Evo -julkaisun November 2021 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

NO DOUBT YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THE signs at the pumps telling you that petrol has changed and have spotted the E10 signage. So what exactly is different and how does it affect someone who enjoys driving? In a bid to reduce CO2 emissions, all standard-grade unleaded petrol sold in the UK must now contain ten per cent ethanol, the alcohol-based fuel created from organic materials such as grains, sugars and waste wood. By doubling the amount of ethanol in regular unleaded it is estimated that the CO2 emissions produced on our roads each year will be reduced by the equivalent of a million car’s worth. However, a consequence of increasing the level of ethanol in unleaded petrol means the fuel your engine burns will generate less energy, and that…

THE PORSCHE HERITAGE DESIGN PACKAGE IS not cheap. It costs £6620, in return for which your 911 comes with retro-looking floor mats, green instrument markings and a silver 911 badge on the passenger-side dash. This is all well and good, but not what makes this package worth every penny. No, the reason I would happily spend the cash on the Heritage Design Package is because of the seats, which feature leather side bolsters in either black or Atacama Beige framing colour-matched centre panels covered in something truly excellent: corduroy. Corduroy is a tremendous thing, and not just because in the mind’s eye Jarvis Cocker is almost entirely made of the stuff. It’s soft, it’s tactile, it’s more interesting than a plain, flat cloth. A fun fact about corduroy: in many…

I’M STILL THINKING ABOUT IT. RIGHT NOW, number ten remains blank. Despite days of idle agonising over this list, I continue to deliberate. Rarely has something so inconsequential felt so important. But I’ve got to start writing and I’m hoping that all will be clear and I’ll have written myself into a decision by the time I get to the end. Odd, isn’t? You can look at the complete list and know the outcome before I do. Although scientists would probably disagree. A Porsche in at the top. Predictable, perhaps. And to be honest I could probably have just written ‘Porsche 911’ rather than getting all specific, because I was torn between something early and something more 996 and something restomod and then, when I thought I’d decided, I remembered…

WELL, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE? I MEAN, THINK about it seriously – because whatever you include in your all-time top ten list of cars inevitably says more about what you didn’t choose, rather than what you did. Which is where it actually becomes quite painful to make clear and concise decisions. Where’s the McLaren F1 in my list, for instance? Or the Caterham R500? And what about the Ferrari F40, which I’ve often given as my stock reply to anyone who’s sussed what I do for a living then asked: ‘So what’s the best car you’ve ever driven?’ When it comes right down to it, however, I’ve realised that the F40, lunatic of a car that it is, doesn’t even get a place in my Perfect 10. Instead, and having…

PUTTING TOGETHER A LIST OF YOUR PERFECT 10 cars and then trying to rank them in order of desirability is a bit like being asked to choose your favourite child. And it’s made even harder when you’ve already got well over ten cars parked in your garage (best not to mention the 17 bikes parked beside them here; this is a car magazine after all), so even whittling it down to ten is hard. What I have learnt from amassing my own little collection is that variety equals enjoyment; there’s simply no point owning ten near-identical cars because you end up just using your favourite one all the time and only drive the others to pacify some strange guilt complex that comes from owning too many cars in the first…

OKAY, A 997 GT3 RS 4.0 IS A PREDICTABLE CHOICE, but for all the right reasons. For me this is the ultimate factory 911 and the pinnacle of the era that evo was born into. Nothing conveys a sense of purpose quite like the 4.0, from the angry, serrated engine note to the tough, short-throw gearshift. Nothing communicates quite so lucidly, either. You can feel every piece of gravel squished beneath the Cup tyres. Such raw feedback makes driving this fearsome 911 as easy as can be, whether on road or track and come rain or shine. I wouldn’t change a single thing. Perfection. If you’re lucky enough to own a Ferrari F50, you’re going to have to put up with people telling you the F40 is better for the…

IN THE TWO DECADES THAT EVO HAS been celebrating the thrill of driving we have witnessed many achievements: a golden era of hot hatches; saloons with supercar performance; the birth of the GT3 and the hypercar, and a quantum leap when it comes to safety. We’ve also witnessed some alarming trends: the 600bhp+ SUV, a bigger-is-better mentality to product evolution and a technology arms race that’s out of step with what drivers actually need. And everything has got heavier. But by how much? It’s easy to bemoan any extra kilos, but have we been doing a disservice to manufacturers who have doubled-down in their efforts to keep increases to a minimum? Below are five cars that have continually evolved over the life of this magazine. Have the weight gains been…

‘IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME,’ SO the saying goes, but few would have predicted that the manufacturer to build it would be Toyota. With the exception of 2018’s limited-edition Yaris GRMN (400 made and mechanically rather different from the GR), Toyota had not a single hatchback, new or old, in evo’s Knowledge section. Yet at the tail end of last year it delivered the performance car that so many had been craving: a genuinely compact and relatively affordable hot hatch with driver kicks at the very top of its agenda. OK, maybe second on its agenda, after satisfying homologation requirements for a new type of Yaris for WRC use. But when did homologation ever do any harm? Covid disruption and imminent FIA rule changes meant the rally version…

TWO VERY DIFFERENT RACING CARS this month, one anchored in the present but from a marque very much looking to a new future, and the other from a giant of the sport prophesying where it thinks the future may lie. The latter is the Porsche Mission R concept, an EV racing car aimed at ‘customer motorsport’ – Porsche being the self-proclaimed and undeniable kings of this highly profitable branch of the sport. Porsche’s environmental and sustainability goals are well known. The company aims to be carbon-neutral by 2030; by that date some 80 per cent of new Porsches will be electrified in some form. So while the Mission R may have roughly the same performance around a lap as a 911 GT3 Cup car, the way in which it delivers…

Forzo 60s Chronograph £400 forzowatches.com British newcomer Forzo specialises in motorsport-inspired watches. Among its early models is this vintage-style chronograph, available in three different colour schemes. Farer Segrave Monopusher Chronograph £1750 farer.com This latest piece from Farer is a chronograph in its most stripped-back form, with a single button to operate the starting, stopping and resetting of the timing function. Breitling Top Time Cobra £4360 breitling.com Breitling has expanded its reborn Top Time range with new models referencing the Shelby Cobra (pictured), Ford Mustang (with a green dial) and Chevrolet Corvette (red dial). Each bears the associated car’s logo.…

Cavalier attitude As I began to read Richard Meaden’s review of the Ferrari Roma and its rivals (evo 290), his thoughts about immense European road trips brought back fond memories of my own one-hit journey to the south of France in the late ’80s. Of course, it wasn’t in a vastly expensive GT car but in a Cavalier SRi 130 with Mrs Stacey, two young kids, a full-size race windsurfer on the roof rack and enough luggage for two weeks. A Cavalier in this spec was vastly underrated, and thanks to its 8-valve motor and accompanying torque-rich delivery, even as loaded it could cover ground at speeds considered rather rapid in the day. We drove off the ferry early in the morning and after a run down the A26 at…

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE HUMBLE powerslide? I only ask as it seems such a controversial subject and opinions differ wildly. For example, the art of the ‘cornering shot’ in the pages of a magazine has long caused debate. ‘Irrelevant!’ cry many. ‘Absurd!’ they say, as ‘nobody drives like this’. It’s something I’ve heard many, many times. Often on launches from journalists who are clearly doing a stand-up job of being consumer champions and telling the hard truth. And also can’t operate a car sufficiently well to understand the unending joy it can bring. Me? Oh yes. I love it. Is it irrelevant? Perhaps. Does seeking out that place beyond the limit of grip tell you a lot about a car’s balance, composure and the tools it gives the…

CAYMAN GT4? HANG ON A MINUTE, THIS ISN’T A 911. The engine’s in the wrong place for a start. And the number after the letter ‘GT’ is too high. I’m glad you noticed. Of all the great cars in Porsche’s current and back catalogue, and there are quite a few, trying to whittle it down to just one was a near-impossible task. Normally I champion the 993 Carrera RS. Light, compact (becoming even more important with each passing day), doesn’t require a blind eye to speed limits (ditto) or the driving talents of R Meaden Esq to explore the upper echelons of its talents (double ditto). I occasionally also put my vote against a gen-1 997 GT3 or head in the opposite direction and go for something classic (904 GTS…

THE MORE I THINK ABOUT THIS, THE MORE impossible a task it seems to be. While ten slots should in theory give more than enough room, my initial shortlist required the sort of substantial and traumatic pruning that would reduce Alan Titchmarsh to tears if tasked with administering it to a rhododendron bush. My salvation, in part, has been to focus on the personal: my list isn’t necessarily made up of the greatest cars I’ve driven, but rather the ones that affected me the most. They are the cars that made me smile the widest grin, made me laugh out loud to no one in particular, gave me a robust kick in the stomach, a stab of fear in the chest and a tingle afterwards – sensations that could be…

OH BLOODY HELL, YOU MUST BE THINKING, WHY are car journalists always eulogising Porsche 911s? Well, the thing is, Porsche 911s are really, really good. And the 997 Gen 2 GT3 RS, for me, is the best of the lot. For starters, it’s the 997 shape, the last of the petite 911s. Subsequent models are hardly massive but they’re not as compact as this and you feel it as soon as you get in. It’s usefully small. It fits around you. And it just gets better from there. The quality of the steering, the crispness of the gearchange, the power and range and sound of the engine. The way it digs into corners but has a slight edge that keeps you on your toes while reminding you that there’s always…

A ROAD TRIP WAS MY PERFECT HOLIDAY plan for this year, and the Isle of Skye was the chosen destination. I estimated it could be a 1000-mile round journey, so I wanted to make sure the 993 was in good heath and had no hidden issues before we set off. I already knew the car had one small problem, however, and that was with the lights that illuminate the dials. They had started to fail, which meant the bulbs needed replacing. As I would be driving at night I wanted to get them fixed before the trip, and having heard it’s not an easy job to get the dials out safely I decided to book the 993 in at Porsche Centre Hatfield, which is an official Porsche Classic Partner Centre.…

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF THINGS EVO’S first all-electric Fast Fleet member has proven to be. First off, it is not an Audi RS in the traditional sense, lacking the ferocious punch we’ve come to expect from Ingolstadt’s powerhaus cars and the kind of pugnacious design that turns an A6 into its caricature RS6 alter-ego. And as regular custodian Jordan Katsianis has reported, the RS e-tron GT lacks a substantial slice of premium design and materials inside for a car carrying such a strong six-figure asking price. But there is an area that the GT covers very well, exceptionally so when the stars align: it is a quite remarkable GT car. The silence and serenity lead the charge, providing a degree of isolation from the outside world that many modern…

BMW’S M2 WAS A ‘NEARLY CAR’ IN ITS original iteration. There were flashes of brilliance now and then, as you’d expect from the spiritual successor to the glorious 1-series M Coupé, but we had our reservations over its dynamics. There are no bad cars in evo’s Car of the Year competitions, but an ignominious twelfth-place finish at eCoty 2016 illustrated the M2’s problems. But the subsequent updated version, the M2 Competition, did what was needed to get the compact M-car onto its target. Just two years after the original, it finished a much more competitive fifth place at eCoty. That’s much more like it, and as if to further bolster the theory, the even more focused M2 CS that followed took 2020’s overall victory. The CS is a rather expensive…

LIKE MANY MOTORING JOURNALISTS, I’ve sat alongside Gavan Kershaw as he’s spirited the latest and greatest Lotus around the Hethel circuit with swift grace, and marvelled at how easy he makes going insanely fast seem. Sure, he’s equally adept at the smoky, squealy, high-drama stuff too, but it’s the unfussed way in which he achieves the big speeds and the low lap times that truly impresses. He doesn’t bully the car, isn’t prone to look-at-me flourishes behind the wheel – he’s silky smooth and relaxed. And forever smiling. In part, Kershaw – currently attributes director at Lotus, ensuring each new model and those of the future are infused with the Hethel DNA – credits his driving style to the influence of some of his mentors within the Lotus vehicle dynamics…

ON ALMOST EVERY CAR FORUM, FACEBOOK or Instagram page there are literally thousands of enthusiasts eager to voice an opinion about the direction front grille design is heading. There is also some brilliant Photoshop work suggesting what the final outcomes of the trend to ever larger grilles might be. Back when the personal transportation device moved from being horse powered to machine motivated it was possible that the propulsive element could be electric, steam or gasoline powered. Setting fire to onboard liquid fossil fuel became the most promising choice. These power units produced a lot of heat as well as power and so the cylinders had to be cooled either by air or water, and a water-cooled engine needed a radiator to act as a heat exchanger to get rid…

WE ALL KNOW ELON MUSK AND TESLA ARE arch courtiers of controversy, but when the Model S Plaid appeared with a yoke steering wheel it signalled more than just a knack for provocative actions. It’s no secret that in his evangelical pursuit and premature promotion of Level 5 full self-driving autonomous technology, Musk would ultimately love to do away with the steering wheel altogether. Severing the connection between car and driver would be emotive in the extreme – a glorious coup de grâce for the man who would have us all rendered passengers in machines controlled by algorithms rather than hand-eye co-ordination. Weirdly, given it’s a vital and primary point of connection with the car we’re driving, it’s surprising how few steering wheels feel really good in your hands, with…

A DOUBLE-DECKER BUS? IT’S AN ODD ONE THIS, BUT getting to drive a double-decker (around the West Circuit in evo 100) was one of the best things I’ve done. I grew up riding buses ‘up town’, watching the driver’s skill or sitting up front upstairs. The reality was everything I’d hoped. In race suit and helmet, I eased it down the pitlane and giggling colleagues stopped me and got on even though they knew I was going to set a lap time. Powering through the last right-hander without braking I could just hear the inside rear tyres gently over-speeding above the screams from upstairs. A great toy. The Buick Riviera is, I reckon, the best-looking American car of all time. I had one for a few days and it had…

WHERE TO BEGIN? YOU KNOW IT’S GOING TO BE A tough list to compile. Then you actually start doing it and the full melon-twisting magnitude of Sutcliffe’s challenge ties your head in knots. Suffice to say it’s the only time I’ve ever wished I hadn’t driven so many brilliant cars. There’s also the slightly awkward reality that my list is packed with classics, modern classics or – whisper it – restomods, and not new cars on sale in 2021. That’s not to say I think all current cars are rubbish. Far from it. But would I rather drive any of today’s than the best of their predecessors? I suppose that’s the crux of my own personal conundrum. Only one way to find out. I’ll tussle with the final order in…

NO HEAD SCRATCHING. NO CHIN RUBBING. THE answer to the question I’d never been able to give without layers of equivocation – ‘what’s the best car you’ve ever driven?’ – arrived fully formed, Martini-liveried and in lightest Weissach Pack guise on 22 July, 2014. Reversing the Porsche 918 Spyder down the slender ramps of the transporter lorry it came in using electric power alone was a nervy horror, every second of the rest of the day a massive, life-enhancing reset, the limits of which, for me at least, haven’t been breached to this day. Experientially, the all-drive Porsche seemed to be composed entirely of superpowers that could be summoned in the snap of a synapse, perhaps none more awesome than the ability to roll silently through a village, much to…

IF YOU RECOGNISED OUR NEW MÉGANE as the very car that appeared in last issue’s hot hatch group test, then our new Leon may look familiar to you too. It was also present at that five-car gathering, where it emerged trailing the Renault, which in turn found itself in second place behind the facelifted Hyundai i30 N. The Cupra arrives on the Fast Fleet with a little more to prove than its French counterpart, then, but perhaps it shouldn’t be worried about this. While hot hatchbacks from the Volkswagen Group don’t always emerge victorious from a day or two’s intense road testing, where a car’s dynamic repertoire is the main focus of the scrutiny, they instead have a reputation for playing the long game by being remarkably easy to live…

RATINGS + = new entry this month. Cars in italics are no longer on sale. Issue no. is for our most recent major test of the car (D = Driven, T = Driven Too, I = Ignition, F = feature). Call 0330 333 9491 for back issues. Engine shows details of the car’s combustion engine, or for BEVs the total output in kW of the car’s elecric motors. Weight is as quoted by the manufacturer for the car in basic spec, e.g. with a manual gearbox. In most cases this is to DIN standards (i.e. with fluids but without a driver), but where the manufacturer only quotes a ‘dry’ weight (i.e. without fluids) this is indicated by *. Note that a dry weight will make the car’s power-to-weight ratio (bhp/ton)…

I’D BOUGHT A CD WITH THE MICHEL Legrand soundtrack to the 1971 film Le Mans. It’s quite hard to find actually,’ says Adam Towler, clearly still quite pleased with his purchase, six years later. ‘Anyway, I’d transferred it to my phone, hooked that up to the 991.1 GT3, pressed play and I pulled out of the driveway as dawn broke. Driving off down the road, the operatic first salvo of the flat-six filled the cabin and was then joined by the opening chords to the film’s introduction: the bit where the crowd starts to arrive and the atmosphere builds. Just thinking back now makes the hairs on my neck stand up…’ Would have been better if you were going to Le Mans. ‘We were.’ I thought you said Rouen? ‘Yes,…