Tabla de contenidos para March 2015 en Evo

ON PAPER THE previous-gen Focus ST had pretty much everything we look for in a hot hatch. It had a punchy turbocharged four-cylinder engine mated to six well-suited ratios, the steering had plenty of feel and was quick to react to inputs (a little too quick for some, truth be told), and the chassis was taut with plenty of adjustability and good body control. But the old ST would also torque steer for England at the slightest whiff of excess throttle and therefore thwart your opportunity to enjoy that chassis and the strong, 247bhp engine. And the less said about the interior – and the centre console in particular – the better. The new ST aims to address these issues and more. Ford claims it’s the most advanced Focus to…

Test location: Munich, Germany GPS: 48.135125, 11.581980 IT WAS NARY a year ago that Richard Meaden’s review of the original RS Q3 was published in these very pages, and it caused something of a stir in the hushed halls of evo. R8 aside, recent RS models had been underwhelming, and there was a general fear that a sub-compact SUV (to use marketing jibber jabber) with an RS badge on it could mark an absolute low point for the RS brand. quattro GmbH’s version of the BMW X6M. Yet Dickie used words like ‘enjoyable’ and ‘responsive’ and topped it all off with four and a half stars (evo 190). Now the Q3 has been updated, which means a few tweaks have been carried out on the RS model too. From the…

IF THERE’S ONE CERTAINTY IN THIS chaotic and rather daft job of mine, it’s being asked what the best car I’ve ever driven is. I’m a little ashamed to say the only thing more predictable than the question is my answer: the McLaren F1. However, ask me what ranks as the best drive I’ve ever had and it’d take a great deal more thought to arrive at the definitive answer. It’s not simply a case of trawling through the fastest, most exotic cars I’ve been fortunate enough to try. A supercar never harms your chances of experiencing something unforgettable, but it’s by no means a guarantee. To prove the point, although I’ve driven numerous F1s, one hasn’t played a starring role in my best drives. It’s a fine and rather…

Game LET’S RACE Price: £25 (Race Experience) From: letsrace.co.uk WATCH OUT in the first three gears,’ we’re cautioned. ‘We’re using the new 2014 F1 cars with turbochargers, so full throttle is asking for trouble.’ We’ll need to stay off the right-hand kerb on Barcelona’s flick-flack turns seven and eight, too. There’s a hefty ‘sausage’ kerb on the inside and it’s easy to highcentre your car if you run wide. ‘And if you need to get out, let us know,’ we’re finally warned. ‘if you stand up in the car and someone crashes into it, you could be launched from the cockpit and end up under the machinery.’ crikey. if you’d walked into the room at this point you’d be forgiven for thinking we were listening to a real race briefing,…

IT SHOULDN’T HURT, BUT IT DOES. You’re a connoisseur; you don’t care too much for the amazing shrinking performance figures phenomena and you don’t live for pub bragging rights. But when the Porsche 991 GT3 you’re driving gets monstered for the first time by a Corvette Z06 – and I mean buried, decimated, annihilated – well, to use the local vernacular, it kinda sucks. Fortunately the rational part of your brain kicks in again soon after. You’re in a GT3. ‘Just wait for the corners, my friend,’ you think. ‘Then it’ll be a different story.’ Only it isn’t: the Z06 doesn’t just hold its advantage – it keeps on driving away. Bit by agonising bit those four huge tailpipes you’re following get smaller and the big V8 shockwave, which earlier…

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,’ said Michael Corleone, very slowly and quietly, in the second part of the Godfather trilogy. Good advice. ‘But,’ I might have replied in my own, widely slated Al Pacino impression, ‘the tricky thing can be knowing who is your friend and who is your enemy.’ BMW certainly keeps Alpina close. Its cars are sold through BMW dealerships and offered with BMW warranties, while the distinctive Alpina bodykits are even developed in BMW’s wind tunnel. But is the purveyor of pinstripes and multi-spokes friend or foe? With the latest B4 and D4 coupes, I’d say customers are being offered a more tempting alternative than ever to BMW’s own M4. And that makes Alpina an enemy. A quick look at the spec sheets has…

IN AN ERA WHEN MOST ELECTRICALLY powered roof mechanisms look as if they could detach themselves and walk down the road, the one attached to the latest Porsche 911 Targa is still a thing of mystery and wonder. From the opening of the simple petal-like flaps in the brushed steel Targa hoop that releases the soft part of the hood, to the point where there’s so much going on at once it tests the elasticity of your attention, the 19-second opening ceremony deserves, at the very least, a ripple of applause. It’s the industrial scale of the operation that amazes and numbs. So many expensively whining motors, so many exquisitely timed near-misses, so few geometric shapes left unexplored. I mean, who thinks up this stuff? A performing seal spinning a…

With me taking lots of overseas trips lately, EEU has unfortunately spent the majority of the past few weeks being road tested by Purple Parking’s finest heathrow off-site valet staff. these ‘road testers’ report that they’re really impressed by the performance and the noise, which leads them to believe the car has a 3-litre V6 rather than a turbocharged 2-litre four-cylinder. they also seem gobsmacked by how far Skoda has moved on. almost as gobsmacked as I am when checking the average fuel economy when they hand back the keys. Still, who can blame them for trying to get it into single digits? Talking of noise, I’ve been playing around with the VRS’S driving modes. as with many Volkswagen group products these days, you can adjust a whole host of…

IT’S STILL VERY early days with the s1 and, due to my being away a lot in the run-up to Christmas, it’s covered few miles. Frustrating, as I’m still running the engine in so can’t use the full rev range, nor full throttle. having said that, 273lb ft available from just 1600rpm means we’re hardly crawling around. In fact the engine feels super-strong and I can’t wait to cross the magic 1000-mile mark so I can give the s1 a proper workout. The weather turned pretty much as the s1 arrived and I’ve got a feeling that it will excel in wet and wintry conditions. It’s running on 225/30 r18 Bridgestone Potenza s001s (not winters, although I might investigate some), so there’s plenty of grip. But rather than feeling locked-down,…

SUCHIS THE predictability of owning a rattly old French hatch that the brake issue i thought had fixed itself (evo 204) resurfaced recently. Perplexed and frustrated, i nicknamed the car Bipolar Bernadette. It was only thanks to helpful tweets from evo readers that i learned these symptoms were most likely caused by air in the ABS pump. Bleeding the brakes with the solenoid open was the fix. Finally. Car back to good health, my plans to turn it into a fast road and track toy can continue. i’ve been acutely aware of the engine rocking a little more on its original mounts lately, so i’ve decided to fit an uprated set. the web tells me this will yield a drastic improvement to throttle response and reduce gearlever movement (an issue…

SINCE MY LAST report on the mclaren 12c Spider about eight weeks ago (evo 204), it has had it pretty easy. my air miles over this period have probably outnumbered my road miles by 100 to one. However, each time I finally made it back home, the Spider started up right away with no protest. I cannot understate the value of always leaving a car on a battery conditioner if it has to sit for a bit – that fully charged battery really helps with ice-cold starts and I firmly believe that it also helps keep all the electricals fully functional. Now the trees have all shed their leaves, the 12c has had its first proper cold-weather test. For several days on one of the rare weeks when I was…

Q I currently own a 2006 BMW M5 (E60) that I only drive on weekends. However, I don’t need a four-door car and would prefer to change into a more sports-focused coupe. Question is: do I hold on to the E60 M5 in hope that it will one day become a little more collectible? Or should I sell now and get into something like a CLK63 Black Series, Porsche 996 GT3 or Turbo, Porsche 993 Carrera or Ferrari 360 Modena? Enjoyment and investment potential are key concerns. Vince Trimboli, Melbourne, Australia A I’m uncertain how the E60 M5 market is holding up down under, but here in the UK a good example of the same vintage as yours can easily be had for £20,000, and sometimes less. In all likelihood,…

A TRIO OF ultra-low-mileage 1990s Italian exotics has been consigned to Silverstone Auctions’ February 21-22 sale, to be held at the Race Retro event at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. All three cars come from the large collection of Dutch property tycoon Chris Dijkhuis. The rarest of the bunch is an Alfa Romeo SZ (pictured top). Love it or loathe it, you can’t deny that the Zagato-built ‘Mostro’ is an incredibly striking design, and with just 1036 examples produced (all left-hand drive), it’s far from a common sight. Having only covered 502 miles, this one is about the closest thing to a brand-new SZ in existence. It’s difficult to put a value on that, but Silverstone Auctions reckons it could sell for £50,000-70,000. The most valuable car of the collection is undoubtedly…

JEWELLERY Kinekt Design Necklace $185 (c£120) kinektdesign.com 1 Diamonds are forever, but cogs and gears are more entertaining. If the special person in your life isn’t averse to the idea of a more mechanical take on traditional jewellery then they’ll spend forever fiddling with Kinekt’s gear-based necklace. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, and a $165 (c£110) ring is also available. DECOR Classic F1 wall art decal £23 store.3domwraps.com 2 Paint and posters are so passé. 3Dom Wraps has an alternative: a large-format vinyl decal. You might not put it in your living room, but for a games room, office or kid’s bedroom it’s an inexpensive (and, apparently, easily removable) way of sprucing up a wall. Alternative designs feature WRC, DTM, Le Mans and MotoGP. MODEL Lego Technic 24 Hours Race Car…

THE WAITING IS over. At the 2015 Detroit motor show we finally got to see Honda’s longanticipated new NSX in production form – and learned some (but not all) of its technical secrets. How long have we waited? It seems like an age, because, erm, it is. Way back in 2005, with the first-gen NSX still in full production, a stray remark from an engineer suggested that the NSX replacement would have a V10 engine and that work on it was at full gallop. When asked about this, Takeo Fukui, Honda’s then chief exec, said he’d produce this replacement NSX when Honda won a Formula 1 grand prix... The company withdrew from F1 in 2008, though it’s planning a return with McLaren this year. That V10 NSX was shelved and…

MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE has a new chief designer, with robert Melville (pictured) being promoted into the role having worked at Woking since 2009 as senior designer. Melville, 37, takes on one of the most coveted jobs in the industry. reporting to design director Frank Stephenson, he’ll help forge the future design direction of the brand and its cars. According to Mclaren, this role will include ‘building up on the new family look that debuted with the groundbreaking P1’, which is a heavy hint for the design direction of the new Sport Series model due to be unveiled in the second quarter of this year. I’m very honoured with this recognition and look forward to turning our future vision work into reality,’ says Melville. ‘Mclaren has always innovated with class-leading performance and…

Test location: B671, Cambridgeshire, UK GPS: 52.525964, -0.395347 IF YOU LIKE your supersaloon served without forced induction, diesel power or electric assistance, you have very few choices these days. Gone are the V10 M5s and non-turbo e63 AMGs of this world, and while there is a certain ‘dare to be different’ appeal about a Vauxhall VXR8 GTS, it’s unlikely to tempt anyone familiar with more prestigious brands. Step forward this £93,391 Porsche Panamera. The latest GTS, it draws attention to itself in the Panamera range for two reasons: the GTS badge (which has been attached to exceptional Porsche drivers’ cars of late) and a rollicking normally aspirated V8 engine. All other Panameras, bar the Turbo and Turbo S, are powered by six-cylinder turbocharged or, in the case of the e-Hybrid,…

Test location: opera, milan, Italy GPS: 45.372414, 9.211664 FOR MORE THAN 50 years, romeo Ferraris has been tuning road cars, competing in various motorsport series around the world and – just because it’s cool – racing offshore powerboats. The eponymous Signor Ferraris founded his company in 1959 as a humble engine-builder. he quickly diversified into tuning and racing, forming close relationships with Fiat and BMW. While Ferraris himself has since retired to focus on his new hobby (ultra-luxury watchmaking, since you ask), his son mario has taken over the reins of the family business. now based in opera, near milan, the company continues to race and tune road cars. Its latest project, however, is perhaps the most ambitious yet; with a fully homologated road car, Romeo Ferraris is now a…

IT’S LATE EVENING, CHRISTMAS DAY. THE M40 is quiet. In the dense black of a winter’s night distant lights mark out towns and villages, each full of waning family bonhomie and bilious turkey bellies. Inside our car, however, all is well. My baby son is asleep in the back while my wife dozes in the passenger seat. Then something very bad happens: the fuel light comes on. This is unwelcome. It’s been a lovely day but now it’s cold, it’s dark, and I want to get home. What I don’t want to do is stand for five minutes sluicing juice into the tank, getting all shivery and miserable, and waking up the baby in the process. But hang on here. We’re in our Merc CLS Shooting Brake family wagon. It…

Letter of the Month Bond beater So 007’s new company car in the upcoming Bond film Spectre will be the Aston Martin DB10 (Radar, evo 205). It is without a doubt a gorgeous car that somehow resembles the shark from Live and Let Die. However, even more amazing is that the villain in Spectre will drive the incredible Jaguar C-X75 hypercar – probably the best-looking hypercar ever (not) made. And as you have reported on evo.co.uk, instead of the concept’s four-pot hybrid powertrain, the movie car will be powered by the F-type’s 5-litre V8. Not only will this probably make it a better drive than the original concept car, but it also means Bond’s Aston could well be overshadowed by the villain’s Jag. Perhaps in the light of this news,…

There are cerTain benchmark cars around which categories naturally seem to form – the Golf GTI, Porsche’s 911, BMW’s M3. Rivals circle them with bigger engines, stalk them with better pricing and attempt to topple them with greater glitz. Yet somehow these challengers never quite manage to steal the crowns. But things are changing. The 991 911 no longer looks imperious and the new M3/M4 hasn’t exactly been lavished with unalloyed praise. So, splashing up the outside lane of the M1 on a wet Monday morning, the grey BMW up ahead looks very much like it’s being hunted by the two cars behind. We’re heading for the place that locals humbly call God’s Own Country. Dan Prosser is in the BMW, Will Beaumont is in the Audi RS5 and I’m…

ON CHRISTMAS EVE, JUST AS EVERYONE WAS BATTLING TO FIND THE end of the roll of Sellotape to finish wrapping their presents, the Ariel Motor Company sent out a tweet. It read: ‘New Year, New Website, New Car. The Ariel Nomad is coming Tuesday 6th January 2015,’ and it was accompanied by two renderings of what could only be described as fun on four wheels. Part recognisable Atom, part Tamiya RC buggy, the Nomad was a complete surprise and everyone loved it. Ariel duly released pictures and a short video of the real thing on the first Tuesday of the New Year and then unveiled it in the metal on the Bilstein stand at the Autosport show at Birmingham’s NEC a few days later. It didn’t disappoint. Several orders were…

PERHAPS THE BIGGEST innovation in road car braking technology since the widespread adoption of ABS has been the introduction of carbon ceramic brake systems. the technology, derived from aviation and motorsport, promises significant performance gains, albeit at a cost – Porsche charges £5787 for its PCCB carbon ceramic brakes, while BMW wants £6250 for the m3/m4’s uprated system, which is more than 10 per cent of the list price of the car itself. you’ll also have to fork out some £7400 for a set of ceramic stoppers on your Jaguar F-type r Coupe. the list of second-hand performance cars that trade for that kind of money is long and distracting… In an effort to provide some sort of objective platform from which to judge the value of carbon ceramic brake…

FIT A CAGE, I thought. How hard can that be? It can’t take much more than a weekend’s work… Almost 12 months after deciding to install a cage I finally fixed a Safety Devices frame to the inside of my car – only to remove it almost immediately. Don’t worry, I don’t now think that a six-point cage (the rear portion of which is shown here) with a cross brace, harness bar and door bars is too extreme for a humble road car. No, I still think it’s a perfectly sensible idea. It’s just that the cage only went inside so that the reinforcement plates could be correctly welded into position before the car was painted. But it didn’t exactly slip in. Like a tortuous puzzle, it required a few…

IT’S BEEN A month since I started running Pirelli Sottozero 3s on the GTI, which is long enough for a candid update on how these winter-spec tyres are performing. Now the tyres are nicely bedded in, I’ve noticed that I have lost some confidence when pushing the Golf through corners compared to how I was driving on the standardfit Bridgestone Potenza S001 summer tyres – there’s quite significant understeer, especially on roundabouts, where the traction control light blinks frantically on exit. even pulling away from junctions I’m getting significant wheelspin in second gear. Being kinder, I suppose it’s all about getting used to the rubber, and perhaps i need to adapt my driving style to get the most from the Gti on cold-weather tyres. And apart from the aforementioned concern,…

The Next Big Thing I KNOW WHAT you’re thinking: the 300C is already a big thing, and a somewhat preposterous and ungainly one, too. True, it’s not the ideal car for tackling a trackday at Croft or a record-breaking run up the Futa Pass, but with oil prices plummeting, pump prices dropping and the government’s admission that promoting ‘low emission’ diesels was a mistake, has there ever been a better time to splurge on a shameless, gasguzzling muscle car? Well, probably. But if you believe in the old American adage that ‘you can’t beat cubes’, you probably won’t need much persuading that there really ought to be a Hemi-engined 300C on your drive, even if it is only there so you can annoy your neighbours by doing rolling burnouts every…

CHIPSAWAY £varies chipsaway.co.uk I’m told it’s unreasonable to demand that whichever cretin left a thumb-sized dent in the side of my M4 long-termer be hanged, drawn and quartered, but at the time I discovered the unsightly blemish it seemed like a fair punishment. I may have been denied my satisfaction, but after a trip to ChipsAway – a nationwide body and paintwork specialist – the dent has at least been repaired. The ding sat just a few millimetres above one of the car’s sharp creases; any lower and the repair would have been a much more involved process. Better still, the paintwork was unbroken, so if the dent could somehow be persuaded out, ChipsAway wouldn’t have to get into the messy business of respraying areas of bodywork. There was yet…

CURIOUSLY FORA CAR THAT HAD NO FORMAL racing ambitions of its own, the Ferrari Enzo took a power cut and signed away all rights to retain figure-hugging clothes to become a ‘resource package’ for an enterprise that did: Maserati’s MC12. Marking Maserati’s return to racing after 37 years, the MC12 immediately made GT1 grid line-ups more interesting. The imposing, midengined Masers began competing towards the end of 2004 and were soon scoring podiums, winning the manufacturers’ cup in 2005. For the road, a 30-car production run was undertaken in 2004, with a further 25 rolling off the line in ’05. Built on the Enzo platform, the MC12’s external dimensions busted the Enzo’s in every direction but, thanks to some clever aero and largely carbon construction, the car achieved a lower…

IT’S NOT NEWS that modern cars are becoming more dependent on electronic controls. We already have throttle-by-wire, where you dictate the amount of throttle by the position of a sensor under your foot. But how would you feel about removing the mechanical link in something potentially more serious, such as the car’s steering? That is exactly what Infiniti has done with the Q50 saloon’s ‘Direct Adaptive Steering’ (DAS) system, which is the first of its kind in a production car. It uses a steering position sensor behind the wheel that sends a signal to the steering rack via three computer-controlled modules. Before you spit out your tea and complain about what might happen if electrical power was lost, Infiniti has planned for that eventuality. The old pinion connection between the…

Test location: Bedfordshire, uK GPS: 52.150713, -0.666821 YOU DON’T NEED to be an R8 geek to be seduced by the runout limited-edition LMX, but if you do happen to be a fan of Audi’s original supercar its myriad details and distinguishing features make it something rather special. Based on the R8 V10 Plus, a total of just 99 LMXs will be built. the chances of encountering one in the wild are slim to say the least, but you’re unlikely to confuse it with a common or garden model. externally there’s plenty to catch your eye, not least the beautiful metallic Ara Blue paintwork (matt-finish daytona Grey and Mythos Black are also available) and a large fixed wing that sits proudly on the tail. Like the front splitter, canards, mirrors, side…

Test location: estering, Germany GPS: 53.448458, 9.691589 WHAT MODERN rallying is crying out for, if you believe its countless detractors, is some old-fashioned spectacle. due to the relentless march of tyre, suspension and aerodynamic technology, the quickest way through a corner is no longer to arrive backwards with an armful of corrective lock and a bootful of throttle, but to instead scribe a neat and tidy line. What’s missing, says the Ford escort mk2 generation, is rear-wheel drive. The revolution is gaining traction. In evo 205 henry Catchpole drove tuthill Porsche’s 911 GT3 R-GT, an FIA-homologated machine that has already competed in the World rally Championship. and now, toyota’s dedicated motorsport division, TMG, has built a stage-going version of its Gt86 sports car. Built to mid-spec r3 regulations and developed…

LOGIC SUGGESTS THAT A NEW CAR WILL always be better than the car it replaces. This is nearly always the case because rarely does a manufacturer take a backwards step and release a model that’s genuinely worse than before. The new car might be different – and therefore a few of us will declare that it’s not as good – but in reality it will be better. New cars are cleaner, more powerful and offer stronger performance. That makes them better, right? Before Christmas a 991 GT3 came into my life. It’s a sensational car and I can see why evo holds it in such high regard, but as a diehard Porsche fan and serial 911 owner I was a little hesitant about buying a car that could only be…

It looks fantastic and appears to go great. My only concern with a Yank tank would be weight, but the Z/28 ain’t too bad at 1732kg, and with 305-section tyres and a wider front track it should deal with the engine mass upfront. It’s worth noting that it is lighter than the Nissan GT-R, and they get plenty of track work. For me I’d say it’s a great road car for occasional track use, as I’d imagine it eats tyres and goes through superunleaded at an astonishing rate. McSwede Well, having just looked at the specs I’d happily beast the Z/28 around a track. I would pick Llandow, as it’s quite tight in places and I’d like to see if the Camaro would actually fit through the chicane at all!…

THE SOUTH CIRCUIT at Bedford Autodrome is cold and greasy. You can almost hear the RS5 cackling in delight. And that gentle whimpering? Probably me when the M4 key is thrust into my hand. These are not conditions that bode well for the M4, which is spiky in the dry and pretty intimidating when there’s even a sliver of moisture on the ground. Even so, it feels like a good car in which to set the benchmark. On the first exploratory lap it’s clear that the BMW needs to be turned down as much as possible: the M DCT ’box is too violent in maximum-attack mode, lighting up the rears in a straight line when going from third to fourth gear with an angry thud. The most aggressive Sport+ throttle…

THE INTERNET IS GOOD FOR MANY, many things: shopping, staying in touch with friends and family when you can’t be bothered to actually speak to them, portraying on social media a far more exciting life than you really lead, and reading dumbed-down motoring content in bite-sized, snappy, PRheavy, detail-light form (except on evo.co.uk, of course). Allegedly. You see, I mainly use the internet for one thing. No, not that. For me the single greatest thing about the internet is watching videos from the Japanese magazine Best Motoring International. And this is evo’s little tribute to its amazing catalogue of videos that lurk on YouTube, waiting to be discovered. If you don’t know about them, the format is simple. Get a group of experienced and charismatic racers together and a bunch…

evo snapper Aston Parrott focuses his lens on an unknown point in the darkness opposite. Then they appear. Headlight beams skipping over the horizon, tracing great arcs through the valley as they plot an unpredictable path down an otherwise invisible road on the far hillside. The beamsscythedownhill,leavingindelible lines on Aston’s long-exposure image. They disappear from view periodically; warbling engine note and hoots from spectators’ air horns growing louder as the lights eventually begin ascending our side of the valley. Then it reappears once more: a six-spotlight-strong lamp pod momentarily blinding the crowds as a brick-shaped Audi scrabbles around the hairpin then charges uphill and disappears once more into the night. This is rallying. Crowds no longer line the ragged edges of the stages, diving for the sidelines mere seconds before…

IT’S DOUBTFUL MANY privately owned BMW m4s venture onto circuits but, as long as m stands for ‘motorsport’, track performance will always be central to the m-car remit. Besides, with hardware such as the optional BMW m carbon ceramic brakes (£6250), the active m differential and that solidly mounted rear axle, the m4 should be more than cut out for a spot of track work. In fact, in certain ways it’s actually better on a circuit than it is on the road. one of its shortcomings as a fast road car is the way that it deals with vertical inputs. even undulating circuits are smoother than a typical back-road, so that dynamic flaw simply doesn’t present itself. the electrically assisted power steering, meanwhile, can be numb on the road, but…

It’s been a while since my last update on the 996. Don’t worry, there have been no disasters, it’s just that progress on the planned upgrades has been slow. as you may remember, I need to get the bilsteins refurbished and while I’m at it I’ll be fitting new Powerflex bushes all round. However, the body’s tatty state was becoming too much to bear, so everything else was put on hold while I saved the funds to get a respray. I’m not one of those people who needs a 17-year-old car to be ‘as new’ in order to enjoy it, but the grazed rear bumper, split splitter and general flat, stone-chipped look was getting me down. So the 996 was booked in with Prestige Car Refinishing in northampton and my…

YOU MIGHT BE expecting a wintry yarn culminating in at least the partial ruin of our italian protagonist, but the truth is that the Lancia hasn’t missed a beat. I’ve just been enjoying it. If you want to go fast in an integrale the first step is to keep the garrett t3 turbo lit. Approaching bends, come out of the throttle a half-second later than is sensible before firmly angling as appropriate the thin, corrected-grain leather steering wheel. then open up the throttle the moment the nose is tucked in. the mechanical torquesensing diff will do the rest. The reality is that outright power is humble, so you need to use as much as you can as often as possible to get the Delta flying, and fly it does. or…

Service time for the Kia this month, and with more than 14,000 miles on the clock, evo’s hardest working fast fleet member was overdue some love. As a result I now own an A4 sheet of paper with a thousand ticked boxes on it and the car has four new michelin Pilot Sport 3 tyres. Eternally chock-full of heavy photography equipment, the Proceed GT was also in need of new front brake pads. the bad news was that it needed new front brake discs, too. Yes, this car works hard. With it now back in good health, I’ve wasted no time in using it for all of my shoots. the Kia’s suspension does a surprisingly good job considering it’s a sporty hot hatch, absorbing the nastiest surprises British roads have…

Your indispensable resource when buying used IT WAS GM money that paid for the Series 2 Elise. Part of the deal was that Lotus also developed a sports car for Vauxhall/Opel, which is why when the new Elise arrived at the end of 2000 it shared much with the VX220, including bespoke Bridgestone tyres and trick new Bilstein dampers. The S2 also had a more sophisticated look – more ‘pocket supercar’ – while the interior was better trimmed and refinement a notch higher. The basic S2 had a revised 1.8-litre K-series engine with Lotus’s own management system. Despite having just 120bhp, 0-60mph took a respectable 5.6sec while the ride and handling were the stuff of genius. Then came the first variations… For those craving more edge, early 2002 saw the…

The best destinations to visit in your car SWITZERLAND HAS A bad reputation as far as driving fun is concerned. The country’s draconian attitude towards speeding and the astronomical level of some fines mean people tend to avoid it like a rusty Cat D. Which is a shame, because hidden in the centre is one of the best driving loops in the world. Starting in the small town of Innertkirchen, this 78-mile loop takes in three spectacular mountain passes. Though equally good in either direction, here we’ll tackle it anti-clockwise. Head south towards the Grimsel pass, which climbs gently initially and then ramps up the views at the same rate as the gradient. You rise up past dams and spearmint blue lakes until you reach a large parking area at…