Innehållsförteckning för August 2020 från Evo

THIS ‘JOB’ AFFORDS YOU SOME VERY SPECIAL opportunities. Being in the fortunate position to ease out of lockdown with a fleet of old and new evo icons at your disposal has undoubtedly proved to be one of them. Every pre-dawn alarm call this month has been worth it, and they will continue to be, more so than before lockdown. The freedom to be able to take a fresh new performance car, be it Suzuki’s latest Swift Sport or Ferrari’s F8 Spider, to a destination of your choosing is a privilege that will never be taken for granted. The 500 miles completed in a single day in the 930 Turbo we were generously loaned for this issue will stay with me long after the penalty points expire on my licence. That…

DO YOU PEER BEHIND PEOPLE’S HEADS AS THEY’RE talking in Zoom or Teams meetings to see what’s on their bookshelves or hanging on their walls? While trying not to look obvious while doing so, I’m having a good snoop behind Gordon Murray’s head. I can see a Brabham in Parmalat colours; an old photo of the T1, the first car he ever designed; and of course there’s a picture of a McLaren F1. It’s that car and its spiritual successor that we’re talking about today. The T.50 is going to be our sort of car. In the words of Murray himself, ‘it will be the last of the world’s great analogue supercars’. Murray is building this car because he can, and reckons very few, if any, others could. ‘A very…

HANS MEZGER, THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR Porsche’s most iconic and successful road and race engines and cars, has passed away at the age of 90. Born in a small village on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Mezger joined Porsche in 1956 after graduating from the University of Stuttgart in mechanical engineering. Initially working in the calculation department, by 1960 his skill and talents were recognised by Ferdinand Piëch, who moved him to Porsche’s Formula 1 team, where he was responsible for engine and chassis design. Porsche’s first and only F1 victory as a manufacturer came in 1962 when Mezger’s Type 753 1.5-litre eight-cylinder engine was installed in the 804 chassis. Mezger’s star continued to rise within Stuttgart, and Ferry Porsche charged the young engineer with designing a new air-cooled flat-six engine…

WHEN ROVER WAS SOLD BY BMW, THE new owners were quick to assert their independence. Just a few months after the company changed hands, the freshly renamed MG Rover called a press conference to show off a trio of MG-badged cars with sportier chassis and more aggressive styling than the Rovers on which they were based (confected, fact fans, by much-maligned Allegro designer Harris Mann, working with McLaren F1 stylist Peter Stevens). Such speedy action was possible because the cars were developed from existing projects that had been frowned upon by German management. The largest saloon, later named ZT, was spun from the Rover 75 Sport concept shown at the 2000 Geneva motor show, while the chassis tune for what became the MG ZS had its roots in an after-hours,…

‘NINE HUNDRED AND THREE.’ I’VE lost count of the number of times I’ve said it in the past 24 hours. There will be dozens more in the next couple of days. But for some reason right now, at a tiny Repsol station in La Molina, it dawns on me just how outrageous the McLaren P1 remains. The station is one of those strange petrol station/café/workshop/community centre/off licences you only get in small-town Spain. When I arrived there were two people sitting outside, smoking and drinking coffee. Or maybe something stronger. Now – less than five minutes later – there must be 15 or 20 and nearly as many scooters and beaten-up SEATs crammed into the forecourt. ‘How much horsepower?’ somebody asks. ‘Nine hundred and three.’ His eyes almost pop out…

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR EVIDENCE that there’s no conventional route to becoming a professional car photographer, Matt Howell is living proof. Raw enthusiasm and a willingness to take leaps into the unknown got him into the trade; talent and professionalism built a career and reputation that regularly sees his images grace evo, Octane, Vantage and Magneto to name but a few. ‘I suppose you could say I’m a bit of an anomaly,’ explains Howell. ‘I didn’t study photography, nor did I spend years assisting an established pro. Photography was less a vocation and more of a happy accident. ‘After school I ended up with a job in the City of London, working in Lloyds of London as an insurance broker. It was immensely boring, but I used to sit on the…

THROUGH NO FAULT OF ITS own, our new Supra hasn’t had the most successful of starts. Arriving precisely one working day before the UK lockdown was announced, it found itself stranded in the evo car park, with no valid reason for anyone to go and rescue it, and no excuse to cover significant miles in it even if we could. So instead it sat dormant, while my anticipation grew and grew. When, some two months later, I could finally justify its extraction, the Supra had cobwebs in the wheelarches and was coated in a mottled layer of rain dust. Yet despite its 60 days of inactivity it started on the button (good job, as I’d forgotten to bring some jump leads with me), and after a couple of brake tests…

LOCKDOWN MAY HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY slowed the pace at which our Passat is gaining miles, but beforehand it covered nearly 4000 in its initial couple of months with us, and nearly a quarter of those were when we headed up to Scotland for the Subaru S209 v AMG A45 feature of evo 272. Before any such major drive I like to work out where everything is going to go in the car, because once we start shooting we don’t really stop for the rest of the day and things can easily go missing or get damaged if they’re not safely stowed. In this regard I’m surprised the Passat doesn’t have any smart storage, such as a pop-down sunglasses compartment. Yes, the compartment between the front seats is a good size, but…

MONDAY 1 JUNE. 6AM. A SHRILLING iPhone, a confused cat, and me with a reason to venture further than the supermarket. I’d never been so eager to drive the 80-mile rush-hour commute from home to evo’s Bedfordshire bunker. Freshly valeted, the metallic fleck in the Vantage’s White Stone paintwork was glinting in the early morning light. The hunched and muscular shoulders from the rear three-quarter is the best view. I still can’t get on with the front. It looks unfinished, key details missing within that oversized front grille area and the low angle of the bonnet line at odds with the high tail. Regardless, the Vantage, without fail, receives positive comments from passers-by. Perhaps it’s psychological, but for the first dozen miles the Aston felt a little lumpy and tight.…

AS YOU APPROACH THE LOW SLITHER OF Giallo Modena your eye is drawn to the sharp edges, deep creases and gaping aerodynamic apertures. The more discreet S-duct opening in the leading edge of the front bonnet creates a darker shadow across the nose of Ferrari’s latest offering, too. Then the deeply scalloped sides, with their elephant hoof-sized openings atop the rear arches, draw in your eye as you check for any small mammals that may have taken up residence the previous evening. You glance at the door handle, question why it looks like an afterthought, but give it no further consideration. The door swings open. Light, no resistance, providing the gateway to the most important seat in any new Ferrari: the driver’s. There’s still some idiosyncratic Italian ergonomics going on…

BMW’S NEW M3 IS NEARING completion, with the company confirming that dynamic track testing is now taking place ahead of the car’s world premiere in mid-September. As before, the new M3 is part of a two-pronged assault that splits the high-performance saloon from an equivalent coupe, once more badged M4. The latter has so far made headlines more for a toothy interpretation of BMW’s kidney grille than its performance credentials, but as we’ve come to expect, the latest cars will once again raise the bar for vehicles of their type. Power will come from BMW’s latest ‘S58’ 3-litre turbocharged straight-six, already seen in the recent X3 M, and will arrive in two outputs – a 473bhp model with a six-speed manual gearbox as standard, and a 503bhp Competition version, using…

GUARDS RED TURBO. THREE WORDS that mean little or nothing to most people, but everything to people like us. And with good reason, for the 911 Turbo has been the very definition of next-level performance since the original 3.0 930 Turbo arrived way back in 1975. Since then the 911 Turbo has continued in its forced-induction quest to humble more powerful and more obviously prestigious machinery. It’s safe to say it forever changed Porsche’s brand trajectory, not to mention the bedroom walls of generations of car-obsessed kids, such was the seismic effect this whale-tailed machine had on the fast-car landscape. As a result, few if any model lines have enjoyed such sustained and successful development. Forty-five years of continuous evolution have seen the Turbo rapidly morph from a homologation special…

‘ALRIGHT, MATE!’ HAILS A friendly high-vis jacket. ‘Hello,’ I say, slightly startled as, ironically, I hadn’t seen him approaching. ‘Nice motor,’ continues the safety wear, appreciatively nodding a hard hat set at a jaunty angle. ‘I love classic cars, me.’ ‘Actually this…’ ‘Don’t make’em like they used to, that’s for sure!’ And, with that, the conversation is over and my sentence explaining that this is in fact not a classic at all, but a brand new car, with a 20 plate that it is entirely entitled to, remains unfinished. As the sound of heavy, steel toecapped boots recedes round the corner of the street, I’m left in the once more quiet lay-by, puzzled. I turn the key on the steering column then reach for the greenly glowing ‘START’ button on…

THE LAST FEW MONTHS HAVE GIVEN ALL OF US plenty to ruminate about, and little of it particularly pleasant. So as lockdown begins to unlock, the ability to once again go out for a drive, for the hell of it, is truly therapy. Further curtailing stressful thoughts today is the latest Mini John Cooper Works GP, a car that seems purpose built to provide distraction. You can lose considerable time simply taking in the various facets of its design, but there’s also a fair amount of context to examine before you hop behind its wheel. This third-generation Works GP follows in the footsteps of a pair of grin-tastic hot hatchbacks, and while we’ve had to wait a hot minute for the latest edition to show up, the formula it follows…

UNDER THE GUN. AT THE LAST MINUTE. Just in time. At the eleventh hour. That’s how I got the S209 back. Three months late, Britain was about to start its 14-day quarantine system for pretty much anyone arriving in the country, and France had announced it would do the same in retaliation. As well as retrieving my Subaru from the care of the evo team (sorry, guys!), I also really wanted to see my mother and brother, so it was now or never. If I didn’t get on one of the last four flights from Geneva to London before 8 June and drive back through France, it would mean a 28-day double quarantine. Screw that. So I was in a packed plane, British passport in hand, wearing a mask, with…

‘The A35 tackled every road with a feeling that this was a car that wanted to work hard for you’ I WASN’T ENTIRELY SURE WHAT TO EXPECT from the A35. Early reviews indicated that it was altogether more complete and rewarding than AMG’s first attempt at a hot hatch, the underwhelming A45 of 2015-18. However, they also suggested that it had its sights set firmly on the Golf R, which wasn’t entirely music to my ears. Said Volkswagen is an eminently sensible target, of course, for it is quick, capable, polished, and highly desirable to many, but I can’t say that it’s a car I yearn to be behind the wheel of. For me, it just lacks charisma. A glimmer of hope came in the form of the twin test…

THE NEW MAZDA 3 HAS BEEN A BONE of contention within evo Towers II. Commander-in-chief Gallagher has been a fierce critic of its looks from day one, calling it bland, frumpy and awkward (some might say it’s actually a distinctive and wonderfully executed example of mainstream car design). Now although I’d never imagine disagreeing with his opinion, it must be noted that the Mazda 3 won the overall 2020 World Car Design of the Year award. But this is evo, which means design has no bearing on what cars we drive and why, so to put aside the aesthetics, why is a Mazda 3 joining the Fast Fleet? It’s the powertrain. Mazda’s been talking about the clever amalgamation of spark and compression ignition in a single petrol engine for a…

THE SMALL-VOLUME, HIGH-PERFORMANCE SPORTS CAR battlefield is divided along two fronts in 2020. On the one side you have the track specials such as the Radical Rapture and Revolution A-One, as driven by Adam Towler in evo 274. Awesomely capable on track, obsessively engineered, and occasionally offered with just enough on-road ability for a weekend drive, provided you don’t mind wearing an Arai everywhere you go. On the other front is the burgeoning market for ultra-exclusive hypercars. Exotic carbonfibre bodywork, possibly electric power, most likely a four-figure output. They’re hyper-rare, hyper-expensive and you’re hyper-unlikely to see one being driven on the roads they’re purportedly designed for. In the middle of all this you’ll find the Jannarelly Design-1. Lightweight, compact and driver-focused, it shares plenty with those trackday specials, but it’s…

FERRARI’S SF90 STRADALE IS A CAR OF numbers. A headline-grabbing 1000 PS is an obvious one (986bhp lacks some of that headline punch), so too the £376,048 price tag. As you’d expect from a car that Ferrari claims beats the LaFerrari in every area of performance you care to mention – speed, acceleration, lap times and, an area Maranello’s engineers are particularly proud of, technology – the numbers come thick, fast and rather large. Ahead of the car’s launch to the media, Ferrari presented a deep dive explanation of its most sophisticated road car to date. ENGINE Ferrari could have taken the 488 Pista’s 3.9-litre V8, turned the boost up and recoded the ECU. Instead it took the four-times World Engine of the Year and started again, redeveloping and evolving…

WHAT’S THE SECRET OF GREAT BRAKES? Alessandro Ciotti, advanced R&D director at Brembo: ‘Friction behaviour in all the possible conditions – very high or very low temperatures [i.e. track use or snow and ice] – mastery of the system materials, a high level of technology and related quality. This is possible only with a very efficient development process, so facilities and especially human resources. Last but not least, you need passion.’ Gavan Kershaw, director of vehicle attributes at Lotus: ‘Firstly the feel: how far the pedal needs to move and effort required versus the amount of deceleration you get. Secondly, thermal capacity and ability to repeatedly slow the car at high G without fade or degraded pedal feel.’ Michael Lingg, head of brake development at Volkswagen: ‘Good meterability with linear…

I WAS WONDERING WHAT A LOCKDOWN ISSUE OF EVO would be like. My slight concern was totally unfounded. Issue 275 was superb as always, but then with over 20 years behind you and a fabulous back catalogue of stories and photos to pick from, it was, surely, never in doubt. I for one would welcome one ‘old’ article in every future issue. During lockdown I’ve spent a good few hours looking back at the first 200 evos that I have in a wardrobe (I’m only allowed two shelves!) and it’s been interesting to see how things have moved on – or not in some cases. I loved the diesel Ferrari prediction from Jeff Daniels. Hopefully the Ferrari SUV will go the same way! And looking back at your Fast Fleet…

STUART GALLAGHER SATURDAY EVENING, early November ’87. The A-Team had just finished when the knock came, followed by a muffled conversation in the kitchen between the old man and a mate. Then we were summoned, my brother and me. ‘Steve thought you might want to go for a quick spin in his new car. Off you go.’ I had vague recollections of Steve. He worked with the old man, no kids, so not much to do when we went for dinner. I had no idea he was into cars. The 930 Turbo Martini that now blocked our lane suggested otherwise. I’d never been in a 911 and here I was standing shoulder-high to the rain gutter of a car that I had read so much about in Fast Lane and…

AWARM, SPRING MORNING. THE AIR is still. Just hanging out, minding its own business, maintaining that mix of mostly nitrogen with a slug of oxygen and a few other gasses to make up the last one per cent. Pressure? Somewhere just over 1000mbar or 100kPa as it’s down near sea level. All is calm. Then along comes the Lightweight GT. Suddenly the previously peaceful air is dragged through a carbonfibre antechamber into one of three Weber carburettors. Throttle wide open, the air accelerates towards the gulping engine, a Venturi effect drawing out petrol into the airstream on the way. Then it’s sucked through a big valve in a wide-angle head, down into a cylinder. Compression. Ignition. Fire in the hole! A rush for the exit through an Inconel corridor that…

IT’S NOT MUCH MORE THAN A LEDGE. ONE OF THE Renault’s Toyos skims the very edge of the tarmac as we squeeze past a recent rockfall, and a couple of small stones bounce once then vanish into the abyss, probably landing in the river below about a week later. Sixty-four years ago, the first Tour de Corse would have come along here, and the idea of driving this road at high speed in a Renault Dauphine (a car once described by Time magazine as ‘the worst piece of French engineering since the Maginot Line’ and undoubtedly equipped with nothing we’d recognise today as brakes) is enough to give you an incurable case of vertigo… The Mégane R26.R, thankfully, has fantastic brakes, and as I proclaimed it ‘a tarmac rally car…

PORSCHE v AMG v AUDI RS. A BATTLE played out hundreds of times within these pages and usually with a predictable result. Not this time, however. I could barely believe my eyes when, in issue 272, John Barker compared Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo, E63 S and the new RS6 and declared Audi’s superheated estate car the clear winner. ‘It demonstrates real flair where before there has been little,’ he concluded. ‘In the RS6 you don’t have to go looking for the magic, it’s right there, ready to be enjoyed from the get-go. It’s close to being the perfect all-purpose, all-duty, go-anywhere super-estate.’ To say I was intrigued was an understatement. Fast Audis, especially the bigger ones, have so often flattered to deceive. They look plain evil and are…

ADACIA DUSTER ON THE EVO FAST Fleet? Seriously? Consider it a spiritual successor to the Skoda Yeti that we ran – and much admired – back in 2010-11; an unlikely source of the thrill of driving and an honest machine that’s as fit for the purpose it’s designed for as a 911 is. I also thought it would make the perfect companion to the Vantage in a two-car garage. A two-seater junior supercar for the thrills; a utilitarian, back-to-basics crossover for the, er, well, different kind of thrills. In a land infested with crossovers and pretend SUVs, the Duster’s frank honesty is refreshing. It doesn’t pretend to be a status symbol, nor try to convince you that owning one means you live in a world that only exists in the…