Table of contents for May 2023 in Evo

HAVE YOU SPOTTED THE NEW TREND among manufacturers who are preparing to end their association with the internal combustion engine and pledge their allegiance to the lithium-packed battery pack? We are firmly in the period of launching new performance models that have no more power or torque than existing or lesser models in the line-up with the same motor. Lamborghini has done it with its updated Urus (see page 22), and now Bentley too. It’s no coincidence that they both use the same 4-litre twin-turbo V8. Deadlines and commitments (largely self-imposed) to be predominantly or even 100 per cent electrified by a specific date mean the cost of developing more powerful derivatives that have such a potentially short shelf-life simply isn’t worth diverting the budget for. In the case of…

THE SUBJECT HAS BEEN BUILDING momentum for a number of years, but now it has entered the mainstream. Synthetic fuel, or efuel as it is also known, is no longer a niche subject. With Porsche one of the first car manufacturers to commit and invest in efuel development, evo has visited its pilot production facility in Chile to see first-hand how this type of alternative fuel could play a large role in the internal combustion engine’s future. To recap, efuel is a gasoline that’s made entirely from clean energy (wind and water in the case of Porsche’s) and can be used in any internal combustion engine, with no modifications needed. It requires no mining of fossils to make but instead removes CO2 from the atmosphere during its manufacture, hence why…

‘SERIOUSLY, WHO WANTS AUGMENTED REALITY BEAMED onto a windscreen?’ Sorry, Jethro (column, evo 307), but augmented reality can be something good for drivers. Not the ridiculous animations or theatrical/tourist-attraction gizmos, granted, but a precise and relatively discreet visual augmentation to draw attention to risks and potential dangers, or to enhance sport/track modes with trajectories, braking points, etc. There is also the issue of transitions from autonomous driving (AD) back to manual mode to consider. Imagine on a highway when the average person has to get quickly back into the loop; augmented reality underlining the current risks, other cars, imminent necessary lane changes to exit the motorway etc would be useful. Also, on my way to a trackday in a high-performance sports car I’d love to be able to delegate the…

IT’S A WICKED COMPOUND BUMP IN THE ROAD, like a booby trap laid by a performance car poacher. One steep up-ramp ridge, sump gouge marks at its base; then a second, surprise kicker concealed from view just after. Fading tyre marks trace their way to a twisted stretch of Armco, suggesting someone’s come a cropper not so long ago. The M2 shrugs it off with ease. One controlled movement through the suspension, no aftershocks through the body. Stable, composed. Thank you, next. We’re in Arizona, on a fairytale canyon road that dips, dives and toboggan-turns its way across the flanks of Woodchute Mountain. The M2’s relishing it. Good news, eh? Because as the M division enters its 51st (official) year, this is one of the last rear-wheel-driven, manual-gearboxed cars it…

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WHEN FORD GETS SOMETHING RIGHT the results can be dazzling. Proving main stream needn’t mean mundane has long been the company’s mission. Witness the Mondeo, Focus and Ka all defining their respective sectors thanks to their class-leading dynamics. As Ford’s longest-serving nameplate, the Fiesta has had its ups and downs over the decades, but the Mk7 – built between 2008 and 2017 – is another example of Ford at its best. A range of affordable cars that drove brilliantly, this was a Fiesta that felt like it had been shaped by engineers, not accountants. Sportiest of the lot was the excellent ST, with the special-edition ST200 being the best of the bunch. Introduced in 2016 as the seventh-generation Fiesta was entering its twilight years, it was a fitting send-off to…

@evomagazine @evomagazine @officialevomagazine THAT’S RIGHT. M5 CS. WE HAVE AN M5 CS. Actually, make that I have an M5 CS, because I don’t want to ever let this thing out of my sight. I’ve blocked the numbers of all my colleagues who might want to borrow it as they’ve ‘got a long drive to a wedding’ or are ‘attending a launch in Scotland’ or plan to ‘visit friends in the Eifel region of Germany’. The CS is here for six short months, which will pass in a flash. Especially for my colleagues, for whom it will feel like it was never here at all. My M5 CS. What a concept to say out loud. So, some details. My M5 CS is in my preferred colour of Frozen Deep Green, as…

THE M240i xDRIVE IS NOT A TRACKDAY car. It’s not even a full-blown M division car. The cynical might call it a marketing exercise. However, just a couple of laps of Bedford Autodrome shatter that notion and ram home a growing realisation that nothing seems outside the comfort zone of this remarkably complete coupe. Stranger still is that I’d spent the rest of that day – battling pelting rain, drizzle and finally a bit of sunshine – in an M4 CSL. The new hardcore road-racer had scrapped with our ravaged tarmac for hours and even on track it didn’t seem to have the grip and traction to make the most of its lunatic engine. Jumping into the M240i was a breath of fresh air. Composed, balanced and still sharp enough…

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PRESCOTT, ARIZONA, WAS A GOLD RUSH town. It’s here in the modern-day Old West, outside the oldest bar in Arizona, the Palace Saloon on Whiskey Row, that we climb into the first plug-in hybrid M-car for the first time. It’s far from a saloon itself: today the gold is in them there SUVs (and liberally applied to the XM’s exterior if buyers spec the optional gold-coloured trim). This is especially true in the USA, which is expected to be one of the XM’s most important markets, along with China, the Middle East and South Korea. The business case is sound. Luxury performance SUVs such as Porsche’s Cayenne, Bentley’s Bentayga and Lamborghini’s Urus are lucrative, so for BMW to make even modest inroads into that market makes perfect sense. A regular-brand…

A PETROL ENGINE IN A CAR WEIGHING 2.7 tons sounds like a recipe for financial ruin and an unhealthy relationship with fuel station staff. And a lot of Twix Xtras. But we live in a world where batteries command more budget resource than internal combustion engines as an industry races to fit a plug socket to as many of its cars as possible. Including Range Rover, which has done just so with its Sport P510e. Its battery is a 38.2kWh item, which in a vehicle a quarter of the size would make for a decent EV city car, but in one weighing perilously close to 3000kg results in a claimed 69 miles of electric driving, after which you’re calling upon the 400+ mile potential range of its 3-litre, turbocharged straight-six…

I’M NOT SURE YOU CAN DECLARE ANY period of racing a ‘golden era’ before it’s really begun, but that hasn’t stopped sportscar fans, championship organisers and manufacturers daring to utter those words about the new Hypercar class for the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours. After the rise and the inevitable, crashing fall of the heinously expensive LMP1 category, a new set of rules – shared between IMSA in the US and WEC/Le Mans – has brought in new players, new shapes, new sounds and paved the way for the return of iconic marques. Porsche is back. Cadillac has arrived. BMW is already racing in the US alongside Acura and will be at Le Mans in 2024, joined by Lamborghini. There are more, too. Toyota, Peugeot, Alpine for…

SEEING THE COVERS PULLED FROM A NEW CAR isn’t always as momentous as it sounds. But this really does feel a goosebump-worthy moment in automotive time. We’re inside Lamborghini’s Centro Stile design studios at Sant’Agata and in front of us is a wide, low, shrouded silhouette. Y-shaped lamp graphics shine clearly through its cover, as sharply cut as the tailored suits Lamborghini’s top brass are wearing. CEO Stephan Winkelmann, CTO Rouven Mohr and head of design Mitja Borkert step forward and pull the veil from the vivid orange form beneath. It’s our first meeting with the Lamborghini Revuelto, latest in the direct line of supercars that began with the Miura. Technologically, and dynamically, it may prove to be the greatest yet. The Revuelto is Lamborghini’s first plug-in hybrid, and its…

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE COMPACT SUV is baffling. Every other car seems to be one, so it’s gratifying to learn that Europe is, in fact, still the biggest market for estate cars. It suggests that there are still many of us who recognise that a long, low estate car is not only more stylish and practical but also intrinsically more dynamic than a potato on wheels; the compact SUV is essentially a jacked-up saloon with a commensurately higher centre of gravity and all the dynamic compromises that brings. There’s also something about a sporty estate that makes it cooler than the saloon it’s based on, so much so that you’d be tempted to go for the five-door even if you didn’t have dogs or bikes or kids’ paraphernalia…

I TEND TO LIKE FAST FORDS AND HAD been curious about the Puma, not least because it’s the popularity of cars such as this that has led Ford to kill off the Fiesta. So recently I managed to grab a few weeks with our Puma ST to find out what it’s all about. In terms of looks the Puma is likeable, at least if you’re drawn to chunky crossovers. Being a five-door means it’s practical, and the double-depth ‘MegaBox’ boot is handy for containing full grocery bags or muddy boots, or, one might imagine, smuggling contraband. It’s a comfortable and generously equipped car, too, with a heated front screen, a decent CarPlay-enabled hi-fi, a simple touchscreen interface and a conductive charging tray for your mobile. So far, so good. Ford…

AS I DETAILED IN MY LAST REPORT, I decided to prioritise the works carried out by Porsche Centre Hatfield based on the maximum impact in getting my car back to how I feel it should drive. Some of those cosmetic items, well, they will have to wait. This meant removing the aftermarket exhaust for a factory sports system (with a corresponding change back to the original ECU map, a relatively simple job in the menu of the diagnostic system). From there, it was back to factory anti-roll bars and coffin arms, front and rear, plus I also replaced the seven-year-old Michelins with a fresh set of the French firm’s Pilot Sport PS2 N3 tyre – the one officially rated for the 996 by Porsche. I had thought about trying a…

WE’RE THE CLEVER ONES, ISN’T THAT right? We prize the use of intelligent weight saving, of function creating form; we see through all the nonsense and understand why an Alpine A110 is so special, why an estate car beats an SUV every single time and why physical size and mass is The Enemy. We even use our collective sense to rail against grossly overpowered and absurdly heavy EVs. If only everyone was as enlightened as evo readers. And yet… Oh dear. I am powerless to fight it. I know on a molecular level that the Ford Ranger Raptor is bloated (2454kg), vastly oversized for most UK roads and wildly inefficient. I’m also painfully aware that there are no Baja-style playgrounds in Northamptonshire or Oxfordshire or even in the depths of…

THE ARRIVAL OF THE GMA T.33 SPIDER SHOULD COME AS NO surprise. Gordon Murray and his team have been nothing but open when it comes to his company’s product strategy. ‘We always said there’d be three T.33 models: the coupe, an open car and a performance model,’ says Murray. ‘The Spider is the second of the trio.’ It is also, to these eyes at least, the prettiest of the GMA cars to date. Since the 2019 reveal of the headline-grabbing three-seater fan-assisted T.50 halo model, Murray, CEO Phil Lee and the team they have assembled around them – ‘Some think we’re a start-up, but we have a number of people who have been working with me for more than 20 years,’ says Murray – have not only neared completion of…

IN THE LATE 1990s I SPENT A DAY AT MARANELLO working on the production line. It was an amazing experience, kitted out in official Ferrari overalls and eating lunch in the staff canteen. In truth I wasn’t on the line helping to build F355s, I was next to it in a sectioned-off area in which a small team of people were hand-building F50s. My partner was a guy from Sicily who spoke no English, which, with my limited Italian, meant that we had to use hand signals. It worked well enough for me to fit a whole powertrain into the back of one F50. I signed the chassis while nobody was looking and, assuming that the complete rear-end of the car didn’t fall off due to Goodwin finger trouble, that…

WITH THE MC20 GRABBING HEADLINES – and our 2022 eCoty title – it seemed like an opportune moment to refresh our collective memories of another flagship Maserati. Specifically, the 572bhp, 203mph, £136,575 (including options) Ghibli Trofeo supersaloon. Plucked from Maserati’s UK marketing fleet with 8000 miles already on the clock, it would be ours for a little over three months. Our time with M600 GHB was short, but it made plenty of friends during its stay. I was its notional custodian, but Barker, Bovingdon and Gallagher all spent meaningful time with the Modenese M5 rival. Though we all tend to have slightly different takes on cars, we were very much aligned on the big Maser, each developing a real soft spot for it despite knowing it fell a long way…

LAP TIMES AREN’T EVERYTHING. THE TANGIBLE ASPECTS OF the way a car delivers its performance can’t be measured to the nearest tenth. So why, might you ask, do we regularly put the latest entrants in the world of fast cars against the clock around our favourite circuits and then share the results on evo’s YouTube channel? Well, because lap times do have their place, providing a simple, objective measure of progress and relative performance. Moreover – and somewhat ironically – the subjective elements of a car tend to crystallise when you strap in, lid on, and leave nothing on the table. Driving on the limit around a circuit is often the only way to reveal those last few elusive layers of a car’s behaviour, what the engineers were thinking, and…