Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2020 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

WHO KNEW Cars aren’t the only product placement here, note five glimpses at the Omega Seamaster on Bond’s wrist in the trailer 1 The Aston Martin DB5 is back, and it’ll skid Just look at the ol’ timer get thoroughly, gloriously sideways in one of the trailer’s earliest moments. Looks a little worse for wear, mind. Does this mean it’s been trashed and rebuilt again, before being trashed? Come on DB5, this is – ahem – no time to die. 2 There’s another 00 agent and she looks like a total badass who drives a DBS Superleggera Thought Bond had the monopoly on Aston Martin’s very coolest toys? Oh no. There’s another 00 agent along this time around, and she’s got impeccable taste in super GTs. Oh lordy, this is…

Mercedes proudly states that this – the new GLA – is the eighth different model in the company’s compact car line-up. Eight. Crikey. The first example of the jacked-up A-Class breed was a resounding success, though, so it’s no surprise to see the new version sporting a similar exterior. There’s a new face, of course, which brings the GLA into line with the rest of the brand, and the top-of-the-range GLA 35 gets the universal AMG grille to distinguish itself. There’s certainly a bit more of an SUV stance than the previous generation too, especially with that chunky plastic cladding, but there’s also more of a coupe-like roofline. Merc does say that the GLA will do SUV things – any specced with 4WD will feature an ‘Off-Road Engineering Package’ as…

01 Paramount Group Marauder Built in South Africa, the Marauder was a military-spec vehicle that could be bought by Joe Public – so long as you passed the background check… Along with machine gun and missile launcher protection, it could save its occupants from an anti-tank mine. 02 Rezvani Tank Another TG fave – the Rezvani Tank has recently undergone a model update. You can now get the 1,000bhp s’charged V8 from the Dodge Demon and electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) protection, so you can happily livestream the apocalypse from the inside. 03 Trasco Aston Martin DB11 Don’t fear, this list isn’t just purpose-built, tank-like things – some want their protection to be less conspicuous. Not that you’d blend in while driving a DB11, but it’s a start. This has enough armour…

What should we call them? It was a debate raging in the office as locations were scouted and a photographer booked. Saloupes? Coupaloons? We ought to have a name by now. The Mercedes CLS effectively launched a whole new niche of car when it first melded the saloon and coupe worlds back in 2004, looking like an E-Class that’d been for an eyebrow wax and a mani-pedi, and it’s accrued a swathe of rivals since. A diverse trio of which you see here. Newest of the bunch is the BMW 8-Series Gran Coupe, a car approaching its sub-genre from the opposing direction of the CLS, given it’s a 2+2 with an extra set of doors. It’s here in 840i trim, using the 335bhp 6cyl turbo engine also found in the Toyota…

“YOU NO LONGER FEEL LIKE YOU’RE SAT ON A SPACE-HOPPER IN A TELEPHONE BOX” £19,200 FOR Best-looking, best driving, most grown-up Corsa yet. Well done, erm, Peugeot AGAINST Cabin already feels behind the times Pub fact: this is the second new Vauxhall Corsa dreamt up in the last three years, but the only one you’ll ever actually see. See, two and a half years ago, with a new Corsa design firmly agreed and production ready to kick off, Vauxhall-Opel was bought out by Peugeot-Citroen, just as the old GM-owned version had signed off its new Ford Fiesta rival. Whoops. Vauxhall had to start all over again. Only this time, the instructions were in French. Many of the oily and electrical bits under this much more handsome body are shared with…

£28,150 FOR Plug-in options, high-tech interior that actually works AGAINST Pricey once you head for the nicest trims. Firm(ish) ride Oh yes, it’s another dinky SUV. But it’s hard to be angry at something wearing the face of a robotic chipmunk. The 2008 is an aesthetically interesting thing all round, really, looking like it was designed from the off as an individual model. As opposed to the old one, which was like a 208 carrying Christmas weight. This new one looks big, and indeed it’s longer and more commodious than before. And, like its DS 3 Crossback cousin, with a minor USP to it. As well as the usual handful of petrol and diesel options, there’s a fully electric e-2008 in the range that simply slots batteries and motors beneath…

“THE GR IS NEVER A YOB, NEVER ANGRY OR BITEY” Yes, one of TopGear’s most anticipated new cars is a Toyota Yaris. Allow us to also recommend the music of up-and-coming entertainer Cliff Richard and be the first to note the popularity of cordless telephones appears to be on the rise. A Yaris. Not so much the last car to drive before you die as the last car you’ll drive before you die. But this is a Yaris by Gazoo Racing, the motorsport skunkworks embedded in the Toyota mothership. In recent years, Gazoo has (finally) won Le Mans, promised a new road-going hypercar to match future 24hr racing rules and claimed the World Rally Championship. Now it needs to homologate a three-door Yaris for the next-gen rally regs. Problem is,…

I’M WATCHING KAZUNORI YAMAUCHI, FABLED CREATOR OF THE GRAN TURISMO SERIES,’Ring. You’re on public roads with oncoming traffic and grunting and straining while pushing a full stack of weights. Not what I was expecting when I signed up to a tour of the new Polyphony Digital offices in Tokyo with the great man as our guide but, hey, you’ve got to go with the flow. “Because our work doesn’t involve a lot of moving around, it’s useful to have this thing,” he says, gesturing around the employee’s in-house gym. “The reason I do this is training to drive GT3 cars – the brakes are heavier than setting this to maximum. You need to be able to push 120kg with one leg to stop a GT3 car properly.” He offers me…

In 1969, the Baja Boot raced the Ford Bronco in the Baja 1000. Exactly 50 years later, and one week after we drove the car, this duel was reignited as the new SCG Boot raced the new Ford Bronco in the 2019 Baja 1000. Just as Jim had intended, his road-legal race Boot drove down from LA to the start line. For the race, beefier, longer-travel dual shock suspension was used, a race box and a non-s’charged, 450bhp LT1 Chevy engine for reliability. All of which can be specced in your Boot if you like. The Bronco R prototype (testing the new engine and drivetrain for the road car) and Boot competed in their own class. As expected, both were pummelled by the terrain. But there was only one finisher.…

GOODBYE £28,330/£29,400 as tested/£290pcm WHY IT’S HERE Do crossovers work best when they’re determinedly anti-sporty? DRIVER Paul Horrell SORRY, I NEVER USED THE AIRCROSS’S ROOF RAILS IN THE WHOLE six months. So they were ornament rather than utility. Quite jolly, though, a subtle streak of red along their undersides to match the lipsticky rings around the base of the car. Anyway, no roof loads mean I guess I didn’t go to the absolute max with the crossover-enabled lifestyle. But I did carry a couple of bikes on a tailgate rack for several hundred miles, and fill the enormous boot, and fold and slide the rear seats for combinations of differently sized and numbered people and baggage. Nothing was too big or too awkward. TG can confirm this is a versatile…

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE, DARLING WHO: OLLIE MARRIAGE, MOTORING EDITOR At the Red Bull Ring for PCOTY 2015. “Ollie,” says Charlie, “Can you go and drive the P1 GTR round the circuit flat out? We’re going to get the Cobra gunship to chase you.” Real sentence, actually happened. What followed was the craziest 15 minutes of my life as 1,000bhp of hybrid hypercar battled the heli’s shock and awe. Couldn’t hear or feel the P1’s engine, as shockwaves from the down-draft thumped through my chest. By the way, the car was faster down the straights, the heli had it in the corners. DRIFTING WHO: ROWAN HORNCASTLE, DIGITAL EDITOR We had 15 minutes to bag what was a rather technical drift tracking shot for my first cover shoot. The…

As a general rule, avoid general rules. But here’s a safe one: branded race overalls should not be worn outside of a race circuit. Ferrari is a particular offender in this regard. The Ferrari press department loves nothing better than to issue photos of its drivers engaged in all manner of unexpected activities while wearing race-day Nomex: riding a log-flume, shooting a quick frame of pool, line-dancing. So: racing driver, driving his company car on the road, wearing company race overalls – that shouldn’t be a recipe for cool. Not even if that racing driver happens to be the never-corporate Nigel Mansell, and that company car happens to be a Ferrari F40. But the below photo is stone-cold cool. Thanks to one vital addition. That flat cap. YNBACA cannot think…

1 Bill Ford is known for for wanting to make the company more sustainable, but also for loving Mustangs. He said of the Mustang Mach-E that Ford can only now do a car that’s both fast and green. How is that right when others have done electric cars like that for years and years? I don’t think you’ve had a vehicle that has had all these attributes at the same time. It starts with who else had a Mustang kind of inheritance. 2 Isn’t this just about waiting until a time you can make money? Why else the timing – the end of 2020? Yes it’s also about positive contribution margin. But the real thing is about customer attraction. We know from testing that our customers are in love with…

THE GOOD Dark Metallic grey and I’m set Mike Mockus THE GRILLE IS BIG INDEED BUT SOMEHOW ACCEPTABLEKalo If Iron Man turned into The Hulk, this is the car he would drive Hari Gopalakrishnan LOOKS LIKE THE RS3’S STEROID INJECTED BIG BRO JUST ROCKED UPChris Oxley Oh yes!!! Sign me up brother! Daniel Gray THE BAD When you cross a thoroughbred racehorse with a giraffe Tony Barnett FUN FACT: In Portuguese Q8 (Q oito) sounds a lot like “coito”, which means coitus! Silvio Silva Looks better than Urus, worse than DBX… Subarno Sinha THE UGLY KERMIT WILL LIKE IT, MORE SUITED TO MISS PIGGY WITH THOSE LOOKSFred Bassett Doesn’t matter whether you badge it Aston, Audi, Lamborghini or Bentley, SUVs are making the car utterly boring Steve, Alexander As driven…

People worry about the idea of driving an electric car through a deep puddle. I guess they’re not being wholly irrational. What are we doing here? Taking a high-voltage system capable of running big current, and dousing it in water. Stand by for the mortal peril of a slasher-movie hairdryer-in-the-bath scene. Except a hairdryer involves naked wiring. A car doesn’t: it’s all fabulously well insulated, end-to-end, top-to-bottom. Hybrid cars, remember, also carry high-voltage batteries and motors, and they’ve been running around some of the world’s rainiest areas for years. I once tested a Lexus 4x4 by repeatedly sploshing through muddy fords up to the sills. The car was fine and I’m still here. By the same logic, then, you don’t have to spend Sunday morning cleaning your EV with baby…

£28,000 est FOR The body and mechanics are as sorted as you’d expect. Specced carefully it’s great to drive AGAINST The compulsory glass cockpit feels gimmicky. No actual fuel and CO2 numbers yet Like the start of the football season, a new Golf always seems to come around sooner than you expect. Here we are then: the eighth. The Golf is the lingua franca of the hatch world, universally understood. Although it’s always bang up-to-date, each generation is an evolution, with few surprises. No Golf buyer ever had to respond to someone saying, “You’ve bought a what?” Something’s different here, though. This generation of Golf lies at a crossroads. At the same time as it hits the streets, VW launches the ID3, a mass-market electric car that you can own…

“IT’S FAR BETTER-STEERING AND BETTER-RIDING THAN THE TESLA” £88,747 FOR Usefully cheaper than the Turbo, not much less fun AGAINST To be at its best, needs chargers the UK doesn’t yet have The Taycan 4S is a lot of things. If you spec it up to the nines, it’s nearly a Turbo. The main difference is a smaller rear motor. Still, we’re talking a hardly lame 571bhp in launch-control mode. The front motor is the same as the Turbo’s, and you get the same 93kWh battery, and the two-speed rear gearbox, and all the same optional chassis gewgaws. The ones that make it go down a twisty road something like a 911, even though its dimensions and weight are in the Cayenne ballpark. On the other hand, if you get…

SHELBY MUSTANG GT350 $59,140 FOR Modern. Sophisticated but an echo of simpler times AGAINST Not actually going on sale in UK In Mustang world, all the noise this year has been made by the GT500, with its 750 supercharged horses. And the electric Mach-E, though that’s not noisy. Yet the GT350 might be the pick of them. It’s lighter than the big bruiser, and feels it. Quick, of course, but the chassis matches it. It’s a pussycat daily-driver too. So… a coupe with a) nat-asp V8 that b) revs to 8,250rpm and c) has a manual transmission. Pity they won’t sell it in Europe. PH MERCEDES-BENZ GLB220d £42,685 FOR Spacious and versatile given its dimensions, quiet AGAINST Interior materials aren’t great. Cheaper alternatives Sensible money buys a Skoda Kodiaq. It’s…

Someone cleverer than I am will be able to explain why placing the steering wheel and the driver’s seat in the centre of a car’s cabin makes it feel so special. Why it tugs at the emotional connection between man and machine so much more than it really should. I can only really speculate, but the moment you pop the McLaren Speedtail’s dihedral door and shuffle over a passenger seat squab and then settle into the slender, solo bucket seat, the £1.75m price becomes irrelevant. Instantly, you are any of the things your inner car-child could possibly dream – a fighter pilot, a racing driver, a McLaren F1 wannabe. I did just this, and enjoyed a few moments placing my hands on the wheel and enjoying the symmetry afforded by…

If you’re an avid devourer of the Financial Times, you need to get out more, but you’ll be aware Aston’s stock value has been falling since it floated a year ago. It’s dicey times for the British company with ambitions to bring us multiple hypercars, mid-engine supercars and revive Lagonda as an all-electric Rolls-Royce rival in the next few years, on top of replacing its existing range. To do all that, it needs to shift more metal… enter the default prescription. The DBX isn’t just another new Aston – it’s a potential lifeline for the company, so it’s gone big. It’s based on a new bonded-aluminium platform, offered, initially, with a more powerful, 542bhp version of the Vantage’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo AMG-sourced V8. It’s also the first car to be built…

The other day, the 306 chalked up its thousandth mile since it got the kiss of life. It’s not much really. It’s probably done more miles on the back of a trailer over the course of the last seven months. And it’s certainly not much in the grand scheme of a car that had languished for several years with the odo reading 88,721. Nor when compared to the Bentley Conti GT it currently shares driveway space with – that’s piling on about 1,000 miles a week at the moment. The temptation is to sneer at people who have a second or third car that doesn’t do many miles. But at current rate, the 306 is set to do about 1,600 miles this year, which is nothing, yet I feel I’ve…

There are few sim racing games referred to with the same sort of hushed reverence as Grand Prix Legends. Emulating the 1967 season of Formula One, it transported you via the medium of simplistic textured polygons to one of the most romantic eras of motorsport. Romantic, because you were very likely to become intimately acquainted with the scenery. Grand Prix Legends was an extremely challenging game, with comically overpowered cars slithering around on cross-ply tyres. Given that most people will have been attempting to play it by pecking at the arrow keys on their keyboard as well, negotiating the high speed Masta kink at the old Spa-Francorchamps layout was hairier than Han Solo’s co-pilot. But it was intoxicating, because this was essentially a motor-racing time machine. For the first time,…

REPORT 3 £58,335 OTR/£74,755 as tested/£613pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is this the thinking family’s Bentley Bentayga? DRIVER Adam Waddell TF: In October 2019, 40 per cent of all cars sold in Europe were SUVs of one sort or another. That’s 484,400 vehicles that are probably a bit taller/bulkier than they need to be. The sales figures indicate that people really like ’em. And one in 10 of those SUVs sold was a VW. AW: Yes – funny how SUVs are the norm these days and you don’t find folk talking disparagingly about ‘Chelsea Tractors’ so much any more. Unless you’ve got a Range Rover Sport SVR. The thing is, with traffic and speed controls being what they are, I think the handling benefit that comes with a low centre of…

REPORT 5 £24,595/£25,385/£237pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is there life beyond the VW Golf? DRIVER Sam Philip & Tom Harrison SP: Changeover time. TopGear’s resident young bon viveur and Enthusiast Driver, Tom Harrison, has handed the Mazda3 to me, TopGear’s resident harassed parent of two small children, to see how it copes with the menial day-to-day. Cheers, Tom. TH: Just look after it, please – I’ve grown quite attached to it over these last months. You should’ve seen how distraught I was after I kerbed an alloy. SP: Ah. Yes. About that. It’s already suffered a prang. TH: I knew this was a bad idea. What have you done? SP: Not my fault. Got rear-ended by a new driver. As in, had possibly passed his test that day. Maybe he was…

This is our first official look at the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 – and it may just be the most aerodynamically advanced, not to mention exciting road car the world has ever seen. It is completely dominated by that 400mm fan, which protrudes from the centre like some form of sci-fi thruster. The fan, which Murray briefly introduced into F1 with the Brabham BT46B in 1978, utilises ground effect aerodynamics by rapidly accelerating the air passing under the car and forcing it through active elements on the rear diffuser. Its design – combined with the underbody ducting – means there’s no need for a skirt like the one on the BT46B, while ‘vertical inlet ducting’ stops any debris from passing through its blades. The fan is also active and works…

Oh, how we don’t envy Jaguar’s new design director, Julian Thomson. Improving most things styled by Ian Callum would be tricky at the best of times, but the F-Type – in coupe form especially – was already a fantastic-looking thing. Welcome, then, to the facelifted version. There are, of course, the obligatory new headlights – which now look angrier than ever – but there’s also a longer and lower-reaching bonnet, as well as a slightly larger grille, new side vents and a new rear light signature. It’s a far more aggressive design for Jag’s sports car, but it could be a polarising update. The stunning, sloping roofline remains, but both the V6 engine and the manual gearbox have been dropped. Jag previously offered eight (yes, eight) different engine and drivetrain…

Oh dear, why do they keep putting watches in the middle of a car magazine? Perhaps you flick past these pages because you don’t see what all the fuss is about. Fair enough – they look nice, but watches don’t do very much. They can’t perform burnouts or set impressive lap times. Other than a bit of ticking, a watch just minds its own business. Yet people can’t get enough of the things. This isn’t how it was supposed to turn out. Nobody predicted that countless companies would still be churning out clockwork watches by the millions. So how did things go so right? Watchmakers once held the fortunes of the world in their steady hands. Britain’s dominion over the seas was due in no small part to the invention…

Back in 2017, Swiss firm Rinspeed showed us the Snap concept – an autonomous taxi pod that could be separated from its skateboard underpinnings. Clever. Now it brings us the MetroSnap, which keeps the same idea but lets you swap the centre bit for a parcel delivery station or grocery shop, as well as taxis/vans. A small platform slides the new pod onto the empty skateboard, while cameras and sensors stop the whole process if anything gets in the way. Apparently, the new ‘Hot Swap’ process will allow the electric pods to be swapped within seconds, like a futuristic and extremely boring F1 pit stop.…

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FERRARI SF90 STRADALE ON SALE Mid-2020, around £400,000 DRIVEN BY Someone who has six other Ferraris Important thing, the SF90. Mainly because it’s Ferrari’s first plug-in hybrid. The fastest series-production Ferrari uses a heavily revised twin-turbo V8 giving 769bhp and three e-motors for a combined 986bhp, 0–124mph in 6.7secs and 15 miles of pure-electric range. Two of those e-motors are on the front axle, meaning the SF90 is also Ferrari’s first AWD two-seater sports car. It also gets a brand-new HMI, some very clever aero and idiot-proof driver assistance systems. OR WAIT FOR THIS!… ASTON MARTIN VALHALLA Valkyrie Jr will be limited to 500 cars and use a hybrid V6 HONDA E ON SALE Summer, from £26,160 DRIVEN BY Manga fans with home chargers Finally – after being revealed in…

The moment a sailing boat rises onto its plane, everything changes. It’s not just about the extra speed, intense though that is. Breaking through its own bow wave, the craft tenses its muscles. It’s more urgent to the tiller and sheets. Instead of moving in simple rhythm with the waves beneath, it skims, dancing, superimposing movements of its own onto your inputs. It’s no longer just you sailing; the craft gains its own animus. This is what happens when you’re on a good road in a fine mid-engined car. And the McLaren GT is one. Drive the same road in the Continental GT and you’re aboard a displacement yacht. One that has great seakeeping qualities. It eases through the swells and sets its course with reassuring quiet dignity. It’s your…

“IT’S NOT A DELICATE FLOWER. IF YOU FLIP IT ON ITS ROOF, DON’T WORRY. WE’LL JUST ROLL IT OVER AND KEEP GOING.” As pep talks go, this one is being filed under ‘encouraging’. I’m in the middle of the Mexican desert, sweating heavily into the underside of a five-point harness, having ratcheted myself down into one of the most bizarre-looking and perplexingly engineered road cars on the planet. With exposed bodywork, the headlight structure of a jumping spider, huge off-road tyres, supersized suspension and Tonka-toy dimensions, it’s all rather imposing. Especially as it wears a supercharged V8 engine like a teenager’s rucksack, has a roof-mounted snorkel and two Gatling gun exhausts straddling a full-size spare. It’s a visual assault. One that could easily be mistaken for some sort of childish…

Yes, we are romantics. And yes, we do love Alfa Romeo (almost) unreservedly. How can you not when confronted by a car like the Tipo 33 TT 12? Alfa (with its competition partner Autodelta) entered the Sports Car World Championship in 1967, and weighed in – if that’s the word given how light the car was – with a 2.0-litre V8. 1968’s T33/2 ‘Daytona’ was upgraded to a 2.5-litre V8, which revved to 9,600rpm (unforgettable, as anyone who’s ever heard one will attest). But let’s jump to 1973, and the TT 12. Because now we’re talking 3.0-litre flat-12 and 500bhp at 11,000rpm, designed by the great Carlo Chiti, and accessed via a five-speed manual transaxle complete with wooden gearlever. Once fully sorted, the car trampled the opposition underfoot, winning seven…

BOG-STANDARD, OR JUST UTTER TOILET? Oh, these are both terrific cars. The original Focus rocketed Ford to the top of the family hatchback class, with a practical, well-priced and competitively equipped box that was hugely enjoyable to drive. No Focus since has managed to look as crisp, but all of them have majored on bringing handling smarts to the masses. So, we love ’em. The MkIV’s ugly, but a really decent steer. CAN THE NEWBIE LEARN ANYTHING FROM GRANDAD? It can, in fact. Drivability is what separates this pair. See, the MkI Focus was engineered with far less stringent emissions tests in mind. That’s not to say it’s a petrol-bingeing refinery fire of a machine, but what you can tell very quickly behind the wheel is how the engine and…

REPORT 3 £24,145 OTR/£28,978 as tested/£315pcm WHY IT’S HERE Would you have a faux-SUV over a decently specced Golf? DRIVER Tom Ford AW: In the sense that they’re all just scaled versions of each other? Yes, they should just be called Small, Medium and Large. TF: My overriding feeling is that the T-Roc is lovely, but a bit… vanilla. It’s good at lots of the things I need to do. It looks expensive enough – I even like the radioactive child vomit Turmeric Yellow paint. The interior is well made, thought out and a touch funky with the body colour slab inside, and the driving experience is competent. It’s all good. Excellent, even. But it’s a bit middling for me – I don’t look back longingly after parking. Saying that,…

GOODBYE £37,975 OTR/£39,275 as tested/£551pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can you really have a proper family wagon and hot hatch in one? DRIVER Jack Rix MY BAROMETER FOR A LONG-TERMER’S SUCCESS IS THE DELTA BETWEEN expectation before it arrives and my attachment to it when it’s time to leave. On my soon-to-be-patented scale, the Cupra R ST can hold its head high. Of all the VW brands, Seat is the one that still struggles to find its identity, I think. Skoda has its defined place, so does Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Porsche, but Seat still feels too close to VW, the German brand’s more flamboyant, but flimsier Spanish cousin. Seat, and now its separate Cupra performance arm, will tell you it’s all about passion and emotion and flair and dynamics, but…

REPORT 6 £31,835 OTR/£36,185 as tested/£455pcm WHY IT’S HERE Meh first impressions. Can RenaultSport redeem itself over time? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle & Ollie Kew RH: The Focus ST is quite an ironic name. OK: Why? RH: Because it isn’t focused whatsoever. It’s distracted, if anything. It wants to please everyone: a design by committee. Whereas – in my opinion – a proper hot hatch should have a one-track mind and transport you somewhere as quickly as it can in the most engaging way, regardless of comfort. That’s why the Megane is better than the Focus ST. OK: All cars besides a BAC Mono are a compromise. A hot hatch should be the apex of the compromise – the practicality of a family shopping trolley but a giggle to hoon. You’re…