Table of contents for March 2016 in Evo

ONLY CATERHAM WOULD describe a windscreen and heater as luxury items, but unless you’re inclined to wear a full-face helmet on every journey, they’re a welcome addition to the new Seven 620S. Mechanically, little separates the new road-biased 620S from its trackready 620R brother. Under the slim bonnet a 2-litre Ford Duratec motor nestles, developing 310bhp that only has to push along 610kg. The result is a 3.4-second 0-60mph time and 145mph top speed, though you’ll be swapping cogs through a five-speed manual gearbox rather than the 620R’s six-speed sequential. The wheels are 15-inch pieces with Avon ZZS tyres, whereas the 620R uses 13-inch rims and trackbiased rubber. The 620’s rampant performance can now be enjoyed from the relative comfort of leather seats, though the 620R’s carbonfibre pews are still…

Bremont Jaguar MkIII Price: £3495 From: bremont.com The British-based Bremont brand has added to its existing range of watches inspired by the Jaguar E-type (see evo 208 for details of the earlier models) with this new ‘MkIII’. It features a slimmed-down, 43mm case housing a dial that is, once again, loosely based on the look of an E-type tacho – complete with a ‘red line’ sector. There’s more automotive imagery in the form of a tyre tread pattern on the winding crown and ‘heritage’ Jaguar logos on both the dial and the solid case back. Like all Bremont watches, the MkIII is chronometer certified for accuracy. Hanhart Primus Desert Pilot Price: £2480 From: pageandcooper.com Hanhart, a brand well known for making stopwatches and chronographs that have been widely used in…

Test location: automotodrom Grobnik, Croatia GPS: 45.382245, 14.508840 THE KTM X-BOW HAS been used in competition ever since it entered production in 2008, but in the new X-Bow GT4 the austrian manufacturer now has a purposebuilt racing machine. It shares the road car’s carbonfibre monocoque, 2-litre turbo engine and inboard suspension architecture, but with closed wheelarches and a full canopy it’s lost that version’s paredback, exoskeleton styling. The GT4 was developed in conjunction with Reiter engineering, a German company that’s best known for building and campaigning GT3-spec Lamborghinis. Being based on a track-ready car rather than a road-biased sports car, the X-Bow GT4 is considerably lighter than its competition, which brings numerous benefits but also one very specific consequence. KTM quotes 999kg for the car, which makes the Vw Group-sourced…

Test location: A428, Milton Keynes GPS: 52.16614, -0.64956 Photography: Aston Parrott IT HAS TAKEN VW FIVE generations of Golf estate to bring a performance wagon to the range (the designers only received orders to make space for the dog from the Mk3 on) but now it has two – the R (see Driven, evo 210) and this, the GtD. think of it as a pseudo-GtI wagon with a 2-litre turbodiesel in place of the turbocharged petrol engine. so, it produces less power than a GtI (181bhp against 217) but a bit more torque (280lb ft plays 258). So why did VW not slip the GtI’s petrol engine into the Mk7 Golf estate’s body and deliver us a hot tourer with the most famous hot hatch badge on its tailgate? Because…

THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF MOTORSPORT. What does that mean to you? I ask because there’s a lot of chatter about motorsport’s best days now being firmly behind us. Do you feel that motorsport is trading on nostalgia? That we might lose the kind of magic that saw oceans of spectators amass for Rallye de Portugal in the 1980s if nothing changes? There is some truth in the claim that F1, Touring Cars and rallying aren’t what they were. The racing is still top-drawer – possibly even closer than ever – but a move towards much tighter regulations and the perfection of wind tunnels and computer modelling has meant that the engineering is now more about incremental gains than trial and error, with fewer of the eureka moments of years…

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WHEN YOU’RE TRYING TO RATIONALISE a new car’s dynamic behaviour, there’s one very obvious framework of reference on which to call: prior experience of whatever else you’ve driven. You drive the car, recall similar traits in other cars and then allow those impressions to settle into a neatly labelled folder in your mind. But when you find yourself rummaging around in the duller parts of your longterm memory – in this instance a family holiday in Cyprus, aged 12 – in order to understand just what the hell is going on, it’s clear that the car in question is a unique thing. The term ‘hot hatch’ just doesn’t seem adequate any more. With the emergence of the second-generation Audi RS3, the Mercedes-AMG A45 and, to a lesser extent, the Volkswagen…

‘ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU actually asking me that question?’ I feel a little sheepish. ‘Well, it might have been a bit stressful given the short amount of time…’ I offer by way of a chastised line of reasoning. In a mollifying tone Amko Leenarts tells me that, yes, it was a huge amount of fun designing the interior of the Ford GT. Until now, the cockpit has been the only significant unknown element of the road-going GT’s design. We are walking down a long concrete corridor in the bowels of Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, design HQ on our way to see some of the mood boards and drawings that led to the final design. We walk past shelves with polystyrene casts of wheels and body panels. A large stack of…

ONE BIG FILM SET. THAT’S WHAT JAPAN feels like. Everything is so neat, so clean, so very Japanese that it feels like it’s come to life from a carefully crafted storyboard. The traffic around us on the motorway is all moving in such a considered, almost polite fashion that I begin to wonder if it is referring to some unseen script. When the lanes drop from two to one, everybody filters perfectly, like a zip. The cars themselves are pristine, with no dents or scrapes in sight, as though they’re props only taken out in the dry and then popped back in bubble wrap every night. When we pull into the Ebina Service Area there is a Nismo R35 GT-R and a V-spec R34 parked up, because that’s what you’d…

AFTER ECOTY FUN IN Scotland and a few laps at Blyton Park, the Z/28 was ready to head to the Continent. thankfully, by the time i picked it up at Gatwick, editor nick had fitted a set of yokohama Advans to replace the bald Pirelli trofeo rs. Storm Barney had brought a lot of rain at this point and i had pretty much soiled myself using the trofeos in similar conditions in California. it all gave me an even greater respect for what Senna did at Monaco in ’84. After i tracked the south coast from Brighton, it stopped raining in Hastings long enough for me to look at the sea from where Guillaume the Bastard came to conquer. then came the Channel tunnel and thumbs up for the Z/28…

SOME OF THE MOST memorable drives I’ve ever had have been in hot hatches. for example, even in the presence of Porsches and ferraris on our recent evo Car of the Year test (evo 216), the Civic type R and Leon Cupra Sub8 delivered moments I’ll never forget. As Jethro Bovingdon points out in our eCoty video (head to youtube.com/evo if you haven’t yet seen it), a great hot hatch has an uncanny ability to feel ‘just right’ in virtually any situation. However, this is where the Corsa VXR fell a little short of my expectations. hats off to Vauxhall for being so committed with the setup, as it’s a very aggressive car, especially when equipped – as our VXR was – with the optional Performance Pack (£2400). But to…

BEING THE TECHNICAL correspondent at evo, I get excited about cars loaded with new tech. Side Slip Angle Control and torque-vectoring diffs are the sort of things that get me going. However, it is a car with very little tech that has been causing a stir on the magazine’s fleet of late, and after hearing about how the Caterham 420R fared at evo’s track evenings last summer, I was keen to find out why it’s so dearly loved. So when there was a chance to borrow the Seven for a couple of weeks recently, I took the opportunity – and the steering wheel, keys and electrical cut-off switch – to see what the fuss was about. On the journey home from evo Towers, I heard a squeal coming from under…

ROYAL STEERING WHEELS ALCANTARA RECOVER £130-140 royalsteeringwheels.com You want a no-nonsense suede steering wheel, preferably with yellow stitching at 12 o’clock. Who wouldn’t? But your car has an airbag, and it’s not a dedicated trackday weapon, so those lovely basic wheels from Momo and Sparco are out. However, if you’ve got anything less than a 911 GT3, you’ll probably have an ordinary leather wheel, which leaves the option of getting your existing wheel recovered. It might not give your interior that race-car vibe, but having the same wheel recovered in some soft Alcantara will make a huge difference to how it feels. Royal Steering Wheels will recover any wheel however you want. I opted for simple black Alcantara but with ‘M’ tricolour stitching for a bit of excitement. Had I…

THE CREAM OF TURBOCHARGED hot hatches from ten years ago are now available from £5000, with each of these cars offering 150mph-ish performance and tremendous versatility. For the money, nothing else really comes close. No one could quite believe that VW had responded to the soulless Mk4 Golf GTI with a car that brought back the best of the originals. Painless to run, it’s the sensible choice here without ever being boring. Ford gave the Mk2 Focus ‘ST’ performance with a charismatic in-line five-cylinder motor, and it’s both the car’s ace card and Achilles’ heel. Sonorous but thirsty, torque-rich but weighty, just keep an eye on the coolant level. The Astra VXR is the wild one: uncouth over certain surfaces and with an image not to all tastes, but there’s…

JOURNALISTS, EH? WE BANG ON ABOUT the dearth of naturally aspirated, frontengine, rear-drive cars with modest grip, and when we finally get one (or rather two), all we do is find fault. It’s true our initial review, part of which is reproduced here, was less than glowing. Admittedly the BRZ on test was slightly hamstrung by its auto gearbox, but we also criticised the rather lacklustre engine. Even the handling came in for flak. Others, though, raved about the little Toybaru, and we’ve since recognised that, with a few well-chosen mods, it can indeed be the drivers’ car it always wanted to be. The first thing to know is that the BRZ and GT86 are essentially the same car, although, out of the box, the Toyota has softer springs at…

FAMILIAR WITH THE TICKFORD CAPRI of 1982? Looking like a Group 2 machine that escaped Touring Car enslavement only moments before the sponsor livery arrived, it sported skirts and bumpers that draped provocatively to the tarmac and a blanked-off snout that gave it an unhinged demeanour. And yet despite the nefarious aesthetic and a 205bhp turbo V6, it sold poorly and was eventually killed off by the Sierra RS Cosworth, which was less expensive and even faster. Tickford’s take on Ford’s pert Puma nearly 20 years later was a similar story. This time the bodykit was considerably more curvaceous, but again the car was a commercial flop. In 2000 the Racing Puma came in at £22,750, whereas a Subaru Impreza Turbo cost £20,950, was much faster, more practical and had…

BY UNVEILING THE LC500 and Q60 production cars at January’s Detroit motor show, lexus and infiniti put Japan firmly back on the high-performance coupe map. Boasting a raft of innovative technologies, both cars appear to have the potential to rival the very best sports coupes Europe and the US have to offer. Not only is the lC500 the most exciting fast lexus since the stunning LFA supercar of 2010, it also introduces a new productdevelopment philosophy that, the company claims, is ‘better suited to meet the needs of the next generation of customers’. Powered by the same normally aspirated, all-aluminium 5-litre v8 as the existing RC F and GS F, the lC500 is expected to reach 60mph in less than 4.5 seconds. the 466bhp, 389lb ft engine drives the rear…

ENGINE DOWNSIZING and turbocharging is becoming the de facto way for manufacturers to reduce emissions while maintaining performance. In extreme cases the downsizing is significant. Take the BMW i8, for example. Its combustion engine is a tiny 1.5-litre three-cylinder unit. However, it can output a substantial 228bhp thanks to a huge turbocharger. The problem with this kind of setup is the amount of turbo lag that is inherent with smallcapacity engines equipped with large turbochargers. The i8 has electric motors that can accelerate the car at a decent lick until the turbo is in its boost threshold, but what can you do to battle lag if you don’t have a hybrid system? A company called Aeristech, based in Coventry in the UK, may hold the answer. Aeristech produces electric superchargers,…

IT WILL SOON BE THE TIME of year when drivers who swapped to winter tyres for the cold weather are thinking about putting summer rubber back on. One winter’s use should see a set of tyres fine for keeping until the temperature drops again, but what if they’ve already been on two or three times? they may be legal, but are they worth keeping? with the help of Continental, we’ve been able to find out, as alongside the launch of the winterContact ts 860 (evo 218), we got the chance to see how wear affects winter tyres’ snow grip. So when should you change? A clue can be gained from other european countries. in norway, sweden and Finland the legal minimum tread depth for winter tyres is 3mm; in Austria…

THE ONCE-FAMILIAR MOAN about having no mobile reception has become almost a thing of the past in recent times (unless you happen to work in the evo office). And that increasing availability of a data connection has enabled car manufacturers to use mobile phone networks to communicate with vehicles and let them communicate with each other and even with their owners’ homes. Right now, Tesla, for example, has the ability to update its cars over the air, adding new functionality and updates while the Model S sits at home in your garage. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. BMW’s vision for the connected car of the future is one where your car automatically knows the ins and outs of your daily schedule, using ‘the cloud’ to obtain…

Test location: iver, Buckinghamshire GPS: 51.520923, -0.512925 CONSIDERING THE LOWS Jaguar had reached under Ford’s ownership (the s-type and X-type are unlikely to be hailed as solihull icons this side of the next millennium) the original XF deserved all the credit and plaudits it received following its 2007 launch. True, that first XF may have trailed its german counterparts when it came to core fleet models and even niche evo examples – an XFr was a hoot but never felt as polished as an M5 – but it provided stability and confidence at Coventry and demonstrated that the big cat still had some of its nine lives intact. Now, after nine years that have seen a new XJ, a totally new twoseater sports coupe and roadster and a new junior…

Test location: B660, cambridgeshire GPS: 52.40183, -0.37266 IN A CAR AS DIMINUTIVE as the r56 mini hatchback, 279bhp is a fairly ludicrous amount of power. the most potent factory-specification model of that generation was the 215bhp John cooper Works GP, which is made to look woefully underpowered by Lohen’s own effort. Taking the cooper s as its starting point, staffordshire-based Lohen borrows the bigger turbocharger from the JcW model (£1050), updates the ecu with a manic motorsport stage 3 map (£720) and fits an intercooler (£489), an uprated intake kit (£340) and a full akrapovic exhaust system (£1905). Peak power arrives at 6420rpm with a massive 305lb ft of torque arriving at 2850rpm. a Quaife torque-biasing limited-slip differential (£690) slots in between the front wheels to try and make some…

OF THE MANY NEW CARS I GET TO DRIVE on your behalf, most are very fast, many are very beautiful and all are the product of painstaking design, obsessive engineering and exhaustive development programmes. Nothing is left to chance. Apart, it seems, from our comfort behind the wheel. I’m not talking about air-conditioning or heated/cooled seats swathed in supple leather. I’m talking about the fundamentals of a sound driving position and a truly supportive, correctly aligned seat in which to sit. The days of crazy offsets for the steering wheel and pedals might be gone (thank goodness), but that doesn’t stop manufacturers signing off cars with small but critical compromises to the alignment of seat, steering wheel and pedals that force our bodies into invisible stress positions. This year, as…

I like the look of the new 911 Carrera and it is a tempting proposition. Once again, in typical Porsche fashion, there are bundles of new tech, increases in economy and another 0.1 or 0.2sec off the 0-62 time. The pace race must be finite, though. The new Turbo S dips under 3 seconds to 62mph. Is that a comfortable experience? Would 2 seconds be better? Perhaps more like a punch from Mike Tyson than from a mechanical boxer. More importantly, surely there is very short joy within the legal envelope. And these cars are so packed with digital advances that they must surely have a built-in obsolescence or a very expensive dependence on the franchised dealerships. Imagine for a moment that you could take today’s superlight 911 body and…

Eleanor, simple! Paul Giannandrea Aston Martin DB10. Looks beautiful, sounds amazing. Who doesn’t want to be a modern 007? Alex_ The Bond Lotus Esprit submarine, so I can drive to work down the canal and avoid the traffic. Or a flying DeLorean time machine, which would let me have a lie-in, dodge traffic, and still get to work on time. Si_ Cameron Frye’s dad’s 250 GT California. Needs no explanation. Barry Though presumably not backwards through a plate glass window… GPG The Citroën DS used in the 2011 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Although I am not sure it would have been entirely appropriate to be used by spies in England during that era (far too conspicuous, surely), it looked a lovely example, especially in the scene on a…

YOU’VE HEARD THE NEWS, RIGHT? YOU know, the big news. Nope, not ‘Ludicrous Mode’ or the advances in autonomous driving. Not even anything to do with ‘connectivity’ or ‘mobility solutions’. The BIG news. The Mustang. It’s got independent rear suspension. I know, right? Independent rear suspension. And you can buy it in right-hand drive. For £34,495. Not some watered-down V6 or four-cylinder turbo version. A full-fat 5-litre veemutherflippin’-eight Mustang with 410bhp for the price of an M235i. Right in time for crashing petrol prices and the diesel backlash. Did I mention it’s got multi-link rear suspension? Apologies for the hysteria but there’s something about the Ford Mustang that seems to whip up a storm of excitement, hype and, in its home market at least, amazing loyalty. Ford guys are Ford…

WIN ON SUNDAY, SELL ON MONDAY. Racing improves the breed. Just thought I’d get those out of the way early so they don’t creep into the story a little later by accident. Anyway, welcome to the EuroSpeedway Lausitz, or Lausitzring, located 130km south of Berlin, deep in former East Germany. We’re here to corroborate, or not, all those ‘race car for the road’ headlines that hover above the Porsche 911 GT3 and GT3 RS on magazine covers the world over. To do this we have those celebrated hardcore road-going 911s, some real racing cars, a data logger and a couple of factory Porsche racing drivers. Oh, and I’ll drive all the cars to see if I can feel strands of DNA stretching between our beloved GT3s and the racers we…

I’M STILL EASING INTO LIFE with a GT-R. Still chuckling at just how awful it is when cold, shuddering and shunting around, the gearbox rattling and the whole car feeling close to a very ugly death. It only lasts a few minutes but it would be a shock to anyone used to a more conventional performance car such as an M3 or 911. I’m also still laughing every time the GT-R hits boosts and rips through the gears, the digital speed readout struggling to keep pace. And I’m still wondering how a GT-R can tell you the oil temperature in the transmission, your lateral and longitudinal G-force, trace your throttle openings and steering angle, and give you a live readout of the front-to-rear torque split, but doesn’t have DAB. The…

WELL, THIS IS AWKWARD. last month i wrote that my VW Golf r doesn’t have dynamic Chassis Control – adaptive dampers to you and me – but it turns out that it does. every Golf r i’ve ever driven with dCC has had a button with an image of a damper on it next to the gearlever, but VW recently ditched the button in favour of an option within a submenu in the infotainment system. My car was among the first to do away with the button. it was only when i started fiddling with the individual drive mode for the first time that i saw the option labelled ‘dCC’. i’ve now got the individual mode set exactly how i like it for fast road driving – dCC in sport,…

BRAKES, CLUTCH, service. three items lurking on my to-do list for the Mazda for far too long, and three items I can now tick off and forget after a comprehensive overhaul at MX5 city near Doncaster. Yes, the 100-mile trek from Northamptonshire to Yorkshire is an inconvenient one simply to fit some fresh consumables, but the MX-5 is now of a vintage where specialist care is preferable to that of the local backstreet grease-monkey. MX5 city is also familiar with my car (it’s where I bought it) and I’m familiar with the business, having visited several times while researching for a book. a trustworthy business is worth its weight in gold, and more than justifies the extra petrol. Which is just as well, because I ended up spending not far…

THE 458 HAD IT EASY ON the run up to Christmas, posing as a static exhibit in Sheffield’s Meadowhall Centre. It was there to promote 6th Gear’s supercar driving experiences, and it certainly generated much positive attention. But it’s not had it that cushy all year, of course. In fact, only the day before arriving in Sheffield it was tearing round Castle Combe for a full six hours, stopping only for fuel and changes of driver. This reminded me that I should perhaps point out once again that the use this 458 gets certainly isn’t typical. Of the 75,000 miles that have passed beneath its Michelins, many have generated probably twice the amount of wear and tear than would have been the case had the car been restricted to the…

HANGING A NEW automotive luxury brand off the back of a supermini seems unorthodox, but with 390,000 sales already to its name as a Citroën, the updated DS3 will be a hugely important vehicle for the newly formed ‘DS automobiles’. It’s the latest model to be facelifted and rebranded to better align itself with the rest of the DS line-up, after the DS5 and DS4. Like those models, it features a reprofiled front grille flanked by thick strips of chrome trim, dubbed ‘DS wings’. above those are new LED headlamps, and while the fang-like LED daytime running lights remain, the unique ‘3D’ LED tail lights are arguably the more successful carry-over. As befits the DS3’s boutique positioning, there’s a huge range of personalisation options – three million combinations, says DS,…

Test location: Somersham, Cambs GPS: 52.405841, 0.026602 Photography: Aston Parrott IT’S ‘AUSTIN YELLOW’, naturally. Lowered on a set of coilovers, with 30-profile rubber stretched extravagantly over tunerstyle 20in alloys, it has an exhaust gurgle and snort on the overrun like a whale with indigestion. Predictably, it’s an M-DCT example. So if you’re the sort of M-car purist who believes that BMW’s current core M-car is too big, too bling and too dynamically compromised, you might expect this ACS4 Sport to darken your winter blues even further. But if that is you, hold off on the stereotypes for a moment, because this AC Schnitzer M4 is much more than just a set of big wheels and a noisy exhaust. On a damp, dank, January day, an additional 78bhp sounds like the…

Test location: Grendon, Northants GPS: 52.22277, -0.70544 Photography: Aston Parrott WITH THE SEEMINGLY inexorable rise and rise of classic Porsche 911 values, it’s forgivable to think that unless you’re already ‘on the ladder’ you might as well abandon all hope of ever owning one. however, to arrive at that sad conclusion would mean you’ve ignored the 996. This would be foolish, for as the 911 has continued to mature, the original water-cooled model has rather come into its own, not least because a little over £10k will still secure you one. Alright, so it won’t be a minter, but if you buy carefully and are prepared to treat it as a project, it really can’t be beaten. Living proof of this comes from independent Porsche specialist RPm technik, which has…

Test location: Iver, Buckinghamshire GPS: 51.52092, -0.51292 Photography: Aston Parrott AFTERMARKET TUNERS have long been extracting scarcely believable torque figures from performance diesel engines, but all too often the realworld outcome is an overworked traction-control system rather than effective and useful straight-line pace. A tuned diesel engine mated to a four-wheel-drive system, however, is one of those automotive pairings that just makes sense, particularly at this time of year when our roads are slick with grime. In standard guise the BmW 335d xDrive would appear to be plenty potent enough, its 3-litre six-cylinder engine returning 309bhp and 465lb ft. Like all manufacturers, though, BmW has a carefully balanced model hierarchy to protect, so it falls to the likes of tuner Birds to tap the engine’s latent potential. An eCu remap…

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SEASONAL tradition? The annual seeing of the family? The losing of the patience with the family? The yearly race to fill your house with foods you simply wouldn’t bother with at any other time of year? For me, the greatest tradition is a quaint Italian custom which translates as ‘the throwing of the toys from the pram’ undertaken by the Ferrari Formula 1 team towards the end of every year. Here it goes again, threatening to leave the sport if it doesn’t get its way, as it has done with delightful regularity for many years. It never happens, of course, and this time was no different as even sweater-wearing dilettante Sergio Marchionne took a break from delaying another Alfa recovery plan to admit that, annual tantrum or…

From the forums: community.evo.co.uk/forums Thread of the Month What the hell did they do, put in a new engine? Seems expensive for oil, an oil filter and an air filter. And you should use US-spec tyres. You may not get round corners but you’ll get 60,000 miles out of them, easy… FatChris They did send us a video clip of the car underside to show us the tyre wear. Maybe the voiceover guy was expensive. PaulJ It’s the halo version. High maintenance costs are expected… Alex_ The first service in 18,000 miles cost £450. That is nothing if you think about it. SimonB Cost per mile no, but what was involved other than an oil change? It’s a first service, not a 1,000,000-mile overhaul. JL The spark plugs and the…

OVER THE LAST YEAR, EVO HAS BEEN following the story of Ford’s return to the supercar arena – and its return to top-flight endurance racing. What you are about to read is the result of a truly international information-gathering exercise. We’ve chased the key Ford Performance people all over the world in the last 12 months to get a real handle on what is arguably the most exciting car of the year, and the most important motorsport story of 2016. From Raj Nair, the man who ultimately presses the start button on any racing programme, to the drivers, engineers, execs, designers and directors – we’ve got them all. It proved to be a deeply fascinating exercise… Why does motorsport matter to Ford? Raj Nair, executive vice president, product development, and…

BACK WHEN WEARING LEATHER DRIVING gloves was acceptable, and print ads drew a direct link between purchasing an ageing, home-grown sports car and your success rate with the opposite sex, this group test would have been a breeze to organise. A call to the press offices of most British car manufacturers would have extracted a simple, archaic two-seater with its roots in the post-war export drive. Up the budget slightly and there would have been something sublime but eternally trying from Norfolk, or a model from any number of tiny, independent manufacturers offering lightweight sports cars for road and weekend competition use. Look overseas and Italy was a proud exponent of the breed, and there were plenty of other numbers to dial in the industry contacts book. If one wanted…

I ’VE GOT DOZENS OF AMAZING moments from various evo Car of the Year weeks down the years. Sequences that I can replay in my mind with perfect clarity. Usually they involve chasing another car back to the hotel at night after the final sunset shots on an exposed hilltop, cold, hungry and in a real hurry to settle down to a steak, a pint and tales of the day’s heroics. My E46 M3 CS memory is different. All alone, in the height of the midday sun, driving to pick up some lunch in Castellane, nestled in a fold of rocks on the Route Napoléon. The CS had already finished second in our ‘real world’ preliminary round, just behind the extraordinary Clio Trophy, thus qualifying it to face the big…

SUCH ARE THE JOYS OF the weather at the moment that the last month hasn’t seen the MX-5’s roof open once. That’s a shame, as topdown driving had started to become one of the defining experiences of my time running the MX-5. It’s something that helps separate the Mazda from the other options in this price bracket, and the simplicity and speed of the roof mechanism contributes towards the car’s backto-basics feel. I managed to fit more decent B-roads into my travels this month, so I’m starting to get used to the way the MX-5 rolls so much on turn-in, which in turn means I’m driving it that little bit harder. It can still be unnerving, but the front-end grip is definitely there. I’m sure the car would be all…

THERE AREN’T TOO MANY drawbacks to being able to make a career from taking photographs of cars. sure, the ridiculous hours in the summer months, sub-zero temperatures during winter and evo designer Will Beaumont’s penchant for cropping all my photos into instagram-style squares surrounded by a sea of ‘creative white space’ can get a little tedious, but generally it’s every bit as enjoyable as it looks. Apart, that is, from the amount of equipment required for taking photographs of cars. From lens cloths and lighting gear to tripods and stepladders, it all makes for a colossal amount of kit, and for that, a large boot is required. With its huge wheels and sUV shape, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the audi rs Q3 is a big car. But it’s…

THE GT2 IS RACKING UP the miles, so much so that I think I’ll be phoning Sky Insurance soon and requesting an extension on the mileage limit. I can’t help it – we’ve had a very mild autumn and winter and the car is just so addictive to drive. It’s great on longer journeys too; despite the stiff ride and fixed-back bucket seats, I’ve yet to suffer any aches and pains or undue fatigue. Of course, the miles started to show up a few niggles, which the seller, RPM Technik, offered to look at under warranty. First and foremost was a mild clutch judder, particularly when reversing. My fear was that the dual-mass flywheel was on the blink – an expensive fix unless I took advantage of having it assessed…

AFTER A FEW WEEKS In our Octavia vRS, I’ve come to believe that Skoda has got the notion of ‘Time And Relative Dimension In Space’ nailed. I’ve thought this about the Superb estate in the past, but now I reckon its smaller sibling falls under the same umbrella. Both cars look angularly handsome in a kryten sort of way, but they’re also possessed of proportions that seem to disguise how big they really are. They fit into parking spaces just fine and don’t feel like minibuses to drive, yet they seem to have the load capacity of a seven-and-a-half-tonner. During the week leading up to Christmas (and what an exciting week it was…), the Octavia transported a defunct fridge-freezer, then an old bath (resplendent in avocado green) and finally a…

TWO MONTHS IN AND my initial disappointment with the Focus ST has dissipated somewhat. Over time you can start to nitpick things you don’t like about a car, but you can also find certain things that you do like. These qualities couldn’t be more easily discovered than on a road-trip. Driving to the French Alps in the middle of winter on summer tyres and with no snow chains would be a challenge in any car, and it was certainly the biggest test yet for our diesel estate ST. How it fared came as a pleasant surprise. It didn’t quite reach the peak of Mont Blanc but it did manage to tackle some roads you wouldn’t normally dream of entertaining without four-wheel drive. It also cruised serenely along the amazingly smooth…

EXPECTATIONS WEREN’T OVERLY high when the Mégane Renaultsport 225 arrived in 2004, as the Mégane I – even with Clio Williams power – hadn’t quite hit the mark. In this larger class of hatchback Peugeot had ruled the roost with the 306 GTI 6/Rallye, but in a post-Mk1 Focus RS landscape the 225’s specification and meaty 2-litre turbo power nevertheless marked it out as a formidable contender. That it didn’t initially fulfil its potential can now almost be seen as something of a Renaultsport trademark, the car then being finetuned to perfect pitch with successive variants. Its position as the enthusiast’s choice is one it has held on to almost permanently since. Even just recently, under extreme pressure in these pages from the new Honda Civic Type R and SEAT…

BUY A BRAND NEW MINI COOPER S and its turbocharged 2-litre engine will produce 189bhp. Such outputs are seen as a bare minimum for hot hatches these days, which makes the 168bhp maximum of the original R53-generation Mini Cooper S seem a little feeble. Luckily, power gains are simple to achieve. Cambridgeshire-based specialist 1320 (1320. co.uk) do a Stage 1 Performance Pulley package for £312. It includes an 11-17 per cent smaller supercharger pulley (depending on the owner’s choice), plus the belt, new plugs, a health check and a dyno run. With a 15 per cent smaller pulley (any smaller and other upgrades are advised), owners have seen more than 180bhp at the wheels. A set of Michelin Pilot Super Sports to replace the OEM runflats would complement the upgrade…

Key N = new entry this month. * = grey import. Entries in italics are for cars no longer on sale. Issue no. is for our most recent major test of the car (D = Driven, R = Road test or group test, F = Feature). Call 0844 844 0039 to order a back issue. Price is on-the-road including VAT and delivery charges. Engine is the car’s main motor only – additional hybrid tech isn’t shown. Weight is the car’s kerb weight as quoted by the manufacturer. bhp/ton is the power-to-weight ratio based on manufacturer’s kerb weight. 0-60mph and 0-100mph figures in bold are independently recorded, all other performance figures are manufacturers’ claims. CO2 g/km is the official EC figure and EC mpg is the official ‘Combined’ figure or equivalent.…