Indholdsfortegnelse for Jan-23 i BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com I have said it before, but I’ll say it again – TopGear doesn’t do awards like everyone else. We don’t draw up a list of categories neatly defined by established body shapes and sizes, because automotive is an industry that refuses to be put into a box. Cars are constantly evolving; the moment you identify a cluster of them with identical form, function and propulsion and try to stick a pin in it, it’s too late, the market’s saturated and the world’s moved on to the next thing, the next out of the box idea. Far better, we say, to simply gather up the greatest new cars launched in the past 12 months, the gems that deserve every ounce of our recognition, and celebrate the genius in each…

This is the production spec Cadillac Celestiq EV. And already, there are a few things we feel we need to clear up. First, it’s hardly a production car: each Celestiq will be entirely hand built. And second, that rather puts us in mind of another car manufacturer who also just got through designing and developing an electric luxury car, and shall not be named. It’s only reasonable we start with the immense, elongated shape you see in these pictures: a huge, fastback, Kamm-tailed four-door riding on the wheelbase of your average school bus. Six pieces of cast aluminium are all it takes to build the entire underbody of the Celestiq. Cadillac hasn’t pegged down offcial power and torque numbers just yet, but the ballpark is about 600bhp, 640lb ft and…

Get the Lando look with these new APL x McLaren trainers, a bargain at a smidge under £600. Yikes. Looking rather striking in McLaren’s signature papaya orange, we’re told the trainers provide an “entirely new silhouette”, are “performance-focused”, and, um, are inspired by the “chic, streamline aesthetics” championed by the British supercar maker. Don’t think this is all a cynical marketing exercise though – the trainers do actually have a carbon-fibre plate that runs the entire length of the shoe and apparently “promotes forward movement”. Wonder if they’ve got a reverse gear too? athleticpropulsionlabs.com; £575…

1 IT SHARES ITS ROOTS WITH ROAD CARS The 499P has a 3.0-litre, twin-turbo V6 – the same architecture as the 296 GT3 and the 296 GTB road car the GT3 racer is based on. We’re not naive enough to suggest that every single part hasn’t been tweaked, optimised or flat out replaced, but there’s a link there we weren’t expecting. 2 IT’S GOT A HYBRID POWERTRAIN The Ferrari 499P’s engine is a stressed member (no giggling, now) and sends its 660-odd horsepower to the rear wheels exclusively. The front axle gets a dedicated 268bhp e-motor and uses a KERS system to charge the 900V battery up under braking. 3 IT’LL COMPETE IN THE LMH CLASS The 499P will compete in the Le Mans Hypercar or LMH class, which replaced…

£35,000 (approx) 1.2T 3cyl +e-motors 199 bhp 4spd auto 8.4 secs 61.4 mpg 104 g/km FOR Very quiet and economical in the suburbs, nice cabin AGAINST If you’re just looking for cheap space, this isn’t it Renault originally planned the Austral to be launched in 2021, but then switched the sequence and pulled the Megane ahead. Crossovers matter hugely for sales, yet for Renault’s self-identity and reinvention it was more urgent to get the electric hatch out there. In that lengthened interval between design freeze and launch, Renault got a new design director, Gilles Vidal. He didn’t change much. Inevitably the Austral struggles to stand out among a sea of other crossovers, especially in profile, but that said it’s handsome for its kind. It comes only as a full hybrid.…

£54,995 77.4kWh battery 321 bhp 1spd 4WD 5.1 secs n/a mph 320 miles FOR Efficiency and range, driving characteristics AGAINST Exterior design not as successful as Ioniq 5’s The Ioniq 6 has a drag factor of just 0.21Cd. That single fact encapsulates all you need to know about this car and its ethos. It’s a long range, fast charging, smooth riding cruiser. Lift off at motorway speeds and it barely loses any momentum at all, just continues carving near silent progress through the air. It’s a good trick. But more than that, it’s an interesting strategy. Underneath it shares underpinnings, including platform, motors and battery, with the Ioniq 5. It’s likely to be similarly priced too (so far this £54,995 flagship is the only version announced). And it’s a similar…

£231,885 3.0T V6 630 bhp 8spd DCT 2.9 secs 24.1 mpg 255 g/km FOR Fancy roof. Gorgeous looking, absorbing to drive AGAINST Character allows GT work but tiny boot doesn’t In a supercar, real roads often feel like a constrained dawdle. A dropped roof is a remedy, intensifying the passing of the scenery and the voice of the engine at whatever speed. The Cielo’s is a hardtop that retracts under a cover to lie horizontally above the engine. It doesn’t leave an ugly hump or take up bootspace. Mind you that’s just as well, because the boot is tiny to begin with – a huge shame given this is a car that invites long journeys. Retraction or erection of the fully electric mechanism takes a snappy 12 seconds. It can…

HYPERCAR OF THE YEAR “The Jesko” BANG “Absolute is the latest and” BANG “greatest hypercar to come from” BANG “the sizeable mind of Christian von” WU-BUP-BUP-BUP-BUP… BANG “Koenigsegg.” Cut there, let’s go again… Delivering a simple line to camera in anything with a healthy amount of horsepower, under full acceleration, is an acquired skill… in the Jesko it’s pretty much impossible. It’s not the ferocity of the g-force squeezing me against my seat like a giant potato masher that’s the problem, I can cope with that, it’s the ninja reflexes required to click the upshift paddle before colliding with the rev limiter that’s proving tricky. So we keep going, run after run, until my brain, eyes, ears and right hand are suffciently recalibrated, a perfect launch is in the bag…

Finally. This is the first of TopGear’s annual awards issues since we’ve been, broadly speaking, unshackled from COVID-19. After nearly three years of restrictions, you will imagine I’ve been busting to return to driving top-end hypercars in exotic locales. Frankly not, actually. I’ve missed most sorely the ordinary stuff: being among people I like, in places we know, doing the comfortingly familiar but being sure to do it well. As the world emerges from under the terrifying pressure of one crisis, others are lining up like a hail of meteors to take its place. These are unnerving times. Which surely urges your priorities away from the fantastical. Yet there were a dozen squillion-pound limited edition hypercars launched on the lawns of Monterey Car Week this summer and they left me…

Everyone in the car business loves the Range Rover. The original was a jumped-up farm though we should acknowledge 1962’s Jeep Wagoneer here, designed by a man called Jim Anger – but across 50-plus years it has become the lodestar for luxury. That’s certainly how JLR’s chief creative offcer Gerry McGovern sees it. Gerry and his team have reached a point where they’re in complete command of what they do and how they want the Range Rover to look and feel. The result is spectacular, not just in design terms – it’s an automotive superyacht – but also as a demonstration of the company’s engineering chops. It’s notably aerodynamic for a big SUV, with a drag coeffcient of 0.30 and a smoother frontal area. The panel gaps and shutlines are…

You wait ages for a storied marque to build you a pumped-up sports car with armoured wheelarches stuffed with gnarlier tyres, then two come at once. Porsche has been threatening to give the 911 some ‘Allroad’ treatment for a while now, having built a functional ‘Safari’ concept using the old 991-gen car, but it’s finally going mainstream with the 992, using the 476bhp AWD powertrain from the sweet spot Carrera GTS. Apparently the 650bhp Turbo S drivetrain is tricky to keep cool in the desert… The Dakar is a limited run of 2,500 cars at €222,000 a pop – before you option the official (wind tunnel tested) spotlight infested roof-rack, the jerry cans (is Porsche allowed to call them that?) and the Rothmans tribute livery, nodding to the Dakar Rally…

“ONLY HONDA WOULD CHOOSE TO LAUNCH A VERY HOT, FRONT-WHEEL-DRIVE HATCHBACK AT THE END OF 2022” Now go and watch the video on BBC iPlayer Some of you will remember motoring journalist and beard enthusiast LJK Setright. He was a celebrity car writer long before anyone had made a television programme about the horseless carriage. His writing was hugely complicated and he held some controversial opinions. He advocated very fast driving on public roads, he preferred automatic gearboxes back when they were mostly crap – but he was rightly viewed as having very eclectic tastes that he backed up with insight and knowledge. Which is why people like me found it baffing that he liked Hondas. Because for most people Honda just made rather boring cars for people who retired…

We would all like to think that in these more enlightened and progressive times that we live in something approaching a meritocracy. The cream rises to the top and all that. Discounting for a moment the fact that modern politics has vaporised the notion on a molecular level, we’d surely all live in hope that everyone gets to shoot their shot. Take this 1990 concept car, which started as a Jaguar and finished life as a Daewoo, that quirky Nineties footnote. Sometimes the cream is deceptive, merely a sludgy mess that bobs around near the top for a bit before sliding back down to the bottom. You have to applaud the nerve of the car though, for while it might have been badged and shown off as a Jaguar, this…

AN XM? I’VE NOT SEEN ONE OF THOSE FOR AGES You and us both. Citroen’s luxobarge pedigree began with the DS, followed by the CX, and then this, the XM. Launched in 1989 and styled by Bertone, one of its key selling points was its self-levelling, electronically controlled hydropneumatic suspension that promised a silky smooth ride. Despite winning plenty of plaudits from the automotive media, sales suffered due to perceived unreliability issues, and it was quietly phased out 11 years later. WHAT’S THE CAR ON THE LEFT? The first executive saloon from Citroen’s luxury sub-brand, the DS 9 launched in 2020 and is here to take the fight to its premium German rivals. Design-wise there’s much chrome trim plus several nods to DSes of old, including those cornet-style lights on…

HELLO £129,750 OTR/£150,050 as tested/£3,272pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can the most powerful M car be a proper luxury car? DRIVER Rowan Horncastle I’LL SAVE YOU THE LAZY “HELLO M8” GAG AND GET STRAIGHT TO FIRST impressions as that’s all I’ve got given our latest inmate – a range-topping £150k, two-tonne BMW M8 Competition – only arrived two days ago. To the cynics, this M8 Competition is an M5 Competition in an 8-Series body. To the pragmatists, it’s a solid and reliable competitor to an Aston DB11. To the three separate delivery drivers who catcalled the car on my way home, it’s “very, very nice”, “meaty” and “sick”. I tend to agree with them. If you’re a bit confused by the ever-growing BMW M range, you may be confused by what…

REPORT 5 £18,745/£19,640/£313 WHY IT’S HERE Can the cheapest MPV cut the TopGear mustard? DRIVER Sam Philip EARLIER THIS YEAR, EURO NCAP awarded the Jogger a dismal single star safety rating, a score that seems to scream, “Keep your precious children a million miles away from this death-box!” But it’s not so simple. The Jogger returned a four-star rating for adult occupant crash protection, and three stars for child occupants. It lost marks, however, for a lack of active safety equipment: it doesn’t offer lane keep assist, pedestrian detection, or seatbelt warnings for the rearmost seat row. Dacia says it’s about priorities. “We are serious about passive safety [crash protection],” Dacia boss Denis Le Vot told TG recently. “But there is a whole thing about active safety. We know that people…

GOODBYE £51,295 OTR/£74,146 as tested/£1,004pcm WHY IT’S HERE To live the life most Defenders can only dream of DRIVER Ollie Marriage IF YOU’VE READ THESE REPORTS SINCE THE DEFENDER FIRST ARRIVED back at the start of this year, you’ll be aware of the issues we’ve had. There have been a lot, from water sloshing in the sills, to aircon packing up, to loss of power, to coolant leaks. At times it’s been a pain in the arse. But none of us wanted this day to come. Because we’ve loved running this car. But the quality and reliability issues need to be eradicated. They’re not acceptable. We did over 14,000 miles in this D250, and shadowing every single one of them was a fear that something would go wrong. We’re car…

REPORT 4 £60,645/£71,689/£749 WHY IT’S HERE Does the concept of a lightweight dissolve on contact with Real Life? DRIVER Ollie Marriage I’VE MADE A PLEASANT discovery about the A110S. On the motorway, other cars get out of its way. And they do so willingly, promptly and politely. This has nothing to do with the way I’m driving it, I hasten to add. Or perhaps everything. Let me explain – because I have a theory. The A110S is extremely effective at being seen. Not simply because it’s bright orange, but because it has one of the strongest light signatures of any car. The four hollow circles of light are a very noticeable graphic in the rearview mirror. So they catch the attention, but then the driver in front sees that they’re attached…

It all started quietly in 1904, as engineer Henry Royce met a potential new business partner. He’d run a crane company then branched out into new-fangled cars. The other fellow was Charles Rolls, a minor aristocrat and motoring enthusiast who started one of the UK’s first car dealers in 1903. The first Rolls-Royce was unveiled at the Paris Salon in December 1904, and Rolls-Royce Limited was established in 1906. Charles Rolls became the first person to die in a plane crash in the UK in 1910 – he was only 32. Royce carried on the company, expanding into plane engines in World War One and snapping up rival outfit Bentley in 1931 after it foundered in the Great Depression. R-R itself went into liquidation in 1971 – the government bought it…

A Rolls is about effortless pace, sure, but you still want to be comfortable while it’s happening – sportiness has never been a priority. Still, the firm needs to appeal to the kids (rich Chinese ones, that is, who buy McLarens and Rolls-Royces as their first cars), which is how the racier Black Badge editions of its cars came to be. The speediest one is the 624bhp Black Badge Wraith. It doesn’t look quite so promising on paper, with a 155mph top speed and a 0–62mph run of 4.5secs. Then you remember it’s a 2.5-tonne coupe designed for cruising to the Med. We did have our fingers crossed that the recently launched Black Badge Ghost might have been able to one-up the Wraith, but given that it’s only playing with…

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Have you tried explaining the metaverse to an elderly relative? A multi-dimensional digital world is a big leap from looking up your grandchildren on Facebook. And you can’t blame Grandma – even the eggiest heads in Silicon Valley can’t agree on what the metaverse will actually be like. But with uncertainty there is opportunity, and watch companies don’t want to miss out. Soon we are going to be encouraged to spend increasing work and leisure time in a place that is going to feel a lot like a giant video game. And freed from real world restrictions, we’ll all soon be able to own a £100k watch and a million-pound car, right? Not exactly. Speaking to insiders, one thing they agree on is the importance of maintaining brand value. So…

“ ENERGY PRICES ARE KILLING EVS” Spiking electricity prices have brought a spate of screaming headlines: “Shock – charging an electric car is as expensive as refuelling a diesel.” Yes, on average, the electricity price has gone skyward. But it’s still easy to travel cheaper per mile than diesel, and actually the public charger price is falling from its peak. Like the diesel price, which you might have noticed also had a convulsion. Actually you could have done an ‘electricity dearer than diesel’ trip any time in the past three years. Underlying all this is the extreme – and extremely upsetting – variability at any given time of electricity prices. The dearest high power DC chargers, Ionity, have been 69p/kWh since they began trading three years ago. That’s well over 20p…

I’m standing at the Paris Motor Show looking at a brave new green car. All I can think is, I might be wrong here but too often the cleverest ideas turn out to be the dumbest. The car in question is branded NamX. It’s a biggish electric crossover that’s been designed by Pininfarina. Not a great start, mind. Of the few new cars at Paris, most were also biggish electric crossovers from startups who’ve used the otherwise underemployed Italian carrozzeria. So far then, so unexeptional, even if the NamX looks more distinctive than those others from Wey, Vinfast, BYD, et cetera. The real NamX difference is that it’s powered by electricity from a fuel cell rather than a battery. And what’s even more different is that beyond the main fuel…

£34,465 1.5T 3cyl hybrid 211 bhp 1spd CVT 7.2 secs 43.5 mpg 147 g/km FOR Most of the pleasure of EV motoring with none of the pain AGAINST Powertrain gets distractingly noisy on occasion The Nissan X-Trail has always suffered something of an identity crisis. The MkIV sheds its crossover pretensions in favour of added SUV chunkiness and also boasts a self-charging, electric motor drive powertrain – and shares the same platform as the Renault Austral on the previous page. In this case, Nissan’s gently novel e-Power system relegates a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine to the sole job of charging the 2.1kWh battery, while power is provided to the front wheels by a 150kW electric motor delivering a peak output of 201bhp. We’ve already seen this e-Power system in the…

£209,000 4.0 TT V8 657 bhp 8spd auto 3.3 secs n/a mpg n/a g/km FOR This thing can be seriously hustled on a track AGAINST Expect to see some ‘unusual’ personalisations allelunga, about 20 miles north of Rome, is a tight and technical track, and the fact that we’re here at all in the new Lamborghini Urus Performante – all 2,150kg of it – is a testament to the company’s belief in its fast selling super-SUV. What’s new? Well, the Urus Performante’s drivetrain now features a fourth setting on its Tamburo drive controller, in addition to the familiar Strada, Sport and Corsa modes, called Rally. This reduces the ESP threshold and uses the torque-biasing rear diff to fire more drive to the fun bit of the car. The results are…

ALPINA B4 GRAN COUPE £79,900 FOR Supremely smooth, hugely comfortable grand tourer AGAINST Big-booted B3 Touring costs £900 less 3.0TT 6cyl 488 bhp 3.7 secs 28.0 mpg 229 g/km To create the B4, Alpina uses a modified example of the M4’s twin-turbo straight-six, with smaller turbos that spool up at lower revs. The result is more power than a standard M4 and way more torque than the full fat M4 Competition. There’s classic 20-spoke Alpina wheels and a fresh bodykit too. That hefty torque figure helps it feel warp speed quick and the recalibrated gearbox fits the B4’s relaxed-butrapid character. AUDI RS5 COMPETITION £n/a (not on sale in the UK) FOR Slender spoked, lighter wheels look quite smart AGAINST Still utterly embarrassed by any rival 2.9TT V6 444 bhp 3.9…

The motor show is dead. It was already drunkenly swaying on its feet and coughing up blood before the pandemic, but lockdown handed carmakers a useful cost-cutting case study. Does not spending millions on a poncy display stand, peppering it with grinning droids in matching outfits and twirling turntables bearing the latest showroom models make a blind bit of difference to how many new cars you shift? Or how many hits your website gets? ‘No’ appears to be the answer, and motor shows are having their life support switched off at the wall. Apart from Geneva. That’s now being hosted in Qatar. Because the only way to make an event less dignified than not bothering at all is to lace it with a human rights furore. You’d expect the concept…

TOY OF THE YEAR LEGO TECHNIC FERRARI DAYTONA SP3 Sure, it’s a £390 Lego set, but you’re building a £2m Ferrari that’s already sold out, so you’ll have to be pragmatic about getting into ownership. It’s one of Lego’s largest sets, with 3,998 pieces. Buy it for the kids, but don’t let them touch it. Much like the real Daytona SP3, the Lego version of the exclusive Ferrari is hand built by the finest craftspeople using carryover parts from other models in the company range. Unlike the Lego version though, Ferrari’s finest craftspeople won’t spend upwards of 20 minutes howling through the house when they realise they missed a page and built the door wrong. The model Ferrari comes complete with a V12 engine that has moving pistons, a working…

On the one hand a large pickup truck appears ripe for EV is perfect for cradling an enormous slab of lithium-ion, plus a porky kerbweight isn’t going to scare anyone off. Oodles of EV torque is ideal for towing and hauling and having power points scattered everywhere is spectacularly handy. But there’s a problem – the pickup truck is a symbol of simple, affordable, dependable transport. Range and charging limitations, plus the cost of batteries, start to erode at those pillars immediately. But in America, where they vacuum up pickup trucks at an alarming rate, that’s not even the biggest issue. There, the pickup represents freedom: a full tank of gas, a V6 or a V8 slurping away happily and anything’s possible. To huge swathes of Americans replacing their engines is like…

FORD MUSTANG (2005) Price now £4,500 Harris says Yes, you really can get a Ford Mustang in the UK for less than 5,000 Great British pounds. It will have to be a fourth-gen SN95 with the base spec 3.8-litre V6, though, and that means just 145bhp… CHEVROLET CAMARO (1994) Price now £6,000 Harris says You could have a fourth-gen Camaro with the then-new LT1 V8 engine and a six-speed manual gearbox, but unfortunately at this price on our shores you’re looking at a V6 and a four-speed auto. Hmm. DODGE CHALLENGER (2009) Price now £12,499 Harris says OK, it might only use a 3.5-litre V6 and it might have 131k miles on the clock, but just look at it. This is a current-gen Dodge Challenger for less than a pint…

GOODBYE £55,435 OTR/£61,955 as tested/£690pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is the Q4 e-tron superior to its VW Group siblings, or just pricier? DRIVER Jack Rix IT’S SIX MONTHS SINCE WE RECEIVED THE KEYS TO AN AUDI Q4 E-TRON – plenty of time for it to leave us stranded on the hard shoulder, to have a major electrical meltdown or for various bits to be pulled off and chewed by two snotty urchins. But no, its battery hasn’t once run dry, all systems have functioned faultlessly, and it’s still glued and screwed together. For our family’s requirements, it’s been ideal multigenerational transport. In many ways, the Q4 e-tron is a blueprint for how far the modern electric car has come. Because it’s based on the VW Group’s dedicated MEB platform and not a…

REPORT 7 £94,000 OTR/£115,670 as tested/£2,259 pcm WHY IT’S HERE This is BMW’s techno flagship, what’s it like to live with? DRIVER  Jason Barlow DID YOU KNOW THAT BMW’S ‘i’ SUB-DIVISION WAS COMPLETELY off-the-books at the start? It was overseen by an engineer called Ulrich Kranz – who subsequently went to EV startup Canoo and is now heading up Apple’s eternally gestating car project – and it really was secret squirrel for a while. I recently caught up with Kai Langer, now head of BMW i Design (and part-time musician), who was one of the few who knew back in 2008. “We all saw it was the opportunity of a lifetime,” he says. “It was like being in a speedboat running alongside a huge ship.” “What was a shock back then…

GOODBYE £19,400 OTR/£21,925 as tested/£273pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does relentless all-round competence get boring? DRIVER Vijay Pattni OUR TIME WITH THE HUMBLE FABIA IS UP, AND HERE’S WHAT WE FOUND. Throughout the course of your life, there will almost certainly have been those friends you turned to when life got a bit chaotic; the dependable and trustworthy aides who’d always have a kind word and a cup of tea ready. Surprise: the Skoda Fabia is that friend. And throughout the course of our time with the Czech company’s humble little supermini, we’ve warmed to it. Took a bit of time, mind. Because at first, despite being a ‘Colour Edition’, it wasn’t exactly shooting out rainbows. Ours came with the chirpy little 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo matched to a six-speed manual gearbox.…

HELLO £32,995 OTR/£33,820 as tested/£410pcm WHY IT’S HERE Maybe the best family hatch – just as everyone stops buying hatches DRIVER Ollie Kew LOOK AT THE STATE OF FAMILY HATCHBACKS RIGHT NOW. FORD ISN’T going to replace the Focus. VW has wrecked the Golf and builds its deadliest rival: the ID.3. You can’t buy a Kia Ceed at the moment, because Kia is funnelling all its precious semiconductor chips into more profitable Sportages and Niros. With parts shortages, price rises and the general trend towards crossovers, the humble family hatchback is being cruelly left to wither on the vine. Yet, whirring silently onto the battlefield comes hope in the handsome shape of the new Honda Civic. A hatch that Honda proudly says stands a smidge lower than the intensely ugly old…

Rolls-Royce 10 hp After meeting in May 1904 to discuss a potential business deal, Charles Rolls and Henry Royce were all ready to unveil their car by Christmas. The 10 hp became the first car to be given the Rolls-Royce badge. Built in Manchester and sold exclusively in London, it was priced at £395. Rolls-Royce Corniche Sold in both coupe and convertible form, the Corniche arrived in the early Seventies as a two-door iteration of the Silver Shadow. Handbuilt by Mulliner Park Ward, it really was the height of luxury. The Bentley version was the precursor to today’s Continental GT. Dakar Corniche In 1981, Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier took on the Paris-Dakar Rally in this. With a Chevrolet V8 under the lengthy bonnet and the chassis from a…

5,586 BMW might have bagged the Rolls-Royce name for a mere £40m back in 1998, but Volkswagen took the firm’s historic Crewe factory and all the tools. It meant building a bespoke new facility on the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex (the Duke of Richmond’s garden). In a nice turn of events it’s a mere 10 miles from the charming seaside village of West Wittering, where Henry Royce moved in 1917 until his death in 1933. The firm’s 2021 sales of 5,600 cars might not look very impressive, but it was a 49 per cent increase on the pandemic-strangled 2020 numbers and the company’s best ever year. Largely thanks to sales of the Cullinan SUV. Rolls-Royces are all still meticulously hand built, so getting 20 cars a day out of…

Rolls-Royce Phantom VII /2003–2016 With the seventh generation of Phantom, BMW managed the impossible task of successfully summing up all that was great about Rolls-Royces while also dragging a fusty relic into a new era – the previous version of the Phantom was on sale from 1968 to 1990. The nameplate represents the very best of the luxury that Rolls-Royce has to offer, an idea especially seeded with the fourth generation of the car that was launched in 1950. It was only offered to the likes of buyer who really deserved it, like royalty and other heads of state. Indeed, the car given to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in July 1950 is still in use by the British royal family, and Charles III has been seen out in it…

Look carefully and what do you see? Seriously, lean in close and take a good look. Do you see… a car? If so, Volvo thinks you’re wrong. Well, not wrong. But only half right. Because this is the all new, all electric EX90. And while it’s very much a seven-seater SUV, Volvo reckons it’s also “a highly advanced computer on wheels” that marks “the start of a new era” for the Swedish firm. Which is big talk indeed. So let’s dig in. Volvo is promising one new electric car a year as it targets EV-only sales by 2030; the EX90 is the first, and it’s the flagship. That means better everything, and more of it for good measure. Enter state of the art cameras, radar and lidar, all hooked up…

WRC Generations Generations might seem like an odd name, but it’s because this is developer Kylotonn’s last hurrah before the official licence switches to EA Sports. The philosophy, then, is to cram just about every car and special stage the team has ever produced into a single game, including eight full events that aren’t even on the 2022 calendar. Your next rally ending accident could well be colliding with the kitchen sink. The problem is, there’s not actually a great deal of new stuff. The 2022 hybrid formula adds a slight new wrinkle, but for most mortals good stage times are far more likely to come from keeping your eyes on the road than fiddling with engine maps. The physics model has been improved and there are a handful of…

Korean GP, Yeongam Korea is hardly renowned as a motorsport destination, and the Korean GP, held from 2010–2013, didn’t help matters. The circuit was barely finished in time for the inaugural race, and plans to build a city around the circuit never happened. F1 hasn’t been back in a decade. European GP, Valencia The now-derelict Valencia street circuit was so boring that in 2009, not a single on-track overtake was recorded at the European GP. Usually that only happens at Monaco. F1 woke up from this utter snorefest and binned it from the calendar for 2013. Have you missed it since? Thought not. Indian GP, Greater Noida Another mid-2010s Tilkedrome that failed to become a household name, the Indian GP lasted from 2011 to 2013. It had wider corner entries…

Maserati. The definitive grand touring marque. No other brand lends itself better to the idea of driving a long way, fast, and looking cool while doing so. And now it’s gone electric. Famously not good for going a long way at high speed. But who uses a GT to do that any more? (If you do, don’t panic, Maserati is here to help. Keep reading.) This is the new GranTurismo Folgore. When it arrives next year, finally replacing the last gen coupe that died three years ago, it’ll be the marque’s first pure EV. Folgore (it roughly translates as lightning or thunderbolt) versions of the MC20 supercar and Grecale SUV will follow soon after. All Maseratis will have an electric version by 2025. By 2030 there will be no more…

£108,305 101.7kWh battery 536 bhp 1spd AWD 4.7 secs 149 mph 388 miles FOR Drives beautifully, incredible refinement, world beating interior AGAINST Some of the tech is overwhelming, it’s heavy, debatable design BMW’s sixth pure electric car is cunningly disguised as the all-new 7-Series. This is the seventh generation of the company’s rangetopper but the rules have changed. There will be petrols and a diesel, but the electric i7 moves centre stage as BMW reframes the luxury car experience around onboard well-being, a class leading digital experience via its new OS8, and standard setting sustainability. And also a huge rear entertainment screen that folds out of the roof. Who doesn’t love the idea of that? The 7-Series’ new look is not as crowd-pleasing. The internet seems to think this is…

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Let’s be completely honest here: the Toyota GR86 being in the quagmire of filth that is 2022 was not exactly a hold-the-front-page internet-breaking shock. I’ll be even more honest and say I didn’t even set off to drive it back in May with a completely open mind. I yearned for it to be fabulous. I expected it to be great. I demanded it fixed the obvious flaws with the GT86 – TG’s 2012 Car of the Year. And 10 years later, the GR86 did indeed hit the spot. On its wider tyres, it sits with a less gawky stance than Toyota’s previous entry-level RWD coupe. The body is the same size, but the details are prettier – particularly the tail and that bold side skirt swoosh. Inside, the native Toyota touchscreen…

Food up. Heating up. Rent up. Even if people are now buying and all that, they’re being killed by the stuff they bought last year because they bought it on credit and the interest rate is up. If they’ve any money left over after that massive cascade of punches, they probably won’t be in the mood for extravagance. MG isn’t as good a badge as VW. But an MG4 is as good a car as a VW ID.3. It really is. It’s newer, and newness matters with electric cars because we’re still in their infancy. The MG4 is on an all-new rear-drive platform, and MG says there’ll be four-wheel-drive high-performance versions to come, if people can spend more. But, as established, for the moment many can’t. So the base MG4…

“WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT IS A GRAVEL-SPEC HURACÁN RALLY CAR, OR WHAT AMOUNTS TO A HURACÁN SAFARI” Automotive product cycles often mimic real life – they begin noisy and full of hope, spend some time maturing, settle into the solid mediocrity of middle age and then quietly slip away into obscurity, gently shuffed from price lists. But supercars tend to be a bit different. They’re the playboy uncles and aunties of the car world, the ones that grow old disgracefully, get drunk at weddings and wear inappropriate clothes. Cars that gain don’t-give-a-damn lucidity in the palliative care ward of the automobile. The truth is, imminent replacement frees up creativity both in terms of remit and accountancy, and allows for specials that are truly worthy of the name. Take the Lamborghini…

“AT THIS POINT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA THE HOURS THAT HAVE GONE INTO IT” The art of downplaying a situation is critical for denying its actual severity. This could be as simple as the ‘little’ bit of kerbing which has transformed your wheel into something from The Flintstones, or it could be the crippling hangover after telling your loved one you’d only had a few drinks. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to this in the Skyline GT-R handbook, starting with fuel consumption before rapidly increasing to full engine issues. Chapter 3.2 reads “In the event of oil starvation, instruct other enthusiasts that it is likely just a sticky valve and shouldn’t cost much to fix”. Chapter 3.3 continues “For engine rebuild number two, suggest simply that the noise is…

ARCADE, 1988 As a kid who was approximately a decade away from holding a driving licence, there was no greater thrill in the late Eighties and early Nineties than slipping into the bucket seat and gripping the steering wheel of an arcade racing machine. But in spite of the ostensibly authentic set-up, it’s fair to say that most arcade racing games were about as realistic as our chances of winning Strictly Come Dancing. Way back in 1988, Winning Run by Namco was a rare exception to the rule. There was no mollycoddling with chase cameras where you have a commanding view of the track ahead, this game crammed you into the cockpit of an F1 car and forced you to get on with it. Technologically, the game was astonishing for…

GOODBYE £31,995 OTR/£33,870 as tested/£519pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can a van with windows triumph as an EV? DRIVER Andy Franklin IN CASE YOU HADN’T NOTICED, TOPGEAR IS BACK ON THE TELLY, some 20 years after the ‘new’ show started with Clarkson, Hammond and Dawes. In fact, it’s exactly 20 years as I write this report… and can you guess what the first car to be reviewed by Clarkson was? Yep – the Berlingo. So, I thought what better way to say goodbye to the e-Berlingo than to look back on that film and see how far it has come. “It’s a curious looking thing,” he starts off, and this one is arguably even more curious, a bit Marmite even. And in those days it was cheap, really cheap. They found a…

REPORT 5 BENTLEY BENTAYGA HYBRID Does our Bentayga suffer from anxiety? I’m starting to think so. Actually, given the light bruising I’ve suffered from how much the seatbelt pre-tensioners have gone off recently, I know so. Its inner prang is partly down to ‘Safeguard Plus’, part of the £6,480 Touring Spec. It’s one of the many onboard tech features to improve safety by autonomously braking and putting the car in the brace position if it thinks there’s an accident about to occur. Shame it thinks every delivery moped going past you is an accident, and bollards are pedestrians. RH REPORT 5 DS 9 Another report, another set of motorway trips. This is where the DS 9 absolutely excels. It is so smooth, so easy to drive, so stress-free that even…

REPORT 2 £47,290 OTR/£53,730 as tested/£734pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s the stepping stone to Jaguar’s all-electric future DRIVER Charlie Rose SO, I’VE FINALLY MANAGED TO SWIPE A SPACE AT THE ONLY ON-STREET charger outside my flat. It’s a 5kWh Ubitricity charge point located in a streetlight. Does this mark the beginning of my journey to a fully EV lifestyle? Well, it’s complicated. For the first few days I was using the car without plugging it in and getting 31mpg, not great. So you’re going to want to plug in. However, if you’re one of the 30ish per cent of homes in the UK without access to off-street parking, you’ll need to rely on public charging infrastructure. This is where the complication sets in. Brimming the E-Pace’s 58-litre tank will set…

GOODBYE £46,035 OTR/£49,400 as tested/£659pcm WHY IT’S HERE It’s the bedrock of Volkswagen’s all-electric future push DRIVER Paul Horrell “IT GETS US FROM A TO B.” WHEN THIS IS ALL SOMEONE CAN SAY OF their car, they shrug apologetically. Yet any vehicle’s first and fundamental calling is to bring its human and material cargo to the destination reliably and safely. Over the course of its 6,000 miles with us, the ID.4 cleared this bar, and that’s not something we can always say of the cars we run. It’s actually quite a desirable object when standing still. I don’t find it pretty but you might. Inside, the upholstery is deluxe, and the minimal design of the screen systems looks progressively minimalist. Familiarity didn’t change those opinions. But as I grew to know…

A Rolls-Royce purchase falls firmly into the category that’s marked, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” Still, entry to the Rolls-Royce owners club is a bargain at £249,600 for the four-door Ghost saloon. It’s basically a Mondeo for the super rich, complete with star-lit interior headlining, open pore wood veneer trim on the dash and seat trims made from cows soaked in baby lotion from birth. The most expensive car on the Rolls forecourt is the Phantom limo, which starts just under £400k and rises to… well, whatever you can afford if you go crazy with the bespoke options. Still, if you’re filthy wealthy and money isn’t so much of an issue you’ll go for something like the Boat Tail, a special edition Rolls limited to just…

Made to reassure oligarchs that ultra luxury can still exist in the future, the Rolls-Royce Vision Next 100, or 103EX as it is known internally, is 5.9m long, 1.6m high, and powered by four in-wheel electric motors. The 28in wheels don’t immediately promise a sumptuous ride, but suspension is probably a lot better in the future. Its particular treat on your arrival is the light display designed to set your ego aglow. As you slow, the grille and bonnet mascot begin to light up, spreading around the wheelarches and down the sides of the doors. The glass canopy, door and step deploy, and a red carpet is projected on the pavement. Bit much for popping to Tesco. What was Rolls’ best moment? The firm has had a long history, but…

CITY CARS These small cars are perfect for urban life, but the trade-off is a much lower range 1. HONDA e PRICE: £36,920–£38,120 RANGE: Up to 136 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… 2. FIAT 500 PRICE: £30,645–£36,645 RANGE: Up to 199 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. 3. V W e-UP PRICE: From £24,085 RANGE: 159 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…