Tabla de contenidos para February 2019 en Evo

DESPITE 54 YEARS OF DIVIDING opinion and winning group tests in equal measure, a new 911 is always a significant moment in the performance car world. Revealing an all-new model in your 70th year is quite the milestone, too. And one hell of a birthday present! But developing a new sports car when trying to second-guess the size of the hurdles the legislators are going to put in your way next has been one of Porsche’s biggest challenges throughout the last seven decades. And it’s faced a few in its time – some of them nearly proved terminal. So, will this be the last 911 as we know it? Not if the man responsible for it, August Achleitner, has his way. Yes, there will be an electrified 911 within two…

IT’S NOT VERY OF TEN THAT A NEW CAR BRAND appears in the mainstream market, and rarer still one with a dedicated focus on performance. In fact, when a car maker is bold enough to call its new venture ‘the ultimate expression of sportiness’, and promise that its vehicles will be ‘developed by car lovers, for car lovers’, you can be sure that evo’s receptors are keenly attuned to every development. This, then, is Cupra: once the high-performance derivative in the SEAT range, now a standalone brand with its own HQ at SEAT’s Martorell base and, in time, its own products. So far, so good: SEAT’s performance cars have lacked confidence and passion in recent years. Once they were the brightly hued, more focused alternatives to soulless Volkswagens, but more…

THE NOISE. OH MY WORD, THE NOISE. Audi may have treated the R8 to a midlife nip and tuck, but thank the stars above it’s not messed with the life-affirming beat of its V10 heart. From yelping start-up, through low-rev growl and on to a multi-layered howl as it spins relentlessly around to the 8700rpm cut-out, this majestic 5.2-litre unit is as much pitch-perfect musical instrument as it is a motivating force. As we scream round the brilliant Ascari circuit in southern Spain, I have to remind myself we’ve only got a few laps in this production-ready but as-yet unhomologated (WLTP strikes again) version of the new R8, so I need to pull my attention away from the engine, which draws you in like a fly to faeces, and concentrate…

1948 – 1958 Porsche’s story actually began way before a four-cylinder, air-cooled roadster was driven out of a sawmill in Gmünd, Austria. Nearly half a century earlier, Ferdinand Porsche (pictured right, with son ‘Ferry’) was instrumental in the design of the electric Lohner-Porsche (above left). It wasn’t until 1948 that the first car with a Porsche badge – the 356 (left) – was built. The company’s first decade saw it return to Stuttgart, evolve the 356, design and build its own engines and gearboxes, and enter Le Mans for the first time – and win its class. 1958 – 1968 As the 356 took on America, Porsche built the 550 racer, which went on to win at Sebring and the Targa Florio (and claim the life of an icon). During…

‘The M2 Competition has exactly the kind of ingredients that should make for a great M-car’ SO THERE I WAS JUST LAST MONTH, having spent ten days in the editor’s long-termer, saying how the M5 was my favourite current BMW M model. Little did I know that barely a fortnight later a different car would be providing some, ahem, competition for my M affections. And I won’t just be enjoying this one for a week or so, either, but for the entire time it will be on the Fast Fleet. The M2 Competition is from the complete opposite end of the M spectrum, of course, but it has exactly the kind of ingredients that should, you’d hope, make for a great M-car. To recap, the Competition, which replaces the standard…

COSY IS THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE THE interior of the Abarth 124 Spider. After borrowing a ginormous Ford Edge SUV for the annual family trip to see the in-laws in France recently, jumping back into the Spider has been a bit of a reality check and a reminder of just how little room there is inside the diminutive Italian’s cabin. My wife and I have tackled that trip many times before, in a Mk3 Mazda MX-5 (cramped), a Mini Cooper S Roadster (slightly less cramped) and a 987 Porsche Boxster (still cramped, but who cares?) and each time we’ve said we must choose something more practical, more cosseting, next time. Of course, we never do, as all we’ve ever seemed to own in recent years is two-seater soft-tops. But…

I HATE TO START ON A NEGATIVE, BUT no matter which way I come at it I can’t help concluding that the Skoda’s DSG gearbox just doesn’t cut the mustard. I understand the theory, but on a car such as the Octavia I’d frankly sacrifice a few tenths of a second getting to 60mph and not run quite as far on each gallon of fuel in return for some extra driver interaction. When fitted with the six-speed manual the vRS involves you just enough to keep you interested. With the twin-clutch it feels like nothing much more than a slightly quicker version of an ordinary Octavia. Yet there’s more to it than that. While the DSG functions respectably in, say, a more mundane diesel model, it’s constantly wrong-footed in the…

NOT MANY DIESEL HATCHBACKS WILL GET your hairs standing on end or your pulse racing, but the Ford Focus TDCi ST is one of the rare derv-fuelled cars that has the ability to stimulate your adrenal glands. This example may not be based on the absolute latest Focus – there isn’t an ST version of the new Mk4 Focus yet – but the former diesel ST is a credible warm hatch and an economical one too (our old long-termer easily averaged over 40mpg). Yet it’s still far from perfect: the engine isn’t the easiest to drive smoothly, you’re often kept busy counteracting torque-steer and, frustratingly, it exhibits very little shared DNA with its rather spectacular relative, the Fiesta ST. Now Mountune has developed a new engine map for the diesel…

THE FIRST 30 MINUTES OR SO IN ANY GT-R always follow a similar pattern. First you get in and try to wind the seat down a bit lower than it’ll go. It feels huge. Then you start the gritty, deep and dirty twin-turbocharged V6 that chunters away slowly with a shudder and a few mystery clonks. The gearbox and engine are cold and seem unbelievably grumpy for a modern performance car, but the dampers feel locked solid, too. There’s an industrial, almost Victorian-engineering feel about a GT-R on a winter’s morning as it hunts around into cambers. If Brunel had got around to building a supercar it’d feel and sound like this. Slowly but surely the GT-R comes to life. The dampers stop rattling and start working, the gearbox never…

ASTON MARTIN HAS TAKEN A STEP CLOSER to joining the SUV fray with its all-new DBX. We’ve known about Aston’s plan to build the DBX for a while now, but this image of a prototype out testing gives us our first glimpse of what to expect when it arrives towards the end of 2019. The production DBX will have little to do with the high-riding two-door coupe DBX Concept shown at the 2015 Geneva motor show, instead taking a more conservative five-door approach. Closer in size to a Mercedes GLC Coupe than a Porsche Cayenne, the DBX will combine a rakish, coupe-like profile with modern Aston Martin exterior design cues and a typically plush interior. Powering the DBX will be the same AMG sourced twin-turbo V8 engine as found in…

IT’S ALWAYS STRUCK ME AS ODD THAT a marque once trading so profitably on the tagline ‘the ultimate driving machine’, and which has a tradition of sharpening its mainstream cars to a formidably glinting blade under the letter M, has usually seemed a bit lost when it comes to the sports car. The Z1 should have been extraordinary, but is better known for its doors than its driving experience, and the less said about the rickety old Z3 the better. That leaves the Z4: the first generation increasingly intriguing to an aesthete, but always a step behind the Porsche Boxster from a driving perspective; the most recent car a boulevardier that barely registered a blip on the evo radar. Yet this Z4 could be different. Why? Because when its engineering…

‘It makes decently quick progress, and has a nicely balanced and responsive chassis’ THE REINVENTION OF THE HYUNDAI-KIA Automotive Group over the last couple of years has been one of the great ‘good news’ stories for the automotive press – and for fans of affordable performance cars in general. After all, who in their right mind wouldn’t get excited about new models such as the Kia Stinger GTS and Hyundai i30 N taking the fight to the sometimes boringly familiar long-established players? But in the excitement it’s perhaps easy to forget that the roots of HKAG’s reinvention can in fact be traced back to 2013, and the launch of the Kia Proceed GT. It wasn’t the hottest of hatches, powered as it was by a 201bhp turbocharged 1.6, nor was…

A REASSURING THUD ON THE DOORMAT TOLD ME THAT MY new evo mag was here. After ripping open the envelope I flicked straight to the new McLaren Speedtail’s performance stats. Firstly, I’ll say this: I remember watching Top Gear when Tiff Needell test drove the McLaren F1 and mashed his right foot into the lightweight carpet. The background instantly blurred and his expression changed to sheer focus; even an experienced racer just couldn’t comprehend how quick this road car was. Headline figures such as 0-186mph in 22 seconds just didn’t seem possible, yet that was what the F1 was capable of. Then after a couple of decades we had to try to understand how quick the new P1 was. This time it was just 16.5 seconds for the same benchmark.…

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A SHED IN Surrey. Less than ten miles from where I’m standing, on the other side of the A3, Ken Tyrrell established a Grand Prix racing team in a wood shed at the family timber yard, and went on to accumulate three Formula 1 driver’s championships, one F1 constructor’s championship, 33 F1 race victories and 19 pole positions. It must have been easy to write off Tyrell Racing in the early days on first acquaintance, just as the first impression of Thunder Road Speed Shop may not fit the modern – and frankly rather stifling – ultra-glossy world of high-end classic car ownership. You’ve got to find it first, which has our Fast Fleet Audi RS4’s nav descending into electronic hysteria. By the time you’re turning into a…

‘THE PLEASURE OF WORKING THE GT3’S MANUAL TRANSMISSION MORE THAN OFFSETS THE FRACTIONAL SACRIFICE IN PACE’ PORSCHE HAS ALWAYS DONE EXTREME 911s, but it’s rare for it to have three variants on sale simultaneously. So in the interest of science – and because what better way to celebrate a 70th anniversary – we’ve gathered together the current GT3, GT3 RS and GT2 RS at Anglesey Circuit to discover which is the king of 911s. GT3 first, and thanks to Porsche’s volte-face on its PDK-only policy for GT models, this a rare opportunity to try a state-of-the-art car with a traditional manual transmission. It doesn’t disappoint. Porsche has continuously improved its seven-speed manual, but this six-speed version is even better. There’s a switchable auto-blip function, which gets some people very hot…

JAMES DISDALE, ROAD TEST EDITOR At the risk of sounding just a little blasé, I have quite a few Porsche pick-of-the-pops to choose from, yet none is etched so indelibly on my mind as my time with the Cayman GT4. We were at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground for some photography, but once the snaps were in the bag it was playtime, albeit just for an hour or so, but in that glorious 60-odd minutes I gelled with the GT4 like no other, revelling in its near-perfect balance and the seemingly direct communication between the controls and my cortex. No stupid driver modes, just a lovely Alcantara-wrapped wheel, stubby gearlever and three pedals – just as it should be. Every lap I pushed harder and took ever-greater liberties, totally confident that the…

AS YOU CAN NO DOUBT TELL FROM THE surge in mileage, it’s been a big month for the Up. In fact I’ve pretty much taken up residence in the little VW, thanks to numerous long-haul trips, including another race weekend at Spa, a quick foray to the Scottish Borders, another dash to Goodwood, plus umpteen airport runs and even a trip to a local garden centre to buy the world’s supply of spring bulbs. This roll call of journeys big and small epitomises what I love about the Up. It just gets on with life without complaint, playing the role of mile-muncher, B-road scratcher or shopping trolley with equal aplomb. And despite doing all of this it never fails to serve up plenty of fun along the way. When I…

WITHIN A FEW WEEKS OF ‘MY’ M5 arriving back in March, BMW announced a more powerful, more focused, more ‘evo’ variant in the form of the M5 Competition. It costs an additional £6500, which means a base price of £96,205, and unlike the M2 Competition, which has nudged the standard M2 out of production, the M5 Comp is being offered alongside the regular M5. Up until the Competition’s arrival I had found little to complain about when it came to KNP’s performance. Its V8 in particular was proving to be wonderfully dual-purpose. In its mildest setting it’s capable of effortlessly eating away at laborious motorway miles, yet switching to Sport or Sport Plus wakes nearly 600 manic Munich nags which have an unnerving ability to make a near-1900kg four-wheel-drive saloon…

TONED-DOWN VERSIONS OF HOT hatchbacks are nothing new, allowing customers a taste of a performance model without the associated costs. With the i30 N-Line, it’s the first time Hyundai has offered such a model – not least because the i30 N it sits below is the company’s first real attempt at a proper hot hatch. Hyundai claims some genuine ‘N’ input has gone into the N-Line. The styling hits the right notes, adopting similar front and rear bumpers and attractive 18-inch alloy wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4s. A smaller spoiler than that of the N and a twin exhaust outlet (rather than a separate pipe each side) give the game away that this isn’t the full monty, but you do get chrome-trimmed door handles as compensation. The N-Line+…

THIS ALIEN-LIKE MINIATURE LMP CAR IS the Revolution, a two-seat trackday and race machine with both the pedigree and specification to make a real impact in its market niche. It comes from Revolution Race Cars, a new company set up by Radical Sports Cars co-founder Phil Abbott. Revolution’s aim is to bring LMP technology and safety to the sub-£100,000 hardcore sports car market, utilising a carbonfibre tub and tech more usually seen in the higher echelons of motorsport. The tub is manufactured by German firm DD Composites, and uses a pioneering infusion process that aims to reduce the costs of producing carbon components while maintaining the strength the material is known for. Powering this advanced structure is a 3.7-litre Ford Cyclone V6, its power output massaged upwards via a new…

I SUSPECT THAT EVEN AUDI HAS BEEN surprised by the success of its A1. Essentially a supermini with a family hatchback price tag, this upmarket tiddler rode the wave of success generated by BMW’s reimagined Mini, delivering premium appeal and personalisation aplenty to cash-rich buyers looking to downsize. Even the inexorable (inexplicable?) rise of the SUV has failed to significantly dent sales of these tinsel-laden tots, so there’s no wonder Audi has ploughed resources into an all-new version of the A1. Like its predecessor, the latest car owes a lot to the Volkswagen Polo (and various SEATs and Skodas), being based on the same platform. It also uses many of the same engines, quite a few shared suspension components and pretty much carries over that car’s electrical architecture in its…

‘The steering delivers the sort of feedback an M5 or E63 driver would kill for’ BAHRAIN, IT TURNS OUT, IS NOT AN ideal place to launch a new car, particularly one that has over 450bhp and a chassis that’s presented as the dynamic benchmark. There are two reasons for this, the first of which is that there aren’t many corners, at least not on the routes we’ve been asked to stick to, which initially makes it very difficult to assess the Panamera GTS’s 10mm lower ride height, recalibrated adaptive dampers and stiffer anti-roll bars. Secondly, while there are plenty of straight roads, they are heavily policed (on almost every junction and under every motorway bridge there’s a menacing-looking Toyota Land Cruiser complete with riot shield grilles over the windows) and…

THIS IS CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION. READY to tackle one of the best roads across the Yorkshire Dales are three rear-wheel-drive sports cars, each with a manual gearbox, each for under – and in some cases well under – thirty thousand pounds. Heck, two of them even come with naturally aspirated engines. That’s a recipe hard to find at any price these days, and yet here we are, about to pitch the newly updated Mazda MX-5 against its two key rivals, and they’re all cars that are available for the same price as a middling Golf Estate. Moreover, our chosen Mazda roadster for this test is the RF version, the one with the metal folding targa roof panel, so along with the fully enclosed Toyota GT86 and the traditional soft-top equipped…

BACK IN MARCH 2017 I HANDED BACK the key to my very first long-term car, a Kia Proceed GT. I summed up my final report by suggesting that while it was an easy car to appreciate, its lack of character – bright yellow paintwork aside – made it a hard one to love. ‘When Kia produces a car that you look forward to driving,’ I summarised, ‘its rivals really will have something to worry about.’ I’m not claiming any Nostradamus-style powers of prescience, but in the last couple of years both Kia and sister brand Hyundai have done exactly that. What we didn’t know at the time was that Kia’s moonshot would be a high-performance, rear-wheel-drive saloon to make a 340i feel dull (the Stinger GT S), and that it…

‘Those enormous wheels are so over the top they might just be visible from space. Subtle the RS4 ain’t’ LIFE WITH THE RS4 HAS TURNED INTO A rollercoaster of emotions ranging from mild indifference to deep joy. One minute I find its easy-going, slightly synthetic character strangely unsatisfying, and seriously question whether it could ever be worth that near 90-grand (with options) price tag. Next I’ll return to its diamond-stitched sports seats, perhaps late at night in an airport car park, and it’s like sinking into an old pair of slippers, albeit ones with the speed potential of state-of-the-art running spikes. Travelling very quickly without much effort has rarely been so accessible as with the RS4; its overall performance potential is colossal. It’s also proving fascinating living with something as…

WITH FORMER KIA KEEPER JOHN BARKER now driving something with half the number of cylinders (see page 124), I seized the opportunity to get back behind the Stinger’s wheel, having first sampled it for our ‘Korea High’ feature in issue 250. I’ll create no artificial suspense: the Stinger GT S is one of my favourite new cars, with a fluid and engaging chassis, muscular looks, and a velvety-smooth edge to its ample performance. There are sharper sports saloons for sure, but few I feel quite so comfortable with, metaphorically and literally, as soon as I slip behind the wheel. Top of the agenda, though, was a service. The GT S is unusual for a modern car in having 6000-mile or six-month intervals, and a busy schedule as support car on…

Triumph 2000 ‘A death trap on wheels, it became known as “The Rust” as it was so rotten.’ Rover 3500 (SD1) (1) ‘I learned how to bodge and fill bodywork with this car and it did impress my penniless student friends, until they noticed only one electric window worked.’ Ford Capri 2.8i (2) ‘Mine had a five-speed gearbox and Janspeed (remember them?) exhaust. I really enjoyed the performance and handling.’ Ford Escort XR3i ‘Fun, but the noisy, asthmatic CVH engine and crude suspension put it well behind the Golf and Peugeot GTIs of the time. It was followed by another Mk3 Escort.’ Ford Escort RS Turbo (3) ‘This went well on wide, open roads – stable and fast when on the boost, but lacked the agility and driver engagement of…