Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2019 in Evo

THERE ARE INDIVIDUAL CARS that leave an indelible mark on your subconscious, with the very mention of them catapulting those thoughts to the forefront of your mind quicker than it has taken Charles Leclerc to get under Sebastian Vettel’s skin. Aventador SV? The 700-mile, 11-hour drive south from Wick to home that I’d do again in a heartbeat. Porsche 911 GT3 RS (997.2)? A return trip to the Ring in 35deg C heat. (Did I mention the RS had no air con?) Mini Works GP? Every drive I’ve ever had in one. Each one of these cars is a bewitching demonstration of what’s possible when engineers are let off the leash to push the boundaries. Specials such as those we celebrate this month are not the result of sound business…

FIRST VOLKSWAGEN’S ID R TOOK ON Pikes Peak and won, then it posted the fastest climb up Lord March’s driveway at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Now it has its sights set on a record closer to home – the fastest EV lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The ID R is designed specifically for such feats, being an all-electric car that combines powertrain hardware from VW’s Formula E racer with a bespoke carbonfibre monocoque chassis. This is not a racing car, as it does not comply with any race series rules. Rather it’s a technical exercise in pushing the limits of electric car engineering and design. The ID R’s powertrain is made up of two electric motors – one on each axle – that together produce 671bhp. Peak torque…

BICESTER HERITAGE, LOCATED ON THE former RAF Bicester airfield in Oxfordshire, has rapidly become a popular destination with car enthusiasts thanks to events such as its Sunday Scramble and the Flywheel Festival, while also being a growing hub for classic car businesses. Now the management behind the site has revealed plans to expand its focus to also include the current motor industry and future automotive technology. In what’s being called ‘the UK’s first immersive experiential resort celebrating the past, present and future of automotive culture’, the 444-acre site – which was derelict as recently as 2012 – aims to attract over a million visitors a year through a range of new developments, including a hotel, a nature reserve and exhibition space. Bicester Motion, as the overall site will be known,…

FULL DAY TICKETS AND AFTERNOON TICKETS ARE SOLD OUT, MORNING SESSION TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE For 2019 evo will also hold its first trackday at the iconic Goodwood Motor Circuit in Sussex. Home to the world-famous Goodwood Members’ Meeting and Revival, the evo Goodwood Trackday will allow you to experience one of the most exciting race circuits in the UK. Tickets for our full day and afternoon sessions are now sold out, but you can still book a place for the morning session, which also includes breakfast and lunch. 2019 evo Goodwood Trackday need to know When is the evo Goodwood Trackday? Monday 1 July 2019 How much does it cost? The morning session costs £150 per car and £99 per additional driver. Bookings include hospitality and refreshments. Spectators are also…

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THE ‘CELEBRATION’ OF HARDCORE CARS OVER the preceding pages is a wonderful tonic, a springtime glow of revitalising sunshine draping distant mountains and icy streams, of wild road-racer shapes in zesty colours. I defy your mind not to wander as you savour Henry’s prose and drink in the images from Aston’s camera, contemplating what it would feel like if you were in the Lambo’s intolerable bucket seat, or having the Porsche’s flat-six pummel your eardrums at 9000rpm. Or perhaps driving your own car through the same hyper-real landscape. But there’s also a gritty twin-test going on at the heart of this collective and it’s now time to discover how the protagonists from Modena and Woking square up to each other. Of course, it’s not a fair fight; comparing oranges and…

AFFORDABLE EXOTICS. AN OXYMORON, PERHAPS, but it takes just one stroll around Ford’s Racing Puma to realise there’s merit in the term. Two decades on from its unveiling, its curvaceous rally-style arches, Imperial Blue paintwork and nose-down stance still pack more desirability and attitude than nearly any similarly small car before or since. I’m beginning to wonder whether the Clio Trophy parked nearby – a car I already covet – is in the same league. Both are models that transcend their runabout beginnings through factory modifications as profoundly effective and character-changing as those of any Pista-striped Ferrari or RS-scripted Porsche. Little is left off the table, from bespoke bodywork to supercar-spec dampers. The Clio Trophy, born in 2005, was the ultimate incarnation of the original Renault Sport Clio, a car…

1. PININFARINA Pininfarina’s new electric hypercar is the first fruit of its 80million-euro contract with Rimac, first announced in 2018. Rimac has provided its expertise for the Battista’s battery and drivetrain, and is also handling much of the hardware and software. When quizzed, Mate Rimac doesn’t reveal just how much of the firm’s own C Two can be found in cars such as the Battista, but does hint that it’s ‘a lot’. With electric hypercars coming out of the woodwork almost monthly, the Battista probably won’t be the only such car packing Rimac technology. 2. ASTON MARTIN The Valkyrie is set to be the most extreme road car ever created when it’s finished in 2020, with the capability to match LMP1 lap times. With Red Bull Advanced Technologies behind the…

IN 320d FORM, THE 3-SERIES IS A SAFER bet than indigestion at Christmas. Impervious to the collective turn against diesel, it made up more than half of all 3-series sales for the previous F30 model and this G20 seventh-gen car is expected to sell in similar numbers. It is as important to BMW as it ever has been. Like other G20 models, it rides on the CLAR architecture, helping to cut weight by 55kg compared to the old car, while body rigidity is up by half in key areas. A flat underbody helps it to slip through the air more efficiently, while inside you get the full assault of BMW’s latest technology. What hasn’t changed is the engine, with the B47 unit carried across from the outgoing 320d but with…

IN THE FIRST FEW MILES IT WAS THE incisiveness, the startling precision and the remarkable cohesiveness of the Fiesta that impressed me. Those qualities were still front and centre in Ford’s feisty little hot hatch getting on for 9000 miles and seven months later. In that time there had been a call-up to Car of the Year, a tricky twin-test and plenty of regular miles too, and while the ST wasn’t always the perfect car for the job, it was always entertaining. Our long-termer arrived in late September and was a top-of-the-tree ST-3 fitted with just about every option. Personally, I could have managed without a few of them, the Silver Fox paint included, which cost £750 but looked to some unkind onlookers like grey primer. The essential option was…

TWO NISSAN INSTITUTIONS ARE celebrating their half-century this year, and the company will mark this milestone with a pair of new special editions. The 370Z 50th Anniversary Edition wears a red, white and blue colour scheme in a homage to the Brock Racing livery that so many successful Z-cars raced under in the model’s early years. But there’s no doubt the 370Z is getting creaky these days, and celebrating its history only seems to make Nissan’s silence over a replacement all the more frustrating. The supercar-slaying GT-R, on the other hand, feels much fresher, and its own Anniversary Edition takes inspiration from a more recent car to wear the GT-R badge: the R34 Skyline GT-R. Available in the same Bayside Blue metallic that became a signature colour for the R34…

KAZUNORI YAMAUCHI DOESN’T RUN A CAR company. He’s not a stylist, and he isn’t in the business of selling cars – at least not directly. But he could be considered one of the most influential individuals in the automotive industry of the past two decades. Yamauchi is the creator of the Gran Turismo video game series on Sony’s PlayStation consoles, which has sold 80 million units and counting since 1997; in the same time period, Ford has sold ‘only’ around 64 million cars worldwide. More than seven million people are already playing the latest PS4 title, Gran Turismo Sport, which takes the franchise into new territory, creating not just gamers, but competitors too. In the days before widespread internet adoption, GT was virtually the only source of information on certain…

2692bhp Combined output from the supercar road racers in this month’s cover story 2:15.17 New production car lap record around Road America, set in a 911 GT2 RS 125 Anniversary of Mercedes-Benz’s entry into motorsport 95kg Weight reduction of Aston Martin’s new Vantage AMR manual over a standard Vantage £2.1billion Cost of Toyota’s new ‘mini-Nürburgring’ testing facility in Japan’s Aichi region ‘You have to look after your battery like you look after your children’François-Xavier Demaison, Volkswagen Motorsport technical director, in reference to the bid to break the EV record at the Nürburgring with the ID R…

THIS FEELS LIKE THE AUTOMOTIVE EQUIVALENT of a Bavarian bar brawl. A backstreet, beer-fuelled bust-up between two strongmen from neighbouring German cities. In the black corner is the alarmingly threatening and recently revised Mercedes-AMG C63 S Coupe, whose belligerent elbows-out stance born from bespoke wide arches means you’ll not want to spill its stein of lager on a night out. And in the opposing and, er, equally black corner is the latest BMW M4 with Competition Package, which while trading a fair bit of muscle bulk to the AMG, fights back with its renowned athleticism as a tyresmoking street fighter. Seconds out, meine Herren. When they met in an evo Supertest back in issue 240, accompanied by the then-new Audi RS5, it was the AMG that promised the most, and…

THE MINI COOPER S WORKS GP OF 2006 was probably the first fully fledged example of the breed: a car ‘inspired’ by competition rather than destined for it. It was lighter than a Cooper S by 50kg thanks to a cull of equipment (such as rear seats), and had an appealing race car vibe, but for me it was too stiff to be a great road car, and the lack of practicality seemed a bit unnecessary. Two years later and what’s this on my driveway? A Mégane without rear seats. According to the red-on-white stickers (how wannabe 911 RS is that?), it’s the R26.R. I walk to the rear, note the lack of wiper and suspiciously prod the rear screen… and watch it dimple. ‘Really?’ Four hours later I’m in…

TRULY SPECIAL TIDDLERS ARE HARD TO COME BY. Manufacturers find it difficult enough to make a profit on small cars, particularly in this day and age; making a profit on small cars brimming with engineering mojo is even tougher, unless you can convince buyers to foot the cost up-front or, better still, pay extra for all the stuff you’ve just taken out. Toyota and Mini both opted for the former recently with the £26,295 Yaris GRMN (1) and £32,000 Mini Challenge (2). The Yaris felt like a proper old-school Japanese performance car, happy to flaunt go-faster bits from BBS and Sachs, crammed with a 1.8-litre engine that’s come full circle via Lotus and a supercharger, and oozing that ‘developed after-hours’ feel. The Mini, meanwhile, was very much created in work…

THE MOST FASCINATING contests usually involve a clash of styles and what we have here is exactly that: tricked-up Teutonic understatement takes on sleeve-worn circuit savvy and more Gallic attitude than the gilets jaunes. Understatement is a relative term in this case. With a name intended to recall Volkswagen’s hardcore TCR racer, the Golf GTI TCR gets a front splitter, rear diffuser element, slim tailgate spoiler and, if you must, an extremely dubious optional graphics package to distinguish it from the regular Golf GTI Performance. Its Golf R-bothering 286bhp is delivered between 5400 and 6400rpm, while torque peaks at 280lb ft between 1950 and 5300rpm. So close are these figures to the Golf R’s 296bhp and 295lb ft, cooling could become an issue, so that car’s twin radiators find a…

IT’S AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH FOR people like you and me that the bestselling 911 in recent years has usually been of the automatic cabriolet variety – the least ‘purist’ 911. The gearbox element to that fact doesn’t seem so surprising in 2019, what with most performance cars now using some form of eight-speed torque-converter or sophisticated twin-clutch ’box, but consider that it also held true back in the days when Porsche fitted a much more leisurely Tiptronic slusher. An auto drop-top may be a desirable car for many, granted, but surely it’s an affront to a genuine driving enthusiast? It’s chiefly because the major compromise with the open 911 has always been a loss of overall rigidity to the body, and that, of course, has a significant bearing on the…

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS RIGHT NOW IS an even bigger SUV, apparently. And if you happen to be in the market for a super-luxury seven-seater, you’re in luck. Admittedly, it requires a specific kind of mentality to think that BMW’s X5 offers insufficient size, space or chutzpah, but evidently there are enough people in that camp to justify the creation of this, the BMW X7. Building on the know-how that went into the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, the X7 sits above the fourth-generation X5 to take on the likes of the Mercedes-Benz GLS, Range Rover and Audi Q7. Let’s deal with the elephant appendage in the room first. As initial impressions go, the X7’s mighty nostrils are impossible to miss and will get lane-three drivers moving over for fear of being inhaled,…

AFTER YEARS OF LETTING SIBLING Dunlop take the sporting limelight, the mantra at the launch of Goodyear’s new Eagle F1 SuperSport range of tyres was that the company is ‘back on track’. The significance of this can be seen in the fact that the three-tier SuperSport range is not replacing existing tyres, as is usually the case, but rather is a new departure into the UUHP (ultra ultra high performance) sector for the former Formula 1 tyre supplier. But before we get to the tyres, it’s worth asking why Goodyear is trying to revive that sporting and Grand Prix heritage. It all stems from a change to its relationship with Dunlop. The latter is a brand owned by Sumitomo and had been licensed in various markets by Goodyear. However, now…

WITH THE IDLING ISSUE SORTED (SEE evo 261), i could finally install some shiny new hardware on the 993. I have always wanted to unlock more noise from its flat-six and to improve its performance and save weight at the same time. American firm Fabspeed Motorsport came highly recommended for achieving just this combination with its aftermarket exhausts, so I chose its Maxflo RSR header/muffler kit for my 993. It’s a full stainless steel system developed primarily for track use. However, as I mostly use my 993 on the road, I added the heat exchanger option so that the cabin heater would still work and also specced the MOT-friendly high-flow Sport catalytic converters. As you can see from the before and after photos, the design occupies considerably less space than…

'WHAT ARE WE GOING TO CALL THEM THEN?’ I ASK. ‘They look rather like sausages to me,’ says Antony Ingram, stabbing a suspicious fork at his breakfast. ‘Yes, definitely. Possibly Cumberland. Odd of you not to recognise them, Henry,’ adds Adam Towler. ‘Well, I was actually meaning the cars,’ I say, trying to chase some black pudding round an egg chicane and into a puddle of brown sauce. ‘What’s the group term for an RS, SVJ, Track Pack and Pista?’ There is some considered chewing and a few thoughtful slurps of coffee. (It’s a fine line between pensive and vacant, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.) ‘Lightweights?’ suggests someone. More masticating. ‘Specials?’ offers someone else. A mumble of approval. With the discussion now reaching fever pitch, the…

IT’S OFTEN SAID THAT RACING DRIVERS HAVE a special capacity to remove their brains on a qualifying lap or when driving bumper-to-bumper in persistent rain and blinding spray. The suggestion being that to engage in this type of thing requires you to ignore logical thought, to erase fear of personal injury. To live only in the moment. Sounds romantic and heroic in the context of racing, doesn’t it? Death or glory and all that stuff… But what about on the road? I only ask because the painful truth is that to enjoy new supercars to their full potential requires you to leave your brain at home, pretend that residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure on occasion is ‘a nice little break’, and treat other cars as backmarkers that must be dispatched…

‘IT IS THE SINGLE MOST FEARSOME, FAMOUS AND CHARISMATIC COMPETITION CAR THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN’ RACE WINNER. WIDOW-MAKER. Film star. Legend. If ever there was a racing car to capture the imagination it was the Porsche 917. Born of an unflinching aspiration to win the world’s greatest endurance race, conceived by one of the world’s greatest automotive engineers, driven by the fastest talents of the day, immortalised by Hollywood and revered by race fans for half a century, the 917 is the single most fearsome, famous and charismatic competition car the world has ever seen. In today’s sanitised, safety-conscious times it’s shocking to learn quite how nasty early 917s were to race. Quotes from those drivers who survived this most deadly of eras are refreshingly pithy, but betray a…

THE BEST ‘IF IT HAS TO BE ONE CAR’ I’VE ever driven – the one that does it all and doesn’t leave you feeling short-changed in any area of indulgence (power, space, comfort, twisty-road entertainment, whatever…) – is the Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4Matic+ Estate, a deliciously old-school fusion of blistering performance, on-demand powersliding, as much muddy-field all-drive traction as you’ll ever need and roomy, uncomplicated practicality. But it’s an estate car that looks much like any other E-class estate and is therefore, by current market criteria, deeply uncool. What the world really, really wants is a supersports utility vehicle, which, if you’re a default setting sort of person, is probably a Porsche Macan Turbo, Porsche having more or less invented the modern interpretation of the genre with its larger Cayenne.…

JAGUAR’S TREATMENT OF EMERGING SUV and EV trends might be grabbing the headlines and making the case for a secure future, but delivering a convincing alternative to the BMW 3-series/Mercedes C-class/Audi A4 compact-exec hegemony, while less critical for the balance sheet, is something the company instinctively feels it should be able to crack – not least because Alfa Romeo has already managed it with the Giulia. The trimmed-back, facelifted and fettled 2020-model-year XE line-up is Jaguar’s latest attempt, and for the new XE P300 R-Dynamic S AWD, the more powerful of the turbocharged four-cylinder petrol motors is carried over from the superseded 300 Sport: the 2-litre unit developing 296bhp at 5500rpm and 295lb ft of torque between 1500 and 4500rpm. Before this, the most potent and focused model (apart from…

IS THIS IT? IS THIS REALLY THE LAST Audi R8 as we know it? The last naturally aspirated, mid-engined, four-wheel-drive supercar that, according to those wags on the internet, is a fully paid-up member of the understeer club where fun is to be left at the door? We can’t confirm the former, but we can certainly dismiss the latter because the R8 has yet to fail to excite us in the decade it has been mixing it with the big boys. But should the rumours be true, this may well be the last ICE-powered R8 before electricity takes control. In evo’s eyes the R8 has always been something of an enigma. It’s a supercar that punches above its weight and beyond the perception of its badge. A supercar that never…

‘The Audi may be smaller, yet it’s similarly priced and is similarly powerful’ AN OLD SCHOOL FRIEND OF MINE WON AN Oscar this year. An actual Oscar. We grew up on the same street in a small northern town where nothing ever happened and ‘exciting’ was hearing the local brass band practising in the town hall on a Sunday. You didn’t dream of Oscars where I grew up… So to see someone you know giving an acceptance speech in front of Hollywood royalty is amazing. It also helps reinforce the belief that someone from humble origins can make it all the way to the big time if they’re talented enough. What, you may well ask, has this to do with the Cupra Ateca? Well, it occurred to me that Cupra…

I’LL ADMIT, WHEN THIS LITTLE ITALIAN roadster rocked up in the evo car park last summer with a swagger and ‘look at me’ attitude, I wasn’t convinced. Either by its raucous exhaust note or, to a greater extent, its looks. Whilst I’m all for a fruity soundtrack, it was more the manic tone emanating from those four tailpipes that wasn’t quite doing it for me. A parpy, fart-like noise that I just knew wasn’t going to go down well at home, either. But I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and see how we got on over time. As for those looks, they were arguably even harder to like. The Abarth may be closely related to Mazda’s MX-5 in many ways (bar a few flourishes their…