Innehållsförteckning för November 2020 från Fast Car

So, Chevrolet has turned the Corvette into a mid-engined supercar. Is this a good idea? Well, you tell me, squire. I mean, you could argue that the Corvette’s always been Chevy’s old-school baby. Up until the C7 model, they still belligerently used pushrods and leaf springs as a knowing nod to the faithful: unlike with other retro-styled modern cars – MINI, Beetle, 500, blah blah – you can trace a direct bloodline from modern Corvettes right back to its 1953 roots. It’s Detroit’s 911. Sure. But does that mean it’s money for old rope? Was it a good thing that GM treated it like a technological recluse, keeping it away from the modern goodies at the company’s disposal? Who can say, but it doesn’t help that some critics are very…

STYLING: DMax Type 3 Aero bodykit, Origin bonnet, Origin overfenders and front wings, JDM kouki grille, custom jack bar TUNING: SR20DET 2.0-litre turbo – freshly rebuilt, stainless exhaust system, front-mount intercooler, Tomei radiator, torque damper, stock SR20 transmission POWER: 320bhp CHASSIS: 10.5x18-inch (front) and 12.5x18-inch (rear) WORK Equip 05 wheels (custom-built by owner), 225/35 (f) and 275/35 (r) tyres, Air Lift Performance suspension, front strut brace, R33 Skyline front and rear brakes INTERIOR: BRIDE Low Max seats, full interior retrim in BRIDE fabric to match, Grip Royal steering wheel, Nismo gearknob, AEM gauges (boost, AFR, oil temp)…

Regular readers may remember seeing my Avus Silver Mk1 TT 225 making monthly appearances in these pages in 2017/18. And while the car you see here is an Avus Silver Mk1 TT 225, it’s actually an entirely different Avus Silver Mk1 TT 225. Why? Well, I sold that last one to my dad a while back (he’s still got it, he loves it), and I was missing the thing a bit, so I decided to get another one. Same spec, same vibe, same thrills… at least, that was the idea. Unfortunately, I accidentally bought one that turned out to be a vicious little bastard. On paper, it looked great. Pristine exterior and interior, low-ish mileage, decent history, all the expensive things (cambelt, clutch, etc) had been done… so I took…

So, a few months ago I fitted a new set of wheels and tyres to my Beemer and promised to review the Goodyear Eagle F1s that are now wrapped around my 19-inch Autostar Chicanes in the next issue, well I lied, because I’m only just getting around to it now. I could tell you it was because I wanted to test them thoroughly in varied conditions – and we’ve definitely had some varied conditions over the past month, it’s gone from 28-degrees of scorching sunshine to torrential rain and a temperature drop that would catch penguins out. But in truth, I went on holiday, played a bit of golf and had the rest of the magazine to get finished, so I just ran out of time. Until now… The benefits…

If there’s a niggling voice at the back of your mind saying ‘I’m sure I’ve seen something similar to this car on the UK show scene recently’, you’re right – it’s the same car! The Gulf livery you’re seeing here is brand new, a fresh lockdown rattle-can creation. Prior to this, the 911 was rocking a very cool distressed Martini Racing livery. “I graffiti painted the original white car with Martini stripes and hated it, so I painted over the whole car in red and rubbed through, adding some black overspray to give it a ‘used’ look,” says Martyn. “Then along came lockdown... no shows... furlough... and so, inevitably, boredom set in. I ordered the blue and orange graffiti paint and got cracking, creating the Gulf-ish colour scheme.”…

If you take a straw poll around the Fast Car office to see what everyone’s opinions are of the borderline-retro boyband Blue, you’ll get some mixed responses. Midge loves them, obviously, because their brand of radio-friendly motherloving beats feeds into his nature as a sparkly little pop tart. Glenda has a surprising fondness for them too, having once spotted Antony Costa in a branch of Costa Coffee; the coincidence seemed like a glitch in the Matrix, and now he reckons Blue are just a pan-dimensional troupe of buccaneers masquerading as a slightly shit boyband. Jules isn’t really bothered either way, as long as they don’t interrupt the snooker. Initial G hasn’t paid much attention to the hit parade for a while, all these young whippersnappers making a racket. And me?…

REC Watches RNR Collection, £1499 Does your dad own a classic Land Rover Defender? Are you stuck on what to get him for Christmas and you’ve got 1500-quid burning a hole in your pocket? Well, it’s your lucky day, because REC watches have just launched two new Swiss timepieces that have been handcrafted from iconic Defenders. In one corner there’s the R.O.C.K Fighter that’s been made from the left door of a 2003 D110 (limited to 463 units) and in the other is the Beach Runner that has been crafted from the roof of a 1981 Series III (limited to 552 pieces). www.recwatches.com Status Error Face Masks, £11.99 So it looks like the joys of COVID are going to be around for a while yet, and with face masks now…

Think back to your first car. Perhaps – if you’re anything like us – it was a rusty old hatchback, picked up for a few hundred quid and thrashed to death before heading to the scrapyard a few months later. Or maybe it was something new on finance, a frugal runabout with a food-blender under the bonnet and a black box inside. Either way, the two key facts about most people’s first cars are that they’re a bit crap, and they don’t stick around for long. Jez Bonner is a little different from the norm. This Escort here was his first car, and it’s stuck with him through thick and thin; he bought it when he was seventeen, back in 1995, for the princely sum of £3,000. Quite a lot…

If you saw last month’s issue, you’ll know I’ve recently taken over VWt magazine and my search for a new project van has hardly been an easy one, as it started during lockdown. This meant that firstly it was incredibly hard, well impossible to get out and test drive anything. And secondly, due to losing a lot of freelance work and being hit pretty hard financially, like most people this year, my original budget was dropping by the week. So I had to have a serious rethink. My original plan was getting something fairly new, a T6 of some sorts, but my dwindling budget soon put that out of reach, so I started looking at T5s and T5.1s. My checklist had a fair few things on it, I wanted a…

Let’s park the high-end builds for a moment, the big-budget showpieces that drain funds for instalikes. Let’s consider instead the enjoyment that can be derived from owning a ratty little bastard of a car. Something that you’d happily repaint with a rattle can over the course of a weekend on a whim. Obviously cars like that aren’t often show-stoppers, but there’s a niche clique of super-snotters that somehow take this DGAF approach and make it next-level awesome, and Martyn Hawkes’ Vorsche is one of them. Now, some readers might be scratching their heads a little as they look over the pictures, maybe scampering to the internet to carry out a reg check in the hope of unearthing something mischievous. Is this really a Porsche, or is it just a Beetle…

HONDA THROWS A BIT MORE ‘RRRRRRR’ INTO THE TYPER Since its launch in 2017, the FK8-generation Civic Type R has been all about the numbers. Before it even hit the showrooms, Honda was boasting of its benchmark-setting Nordschleife time – a frankly unbelievable 7:43.8. For a smidge over thirty-grand, buyers were furnished with a tasty platter of figures – 316bhp, 169mph, 0-62mph in 5.7s, 1,380kg. And yes, we can assure you that the bonkers 169mph top speed is genuine… we tried it out on the autobahn, and it sits quite happily at that speed! You can really hear the aero working too, there’s a terrific sucking noise from the rear wing. A pretty popular formula then, and for the 2020 model year the connoisseur’s hot hatch has received…

Here’s a proper bargain for you, and one that comes in at about the same price as a black market 9-pack of Andrex Quilted at the moment. What we have here is not only one of the best value, tech-packed headunits of 2020, it’s actually one of the finest we’ve seen in the past couple of decades. This full-fat, 6.8-inch LCD touch-screen comes fully loaded with everything you need for our modern world. It includes Bluetooth, DAB+ radio, Android Auto, Apple Car Play, screen mirroring (with touch control) for Android devices, and even an extra special 1.5amp rapid charge socket for your smartphone. Being from a world-renowned brand like JVC there’s a good few audiophile pleasers chucked in there, too. All the clever, infinitely tinkerable stuff like a 13-band EQ,…

It has become such a regular occurrence, that I sometimes think we either don’t notice it any more or purposely choose to overlook it. I’m talking about cars which suffer with an identity crisis, cars which don’t really know what they’re trying to be. Show cars pretending to be track cars, or track cars built to such a high standard that their owners are frightened to take them out on track. Often this comes about due to improper planning and foresight; when we don’t look far enough down the road to try and see what we really want to build for ourselves. What normally happens is that we start out excited and eager to put our mark on a new project. Our intentions are always good, but somewhere along the…

I have this little OCD part of my (yes, it’s minuscule, I know) brain, which means that I hanker after stuff that matches. It’s the reason that my TT and Beetle (and your Navara – Jules) have similar number plates. It’s the reason why all my furniture at home is dangerously white for someone who spends their life covered in oil. And, it’s the reason why I spend way too much money on ridiculously overpriced socks just because they happen to match my underclangers. I’m not sure if I’m naturally a dickhead, or if it’s this part of my brain that makes me that way, but it’s definitely how I’m wired. Anyway, the point is that I’ve been looking at my Beetle in its fresh hue, and I keep coming…

Initial G: “How’s that Vauxhall VXR of yours?” Midge: “Erm, yeah, not the best to be honest.” Jules: “This is my second holiday in 2-months, I’m turning into you.” Midge: “I doubt it, I actually work for the other 6-weeks!” Midge: “Glenn do you fancy coming to Costco with me? I don’t think I’m allowed to take the missus.” Why the long face? As social distancing is just for people, Jules made a new friend this month and – with a nudge and a wink – he reckons he has more in common with Dobbin here than anyone at FC towers. We kind of doubt that though, aren’t Donkeys famed for being hard working for starters? Jules is the one on the left, just in case you were wondering. Missing…