Innehållsförteckning för July 2023 från BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com If Ferrari is your annoyingly handsome overachieving cousin, and Porsche the naturally sporty sibling with multiple PhDs, then Lamborghini is the irresponsible uncle – too many drinks in, talking louder than necessary, on the brink of embarrassing but always the life and soul with a story to tell. What sticks out combing back through 60 years of Italy’s most consistently outrageous carmaker, is the variation. This isn’t a catalogue of hit after heavy hit, there are duds, moments of madness and driving dynamics from the Stone Age mixed in among some of the most beautiful and visceral motorcars ever made. Just to make sure, Tom Ford was dispatched to Sant’Agata Bolognese to drive the entire mid-engine V12 bloodline. It’s a tough job, etc. The thing is, as erudite…

THE GOOD Best looking 718 ever Hypercar It sounds strange, I know. But Porsche has made a beautiful car gvaley Cool Jena Thompson Baby Carrera GT? It’s beoootiful Marcus Joannou This is a dream build A.Smith THE BAD Young ’uns today, eh? Back in my day we called a Cayman wi’ no roof a Boxster! Forsh I’m thinking the roof was more inspired by a tent rather than a pleasure yacht Avantus Signum LOOKS LIKE THE 2005 MODEL AND THE 2010 MODEL AND THE 2015 MODEL AND THE… Stephen Gill Baby Carrenope, it’s not manual, skip Harry Sism THE UGLY I’d just love to have a pint with someone who has bought one of these. I bet they are ideal at parties… ciaran jefferies The roof is a joke… Travis…

Hesketh Racing may have only existed for six years in the Seventies, but the ragtag bunch of playboys driving Rolls-Royces wherever they went and working out of a converted stable block on Lord Hesketh’s Easton Neston estate made quite the mark on F1. This new book offers a proper behind the scenes look at the champagne fuelled outfit that brought James Hunt to the fore. With previously unseen photographs and documents from Lord Hesketh’s personal archive, as well as interviews with Hesketh team manager Bubbles Horsley and engineer Nigel Stroud, it’s the perfect antidote to the corporate world of modern F1. £89; porterpress.co.uk…

1 IT’S THE “FUTURE OF FORD” With the untimely demise of the the Fiesta and imminent departure of the Focus, Ford has been concentrating on bulkier, more American offerings… hence the new Tourneo Courier – a smaller van-with-windows sibling to the massive Transit and midsize Connect. 2 IT’S SUPER VERSATILE The Tourneo Courier has a raft of standard equipment including roof bars, hidden cubbies, practical seat fabric and boot pockets for dirty shoes (how thoughtful). Plus there’s plenty of space for stuff – with all the seats down, there’s 2,450 litres of storage. That’s more than the 2,205 litres you get with the seats folded in the VW ID.Buzz. Impressive. 3 IT HAS ALL THE TECH Like almost all new cars, the Tourneo Courier has a shiny screen the size…

BMW i7 xDRIVE 60 M SPORT £120,340/£154,395 as tested MERCEDES-BENZ S580e L AMG LINE PREMIUM PLUS EXECUTIVE £121,295/£121,295 as tested “HOW MANY YEARS, DECADES, HAS IT TAKEN BMW, AUDI ET AL TO REALISE THAT MIMICRY DOESN’T WORK?” It’s got a face on it, the BMW i7. Iron Man’s face. Narrowed eyes in an impassive metal mask bleak and tough enough to batter through brick walls. Handy, in a pursuit situation. It comes across not so much a luxury car as a modernist object. Rolling architecture, a mobile monument to controversy. You don’t even notice the grille. In M Sport guise it’s been absorbed into a mouthy morass that incorporates a full width biker’s tache. It’s the anti S-Class. Finally. At long last. I mean how many years, decades, has it…

£76,800 FOR The complete luxo-sports 4x4, and no longer gopping to behold AGAINST Dodgy hybrid brake feel, minor cabin own goals Some history: in 2002 Porsche revealed the Cayenne SUV. Purists recoiled. Children screamed. The Cayenne was undeniably ugly. It was expensive. It was a luxury SUV from a marque with no experience developing or building such a vehicle. In fact, half a decade earlier the whole company had bet the farm on the Boxster, and almost trolled its 911 faithful with the fried egg-tastic, water-cooled 911. So the Cayenne was doomed to fail, taking Porsche with it. What’s that saying about history being written by the victors? Two decades and 1.25 million sales later, the latest Cayenne’s been treated to a monster update under the bonnet, beneath the bodywork…

£61,570 FOR It drives better than a base Porsche Macan, brand image AGAINST Assertively priced, anonymously styled, no hybrid Porsche. With an Italian twist. Congratulations Maserati, you now understand yourself. Time to thrust that trident forwards, not use it to hook back at history. Forget the slow selling saloons, the world has an apparently insatiable appetite for SUVs, and the Porsche Macan (still) sells well, doesn’t it? You can almost sense the cogs turning at Maserati, but now, six years after big brother Levante first appeared, events (and platforms) have conspired to give us the Grecale. It’s based on the same bits as the Alfa Stelvio and Jeep Grand Cherokee (see page 49) and comes in three guises: GT, Modena and Trofeo. The slow one is the sweet spot. Despite…

Ferruccio Lamborghini was a psychic. He is reputed to have said, when first presented with a particular design just before Christmas in 1965, “I like this one: it’s going to earn us legendary status.” Turns out, he was absolutely right. That car was to become the mid-engined Lamborghini Miura. A car so advanced, so fast, technically impressive and aesthetically pleasing that it evolved language itself to describe it. It became known by contemporary journalists simply as a ‘supercar’ – a portmanteau not used before. A legend not born, but made. Maybe Ferruccio even knew that from that genesis, the word supercar would expand to encompass such variety. But in the world of Lamborghini, no matter what other model ranges have come to pass, it still rings most true when preceded…

“IN THE ITALIAN SUNSHINE, IT’S SIMPLY A GOLD DIABLO LIVING ITS BEST LIFE” Probably what most would consider a ‘modern’ Lambo V12, the Diablo was pretty hardcore when it first appeared at the beginning of 1990. Furnished with a modified version of the same engine that powered the last Countach, it featured fuel injection, but still came with rear-wheel drive only and a distinct lack of driver aids. In fact, power steering only appeared after 1993, the same year the VT (viscous traction) all-wheel-drive version broke cover. Make no mistake though, this wasn’t a 4x4 – a viscous coupling punted up to 20 per cent of available torque to the front axle in extreme circumstances. These are the Diablos that provided ‘reputation’. Perhaps the biggest change was the arrival of…

The Revuelto is both an end and a beginning for Lamborghini. An end perhaps, for the unadulterated V12, the purity of acoustic. But the beginning of electric – and a new way to deliver the same song. Because this is a car that may well have a 3.8kWh battery and three electric motors – one in the front and two at the rear – and it may be a Lamborghini that drives through a modern eight-speed double-clutch gearbox, but it is also very much a Lamborghini V12. There’s still a 6.5-litre V12 buried under the rear glass, good for 814bhp at a ridiculous 9,250rpm. But it is now supported and enhanced by electrons to give even more instant throttle response and a combined output of 1,001bhp. It may not have…

Hair care SW has the mutton chops of a man who spends 11 hours a day propping up the bar in a Yorkshire pub, but he wears them with confidence Suits you Always impeccably cut, usually blue. Lately SW has toyed with more playful double-breasted jackets. Often leaves his shirt cuffs undone Watch it Study the watch page of TG carefully, you’ll s want to find the largest possible timepiece you can. Stephan’s are often visible from space All in the wrist Get those gap year beads from Bali out of the attic, because the Winkelmann look isn’t complete without bangles and wrist things…

1968 ISLERO Sandwiched between the Miura and Countach, the Islero isn’t just an unsung Lambo, it’s one of the great below-the-radar cars of the Sixties. Founder Ferruccio Lamborghini favoured it, as did Brigitte Bardot, and what it lacked in extroversion it made up in unexpected nuance. Only the fourth car created by this still-young company, the chiselled modernism of its shape was the work of Mario Marazzi and Federico Formenti, formerly of premier Milanese carrozzeria Touring. Standout design attributes include an unusually high-mounted rear bumper and deep back window. The Islero – named after a bull that gored celebrated matador Manolete to death in 1947 – was heavily based on its 400GT forebear, but weighed 180kg less. A year after its spring 1968 introduction, an S version uprated the 3.9-litre V12…

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DAIHATSU MIDGET (1996) Price now: £2,575 Harris says: Yes, the name is offensive, but this single-seat, second gen Daihatsu pickup is the best thing we’ve seen in the classifieds in ages. Imported from Japan (of course) it uses a 650cc engine and 4spd manual box. HONDA ACTY (2004) Price now: £5,795 Harris says: This Honda Acty could carry two baristas and a couple of coffee machines in the teeny pickup bed. Or perhaps you should lean into the whole Japanese import thing and set up a bubble tea business? CITROEN ACADIANE (1984) Price now: £8,299 ex VAT Harris says: Fancy starting a posh mobile coffee stall that sells flat whites for £8 a pop? You’ll want this Dyane-based Citroen Acadiane, complete with beige paint and just 20,000 miles on the…

REPORT 4 £31,995 OTR/£32,790 as tested/£398 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Is Chinese domination of the small EV scene inevitable? We find out DRIVER Greg Potts THERE’S NO GETTING AWAY FROM THE FACT THAT THE ORA FUNKY CAT is an interesting looking thing. But having lived with the car for four months now, we’re really coming around to the way it looks. OK, so the rear end is a little bloated and the little bits of textured plastic on the cheeks of the front bumper make it look like a teenager with acne, but at least it has some character. That’s important for a new brand that’s trying to make an impact in a tough-to-break market, and Ora is fully aware that the jazzy looks won’t be for everyone. “It’s so much…

REPORT 4 £54,370 OTR/£54,990 as tested/£774 pcm WHY IT’S HERE  Is the vRS badge still relevant in the electric age? DRIVER Ollie Marriage THE ENYAQ HAD BEEN AWAY. I’LL COME ON TO WHY IN A BIT. IT COMES back, I drive it in and out of work, and stick it on charge at home that evening. At breakfast the next morning I check the Skoda app: it’s only added 12 per cent charge. Weird. I go and check. The charging port light glows red. Unplug/replug. No difference. No guidance from the owner’s manual beyond the usual patronisation. The Pod Point home charger isn’t the issue – I check that by plugging in a neighbour’s hybrid. I’ve got 30 per cent charge so I toddle off to a 150kW DC charger.…

GOODBYE £43,735/£45,100/£490 WHY IT’S HERE Can the Born succeed where other VW product fails? DRIVER  Tom Ford THAT’S IT. SIX MONTHS OF THE little red electric Cupra. It’s been an interesting few months, but largely positive, for the following reasons: it looks really very nice, the quality is better than that of the competition, it’s actually sporty to drive, it’s got all the space you expect from a car of this size, the big battery is worth it for the convenience, and it’s better than its ID.3 sibling. There are a couple of standout things that need to be addressed. One, it’s not hugely cheap. Current prices start at £36,475 for the basic 201bhp car with the 58kWh battery. A car like this one now starts at £43,735. That begins to…

REPORT 7 £129,750 OTR/£150,050 as tested/3,272 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can the most powerful M car be a proper luxury car? DRIVER  Rowan Horncastle TO QUOTE BMW’S OWN WEBSITE, “THE M8 COMPETITION COUPE IS equipped with an elegant interior – offering the finest leathers, exclusive trims, and impeccable details that define a luxury BMW.” It’s not wrong. Pretty much every interior panel of our M8 is quilted and stitched in sensationally soft (if not a little jean-stained) merino leather. But if you look a bit harder you’ll also find artistic use of metals, glass and a healthy smattering of carbon fibre throughout the cabin – all quintessential hallmarks of luxury. But there’s a problem: the BMW i7. I recently spent a week in an xDrive60 (basically a fully electric 7-Series)…

Maybe it’s a sign that we’re getting old, but the cheapest Toyota on the UK market is the Aygo X in entry level Pure trim at £15,990. But let’s take to heart the words of Jessie J and forget about the price tag. It is after all a decently specced car that comes with 17in alloys, a reversing camera, smartphone integration and adaptive cruise control. The days of tinny city cars on steel wheels and manual everything are long gone… The most expensive Toyota in the range is the Land Cruiser, which costs £65,225 in Invincible spec with a sunroof. That beast of a car comes with a 2.8-litre diesel engine producing 201bhp. Unfortunately, as we write, Toyota won’t allow you to order one for boring industry supply reasons, but…

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As we all know, the line between ‘swing and a miss’ and ‘glorious home run’ is agonisingly fine. Because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? That feeling when you’ve conceived and built Malaysia’s ultimate luxury car, a three-and-a-half-metre long, two-and-a-half tonne, quarter-of-a-million-quid rival to the Rolls-Royce Ghost. You’ve spent years, decades, getting it just so. Sweating every microscopic detail. You’ve created a revolutionary new bodyshell, sculpted from a single, giant piece of carbon fibre/Kevlar composite. You’ve jammed an extravagant 6.4-litre V8 under the bonnet. You’ve equipped your glorious creation with every amenity a Malaysian plutocrat may require, from glittering starlight headlining to aromatherapy infusers to an onboard tea brewing machine. And, naturally, you’ve finalised the most opulent of options list, giving your one-per-cent-of-the-one-per-cent clientele the chance to spec their Geneva…

Reviewing a new movie traditionally involves offering at least a vague plot synopsis. That may be tricky here. Because Fast X – the 10th instalment in the apparently indestructible Fast and Furious franchise – is the film that asks: who needs plot when you have exploding cars instead? As best I can summarise. A lot of action occurs, very loudly and very quickly. Car chases, fighting, explosions, frequently all at the same time. CGI abounds. Physics is violated. A gorgeous Alfa 2000 GTV doesn’t get nearly enough screen time. A cast of unnecessarily muscular men and women punch each other in the faces, many times. Bombs. There are many bombs. Subjecting any of this storyline to scrutiny would, I suspect, cause it to collapse like candy floss in a rainstorm.…

MYTH BUSTER “OVERSTAY FEES ARE A STEALTH TAX” Councils provide dedicated parking spaces for EVs next to AC charge posts in some places, rather than allowing combustion cars to block them. In some of those, you get hit with a parking ticket if you’re still there after more than, say, 12 hours. Some people call this “another stealth tax on drivers”. Those people are wrong. Just like lots of drivers who have an EV but no driveway, I do all my ‘home’ charging on nearby street AC posts. There are a couple of Teslas in my street that charge on the posts and then just sit there for several days, so I can’t use them. That’s why I like the idea of an overstay parking ticket. It’s not at all…

“IT’S MORE LIVEABLE THAN A PETROL ABARTH, WHICH IS NOISY AND UNCOMFORTABLE” £38,195 FOR Feels precise, handling is engaging. Noise generator more than a novelty AGAINST Petrol hatches will pull away at high speeds. Is 130 miles enough for you? Welcome to the first electric hot hatch. Take electric car, stir in extra power, a stiffer suspension, spoilers and a jazzier cabin. Since this is no longer the Nineties, we won’t insist on red seatbelts. This Abarth is based on the Fiat 500 electric, just like when Carlo Abarth himself began emboldening Fiat 500s back in the late Fifties. They even gave it a sound generator designed to mimic a petrol engine. The noise was shaped with input from Abarth’s rabidly active and loyal fanbase, as a means of keeping…

FORD FOCUS ST TRACK PACK £40,680 FOR Gives the ST a bit of an edge in lieu of an RS version AGAINST Touchscreen interior tricky to use in hard-charging hot hatch The ST has always been your perky everyday friend, with the RS for hardcore duties. With no plans for a latter version, you’ll need the Track Pack for racier tarmac. For £3k you get a revised bodykit, upgraded Track mode, 30mm bigger front brakes, adaptive dampers and Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres. Everything is tightened up, and it’s still fun, but it does make the everyday that little bit harsher. For serious driving you’ll be better off in a Honda Civic Type R. SB LEXUS UX 250h £34,770 FOR Updated infotainment is much improved, efficient as ever AGAINST Starting…

Very early on in this seminal autobiography that pulls no punches nor in fact, throws any, a Mercedes 190 SL and Porsche 356 Speedster – two cars famously built in the mid Fifties – are in a race… in 1948! More mention should be made of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s supernatural ability to transcend time and space. Later in this groundbreaking story that breaks no ground nor features any cars that cover any ground at any speed, Ferruccio and Enzo – two men who famously never raced each other – have lined up at the lights so that a Countach can race… a Mondial! More mention should be made of this baffing daydream sequence’s capacity to make two bizarrely matched and quite fast supercars look transcendentally slow. Elsewhere in this singular retelling…

“AFTER TWO FAILED ATTEMPTS AND THOUSANDS OF POUNDS… NOW WOULD BE THE TIME TO THROW IN THE TOWEL” Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, you must be selling an old Mercedes. Knowing when to give up is a very important life skill. For many years I’ve wanted to own a low slung, blacked out Benz and for the same amount of time I’ve spent a terrifying amount of money chasing exactly that. And where’s it ended up? With a Brabus W126 on its second engine already running on six cylinders before I’ve even driven it. Yes, the silly old Mercedes which had a tapping from its old engine (and subsequently needed a new engine) has already died. At this point,…

ARCADE, 1982 We’re not sure whether, when Namco dubbed its pseudo 3D arcade racer Pole Position, it was aware quite how apposite the title was. After all, here in future-year 2023, this is a game remembered for a series of historic firsts. It was the first racing game to feature a real world circuit, in this case Japan’s Fuji Speedway. It was the first racing game to spawn its own tie-in cartoon series. And it was the first racing game to feature product placement, specifically trackside billboard ads for real-life cigarettes and alcohol. Was the goal to turn arcade-going 12-year-olds into chain-smoking drunkards? The answer is lost to the mists of time. Those advertisers certainly got their money’s worth, as well. Pole Position was the highest grossing arcade machine in…

REPORT 5 £28,710 OTR/£29,310 as tested/£409 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Does the sharp-suited new Astra prove you don’t need that SUV? DRIVER Sam Philip SO HERE’S A WEIRD GLITCH. RETURNED TO THE ASTRA AFTER A DAY IN the office to discover that the cabin screens had mysteriously descended to their lowest level of brightness, and were thus utterly unreadable. Though the screens still seemed to be functioning properly – albeit incredibly dimly – the Astra’s clock had also frozen, which had the curious effect of knocking out Android Auto for good measure, as car and phone decided they were in separate time zones and thus couldn’t communicate. Strange, huh? I tried all the obvious stuff – shouting, prodding buttons, locking and unlocking the car several dozen times while also shouting –…

REPORT 4 £49,520 OTR/£53,270 as tested/£649 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Can Mazda join the large/luxe SUV party? DRIVER Andy Franklin IT’S 9AM. PHOTOGRAPHER JONNY FLEETWOOD AND I ARE WAITING with a BMW X3 Hybrid xDrive30e xLine and looking somewhat suspicious in a layby as we wait for Ollie ‘fast hands/fast talking’ Kew to turn up in our long-term Mazda CX-60 hybrid. Not a man to mince his words is Kew. He climbs out, immediately crowns the BMW the winner and asks to go home. Obviously, that’s not how we test cars at TG. We spend the day tooling around getting to know each car thoroughly in painstaking detail and crafting these photos you see in the layout before you. And while Kew is only joking, he voices a point many…

Toyota’s story begins in 1918 with the Toyoda Spinning and Weaving Company, Sakichi Toyoda keen to exploit his world first automatic weaving loom. With an influx of cash from British investors, Sakichi gave son Kiichiro a bundle of cash to make cars. The 1935 Model G1 truck was the first, followed by the Model AA passenger car in 1936. Must have gone well, because Toyota Motor Co became a separate company in 1937. Early Toyotas were mostly slavish copies of GMs and Fords, but World War Two meant a shift to military trucks. Postwar, the US forces banned passenger car production, but things eventually got going again in 1949. At least they were supposed to – economic woes in Japan meant trouble for the company, with a bank bailout needed…

The Supra sports car is the fastest of Toyota’s roadgoing efforts, even if it is limited to a 155mph top speed. It manages the 0–62mph run in a mere 4.3secs thanks to its 335bhp on tap. Of course, most Toyotas come with an unofficial support network of friendly people only too willing to make it go that bit faster in return for cash. The fastest Toyota is not intended for the road, however. Or rather the roads it races on are closed off specially. The GR010 Hybrid carries the hopes and dreams of Toyota in the World Endurance Championship and at the Le Mans 24-Hour Race. Combined power is capped at 671bhp from the 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 engine combined with electric motor on the front wheels. The 2023 version of…

Toyota has been cranking out concept cars since the Thirties, so it’s actually a pretty tricky job to pick the best one – but the Toyota Alessandro Volta definitely has a strong case. The concept was shown at the Geneva show in 2004 and named after the smart Italian fellow who invented the battery in 1800. What better way to honour his feat than with a 400bhp hybrid sports car, penned by fellow countryman Giorgetto Giugiaro and fashioned from carbon fibre to look not unlike a Zenvo. Or rather we should say that the Zenvo looks like the Volta, given the Toyota came out in 2004 and the fiery Danish supercar in 2009.…

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. CITROEN AMI PRICE: £7,695–£8,695 RANGE: 47 miles Say hello to your little French friend. The pared back Ami is the perfect car for the city streets, as long as you don’t have ambitions to go…

“The world’s first super tourer,” says Aston. Actually, it’s a title that’s been attributed once or twice before to cars that bridge the GT/supercar divide, cars such as the latest Porsche 911 Turbo. But let’s take it at face value, because it accurately describes what Aston is trying to do here. The mission is sports cars. The Valkyrie has (finally) arrived, the development of other mid-engined machines is ongoing and Aston’s quest to become the British Ferrari is basking in the reflected rays of F1 success. Alongside this, the grand tourer seems a dated concept. And besides, the DB11 was never the finest exponent of the breed. But it’s not replacement time yet. The DB11 has only been around for seven years, when the DB9 that preceded it lasted the…

Welcome back, Breadvan, how we’ve missed you. This is the new Concept Touring Coupe Breadvan, revealed by BMW at this year’s Concorso d’Eleganza at the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este near Lake Como. BMW has form here, most notably in the shape of the Z3 M and its E46-derived 3.2-litre masterpiece. This new one also gets a sixer – most likely BMW’s turbo 3.0-litre – though details on performance and acceleration have not been divulged. There’s a greater sense of cohesion to the profile of this Breadvan, with that long (pre-facelift) Z4 bonnet flowing into a low, contoured roof, allied to wider, flared arches and a flatter rear window. Mercifully, the kidney grille here is a much classier affair, even if it features ‘longitudinal’ bars. It’s all coated in a special…

Where I come from in South Tyrol, which is northern Italy just on the border with Austria and in the Dolomites basically, there is no racing. My family had no history in cars or anything either, but I found motorsport through TV. So then I begged my father every year to take me to the one hillclimb that happened in our area. At the time my parents drove a Fiat 124 and I’d always get car sick driving through the mountains. My father had a Vespa then too, and I’ve still got that now actually. I had it restored a few years ago. After I passed my test my first car was a Fiat 500, the original of course. I had no money, so the only thing I could afford…

Disney Speedstorm If you’re going to try and step to Mario Kart, you’re going to need some serious resources. It’s unsurprising, then, that the only realistic pretender to that game’s crown comes from entertainment megacorp Disney. Disney Speedstorm is a remarkably slick kart racer, with genuinely spectacular graphics, a host of beloved characters and an unexpectedly sci-fi, neon drenched aesthetic. This is Mario Kart by way of Wipeout and there are even thumping techno remixes of classic Disney songs. The Hercules one is going straight on the gym playlist. A slam dunk, then? Sadly not. The game is free to download, but laden with a truly mind boggling array of currencies, collectibles and upgrades, all ultimately targeted at vacuuming up real world pocket money. If you’ve got kids, perhaps best…

01 Lamborghini Miura The Lamborghini Miura – the OG supercar, most-beautiful-ever-made candidate, an icon of sexy Sixties excess – had totally fake tailpipes. The V12’s real pipes stopped a couple of inches short of the chromed tubes that exit out the car’s posterior. Everything you’ve ever known is a lie. 02 Audi SQ5 This is a really odd styling choice. It’s as though Audi wanted quad pipes, but decided four fakes was too far, so at the very last second while the clay model was being scanned for production, the design team tried to make the fake pipes part of the bumper instead. And what we got was, um, this. 03 Audi S6 Audi doubled down on its fake exhaust addiction with these travesties. These aren’t implied tailpipes. They aren’t…

THIS MONTH: HYUNDAI IONIQ 6 The design team at Hyundai should all get a pay rise. The Ioniq 6 may sit on the same platform as the blocky Ioniq 5 SUV, but this is a properly swoopy saloon with some fantastic little design details. And although at first glance neither the 5 or 6 seem to fit into prescribed segments, the latter is a well proportioned rival to the Tesla Model 3, Polestar 2 and BMW i4. Plus, that aerodynamic streamliner look means a drag coefficient of just 0.21 and a range of up to 361 miles for the single motor, rear-wheel-drive iteration on the US EPA cycle. Impressive. Like the Ioniq 5 this is a $45,000+ Hyundai though, and as saloons (or sedans) are less popular than SUVs here…

The imperatives of the new on-demand economy, the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis are colliding. It’s playing out as bedlam on the streets. In any decent-sized city, powered stand-up scooterists and electrified meal delivery cyclists swarm among the traffic, making their way by the law of Brownian motion rather than the Highway Code. Are they likely to keep to their own side of the road? Do they feel any obligation to look over their shoulders before swerving across a junction or onto the pavement? At night, do they see the point of wearing anything other than black, or showing any lights? To all the above, the answers are an emphatic no. I used to get arsey with them, even as a fellow user of an integrated urban…

£67,100 FOR Good looks, smooth powertrain, reliable EV range AGAINST Firm ride, intrusive driver assistance, drony e-CVT It’s the windows that do it. If you want an example of attention to detail on the new fifth-gen Lexus RX, look to the windows. They are silent save for the muffed thump as they dock with the frame. Ditto the folding mirrors. And that’s analogous to the rest of the car – very quickly you get the feeling that this is a Lexus that has considered glitz and shiny things, and simply thought better of it. Well, sort of. It’s not exactly a wallflower, given that at this end of the SUV scale the pitch is towards things like Porsche’s Cayenne and JLR’s Range Rover Sport, so it’s not tiny, but there…

BASSLINE TWS WIRELESS EARBUDS As well as saving 51 per cent on your BBC TopGear magazine subscription, you can choose either a black or white pair of Bluetooth-enabled Bassline TWS wireless earbuds. Enjoy incredible sound through touch sensitive control, with 20 hours' total play, secure fit, simple connection and a compact charging case. COMING SOON! Anniversary Porsche supplement! GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE Subscribe by 25 June to get our Porsche supplement with your August issue Pay £34.99 every 12 issues, saving 51 per cent on the usual shop price Unique and collectable covers – only seen by our subscribers Get your copy before it hits the shops and never miss an issue! buysubscriptions.com/TGP723 03330 162 130 and quote TGP723** *This offer is open to UK delivery addresses only and is…

Sam Philip: Aventador Roadster A Sunday dawn in 2013, booming up the empty Col de Madeleine in a powder blue Aventador Roadster, pursued by J Barlow in a Maserati GranTurismo. The road, the views, the noise: you can’t put a price on that. Lambo low: the ensuing conversation with two unimpressed carabinieri. Turned out they very much could put a price on that. Tom Ford: Gallardo Something Gallardo-shaped – very possibly a Trofeo special edition – and snow. Lots of snow. On track tyres. With The Stig. Quite possibly the most harrowing drive back to the factory ever experienced, including nearly putting it through the front window of Lambo HQ while powersliding victoriously into the car park… Ollie Kew: Aventador SVJ Roadster We arrived at the Glenshee Ski Centre two…

Nio. Great Wall. Ora. Build Your Dreams. Sounds like I’m listing a festival line-up of failed X Factor bands, right? Or rejected team names on The Apprentice. In fact they’re some of the biggest carmakers in the world’s largest, most influential car market: China. And before long they might be as household a name here as Tesco, because all of the above are either busy setting up shop in Britain or plotting to make landfall shortly. As European material and energy costs soar – and old guard giants like Volkswagen and Ford complain it simply isn’t cost effective to make city cars and superminis any more – the Chinese are manoeuvring to carve up the mass market kingdom. Forget the Great Wall. This is a motoring power grab you can…

Chrysler must have been the tiniest bit nervous amid all the excitement of the good ship Stellantis setting sail. Fiat and Chrysler joined up with the Peugeot lot to form an automotive oil tanker (it’s going electric, but these things aren’t easy to change course), but it was easy to forget that Chrysler had been there before, forming a supergroup with Mercedes in 1998 that was supposed to bust paradigms and create wonderful new synergies. It didn’t go well. Perhaps the high point was the ME Four-Twelve concept shown at the Detroit show in 2004. The car’s codename was worthy of the highest levels of Cold War sneakery, standing for mid-engine, four turbos and 12 cylinders. It would have gone into production as the Chrysler IAMU – It’s All Mercedes…

THIS DOESN’T SEEM A FAIR FIGHT… Let’s not jump to conclusions too early, eh? The first-gen BMW 8-Series, codenamed E31 and solely available as a two-door coupe, debuted in 1989 powered by a range of nat-asp V8 and V12 engines. Today’s second-gen equivalent, available in convertible (G14), coupe (G15) and four-door gran coupe (G16) body styles and powered by a straight-six turbo petrol or diesel plus a 523bhp V8 twin-turbo petrol, was launched in 2018. But then BMW’s M Division decided it wanted a slice of the pie, and the M8 was born. AND M STANDS FOR MOOOOORE POWER, RIGHT? Er, sure. The full fat M8 Competition you see above is powered by the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 engine shared with the BMW M5, with 616bhp and 553lb ft of torque…

REPORT 6 £39,045 (£47,370 for Vorsprung ed.)/£49,030 as tested/£794 pcm WHY IT’S HERE Fast Audis are consistently inconsistent – is the S3 a hit or miss? DRIVER Ollie Kew “THE CAR’S GONE.” THE NEXT FEW SECONDS PASS VERY SLOWLY. I’M stood still on the spot, but I can sense my breathing has become shallower and my heart is thundering. I know it was here earlier. “The front window. It’s been opened.” At this point, it’s becoming horribly clear what’s happened. I’ve been burgled in broad daylight. My house has been broken into, and the TopGear Garage’s long-term Audi S3 Sportback, resplendent in lurid Turbo Blue paintwork, has been stolen. This wasn’t a sophisticated modern car theft. Someone smashed my back window with a hammer or screwdriver, helped themselves to the keys…

REPORT 5 VOLKSWAGEN MULTIVAN After a few weeks on the road in the snowy(ish) Alps, I’m a bit teary about handing back the Multivan keys. Because it’s just magnificent. Glorious. Vantastic. If you’re off on a big European roadtrip with a load of family, and a load of roadtrip stuff, I just can’t imagine a better vehicle, unless your budget stretches to a private jet, but in fairness they’re a pig to park at the supermarché. SP REPORT 6 VOLVO XC40 RECHARGE In our bid to live with every electric XC40 variant possible, we’ve swapped our XC40 Recharge for a C40 Recharge Twin Plus. For 15 long years I’ve been trying to find a point in coupe-SUVs, but despite everyone from Renault to Porsche jumping on the sloping-roofed SUV bandwagon…

REPORT 6 £39,495 OTR/£40,445 as tested/£715 pcm WHY IT’S HERE  To prove our love of hatches in the face of a crossover-mad world DRIVER Paul Horrell HAVING BANGED ON ENDLESSLY ABOUT HOW WE DEPLORE CARS THAT overload your cognitive and finger jabbing capacity by putting too many of their controls into touchscreens, let’s hear it for one that doesn’t. It makes it a far more relaxing car to drive, and I’m pretty convinced a safer one. You keep your eyes on the road rather than the screen, and your brain on the traffic rather than the complexity of the menus thereon. The Megane doesn’t just have real climate control buttons. It has a lane assist button I can find without looking, a textured button on a ledge to the right of…

01 Toyota GR86 Toyota knows how to do small, simple, rear-drive sports cars as well as anyone. The torquier successor to the GT86, the GR86 finally arrived in 2021 with a Subaru derived flat-four boxer engine making 231bhp. The initial UK allocation sold out in 90 minutes. 02 Toyota Land Cruiser (FJ40) An icon of off-roading, the Land Cruiser nameplate turned 70 years old in 2021. The FJ40 generation is perhaps the best known, not least because it’s so reliable they’re often passed down through generations as family heirlooms. 03 Toyota Hilux Another indestructible Toyota (as was comprehensively proven by TGTV in Series 3), the Hilux first arrived in 1968 and is now on to its eighth generation. With rear leaf springs and brawny diesel engines it’s still pleasingly old school in 2023,…

Land Cruiser J100/1998–2007 Toyota has many faces – like the nerdy side that loves to make things in the quickest, easiest and most high-tech way possible, pioneering just in time production and encouraging even the tiniest of improvements that will bring exponential benefits. Or the global carmaker that sells more widely around the world than anyone else, that treats the car like the family fridge. It’s always there, it’s always ready and it always works. You’ve got the sportier side, that likes the challenge of competition or to create pure driving experiences on the road. Then you’ve got the engineering minds that want to build an ultimate all-rounder that could literally go anywhere on the planet – those are the ones that came up with the Land Cruiser. It’s the…