving cost parity with ICEs. VW, Renault and others say so too. They also understand that greenwashing won’t work. Their electric vehicles can’t have a huge manufacturing carbon footprint. So they have pathways to take that to zero too. And do big-scale battery recycling. They have the tools. Paul Horrell

LATER

WHO KNOWS?

BLOCK WORK

PLUG AND PLAY

SONY OUTLOOK

Meet Mr Block’s new daily: an Audi RS e-tron GT with white wrap, Toyo tyres and Rotiform NGO wheels

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has revealed plans for a fully electric Jeep, set to go on sale next year. Thoughts?

Honda and Sony have agreed to partner up on all things electric. No word on a production version of the Vision S – yet

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

CERTIFIED DIVER’S WATCH – ISO 6425 (2018)

TISSOT SEASTAR 2000 PROFESSIONAL powermatic 80 CERTIFIED DIVER’S WATCH WATER RESISTANCE UP TO 60 BAR (600 M / 2000 FT) T I S S OT WATC H E S . C O M

The received wisdom says it’s time to go electric, but there’s life left in the humble hybrid yet, says Chris

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

I am now 2,000 miles into my hybrid adventure and can confidently say I’m very glad I didn’t buy an electric car. The UK is so deficient in EV infrastructure that relying on it as a means of transportation defeats the point of owning a car – being able to go places as and when you want to. Dealing with train delays and taxi drivers who haven’t a clue where they’re going is far less stressful than nursing a dying EV. Also, most of the public chargers are broken or busy, and home charging isn’t always an option for me. I’ve had serious stick from people for taking the hybrid. There are two camps of critics: the EV zealots who refuse to see any other way and condemn anyone who doesn’t agree with them to a status just below a murderer, and EV owners who totally dismiss problems surrounding public chargers and range, then later reveal they have acres of off-street parking and a chauffeur driven diesel S-Class to ensure they can keep moving on longer trips. But for now a hybrid works really well in the UK – silent motoring in town and then the long-range ability of an ICE out on faster roads. It seems like the way forward to me, but of course the genesis of the hybrid car is already over – governments are banning them alongside standard ICE

“I UNDERSTAND THE MORAL SUPERIORITY ENJOYED BY SO MANY EV ZEALOTS”

machines, and that really is a wasted opportunity. Making big societal changes takes time and there have to be stages of development. In no other area of present day life in the UK would its population be forced to make such a profound change with no interim steps. Sadly, the hybrid proves that there is a solution to the shift from fossil to electrons, but governments don’t want to make life easier for the majority of their voters. They want to appease the noisy minority. So the Polestar 1, my hybrid, is just the best solution for the way I use a motor car. I can sometimes charge it overnight, which gives me about 70 miles of pure EV schlepping in town. That covers all short and medium trips – within the confines of greater Bristol, I don’t think the petrol engine has ever fired up. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a little smug about that, and in return understand the moral superiority enjoyed by so many EV zealots. When a charger doesn’t work or the battery runs out, there’s a 308bhp range extender to fall back on and if you want to combine the two, it’s a 600bhp loon which can stick one on an RS4. Like anyone who has something new and clever I am now annoyingly keen to tell people how great it is. And like one of those evangelical types who thinks that theirs is the only way forward, I am mostly unprepared for people to question the genius of my new car. So when someone recently said: “That’s all very well Chris, but it’s £150,000, left-hand drive and you’re the only person in the UK to have bought one,” I didn’t have much to retort. What I should have said is that if car companies had been given the chance to invest in these things, the tech in a Polestar 1 could easily have been available for a quarter of the price. Need more of the TopGear telly show in your life? All episodes are now free to stream on BBC iPlayer

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The dawn of a new age in flight. Faster, quieter, more luxurious, the jet-age brought about a sea-change in the way flight was perceived. It was the peak of social status and, if you were lucky enough to fly during the hey-day, an incredible experience. Technically these planes were a feat of British engineering marvel and signalled to the world that innovation was in our blood. The Pacific is inspired by both the dawn of the jet-age and the human-centric experience as this new super-fast lifestyle boomed into existence.

A horsepower limit for new cars? You know it makes sense, says TGTV script writer Sam Philip

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

It’s something I spend entirely too much time contemplating. When I am finally appointed Supreme Overlord of Planet Earth With Particular Responsibility for Transportation, what will be the first legislation I pass? (Delusional egoist? Moi?) Instant exile for anyone with their fog lamps on when it’s bright and sunny out, obviously. Instant exile for anyone who leaves their car parallel parked with the front wheels off-straight. But I’ve recently got a new law on my list, and it’s a big ’un: a horsepower limit for all cars. A stringent restriction, for all new cars, everywhere in the world. Supercars, sports cars, no exception. Which I know might sound a bit draconian and fun-sponge, but I reckon it’d be the opposite. A horsepower limit is exactly what the world of fast cars needs. Not for eco reasons, purely for fun-to-drive reasons. As we know, there’s far too much horsepower sloshing around at present. And horsepower is heavy. Not only the motors to generate the stuff, but the brakes and suspension to contain it. Slap on a horsepower limit, and manufacturers could funnel all that development cash and brainpower into making their cars lighter, more interesting to drive. Question is, exactly what should that horsepower limit be? Again, given that my appointment as Supreme Commander is

“HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT A HALF-TONNE FERRARI SUPERCAR LOOKS LIKE?”

looking less than guaranteed at present, I’ve spent altogether too long agonising over the precise number. And then I remembered: there’s historical precedent here! Because, from the late Eighties to the mid Noughties, Japanese manufacturers had a so-called ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to sell cars – in their domestic market at least – making any more than 276bhp. This agreement was, at least officially, nothing to do with fostering innovation, and all to do with demonstrating the carmakers’ great concern for road safety. It’s not clear how they settled on precisely 276bhp as the golden figure, what with Japanese cars of 275 horsepower still having the ability to make a nasty mess of whatever it is they collide with. But I reckon 276bhp might be a bang-on figure. Fast enough for some proper speed, stringent enough to require some proper innovation. And if you’re thinking that’s not enough for genuine tear-your-face-off performance, remember: 276bhp is pretty much the exact output of the original BAC Mono. I drove the original BAC Mono, and can report it wasn’t what you’d call ‘underpowered’. And yes, the Mono was a single-seat, 560kg racecar for the road, but tell me that if Ferrari or McLaren took a load of that R&D cash they’ve been spending squeezing ever more power out of their powertrains, they couldn’t cook up a sub-600kg two-seater supercar? Forget the inevitable 1,200bhp, 1,600kg hyper-hybrid that’ll follow the SF90: how much do you want to see what a half-tonne Ferrari supercar looks like? And how much do you want to drive it? Sam Philip is the TopGear telly script editor, and a TG mag and website regular for 15 years. Once wrote a Vauxhall Corsa joke that Paddy McGuinness described as “not totally crap” Need more of the TopGear telly show in your life? All episodes are now free to stream on BBC iPlayer

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OTA updates are all well and good, but not at the detriment of driving dynamics, says Paul

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

I was driving the Mustang Mach-E again. Soon after, Darren Palmer, head of EVs at Ford, asks if we journalists have any questions. I do. Why does it steer like it does? The wheel is heavy, with gloopy inertia, and unnecessarily forceful self-centring. Why didn’t they let the Ford of Europe engineers have at it? I knew Palmer wouldn’t gloss over the issue. He used to be one of those European Ford engineers, developing the best-steering mass-made cars of all. He answered that yes, the Europe crew have now been let loose on the Mach-E, and a new steering calibration will be coming as an over the air update soon. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ford chose the initial assistance programming just to make the Mach-E feel more like the V8 Mustangs, and Palmer doesn’t disagree. The first customer cars also got a pretty tail happy ESP calibration, and he says Mach-E drivers thought that was a bit (my word here) inappropriate, so that’s been dialled back already. I also wondered why there isn’t more real time energy flux info in the screen system. Some cars will show you, live, the power used by, say, climate control, so you can choose to turn it up or down depending on the range you need. Palmer replied that yes, they could give owners that stuff OTA if they want.

“THAT REALLY WOULD BE LIKE WAKING UP IN THE MORNING TO A WHOLE NEW CAR”

Or give more control over regeneration braking. Or power delivery. “All modules are upgradeable over the air. If customers want features we can add them.” Pretty well all carmakers are doing these upgrades to a greater or lesser extent now. Tesla’s screen system gets modernised as often and as visibly as your phone’s. Tesla also does it for the driver assist systems. On occasion it has actually downgraded the capability, removing features that were a bit too beta. But right now Teslas have hardware that will let them do Level 4 autonomous driving, pending an as yet unknown date for the software and legislation to enable it. That really would be like waking up in the morning to a whole new car. As an aside, I’m not sure what this does to car reviews. If the Mustang’s steering gets a bad rap and then Ford changes it, you could drive the altered car and wonder what on earth we were banging on about. Maybe Wikipedia will start doing a change log for this stuff, as it already does for Tesla’s autopilot. All this software demands colossal effort to develop. I’m sad because in some recent cars (the Merc A-Class springs to mind), the screen and assistance systems clearly took priority over the old school basics of dynamics, including handling, ride and engine refinement. And if the hardware that affects those basics isn’t right from the get-go, no amount of OTA patches for the EPAS or suspension electronics will fix it. Let’s see what happens with the Mach-E. But over a wider canvas, my conversations with engineers are telling me there’s a severe danger the hardware R&D that separates a good car from a great one is getting pushed aside by the monster requirements of software development. TG’s eco-conscious megabrain, Paul Horrell, is one of the world’s most respected and experienced car writers. Has attended every significant car launch since the Model T

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DRIV The big test:

Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Ever wondered what would happen if Porsche’s GT department really let its hair down? The result might just be the wildest RS model to date WORDS JACK RIX

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VES PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 RS

£108,370/£127,828 as tested

inally, I get to relay what really happened that day we went to shoot the Cayman GT4 RS in a studio near Stuttgart, in October last year. Andreas Preuninger, boss of Porsche’s GT department, rocks up in a black-wrapped GT4 RS prototype, delivers a meticulous interview on his latest creation then moves to leave. I politely suggest that taking me for a drive in ‘his’ stealth spec GT4 RS might be the perfect way to help us understand the car. He loves the idea, the

Porsche PR man starts sweating, but on the promise that it’s all off the record and I can keep schtum until now... grants permission. We go for an enthusiastic lap of the local roads and I return to the studio jacked up like the Energizer Bunny. My ears have just been treated to one of the finest and rowdiest noises I’ve ever heard a car make... and I’m babbling incoherently to whoever’s prepared to listen. In that moment I make a vow: the only way a colleague will get their hands on the first drive invite is to prise it from my dead lifeless fingers.

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Drive the GT4 RS and you’ll also be lost in the glorious, hypnotic sound of the engine

“RAGGING A GT4 IS LIKE HAVING TREACLE POURED INTO YOUR EARS... AND THEN AN ENTIRE WASP COLONY AFTER IT”

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03 03 04

1. In case it wasn’t shouty enough, Racing Yellow paintjob seals the deal 2. The £8,913 Weissach Pack includes exposed carbon weave on the enlarged engine ducts 3. Optional ceramic brakes aren’t cheap at £5,595, but do come with free peace of mind 4. The instrument cluster has the perfect blend of analogue and digital dials

Team player, me. And here we are, an hour north of Lisbon on a road that wriggles and clings to the rock on its way up to the highest point for miles. The views are spectacular, the sounds are better. To start a review of this car anywhere other than the acoustic experience would be like trying to appraise an Adele album without mentioning she can sing a bit – it’s the dominant sensory dish. Ragging a GT4 RS is like having thick treacle poured into your ears... and then an entire wasp colony crammed in after it. It’s just ridiculous. And each journey to 9,000rpm isn’t merely a sound, it’s laced with sucking, vibrations, rattles and spikes of adrenalin. A low-end warble that hardens in the mid-range and becomes silkier until it decomposes into a frantic shudder between 7,000 and 8,000rpm, before a magnificent eargasm for the final 1,000rpm that makes your soul sing and your face muscles hurt. It’s heroin for your earholes and it’s on tap. And that’s just when you’re chasing the redline. The rest of the time you’ve got a

musical instrument to play with using your right foot on the pedals and fingertips on the paddles. Normally I’d berate anyone who thought deleting the infotainment system (a no-cost option) in the name of saving a few kilos was a good idea, but here it might just make sense. Who needs infotainment when you can summon thunder with the throttle? And that’s not even the best part. With most fast cars the best noises come from the exhaust pipes – which can sound wonderful from the cabin, but you know it’s sounding even better to whoever you just drove past. You’re effectively providing a public service. But not here, because what you’re listening to is induction noise from the carbon-fibre intakes where the rear quarter windows are normally found. So while it’s a rock concert turned up to 11 for driver and passenger, it’s no more antisocial outside the car than a standard GT4. It’s a trick Singer deployed to great effect on the DLS, but that’s a car that costs about a gazillion pounds more. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Porsche stuffed the stupendous 4.0-litre,

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naturally aspirated flat-six from the latest 911 GT3 into the back of its mid-engine baby brother, the Cayman... the GT4 RS is your answer. This is Porsche’s GT department letting its hair down, saying “hold my Stein!” and producing the car we’ve all dreamed about but never thought it’d have the nerve to put into production. Yes, it’s the most hardcore, powerful and track-hungry Cayman Porsche has ever made, but with the new 911 GT3 already in existence and a nutjob GT3 RS coming later this year, its remit is a little different. In Preuninger’s words: “It was high time to have a big party on the 718 platform. This car is a live concert on four wheels, it’s such an entertainer and it

was such a fun project to make. It’s something that came from our heart and we’ve wanted to do it for a long time.” But you can see why people might think the GT4 RS steps on the GT3’s toes. At just under £110k, the GT4 RS is £15k cheaper, 20kg lighter, only six seconds slower around the ’Ring, has an identical 0–62mph time and the same number of seats with a roll cage behind you. But Preuninger insists they are different beasts: “We are eager to give the GT3 everything we can to let it stay on pole position, like the double wishbone front axle, rear-wheel steering. On the GT4 RS we didn’t look too much into super aero and eking out the last 10th of a second on the track. We

tried to find the perfect compromise between road and track driving.” We have 493bhp (that’s 79bhp more than the standard GT4, but 10bhp less than a GT3 due to the exhaust needing to take a more tortuous route around the rear suspension), while torque gets a slight bump to 332lb ft and it’s PDK-only – as per the ‘RS’ doctrine. No manual gearbox here. Boo. Still, 0–62mph takes 3.4 seconds (a GT4 with PDK takes 3.9secs) and the top speed is 195mph. Perhaps more impressive is the Nürburgring lap time (on the optional Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tyres) of 7min 4.511secs, over 23 seconds quicker than the standard GT4... which is light years around the ’Ring.

“THIS IS PORSCHE’S GT DEPARTMENT LETTING ITS HAIR DOWN AND PRODUCING THE CAR WE NEVER THOUGHT IT’D HAVE THE NERVE TO”

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Get used to this view... it’s how most of us will get to see the GT4 RS

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PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 RS

1 Steering wheel is a buttonfree utopia 2 7spd PDK has

shortest ratios of any GT model 3 Infotainment can be

deleted for free if you’re a truly committed kilo saver. We’d keep the screen and skip breakfast 4 Aircon cannot be deleted. Annoying if you enjoy being sweaty 5 Weissach badge on the pop-out drinks holder cover lets everyone know you didn’t skimp on the options 6 Bucket seats lock you in place but

are squidgy enough for long-distance comfort

06 But let’s not dwell on facts and figures too much, because the measure of success here is how much you’re grinning like a chimp, and it’s impossible not to get wrapped up in the experience. Throttle response can be a little flat at low revs, but keep the engine on the boil and it’s instant. The incentive is always there to drive it hard, and with peak power and torque way up in the rev range, you have to pin it to get the most out of it. Do so and the brakes (ceramics on the car we drove) are unflappable, while the steering feels so natural you quickly forget that you’re operating a wheel at all... just picking the line you want to hit, leaning on the front end and creaming it up the next straight. It’s all so organic – each control feels like the weight’s been tailored to you, each response from the car is precisely what you’re expecting. It’s the stuff we already knew Porsche does better than anybody, the surprise package is the suspension. No double wishbones at the front, like the GT3, but a stiffer set-up with the same spring and damper rates as the 991 GT2 RS...

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Well you could have fooled me, because in the softer of two settings there’s a compliance that belies the track-rat looks. An ability to round off cracks and holes and bring the car back under tight control in a single oscillation. This is quality damping, and as a result it’s a brilliant road car because it moves with the road surface rather than pinging off it. On the motorway closing the flaps on the sports exhaust reduces a chunk of background drone, so it even settles into a quiet-ish seventh-gear cruise. You could do big distance in this, definitely wasn’t expecting that. To address the elephant in the room: would this car with a manual gearbox be something we’d all enjoy? Unquestionably, but Porsche is adamant it’s not an RS thing, and given how feral the performance is at no point was I ungrateful for having two hands on the wheel. Anyway, the gearshift on this seven-speed PDK is an event in itself – all hydraulic hiss and mechanical wallop. Pinging an upshift at 9,000rpm might not be as taxing as a perfectly timed clutch dip, but it’s a thing of extreme

satisfaction, nonetheless. And there’s more good news: whereas the GT4 always felt a bit leggy, this has the shortest ratios of any GT car to date. Second takes you to 72mph at 9,000rpm, compared with 79mph at 8,100rpm in the GT4. In practice that means you can leave it in second for tight hairpins, and third and fourth can demolish everything else. On the public road at least. Before we head out onto track, let’s highlight a few upgrades that should be working in our favour. Firstly, a strict weight-saving regime: lighter, thinner glass for the rear screen, carbon-fibre reinforced plastic for the bonnet and front wings, lightweight carpets, fabric door pulls, less insulation... it all adds up to a kerbweight of 1,415kg. That’s 35kg less than a PDKequipped GT4. Then there’s the huge, mechanically adjustable swan neck rear spoiler and the adjustable front diffuser that offer 25 per cent more downforce than you get in a GT4. If you want to go all the way, there’s the optional

Specifications PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 RS

VERDICT

£8,913 Weissach Pack, as fitted to this car, that includes a titanium exhaust system with tips inspired by the retrotastic 935, logos on the headrests, Porsche lettering on the rear screen and exposed carbon weave on the enlarged induction ducts, airbox cover, mirror trims, rear wing and bonnet (the body matched stripe is a separate option). A Clubsport pack that includes a steel roll cage and brilliantly comfy and grippy bucket seats is a no-cost option, but you can swap in a titanium roll cage for £2,273, add ceramic brakes for £5,595, and, if you buy the Weissach pack, you can swap out the 20-inch forged aluminium rims for 20-inch forged magnesium wheels that save 10kg... but cost £10,521. We’re hammering it around the track now and... God this chassis is good. More naturally playful than a 911, it wants to rotate – slightly as you turn in on the brakes, and slightly more when you feed the power in – but it’s never anything but wonderfully balanced. It’s a car you drive with your fingertips, not your shoulders. If your name’s The Stig then 90mph

bonfire drifts are there for the taking, of course, but I’d argue that a 493bhp Cayman’s ability to eviscerate a set of rear tyres is the least surprising thing about it. What sets it apart is there are layers here. Enough grip, enough depth of talent in the chassis and enough performance to keep a pro driver amused on their days off, but enough approachability and bombastic character, even at relatively low speeds, for a complete novice to be blown away. Does the world really need a GT4 RS when we already have the 911 GT3? Yes it does, and my word am I glad this car exists. With an all-electric Cayman on the horizon, you can tell Porsche’s GT department senses the combustion engine’s demise and wants to build these types of cars while it still can, these monuments to what’s possible when you mix extraordinary engineering with a bit of fun. Porsche isn’t limiting numbers of the GT4 RS, just the amount of time it builds them for, so get in there while you still can. This is likely to go down as one of the all-time greats.

Silly quick on track, surprisingly usable on road and a sonic sensation everywhere. Believe the hype

POWERTRAIN

4.0, flat 6cyl

TRANSMISSION

RWD, 7spd PDK

POWER

493bhp

TORQUE

332lb ft

ACCELERATION

195

TOP SPEED

CLAIMED MPG, CO2

BOOT CAPACITY

3.4secs

0–62

mph

23.0mpg, 281g/km

261 litres (front + rear)

WEIGHT

1,415kg

SCORE

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10 S K O D A E N YA Q iV COUPE vRS

Budget deficit £51,885 CO2

77kWh battery

295 bhp

1spd AWD

6.5 secs

310 miles

0 g/km

FOR Proven underpinnings, strangely alluring in acid green AGAINST Who’s actually been asking for this car?

s this the first hint of Skoda having a midlife crisis? This £52k electric coupeSUV with pretensions of being a hot hatch is perhaps the least Skoda-y Skoda that Skoda has made. Certainly the priciest ever, unless you normally order your car bulletproofed. We rate the standard Enyaq highly – it’s a great all-round electric family car that does the ‘Skoda thing’ quite well, even if it has fallen prey to that Volkswagen Group craze for ditching buttons left, right and on the centre stack.

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But a coupe version? Let alone a vRS with two e-motors and a saucy bodykit. Just not sure what it’s for. The AWD 295bhp vRS arrives in the UK first, followed later by a tamer RWD single-engined Coupe. Skoda’s adamant that the Enyaq Coupe doesn’t suffer for the swooping new roofline. It says space in the boot is only a squeak smaller, with 15 litres lost, and rear headroom only slightly impacted thanks to a panoramic glass roof as standard. As a clue to the lengths Skoda has gone to in order to say that, the glass is thinner and the company had to junk the sunblind, so it’s been specially treated to reflect heat. The vRS gets some one-off treats, like the Crystal Face up front with 131 LEDs inside that illuminate the grille like a Blackpool Christmas display. The ride’s dropped 15mm at the front and 10mm at the rear too for handling panache, and there’s an extra splosh of top speed – hold on to your hats, this car can reach a speedy 111mph, 12mph quicker than other Enyaqs.

The vRS is certainly quick, but mostly in that torquey way of all electric cars. You’d think there’d be more of an impetus to engage the driver in new ways given that inherent electric perkiness, but this 2.2-tonne SUV just doesn’t quite manage it. Hustling the Enyaq asks too much of it – the ride is fairly solid but the weight gets the suspension flustered over bad roads, steering is firm but bland and the brakes are quite spongy too. Dial it all back to something a little more befitting of an EV you’d like to get 300 miles out of and the Enyaq has a calm ride, and the regen is strong enough you can spend most of your journey using a single pedal. It’s a sensible practical car underneath the lurid paint colours and disco grille. Ultimately we just don’t get the point of a coupefied Enyaq with a fast badge glued on. If you want a fun vRS, then go for the Octavia in – gasp – 2.0-litre petrol guise, but otherwise you just need to be sensible and go for the standard version. Sam Burnett

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NEW

LITTLE EFFORT

10 BM W M240i xDRI VE COUPE

Light heavyweight £45,795 3.0T 6cyl

369 bhp

8spd auto

4.3 secs

CO2

34.8 mpg

185–200 g/km

FOR It’s as complete as a 4-Series but considerably cheaper AGAINST It’s as heavy as a 4-Series and could be cheekier

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o understand the new 2-Series Coupe, you need to take stock of all the BMWs around it. The 1-Series is now a front-wheel-drive hatchback full of Mini bits, and BMW was adamant that (though the 2-Series Active Tourer and Gran Coupe could be based on the same offal) its two-door 2 would not. Thank goodness the engineers still hold some power in the boardroom votes. But BMW was never going to spend gazillions drawing up a bespoke rear-wheeldrive platform just for one niche concern. So what BMW has done is taken the platform that goes beneath the 3- and 4-Series, chopped it about a bit, and bolted a stumpy 2-Series body over the top of it. Presto, a rear-wheel drive, longitudinally engined coupe. Except, this one actually has four-wheel drive. Said body is a fussy one. BMW talks a good game about 2002 Turbo influences, but this new 2 is far too fiddly to be retro: it’s all angles, random intersecting lines, bulbous arches and a massive power-bulge bonnet. The M240i can justify it – the entry level 220i, not so much. The rear lights actually hurt to look at, they’re so wiggly. But at least the grilles haven’t been modelled on a powder-snorting reality TV victim. This is the quickest one you can get: the M240i borrows wholesale the powertrain from the M440i. So, that’s a 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six with 48V hybrid

assistance, an eight-speed automatic gearbox, sending 369bhp and 369lb ft mostly to the back wheels, except when you ask for too much too soon, when up to half of that can be shared with the front axle. That’s a hefty drivetrain for a ‘little’ car, which is why this entry level, mini M car weighs in at well over 1.7 tonnes. Whichever way you cut it, this is overweight, though it still matches and indeed beats its claimed 35mpg economy if you go anywhere near a motorway. So, 4-Series platform, 4-Series oily bits, 4-Series weight problem, and guess what? It doesn’t half drive like a 4-Series. The wheelbase of this 2 is longer than the old one, and the tracks are wider. So it’s stable, but the suspension itself is just much better resolved. Where the old car porpoised and bounced on a challenging road, as if parts of the suspension were lashed down with bungee cords, the new M240i is phenomenally composed, mature, and also extremely comfortable. There will be an M2 coming to top off the range next year, but given how much pace this M Performance model has and how compliant the ride is versus the current crop of M cars, you’d have to say this young pretender is in with a shout of being the preferable everyday car. It’s also quicker than the old M2. Steering is sensibly weighted and direct without being darty. You get the feeling you’re pouring a big, girthy engine into a corner, but

“OCCASIONALLY YOU’LL GET A WIGGLE UNDER POWER. BUT NEVER AN ‘OH-GAWDPLEASE-NO’ SWAPPER”

is it a 2-Series? Or a 4-Series? Best check by looking outside

it’s more agile than an M440i. There’s torque absolutely everywhere and the engine even makes a pleasing noise, with trademark straight-six blare allowed into the cabin without sounding as augmented through the speakers as, well, an M3. As ever, the gearbox it’s attached to is magic as a moocher, rapid at the redline on the way up, but doesn’t give you last-gasp downshifts until it’s good and ready. This is where BMW leaves itself room for a tauter, naughtier M version. Same too with the brakes: far too squidgy and over-servo’d at the top of the pedal. The chassis and balance is sweet though. On paper this is very rear-biased AWD, but the Audi RS3 crowd will be delighted to find the

M240i suffers the same talentless fools: you can mash the gas mid-corner and the 240i just sorts you out. Occasionally you’ll get a wiggle under power. A hip shimmy. But never an ‘oh-gawd-please-no’ swapper. You’ll get your money’s worth out of this engine every time you prod the cold metal starter button. A button out of a 4-Series, of course. Because yes, the new 2 is no longer a sportified 1 – it’s a stunted 4. So you get a 4-Series cabin. And I don’t mean a low-rent facsimile inspired by the £60,000 big boy. I mean an actual M440i cabin. Same screens, same materials, identical tech. And slightly more supportive seats. There’s not even a dramatic reduction in space for your occasional rear passengers. Yet the M240i costs £46,000 and the M440i is £9,000 more expensive. And uglier. What’s BMW up to here? It has too many cars that do the same job. The 2-Series is now

just as composed and competent as a 4-Series, which in turn makes a mockery of the existence of the bloated, overpriced 8-Series. Bad news if you’ve just bought the flagship, while the M240i looks like a bit of a bargain. But it’s so complete, it’s missing that intangible something. This is a cracking little sports coupe. If you had a previous-gen 2, you’ll love the business class upgrade this one’s taken with its upmarket cockpit and senior-level powerplant. But it’s also a missed opportunity to create a cheekier, more pugnacious coupe with its own character. BMW makes some fantastic two-doors right now, but they do rather suffer from the Russian doll effect, if that’s still an acceptable reference. So, to understand the new M240i, you need to take stock of all the BMWs around it, before concluding that it’s possible to respect it enormously, and still not quite understand it after all. Ollie Kew TO P G E A R . C O M

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10 JEEP RENEGADE e-HYBRID

Mild animal £31,130 1.5T 4cyl

128 bhp

7spd auto

9.7 secs

CO2

n/a mpg

n/a g/km

FOR Chunky cute looks, reasonably well equipped AGAINST Below par ride and refinement, outdated infotainment

on’t be fooled by the name – the Renegade e-Hybrid uses a 48V set-up pairing a 1.5 turbo four-pot with a small e-motor, 7spd auto and a teeny battery. Yep, it’s a mild hybrid – meaning you’ll get less than a mile of EV-only range. Interestingly, it arrives almost two years after Jeep launched the 4xe PHEV. Perhaps small crossover buyers don’t feel the need to shell out for big batteries and 4WD, even if the badge says Jeep.

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Anyway, if the majority of your driving is in town and you have an exceptionally light right foot, you’ll likely find no real fault with the e-Hybrid set-up. You get all the benefits of EV driving as it powers the car for very low speed manoeuvring, while acceleration from 0–30mph is acceptable thanks to the petrol engine and its electric assistant. Shame about the snatchy brake pedal, though. If you’ve a heavier right foot or need to get a move on, the integration between petrol and mild-electric power can get quite clunky. There are no steering wheel paddles and the gearbox often gets confused about when to shift up. Jeep has also engineered in an ‘e-coasting’ system, which shuts the engine down when you come off the throttle. It claims that the resulting regen emulates the feel of engine braking, but sometimes you’ll lift off and the Renegade will float on, leaving you wondering if you’ve accidentally knocked it into neutral. In corners there’s plenty of grip and the Renegade doesn’t lean over unduly. But if you want a chuckable crossover you’re better off with a Hyundai Kona or a Ford Puma. We’d recommend dodging the 19in alloys, which transmit too much fidget and rattle into the cabin. The 17s with big balloon tyres are far quieter and help provide an impressively comfortable ride. On the motorway, you’re mainly battling the titanic wind noise from the Renegade’s body form and big door mirrors.

Inside, the vertical facade of dashboard means the climate controls are a long way out of your eyeline, though it helps they’re large and chunky. The laggy touchscreen itself is depended on for most infotainment functions, including for some reason the heated seats. The biggest problem with the e-Hybrid? Price. A FWD, petrol Renegade starts at £24,100, but tick the mild hybrid box (which still only sends drive to the foremost two wheels and won’t massively improve your mpg) and you’ll be paying at least £31,130. The £7k premium is almost impossible to justify, despite the little bit of extra kit you’ll get as standard. Greg Potts

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MUST TRY HARDER BMW 2-SERIES ACTI VE TOURER

£36,390 CO2

P 1.5 3cyl

215 bhp

7spd DCT

7.0 secs

46.3 mpg

140 g/km

OF COURSE BMW DISAGREES. IT POINTS TO 400,000 sales of the last-gen 2-Series Active and Grand Tourer and smugly notes lots of people want an OAP-MPV with a Munich badge. It’s not that we have an issue with tall hatchbacks per se, but what’s innovative about the 2AT? Now the 1-Series is FWD and the 3GT is dead, surely there’s space in the BMW range for a genuinely clever hatchback with more versatile packaging? Something like a reborn original Mercedes A-Class. This

T O Y O TA BZ4X

Waited average £41,955

has sliding rear seats. Wow. CO2

Of course, BMW will disagree. Again. The original A-Class was clever, but never sold in the desired numbers. Neither did Audi’s

71kWh battery

215 bhp

1spd AWD

6.9 secs

249 (est) miles

0 g/km

genius A2. And BMW has too been burned

FOR Interesting looks, competent SUV ticks nearly all the boxes

by trying to reinvent the urban box, with the i3. So what we have here is a pretty dull car with a laggy DCT gearbox and an over-

AGAINST Lacks a solid USP bar the looks

complex 10.2-inch touchscreen – but no iDrive clickwheel, because BMW’s put that genius feature in the same bin as its ‘How To Design Good Looking Cars’ manual. It’s a real shame, this. BMW was bravely holding out as VW and Merc lost their heads and went touchscreen-silly. No longer. Let’s be honest, this isn’t a BMW bought chiefly by young urban couples. It’s for your grandparents. They struggle with a TV remote control or a microwave. This Pentium-cored robo-gerbil is going to baffle them into taking the bus.Ollie Kew

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gnore the techno-disco livery, because underneath the ‘camouflage’ is the bZ4X, Toyota’s first attempt at a pure electric vehicle (and mild irritant for fast typers) co-developed between Toyota and Subaru (Toyota doing most of the hardware), with the Subaru Solterra sister car due soon. Based on the new eTNGA platform, it’s the start of Toyota’s adventures in electric; the ‘bZ’ part of the name referring to ‘beyond zero’, Toyota’s strategy for zero emissions powertrains, with the ‘4’ relating to the size, rather than four-wheel drive – there are both front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive options in the car’s line-up from the start. And it’s... good. This is a car that pokes its pointy nose into one of the most hotly contested segments, facing down established midsize electric SUVs, ticking all the boxes without startling with any one statistic. So we get a medium-sized 71.4kWh battery, around 250–280 miles of as-yet-unconfirmed WLTP

range, 0–62mph in either 7.5 or 6.9 seconds, two- or four-wheel drive. There’s decent space, tonnes of credible tech and driver-assistance systems and striking styling, with lots of angles and funky plastic wheelarches that add some visual drama to what is, after all, a fairly standard set of exterior dimensions. Driving it on super-smooth Spanish roads, the ‘pre-production prototype’ version that TG drove handled well but felt slightly heavy, shading gently towards understeer should you get keen. Vision is acceptable, and the steering accurate if not the most communicative. The ride is also nicely soothing – hard to tell what it might be like on British B-roads – although it’s impressive off-road. It’s roomy enough for all passengers, has a decent 425-litre boot and wide hatch, and generally feels well screwed together, even in these pre-natal versions. There’s also a comprehensive ownership scheme that allows you to choose from a veritable smorgasbord of options, including wallbox provision, aggregated charging (meaning one bill), servicing – even insurance if you wish. It’s a very attractive, hassle-free package. In fact, the only real problem with the bZ4X is that it feels like Toyota has played it safe here, hitting targets without exceeding them. A good car, then, and a solid BEV start from Toyota, but not a terribly surprising one. Tom Ford

The overrun

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

JEEP COMPASS e-H Y BRID

Compass sales will soon overtake the Renegade in Europe, largely because it’s aimed at the biggest

BM W 118i M SPORT

You’ll surely know by now the 1-Series has gone FWD, and as buyers continue to shun diesel, the

selling part of the SUV market. It’s

£32,895

the size of a Qashqai, Sportage,

118i is likely the model most will go

£29,290

for. While the aggressive M Sport

3008, Kuga, Tiguan or Tucson etc… FOR Looks good, decent

bodykit may be a little OTT on this

The latest version is a

kit-to-price ratio

front-wheel-drive mild hybrid

AGAINST Mild hybrid powertrain

that’s mechanically identical to

isn’t actually that efficient

the Renegade you can read

FOR Tidy to drive, FWD platform offers plenty of room

spec, it drives well and rides even

AGAINST Marmite looks, not as engaging as a rear-driven BMW

features BMW’s dual 10.25in digital

about on page 46. Design is a P 128 bhp

1.5T 4cyl

10.0 secs

46.3 mpg

CO2

128 g/km

LITCHFIELD LM820 PORSCHE 911 TURBO S

driving you won’t see much better than 30mpg. Oops. GP

134 bhp

1.5T 3cyl

8.9 secs

42.8 mpg

CO2

138 g/km

instrument cluster and infotainment separate climate control panel. That’s as good a reason to buy one over the MkVIII Golf as any. PR

British tuner Litchfield has taken the definitive all-weather any occasion supercar and got even

VA U X H A L L GRANDL AND PHE V

an ECU recode, a titanium exhaust

Vauxhall’s biggest crossover has gone under the surgeon’s knife, and it now wears the same ‘Vizor’ front-end styling that you’ll

more power out of it. Thanks to

£4,788 (plus a Porsche Turbo S)

better. Every 1-Series now also

display as standard, plus a

strong point, but in real-world

£33,820

recognise from the Mokka. Under

and performance air filters it now

the bonnet it retains the same

FOR Hyper-humbling pace

has just shy of 800bhp. But what’s

FOR Smart looks, lots of kit,

powertrains as its predecessor:

with space for all the family

more impressive than the huge

cheaper than the old one

one petrol, one diesel, one PHEV

AGAINST Who really needs

thrust is the slow speed drivability.

AGAINST Some interior own

– this one’s the latter and offers up

a quicker 911 Turbo?

Who could possibly need a faster

goals, nothing special to drive

to 39 miles of EV range. While it

Turbo S? No idea. But a few days P 3.7 TT 6cyl

775 bhp

2.5 secs

n/a mpg

CO2

n/a g/km

might not set any hearts racing it

before we drove this demo car, someone rang up Litchfield and bought it there and then. OK

P 1.6T 4cyl hybrid

222 bhp

8.9 secs

192 mpg

CO2

31 g/km

wears its new uniform well and low BiK rates make it a sensible car for the sensible headed. PR

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THE

AWARDS

GOING FOR SEVERAL SPINS IN THE RIMAC NEVERA EV CROSSOVER OVERLOAD BUZZING ABOUT IN NEWQUAY A SOCKING GREAT SUV... WITH A LOTUS BADGE ON IT

and the winners are ... >>>

TO P G E A R . C O M

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

RIMAC NEVERA

BREAKER When you need to test your £2m, 1,888bhp EV hypercar in the Arctic ear... Circle, who you gonna call? Not TopG D RAPHY JONNY FLEETWOO WORDS TOM FORD PHOTOG

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055

LUXURY EVs

RIMAC NEVERA Price: £2,040,000 Drivetrain: 4 e-motors (2 x 295bhp, 2 x 645bhp), 4 gearboxes, AWD Battery: 120kWh Power: 1,888bhp, 1,741lb ft Performance: 0–62mph in c.2.0secs, 258mph Range: c.350 miles Weight: 2,150kg

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bsolutely spectacular donuts. That’s the only thing I can think as the Rimac Nevera’s nigh-on 1,900bhp, desperately advanced four-wheel drive and torque-vectoring systems are deployed in absolutely the least intelligent way possible. The windscreen becomes a blur of white, the Nevera whirrs around its own front axle like a propellor, and my stomach starts to wrap unkindly around my spine. A lift, a wriggle of the steering wheel and the horizon snaps straight on hard reset. Absolutely spectacular. Probably not the feedback that the engineering team at Rimac was hoping for, given that we’ve travelled all the way up to the Arctic Circle to drive the pure electric Nevera, but that’s what you get when you don’t set proper boundaries. And surprisingly, Rimac didn’t really set... any. Just head on up to the far north of Sweden to join Rimac’s drivetrain and software gurus while they finalise systems on the Nevera during cold weather testing.

“MY STOMACH STARTS TO WRAP UNKINDLY AROUND MY SPINE” “Serious question now. Do you happen to have a spare pair of gloves?”

Find out what it’s like to drive one of the world’s most powerful production cars on ice, without studded tyres. Spoiling the ending of the story somewhat: it’s really good fun. The numbers are not subtle; 1,888bhp, one thousand seven hundred and forty one pounds feet of instant-on electric torque. On a normal surface, it’ll hit 62mph in 1.97 seconds (albeit with an American one-foot roll-out), run the quarter mile in 8.58 seconds. Top speed is a couple of mph shy of 260. There are four electric motors, four gearboxes, and enough sensors and systems to render the car at least potentially AI conscious, including 13 cameras (one for facial recognition in lieu of a key, although it does also have a key), six radar sensors and 12 ultrasonics. But the numbers feel a bit bloodless on their own. To put them into some sort of context, the front motors deliver something like 295bhp (220kW), with two single-speed gearboxes strung out on either end of the front axle. The rear motors sit either side of another pair of gearboxes – this time

in a single housing in the middle of the back axle – potentially pushing out 645bhp (480kW). Each. That’s a Bentley Continental GT Speed per rear wheel, and a pair of Audi S3s up front. Each wheel gets its own inverter – the control unit that converts DC (battery) to AC (motor) current – and there are five cooling systems. Because batteries can get sweaty. The car itself is a chunky carbon monocoque with huge carbon butterfly doors, a bonded carbon roof and carbon rear subframe, itself integrated with a structural, liquid cooled 120kWh battery pack that sits in the middle in a kind of squished double-ended T shape, one end of which, toward the rear, is a bit more bulbous than the other. Pretty much everything is carbon, and despite that huge battery pack, the Nevera weighs in at under 2,200kg. Again, for context, a similarly four-wheel-drive Bugatti Chiron weighs just under 2,000kg and produces in the region of 1,479bhp. So roughly 10 per cent more weight, with getting on for a third more power. The Nevera is not to be taken lightly.

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RIMAC NEVERA

But it is also not 100 per cent finished. This is a late model prototype, undergoing dynamic polishing before customers start to receive one of the 150 units that are planned for production. The crafting and perfection of low-friction handling characteristics, the synchronisation of Pirelli winter tyres and electronic stability control, the final filigree of steering feel and expression. And that’s why the Nevera is here, up in car testing central by the Arctic Circle, being pounded around ice tracks by a small team of dedicated engineers. And TopGear. Of course, the Nevera could have a quarter, an eighth of the horsepower and still be able to break traction on this surface. There is no mystery to a lack of grip, but mastery can be fettled; chinks in the car’s dynamic armour are laid bare at 40mph rather than 140, and subtleties are easier for the human mind to process when not overwhelmed with adrenaline. Although there’s still quite a lot of adrenaline to be had. It’s unseasonably warm, the usual ice is melting (there’s probably some terrible irony in driving an electric hypercar on ice that’s usually more persistent), and nothing about the terrain seems to want to help. One pass of the car renders the surface more polished than the chrome on an American classic, and at one point, I drive over an air bubble in the ice, hear a massive cracking sound, and the entire rear of the car drops through

the top seven inches of surface to rest, nerve-rackingly, on the carbon fibre rear diffuser. A quick flick through the modes to give more torque to the front axle, full lock right and a slither of traction in reverse saw the front end pivot the rear around itself 180°, and I drove back out of the trench – but we were inches from expensive fixes. The modes are necessary in a car with this much breadth of dynamic character, mind – you can literally make it do whatever you want; 100 per cent front- or rear-wheel drive, any combination of the two. Stick one side on sheet ice and the other on tarmac and it would instantly juggle torque to the side with grip using what’s called R-AWTV (Rimac All Wheel Torque Vectoring) – and it doesn’t miss. This thing could only have traction with half a front wheel, and it would move. On shining, glass-clear sheet ice, it will pull away on winter tyres without studs. Slowly, yes. With a creeping softness. But the traction systems are almost psychic. Other anti-slip systems are reactive, catching wheels after half a wheel of rotation; these feel almost pre-emptive. A fact borne out when you switch the systems off – the car simply sits still, accompanied by the static fizz of all four tyres spinning uselessly at roughly 100+mph of wheel speed. They are necessary to make this much torque (the power is nice, but it’s the torque which puts the strain on your neck) handle within the limits of human frailty.

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The reindeers have unionised, so Santa’s had to upgrade his ride

When we think snow, we always think Croatian electric hypercar

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“I SPAN EMBARRASSINGLY OFTEN. LOOK CASUAL AND ALL THAT”

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RIMAC NEVERA

And you thought charging up on the M1 was cold and uncomfortable...

Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

Without, the Nevera would likely be smeared up the nearest solid object within a matter of minutes no matter how handy you think you are. The modes are accessed via the rotary control on the dash, of which you can decide from Range, Cruise, Track, Drift and a pair of Individual modes that allow you to preset favourite composite set-ups. All pretty much as you might imagine, changing the torque split front to back, throttle map, suspension settings and active aero. Make that hyperactive aero, given that the front air dam, Venturis and rear wing all cycle through various planes depending on which mode is active. Track is the most useful on this surface, given that it maintains more drive to the front axle, but Drift mode is more fun. Obviously. In Drift mode, the Nevera essentially acts as a rear-wheel-drive car with a locked rear differential and not enough steering angle. It would be fine on a surface with anything resembling friction, but by the time you’ve reached the limit on ice, backing off doesn’t help suck the back end back into line and the front end – which still retains a little bit of drive – hasn’t got any traction to offer either. I span this car embarrassingly often, repeatedly pirouetting and pretending I meant to do it. Look casual and all that. The fun was in learning something new. In a normal car you might stab the throttle to break traction, then reapply power to keep the wheels spinning and the drift at the desired angle. In an electric car with this much torque, you gun it, and try and hold the right throttle position. It requires you to be – weirdly – more precise in your input. And the lack of feedback from the engine means you’re hyper aware of your actions. You drive with concentrated smoothness, rather than the sometimes casual brutality of combustion. Get it on a surface with friction and it bolts like a stabbed rat, flicking the world away from underneath it almost casually. It feels lighter and smaller than it is, tighter and brighter than it looks. It drives more naturally and fluidly than the dense electric specification would lead you to believe. At the moment, the brake feel needs some attention, the ESC teetering on the edge of greatness, but a touch overenthusiastic

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RIMAC NEVERA

on roads that feel like greasy Teflon. There are torque splits to be finalised, tweaks to be made. The car’s R-AWTV may be able to adjust torque individually between each wheel 100 times a second, but it still needs a warm, emotional human to coax it into being and make it feel. Miro Zrnčević Mrgud, Rimac’s chief test and development driver, consonant enthusiast and basically the George Clooney of oversteer, explains it quite simply by saying that he didn’t want the car to “just end up handling and performing like a hammer”. That it needed subtlety and usability. He wants the car to perform at 2mph and 200 if it’s going to satisfy Mate Rimac. And that’s the breadth that will always need work – power isn’t a problem, control is always going to be the issue. You could make the car completely unreactive with dynamic paranoia, tie the systems down so hard that the Nevera would feel like a roller coaster at Disney World – fast, lightly thrilling, but with all the feedback of a thrown brick. What Miro is doing is trying to find that balance between feedback and fear, balance the profit of tactility against loss of control. After three days, opinions are formed. To be completely honest, I don’t think the Nevera is a pretty car. It’s imposing and special, but from certain angles, it can look a touch overstated. In fact, I think it looks slicker with the wing in its retracted position. But whatever your opinion on the styling, it’s a deeply, wonderfully impressive masterclass, possibly more so when not in its natural habitat. The mistake here is to look at the headlines and think that there’s all there is. There’s more nuance than you imagine. The more time you spend with a car like this, the more you discover. The truth is that the bare stats for electric hypercars almost feel like clickbait, strings of ludicrous numbers that somehow seem to carve up the remaining physics left to combustion engines, and leave them literally gasping. Megacars that suck the soul from the experience, and deliver effect rather than emotion. But don’t forget, they said the same about digital photography versus film. They said the same about the death of vinyl. But people still take incredible pictures. People still make music. And that’s the thing; people will still make electric hypercars. They might be motivated by a powertrain that absolutely has less quirk and idiosyncrasy than we’re used to, but they’re designed and built by people who still love driving. The photographer still frames the shot. The musician still plays the instrument. I don’t think cars like the Nevera are even directly comparable to a combustion-engined hypercar except in the barest sense of being exotic. They are a new and different breed. The Nevera – at this point – is the pinnacle. And when it comes to what it’s like to drive a car with getting on for 2,000bhp on sheet ice without studs, all I can say is, it’s just as exceptional as you imagine. And as for how you do it... well, you do it very bloody carefully.

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“HOW DO YOU DRIVE THE NEVERA ON SHEET ICE? VERY BLOODY CAREFULLY”

BEST ELECTRIC PERFORMANCE CAR

RIMAC/NEVERA 063

BEST RETRO / EXEC

BEST RETRO EV

HYUNDAI /GRANDEUR WORDS JACK RIX

n the words of the commentator from iconic Nineties video game NBA Jam: “Hyundai’s on fire!” Almost everything its design department touches at the moment turns to gold, be that unnecessarily attractive midsize crossovers, electric hatchbacks sent back from the future to save our dour streets or extremely boxy, faux-luxe four doors from the early- to mid-Noughties. Wait, what? It must have fancied a challenge, because from the least glamorous corner of its back catalogue Hyundai’s dragged the Grandeur, and turned it into the coolest one-off concept we’ve seen all year. From the dot-matrix lights to digitised velour interior, this is the retro homage we didn’t see coming but never want to leave.

FIVE OTHER RETRO EV MAKEOVERS WE WANT T O SEE

LEXUS LS400

BEST ELECTRIC EXEC

BMW/i4 WORDS PAUL HORRELL

his is the sort of car that, decades ago, built BMW’s reputation. Low and lithe to sit in, with a beautifully made and ergonomic cabin. Its steering, accelerator and brakes know what you’re thinking and do exactly what you’re wanting. Suspension is taut yet refined. Like any BMW it’s not cheap, but on that front we should point out some happy news: the cheaper RWD eDrive40 is more subtle and engaging through bends than the M50 xDrive. Guess we should mention the powertrain, since it’s what you came here for. ‘Turbine smooth’ and ‘razor sharp’ – aren’t those the reasons we love BMW straight-sixes? The i4’s e-motors do it even better.

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JEEP CHEROKEE

RENAULT FUEGO

PONTIAC AZTEK

VOLVO 480

CHRIS HARRIS

CHRIS’ PICK

POLESTAR/1

WORDS CHRIS HARRIS

PHOTOGRAPH Y ROWAN HORNC AS TLE

am going to cheat and pick a hybrid, because these are our Electric Awards and we can make them up as we go along. The Polestar 1 is, for me, one of the most interesting cars I’ve driven in the past 10 years. I always suspected that a hybrid would be the solution for me on the road, but I’ve never driven a hybrid that was a hybrid. Lots of cars call themselves hybrids, but they’re not. They tend to be petrol-engined cars that have a tiny amount of electricity to appease politicians, or range extenders that people use in weird ways. So I drove this thing and it had a range of 70 miles on EV only, and then another 300 miles on petrol. So I thought, “I might have a go at that” and I ended up buying one. And I

might have the only one in the UK because when the lovely man from Polestar handed it over he said, “Congratulations, you’re our first customer!” So I’ve bought 12 widescreens and seven sets of wheels to make sure I can survive. But I’ve done 2,000 miles in it now and it’s everything I hoped it would be. It’s beautiful, it’s simple, it’s distinctive. I plug it in at night and in town I EV it, and I don’t upset anyone and I’m zero emissions. Then when I get to a charging point and it doesn’t work, which happens quite a lot, I just turn the engine on – a 400bhp petrol engine, combined it makes 600bhp – and it goes. I was very proud of it the other day when I dusted an Audi RS4.

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LOTUS

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GMA T.33

POSITION

This is the Eletre, which features little simplification and zero lightness. But it still has a Lotus badge. Does it deserve it? WORDS JASON BARLOW PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI

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LOTUS ELETRE

He’s been gone almost 40 years, but when your founder was as charismatic and clever as Colin Chapman, the shadow that’s cast is lengthy. “Simplify, then add lightness” was his best-known mantra, so what would he have made of our increasingly, soon-to-be exclusively, electrified world, and Lotus’ place in it? Complicate, then add weight... We suspect he’d have been more OK with it than the beetroot-faced trolls that are no doubt bouncing off the social media redline this very second. Oh, the Lotus Eletre that you’re looking at here has, on the face of it, as much in common with a Lotus Seven or Elise as a speedboat has with a cross-Channel ferry. It’s a pure electric SUV, weighs north of 2.2 tonnes, and, can you believe, also happens to be the first Lotus in the company’s 74-year history to have four doors. It’s powered by a 105kWh battery that promises a WLTP range of 373 miles, and is AI futureproofed in all sorts of ways, including the world’s first deployable lidar for level four autonomy. This isn’t a car, it’s a quantum leap. It’s also pragmatic. Lotus can’t survive and flourish on the proceeds of the Emira and Evija. And if you’re still spitting feathers as you try to absorb the Eletre and what it signifies, remember that Porsche is an SUV manufacturer these days (171k Cayennes and Macans sold last year) with a tasty sideline in sports cars. Chapman was a businessman above all else, and he generally knew which way the wind was blowing. In an easterly direction, as far as the Eletre is concerned. This, trumpets Lotus, is the first in a new range of premium lifestyle electric performance vehicles to be built at an all-new, state of

“ITS REAR LIGHT USES ‘RGB’ LEDS, WHICH CAN CONJURE UP TO 16 MILLION HUES”

Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

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GMA T.33 the art production facility in, erm, Wuhan, China. A city of 11m people, and somewhere you wouldn’t have heard of until a few years ago when a certain contagion emerged, but let’s not dwell on that. Perhaps it bugs you that Lotus is now part of the Chinese Geely monolith, rather than being proudly independent. On the other hand, where would Lotus be now were it not for a generous infusion of foreign capital? The Eletre is a certainly a multinational product, and surely all the better for it. China is a world leader in battery tech, Germany for the hard- and software, Sweden in safety, while the UK oversees the sexy stuff like the chassis tuning and design. New Lotus can tap into all of these outposts, and some of the automotive world’s finest minds have had their say in the Eletre. Nothing wrong with this picture, is there? As well as Hethel, Lotus now also has a design centre in Coventry, and it’s here, a week before Christmas, that TG has ventured to see the newcomer. There is no precedent for a Lotus SUV of any sort, regardless of propulsion, and looking at a car shorn of context in a studio is always a bit odd. But as design lead Ben Payne throws the door open, several things hit you about the head like a giant comedy frying pan. Firstly, it’s big – 5.1m long, 2.2m wide and 1.6m tall. It’s almost identical in size and visual impact to the Lamborghini Urus, neither vehicle backwards about coming forwards. This is apparently the new paradigm. It sits on the optional 23in machine-cut, carbon-fibre infused wheels, although 22s are standard; these are the minimum diameter the Eletre demands or it risks looking over-bodied. It’s theatrical, too: its

headlights and the rear light ribbon using ‘RGB’ LEDs – red, green and blue, the combination of which can conjure up to 16 million different hues – to boost the car’s graphics, but also enabling it to ‘communicate’ with the owner and other road users. This includes a ‘salute’ as the driver approaches, the active front aero slats ‘breathing’, and the flush door handles popping into view. The Eletre uses ultra-wideband tech and recognises the driver, automatically setting all the required preferences from an app. No key needed here. All told, it’s not a car that wears its commitment to high technology particularly lightly, which is a deliberate move on Lotus’ part. We’re a long way from a borrowed Rover K-series engine here. It’s also highly aerodynamic. The most advanced SUV in the world when it comes to cleaving the air, via various active and passive devices. You’ll notice a design continuum from the Evija and Emira, mostly in the way the Eletre’s body has lots of strategically placed holes and negative spaces. Porosity, it’s called, and it’s useful for cooling and optimising airflow under, around and through the body. It matters in an EV because it helps achieve greater range, as well as improving overall performance. Which is far from shabby, by the way: with a motor on each axle, AWD, and a new 800V modular platform (called EPA) that mixes aluminium and high tensile steel for greater rigidity, the Eletre warps to 62mph in under three seconds. An increasingly pointless metric, to be honest, but at least there’s fealty there with Lotus’s high performance history. And it’s all grist for the YouTube EV drag racing mill. The Eletre has five-link

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More electronics in here than Tottenham Court Road! Amirite?

Pop-out doorhandles come with LED lights, because why not?

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GMA T.33

Rear passengers get to sit in the lap of luxury. But aren’t allowed crisps or flaky pastries

You’ll want to charge it just to watch the super-cool filler flap slide aside

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LOTUS ELETRE

suspension at the rear, and all versions ride on air suspension with continuous damping control. A 48V anti-roll system, torque vectoring and active rear axle are available, depending on model. All Eletres come with four drive modes: Range, Tour, Off-Road and Individual. “We took the opportunities the electric architecture gave us,” Payne explains, as we begin a lengthy perambulation around the car. “Then we looked at our legacy of mostly mid-engined sports cars. The Eletre has a cab forward silhouette and short overhangs. The visual weight is centred between the wheels. Look at a car like the Aston DBX, which has a long bonnet and clearly houses a big engine, so the cabin is set well back and the mass is over the rear wheels. Lotuses don’t look like that. We’ve tried to take that mid-engined aesthetic and impose it on this vehicle archetype. There’s no traditional engine so the firewall isn’t as far back which means we can squeak everything forwards. But there’s a lot of detail on this car beyond proportions, and a lot of sculpture.” Indeed. The front end resolves into a complex looking blade form, best appreciated in profile, while the daytime running lights sit above and separate from the main matrix lights. Beneath that are triangular sections that open or close like petals to cool the radiator or battery. This also helps reduce drag when they’re shut. The car’s entire upper section is blacked out and, together with the lower cladding, minimises the car’s visual mass. This leaves the eye to land on a slimmer middle section and the more propulsive looking rear arches. It’s a design trope,

ELECTRIC CAR WE’RE MOST CURIOUS TO DRIVE

LOTUS/ELETRE

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for sure, and the Eletre has to get busy with the tricks in order to distract from the sheer volume of sheet metal a 5m-plus SUV encompasses. But the result is high impact, and it’s no stretch to see this thing starring in a neon-cloaked Weeknd video somewhere down the track. The cantilevered rear spoiler is made of carbon fibre and is another element on the car that floats. It channels air onto the three-stage active spoiler, but there’s no centre section, a gap that leaves room for the rear lidar sensor. “Sometimes they’re added at the last moment, and you end up with these barnacles all over the car,” Payne says. “Lotus has always been about beautifying the engineering. Everywhere we can we’re trying to push air through little channels, but the sculpture also manages the airflow. The exit duct on the wheelhouse reduces the turbulent high pressure air that’s generated there.” There’s also a floating panel on the D-pillar, which features the word ‘Eletre’, allowing the air to be turned at the last moment to provide a separation and control the wake. The interior is where that quantum leap is really felt. The most celebrated Lotuses were light because there was little inside them, not an approach that’ll fly on a £100k electric SUV. But the Eletre manages the illusion of lightness by paring away surfaces where possible. Payne again: “The interior of the Seventies Esprit was a touchstone. There are floating wing tips on the top of the dashboard and we’ve shrinkwrapped things as tightly as possible. Most dash sections on SUVs are big and heavy, but we’ve tried to remove as much mass as possible.”

GMA T.33

The main instruments live in a slender, 30mm-high strip, minimising the info. The 15.1in central touchscreen is the latest gen OLED, as used in the Merc S-Class, and 95 per cent of its functionality is available within three touches. As in the Mercedes flagship, there’s an interior light bar that communicates with the driver, issuing a lane departure warning, for example, or illuminating when there’s an incoming phone call. It’s multisensory, Lotus says, with the potential to irritate, we’d add, although the driver can back most of the technology off if they want a less obviously high-tech environment. There’s recycled carbon fibre inside, and a keen emphasis on sustainable materials, including artificial microfibres on the main touchpoints. It’s a very tactile, high quality environment. There’s no visible plastic inside the car anywhere, and proper analogue buttons for climate control and drive mode functions. Lotus says the UI will constantly update and evolve, with OTA software updates, and 5G compatibility. British specialist KEF is supplying hugely powerful bespoke audio, with partially exposed speakers whose design mirrors the rest of the car, and the option of a 1,500W, 23-speaker system. Sheesh. There is seating for four or five, depending on how practical or limo-like you want your Eletre to be, and a vast panoramic roof. There are also many, differently sized cupholders. Truly, this is a Lotus interior like none we’ve ever seen. OK, so when can we have the Clubsport version?

“THE FRONT END RESOLVES INTO A COMPLEX LOOKING BLADE FORM”

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e-RACER

BEST e-RACER

AUDI RS Q /E-TRON WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN W YCHERLEY

akar. No one goes there and wins first time out. Not even Audi. The highest placed RS Q e-tron finished ninth overall. And Audi saw that as a triumph. Because Dakar is the most brutal motorsport event on the planet. The terrain tears cars apart. No matter how much simulation and development you do, no matter how strong the car

Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

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you build, the race will dismantle your plans in new and interesting ways. And Audi arrived here with a car that took technology from circuit racing, and was developed in just 18 months. Many onlookers didn’t give it a chance alongside the turbocharged V6 powerhouses propelled across endless stages by fuel tanks the size of swimming pools.

The RS Q e-tron is electrically driven, using a Formula E motor on each axle. It has the potential to develop 671bhp, but the regs limit it to not much more than 400bhp. Those are fed by a 50kWh battery, and yes, you’re right – that’s not enough to get you more than a quarter of the way through most of the stages. But what if you kit it out with one of the most efficient petrol

engines ever invented? And then only let it run at the most efficient point in its rev range? And then only use it to charge the battery? Well, you have a 2.0-litre turbocharged DTM engine acting as a range extender and a set-up that uses roughly half the fuel of its rivals. It may not have won, but the innovative RS Q etron is our e-racer of the year. All eyes on 2023.

PADDY McGUINNESS

PADDY’S PICK

ECC/DEFENDER WORDS PADDY McGUINNESS PHOTOGRAPHY LEE BRIMBLE

here’s some prime contenders out there, but my favourite electric car I’ve driven in the past year would have to be the Electric Classic Cars Defender. A Defender is a classic, we all know it, but I was driving one in a drag race, and, well, a Defender is not something you want to be doing a drag race in. So, I got in and I thought, “OK, it’s electric... instant torque... here we go... it will be what it will be”. And then I put my foot down. The powertrain is donated from a 450bhp Tesla Model S, it’ll do 0–60mph in 3.8secs, and it’s the most fun I’ve had in any car

ever on TopGear, and I’ve driven some epic cars over the years. It was unbelievably fast. Literally, the front end came up, the back pinned itself down, and I was just hanging on for dear life. It really shocked me and it put a massive smile on my face. I mean just look at it. We didn’t do any off-roading in it, actually we didn’t do anything else in it. I just drove it in a straight line and trust me, that was enough. As of now I’m all for putting electric drive in classic diesel and petrol cars, I was very much pleasantly surprised. Could I see myself buying one at £125k? Totally.

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WORDS TOM FORD PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

Luxury to me might not be luxury to you, but someone’s got the make the call. It’s BMW vs Mercedes in the battle of the luxo e-barges

INSIDER IDE TRADING LUXURY EVs

LUXURY EVs

he dictionary definition of ‘luxury’ says that it is “abundant provision of means of comfort, ease and pleasure”, or “a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense”. Which all sounds very nice. Although there’s a chunky grey area hidden between the pleasant words simply because ‘luxury’ is always context based. Bluntly, what’s luxurious to one person may not be to others. Ask any Series Land Rover owner what luxury is, and they’ll probably say “a heater that works”. A Rolls-Royce owner will be looking for seats trimmed in vegan unicorn hide and their family crest engraved into the headlight glass. Of course, electric drivetrains lend themselves utterly to what we might describe as ‘luxurious’ when it comes to cars: smooth, silent, powerful. They are more reliable in absolute terms, deliver on the grails that luxury cars have sought since the invention of the chauffeur. We’ve also got the expense angle covered: the BMW iX50 we have here can easily crest £115,000 if you fiddle too intently with the configurator (although a basic iX40 is a smidge under £70k). The Mercedes-Benz EQS can come with added AMG for £154,995 (Mercedes-AMG EQS 53), although even the ‘base’ model is only a fiver under £100k, the snappily titled MercedesBenz EQS 450+ AMG Line. What that means is that working out which is the best ‘luxury’ car will inevitably end up having a subjective component. But I’ll try and show my working. It’s probably fair to say that both of these cars offer plenty of speed, and more than enough dynamic performance to satisfy. Both work on a fundamental level as technologically advanced and impressive cars, with the Mercedes offering rear-wheel steer that magically transforms the wheelbase into that of a Mini, the BMW managing to disguise its bulk with calm authority. Both are mildly controversial in their own ways; the Benz with its slightly melted, arcing silhouette, the BMW with its thick panels and internet-provoking face furniture. Of the two, the Mercedes is probably the more elegant, the BMW more of a brutalist take on first impressions. The EQS comes with various modes that cycle from plush to what can only be described as ‘sporty’. Adding that taut element to the driving experience seems a tiny bit out of kilter – no one except the driver is going to find any fun in the car when it’s being sent around corners aggressively. The BMW is lazier – though still controlled – and seems to have decided that it would prefer to preserve ride over absolute grip. Both, it has to be said, are lovely, without straying too far into the realms of magic carpet. It’s on the inside where the battle for luxury is won and lost, though. And there’s a lot to talk about. Take it as read that both are

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well-built, with nice materials, and that both have some areas where you can see compromises made in real time. The Mercedes immediately feels like a modern Merc turned up to a technological event horizon – the (optional) Hyperscreen digi-dash stretching from one side of the dashboard to the other and incorporating physical air vents. It’s not quite a single unit though, more three screens placed behind a uniform 56-inch surface, comprised of a driver’s info screen, a large central screen and another for the front passenger. The screen in front of the passenger won’t operate unless there’s someone in the seat, but that’s a lot of potential information, and it certainly creates an impression of IMAX technology on first appraisal. Add to that a running beltline of LED lighting (you can choose any colour, or even strobing effects) around the inside of the car and seatbacks, and if you pick the right combination, the EQS can feel like a Berlin nightclub. This is only a good thing in very specific circumstances. It’s cool, in a flashy, over the top way. But whichever way you look, in submenu after submenu, it feels as if the Mercedes has always erred on the side of inclusion. The option of having an option is added, without always considering whether it actually adds to the experience. Functionality isn’t always a case of adding because it’s possible, and the semi-AI that’s supposed to filter things for you never really got going in the four days I had the car. The Mercedes also features tiny, soft grey pillows attached to the headrests for that extra cranial cushioning, although once someone comments that they look like a baby elephant’s scrotum, that’s pretty much all you can see. The BMW, on the other hand, seems to have pared itself back. There’s a massive curved display – the left-hand side 14.9 inches being a touchscreen and the 12.3-inch information bit in front of the driver. There’s an iDrive controller in the middle, and some subtle haptics on the other surfaces. The iDrive is glass, by the way, part of the Clear and Bold interior application that includes crystal switches and open pored wood. But this is where BMW seems to be advocating restraint with what it calls “shy tech”; the idea that the iX has all the gizmos, but they’re not always on display. OK, so it takes some getting used to, but it all works, without the incessant tech pressure of the Mercedes. For me, it’s more soothing, and therefore feels more luxurious. So we’re back to the idea of ‘luxury’ being defined as subjective rather than fixed and quantifiable according to a scale. The Mercedes is luxurious if you enjoy obvious gadgetry, infinite customisation and lots of TFT and LEDs. There’s something quite chintzy about it, an impressive shotgun blast of tech from the off. The BMW feels much calmer, less intrusive. Exhibitionism versus minimalism. Which means, in somewhat of an underdog victory, it’s the BMW iX that wins TopGear magazine’s Best Luxury Electric Car. Because sometimes, less really is more.

“THERE’S AN IMPRESSIVE SHOTGUN BLAST OF TECH RIGHT FROM THE OFF”

BEST LUXURY ELECTRIC CAR

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TOYOTA CENTURY CONCEPT

BEST ELECTRIC CONCEPT

MERCEDES-BENZ VISION/EQXX WORDS OLLIE KEW

aturally, the Germans have a word for this: Stromlinienwagen. Streamlined car. The EQXX answers the question, “What would a C-Class look like if its absolute priorities weren’t tedious inconveniences like parkability, packaging, or the need to look as inoffensive as possible so we sell a sodding heap of them?” This is as aerodynamic as it’s possible for a four-door saloon to be. Well, apart

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from the mirrors. How did they slip through the wind tunnel unnoticed? Mercedes has for some time nursed a dream to build a car capable of cruising from Beijing to Shanghai on a single charge. That echoes the design brief of the Audi A2 – to take four people from Stuttgart to Milan on one tank. These days, the money buying luxury German saloons comes mainly from China, so the soundbite benchmarks have shifted. The

EQXX claims a nice, round 1,000km endurance, or 620 miles. Deeply impressive. Pity Shanghai is a 745-mile schlep from the Chinese capital... Improved battery chemistry means the 100kWh unit is half the size and weighs a third less than the monster cell buried in Merc’s own EQS. It’s 95 per cent energy efficient – even AMG’s champion F1 hybrid V6 is ‘only’ 50 per cent efficient. Nous from the British-based Mercedes High Performance Powertrains

is shot through the EQXX: thermal energy from the drivetrain is harvested to warm the cabin, similar to how Lewis’s racer turns heat into electrical boost. Good for 6.2 miles per kWh, this four-door teardrop is twice as efficient as the best current EVs. It’s not a concept car that exists to publicise this season’s styling direction: it’s a design study of how to do more with less, and marry the world of EVs with the idea of GTs.

FREDDIE FLINTOFF

FREDDIE’S PICK

RIVIAN/R1T

WORDS FREDDIE FLINTOFF

PHOTOGRAPHY D W BURNETT

am not going to lie, the Rivian is the only electric car I’ve driven in the past 12 months... but it ticks so many of my boxes. It’s a pickup truck. It’s big. It’s got a load of gadgets. It’s also got 800bhp, goes from 0–60mph in three seconds, has a battery range of 300 miles with the small pack, 400 miles with the big one. And it looks the absolute nuts. Some of the features on it I’ve never seen on a car before. It’s got a built-in air compressor that’ll pump your tyres up, plug sockets, it’s got a hole through the middle of it to put all your stuff in as well as the flatbed. But the one thing that really sold me? It’s got a detachable Bluetooth speaker. What more do you want?

On-road it’s an absolute dream, it just sets itself and eats up everything, but it came into its own on the sand. Off-road mode was fine, but rally mode is better. It’s even got a drift mode... in a three-tonne pickup. It’s got something for everyone – you can get the kids behind you, all your luggage in the back and the cubbyholes, and then it goes silly fast and you can have fun. I took it on a drag strip against an 8.4-litre Viper. Every time – foot on the brake, accelerator, BANG. But every time I looked over at the bloke in the Viper, wrestling the car, trying to keep it straight, and I think he was having more fun than me. As electric cars go though, it’s the best I’ve driven and the first that’s made me think: “I want one of these.”

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BEST GADGET

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BARROW IN FURNESS COUNCIL

WORDS SAM BURNETT

The other successes (and a few fails) that caught our eye

MISCELLANEOUS

BEST CHARGE POINT FA IL

As the number of electric vehicles on UK roads grows by record numbers each year, everyone seems to agree that we need more public charge points to be installed across the country, so that drivers are always within easy access of a plug to juice their car. But is there a limit to how widespread they should be? Barrow-in-Furness borough council was criticised earlier this year for installing a new electric charge point close to graves at the Thorncliffe cemetery and crematorium in the Cumbrian town, a move criticised by one local to journalists as “downright disrespectful”. Local EV drivers must be relieved, though, because figures published by the Department for Transport in January 2022 placed Barrow-inFurness in the bottom 20 per cent of councils for charge point availability with just 22 plugs per 100,000 people. Contrast that with Westminster in London, which has a tidy 425 of them per 100k population...

FISKER OCEAN ROTATING SCREEN Vegan leather interior? Check. Buttons banished? Check. Central screen the size of Andorra? Check. But the Fisker Ocean’s party piece is the fact that said screen will rotate between portrait and landscape positions at the touch of a button. Sign us right up...

BEST ELECTRIC C A R AVA N

AIRSTEAM eSTREAM CONCEPT Caravan types are among the most worried about the effect of the electric revolution, but now the insurgency has reached the campsite. This Airstream concept helps with the driving thanks to twin e-motors and allows off-grid living too with its solar roof panels. So, where are we heading?

BEST TESLA BOTHERER

LUCID AIR Tesla will have you thinking that it’s the car industry underdog, but these days many see its products as benchmark electric vehicles. Certainly customers have fully bought into Elon Musk’s hype gigafactory. But... is there a challenger that has risen up in the Land of the Free? California is rammed with start-ups of varying kinds, especially ones claiming to make Tesla-baiting electric cars, but Lucid is one of the first to actually bring its model to market, and we actually rather like the new Air saloon. Alright, so we still need to drive it on Euro roads, but our recent test in California showed a car more dynamic than a Tesla and pleasant inside too. Up to 520 miles of range and 500+bhp of power for less than £60k already make it a mouthwatering prospect.

MISCELLANEOUS

BEST SUPER BOWL ADS Event of the year, as millions gather to watch trailers with sport in-between

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 Actor Jason Bateman on a tour through time 6/10

KIA EV6 Creepy robo-dog steals the show and the juice 7/10

BEST NOISE

FERRARI 296 GTB We talk about electric vehicles being zero emission, but that counts for noise as well – and they are required by law to make a sound loud enough to stop you from sneaking up behind pedestrians in car parks or confusing guide dogs. Drive a Renault Zoe and it’s like being serenaded by a small choir of angels, while the Porsche Taycan has a decidedly more interstellar vibe. BMW in all of its humble, self-effacing resplendence, hired cinema soundtrack maestro Hans Zimmer to compose the tune for its own electric models. Bonkers.

But of course, being TopGear, the plug-in model whose aural emanations we’ve really fallen for in the past 12 months is the Ferrari 296 GTB. It’s an orchestral sound, all right, but of 663 horses and twin turbos that spin to 180,000rpm bolting for the horizon. Ferrari says that it has worked hard to make its ‘piccolo V12’ sound like a much bigger beast, and thanks to a sound tube from V6 through to cabin, you can hear it all. And of course this being a responsible PHEV, you can dial it all back and run for 15 miles off the 165bhp electric motor.

BEST NOISE CANCELLING BE Elon Musk had sharp words for what he called the “fun police” at US S safety body the NHTSA, who have forced a recall of nearly 600,000 Teslas in the US to disable a feature that allows drivers 600, to m make loud fart noises through the horn. Pardon you, Elon.

POLESTAR Swedes eschew gimmicks, upset Tesla stans 8/10

GENERAL MOTORS Dr Evil returns, something to do with cars? 9/10

BMW iX Arnie and Salma Hayek as retired Greek gods 10/10

BEST EV GIMMICK

TOYOTA’S PRETEND MANUAL You could be forgiven for being nervous about the change to driving electric cars – it’s a very different experience, after all, especially for people used to driving combustion cars with manual boxes. Fear not, though – Toyota has proposed a solution to ease the transition, in the form of a simulated manual gearshift set-up. It’s not even a joke, we don’t think – Toyota’s actually patented a system that has a pretend gearstick and clutch fitted so that you can pretend to drive as you always have. The system’s designed to offer different torque levels depending on which pretend gear you’re in, show pretend revs on the tacho and will even simulate weight on the clutch pedal. Think of it like an expensive gaming rig that’ll get you to the shops. Next stop, EV charging that only works when you hold the lever on the pretend fuel nozzle.

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EV POWER PLAYERS

WORDS PAUL HORRELL

POWER/GRID This year’s biggest EV influencers (who aren’t Musk, Rimac or Thunberg)

AKIO TOYODA President, Toyota

If there’s one photo from the past year that sums up our shifting age, it might just be the one of Akio Toyoda standing, arms outstretched, in front of 16 electric vehicle design models, all destined for production. A baby sports coupe, a supercar, vans, multiple saloons, hatches, crossovers and off-roaders for Toyota and Lexus. Sixteen. He called it his “showroom for the future”. Japanese companies are usually secretive about their new car plans. In May 2021 he had announced a target of 2.5 million electric and fuel cell Toyotas and Lexuses sold per year by 2030. Seven months later, after the COP26 conference and various nations’ commitments, that target became 3.5 million. Toyoda doesn’t only make plans like any Japanese manager, he alters them in the face of new circumstances.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY LUC DONCKERWOLKE Chief creative officer, Hyundai Motor Co

He did significant work on the Audi A2, designed the Lambo Murciélago, then went to Bentley. So Donckerwolke was already a big design fish before he arrived in Korea, soon to oversee the entirety of Hyundai’s, Kia’s and Genesis’ efforts. Now we have three of the most design-led EVs out there, the swoopy Kia EV6, angular Hyundai Ioniq 5 and funky yet plush Genesis GV60. They show how you can pull multiple distinctive and characterful shapes off the one EV platform. In the EV age, design will be more critical than ever to the way we relate to cars. Donckerwolke tells us he doesn’t think EVs will all be crossovers, and to show his attachment for romantic proportions he’s fighting for a production version of the gorgeous Genesis X electric coupe.

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President, Ukraine

His inclusion in a story about cars is not to trivialise the tragedy of war. It’s to point out that this century’s inexorable rush towards globalisation might just be stuttering. Russia produces much of Europe’s gas. Ukraine produces 10 percent of the world’s wheat. Ukraine has also shown the vulnerability of nuclear power. In war and sanctions, the supplies we need get interrupted or spike in price. So we must find ways of producing our own. Energy security and food security are now more visibly part of national security. If a nation is going to build up a new energy system, post-Ukraine and post-COP26, it would be pretty daft to do it by any other means than renewables. Which means shifting the balance away from burning stuff towards electricity.

LI SHUFU MARY BARRA Chair & CEO, General Motors

Barra has been running GM since 2014, which makes her a survivor. At first, she seemed pretty boring. Maybe boring is good when so much crap has been going down. She had to kick off by weathering a huge recall and change this then-inert corporation to avoid a repeat. Then came the sell-off of Vauxhall/Opel, then COVID-19 and the chip crisis. GM got through, thanks to her steady hand. Actually, she’s not just been steady. She’s transformed the company. Well ahead of Ford and Chrysler, GM is investing $35bn (£27bn) in a trajectory for EVs of all sizes and prices. Its semiautonomous driver aids are widely admired. It’s about to launch a fully autonomous cab service, Cruise. It’ll be all-electric by 2035, even for trucks. Oh, and it’s making big profits. Not so boring.

Founder and chairman of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group

Like many Chinese mega-entrepreneurs, Li was born a farm boy. He studied engineering and is a gearhead, cognisant of the heritage of European brands. So he owns Lotus – not just for the heritage but the potential. His first high-profile European buy was Volvo, from which he seeded Polestar. He launched Lynk&Co. The London taxi is one of his. He’s bought into German heli-taxi firm Volocopter. Geely’s Chinese EV sales will likely be a quarter-million this year. Li’s influence goes beyond his huge commercial interests. He’s a nonaffiliated delegate to the Chinese National People’s Congress. In China many cars are built by co-ops between western firms and state-owned entities. He says this has made the local industry complacent. Imagine if that sleeping dragon awakes.

ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS

There’s choice a plenty when it comes to electric family cars... so we got the lot WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

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WHO’S WHO IN TG’S BIG CROSSOVER BONANZA

Price: Power: Range:

TESLA MODEL Y £54,990 434bhp 331 miles

KIA EV6 £40,945 226bhp 328 miles

JAGUAR I-PACE £65,620 290bhp 292 miles

AUDI Q4 E-TRON £41,825 168bhp 205 miles

BMW iX3 £60,970 282bhp 284 miles

5 4

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ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS

POLESTAR 2 £40,900 225bhp 294 miles

VOLVO XC40 RECHARGE £52,350 228bhp 258 miles

SKODA ENYAQ IV £40,575 201bhp 327 miles

FORD MUSTANG MACH-E GT £66,280 480bhp 310 miles

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 £37,545 168bhp 238 miles

VW ID.4 £34,995 146bhp 213 miles

10 6

wo years ago, about the time COVID-19 kicked off, only one of these cars existed. Today, despite the vagaries of virus, Brexit, semiconductors and supply chains, if you want an electric family car you’re not short of options. We’ve got 11 full-house family EVs here, cars that a) ought not to break the bank and b) can handle all the tasks you’d need, up to and including this summer’s camping trips. We used Tesla’s newly arrived Model Y as the rallying flag, and gathered to it everything that could potentially be seen as a rival. They span a price range of £35–65 grand, or about £400 a month to £1,000. First point to make: there’s not a bad car here. And one that drops out early might possibly be one that suits you best. You’ll have to use your judgement on that. I’ll tell you why: the Jaguar I-Pace remains a corkingly good electric car – if what you want is a luxurious, effortlessly handsome and fine driving machine. But you’re never going to chuck sandy surfboards in the boot while overseeing dripping ice cream cones within a hundred yards of that cream leather, are you? One for the grandparents then. Tell ’em it comes TopGear recommended. We’re not looking for an overall winner-takes-all victor then. Instead the aim is to guide and suggest, point out strengths and weaknesses. So let’s start with a bit of whittling. Three cars here actually used to be petrol powered. You’ll identify two of them easily: the BMW iX3 and Volvo XC40 Recharge. All they’ve done is add to the names and fill in the grilles. You think I’m going to have a go at them for not being very well packaged. Only the Volvo. The BMW is an impressive piece of all-round engineering. See, the i3 and i8 didn’t go to waste, BMW just realised it didn’t need to go to that much effort. It’s a good car, with a big load area that’s only matched by the Tesla and Skoda, but perhaps too conventional. And, starting at £60,970, expensive. Thinking of an Audi e-tron or Merc EQC, though? Personally, I’d have the BMW instead. The third ex-petrol? The Polestar 2. Trick answer: it never was petrol, but then it wasn’t always a Polestar. Underneath it’s the Volvo XC40 again. Both are compact, park the Polestar next to any other car here (especially the heffalump Ioniq 5), and see how small it appears. Not really family transport. Instead insert this character: trim greying beard, roll-neck, intelligent specs. Yep, the Polestar 2 is a latter-day Saab. Stylish business use only. But fair play Polvo (or does Volestar play better?), your cars are commendably dissimilar. They also share similar market territory (more hatchback than estate, prices in the £40–45k sweet spot) to a pair of fast risers. The Koreans have come. We’re way beyond ‘are

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ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS

Look out, technophobes: Ioniq 5 gets dual 12.3-inch screens as standard

coming’ now. The Kia EV6 has just been voted European Car of the Year, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 is perhaps the most zeitgeisty piece of design to land in the industry for the past decade. They exude confidence in a way that not even the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y can match. Are they perhaps a bit overwrought? The Kia is squintier than Clint Eastwood, the Hyundai an origami Austin Allegro, park either next to the conventionally elegant Jaguar I-Pace and you worry about how fast fashion changes. And whether you’ve got the spec right: the Ioniq is worryingly susceptible to colour choice, the EV6 looks crap unless it’s on big wheels (also applies to the Jag). The only un-brave thing about the Koreans is their market positioning. Look at how many Tucsons and Sportages each shifts. Millions. Hardly surprising that’s the audience they’re chasing. They’re crossovers rather than estates, but spacious enough and thoroughly thought through. The same applies to the Mustang Mach-E. It’s another car willing to sacrifice practicality in the name of image. We like this car. It’s an honest motor, wants you to have fun, even if it’s not very good at delivering it. The ride is turbulent, but at least it tries to be engaging. It’s also genuinely efficient with its electrons and more practical than it looks. The heavily sloped tailgate won’t find favour with the family hound, mind. This one’s a GT, the fast one with 480bhp. It’s the worst Mach-E Ford does. Look, Tesla has made you think performance matters. In family cars it just causes issues. They don’t have the brakes, body control, steering response or chassis dexterity to cope. Everything that makes a good family car makes a bad performance car – and vice versa. The ones that are most relaxing to drive are the ones that aren’t trying to thonk you in the back all the time. So the Mach-E to have is the rear-drive single motor version with 265bhp and the 75kWh battery. It does 0–62mph in 6.9secs. Swift enough for you, Daddy Cool. Have the big 98kWh battery for your bragging rights – that’s 379 miles of range. Range is the new 0–60. Range anxiety wouldn’t be a thing at all if the charging infrastructure was any good. Sorry, that’s a drum I’ve banged many times before, but I can’t help but feel that the energy companies are the weak link right now.

“IF YOU WANT AN ELECTRIC FAMILY CAR YOU’RE NOT SHORT OF OPTIONS”

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ID.4 gear selector handily placed on instrument binnacle. Tesla boot nicely capacious

Government policy is pushing us into electric cars, the manufacturers are producing them and we’re buying them; but how are we meant to use them? Charger unreliability used to be the issue, now it’s simply supply – the public network is overrun. Great time to buy an electric car, eh? Onwards to the sensible-suit VW Group collective. Not breaking any moulds here, are we? Literally in fact: the Audi Q4, Skoda Enyaq and VW ID.4 share not only chassis, motors, battery, and underpinnings, but proportions. Same car cut three ways, and seen alongside the farting Tesla, gung-ho Mustang, elegant Jag, urbane Polestar and manga-inspired Koreans they’re slightly joyless. The VW has dealt itself the best cards. It’s the only one to get the dash-mounted twisting gearlever and has the cleanest aesthetic. But just try interacting with it while driving: changing the heating, radio station or settings. It’s not fit for purpose. Skoda and Audi have edged around the software issues more successfully, but this body shape – versatile, useful – plays to one brand’s values better than the others. Skoda. Look, it’s concealed an ice scraper in the bootlid, the rear tray tables have pop-out cupholders and rubberised edges to hold a tablet. It’s also the cheapest car in the whole line-up – you can have a base version with the 58kWh battery (252 miles claimed range) for £34,850 (about £440 per month) and a really nice one (329 miles plus extra bits) for less than £45k (about £610 per month). The Koreans are costlier and not as well equipped as you might think. No denying they’re glitzier inside though. Where does this leave the Model Y? Well, I was sceptical before it turned up. Its domed roof surely adds space where you don’t need it and you either get on with the super simple wilfully buttonless

Warning: objects in picture may be larger than they appear

There’s always one at every party who gets a bit overexcited...

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ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS

Tesla’s interior looks like a hotel room, inexplicable wheel aside

“THE KIA IS SQUINTIER THAN CLINT EASTWOOD”

Enyaq’s picnic table, doubles as a camp bed for small pets

Great-grandpappy Escort was finding the Alpine family holiday hard going

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Ioniq 5’s LED matrix lights also warn of roadworks and speed limit changes

Like most modern BMWs, the iX3 is best viewed from behind

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Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

cabin or you don’t. It’s different gravy. That packaging is clever. Most firms go for stadium seating with second row higher than the first, allowing rear legs to dangle. But Tesla has put the front seats on pedestals, raising occupants into that domed area, while allowing rear legs to stretch underneath. Sure the car looks gawky, but it works. And the boot area is massive – the most floor space here – even if vertical space is limited. If you want a car that will carry the clobber, it’s this, the iX3 or the Enyaq, with Skoda doing a better job of carving out useful space than either Volkswagen or Audi. Now, the sticky subject of seven seats. None here has them, and although stateside Model Ys get them, in the UK they won’t be available for the foreseeable future. The Merc EQB will be along shortly, otherwise you’re into e-vans such as the Citroen e-Berlingo or e-SpaceTourer. We haven’t talked much about driving beyond pointing out that speed is daft. The Jaguar is the benchmark for calm, clean, engaging handling, the Ioniq 5 its most polar opposite with twirly light steering and lumpen ride quality. The others occupy the middle ground, but this is what you need to know: electric really suits family cars. Simple, smooth, silent. Progress made bewitchingly, eerily easy, plus the thrill of regeneration. You’ll have heard this before, but there’s not much to add. It’s just deeply annoying that having whisked yourself about feeling like you’re piloting the future, you then have to pull over to deal with a Luddite charging system. Unless you’re in the Tesla. The Supercharger network is charging done better. It’s still a valid, sensible reason for choosing the Model Y over its rivals. Let’s stick with our earlier premise: you want a useful family EV. We’re down to three. The Model Y earns its place. Hype runs ahead of Tesla, but this is a good car. It just doesn’t need to be this fast or costly – the Y, like the 3, should be available with the single motor set-up for less power, more range and lower costs. This entry level Long Range is £54,990 – £739 a month. Ouch. The Mustang Mach-E ticks the TopGear boxes, there’s a bit of fizz about it, plus it’s efficient, well equipped and cool inside. The Kia EV6 fulfils a similar brief and runs it close, though. The Skoda Enyaq is the practical, value choice. This is the one that’ll shed dirt easily, wear battle scars lightly, cost you the least to own and run. If you can, upgrade to the 77kWh battery. That aside, this is the complete family package. Devil’s advocate: you can have a seven-seat Kodiaq with the burly diesel for less. But how’s that going to look on the renewable energy, organically sourced, ethically minded, ecologically clean campsite?

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BEST ELECTRIC CROSSOVER

FORD/ MUSTANG MACH-E GT

ELECTRIC FAMILY CARS

BEST HASSLE-FREE EV

TESLA/ MODEL Y

BEST VALUE EV

SKODA/ ENYAQ iV

“THE SUPERCHARGER NETWORK IS STILL A VALID REASON FOR CHOOSING THE MODEL Y OVER ITS RIVALS”

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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

BMW/ i3

WORDS OLLIE KEW PHOTOGRAPHY JOHN W YCHERLEY

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MW has just announced a new small electric car. It’s got a carbon-fibre passenger shell mounted on a lightweight aluminium chassis. It’s hyper-manoeuvrable, rear-wheel drive, seats four and offers the option of a range-extending scooter engine to assuage range anxiety. Inside it’s lavished with hemp fibre door trims and sustainably felled wood. Tempted? Problem is, for the past 30 seconds you’ve been in 2013. That car, the i3, has just been killed off for good. And with it, the first flush of BMW’s all-electric strategy. The future for the ‘i’ brand isn’t innovative, bespoke rule breakers. It’s to stuff the likes of the 4-Series, 7-Series and X3 with batteries. BMW has admitted in the intervening years that the i3 was too radical, particularly in its high-roof, wonky beltline styling.

HYUNDAI IONIQ 5

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

“THE i3 LOOKED LIKE THE VILLAIN’S SIDEKICK IN A PIXAR MOVIE”

It looked like the villain’s sidekick in a Pixar movie, somehow Germanically aggressive yet cute as Wall-E. It swam against the current that demanded EVs should be conservative, to avoid scaring off the punters. And ultimately, it drowned. The i3 now completes the holy trinity of ‘really clever German reinventions of the city car that were too radical for people to actually buy’. Mercedes has the sandwich floored, aerodynamic A-Class. Audi’s lightweight all-aluminium A2 pretty much flopped. And the i3 was not so much ahead of its time as too intelligent for a world rapidly decamping to SUVs and conspicuous consumption. That’s not to say the i3 was perfect and we were all fools. At launch it only had the range to be a second car for tottering

through town: the real-world e-range was 75–90 miles, and even successive battery upgrades in 2016 and 2018 only upped that to a real-world 130–150 miles respectively. The Rex is now clobbered by the London congestion charge, which seems insane for a space-efficient hatchback that uses the same engine as millions of scooter delivery chariots, but that’s sweeping legislation for you. But look at it like this: the i3 is more spacious, more efficient and 300kg lighter than today’s Honda e. Because BMW spent millions making everything bespoke amid a worldwide economic recession – even the wiper mechanism and all of the suspension is purely for the i3 – so it could be as low-mass and parsimonious as possible. We may never see its like again. RIP.

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ELECTRIC HATCH

BEST ELECTRIC HATCH

RENAULT/ MEGANE E-TECH WORDS PAUL HORRELL

ell this is a tease. I first drove the Megane in and near Paris, and liked it. But of course I did. Cars always feel at their best on home turf. Since then I’ve driven it on my home turf and like it more than ever. Annoyingly none of us in Britain can have it, at least not until September. It’s just so serene. The suspension becomes magic

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ILLUSTRAT ION @CARSANDCOLOUR

as you get some speed under the wheels. Its springing is slightly choked when going slowly, but then opens up and breathes beautifully, fluently carrying itself in low-altitude flight above the disturbance. It’s quiet too. But it isn’t soggy. Sharp steering and rapid responses keep it alive to your direction. The powertrain is alert too. You’d expect that from a smallish electric hatch of

220bhp endowment. In fact it’s so frisky you might find yourself whistling up a little torque steer out of slow lumpy corners. But frankly you might still want a Megane even were its dynamics a metaphorical car crash. The cabin is a lovely piece of work, another example of the way Renault and Peugeot have long overtaken the VW incumbency in material

quality. More important, its screens are well-organised, informative and responsive. Especially because they’re not overburdened by climate, audio and and driver-assist controls, which get their own hardware keys. Bad interfaces infuriate their drivers. This one means the human is as serene as the car itself. Well, apart from the frustration of waiting for it to arrive.

READERS’ CHOICE

READERS’ CHOICE AWARD

PORSCHE/TAYCAN SPORT TURISMO

he people have spoken... and they’ve spoken well. For the first time in the history of the Electric Awards (OK, it’s only been going three years) we threw it over to you, the good readers, to decide which car should drive away with the inaugural Readers’ Choice award. And you did us proud, voting in your thousands on topgear.com. The winner, by a small landslide, was the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo. Excellent choice we say, because who doesn’t like a car that looks like a Porsche, goes like a Porsche, runs on electrons and has a boot big enough for your bags and your hound? With 16 per cent of the vote, and almost double its nearest competitor (Polestar 2), frankly it walked it. Some surprises in there too, though – the wildly expensive Rimac Nevera in third, the short-on-range Honda e in fourth and the ridiculously good looking Hyundai Ioniq 5... in fifth. At the other end of the scale we find the Mokka-e, iX3 and EQA in the relegation zone. We look forward to finding out whether opinions translate into actual sales...

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There’s a real *cough* buzz around VW’s EV comeback kid. We’re first to drive it, introduce it to the ancestors and ask the real camper fans what they think WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE PHOTOGRAPHY MARK FAGELSON

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VW ID.BUZZ

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“Coo, isn’t it ? y l e v lo It’s like... modern and old-fashioned at the same time. But why’s it got them black stripes on the side?” Sometimes an audience is engaged and wants the technical details and sometimes, well, sometimes their dog cocks its leg on a lamp post and an innocent trickle starts running under the tyre of the car you’re discussing. A sharp tug on a lead. “Oi, you! I’m so sorry about that.” But the moment has passed, the terrier departs with a certain jaunt in its step, the intrigued onlooker tally falls by one and the opportunity to discuss the air-cooled rear-engined origins of VW vans and the symmetry in the new ID.Buzz vanishes. We’re outside DeskHop in Newquay. It’s one of those hot-desking pop-ups that chimes with the VW’s forward looking philosophy. Sounds like I planned it, but I actually pulled over for the slumped glitz of the amusement arcade next door. Nevertheless, maybe not where you’d expect to find the first ID.Buzz on the road anywhere in the world. Hello, Cornwall. Now, you’ve probably already seen studio shots of the ID.Buzz, but nothing quite prepares you for the visual impact it has on the road. It’s only five days since the global unveil. People haven’t had a chance to get used to it yet and can’t believe this is it, ready for production. Come here in a supercar and they’d approach with trepidation, but this is friendlier so they flock to it like seagulls around an abandoned bag of chips. Hide, says the numberplate; not a chance, screams the Buzz, belting everyone between the eyes with its clean, confident lines, blacked out pillars and a windscreen like a set of wrap-around shades. Could have been even more wrap-aroundy, some reckon, more in keeping with the ‘Bay’ as the post-split screen T2 is affectionately known. Others idly wonder if some aftermarket firm will do a ‘Splittie’ sticker to divide the screen or ‘Samba’ it like the 23-window version. Tomorrow we’re showing it to VW van enthusiasts. Today’s knowledgeable comments come from people who wander over for a chat in a town that probably has a stronger connection to VW vans than any this side of Woodstock or San Francisco. Volkswagen rode the crest of the California surf scene and hippy counterculture wave back in the Sixties, and although the vans that filled the gap between the original T2 and today have had neither the iconic looks nor zeitgeist appeal, the scene never died. If anything, it grew. Just in a more organic, low-key way. Today VW sells upwards of 50,000 Transporter vans across Europe each year.

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Go to any outdoor activity centre and you’ll find row upon row of T5s and T6s. People who pretend to have an active lifestyle drive an SUV, those who actually do drive a VW van. They’re everywhere, maybe doubling as the work van during the week, before heading to coast or mountain at the weekends. The ID.Buzz image may be T2, but the audience for it is T5 and T6 (quick bit of history: the T-for-Type numbers change with the generation. Type 2 was the first as Type 1 was the Beetle). The trouble is that although the Buzz looks like a van and acts like a van and riffs heavily on the van theme, it is actually a car. Only five seats inside, the rears split 60:40, the fronts not even capable of spinning round. Just a massive, massive boot – 1,121 litres under the parcel shelf (a Volvo XC90 offers 775 litres) and a seats folded maximum that’s double any SUV you care to mention. Yet at 4.7 metres long it’s shorter than almost all of them. Now tell me again your SUV is well packaged. But yes, a car. And there are benefits to that. The way it drives for a start. Underneath the Buzz shares underpinnings with the ID.3 hatch and ID.4 crossover. It’s a modular platform, so here it’s grown, the 2,988mm wheelbase just 12mm shorter than a T6 van’s. You hear people say that skateboard battery and motor packaging is good for electric sports cars because it keeps the centre of gravity low. But sports cars had low centres of gravity already. Imagine the gains in a van. Not just carrying mass low, but how it’s distributed fore and aft. I own a T6 Cali Beach, not only does it chomp through front tyres three times as fast as rears, but the body control is wayward, it heaves and lollops along, the whole structure twisting and creaking. I love it, but I drove it down here yesterday, and now I don’t really want to go back to it. The Buzz shell is far more rigid, stability is markedly better, it stays level around corners and responds neatly to steering inputs. You can make good car-like progress in it and above all it’s perfectly smooth and admirably silent. But you know that already. You also know the drawbacks. This is the 77kWh battery pack that delivers 310 miles of claimed range in an ID.4 – what’s it going to be like in a van with more weight, less aero? Here’s an old fact. Back during development in 1949, Volkswagen put a T2 in a wind tunnel and discovered it had better aerodynamics than the Beetle (0.44Cd vs 0.48). It’s not far off this time round either. The ID.4’s 0.28Cd figure has risen by just 0.01Cd, and the Buzz is only around

VW ID.BUZZ

“PEOPLE WHO PRETEND TO HAVE AN ACTIVE LIFESTYLE DRIVE AN SUV – THOSE WHO DO DRIVE A VW VAN”

Hello Cornwall! TopGear brings you the future... and it looks a lot like a banana split

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VW ID.BUZZ

“VW RODE THE CREST OF THE CALIFORNIAN SURF SCENE... A SCENE THAT NEVER DIED”

150kg heavier (2,225kg). No official figures yet, but I reckon VW will claim around the 280-mile mark for range. So 200 on average. Less when it’s fully loaded, much less when it’s cold or you’re carrying kit on the roof. Maybe it’s just as well you can’t tow much due to a 1,000kg limit. Plan your holiday recharges. For context my van did 37mpg on the way down here, has a range of 500 miles and can tow 2,500kg. Grr. The Buzz is quieter, suffers way fewer NVH issues and is light and easy to pilot. Resist the 21in wheels, the ride is slightly lumpen. Range and comfort will both improve if you go smaller. It flits along the B3276 past Mawgan Porth, whisking up to speed, regen to slow, no gears, no fuss, no sense it’s puffing and panting on the steep inclines. It doesn’t feel small, but it’s wieldy because the turning circle is amazingly tight – handy in the tiny fishing villages around here – while 200bhp and 229lb ft of instant torque are happily sufficient. In short, the Buzz doesn’t need much management (provided you’ve disabled the intrusive driver assist systems). It does as you ask calmly and considerately, and leaves you with bandwidth to spare. Focus on the views, maybe. Or more likely child control and the infotainment. The latter, it must be said, is better here. New v3.1 software that’s more responsive and includes games for when you’re charging. Still a reach away though and the touch sensitive sliders remain woeful.

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I adore being in it. The driving environment is very special indeed. The switchgear and screens are shared with lesser IDs, but the ambience is exclusive to the Buzz. It’s like sitting in an armchair on a penalty spot and looking into a goal: big upright screen a distance away, flanked by large quarterlights. You’re sitting high, armrests flipped down, soaking it all in, viewing the outside from this light, bright and futuristic pedestal. And the view out gets no better than sunset at Fistral Beach. The home of British surfing and we’ve got a rosy red belter on our hands. It’s March, there are dozens of wetsuited figures bobbing in the waves and inevitably masses of VW vans in the car park around us. Air-cooled chatter signals the arrival of two original split screens I invited down to join the Buzz to get a sense of progress, scale and design faithfulness. They’re glorious to behold, dainty and pretty, perfect in their detailing, pure in their simplicity. But the Buzz holds its own and has a crumple zone that consists of more than a tin nose and your knees. Gearchanging is a discussion point – the tricky downshift from third to second that if you go searching for, you won’t find. A deft flick is the trick. Things like this are what give old cars character – they require us to be utterly involved, to have knowledge and develop sensitivity. In 60 years’ time will cars have moved on so far that an ID.Buzz will be similarly challenging to its driver? I can’t see it.

“VW’s been on the phone... says you can think again about getting in here with that salty wetsuit on”

A VW camper managing to get up a hill at more than 15mph? Must be Photoshopped

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Now go and watch the video on topgear.com

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VW ID.BUZZ

ID.BUZZ

T2 SPLIT SCREEN

Price: c£55,000 Engine: electric motor, 201bhp, 229lb ft Transmission: 1spd auto, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in c.10.0secs, 90mph max (limited) Economy: 77kWh battery (net), c.280-mile range Weight: 2225kg Drag Cd: 0.29

Price: c£40,000 (today) Engine: 1493cc, flat 4cyl, 51bhp, 68lb ft Transmission: 4spd man, RWD Performance: 0–62mph in c.50.0secs, n/a mph max x Economy: n/a Weight: c.1275kg g Drag Cd: 0.44 4

That night and dawn the next day I saunter around in the Buzz. I can’t leave it alone. I’m drawn to it because it’s different, because it’s a new anti-SUV template, fun to be in and around. It’s not demanding to drive, but it shouldn’t be – the ease of electric is the appeal. But equally I’m not blind to its drawbacks. I look for elements to love and engage with, but can’t escape the sense that Volkswagen should have been more thoughtful and creative with everything behind the front seats. It’s a two-tier cabin. For those up front this is unique and special while those behind, apart from sliding doors and intensely generous headroom, have less to lift their spirits. Is this just me? Time to put the Buzz in front of an audience. I banged the jungle drums and here they are, owners of VW vans from every era. Splits, Bays, T25s with Subaru engine conversions, lifted T4 Syncros, dropped T5s, campers, conversions, the lot. East Pentire Headland is staging its own BugJam, and it is marvellous. They’ve come not because I asked nicely, but because they’re intrigued.

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TOYOTA CENTURY

OVER/ TO THEM Reinventing its van might be the bravest thing VW’s ever done. Here’s what the community makes of it...

RYAN TURK

SCOTT T25 Transporter

VW Caddy van

“I think a lot of people are gonna want to camper them. The electrics are going to be a bit tricky to deal with though. The height and the width is fine – all cars are getting too big on the road anyway – but the length isn’t enough. They’ll replace the modern day Transporters, but over time.”

RICK HARRISON

JO OLIVEY T2 Split

T6 Ecowagon

“I wouldn’t give up the Subaru engine in my T25 for electric quite yet. It’s an EJ 2.2 instead of the original 1.6 from years ago and that makes quite a difference, takes a lot of vibration out and means 135bhp instead of 65. I like the Buzz, but if the infrastructure was in place to support electric vehicles it would be a lot easier to live with.”

“This is what concerns me: how’s recharging going to work if you’re towing? You would likely have to unhitch your caravan and find a charger. Go and have a coffee, come back to your Buzz, go to another part of the parking area to hook back up. And think of the harm done to your range by towing. Not a relaxing way to tour.”

“I love it, I love the space inside, the ideas and the design and if I had the money I’d have it as a second car. Couldn’t get rid of Sandy, though – she’s 56 years old now! It’s all a bit techno inside which is a bit scary. I like the clear screen, the space and the fact you can remove the centre console and walk through to the back. And the boot is amazing. I could put a mattress in there and sleep in it.”

TOYOTA VWCENTURY ID.BUZZ

NORMAN SHRIGLEY

LEE TOLLEY T6 Transporter

T2 Split

“It’s nice and big and chunky, but it’s not for me because it’s electric. I like the sound of the 1800cc flat four in mine – it’s been upgraded, so it’s a rocket up to 60mph. Should be cheaper to run than mine, but it’s going to be too much money to buy. Wouldn’t mind having the power steering and servo brakes from it on mine though.”

JOHN WEEDON

CLIVE GOODWIN T2 Split

T5 California

“Driving down here I was a little bit sceptical. I didn’t know if I was going to like the look of it having seen pictures of it online, but when I got here – it’s a beautiful thing, almost futuristic, sleek and modern. I love the minimalistic interior too, it’s so big and open with a good view. It’s a brilliant people carrier, as a camper van I don’t know if it’s going to work.”

“The VW vans have a grab handle on the A-pillar, but the Buzz only has one in the middle above the door, which is useless for helping to pull you up. Overall bits like that mean it’s more car-like than van-like. It looks modern though, and I love the armrests coming down like on my T6, it means you’ve got such a comfy driving position.”

KENNY GREEN T6 Ecowagon

“The feature where the ignition turns itself on when the driver sits in is a pain – even when you move in the seat it keeps switching off. But I’ve just learned that what looks like leather is actually recycled plastic, and that’s great. I’d like a buddy seat up front. I know you can have three abreast in the Cargo, but it would be great here, too.”

“I’m looking forward to getting our hands on one and seeing what we can do with it. This one seems smaller, but the Cargo version won’t have all the plastics in it, so there will be more space and cubic capacity to fit stuff in. I’d rather look at the long wheelbase version when that comes, though.”

VW ID.BUZZ

DId you know? Volkswagen vans grow to look more like their owners as they age

New Buzz is full of Easter eggs and design winks that the real fans will love

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These owners would love to go electric – gives them hours more to talk about their vans

Buzz interior stood up well to 56 people jumping up and down on the seats

Sorry if you were caught in the eight-hour tailbacks behind this lot going home

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Four run companies that modify Transporter vans, turning them into campers. All have concerns. “We try to mount the gas, services and water under the van,” Kenny Green from Ecowagon tells me, “but that’s going to be a real challenge with the battery.” There’s nervousness about drilling into the battery pack, venting the gas pipes: “Maybe we’ll have to look at a glue-down solution instead of screwing,” Matt Burgon from Cambee reckons. “And how are we going to take power from it?” All reckon customer demand will be there ahead of VW’s own delivery. More versions of the Buzz will come, with longer wheelbases, bigger batteries and motors, different seating layouts and VW’s own camper, the California. But not for another three years. In the meantime, the emptier interior of the Buzz Cargo – the van version – looks like a blank canvas. But not a massively big one. That 3,900-litre interior volume is huge by car standards, but it’s 2,000 litres smaller than a T6. The thick body frame that is so good at suppressing noise and flex constricts the cabin.

Everyone loves that VW has refound its mojo, finds the Buzz breezy, fresh and invigorating. They clamber all over it, under it and through it, sit three abreast and close the doors, and generally pick up on the same things: hope there will be storage solutions to stop things flying around the boot, rue the limited versatility, but love the driving environment and the fact VW will offer a boot shelf that lines up with the folded seats so you can throw a mattress in there. Clive, an industrial designer, makes an interesting point: “I’m not keen on the big mouth, I would have liked it to have a V-shape nose like my Split.” He’s got a point, that lower grille is a bit clunky. But the full V would have been too overtly retro and VW needs this van to be seen in another light – as a new way of transporting a family. Actually not a new way, an old way with a new twist. For what is the Buzz if not an MPV? Paul Rockett nails it: “We run an Alhambra and it’s very similar to that, but bigger and swankier.” Most of the vans that turn up have names. I’m introduced to Eileen, Velma, Sandy and Coral, shown factory certificates of

ELECTRIC CAR OF THE YEAR

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Thanks to: Visitnewquay.org, Visitcornwall.com, Honeybugscornwall.co.uk and Vanarchycustoms.co.uk for bringing the split-screens to Fistral and thanks to Ecowagon.co.uk, CVWOC.co.uk and everyone who was part of our BugJam

FEBRUARY 2022 ›

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VW ID.BUZZ

authenticity, invited in for tea with Grant, who’s done the marquetry interior himself. With others I chat 13-minute engine swaps, lowering springs, roof tents versus pop-ups. What it shows me is the sheer scope of possibility that a box on wheels offers and the array of specialists out there working on them. It’s fascinating. Yes, at the moment it’s a family car, but that’s not what it’s limited to – Volkswagen needs these people onboard with their ideas and their customer bases to help set the tone for the ID.Buzz and ensure it doesn’t come across as a retro pastiche. It’s cool already, but they can sprinkle the magic dust and turn it into a cult object for the future. But isn’t it great that VW has finally had the courage to reinvent the original? This might not yet be the van that most van owners want it to be, but right now, if you’re looking at any other electric crossover, be it a Volkswagen, Ford, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz or Kia, doesn’t this look like a bigger, brighter, more interesting alternative? It’s beguilingly simple and yet entirely uplifting. And that’s why it’s our electric car of the year.

“ISN’T IT GREAT THAT VW HAS FINALLY HAD THE COURAGE TO REINVENT THE ORIGINAL?”

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BECAUSE

THEY

DON’T

MAKE

’EM

THEY

USED

HEADLINER

F1: THE BEGINNING What were Formula One’s formative years really like? There’s only one way to find out... WORDS TOM FORD PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEETWOOD

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GP drivers were either excruciatingly brave, or daft as lamp posts. Probably a bit of both. Still, there’s an art to this. Wedge one’s knees into the recesses of the bodywork, tuck your elbows into wherever they’ll fit, possibly even lean a bit, and bear down. No matter what you do, you’ll feel like you’ve been run over after about 40 minutes – goodness only knows how they did it for hours on end, in company, at significantly faster speeds, bouncing around on transverse leaf springs and swing axles. And without, it has to be noted, on-site medical facilities or helicopter transfers to hospitals with MRI scanners. They were lucky if there was a tent set up in the pits with some plasters and beef tea. This? This is just the barest whisper of what original Grand Prix racing was really like, the ghost of glory days where lives were

A R C H I V E I M AG E S : G E T T Y

Nobody mentioned the core strength and the bruises. That’s all I can think as I barrel hell for leather through a long left-hander in a single-seater Fifties Grand Prix car without the comfort or security of seatbelts. Of course, belts are actually fitted, I just want to try and ape the sensations of GP drivers from way back when. The kind of men – and yes, it was pretty much exclusively men back then – for whom getting ‘thrown clear’ in the event of an accident was preferable, and sipping on a glass of champagne and lighting a cigarette on a hot exhaust in the pits wasn’t regarded as the absolute insanity it seems like today. The idea they were a different breed is totally understandable. Even by the standards of the day I have to conclude early

“EARLY GRAND PRIX DRIVERS WERE EITHER BRAVE OR DAFT AS LAMP POSTS”

Recreating the moment Farina won the first ever grand prix

10 minutes later he was in a Portaloo flossing the flies out of his teeth

Good forward vision, plenty of power... a good choice for the school run perhaps?

Mudguards? Those are for wimps, take them away boys

literally on the line – in the first decade of Formula One, 18 drivers died. It was not a sport for the worriers. The car we’re driving here – as you can probably tell – isn’t some priceless piece of automotive history, but rather the really rather wonderful Dowsetts Classic Cars Tipo 184, a homage to the Alfa Romeo 158 ‘Alfetta’ Grand Prix car of the late Forties and early Fifties. It’s a fun, colourful, exciting and road legal home build that attempts to bring some of the verve and elan of vintage racing cars to the road without the worry. It’s based on the prosaic underpinnings of a Mazda MX-5, and it is the life-affirming antidote to insulating modernism. The car it apes was something very different, mind. The Alfa 158/159 was known as the Alfetta or ‘Little Alfa’, and its name related to its engine, a 1.5-litre supercharged

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And it’s a win for Ford at the Blyton Park Grand Prix. What were the chances?

Wire spoked wheels always look cool / Instruments one of the few modern concessions / OK, and so are the lights / Toggle switches make it feel like a racecar

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straight eight, pumping out a not inconsiderable 300bhp-ish in later iterations – 420bhp as the modified 159. In a car that weighed around 700kg and bore no safety equipment we would recognise, that’s quite the heady formula. It was – and remains – one of the most successful racecars ever, taking 47 wins from the 54 GPs it entered. It also bears the honour of being the car that won the very first Formula One Grand Prix. And that’s why we’re here – to get a flavour of the genesis of F1. The Alfa 158 was active between 1946 and 1951, meaning it was eligible for the then-new F1 season that saw the light of day on 13 May 1950, and was actually a venerable 13 years old by that time. There had been a non-championship series race in 1946 in Turin, but the ongoing disruption brought about by WW2 meant the World Championship of Drivers didn’t begin until 1950, at Silverstone. That first race was won by a man called Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina in an Alfa 158, who beat a certain Juan Manuel Fangio to the flag from pole, and then to the first title. It was the very beginning of F1 as we know it.

Maserati and Mercedes-Benz and built his legend, Fagioli died in practice for the Monaco GP in 1952 and Farina raced for Ferrari for a while, eventually bouncing around various teams but never reliving the past glories – his aggressive driving style leading to accidents and injuries, and he eventually retired in 1955, even though he actually raced in the ’56 Indianapolis 500. He died in 1966 on his way to watch the French GP, crashing his Lotus Cortina into a telegraph pole in the Alps. Formula One, obviously, grew and grew, running through various iterations of rules and regulations that honed and morphed the cars from the original frontengined torpedoes into the cars we know today. It’s swollen into a multi-billion pound business at the very bleeding edge of competitive motorsport, and has a fanatical worldwide following. But its origins came from brave pilots who mastered incredibly difficult machines, putting their lives on the line all in the name of racing. Crazy people. But our kind of crazy. And with core strength made of more than just muscles.

“THE ALFETTA TOOK 47 WINS FROM THE 54 GRANDS PRIX THAT IT ENTERED” Of course, Fangio became legend, winning five world championships in the years after (1951, and then 1954 through to 1957), but Farina was the primogenitor. He was 43 at the time, a notoriously grumpy character whose attacking and aggressive driving style apparently matched his off-track persona – Farina was not the sort of man you wanted to race wheel-to-wheel with. Instantly recognisable in the car thanks to a straight-backed, upright posture, he was mentored by the famous Tazio Nuvolari in his early days, under whose tutelage he ended up driving for the Ferrari-run Alfa Romeo team and gained several national championships, until the war (1939–45) stalled his career. He drove for Maserati in 1948, eventually returning to Alfa after a series of tragic occurrences led to its contemporary lead drivers’ deaths – and was paired with the team affectionately known as ‘The three Fs’: Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio and Luigi Fagioli. And F1 history was made. Of course, with GP racing being so volatile, Alfa’s winning ways couldn’t last forever, and following regulation changes, the Alfa Romeo team announced its retirement from F1 racing in 1951. Fangio migrated to

Heard of the school of hard knocks? Well this is the classroom...

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TOP FI VE

BEST LOOKING F1 CARS

1959 ASTON MARTIN DBR4 The DBR4 may not have been a very successful F1 car, but damn it looked good. Shame it was two years late when it eventually made its debut

1970 LOTUS 72

CONCEPTS THAT TIME FORGOT

BUICK SIGNIA, 1998 his unfortunate looking beast was revealed

out a heady 240bhp. Unfortunately, to add

to the public at the North American

insult to the eye injury caused by the styling,

International Auto Show in Detroit in 1998,

the car sent its horses to the front wheels, by no

whereupon local villagers immediately set

means the RWD sleeper car that its bulging rear

after it with torches and pitchforks, chanting “kill

arches and eager stance implied. Innovative

the beast” over and over while grabbing free

electric motors were installed at the back of the

merch from neighbouring stands.

car, but they were meant to kick in if the car lost

“What were they thinking?” you ask. Buick fancied the idea of a car-like crossover SUV,

It must have come as a hammer blow to

an idea from the same focus group that

Buick to find out halfway through the first day

mashed the design together no doubt – and

of the Detroit show that the shallow car buying

was keen to ensure its new lifestylemobile

public put so much emphasis on things like

would storm the market with pure pizzazz.

decent looks and attractive styling. This poor

Unfortunately for Buick, all efforts to make

of a solemn send-off in the crusher, instead

dog whistle for old folks. It was easy to get in

pushed off to the side of a General Motors car

and out of, it had a flexible loadspace. Nothing

park to break down quietly. The only part of it

quite so alluring as a flexible loadspace.

that made production was the jaunty C-pillar,

It wasn’t all business though – the bulbous specs from the early Noughties, the glass tinting

which appeared on the Buick Rendezvous, itself a sister car to the notorious Pontiac Aztek. The Signia raised important questions for

depending on how bright the sun was. And

many. Like, was it the ugliest car ever created?

what fun inside – the art deco-inspired wood

Obviously an entirely subjective minefield of a

clad interior married the latest technology with

discussion that could begin with a shortlist of

an antiques warehouse vibe, just to make sure

many dozens of candidates, a prolonged

that (old) people wouldn’t be freaked out by

argument about the criteria that should be

futuristic computers and suchlike.

employed to find the miserable winner (does

The real fun was in the engine bay – the

a concept car even count, for instance?) and

Signia had a transverse-mounted 3.8-litre

en arduous fisticuffs as the list was whittled then th

supercharged V6 under the bonnet, pumping

down. But basically, yes. Sam Burnett

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1988 McLAREN MP4/4 The MP4/4 is the McLaren for a whole generation of F1 fans. Driven by Prost and Senna, it won all but one race in a dominant 1988 season

unloved thing wasn’t even granted the dignity

the car sound cool were in reality a resounding

boot hatch featured similar tech to your dad’s

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traction, preventing slides.

In its various guises the Lotus 72 was entered into 75 races, winning three constructors’ titles and two drivers’ championships

1990 FERRARI 641 Another Prost car, the V12engined 641 was minimalist, light on sponsorship and rather menacing with its black wings and wheels

1990 WILLIAMS FW14B Designed by Adrian Newey and driven to a world title by Nigel Mansell, the FW14B wore its Camel/Canon/Elf livery beautifully

E G A R A G S ’ I C RIC

“THREE WEEKS AGO, THIS WAS AN 833BHP R34 GT-R WHICH COULD’VE EASILY BEEN SOLD”

a r pick t e v e n d ep shoul f the conc u o y re o say : they k isn’t awa 1 2 t r Repo eems Mar S spot.

f this were an episode of Grand Designs I’d have Kevin McCloud tearing into me about budget and workload before repeatedly shaking his head. At the very best, he’d throw me a “brave... or stupid?” line before cutting to the adverts. Because the GT-R’s restoration has all the makings of Grand Designs gold. The kind which, despite being new to Channel 4, has an opening sequence first shot in 2017. Usually followed by the owner stating early on that they’d be project manager for it, and lending being the recurring theme rather than actual progress. Except the Skyline is making progress. Real progress. Progress at an alarming rate, which ironically is a bit of a problem. Steve Richardson and his team do not mess around here; they’re in the business of transforming cars into pieces of art, and with a waiting list stretching into the years it’s not feasible for him to let months pass without any work going on. Take a look at the image above. Three weeks ago, that was an 833bhp R34 GT-R which could’ve easily been sold for a six-figure sum. Now? It’s quite literally a bare shell. Every component has been stripped out – including the engine – and its underside ground back to metal in preparation for any rust repair and new sealant/primer. Admittedly, that’s doing a massive disservice to the work that’s actually been completed. It is mind-blowing what SR Autobodies does to these cars; it goes far beyond a simple underside resto or tarting up old parts with a bit of paint. Every single component removed is either replaced,

Now, we’re no engineers, but shouldn’t the engine be inside the car?

repaired or zinc plated. Thousands of them. Even the engine has been stripped back to simplify the wiring, coolant system and more. Less parts to worry about = fewer parts to go wrong. And that’s before we get to the wiring. In true Japanese style – the undisputed kings of the bodge – the GT-R had eight live feeds being drawn from the cigarette lighter. That was powering oil and diff coolers, gauges, turbo timers, you name it. Sure, it’s the easiest live feed to run power from, but how it hasn’t burst into flames is beyond me. With all of the parts now being painted or zinc plated, Steve and his team have finished Stage 1 in a matter of weeks. That is, getting the car stripped back, repaired and ready for a full respray. Naturally, I never intended to have the whole car painted... but every panel had some chip or ding after 23 years. So bizarrely, it works out faster to paint it as a bare shell than to do the components individually while it’s all bolted together. From a financial POV, doing it this way is a bit like throwing a deck chair off a sinking Titanic. Cheap is not a word that can be applied to any part of this car, but it’ll be worth it in the end (fingers crossed). I do have quite a lot of bills to pay however, so if anyone needs last minute freelance photography please e-mail mark@markriccioni. co.uk quoting ‘GT-R Financial Disaster’ for a preferential rate. Mark Riccioni Internationally renowned photographer Mark has been working with TG for many, many years. When not taking photos he’s buying inappropriate cars. Here he shares his addiction with the world

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119

PROGRESS REPORT

(2021)

MAZDA MX-5 vs MAZDA MX-5

(1990)

A classic two seater that’s stood the test of time. Thirty years on, and we’d still have one

I RECOGNISE THAT FACE...

the 0–62mph time and increasing the top speed to 126mph.

Not surprising at all. Launched in 1989 as an affordable, open-

Today’s generation weighs around 100kg more but sticks to

top sports car for the everyday, over 30 years, four generations

its roots, remaining rear-driven and naturally aspirated only.

and countless awards later Mazda has sold over a million of the

The entry level engine is a 1.5-litre unit producing 130bhp and

things, and it’s even recognised by Guinness World Records as

good for 0–62mph in 8.3secs and a top speed of 127mph, while

the world’s bestselling two-seater sports car. You don’t have to

the range topper is a 2.0-litre with 182bhp, capable of hitting

look too hard to see one on our roads.

62mph in 6.5secs and topping out at 136mph. Small increments.

THE ORIGINAL HASN’T AGED MUCH, HAS IT?

IS THE NEW ONE MUCH BETTER TO DRIVE?

Nope. Revealed at the Chicago Auto Show before several of the

Marginally, perhaps, but there’s a reason Mazda hasn’t messed

TG team of today were even born, its Lotus Elan-inspired design

too much with the recipe over four generations. Where the original

remains as handsome as ever. The standout feature is arguably

offered precise steering, a short, sharp-shifting gearlever, and

those pop-up headlights, dropped from the MkII onwards due

supreme balance thanks to its 50:50 weight distribution, the latest

to safety regs, as well as those dinky door handles. Adorable.

generation offers... well, pretty much exactly the same thing. It’s the

Stepping inside is like entering a time warp – no mod cons in here

perfect formula for a simple sports car, and while it lacks the power

– but the family resemblance is clear to see. Releasing the roof is

of some of its peers, that doesn’t mean it’s any less enjoyable to

as simple as undoing two clips and folding it back behind the rear

drive. Especially with the roof down and wind in your hair.

seats, while there’s even a lockable glovebox for your valuables.

120

When the MX-5 first hit UK showrooms in the Nineties, under £15k.

The MkI, weighing in at 955kg, was initially available with just the

A bargain, by anyone’s standards. Today, a base-spec model

one engine, a 1.6-litre producing 114bhp and good for 0–62mph in

equipped with the 1.5-litre engine starts just shy of £25k, or around

8.5 seconds and a top speed of 121mph. Five years later a 1.8-litre

£26.5k with the folding hardtop as pictured here. Easy to see why it

offering an extra 14bhp was introduced, shaving half a second off

offers so much appeal to anyone looking for accessible fun, isn’t it?

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WO R D S : P E T E R R AW L I N S P H OTO G R A P H Y: J O N N Y F L E E T WO O D

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE IN COST? HOW DOES PERFORMANCE COMPARE?

INTERESTING FAMILY CARS

V W PA S S AT W 8 E S TAT E (2002) Price now £3,995

LESS THAN £5K

RE ME MB ER IN G

Harris says A W8 B5 generation

R E T R O G A M IN G

Passat might be the most complicated way to move your family and plenty of luggage. You’ll get one for less than

TH E CL AS SI CS

£5k, but be prepared to spend that

#38

again on maintenance.

DANNY SULLIVAN’S INDY HEAT MERCEDE S W 12 3 2 30 T E (198 3)

LESS THAN £ 10K

Price now £7,850

ARCADE, 1991

With a similar three-player arcade cabinet to Ironman Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road, Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat applied the knockabout top-down racing format to fragile formula cars. Sullivan himself was

Harris says The W123 230TE remains one of the coolest estates ever to make

most famous for winning the 1985 Indy 500 after spinning a full 360°,

it to market. Find one with the jump

so he was a fitting mascot for this typically chaotic arcade racer.

seats in the boot to make it a seven

Taking inspiration from stops on the real-world IndyCar calendar,

seater and you’ll never need to buy

the game managed to cram surprisingly intricately designed tracks,

a family car ever again.

including Long Beach and Burke Lakefront Airport, into a playfield that had probably fewer pixels than the display on your oven. It turns out, though, that none of this was officially sanctioned by IndyCar, so the tracks and events had to be hastily renamed. Somehow the ‘Tradewest Speed Bowl’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as the Indianapolis 500.

V W T YPE 2 K OMB I (19 7 8) Price now £18,500

LESS THAN £20K

In-between races, you could spend your hard earned winnings on upgrading different aspects of your car to stay on the pace. Or if you were paralysed by indecision, you could select the ‘Danny’s

Harris says VW only stopped

Choice’ option and Sullivan would pick the upgrades for you. Given

building the second generation Type

that Danny was also one of your competitors on track, that’s a bit like

2 in Brazil in December 2013, proving st how popular a van it is. The Kombi just ju originally came with three rows of seats, making it an ideal family wagon.

Lewis Hamilton popping over to the Red Bull garage and asking Max Verstappen to set his car up for him. While the game looks simplistic by today’s standards, there was a degree of strategy required. You could either carefully negotiate the courses at a manageable speed and keep your car intact, or hare around at a frantic pace bouncing off the walls but have to pit multiple times just to put your flame-licked vehicle back together. Our favourite tactic by far, though, was shunting other cars out of their own pitboxes and flattening their mechanics before they could finish

H n Harris' Honest Bargain Corner

the repair job. See? Strategic. Mike Channell

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121

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TO PG EAR ’ S LO N G -TE RM CARS . TESTE D & VE RI FI E D

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Ford Mustang Mach-E GT HELLO

£66,280 OTR/£67,430 as tested/£836 pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Does more power mean more fun when it comes to EVs?

DRI VER Jack Rix

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Ford Mustang Mach-E AWD GOODBYE

£57,030 OTR/£58,180 as tested/£685 pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is an electric family SUV charming enough to be a ‘Mustang’?

DRI VER Jack Rix

WE’VE DONE A SWAPSIES. OUR RED MACH-E AWD EXTENDED RANGE

for this faster, flashier, top of the range Mach-E GT. I say flashier because of the 20-inch rims, wider tyres, faux carbon blanked off grille and 10mm lower ride height, but it’s probably even stealthier than EF70 EAK with its Dark Matter Grey paint – the only option fitted at £1,150. Famously brash Ford colours – Cyber Orange and Grabber Blue – are available exclusively on the GT, and honestly I’d be tempted to go for a brighter shade. But then I have the taste of a five-year-old. You might have read Ollie Kew’s first drive of the Mach-E GT, published last October, or Ollie Marriage’s opinions on page 85. So I already know what I’m supposed to conclude here, what the sensible advice is to give: that there’s very little – besides more nauseating acceleration – the £66k GT does over and above the £57k AWD version, or the £47k RWD (with the big battery for 373 miles of WLTP range) for that matter. It’s another £9k (or around £150 a month) to go less distance on a charge than the AWD, and feel much the same while you’re doing it. I’m aware, then, that the numbers don’t exactly stack up on the GT, but if numbers are all we cared about we’d all be driving around in Dacias – perfectly happily I might add, but a little lacking in automotive adrenalin. So let’s not call this one before it’s even started, let’s spend

SPECIFICATION Twin electric motors, 4WD, 98.7kWh battery, 480bhp 3.1 miles per kWh, 310 miles

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

Acceleration is shockingly quick for a crossover, can even do donuts if you’re so inclined.

0–62mph in 3.7secs, 124mph 2,273kg

MILEAGE: 706 OUR MPKWH: 2.3

a few months with the GT, take our time to appreciate its subtle differences, let them wash over us and see what feelings emerge. Sorry, did I say ‘subtle’ differences? My bad, there is nothing subtle about a 2.2-tonne crossover with 480bhp and more torque than a Porsche 911 Turbo S. Its 0–62mph time of 3.7 seconds is, frankly, ridiculous – quicker than a Cayenne Turbo S, and you feel the difference straight away. Where the 346bhp AWD version surges on a satisfying wave of torque, the GT jags forward impatiently in any of its two most aggressive modes (Active and Untamed), properly pinning you to the headrest, the tyres breaking traction even in the dry if there’s no temperature in them. The kids love it, you’ll give your granny a heart attack and you possess the power to make any passenger feel queasy on demand. I’ll do my best to wield it responsibly. Lots planned over the coming months, including a roadtrip to Cornwall (the same roadtrip that the long-term Porsche Taycan 4S couldn’t quite manage on a single charge, can the American go one better?), while I’ll also be looking for any excuse to get the GT on track (for the second time, thanks Ollie for scrubbing in the tyres BTW). In the meantime I’ll generally be lobbing family life at it and winding up supercars at the traffic lights. They won’t even see me coming.

Twin electric motors, 4WD, 98.7kWh battery, 346bhp 3.3 miles per kWh, 335 miles

GOOD STUFF

Over-the-air update has extended usable battery from 88kWh to 91kWh.

0–62mph in 5.8secs, 111mph

BAD STUFF

How often are you going to use that acceleration? Is it really necessary in a family car?

2,182kg

MILEAGE: 4,675 OUR MPKWH: 2.6

BAD STUFF

Gloopy steering feel – could be lighter, crisper and more direct. Over to you GT...

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HYUNDAI i20N REPORT 6 £24,995/£25,545/£311

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is TG’s Car of the Year as great to live with as it is to drive?

DRI VER Stephen Dobie

SO THE i20N IS A PERFORMANCE

Mercedes S500

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

REPORT 6

£110,325 OTR/£110,325 as tested/£1,841pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE It’s the world’s default super limo but is it too clever for its own good?

DRI VER Jason Barlow

THE S500 HAS AN 84-LITRE FUEL TANK, A CAVERNOUS RECEPTACLE

whose existence made me ponder the wisdom of this particular longtermer. Would I need to take out a mortgage every time I filled up? To begin with, we rarely breached the psychologically important £100 threshold – unless I was going super unleaded, which I do from time to time – and hypermiling the S has become quite addictive. This car encourages mindfulness despite its plutocratic image, as I’ve previously noted. Consequently, I’ve seen 35mpg and a range of almost 600 miles from one tank, which is seriously impressive for such a big car. Better than many smaller, supposedly more efficient crossovers, in fact. Obviously things have changed somewhat. The West’s dependence on Russian energy has brought us all to a moment of reckoning. There are other factors at work, of course, and like everyone else I marvel at how rapidly prices at the pump rise when the cost of a barrel of Brent crude oil spikes, and how slowly that comes down again when the pressure eases. Frankly, it’s a joke, although fuelling a Mercedes S-Class is the very definition of a first world problem given what’s going on. But it also focuses the mind. Someone tweeted me asking whether a 56mph speed limit should be mandatory. It’s an echo of what happened during 1973’s energy crisis, an event that among other things killed off America’s grotesque reliance on outsized cars. Meanwhile, some activists have taken to letting the air out of SUV tyres, an act that borders on criminal damage but that’s designed to provoke serious thought. Gigantic geopolitical unrest on one side, climate change on the other. What odds would you get on internal combustion becoming socially unacceptable within the next decade?

32.5mpg, 202g/km CO2

GOOD STUFF

S-Class makes every journey a sublime experience, and it’s unexpectedly efficient.

MILEAGE: 12,750 OUR MPG: 33.4

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1598cc, 4cyl turbo, FWD, 201bhp, 203lb ft 40.4mpg, 158g/km CO2 0–62mph in 6.2secs, 143mph

0–62mph in 4.9secs, 155mph 2,065kg

Andy Franklin There is an insane amount of tech in the Skoda Enyaq – some great and some well, quite frankly, annoying. The main annoyance being seat weight sensors. The driver’s seat senses when there is weight on it and turns the ignition on; when you are off the seat, the ignition goes off. But if you are a featherweight like me and are turning in your seat to reverse onto your driveway, the Skoda suddenly drops out of gear and stops in mid flow – all because I have had to raise a butt cheek to spin in my seat to look backwards. It’s infuriating. It also switches off if you get out of the car quickly for something, annoying you and your passengers. A technology we just didn’t ask for...

SPECIFICATION

SPECIFICATION 2999cc, 6cyl turbo, AWD, 429bhp, 384lb ft

This month: the Enyaq’s unnecessary safety features

car superhero. But this month we see if it has those genes from the off, or they were miraculously borne from the car equivalent of a radioactive spider bite. See, you’ll have nearly as much fun in a regular Fiesta as an ST, and you’ll spend less in the process. But what about a regular i20? The black car you see here isn’t quite base spec, it’s an i20 N Line. At first glance it has the visual clout, with most of the i20N’s body kit. But there are crucial differences. Rather than 18s on Pirellis, the N Line gets 17s and Hankooks. No LSD or extra welds here and there’s a 1.0 turbo 3cyl instead of a 1.6 4cyl. The drive shows just how talented affordable superminis have become. Refinement is astonishing, the little 3cyl engine responds well, and the gearshift is neat. Build your speed out of town and the chassis remains unflustered, but what it never really serves up is outright fun. The N Line is a wholly likeable Peter Parker, but our red N is the full Spider-Man.

BAD STUFF

The optics of running a big limo have suddenly become sub-optimal.

1,220kg

MILEAGE: 6,923 OUR MPG: 42.3

GO TO

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BMW M3 Competition xDrive REPORT 6

£78,425 OTR/£95,370 as tested/£1,640pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE The M3 has gone 4WD. Is it good enough to steal sales from the RS4?

DRI VER Rowan Horncastle

“YOU’VE GONE TOO EARLY!” ADMITTEDLY, I’VE HEARD THAT BEFORE.

But not normally from a colleague. But that’s what Tom Ford slid into my DMs to tell me when he saw that I was in a workshop having the M3’s Michelin Pilot Alpin 5 winter tyres swapped back to more ‘T-shirt and rosé weather’ Pilot Sport 4 S rubber. Have I made a mistake? Is my internal barometer wildly off? It sure as hell feels like the right time; mornings are getting semi-bearable, the M3’s incredibly useful automatic temperature sensitive hand and arse warmers have stopped ticking on every time I fire the engine up and I’ve seen at least one daffodil. So, it MUST be spring. And that means it’s time to shed the winter tyres before they start eating themselves alive. As we were given the opportunity, I’ve not just changed the tyres, but also the wheels. So it’s out with the all-black multi-spokes (which aren’t actually configurable on the M3 online configurator but suit the subtle wine-red paintjob really well) and in with the 19in/20in (the wheel sizes are offset, remember), bicolour black double spoke-style 826 M forged alloys. They’re the standard wheels, but if you pay £300 more there are three slightly different designs to choose from. And if you pay £800 on top of that you can have them shod in Cup 2 rubber. Which we’ll be doing just before the car goes back.

While I let someone else far more qualified and capable swap the wheels it gave me an opportunity to snoop around the underbelly of the M3. And it’s fascinating how much hidden componentry and technology is buried away in the undercarriage. Including a low and vulnerable radiator in the chin that now has me terrified of sleeping policemen. But it helped me appreciate why the price is now so high as there’s a hell of a lot going on underneath there than just some additional drive-shafts.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

2993cc, 6cyl twin-turbo, AWD, 503bhp, 479lb ft

Safety and security the xDrive offers means in a British winter you’re fine without winter tyres.

27.7mpg, 234g/km CO2 0–62mph in 3.5secs, 155mph 1,855kg

MILEAGE: 3,259 OUR MPG: 27.5

BAD STUFF

Swapping tyres with ceramic brakes is a nerve-wracking affair without the proper gear.

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Citroen C4 GOODBYE

£26,605 OTR/£27,200 as tested/£321pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is this the comfiest family car you can buy?

DRI VER Sam Philip

ALORS AU REVOIR, CITROEN CALME . AS THE CHILLED LITTLE C4 TAKES

its languorous leave, time to consider our six months in its company. Which has been, as the French say, un sac mixte. Actually that’s not fair. Less un sac mixte, more un sac entirely lovely but just a little totalement baffling. Because the way the C4 goes, I love. Not because it’s a fizzy, engaging drive, but because it really isn’t. Citroen promised a driving experience all about the comfort, nothing about the sportiness, and it’s delivered. No, my sole issue was, and remains, the shape. Not its surface design, but its silhouette. The whole coupe-SUV schtick. I know it’s the trendiest new trend, but in a car that’s all about the comfort, is it really necessary? An X6/Cayenne Coupe profile is almost understandable in a car with vague sporting pretensions, but the C4 doesn’t have vague sporting pretensions. It doesn’t have any sporting pretensions. It’s for the buyer who is, if anything, less thrusting than your average crossover buyer. The sloped rear doesn’t only pinch headroom for those in the rear, it also limits the usability of the boot. And treats you to a rear screen with a spoiler right through your line of vision, and no rear wiper. Maybe there’s some real-world benefit to the squished roofline. Citroen says it helps to “express the aerodynamics” of the vehicle, but is unforthcoming about precisely what expression that might be. Maybe

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it’s a visual nod to the glasshouse of the old Citroen GS. But mostly I fear it’s just there to look funky. Whichever way, it all adds up to a car which, while lovely to drive, feels – to me at least – a little confused about its purpose. Ultra comfy... apart from at the rear. And maybe I’m in the minority prioritising bootspace over a slinky silhouette. But if so, how about a C4 estate for us untrendy, practical minded souls, Citroen?

SPECIFICATION 1199cc, 3cyl turbo, FWD, 129bhp, 170lb ft 44.7mpg, 131g/km CO2

GOOD STUFF

Android Auto worked a treat, it was more stable than in any other car I’ve tried.

0–62mph in 9.4secs, 130mph 1,278kg

MILEAGE: 8,870 OUR MPG: 42.1

BAD STUFF

Mileage wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped from a 1.0 3cyl. Not that aerodynamic, then?

PORSCHE 992 911 REPORT 6

£84,870/£93,646/£1,010

WH Y I T ’S HERE Can ‘the only sports car you’ll ever need’ turn its hand to anything?

911 NUGGETS

DRI VER Ollie Marriage

HERE’S THE CHALLENGE. IF YOU

drive a car towards good roads you’ve got that to look forward to. But when you leave, you get the good stuff, then hours of motorway trudge. It’s a bittersweet feeling. But I’m not sure I’ve ever driven any car that delivers a better blend of entertainment and ability across those two areas than the 911. How Porsche has developed a rearengined car to have turn-in every bit as impressive as its traction out is staggering. On the good stuff it’s polished and engaging with a depth of engineering that makes you realise all other sports cars are deficient in one way or another. Then you get to the dull stuff, and the quiet satisfactions make themselves known. Base hi-fi and headlights that perform like top-end options. Brilliant visibility, lovely interior design and quality, the driving position, seat comfort and the frankly wonderful Heritage Design corduroy mean this is a car I relish on motorways almost as much as good roads. It’s just such a brilliant all-round car.

Standard hi-fi punches well above its weight. No need to upgrade here

Land Rover Defender REPORT 2

£51,295 OTR/£74,146 as tested/£1,004 pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE To live the life most Defenders can only dream of

DRI VER Simon Bond

MERE WEEKS OUR DEFENDER HAS BEEN WITH US, AND IT’S ALREADY Nor here. No ceramic brakes option on a standard Carrera. Regular stoppers are superb

Interior filth offends me more than exterior. Time to engage the vacuum

Just me, or do the tailpipes look a bit clumsy? You can have them in black. For £548

on its second roadtrip to Scotland. So determined are we to shed the King’s Road connotations that with the spirit of adventure in mind and Met Office weather warnings ringing in our ears, we threw caution to the, er, wind, and hammered up the M6 in the middle of Storm Eunice. Up front, this is a very comfortable place to swallow the miles. Additional reach on the wheel wouldn’t go amiss, but the seats are comfortable and the well-judged throttle, brake, and gearbox calibration cossets you into a relaxed driving manner where you simply can’t be bothered to force the Defender out of its comfort zone. As we turn off the arrow-straight A68 for Northumberland’s back roads, the 90 delivers chuckles where rivals simply wouldn’t. You hustle it, rather than place it – managing mass and body roll to maintain momentum wherever possible – and it’s enjoyable. Just don’t forget how much it weighs – this is a car that asks a lot of its brakes. Snow arrives north of the border and it’s time to play with the tech. In a world of touchscreen madness, LR has got this right. Big chunky dials for the aircon and heated seats. No-nonsense buttons for the various driving modes. And a delightfully crisp, clean, and crucially unlaggy touchscreen for the fancy cameras and off-road fodder. The 360° cameras are witchcraft – and it’s fun watching the car lock and unlock the various diffs on the 4x4i screen as it reads conditions underfoot. Over 1,000 miles of motorway, B-roads and scenic rural villages, long-term mpg sits at 27.5. Not quite the 30 we were expecting – perhaps symptomatic of the weather and aforementioned aerodynamic hindrances. Next month: we go off-road...

SPECIFICATION

2981cc, 6cyl twin-turbo, RWD, 380bhp, 332lb ft

2996cc, 6cyl turbodiesel, AWD, 246bhp, 420lb ft

27.4mpg, 233g/km CO2

32.2mpg, 230g/km CO2

0–62mph in 4.2secs, 182mph

0–62mph in 7.6secs, 117mph

1,505kg

MILEAGE: 9,633 OUR MPG: 28.3

You’ll have to take my word for it, but the light bar looks awesome at night

GOOD STUFF

Clean, slick MMI interface, seamless CarPlay integration, big buttons for important controls.

2,228kg

MILEAGE: 1,863 OUR MPG: 27.5

BAD STUFF

A sliding rear bench would have helped with the tiny boot.

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POLESTAR 2

WHAT ELSE WE’RE RUNNING

REPORT 4 £45,900/£58,900/£660

WH Y I T ’S HERE Is it the thoughtful and better alternative to a Tesla Model 3?

REPORT 4

DRI VER

PEUGEOT 508

Tom Ford

On a recent trip to Courchevel, I needed to change the speedo from fro m mph to kph. After much

THIS MONTH IT’S ALL ABOUT

swearing, I eventually found how to

suspension and tyres – because as per predictions, I’ve been unable to leave either alone. Well, if you would give a person adjustable Öhlins dampers, then you jolly well better expect them to adjust them. Wheels off with the Continental SportContact 6 245/40 R20s, new wheels on with Nokian WR A4s in the same size and width. Twiddles with the dampers, much confusion involving left/right and counter versus clockwise, and yet, after an unthinking over-the-air update, the car now rides and grips much better, and has another 20–30 miles of real world range. Except I have no idea which tweak managed to improve things, as I’m an absolutely rubbish scientist. There’s more detail over on TG.com, but I’ve basically gung-ho’d my testing into one indecipherable mess of data which I cannot for the life of me figure out. Absolutely my fault, and nothing to do with the car, but now I don’t know what to recommend. So sorry. I’ll fix it.

do it. Possibly the most frustrating process ever, and not my first run in with this irritating infotainment. Peugeot’s idea of a foolproof system appears to be a hybrid mash of physical buttons and a touchscreen with more menus than you can shake a stick at. Daft. CR

REPORT 5

FIAT 500 It struck me recently, as I was avoiding yet another poorly executed driving manoeuvre, that the 500’s projected range figures are designed for a perfect world; a world in which people drive predictably, conservatively and efficiently. Even with the best will in the world, electric cars will always be outfoxed – at least right now – by humanity. VP

REPORT 3

NISSAN QASHQAI The Qashqai has recently spent a week in the car park at Heathrow airport. Which is fine. Except it would appear someone dragged

SPECIFICATION

a case along the top of its rear nearside doorhandle leaving an

Twin electric motors, 4WD, 75kWh, 405bhp

unsightly black line. Fortunately a firm rub with some cleaning fluid

3.3 miles per kWh, 299 miles

remedied the situation, but it

0–62mph in 4.7secs, 127mph

does make me cross. Why can’t people be more respectful and

2,188kg

MILEAGE: 8,543 OUR MPKWH: 2.6

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careful of others’ property? EN

Skoda Enyaq REPORT 3

£40,130 OTR/£46,850 as tested/£595 pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Can a bargain family EV convert an electric car sceptic?

DRI VER Andy Franklin

I’VE COME TO THE REALISATION THAT IN ORDER TO RUN AN ELECTRIC

car you have to be extremely organised when planning your charging and journeys. I thought my colleagues were just being dramatic, always thinking ahead. They were not. As soon as you don’t you’ll get caught out. A big help with this is having got a home charger installed. Before, I was having to leave my car in town to charge during the day or stopping on the way home to make sure I had enough charge for the next day’s journey. That, as I’ve hinted, involves being organised. But don’t be fooled (like I was) that installation is a quick process. In fact there are lots of checks needed before you can even consider one. I thought it would be as easy as having a smart meter fitted. Wrong again. Once you’ve bought your box, you have to send off photos of your fuse board and the accessibility of where you want the box. Then we had to have a two-hour inspection to check the amount of maximum load our fuse box could take, and the other devices you run affect that load. Still with me? I was on a 60A load management device and under my maximum so adding a 32A charger was fine. But if I had an electric shower, this would have meant I would have been near my limit and delayed the process. National Grid would’ve had to have given me a bigger cable in to my house. Cue digging up the drive. Ouch.

A few weeks later an engineer came to install the box, which took most of a day. Once he explained all the safety devices that are needed I actually felt quite reassured my house wasn’t going to burst into flames. The charging gubbins itself is controlled by an app – handy as I can link it to my energy tariff so I know how much I’ve spent. A wall box definitely alleviates one less hassle knowing the Skoda can be charged overnight ready for usage the next day.

SPECIFICATION

GOOD STUFF

Electric motor, 77kWh battery, RWD, 201bhp

Being able to charge at home takes a lot of pressure off having to plan ahead.

3.7 miles per kWh, 331 miles 0–62mph in 8.2secs, 99mph 2,107kg

MILEAGE: 9,517 OUR MPKWH: 2.9

BAD STUFF

Real-world range is still a long way short of what Skoda claims is possible on the WLTP figures.

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GO TO

TOPGEAR.COM FOR EXTENDED TG GARAGE REPORTS, AND TO EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE

Volkswagen Golf R GOODBYE

£40,025 OTR/£48,450 as tested/£390pcm

WH Y I T ’S HERE Can the fastest, priciest Golf finally make us fall for the MkVIII?

DRI VER Ollie Kew

IT’S BEEN A DIFFICULT CAR TO DIGEST, THE GOLF 8. IN ANY GUISE.

For so long the everyman benchmark, it’s now crammed with unforced errors and cost saving. Today, no Golf is the best car in its class. Need a boggo hatch? Get a Focus. Badge conscious? 1-Series. GTI? Nah, Focus ST. Clubsport? i30N and change, please. R? Probably the best of the bunch. More fun than an M135i or S3, faster and more composed than an A35. On merit, it’s a strong contender. But only once – every single time you start it – you’ve told it to revert in to your preferred drive mode. And waited for your phone to connect. And apologised to passengers as the lazy DSG and sticky electric handbrake lurch as you pull away. People say there’s no such thing as a bad car any more, because cars don’t routinely fail to start on cold mornings or expire in clouds of steam on hot afternoons. The MkVIII Golf R is mechanically reliably. It’s also hugely fast, refined, comfortable, well-equipped and practically packaged. By every metric, a very good car indeed. And yet, somehow, it’s not. Not a recommendably good one. Other premium cars annoy me less with their tech. Other hot hatchbacks are way more satisfying to drive. As an individual car, this R mostly behaved. There was a growing dashboard buzz as mileage headed past 10,000, but it handled winter without incident. It averaged 31 miles to the gallon, which isn’t brilliant.

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Because it’s a Golf, I often used to approach the R with an “it must be me, not the car” mindset, thinking we’d eventually ‘click’. But conversations I’ve had with Volkswagen engineers and insiders prove they know the MkVIII Golf is a massive misstep, and they’ve got work to do to rebuild our trust. As for the hot ones, the R is back to being overshadowed by the RS3s and A45s of this world, rather than standing proud as the refreshing sweet spot. For the R, cult hero status was good while it lasted.

SPECIFICATION 1984cc, 4cyl turbo, AWD, 316bhp, 310lb ft

GOOD STUFF

Very pacy in all weathers.

36.2mpg, 177g/km CO2 0–62mph in 4.7secs, 168mph 1,551kg

MILEAGE: 10,341 OUR MPG: 31.3

BAD STUFF

Awful infotainment ruins the car, dynamics no longer special enough to save the day.

EXHAUST BECAUSE KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO VOLVO

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, GREG POTTS

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

GO TO

TOPGEAR.COM FOR MORE MIND-BLOWING MANUFACTURER GUIDES

What’s Volvo, and when did it start making cars? Volvo founders Assar Gabrielsson and Gustaf Larson started building cars in 1927. Foreign cars couldn’t cope with their native Sweden and they wanted to build something safe enough to stay on the road. Bizarrely, their first car was the ÖV4, a cabriolet powered by a 1.9-litre 4cyl. Safety has always been a key philosophy, and the company is responsible for a raft of features we take for granted now. It invented the three-

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point seatbelt in 1959, the rear-facing child seat in 1964 and introduced head protecting airbags on all its cars in 1998. There are diminishing returns on such innovations though – the 2018 V60’s thing was beeping at the driver if it thought they were tired. But it all adds up to high scores on the Euro NCAP test. Volvo is known as Swedish, but hasn’t been properly pickled herrings since 1999, when it

was sold to Ford for $6.5bn (a 1993 merger with Renault was vetoed by shareholders). It was a mixed period, with the Blue Oval trying to juggle a number of luxurious new acquisitions. Hit badly by the 2008 recession, Ford offloaded Volvo in 2010 to Chinese carmaker Geely, for $1.8bn. It’s been a prosperous time, with a new engine range, shared platform to cut engineering costs, and a move upmarket with swankier cars.

EXHAUST

Volvo’s greatest hits

Volvo P1900

Volvo P1800 + 1800ES

Volvo 245 Turbo

Otherwise known as the Volvo Sport, the Fifties

A successor to the P1900 despite the non-

“The world’s first estate car with a turbo

P1900 was a glorious looking fibreglass-bodied

numerical naming strategy, the P1800 was a

engine,” claims Volvo proudly. The 245 Turbo

roadster. Volvo co-founder Assar Gabrielsson

wonderfully styled coupe that went on sale

arrived in September 1980, cementing the

was supposedly inspired by the Chevrolet

between 1961 and 1973. The ES version was

Swedish carmaker’s reputation as a maker of

Corvette, but it was so poorly put together that

even cooler – a two-door shooting brake

fine estates. We’ve been obsessed with fast

only 68 were ever built. Just look at it, though.

with an all-glass rear hatch.

wagons ever since. Great work, Volvo.

Volvo 262C

Volvo 480

Volvo 850 T-5R

The V6-engined 262C was actually designed

Yep, the 480 really was a Volvo hatch with

The limited run T-5R – along with its production

and built by Italian design house Bertone in

pop-up headlights. Launched in the late

successor the 850 R – is perhaps the most

Turin. Aimed at the US market, the gloriously

Eighties, it was the Swedish firm’s first ever front-

recognisable car from Volvo’s back catalogue.

kitted out coupe was initially only available

wheel drive production car. Volvo even had

It was a proper performance car despite the

in silver with its stumpy little roof wrapped

plans to make a convertible, but neither that or

boxy shape too – Porsche helped tune the

in black vinyl. Certainly striking, isn’t it?

the proposed targa passed the concept stage.

turbocharged five-cylinder to produce 240bhp.

Volvo XC90 V8

Volvo C30 Polestar

Volvo S60/V60 Polestar

Volvo – a fine purveyor of all that is safe and

Performance Concept Prototype

Polestar built another Performance Concept

sensible – really did used to sell an XC90 with

Before it became an EV offshoot, Polestar was a

in 2012, this time based on the S60 saloon. It

a burbly V8 engine shoehorned in. And a

proper race team competing in Swedish touring

could have been a proper BMW M3 rival with its

transversely mounted V8 at that. And yes, it transversely

cars. This C30 concept showed how good its

six-speed manual gearbox, Haldex all-wheel

was the Yamaha-built engine that Noble

engineers really were, with 399bhp from a Ford

drive system, Öhlins suspension and a 500bhp

also used at the time in the M600 sports car.

Focus RS-sourced 2.5-litre turbo five-cylinder.

straight-six. What a shame.

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FACTOID

What’s the cheapest car Volvo Volv vo bu builds... uilds and what’s what’s the most expensive? The baby Volvo is the XC40 SUV, built on the company’s CMA architecture, which costs just over £26,000 for the base spec Start model. The XC40 range goes up to around £60,000 for the full electric version. Technically the cheapest production car that Volvo sells is another EV, its S90 ride-on electric car for kids. It’s £398, but range is a miserable 2.8 miles. So probably not a practical proposition.

The most expensive Volvo is the XC90 SUV – specifically the £78,625 Ultimate Recharge version, so extravagant it has two engines, although one of them is electric. If you happen to be a VIP with a tendency to get shot at or blown up and you don’t want to be ferried around in the same tat as everyone else, then Volvo does do an armoured version of the XC90 that quietly starts at around £450,000.

Did you know that Volvo means ‘I roll’ in Latin? The company was originally a subsidiary started by Swedish industrial firm SKF to sell ball bearings in America, but never used. When Assar Gabrielsson convinced the bigwigs to throw some money behind building a decent Swedish car, Volvo was considered an ideal vehicle, as it were. The logo, a really old symbol for iron, was meant to tap into that industrial heritage and communicate the strength of Volvo’s car.

What is Volvo’s fastest car? Volvo and speed have never really gone together – no one needs max top speed when they’re shifting a wardrobe or driving through metres of snow in deepest brightest Scandinavia. That said, the firm did enter the British

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touring car championship in the Nineties, but it raced an estate car. If you do have a particular need for speed, the V90 Recharge T8 will get from 0–62mph in 4.7secs thanks to electrical assistance. If you’re

in a real rush, the S60 Recharge T8 PHEV gets you there in 4.6secs. Volvo has had enough of crazy top speeds, though, and announced back in 2020 that it would restrict all of its future models to a top

speed of 112mph. The Polestar sub-brand isn’t affected by the commitment, but if you’re driving one of these fancy electric vehicles you’ll probably want to keep it steady anyway in order to save a bit of juice.

EXHAUST

NOTABLE PEOPLE

Assar Gabrielsson Entrepreneurial cofounder was the business brains behind the outfit

Erik Larson Clever Swedish engineer was the mechanical impetus behind early Volvos

Roger Moore Quickest way to make Volvo cool was sticking The Saint in a Volvo P1800 in 1962

Where Whereare areVolvos Minis built, built,and and how how many many does areitsold build a year? a year?

698,693 You might think of them as peculiarly Swedish, but Volvos are built all over – in fact the company has had factories pumping out its motors in Belgium and Malaysia since the Sixties. There are factories in the US, India and Russia that cater for various local tastes, but controversially (for some, everyone else doesn’t really care) production of the S90 saloon was moved from Sweden to China with the latest generation version of the car. Gasp. Numbers wise, Volvo sold just under 700,000 cars in 2021, short of its target of 800,000 sales. Just under 26,000 of those cars were fully electric models.

What’s the best concept Volvo’s made?

Li Shufu Volvo’s flourished since Chinese billionaire snapped it up in 2010

Håkan Samuelsson Sensible Swede has made all the right moves in his decade in charge, retired this year

The 2001 SCC concept was a looker that previewed the C30 Coupe as well as a host of safety features, including a nifty lattice structure in the A-pillars. Perhaps the coolest (no, really) Volvo concept was the LCP 2000 from 1983, a car which tried to preview what we’d be driving

in the new millennium and got it largely right, thematically speaking. None of that flying cars nonsense, a sensible look at how carmakers would deal with environmental challenges. It was lightweight, used innovative tech and downsized engines to great effect. Also, rear passengers had to climb in through the boot.

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What’s been Volvo’s best moment?

What’s been Volvo’s worst moment?

Inventing the three-point safety belt in 1959 must have been a proud moment for the company, but we wouldn’t know because it doesn’t like to talk about it. Perhaps its best moment was when the safety-enthused funsters at Thatcham Research announced in 2018 that no one had ever died in an XC90 during the car’s 16 years on sale. From a road accident, at least, we can’t rule out assassinations or health-related complications... although there’s always the armoured version for the former. Another moment that wouldn’t have happened with any other carmaker other than Volvo was back in 2014, when the late Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad moved back to his home country of Sweden at the ripe age of 91, and quietly admitted that he’d only recently given up the 1993 Volvo 240 GL that he’d been driving since he bought it brand new. That’s just how those humble Swedes roll.

In 2010, Volvo invited a bunch of journalists and suchlike to its Gothenburg HQ to experience the majesty of the company’s emergency braking system, by firing an S60 at a parked truck. The S60 didn’t stop, much to the embarrassment of Volvo and the glee of the journalists present as it ploughed into the back of the lorry trailer. Volvo said the car had needed a jump start prior to the test, thanks to a flat battery, which somehow turned the safety system off. The crash test dummy was also blamed for ignoring in-car warnings. The company does have form in this area – on 13 April 1927, when its very first ÖV4 was set to be demonstrated to the press, as it rolled off the production line the engineer behind the wheel put the car into first and it went backwards. The story is that the differential had been fitted upside down. Whoops. Volvo launched to the world on 14 April 1927.

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EXHAUST

LOGO EVOLUTION 19 2 7 A dependable and businesslike first badge. Very Swedish

19 3 0

Ancient chemical symbol for iron, not meant to be phallic

What’s Volvo’s most surprising moment? With the company’s rather square image and equally square product line-up, when its 480 turned up in 1986 it was something of a shock to the system. The company’s more traditional 440 family saloon had been reworked into a sporty coupe number. It harked back to the golden days of the Sixties P1800 coupe and was supposed to show Volvo’s frivolous and exciting side – lightweight construction, angular styling and handling tuned by Lotus. How could anyone resist? And that’s before we even mention the pop-up headlights. Sadly the 480 wasn’t as successful as it should have been – partly a poor exchange rate with the US dollar that diminished profitability, and partly the fact that it couldn’t carry a washing machine or a wardrobe. Probably. It did the trick, though, paving the way for a sleeker Nineties look for Volvos – no longer frumpy, these things could occasionally be cool.

19 5 9 This is the one we remember off all those endlessly reliable estates

19 9 9 Ford bought Volvo in 1999, spent lots of cash on upgrading the logo

2014 Same but different under Geely ownership, a little less textured

2020 Latest version ticks the modern boxes: weirdly spaced, minimalist...

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EXHAUST

Now you’re a Volvo expert, it’s time to buy one... Volvo 850R / 1996–1997 / £5,000–£18,000 The Volvo 850 was sold between 1992 and 1997 in both saloon and estate car form under the traditional banner of Volvo practicality and extreme safety. This car introduced such exciting features as Swedish carmaker’s SIPS side impact protection system, side airbags and self-adjusting inertia reel seatbelts. Mmm, safety. But of course the really exciting model was the spicier T-5R, a limited edition toe in the performance water. That model was only on sale from 1994 to 1995, its presence dovetailed nicely with the 850 estate that was racing its way across Britain in the BTCC.

WORDS SAM BURNETT

P H O T O G R A P H Y J O NN Y F L E E T W O O D W I T H T H A NK S T O R I C H E L L S O N A ND T HE V O LV O O W NE R ’ S C L UB

What is it?

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In 1996 it made way for the real star, the 850R, and this striking red example that belongs to Volvo Owners’ Club member Rich Ellson. By 1997 it was time for a sleeker new generation of Volvo and the old guard was stood down in favour of the S70 and V70 models.

Driving

Thanks to the upgraded 2.3-litre five-cylinder engine with its 250bhp and 258lb ft that benefitted from some quiet Porsche tweakery, the 0–62mph run was dispatched in 6.7 seconds, although you’d be adding 0.8secs or so to that time if you’d opted for the automatic version of the gearbox, and the car was limited to a 155mph

Signed, sealed Positive Crankcase Ventilation system is prone to blocking and needs replacing to avoid damage to the oil seals

Belt and braces New timing belt needed every 70,000 miles or five years – one of those things that shows how the car’s been looked after

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top speed. The car you see here has swapped the auto for a more driver-friendly manual. The 850R benefitted from stiffer dampers and upgraded anti-roll bars for a more dynamic – and some might say unexpected – driving experience. In fact, one of the things that Rich particularly likes about this relatively unassuming modern classic is its ability to take others by surprise. He’s modified his car to run a little lower, but it’s still stealthy enough to fly under the radar.

Interior

The 850R seems quite petite these days, but it seemed fairly big back in the mid-Nineties

before SUVs took over the universe. By today’s standards it feels light and nimble, but the big sell was its magnificent practicality. What else could go this fast and still carry a washing machine in the back? If you wanted to, of course. Probably not advisable. The interior was a company car driver’s dream with its liberal splashes of black leather and suede, although the square dashboard was feeling a little on the dated side even in 1996. Even if it wasn’t particularly sleek, the 850R’s long-term iconic status was all but guaranteed by its short two years on sale, though, and the associate glamour of Rickard Rydell and his blue and white touring car racer.

Corrosion guarantee This 850R has been lucky (though not after this picture) – many of them suffer from rust issues

Off the boil If you’re off to test drive an 850R then a warm engine can be a telltale sign that there’s something worth hiding

Tread carefully Check the tyres for wear – the 850R is notorious for munching through its front tyres thanks to the prodigious FWD power

Next month: Jaguar

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

PRICE: £34,365–£37,465 RANGE: Up to 136 miles

PRICE: £33,805–£34,805 RANGE: Up to 189 miles

This TG favourite has retro styling and a brilliant interior, but it’s a smidge expensive and the range isn’t great. Somehow we can’t help but love it...

Remember when BMWs used to be cool? Well the i3 does. Perhaps the only model in the company’s range where everyone else will be tailgating you.

Renault hopes to bring a bit of va va voom (French for increased car sales) to its electric line-up with this larger electric Megane. Early signs are promising.

2. MINI ELECTRIC

2. PEUGEOT e-208

2. HYUNDAI IONIQ 5

PRICE: £27,000–£35,050 RANGE: Up to 145 miles

PRICE: £28,225–£33,875 RANGE: Up to 232 miles

PRICE: £37,420–£47,890 RANGE: Up to 298 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.

Hyundai’s newest addition is much bigger than it looks in pics, but comes with solid range, loads of space and a host of life-enhancing touches inside.

3 . F I AT 5 0 0

3 . R E N A U LT Z O E

3 . P O L E S TA R 2

PRICE: £23,835–£33,835 RANGE: Up to 199 miles

PRICE: £27,595–£30,495 RANGE: Up to 245 miles

PRICE: £39,900–£45,900 RANGE: Up to 337 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.

Undercover Volvo offers Scandinavian attention to detail paired with a level of build quality that would shame a number of much more expensive cars.

4. V W e-Up

4 . VA U X H A L L C O R S A - e

4. KIA EV6

PRICE: From £24,085 RANGE: 159 miles

PRICE: £25,805–£29,410 RANGE: Up to 209 miles

PRICE: £40,945–£51,945 RANGE: Up to 328 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 the Yorkshire-accented jokes that plague the e-Up.

A Peugeot e-208 in a Vauxhall suit – the EV’s gone fully mainstream. This is the one to buy if you don’t want anyone to notice you’ve taken the plunge.

It’s not just Volkswagen that can do platform sharing – Hyundai/Kia’s efforts are pretty solid. The EV6 is smaller than the Ioniq 5 but still massively impressive.

1 . R E N A U LT M E G A N E E -T E C H PRICE: £tbc RANGE: Up to 292 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

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 . S K O D A E N YA Q

PRICE: £33,230–£38,380 RANGE: Up to 206 miles

PRICE: £34,850–£47,035 RANGE: Up to 336 miles

PRICE: £69,905–£96,905 RANGE: Up to 380 miles

Wait, when did Peugeots become so desirable again? The e-2008 is surprisingly fun to drive and offers a chic interior with lots of nifty touches.

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...

A lovely cabin and it’s not too bad to drive – which is great, because inside the BMW iX is one of the few places where you don’t have to look at the outside.

2. HYUNDAI KONA ELEC TRIC

2. TESLA MODEL Y

2 . J A G U A R I- P A C E

PRICE: £28,950–£37,200 RANGE: Up to 300 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?

PRICE: £57,090 RANGE: 331 miles A Model 3 with more headroom and a seven-seat option. Latest Tesla gets usual blend of innovative disruption and occasionally iffy build quality.

The I-Pace is the electric vehicle you’ll want to show off to your neighbours. If they’ll listen to you. Decent range, solid performance and great looks.

3 . V O LV O X C 4 0 R E C H A R G E

3 . F O R D M U S TA N G M A C H - E

3 . A UD I e-tr on

PRICE: £43,550–£56,050 RANGE: 249 miles

PRICE: £41,330–£67,225 RANGE: Up to 379 miles

PRICE: £62,025–£94,925 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.

The Mach-E isn’t really a Mustang at all, or a men’s razor, but it looks pretty good. It’s definitely a Ford though, so relentless competence is guaranteed.

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 . V O L K S WA G E N I D . 4

4. BMW iX3

PRICE: £29,365–£30,495 RANGE: 201 miles

PRICE: £34,995–£56,380 RANGE: Up to 320 miles VW’s new electric SUV gets the basics right and offers impressive range – just depends which side of the buttonless interior fence you sit on, really.

Slightly stealthier than some of BMW’s more aesthetically challenging EVs, this car is essentially an electric translation of the bestselling X3 SUV.

We’re not exactly sure how to feel about finding a Vauxhall stylish, must be the pandemic strain. New Mokka-e gets PSA undercrackers, so it’s decent too.

1. BMW iX

PRICE: £65,245–£76,695 RANGE: Up to 286 miles

PRICE: £60,970–£63,970 RANGE: Up to 282 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 PRICE: £1.7m RANGE: 340 miles Brain-scrambling performance from the Croatian entry, and £1.7m might be a lot, but it’s a bargain next to the Pininfarina Battista that nicked its underpinnings.

BEST FOR DRIF TING You wouldn’t think the new Genesis GV60 SUV was a machine worthy of a spot in a Fast and Furious movie, but the electric car will do 0–62mph in 4.0secs in Sport Plus guise and has an actual drift mode.

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 PRICE: £72,850 RANGE: Up to 301 miles 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.

B E S T F O R B R AV E B U Y E R S Now EVs have all gone a bit mainstream, where does that leave plucky early adopters to take a punt on something new and risky? The charmingly odd Ora Cat from China’s Great Wall Motors, that’s where.

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.

3. TESLA MODEL 3 PERFORMANCE PRICE: £59,990 RANGE: 352 miles 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.

B E S T F O R S TA N D I N G O U T Typical, you wait for ages for a Toyota EV and... well, one arrives. The bZ4X’s name proves you’re not a robot and so does its bold styling. It’ll surely stand out on the school run. Unless everyone gets one.

In winter, keep plugged in until you drive away, as pre-warming the battery and cabin increases range. 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 . P I N I N F A R I N A B AT T I S TA PRICE: £2m RANGE: 310 miles The ideal plaything for a billionaire with a private race track. Maybe a spot too fast for everyday use, but you probably have another 10 cars on the drive.

B E S T F O R H O L I D AY R E N TA L S

avoids a recharging stop.

The Dacia Spring has a range of 143 miles and costs a smidge over £10,000 - we’ll take two, thanks. Only it’s not sold in the UK, so we’ll have to make do with getting one from an enlightened rental agency on our holiday.

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