BBC Top Gear Magazine October 2023

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com We thought about it of course, getting every new car currently on sale in the UK together on the Brooklands banking for a precise tribute to the cover of issue #1… for about a minute. Such is the proliferation of choice over the past three decades that would plainly be idiotic, we’d need to shoot it from space. Needless to say, BBC budgets don’t stretch to away days on the ISS. We refined the idea to a Brooklands gathering of the 30 greats, one per year we’ve been around. Much more manageable. For most these would be offcial ‘Cars of the Year’, crowned at the time in our annual Awards. For a few, mostly in the early days before the TopGear Awards existed, we had to fill in…

MAGAZINE Order a copy at MagsDirect.co.uk SUBSCRIPTION OFFER buysubscriptions.com/TGSP3M DOWNLOAD The TopGear app from your App Store WEBSITE Visit topgear.com for your rolling hit of news, reviews, entertainment and advice YOUTUBE Subscribe to the TopGear YouTube channel to watch the best car videos on the planet PODCAST Visit topgear.com to download the TopGear podcast @topgear facebook.com/topgear @BBC_TopGear…

Our idea behind this car was to take a racecar and not change anything for the street,” says Ford boss Jim Farley as the wraps are pulled off the new Mustang GTD. “In fact, let’s add some stuff that’s outlawed in racing.” This already sounds very promising indeed. And would you just look at the thing? Yes, that is a DRS-equipped rear wing on a muscle car. But then again, this is no longer a muscle car as we know it. “We love our Mustang Shelbys and stuff,” says Farley. “But that’s not what this car is. It’s for the AMG GT Black Series. It’s for the 911 GT3 RS. We want to beat them not only at Le Mans, but with a street car too.” That is a serious…

Offically game bored? Fed up of your old board games? Always wanted to race the TG track and beat The Stig? Don’t have a driving licence? Then look no further. All you need are three to six friends, be over eight years old and have an almighty will to become THE TopGear grand champion. Fastest Lap is in shops now Pencil case champions Time to show off your new pencil case to your new/old besties. SCHOOL IS BACK! TopGear magazine fix You can download the latest edition and back issues direct to your phone or tablet from the App Store. Because when life gives you lemons… settle in and read TG The Creator, in cinemas 29 Sept The awesome trailer for Gareth Edwards’ (Rogue One) new film is like watching…

No one buys an MPV for its lissom good looks. They buy it for unpretentious space, and the Rodius certainly offered a lot of unpretentious space. It seated as many as 11 humans, provided all had (a) small legs and (b) no sense of shame. So is it really fair to brand the Rodius a failure on aesthetic grounds alone? Probably not, but we’re going to do it anyhow. Because the Rodius wasn’t just ugly. It was an unprecedented assault on the world’s rods and cones, a veritable war crime of automotive design. Ssangyong claimed the Rodius had been inspired by luxury yachts, suggesting they’d somehow confused the phrase ‘luxury yacht’ with the very similar phrase ‘used aeroplane sick bag’. Or perhaps the phrase ‘that fetid juice that pools at…

This is not a restomod. This is not a continuation. This is an all-new, old Lotus. Pray silence for the arrival of the Type 66, a 1970 project that never saw the light of day. Until now. We need to go back 53 years to get to the origin of this car: Colin Chapman, busy dominating F1, asked Lotus draughtsman Geoff Ferris to come up with a design that would do the same in the lucrative Can-Am series across the pond. Lotus’ success in F1 meant the plan never went beyond the drawings and model stage, and so it sat in a cupboard waiting for the right moment. Now that time has come. The Type 66 stays true to the original designs, and at its heart is a period-correct V8…