Tabla de contenidos para April 2015 en Evo

1 AERO The 400’s nose design is all-new, with every element now having a clear function. The air vents are composite and headlight performance has been improved. Frontal drag is up, but aerodynamics have improved overall. 2 CHASSIS The wheels are manufactured by the same company that produces the wheels for McLaren’s P1. Michelin replaces Pirelli as the tyre supplier. The brakes have four-piston calipers, with 370mm discs front, 350mm rear. 3 BODYWORK Lotus has trimmed its colour options down from nearly 30 to just nine, and there will now be three interior trim options to choose from instead of five. Given Lotus’s modest volumes, this is down to supply chain economics. THIS IS THE FIRST substantially new Lotus to leave the Hethel production line under the stewardship of Jean-Marc…

WE ARE STARTING TO see many manufacturers downsizing and turbocharging their power units. BMW, for example, now has a three-cylinder turbo engine in some Minis and even in the i8. This trend is due to emissions regulations, to which car makers are responding by chasing efficiency through downsizing, then making up for lost performance through turbocharging. Although turbocharging forces more air into the engine per cycle at high revs (making a bigger explosion possible, therefore creating more power), there is a downside: turbo lag. Turbos are driven by the flow of exhaust gases from the engine interacting with the turbine blades in the turbo housing. Therefore, turbo boost pressure is intrinsically linked to exhaust gas flow rate. When the engine is at full chat, you experience no lag in boost…

£44.99 store.xbox.com FORZA HORIZON 2’s unique selling point runs something like the introduction to an evo Car of the Year test. You’re given a swathe of southern Europe to explore – areas such as the Côte d’Azur and Tuscany – and hundreds of fast cars in which to negotiate the region’s curves and villages. The stunning scenery plays out in glorious detail through Horizon 2’s high-fidelity graphics. Cars hold up to all but the closest scrutiny, with reflections, vibrant paint shades and environmental effects like rain and dust modelled with incredible detail. The sounds are great too, making every prod of the ‘accelerator’ a joy. You start at the bottom, of course. Your character has travelled to Europe to take part in the Horizon Festival, and naturally one must buy…

Test location: Lisbon, Portugal GPS: 38.850336, -9.322843 HOW RAPIDLY OUR perceptions of power change. Take the original Ford Sierra Cosworth. It had 204bhp. It was enough to make your heart thump harder, enough to hassle a supercar. Yet by the mid-noughties, 200 had become a number that merely denoted ‘fail’ for any hot hatch that couldn’t muster it. A decade later, in 2015, 300 is the new 200. Which isn’t to say the 200bhp hatch has been buried. As with everything in the modern car range, it’s all about calibration. In Peugeot’s badge hierarchy, occupying the slot below the forthcoming GTI and R, plain GT provides a comfortable, not-too-demanding retirement home for the once exalted output. There’s a less powerful but torquier diesel and an SW wagon plumping out the…

IT WAS AT THE VERY BACK OF THE cupboard above the old workbench in my dad’s garage. A jauntily striped red, white and blue box, about an inch tall, a little longer and wider, bearing the words ‘BMC GENUINE PARTS’. I took the little box out of the cupboard and opened it. Inside, wrapped in yellowing, BMC-branded paper were the guts of a switch from an original Mini and a little strip of paper from BMC Service Ltd warning that ‘No complaint respecting contents of this package will be considered unless accompanied by this slip’. It had a date stamped on the back: 11 DEC 1967. My dad did own a 1960s Mini. He owned it in the 1960s. It was sold not long after the date on the paper,…

I felt compelled to write in about your tests with the BMW M4 and Alpina B4 & D4 (evo 206). I’m a BMW man through and through, and had placed an order for an M4 in May 2014. Then I had a back-to-back test drive of an M4 and an Alpina B4 at Sytner Nottingham. I was left bewildered by how BMW could have got the M4 so wrong. With all its expertise and years of experience, it has made a car that, in my opinion, operates in a very narrow window, i.e. dry, flat roads with plenty of run-off. The B4, meanwhile, offers as near as dammit the same pace, but without the unnecessary drama and histrionics. By comparison, the M4 is a flawed, blunt and crude instrument. I…

It’s a cracking year for new hot hatches. To celebrate, we’re testing the biggest players and looking back fondly at past heroes WHEN TWO CARS ARE ALL but inseparable over the duration of a twin test, it takes a moment of inspiration for a victor to emerge. This particular contest – Peugeot 208 GTi 30th anniversary meets Ford Fiesta sT – was charging headfirst towards a dead heat and a bottled verdict, but then one of them went 2.5 seconds quicker than the other around the bedford autodrome’s south Circuit. For reasons that will be explained later, that sealed the outcome. The predatory sT has been far and away the best car in the small hot hatch class since it arrived in 2013, but when we first drove this limited…

IN THE MADCAP WORLD OF the Ariel Nomad and Ferrari FXX K, it’s heartening that the health of the hot hatch market has never seemed stronger. Crucially, it looks set to continue this way for a few years yet. If you read your copy of evo in page order you will have seen which are our current favourite hot hatches and how tomorrow’s – Ford’s Focus RS and Audi’s RS3, to name just a couple – promise further thrills ahead. Which leaves Honda, and its new Civic Type R, to complete what’s shaping up as the summer of the hyper-hatch. At the Geneva motor show in March, Honda will finally pull the wraps off its latest hot hatch, having touted it around the motor show circuit for nearly as long…

MILEAGE CONTINUES to accrue painfully slowly on the S1 because it’s spent most of its time in a car park at Heathrow of late. this is a bit annoying, but hopefully the figure will ramp up significantly in the next month or two. When I’m actually in the S1, I still really enjoy it. this is mainly because it’s such a rorty thing and nails the little car/big engine feel that’s always been a huge part of the hot hatch formula over the years. as others downsize, the S1’s bruising 2-litre turbocharged engine just feels mighty and slightly illicit. Now it’s fully run-in I can work beyond the mid-range and let the engine run out to the limiter. I’m doing this as much as possible as I’m a strong believer…

I Want to like the WRX, honestly I do, but no matter how many miles I cover in it or what drives I have in it, I still walk away disappointed. this feeling hasn’t been helped these past few weeks by an influx of test cars passing through the evo car park that have only highlighted the WRX’s shortcomings. One car that particularly demonstrated everything that is wrong with the WRX was Dickie Meaden’s Mégane. It didn’t take many miles to come to the conclusion that the trophy performs exactly how I expected the WRX to, with the French flyer delivering those thrilling moments that Scoobys of old would serve up time and again with every drive. But where the trophy feels alive and alert, the WRX feels lethargic and…

UNILITE PROSAFE LED INSPECTION LIGHT £49.95 torchdirect.co.uk Working on a car in a dimly lit workshop can be a nightmare. Dropped bolts, difficult to reach parts and annoying shadows: they can all make late nights under the bonnet incredibly tiresome. Unilite’s Prosafe LED Inspection Light has been designed with those dimly lit situations in mind. With 750 lumens of brightness – equivalent to 1 million candles – it’s far more than just an extra bright torch. Using high-powered 10-watt LEDs and featuring a reflective body for added visibility, the light can illuminate objects as far as 20 metres away. Rather than scattering its light across an entire room, the tube’s reflective backing helps keep light focused, ensuring none is wasted in brightening those otherwise invisible areas. Despite its power it…

Start point: 46.552521, 11.874229, SS244, Corvara in Badia, South Tyrol, Italy The roads: SS244, SR48, SS242, SS243 Perfect for: Abarth 695 Biposto, Ferrari F12 QUIZ QUESTION: WHAT were the Dolomites called before the 19th century? No? They were called ‘The Pale Mountains’ or, in Italian, Monti Pallidi. There’s a fairytale about how they got their pale hue. Suffice it to say it involves a prince, a trip to the moon and some dwarves. Anyway, nestled amongst the distinctive carbonate rock of the Dolomites are some incredible driving roads. You could choose any number of routes, but a good place to start is the tarmac encircling the Sella massif. I’ve only driven the loop once, on the Ferrari FF launch, but I’ve also cycled some of it and evo went to…

HOW LONG HAVE WE wanted, and waited, to say this? Aston Martin has built a GT3 road car based on the Vantage platform. It’s every bit as dramatic as we’d hoped, but crikey it comes at a cost, and there are some very strong rivals out there ready to take it on. The GT3 is the car that Aston’s engineers have always wanted to build, too – there hasn’t been a raw, focused road-racer from Gaydon in recent years and yet the Vantage has been established (and winning) in a number of motorsport categories since 2006. Since then, Aston has built a further four versions of the Vantage race car – the GT4 (a slim-hipped V8 gentleman’s racer), the GT2 (a lairy, wide-arched V8 monster), and the current GTE (V8)…

JAGUAR XE A HE A D OF THE INTER NATIONA L press launch this spring, Jaguar invited journalists to drive XE prototypes in Portugal. The cars made up the first batch of XEs to roll off the production line, but some minor revisions will be made before customer deliveries begin, so we’ll delay our full verdict until we’ve driven the finished model. The XE’s innovative Integral Link rear suspension layout gives the car a cushioned, pliant ride quality over the worst of Portugal’s rural blacktop on both the adaptive and passive suspension setups, but the car also feels agile and composed when hustled through corners. It’s certainly closer in spirit to the dynamic benchmark for the class, the 3-series, rather than the more luxurious C-class. The most powerful model at…

Test location: estellencs, Majorca GPS: 39.646676 , 2.464714 THERE REALLY IS nothing like arriving on a Mediterranean island expecting some welcome January sun in which to enjoy a day’s driving at the wheel of the new audi TTs roadster, only to be confronted by a rainstorm that would be considered excessive during winter in Wales. sadly, despite the layer of slickness that covers everything audi touches these days, one thing beyond its control is the weather. a pair of flippers will be more useful than your favourite pair of loafers today. The third-generation TT roadster follows the same path as its coupe counterpart, with 227bhp 2-litre turbocharged petrol and 181bhp 2-litre TDi four-cylinder engine choices, and sport and s-line trim levels. On the petrol car you have the option to…

Test location: Podington, Bedfordshire, UK GPS: 52.251445, -0.63920 WITH ITS MIGHTY macan turbo, Porsche has asked some pretty stern questions of the established players in the £60,000 family performance car market. this genre – which has been dominated in recent years by the BmW m3 saloon, Audi Rs4 and mercedes C63 Amg – has never before offered its buyers an sUV-style ride height in tandem with suitably fierce performance and real driver engagement. in that sense the macan turbo could be an entirely new proposition. given how highly the premium marketplace regards sUVs (and anything with a Porsche crest on its snout for that matter), it looks as though Weissach might have turned the genre on its head. The real question, of course, is whether or not the macan turbo…

THE TURBOCHARGER’S TIME HAS finally arrived. News that Ferrari’s 458 replacement will ditch the company’s earsplitting, spine-tingling naturally aspirated 4.5-litre V8 for a 3.9-litre turbocharged engine makes me sad. I’m sure Ferrari’s engine boys have designed and built an equally brilliant motor in terms of performance and efficiency, but for me you can’t beat a naturally aspirated engine. It’s a cliché, but the engine really is the heart of a car. It’s not just Ferrari heading down the turbo route. Porsche is set to replace the 911’s normally aspirated flat-sixes with a new range of turbocharged motors by the end of the year – a move some will claim to be bigger than when the 911 switched from air- to water-cooling. The roar of a naturally aspirated flat-six, like the…

In a word, no. £150k is hardly a bargain and it’s up against serious talent with more desirable badges. It doesn’t look anything special either, quite generic. tazsura The last NSX was a game changer, so maybe this one will be too. McSwede Technically, didn’t BMW beat them with the i8? It has less power, but the NSX is also 50 per cent more expensive. I doubt any car costing £150k can be classed as a game changer since it is in reality a luxury toy, so I doubt any other manufacturer will be that worried. The front of the new NSX is also a vile mess. Philomena Cunk It will have to be something truly astonishing to be a game changer. Compared to when the original came out, the…

I’ M N O T S U R E A B O U T Y O U , B U T whenever I see Peugeot’s TV ad campaign for the 208 GTi 30th, it’s not the new car I find myself lusting after, but the 205 GTI that stars in the dramatic opening sequences. Likewise I’m lukewarm about the latest Renaultsport Clio 200 Turbo, but would kill for the keys to an unmolested R5 GT Turbo. It’s not that the current cars aren’t great things to drive, just that there’s something deeply appealing about the cars that did such a good job of defining what the hot hatch breed is all about. Look through the classifieds and it seems I’m not alone, for iconic hatches from the ’80s and ’90s…

Ford FoCuS RS Engine In-line 4-cyl, 2253cc, turbo Power 350bhp (est) Weight 1480kg (est) Power-to-weight 240bhp/ton (est) 0-62mph 5.0sec (est) Top speed 165mph (est) Basic price £29,900 (est) WE’LL COME TO THE FOUR-WHEEL drive in a minute. I know it’s what everyone is talking about, but first I want to discuss rubber. Actually I want to talk about looks too, because when I first walk into the studio in Cologne and see the new RS, I think it looks a bit underwhelming. Five doors, the lack of big arches… compared with the pugnacious Mk2 RS it looks very family friendly. But looks can be deceiving, and one line in the limited information we are given makes me think that the new Focus RS could be more hardcore than any previous…

‘It was surreal winning the evo competition. I’ve been a long-time reader, so it was a real honour. I wanted to become a vehicle designer because my world ha s been consumed with cars and transport from an early age. ‘The biggest challenge for car designers is people’s perception of the car in urban area s. We’re told we’ll all live in megacities in the future, and design studios are saturated in the dream of the autonomous c ar. Rules and regulations in urban area s will change the way cars look and behave. It’s a constant challenge to bring radical design to the consumer: the BMW i has brought a new aesthetic to the electric car, but companies need to make money and the risk of an extreme design…

Nno point stringing things out over the next half-dozen reports, so i might as well say it now: i absolutely love this car! not even wet, slippery and often frosty roads can cool my ardour for the trophy. okay, so i’ll confess to wishing its hardcore recaros were heated to make subzero mornings a bit more tolerable, but i’ve quickly learned to get up a few minutes early, start the car and leave it running so everything has warmed up before i get going. if you knew how much i enjoy lying in bed, you’d appreciate just how successfully the Mégane has wormed its way into my affections. I had worried that the optional 19in turini alloys and Michelin pilot sport cup 2 tyres might have hobbled it for the…

THERE REALLY ISN’T an easy way to put this. For the foreseeable future I’m relieving the Integrale of duties, which have namely been to transport me back and forth from evo hQ and to do so in damned entertaining fashion. There’s no one reason why I’ve chosen to do this. Indeed it’s not the car that’s throwing in the towel, but me, because ultimately running an Integrale in this fashion simply isn’t… sensible. I’ll hate myself for writing that in years to come. But put yourself in my shoes. The odometer keeps revolving and our roads increasingly exhibit the deathly pallor of sodium chloride. The car also hadn’t (and I use the past tense because it’s already tucked up far away) seen a truly dry night for weeks and my…

BACK IN NOVEMBER last year, the 458 thrilled its 8000th customer on 6th Gear Experience’s supercar driving events. This prompted me to take a closer look at the car’s durability over the last three-or-so years. Given that yours truly is behind its button-festooned wheel most days, hammering up and down the M1, and adding to that the aforementioned heavy track use throughout the year, the surprise conclusion was that the more WX11 had been used, the more reliable it had become. Sure, this Ferrari and I have had our ups and downs, as with most relationships. I’m pretty sure it takes pleasure in deafening me with its party-piece faulty exhaust valve act, which leaves it stuck permanently in Race mode until I can get the car to a dealer. On…

THE KIA HAS always been a great car for transporting me and my photography equipment around the uK – it’s one of those cars that simply functions without any hassle. But having already covered the numerous features that make the GT a top daily driver, lately I’ve been thinking about it more in terms of pure, simple fun. One mental checklist of what makes a decent hot hatch later, and it’s clear that the Kia has most of the boxes ticked: great looks, loads of modern gadgets, sporty Recaro seats and an encouraging performance spec. The only trouble is that, when I do get the chance to drive some of evo’s favourite roads in the Kia, it doesn’t encourage me enough to push harder – so much so that I…

THERE’S A PUB on the North York Moors called the Lion Inn. It sits atop Blakey Ridge, a rugged spine that runs north to south. During the dark winter months the Lion Inn feels bleak and isolated, like Father Ted’s house in a November squall, and back in 2010 a heavy, unforecast snowfall cut the pub off from the nearby villages. Being exposed as it is to North Sea winds, deep snowdrifts built up against the pub’s doors and windows, leaving the staff and a couple of guests trapped for several days. Actually, given all they did for a week or so was gorge themselves on the kitchen’s supplies while drinking the cellar dry, ‘trapped’ seems like the wrong word. The whole ordeal sounds bloody marvellous. Anyway, the point is…

Q I live in Australia and have recently got my learner’s permit, so want to start saving for my first car. I’m looking for a cheap (to buy and run) evo car that I can just enjoy driving. My price limit is around A$10,000 (c£5400) and I was thinking along the lines of a Toyota Supra or an E46 BMW 3-series, as they look fun to drive and are aesthetically pretty nice as well. Bear in mind, though, that new solo drivers here are not allowed to drive cars with a powerto-weight ratio above 177bhp/ton. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Sebastian Skoutas A I think starting out with something rear-wheel drive is a great idea, so both of your suggestions are appropriate. Assuming Japanese cars in Australia haven’t rusted…

REPLACING THE BRUTALLY quick and charismatic E55 AMg was never going to be easy. its torque-rich supercharged 5.5-litre V8 – shared with such evo icons as the SL55 AMg – was the stuff of legend. The answer? For the next generation, Mercedes would give AMg free rein to build a completely new power unit, the first truly bespoke AMg engine. The result was the M156, a naturally aspirated 6208cc V8 that, when installed in the W211-generation E-class, produced a searing 507bhp. Launched in autumn 2006, the new E63 AMg (saloon or wagon) was the most powerful E-class to date, capable of rocketing from 0 to 62mph in just 4.5sec in saloon form (quite something for a 1765kg leviathan), and while top speed was limited to 155mph in standard form, with…

WHEN I WAS A BOY, THERE WERE NUMEROUS imaginary ways to make your dad’s car perform better that nevertheless seemed perfectly real (but then, so did Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy). One, of course, was to apply stripes to the bodywork. Not for nothing were they called ‘go faster’. Another was to have a sheet of vinyl fabric glued to the roof. Truly mysterious. The daddy of them all, however – the one that added 10mph to the top speed at the very least – was to remove the hubcaps, thus exposing the sexy contours of the steel wheels and their grimy fixing nuts to the fast flowing air and the gaze of amazed onlookers, a few doubtless mouthing ‘some kind of racing car, surely…’ Who knows, maybe it…

Pirellis attempts to elevate the effectiveness of its tyres with the help of complex electronics are advancing apace, the firm’s technology chief, Maurizio boiocchi, tells evo. ‘We’re continuously working on the P Zero family of products, specifically to have electronics working inside the tyre, interacting with the main computer in the car – something more than a tyre pressure monitoring system,’ he says. Boiocchi is referring to Pirelli’s Cyber tyre technology, which employs four 50 pence piece sized sensors embedded into each quadrant of the tyre belt. the LaFerrari-based FXX K track special is now acting as a test bed for the initiative, the benefits of which will reach mass produced supercars within five years. ‘The sensors can read what the friction coefficient is and what forces are acting on…

AS INTRODUCTIONS TO the World Rally Championship season go, Rallye Monte Carlo is a baptism of fire. Well, the opposite, really. During its January slot in the WRC calendar, the alpine roads can offer up everything from dusty tarmac to sheet ice and thick snow. Tyre choice can be a lottery and even the greatest drivers in the world can be caught out by ever-changing conditions. From Mini’s first victory in 1964 at the hands of Paddy Hopkirk, to 2014’s Volkswagen Polo victory, Monte Carlo has long favoured shorter, nimbler vehicles. Each car featured in model form here has taken victory at the famous event. All models from racingmodels.com…

Test location: Bedford autodrome south circuit GPS: 52.235914, -0.467230 Every new evo car that matters, rated THE PACKET USED to be kept in the blue cupboard in the corner of the kitchen. Between some mints and an empty jam jar labelled ‘gooseberry’ that never seemed to move. I remember it was quite a stretch to reach when I was an ankle-biter, but it was worth the effort. The reward was a funsize Mars bar: the perfect end to any childhood meal. I had one again the other day. at least a decade must have passed since I’d last unwrapped the slightly waxy paper and let one of the miniature chocolate-nougatcaramel blocks melt in my mouth, but in that single moment all the memories came flooding back and I felt like…

Test location: Abinger Common, Surrey Hills GPS: 51.192417 , -0.391322 IN FIXED-ROOF COUPE form, the BMW M235i was one of the realworld stars of 2014. on the face of it a spot of wind-in the-hair motoring might just be the final blustery flourish needed to turn a four-and-a-half star car into the complete package, but when you dive into the spec sheet and realise the drop-top model is burdened with an additional 145kg of flab, that soon seems unlikely. The sheer amount of bracing that is required to prevent a decapitated car from folding in on itself at the first sight of a corner is so massive that all dynamism and precision goes the same way as the roofline. What’s more, the 145kg of steel that BMW has welded to…

NONE OF YOU WILL BE SURPRISED TO read that working on evo can be a pretty jammy gig. The hours can be long and unpredictable – or predictably long if you’re one of the unsung officebased members of the team – and the pay spares you the bind of deciding what to blow your disposable income on, but the things we get to do and the people we get to meet on your behalf often bring their own rewards. What may come as more of a surprise is that many of the truly special moments come when we’re washing a precious car with freezing cold water in some remote Welsh lay-by, or back at the hotel when the cars have been parked and the cameras put away. In short, the…

MattyB_ My first car. It was only ever going to be a Mk2 Escort. I had ideas of travelling sideways everywhere, but reality hit when I could only afford to insure a 1.3. Lovely steering and gearbox, but stupidly soft suspension, next to no power, and I discovered both main chassis rails were completely rusted through after a few months. Bugger. mik Spending £27k on a TVR Cerbera that was off the road more than it was on. _Mick_N I traded my mint AX GT in for a Honda Accord Aerodeck. It weighed about double and was dead slow. It did have pop-up lights, though, so that was a box ticked. Gavin Replacing my XR4x4 2.9 with a Mk2 Golf 1.6 CL in a moment of being sensible. Brian_the_Snail Putting…

THE INTERNET IS IN MELTDOWN AS OUR little convoy heads west on freezing roads. Why? Two letters: RS. Yep, the Focus RS is back and it’s being unveiled on the very day we’re conducting our own little investigation into the current hot hatch hierarchy. You know the details by now (see page 98 if you don’t), but they’re still drip-feeding through to us whenever we stop for coffee or fuel and can check social media… ‘At least 320bhp.’ Nice. ‘Four-wheel drive.’ Oooooh. ‘Dynamic torque vectoring.’ Oh yes! We agree it sounds pretty bloody exciting. It remains to be seen whether the RS can redefine the hot hatch, lay waste to everything from the Golf R to the Audi RS3 and Mercedes A45 AMG, and bring joy to the hearts of…

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A few bruised egos in Ingolstadt last year. Having seen the last RS3 largely panned as fast but dull, Audi engineers had to watch their counterparts in Wolfsburg win unremitting praise for the Golf R. I imagine quattro’s quiet fury was similar to that felt by Taittinger or Pomeroy on receiving a drubbing in a blind taste test from Lidl’s own. But now we have the new RS3 Sportback, built on the same platform as the Golf. And ahead of the official unveiling at the Geneva motor show, a handful of journalists have been shipped to a proving ground called Test World in the Arctic Circle to drive it. As you’d expect, the new car has more power and torque, with the 2.5-litre five-cylinder now putting…

THE ABSURDITY OF FLYING TO MALAYSIA TO drive a racing car for 40 minutes isn’t completely lost on me. In some ways this is one of those jobs often referred to within the industry as ‘a jolly’. And as appealing as these might sound, they’re usually just frustrating and a bit of a waste of time. However, after the slightly muted response to the new Huracán from many who have driven it, and with the trip including an audience with chief test driver Giorgio Sanna, research and development director Maurizio Reggiani and the big cheese himself, CEO Stephan Winkelmann, it seemed a good opportunity to take the pulse of Lamborghini. Oh, and have you seen the Huracán LP620‑2 Super Trofeo? Wow. This new race car will, of course, form the…

‘This is all a bit daft really,’ says Jon. ‘I mean, it’s Saturday night. There are people at home watching X Factor at the moment’ ‘THIS IS ALL A BIT DAFT REALLY,’ SAYS JON. ‘i mean, it’s Saturday night. There are people at home watching X Factor at the moment.’ I begin laughing just as we hit a bump. Hard. The Defender goes airborne in the dark at about 80mph and on landing there’s a sort of joint ooofff of exhaling air, cutting the laughter short as our spines compress milliseconds after the dampers. Instantly we both spot the small orange arrow lurking in the shadows amongst the trees ahead. I brake as late as I dare, coming back down through the gears until the speed is barely a quarter…

For logistical reasons too boring to mention, i had my Fiesta st at the Bedford autodrome on the same day that i drove the elise s cup (see Driven). so before i went out in the lotus, i took the Ford for a few laps of the south circuit. With its two long straights and predominantly fast corners, the south is perhaps not the ideal circuit for the little hatchback, but nonetheless i thought it would be interesting. The Track’s one hairpin quickly unmasked the Fiesta’s lack of lsD, with the power spinning away scrappily through the inside wheel, but the rest of the lap was rather more impressive. at the end of the start/finish straight is a swift left-right chicane followed by a very fast left-hander. it’s a perfect…

THE MCLAREN 12C Spider has had plenty of use over the past several weeks. Other than the daily commute, it was pressed into service for multiple last-minute Christmas shopping trips and even an airport run – the front boot does hold a surprising amount, especially if you pack it carefully. Winter mode is still being used plenty and I had to add a bit of air to the rear tyres to make sure they had adequate pressure when cold. The roof has mainly stayed up, with the exception of two occasions. What I have done regularly, though, is drop the rear window to let in a bit of fresh air and the symphonic mechanical soundtrack. Driving a 12C Spider every day, you do get spoiled. and when excellence is the…

IT’S BEEN A quiet month for Stealthzilla, with family holidays and freezing conditions making recreational driving a low priority. But the new year is always a good time to think about plans for the months ahead, and so I’ve been pondering on the future for my GT-R. It is getting on a bit now, at nearly six years old, but that’s a lot younger than certain other Fast Fleet jalopies I could mention, and with only 37,000 miles on the clock it’s a long, long way from retirement yet. I’m not convinced about taking the engine beyond Litchfield Stage 4.5, which it has been running faultlessly for over two years now. Raising power to 850bhp, which is the next stage, would mean some pretty serious gearbox modifications and I’m loath…

As you mAy have read in Richard Porter’s Petrolhead column recently (evo 204), switching on our Cupra’s heated rear screen would always silence the DAB radio. The current Leon doesn’t have an aerial poking up from its roof or one of its wings; instead it’s in the rear screen and looks very much like the heating elements that it sits close alongside. so with digital signals being the temperamental things they are to hang on to, I just assumed this behaviour was the result of interference and was completely normal. Turns out it isn’t. SEAT got in touch a couple of days after the article appeared to ask if it could take the car back briefly to investigate. This it duly did, tracing the fault to the rear screen itself.…

The Next Big Thing ALL THE EXCITEMENT surrounding Ford’s new GT supercar following its unveiling in Detroit (see Radar, evo 206) has inevitably also drawn attention to its predecessor from 2004-06. Prices are already on the rise, but these cars surely still have a way to go in terms of value, giving them real potential to be ‘the next big thing’. Built in a short production run of 4038 cars, the first 21st century Ford GT was a modern-day, road-going homage to the legendary 40-inch-tall GT40 endurance racer of 1964 to 1969, Gulf-liveried versions of which became especially synonymous with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With hindsight, the Ford GT might have been something of a bargain. Priced at around $150,000 in the US, or £125,000 in the UK,…

RM AUCTIONS PUT on a good show at its Paris event on February 4, posting sales of €19million (c£14m). The top seller was a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT/L Lusso Berlinetta (pictured above left), which went for €1,624,000 (c£1.2m), while a further four cars all passed the €1m mark. Ahead of the auction, evo’s Richard Meaden headed to the test track and had a drive of a rather special Porsche 911 that was entered in the sale. Built in 1969, this track-prepped 911 S (pictured top) has an interesting history behind it. One of six produced, it originally left the factory with modifications intended for rallying. First driven by Pauli Toivonen and Martti Colari in the 1969 Acropolis Rally in its original 2-litre form, it won the event by an impressive…