Evoの January 2018 の目次

TUESDAY 17 OCTOBER COULD PROVE TO BE a significant day for the performance car enthusiast. It was the day evo was in Shanghai for the reveal of Polestar’s first standalone performance car, while 5000 miles away in Norfolk we were also getting a debrief from Jean-Marc Gales, CEO of Lotus, regarding its recent change of ownership. What’s the significance? Both companies are now owned by the Chinese conglomerate Geely. Having acquired Volvo in 2010, five years later Geely executives gave the green light to separate Polestar from the Swedish car maker, giving it the remit to become a standalone performance brand. A near 600bhp GT coupe (see page 68) isn’t a bad way to kick things off. In the late summer of 2017, Geely also acquired Proton, resulting in it…

letters@evo.co.uk @evomagazine @evomagazine SO, THE NEW TVR GRIFFITH HAS LANDED (evo 242). After the Nikolai Smolenski debacle, much kudos to Les Edgar and co for reviving this iconic British brand. I really hope this is the start of a long new chapter in TVR’s history. First impressions of the new car? I immediately thought: Subaru BRZ on major steroids. No bad thing there! I love the side-exit exhausts and the epic rear diffuser. The interior is suitably ‘TVR’, and that centre console has more than a hint of McLaren about it. If they can produce it, at scale, and with appropriate quality (always TVR’s biggest Achilles heel), I reckon they’ll have a winner. Rob Price, Surrey TheLetteroftheMonth winsanAviatorwatch The writer of this month’s star letter receives an Aviator Airacobra P45…

JAGUAR HAS UPDATED THE XJ FOR the 2018 model year. I know, that’s probably not the most exciting thing you’ve read this week, today, or even in the past hour – unless you run a limo firm or, typically, you’re of advancing age and have owned big Jags for years. Sadly, big saloons just aren’t big business in Europe, apart from the Mercedes S-class, and the current, ageing X351-generation Jaguar hasn’t been able to reverse that declining market trend. Nevertheless, these reworked XJs gain the latest infotainment systems (much improved in 10-inch ‘Touch Pro’ form) and other minor updates to keep them fresh. And then there’s this car, the new range-topping XJR575, which is equipped with a 567bhp (575 PS, hence the name) supercharged V8 and a subtly more muscled…

FEW FIRMS HAVE CAUSED US AS much head-scratching in recent years as Volvo. For decades the Swedish brand has been trying to shake off its sensible and ever-so-slightly staid image with forays into motorsport, highlights including the boxy BTCC 850 Estates of 1994 and the bellowing S60 V8 Supercars in Australia from 2014 until last year. Yet look at Volvo’s current road-car line-up and you’d never guess it had enjoyed much on-track success. There’s the usual mix of fashionable SUVs and plug-in hybrids, but nothing that’s likely to get your throttle foot twitching. However, dig a little deeper into the price lists and you’ll stumble across the name Polestar. The Swedish tuning firm has been behind most of Volvo’s racers for the past 20 years, but in 2013 it launched…

ISTILL HAVEN’T GOT USED TO THE RAW fury of the 720S fully wrung-out. I’m not sure I ever will, I’m not sure I ever want to, and I’m not afraid to admit it. Experiencing 8000rpm within the confines of hedges, trees and ditches still evokes a mix of breathless exhilaration, suppressed fear, and a cringing sense of social irresponsibility. In fact, anyone who says they’ve strung together a proper road while dipping regularly into the final 2000rpm on the rev-counter is either some conduit for the spirit of Ronnie Peterson or telling some really big fibs. As you will have gathered if you’ve read the preceding pages, the 720S’s ultimate performance redefines ferocious at anything sub-hypercar level, perhaps even beyond. It may also have occurred to you that the 720S…

IT DIDN’T TA K E LONG TO pinpoint the car that set the mould for today’s 911 GT3. It really had to be another 911, and specifically the original GT3 that launched the whole line back in 1999. We looked in vain for a model from another car maker, for the simple fact is that no one has taken on the 911 at its own game and won, although we should give an honourable mention to the Dieppe-based Alpine company, which had a darned good stab at it with its finehandling rear-engined A610. Amongst 911s you could make a case for many an RS model, or even the 1987 Carrera CS (for Club Sport), being a forerunner of the current GT3, but in the end the 996 GT3 was just…

DAVID IS NO STRANGER TO THE PAGES OF EVO. HE NOT ONLY LENT US HIS Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 for our 2015 Car of the Year and Track Car of the Year tests, but he also reported on said car in Fast Fleet. You’d expect an interesting car history from the sort of man who imports a lightweight, track-focused muscle car from America to Switzerland, and you’d be right. His first car was an E-type Jaguar – yes, his first car – and since then every car he has owned has been respectable, or at the very least had an interesting engine. In fact, many of the cars on this list didn’t remain standard. In addition to enhancing his 205 GTI with a turbo conversion, David treated his Defender and Alfa…

HOW DO YOU DEFINE ‘THE THRILL of driving’? It’s a question I’ve been pondering quite a lot recently after spending plenty of time in our GTE. For most of us, evo’s slogan brings to mind images of open roads, a chassis dancing on the edge of grip and an engine singing at the top of its voice; or taking to a track and acing apexes with millimetric precision. Yet if you’re like me, there’s much more to driving than that. Just the act of getting behind the wheel generates a tiny tingle of excitement, even when it’s for something as mundane as the daily commute or slotting a car into a tricky parking space. Then, of course, there’s the process of driving itself; mastering all the tricks and techniques. And…

CAST YOUR EYE OVER KIA’S CURRENT MODEL line-up and you’ll find a raft of ‘me too’ crossovers and cost-conscious small cars that are only really notable for their long warranties – along with driving dynamics that would give Nytol a run for its money as a cure for insomnia. Yet look a little closer and there are clues that Kia’s focus could be changing – and changing in a way that gets the likes of you and me sitting up and taking notice. First there was the surprisingly accomplished Kia Proceed GT warm hatch; then the company delivered its most serious statement of intent by poaching BMW M division’s Albert Biermann. That was two years ago now, and since then the German has been working his magic behind the scenes…

UNLESS YOU ARE A MERCEDES aficionado, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that this E63 is little more than a warmed-over E-class estate. Not much about its exterior shouts ‘563bhp and 553lb ft of torque’, and you’d certainly never guess it was capable of 0 to 62mph in 3.6sec. Its swollen bodywork and quad exhaust tips add only a hint of menace, while its 19in wheels look unassuming in their arches. With few clues given inside, either, there’s not a lot here that really shouts ‘performance estate’ in the modern sense. Even the S version, for which you’d have to fork out the extra £9360, is only slightly more overt, with 20in Y-spoke alloys and shell-backed AMG bucket seats, but there are big differences to be found under the…

HIS CHISELLED, ITALIANATE features show no change of expression, and if his eyes do widen, then they’re hidden from view behind impenetrably dark sunglasses. It’s all over in an instant. The scruffy 488 GTB test mule, air vents intriguingly enlarged over the regular model, appears without warning at the hairpin as I begin to thread the 720S energetically into the same tight curve from the opposite direction. Signor Ferrari Test Driver is committed to the racing line, downhill, which means he’s got at least half of his car in my lane, but a flick of the wrists is all he needs to carve a tighter arc and miss the McLaren’s carbon front by just a few crucial centimetres. I think there might have been the slightest jerk of his head…

IN 30 YEARS, GEELY HAS GONE from making fridges to selling over 400,000 cars a year under its own name, has paid Ford $1.8billion to buy Volvo (in 2010) and, more recently, acquired a 51 per cent stake in Lotus. And now it is separating the Polestar tuning arm from Volvo to create a standalone, EV-focused performance brand. Its first product, the Polestar 1 (above), is a 911-sized, 592bhp hybrid GT, to be followed by a range of performance-orientated EVs and hybrids to be built in China and leased globally via an online sales portal: you will only ever lease a Polestar EV, never own one. Geely also holds the key to the future of Lotus and thus the next Elise. Having steered Lotus to profitability and managed the company’s…

IS IT POSSIBLE, I WONDER, to write this feature comparing the merits and similarities of the Audi Quattro 20V and its latterday equivalent, the latest 2017 model year Nissan GT-R, without mentioning the phrase Vorsprung durch Technik? Oh well, there you go. Failed already. Yet Audi’s much-parodied marketing mantra epitomises what this particular comparison is all about. Created in the early 1970s, then dropped quietly a few years later before being resurrected so memorably in the ’80s to advertise the then-brand-new Quattro among other four-wheel-drive Audis, it is the very meaning of Vorsprung durch Technik – progress through technology – that so obviously links Quattro 20V to GT-R. Both represent cutting-edge technical genius on the part of their respective manufacturers, albeit expressed in a somewhat different way and separated by…

‘An iron contaminant remover can clean away brake dust and iron filings that have become welded to the wheel’ WHY DO WHEELS GET SO FILTHY? Because they pick up grime, tar and other contaminants from the road, plus tiny particulates of iron from the brake discs and shavings from the brake pads. The heat from the brakes then bakes all of this onto the surface of the wheel. WHAT SORT OF CLEANER SHOULD I USE? There are several different types on the market – acid wheel cleaners, pHbalanced cleaners, iron contaminant removers – and each type can be effective if you follow the product instructions. ARE ACID-BASED CLEANERS SAFE TO USE? Yes, with some provisos. Acid wheel cleaners can be very effective but need to be used with caution. Some…

James Disdale: Taking to the track can be expensive, so to maximise thrills but minimise bills you need something light. A Caterham is out of reach at this budget, but Westfield has just the thing with its, ahem, homage to the Seven (above). The styling isn’t as crisp as the original’s, but innovations such as its independent rear suspension mean it’s just as good to drive. I’d want to use mine on the road, which rules out the bonkers bike-engined versions, but the torquey and powerful 2-litre Ford Zetec unit should deliver just the right balance of usability and electrifying acceleration. Better still, there should be enough cash left over for spares and several trackday entry fees. Antony Ingram: At the risk of becoming typecast, my £10k would go on…

DYNAMIC DRIVING MODES. LOVE them or loathe them, you’ll be hard pressed to find a performance car without any today. From the simple Sport button to the fully customisable systems that allow you to play at being a chassis and powertrain engineer at the touch of a few buttons, they are ubiquitous. The Giulia doesn’t escape this trend, but thankfully the Alfa DNA Pro system is one of the most straightforward switchable set-ups out there. The rotary control sits on the transmission tunnel, close to the driver, and therefore passes the first test of being instinctively accessible to your left hand. There are four options: Advanced Efficiency (a), Normal (n), Dynamic (d) and Race, and all are selected with a twist of the control. In Dynamic or Race mode you…

I THINK I CAN CONSIDER MY WORK last month fine-tuning our Mini’s suspension a success. Managing editor Ian Eveleigh – thus far not someone entirely convinced by the Challenge – recently drove the tweaked car for a couple of days and gave this as his summary: ‘It’s not any more comfortable, but it is more fun.’ Having (sort of) charmed at least one member of the evo team with its new settings, YG16 XXU’s next task was an easy one: a Mini Challenge owners’ day at Brands Hatch, where I’d discover just how it stacks up against nearidentical cars with slightly different set-ups. On the morning of the trackday the ground was still wet from rain throughout the night, but there were tens of other Challenge road cars and two…

‘The Mustang feels a match for the RC F for in-gear urgency unless it’s really extended’ THE LEXUS HAS BEEN THROUGH A number of custodians this month, with Mrs M driving it down to Goodwood to join me for the Revival meeting, then evo deputy editor Adam Towler borrowing it for a weekend, too. Mrs M is notoriously hard to impress with cars. After a poor start in which she threatened to tear the RC F’s satnav system out of the dashboard (I did mention in last month’s report that it wasn’t the most intuitive for first-timers…), she then said the centre console looked like a 1970s hi-fi (I agree, but think that’s a good thing). But she had to concede that the Lexus did an extremely fine job of…

WHEN THE SALUBRIOUS BUT somewhat static surroundings of a concours d’élégance are chosen for the world premiere of a new car, it is easy to jump to conclusions. In the same way that you don’t look to the catwalks of Milan when considering which pair of walking boots will best deliver you to the top of Snowdon, it would be easy to dismiss a car with the sensational styling of the Vanquish Zagato as probably being a bit rubbish for a run up the Llanberis Pass. Zagatos, however, should never be discounted quite so quickly. Many of the company’s early cars had racing at their heart, and indeed the almost-trademark ‘double bubble’ roof was born from the necessity of fitting helmeted driver and co-driver into the confines of small Italian…

THERE ARE MANY WORDS YOU CAN use to describe the Focus RS, but ‘slow’ isn’t one of them. Yet drive one hard and it’s difficult to ignore the nagging feeling that the four-wheel-drive chassis could handle more power. A lot more power. This fact hasn’t been lost on an ever-increasing number of tuning firms, not least Mountune, the only aftermarket operation with an official Ford stamp of approval. The Essex-based outfit has already tickled the Focus’s 345bhp turbocharged 2.3-litre engine to deliver its M375 and M380 kits, which up power to 370bhp and 375bhp respectively. Yet the four-cylinder EcoBoost unit is capable of delivering even more, so now there’s an M400 version, which pushes power up to an Audi RS3-baiting 395bhp, while torque swells from 347lb ft as standard to…

Where did TVR’s rebirth all begin? In 2013, a dozen of us – all petrolheads, all successful in business, many of us competition licence holders – were playing with the idea of starting a car company to go racing. We’d looked at various marques that we might acquire to create something between Lotus and Aston Martin, and TVR fitted the bill but was seemingly beyond our grasp. Then a contact said: ‘I might be able to put you in touch.’ So I found myself talking to Nikolai Smolenski. He told me a couple of stories, one of which was that the car we wanted to make would cost £150k. He’d done a massive amount of research, but possibly not seen Gordon Murray Design and iStream. The other story was that…

WHEN FERRARI LAUNCHED the 360 Modena in 1999, the junior supercar was suddenly not so junior any more. At the 2003 Geneva show, the firm followed up with something even more special: a road car that effectively channelled the genes of the 360 Challenge one-make race car (with nods also to the 360 N-GT and 360 GTC FIA GT Championship racers). It was called the 360 Challenge Stradale and, bar the very-limited-run 348 GT Competizione, was nothing less than the first Ferrari road-racer since the F40. There was something else motivating Ferrari, too: while the firm didn’t intend its wealthy clientele to buy a 360 CS then strip it down and prep it for Le Mans, it did envisage the CS making it onto the trackday scene – one that…

FEW HATCHBACKS HAVE MADE a bigger impact than the second Focus RS did when it burst into our world in January 2009. It wasn’t just the headline output figures of 300bhp and 324lb ft. Here was a fast Ford with the visual clout to put many mid-engined sports cars in the shade. Any lingering regrets that it didn’t have four-wheel drive were soon blown away by the character and delivery of the turbocharged five-cylinder engine and a chassis that did a remarkably fine job of channelling those rampaging horses through the front axle. The engine was based on the 2.5-litre in-line five from the Focus ST, but with bespoke pistons, conrods and camshafts. The main change was the new, larger Borg Warner K16 turbo, which doubled the boost pressure from…

MYTH – URBAN AND OTHERWISE – has it that the Citroën DS of the 1950s was thus named because it had the body of a goddess, or déesse as they say en français. I don’t see much of any deity in the DS 3, chicly smart though it may be in the modern idiom, and therefore no reason to consider it as anything other than a Citroën hot hatch. The idea that DS is a separate brand seems nonsense. They are perhaps a bit overwrought for my personal tastes, but I do like the looks of the DS3, although if I’d bought this Performance derivative I think I’d want it to be more different visually from its siblings, in the same way that you can easily spot a Type R…

THIS MONTH SAW MORE CHASE car/photographic support duties for the swift and practical Leon. It was north Wales this time, for the cover shoot for the second issue of Enzo magazine (on sale October 26, kids!), and I apologise for the lack of photos of the SEAT hobnobbing with the wonderful gathering of V8 Ferraris we had there, from 308 to 488, but it absolutely lashed it down for two days. Of course, on the drive home, not an hour from where we’d been shooting, the roads were dry and inviting. I was leading the way in the 488 GTB and trying not to get too carried away so photographer Malcolm Griffiths and hired help Tim Milne behind in the SEAT didn’t lose touch. Almost inevitably, at one point I…

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