Innehållsförteckning för December 2019 från Fast Car

The Mazda3 is a car that’s been crying out for a proper hot hatch variant. Sure, the 1st- and 2nd generation models were available in fireball MPS spec, but the 3rd-gen Mazda3 was pretty wishy-washy in Europe – the most exciting one we got had 163bhp, which is OK but it’s not going to set your trousers on fire. So the 4th-gen, which launched this year, has a bit of a point to prove. And thanks to Mazda North America, that point’s being made rather loudly, because they’ve turned the unsuspecting hatchback into a balls-to-the-wall race car. It’s been built to satisfy Touring Car regs in 36 different championships across the globe, and it’s packing a 350bhp turbo motor with a paddle-shift ’box. The widebody kit is something every roadgoing…

The Mk8 Golf is hovering just over the horizon, so it’s about time VW started packing up all of the leftover bits and shoving them into runout specials so they can clear the decks. Good news for fans of the evergreen Mk7, as the GTI TCR is a bit of a star – it has 286bhp, a DSG ’box and a top speed of 161mph, as well as adaptive dampers and model-specific gloss black wheels. The bodykit’s been subtly revised to be more aggressive, and the fun part is that the previously-optional Akrapovic exhaust system is now standard-fit on all TCRs. You also get upgraded brakes, and the LSD from the GTI Performance, unique seats and lairy graphics. A fitting send-off for the old girl.…

The British Touring Car Championship has a lot to answer for. There’s a generation of old-school petrolheads out there who are desperate to live out their dreams of BTCC glory by buying a Sierra RS Cosworth or E30 M3 in order to relive the halcyon days of the 1980s. For us, the really exciting time was the Supertouring era of the 1990s. Manufacturers’ works teams were pouring astonishing budgets into developing remarkable race cars, things that looked like stickered-up examples of road-going saloons dumped on huge multi-spoke wheels. The technology inside these racers was unprecedented and scary, forever altering the perceptions of cars like the Ford Mondeo, Renault Laguna, Peugeot 406 and Vauxhall Vectra in the eyes of everyday consumers. And perhaps the coolest moment of all came in 1994…

Back in the day, when the FC team were mere Padawan learners in the ways of the modifying force, ‘1 litre’ loosely translated as ‘grandma’s shopping car’. But that’s not the case nowadays, is it? The Mk8 Fiesta EcoBoost is a perfect example. This little street stormer puts out a whopping 123bhp from its 1.0 engine. Let’s say that again – one hundred and twenty-three horses – more than we could ever dream of in the XR2is that none of us could actually insure in the ’90s anyway! And what’s more, the 1.0 is supposed to be one of the base models. The car world has clearly moved on. Anyway, the point is that the EcoBoost is easily one of the best first cars out there and, as all first…

PIONEER DEQ-S1000A UNIVERSAL SOUND PROCESSOR, £170 This is a small but massively sexy box of electronics designed to cause all sorts of fizzy trousers in the audiophile community. What we’ve got here is a full-on digital sound processor, with a built-in 4x50-watt amp, that won’t break the bank. It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But let us direct you back to the money bit: it’s a price that’s simply unheard of for such a comprehensive bit of kit. There are other products of this type of course, but the nearest rival comes in at what an economics professor would call ‘a shit load’ more. Anyway, the idea here is to sew up everything about the dark art of OEM integration in one fell swoop. The DEQS1000A allows you to expand…

For me, the best thing is that this item addresses, and solves, the most common problems associated with snow foam applicators. First of all, many believe the little spray bottle which comes with most pressure washers will be ideal for snow foam. It isn’t. These are designed more for spraying on detergents and shampoos, and they’re usually pretty useless for a product that needs to be whipped up to create a rich, luscious foam. In short, nothing applies snow foam like a dedicated foam lance and, even when it comes to the most expensive professional units I’ve got my hands on in the past, I’ve not come across an item that applies the foam quite as well as this design. The second problem is simple: getting the bugger to fit…

When the Supra was launched earlier this year it was criticised for sharing the same platform and power source as the G29 BMW Z4. But what’s the problem with that? The BMW Z4 is an extremely capable car and the B58 engine that produces an already respectable 335bhp has bags of potential for more. And guess what? The aftermarket is with us on this one. There’s new styling, chassis and performance enhancing products being launched for the new Supra every day, and we’re predicting it will be THE modified car of SEMA 2019 (find out next month if we were right). We’ve picked out our favourite mods so far… Pandem Bodykit, from $5400 At launch the A90 wasn’t just criticised for it’s Z4 characteristics but also its looks, and while…

They might look similar, but there’s an ocean of difference between Rob’s 5 GT Turbo and the 5 Turbo which inspired it. Developed in the late seventies for professional rallying, the Turbo takes the familiar 1.4-litre inline-four, straps on a turbocharger and dumps it behind the front seats. The mid-engined result is rear-wheel drive, capable of over 300bhp in competition trim and renowned for its fearsome handling. Tamed by some of the best names in racing, the model won four World Rally Championship rounds between 1981 and 1986, before inspiring the equally lunatic Renault Sport Clio V6.…

The 1980s were all business. If you weren’t barking ‘Time is money, my friend!’ into a huge mobile phone, resplendent in red braces and fat screw-you pinstripes, you weren’t playing the game. There was no time for anything but Filofaxes, three-martini-lunches and the acquisition of colossal wealth. And if you want to buy into that eighties culture today, you’ve got to have your business head on. The retro nostalgia is nothing without a keen focus on the bottom line. So when Nick Allen decided to buy himself the DeLorean you see here, it wasn’t a frivolous recreational pursuit – his accountant told him to do it, this was a strictly logical financial decision. No, stop sniggering, it’s true. “I run a business, which makes me the guarantor for the rent…

Nein! We have to commend your efforts G, but when we said we were after something small, aggressive and German, we were thinking more on the car front. And, before you ask, ‘little Gerhart’ wouldn’t make a great mascot for an old skool Deutsch special either. Let it go old man, let it go. Invention of the Month We’re not sure if it’ll catch on, but we were mighty impressed by Glenda’s new invention; “the plaster you know which side to rip off”. Of course, what we’re even more impressed by is the size of his big toe! No wonder he wears size 17s and is such a hit with the ladies… he’s like something from a Marvel movie, he really is. Chim Chim Cher-ee Our very own Sarf Laahndan…

There’s something weird going on in BMW’s design studios. If you thought things were strange in the Bangle era of flame-surfacing, wait till you get a load of the mental-as-hell faces on the new models that are bleeding through. We’ll cut to the chase: it’s all about the kidney grilles. These have been a BMW design motif for generations, and they’ve usually been quite elegant; on the sharknose cars (like the E21, the 2002, the E9 and the E24) they were slender and narrow; on the 1980s and ’90s models such as the E30, E34 and E36 they were squat and purposeful – but today? They’re absolutely bloody massive. Type ‘new BMW X7’ into Google Images and see: that’s not a photoshop, it really does look like that. The new…

There was a time when car design was all about the angles. Back in the eighties, everything was designed with a set-square; if it’s not a right angle, it’s a wrong angle. Car design has mellowed dramatically over the years (we can probably thank the Ford Sierra for that), but it’s fair to say that the new EQS concept from Mercedes-Benz is the first car we’ve seen which has absolutely no corners or creases at all. It’s like a silky pebble, smoothed by the flowing current of a mighty river. What this is, basically, is a vision of what S-Class Mercs will be in the future – super-luxurious, and fully electric. The EQS boasts an electric drivetrain with torque-vectored AWD, serving up 470bhp and 560lb/ft. And it’s properly eco-friendly too…

New: £32,295 Now: £17,000 The FK2 Civic Type R’s short production run is what’s knocking prices down to silly levels today. Coming in toward the end of the 9th-gen Civic’s lifespan, it was only on sale from 2015-17 before being replaced by the FK8 Type R. This means that you can get a full-fat Honda road-racer that’s only a few years old for a bit more than half what it originally cost. And it’s a buttload of car for the money too; the first Type R to be turbocharged, that howling VTEC motor catapults the Civic to 62mph in 5.7-seconds and goes on to a top whack of 167mph (yep, 167mph in a Civic!). It’s got an absolutely amazing diff and clever dual-axis suspension, functional aerodynamics pinched from Honda’s WTCC…

Car shows today can be a bit overwhelming. Yes, it’s excellent fun to drink in the glory of all these top-flight project builds, admiring the countless unique details and cunning engineering solutions, design quirks and fresh ideas – it awes and inspires in equal measure. But sometimes it can get a little demoralising. With the standard so high across the board (we really are in a golden age of modifying at the moment), how can you possibly hope to compete? Achieving the sort of finish that wins trophies at Players and TRAX, FittedUK and Ultimate Stance and all the other big names… that takes huge investment at high-end bodyshops and custom houses, right? Well, not necessarily. Cars are just things. They bolt together and unbolt just like the Meccano sets…

7TWENTY STYLE51, £135 (EACH) In a world chock-full of gigantic rims, it’s nice to see firms still innovating with smaller hoops. In fact, these brand new Style51 15-inchers from 7Twenty are easily one of our favourite wheels of the year. You’ve got to be a pretty depressed individual not to love a dishy, little five-spoke rim. We can’t think of any small motor these wouldn’t suit either – certainly not anything that comes in the 4x100 flavour these are aimed at. But just look a little bit closer and you’ll see that they’re rather clever too. It’s not the fact they’re flow-formed to make them lighter than a squirrel’s breakfast (which you can’t see just by looking anyway you tit - Jules). It’s that they come with a choice of…

LEGO® TECHNIC LAND ROVER Defender, £159.99 Well the guys and girls over at our favourite toy building-block makers didn’t waste anytime launching their latest vehicle colab. In fact, LEGO’s take on the 2020 Defender was launched alongside the New Defender at the Frankfurt Motor Show! The 2,573-piece LEGO model was developed with Land Rover to include authentic bodywork and a host of realistic functions including an in-line six-cylinder engine, gearbox with high and low ratios, independent suspension, expedition roof rack and a working winch! Niels Henrik Horsted, marketing director at the LEGO Group, said: “With every LEGO element, children can build anything they can imagine. I’m very excited about this new model – a truly impressive job done by our designers. Together with Land Rover, we’ve blended elements, design and…

Forge Boost Pipes, £329.99 These high-quality aluminium pipes are a direct replacement and will fit in place of the OEM plastic pipe. The larger diameter allows for increased flow compared to OEM, assisting with minimal airflow disruption. They also have an integrate water/methanol port and blanking plug, should you decide to run that set up. www.forgemotorsport.co.uk Forge Chargecooler Radiator, £TBA The Forge Motorsport Chargecooler Radiator for the Toyota Supra A90 is so new Forge haven’t quite finished the development yet. But they’ve informed us it will be out very soon. Keep an eye on their social media feeds and website for updates. www.forgemotorsport.co.uk Milltek Sport Exhaust System, from £1135.36 The latest product to emanate from Milltek’s Derbyshire factory is bound to be very popular. The British firm has had its…

Nope. We’re not going to offer you half the trade price for your car, like those websites. Instead we want to give you the chance to be featured in the best modified car mag on the planet! So, if you own a cool-as-a-cucumber car you think is worthy of Fast Car, we’d love to see it. Please send a selection of good quality images and a spec to jules.truss@kelsey.co.uk, with ‘Feature Car’ as the subject. If we like it, we’ll get back to you to arrange a photoshoot. Simples.…

So, after six months, loads of miles and even more smiles, the fourth and what was supposed to be the last challenge was held at TRAX Silverstone. But what was it, I hear you cry? Well, this one came down to you, the public, as both cars went head-to-head in the ultimate beauty contest: a Show and Shine battle. That’s right, the two ugliest cars to ever grace these pages were judged on their aesthetic styling. With this in mind, Jules and Midge set about giving them their last makeover in a final effort to win the battle. Midge needed the win to level the contest, but a win for our man Jules would see him take the victory. So what did they do to win your votes? Well, Jules…

It may not have an Impreza badge, but the VA-series WRX STI sure does share its forefather’s enthusiasm for lunatic limited-run special editions. The latest hot ticket is the WRX STI S209, and it’s an absolute headcase: it costs twice what a regular STI does, and this is because it’s set to be a genuine collector’s item – just 209 cars are being hand-built at the STI skunkworks in Kiryu, Japan. But the rarity isn’t the only thing justifying the price: that EJ25 flat-four now wears a bigger turbo running 19psi, along with bigger injectors and revised intake, resulting in 341bhp. The S209 also has stiffer dampers and shorter springs, revised anti-roll bars, and forged BBS wheels. The downside? Well, aside from that bonkers price, it’s only available in the…

The Performance & Tuning Car Show organisers want to celebrate modifiers with their new for 2020 Revving Red Carpet competition. This will showcase top tuned cars to a panel of tuning experts, who will select their coveted Top 20 of 2020. It will then be up to the public to choose the overall winner in an online poll. As well as winning four VIP tickets to the show, with a luxurious overnight hotel stay and meal, the winner will have their car displayed for the whole of the Performance & Tuning Car Show 2020. Andy Stewart, event sales manager, said: “The car-tuning industry has seen a major shift in the last decade, with the introduction of air-ride, coilovers or hydraulic suspension sparking a customisation battle across Europe. “To mark the…

October was bloody wet, wasn’t it!? I know we were basically in winter, but it seemed like it rained every day in October. And that’s not a good thing when you’ve got one of the year’s biggest car events scheduled. But by some kind of miracle, the rain clouds cleared around 4am. Yes, we were up to witness that, and not because we’d been drinking in the hotel bar until the early hours, but because that was the time our alarms went off to make the 5:30am briefing – no, we’re not joking! So anyway, it turns out Mother Nature is a petrolhead because she took off her raincoat and put on her sunnies for the day. She didn’t let us off totally scot free though, as there was a…

Perhaps the best thing about lowering springs is that they’re a great mod when you’re on a budget. But remember that not all springs are equal, and in performance terms at least, quality is always the number one concern. You also need to decide how much you’d like to lower your car, because slapping it right into the weeds may not always equal racecar-like handling. And, although most performance springs are designed to work well with standard dampers nowadays, that doesn’t mean you’ll want to go too mad. Basically, do your due diligence and ask other car owners what works best for them. A bit of friendly advice goes a long way, doesn’t it? Rather handily too, Euro Car Parts only do top quality when it comes to any part,…

Lighting up is no good for your health. But the motorsport liveries created by tobacco companies? They’re lit and emblazoned on the brains of fans everywhere. Purple and white means shovel-nosed Le Mans Jaguars; blue and yellow says Colin McRae in a sideways Subaru; black and gold is Lotus single seaters. Red with white? We could only be talking Marlboro and a look that accompanied Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost to world championship glory. That’s inspiration enough for a stand out show car, but don’t race to conclusions: Rob Hardy didn’t build his Renault 5 GT Turbo to channel mainstream motorsport. Oh no. Instead,he’s taken inspiration from a scale model. The evocation in question harks back to a real machine that ran on the 1982 Rallye du Var. That might…

Suzuki’s perky new Jimny is the car the world needs right now. The consumer shift from traditional three-box saloons and hatchbacks toward soft-roaders, crossovers and SUVs is undeniable, with every manufacturer scrabbling to create and propagate fresh new furrows in their model line-ups. But the manufacturers who’ve been playing this game for generations have been able to lean their chairs back, tower their index fingers together into an amused little steeple and permit themselves a wry grin. While Audi and BMW and Mercedes-Benz frantically try to create new model niches, the old guard are well-prepared for such a scenario. Take the Suzuki Jimny: this nameplate has been representing dependable and affordable mud-plugging since it was first unveiled way back in 1970. So there’s a lot of heritage to play with…

Bravery is an intrinsic part of innovation. It’s often said that a short-cut is a short-cut because otherwise it’d just be the way. But it’s when we go in the other direction, deliberately taking the long way round in order to determine whether we can find or create something better, or more unusual, or more interesting, that the real magic happens. Naturally you have to be brave to step off the beaten track, as you don’t know what sort of thorns or poison ivy or angry bears will confront you – but life’s too short not to try it, right? Now, regular readers will probably already know that Cirk Robinson is a man who enjoys guzzling brave pills and stepping into the unknown. We featured his Corsa a couple of…

CarFest South made its long-awaited return to Laverstoke Park Farm in Hampshire in August, to celebrate its eighth year of fast cars and fundraising. Over 50,000 car lovers basked in glorious sunshine throughout the weekend, making their way around the festival, while also helping raise money for UK Children’s charities. The days were packed with thrilling track performances, with over 100 cars – including supercars, monster trucks, hot rods and movie cars – taking to the track each day, along with a host of top manufacturers showcasing their latest offerings. This year saw CarFest introduce two new paddocks, one of which was specially curated by former Formula 1 champion and owner of Laverstoke Park Farm, Jody Scheckter. The additional paddock was in honour of Scheckter’s 40 years in F1 and…