Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2020 in Evo

WHEN WE STARTED DISCUSSING THE CONTENT FOR this issue, the world remained locked down. It still is as I write, albeit with some glimmer of light appearing at the end of the very dark tunnel we’ve been travelling through these past three months. During that time it didn’t take long for the conversation to pass from the ‘this is interesting’ phase to the ‘what are you missing?’ stage. We’ve missed driving (yes, friends and family too). The freedom driving brings, the escapism, the adventure and the unexpected. We’ve missed those special moments that only spending time in a good car can deliver. That synchronicity of driving, the precision of your actions, the conscious – and subconscious – thought processes of assessing the situation. The noise, the smells, the greasy residue…

WE MISS TVR. YOU PROBABLY MISS TVR. Graham Mulholland misses TVR as well. The engineering entrepreneur has owned a couple of the British sports car maker’s models in the past – a Cerbera and a Tuscan – and now has designs on building the next himself, in the shape of the Mulholland Automotive Legend 480. It’s a brave move naming your first vehicle the Legend. The Mulholland Group has plenty of experience in the high-end automotive industry – Mulholland himself built components for the Jaguar XJR-15 when he was just 19, and the group now develops and manufactures composite parts for everything from Formula 1 cars to two of the latest British hypercars – but it’s fair to say the company doesn’t yet have much brand recognition. That’s something Mulholland…

IN 1968, THE NEWLY LAUNCHED FERRARI 365 GTB4 ‘Daytona’ was the fastest production car in the world. It had 347bhp and stormed on to 174mph. Today, the 812 Superfast has almost 800bhp and does 211mph but is more than 50mph shy of being the fastest production car in the world. It’s a small illustration of how the automotive landscape has changed in the last 50 years, though there are a few constants, and one of them is Ferrari’s devotion to the V12 engine. The V12 is an unbroken engineering thread woven right through the history of the Modenese company, starting with its first car, the 125 S of 1947. That was fitted with a 1.5-litre V12, the first of the legendary Colombo line, and there has been a V12 in…

ASTON PARROTT Ferrari GTC4 Lusso T Glenshee, Scotland January 2018 ‘THIS WAS A COMMISSION FOR Enzo magazine. The car had been supplied on winter tyres, so John Barker and I decided to head as far north as we dared to try to find some snow – basically to see if a 602bhp rear-drive Ferrari could cope without the four-wheel drive of the V12 FF. After a long day’s drive we arrived at Glenshee – Scotland’s largest ski resort – in Aberdeenshire late in the evening. It was pitch black and completely deserted, so really quite eerie. JB and I got a bit freaked out at the thought of getting stuck and freezing to death, but the Lusso seemed to cope well so we cracked on. It was about -3deg C…

HONDA NSXs ARE LIKE BUSES. IF ONE’S just gone, you’re in for a long wait until the next. But the gap wasn’t meant to be the yawning 11 years between the demise of the original and the arrival of the hybrid version we know today. When the first-generation car ceased production in 2005 Honda was making plans for a replacement, to debut in 2010. The first tantalising signs of this project came in 2007 when a curiously modified S2000 was spotted lapping the Nürburgring. Longer and wider than the donor car that had been spatchcocked to make it, this engineering mule featured re-angled screen pillars, a crudely applied fixed roof, stacked quad exhausts, and a set of British number plates that, according to the DVLA, identified it as a ‘Honda…

THERE’S NO BIGGER CHALLENGE OR SPECTACLE in motorsport than the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Held on a special circuit that combines the legendary Nordschleife with the modern GP track to make a lap of more than 15 miles, attended by 200,000 race fans, and contested by more than 200 cars driven by professionals and amateurs alike, it is the world’s ultimate endurance race. It’s hard to imagine a bigger honour than being invited by Maserati’s R&D Factory Team to join the marque’s historic return to this fearsome venue – a place that saw Fangio deliver the finest race of his glittering career behind the wheel of a Maserati 250F. It’s also a prospect of daunting magnitude. The R&D team was formed specially to compete in the Ring 24 Hours, as a…

REACH UP, GRAB THE THICK WEDGE OF door trim and pull down firmly. Sssscchhhh-click. Then silence. Just the sound of your heart thumping slightly faster than usual, the smell of soft Italian leather and the sight of the world rendered into a lustrous panorama by the massive expanse of glass. The shrill drilling of a fast-spinning starter motor cuts the silence for maybe a second, then cylinder by cylinder the big V12 wakes up with a nape-prickling, urgent bark. It’s a dense, busy noise. If somebody played you a recording of it you’d know from its sheer complexity that it was a V12, but with a blip of throttle all the constituent parts meld into a tight, smooth howl. Chaos is ordered into sharp focus. This is the essence of…

‘I’M THRILLED TO BE CLAMBERING INTO A VERY RARE 202MPH FERRARI THAT HAS OVER 500BHP AND DOESN’T HAVE TRACTION CONTROL’ CONSIDERING THAT WE HAVEN’T HAD BREAKFAST, we’re a surprisingly chipper bunch milling around the car park of our Welsh hotel early on this chilly, damp Tuesday morning. Then again, the view is spectacular, and I don’t mean mist-shrouded Lake Bala below us. Our party arrived in dribs and drabs late last night and only now can we see what we’ve managed to pull together – Enzo, F50 and F40, three of the greatest Ferrari road cars ever, their dramatic, distinctive shapes sheened with bobbles of water, their red paintwork glowing almost luminously in the thin light. They’re ours for two days and they’re just waiting to be fired up and…

PORSCHE REVEALING ITS NEW PAIR of 911 Targas isn’t the most earth-shattering piece of news to arrive in our inbox this month. There has, after all, been a 911 Targa since the beginning of time, so this new duo joining the current 992 line-up as a Targa 4 and Targa 4S caught literally no one by surprise. Of more significance is what Porsche’s Dr Frank-Steffen Walliser has said about the future of the 911’s flat-six engine and the challenges Porsche, and every manufacturer, faces when EU7 emissions regulations come into effect in 2026. The upshot is 911 Carrera models will remain turbocharged and turbocharged only, and for 2026 Porsche will need to develop an all-new engine to meet the legislation, with an increase in capacity and possibly cylinder count, too.…

THE TRADITIONAL COUPE MIGHT BE on its last legs, but it’s a concept that German brands clearly still see value in, with the all-new BMW 4-series and a refreshed Mercedes-AMG E53 Coupé going on sale in 2020. First up is the 4-series Coupé, which follows a rich heritage of two-door BMWs stretching back to the 02s of the mid-1960s. Previous models have made headlines for their style and driving dynamics, so given the way the new car looks we’re just hoping it’s able to compensate on the road. It’s the first 4-series to incorporate 48V mild-hybrid technology and the first BMW to offer what the company calls ‘M Sport package Pro’. All 4-series sold in the UK will arrive in M Sport trim, but the Pro option adds a Sport…

WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE OF A GREAT-HANDLING DRIVER’S CAR? Matt Becker, chief engineer, vehicle engineering at Aston Martin: ‘The car must give all the necessary sensory information to make the driver feel connected to the car. Linear responses; input always gives the expected results. But we must also consider ergonomics, throttle progression, brake feel, gearchange… They must all feel balanced and integrated.’ Thomas Maulick, director of vehicle dynamics and performance at Porsche: ‘Driving precision. Precision is the result of overall vehicle parameters, the layout of many individual components and careful set-up of the chassis and mechatronics [electro-mechanical devices]. Tyre dimensioning and steering are important. The car must react directly and predictably to driver inputs to give the best controllability.’ Dave Pook, director at VEDynamics and Life110, ex-JLR SVO: ‘Such a…

RACING AT THE N24 IN 2006 WAS A BIG MOMENT IN MY personal and professional life. I’d raced on and off for a dozen years prior to the opportunity to drive with Maserati, but nothing I’d done to that point compared to the scale of my first 24-hour race, held on the most intimidating circuit of them all. Looking back, I was justifiably awed by much of what happened, both before, during and after that 2006 race. And yet, as is often the case when you’re blissfully unaware of just how far in over your head you really are, I never once paused to question what I was doing. It was just one huge adventure. Working with the Maserati factory team (and sharing the car with Jacques Laffite!) was an…

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EVERY CAR COMPANY HAS LET US DOWN AT SOME point. They replaced a beloved model with soggy nonsense, tried to up the ante with misguided extra tech or fitted a four-cylinder engine that nobody seemed to enjoy. By extension, there’s not a car-making country that hasn’t let us down, and every time you try to think of one you’ll remember the BMW Z3, Lotus Europa or Mitsubishi 3000GT. At some point everywhere has served up lukewarm soup when we were looking forward to a sirloin. But when Italy disappoints us with a badly cooked performance car, it hurts most of all. Maybe it’s because the highs are higher with Italian cars, which makes the lows much lower. Maybe it’s because we know each and every Italian car company is capable…