Innehållsförteckning för March 2026 från Evo

MY MUM HAD AN AX GTi. IT WAS the first new car the Gallagher household had ever bought. It was white (a legal requirement in Essex for all hot hatches in the 1980s and ’90s), the lacquer on the alloys lasted around six months before losing its fight with the salty air from the river that ran along the front of the house – and I wasn’t allowed to drive it. Being 17 obviously played a part in this family decision, so too the small incident my brother had when he borrowed the AX’s predecessor and returned home on foot rather than in the Fiesta he had driven away in. The Citroën teased me for years. A piece of forbidden automotive fruit I could look at and clean but never drive.…

THE TOYOTA GR YARIS AERO PERFORMANCE IS exactly as described: a GR Yaris with an aero package to increase its performance on both road and track. It’s not a special limited edition, but rather a second continuous production variant to be offered alongside the regular GR Yaris that we know and love. The Aero Performance will be the only GR Yaris model coming to the UK this year, however, bar a few outstanding orders for the standard car, and all have already been allocated. It may be possible to order the regular non-Aero GR Yaris in the UK once again after 2026, but that’s yet to be confirmed. The upgraded aero package comprises six new modifications. The most obvious is the generously portioned rear wing, which is manually adjustable in…

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU LOOK AT these cars? Depending on your age you’ll either be staring wistfully into space, immediately scanning the classifieds, or wondering why we’ve devoted so many pages to three three weird-looking French hatchbacks with less hatchbacks with less power between them than a new Golf R. I think you can probably guess in which camp evo sits. Fellow tester John Barker ran a Citroën AX GT as a long-term test car when it was new, then followed it with a Peugeot 205 CTI, so he has a strong bond with two of our trio. Being slightly younger than JB I never owned any of them when they were new or tested them in period – I passed my driving test in 1988 and got…

I DON’T THINK IT’S EXAGGERATING to say that none of our recent twin tests would appear quite so alien to an evo reader of 25 years ago as this. Here we have a pair of two-ton semi-SUVs, powered by electricity alone, one hailing from Korea and the other from a brand that in 2001 was long defunct. Never mind being unrecognisable beside the performance cars of that era, a £65,000 Hyundai with over 600bhp would sound like it was from a different reality – another universe entirely. Yet today, Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N sets the standard among driver’s cars that feast on electrons rather than hydrocarbons. While Taycans, Emeyas, and i4s with M badges have demonstrated that electric powertrains can impress beyond their acceleration figures, it’s the 5 N (and…

ASK ANYBODY, CAR ENTHUSIAST OR NOT, to name two famous rallies and it’s a safe bet the Monte Carlo and Dakar will be on the list. Steeped in history (124 years of it in the Monte’s case), they remain two of the toughest and most dramatic competitions in motorsport. This year, the Dakar and the Monte were separated by just five days, and evo’s Sam Jenkins joined Land Rover on the Dakar in Saudi Arabia, as its Octa-based Defender D7X-R took on the Dakar’s new Stock class (you can read Sam’s account starting on page 114). But whereas his visit involved sand and sun cream, one week away and 3000 miles of travel, I find myself shivering at the iciest, wettest Monte Carlo rally in years. ‘I’ve seen conditions like…

YELLOW. I’M NOT A FAN. NOT JUST OF the Coldplay song, but also when it appears on an instrument panel to deliver a warning to you. Within a day of having the windscreen replaced (see last month’s report), the Alfa’s instruments turned into a daily jumbotron of alerts: for drive assist sensors, tyres, and then an oil change and a service. The first of these cleared itself, while the second disappeared after adjusting the tyre pressures (no doubt the colder weather upset them). But the latter pair were going nowhere, and because they appeared a couple of days before Christmas, I had to live with them glaring at me every time I started the car until the New Year arrived, when I could finally book it in for the required…

TESTAROSSA. OF ALL THE NAMES IN Ferrari’s lexicon of legendary models, this is surely the most evocative. Originally two separate words, Testa Rossa was first applied to Ferrari’s formidable sports racers of the mid-’50s and early ’60s. The name was then benched until 1984, when the company revived it for the dramatically side-straked supercar. Like its ’80s namesake, the new £407,617 849 Testarossa (£442,467 for the Spider) takes its place at the top of Ferrari’s series-production range. Suffice to say it has its work cut out. As successor to the unloved SF90, it needs to win over those customers who were left nonplussed by that model, while the stern internecine battle to substantively surpass its junior stablemate, the 819bhp, 205mph 296, is far from a given. Especially now there’s a…

WHEN YOU TURNED THE PAGE DID YOU, JUST FOR A fleeting moment, think you were looking at a Bugatti Veyron? A Veyron but different somehow; a little sharper, a little more modern. Almost like a facelift of the original. In a way, that’s exactly what this is. The Bugatti FKP Hommage is a one-off tribute to both the original Veyron and to the late Ferdinand Karl Piëch (hence its initials), the formidable VW Group leader whose single-minded approach brought the Veyron, and modern-era Bugatti, into being – and ushered in a new hypercar genre in the process. It has been created as part of Bugatti’s recently introduced Solitaire programme, which builds unique commissions for special clients. The FKP Hommage is the second Solitaire car so far, following 2025’s Brouillard, a…

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THEY SAY SIX LAPS IS THE DANGER ZONE at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Because after six laps, you think you know the track. Guess how many I’ve done up until now? Yep. Mind you, my six laps were spread over two years, and the most recent of them was in 2018. That’s about to change. It’s before 8am on a Tuesday morning and I’m standing on the Nordschleife’s Döttinger Höhe back straight, the mile-and-a-half-long stretch between the infamous ‘bridge’ and ‘gantry’ landmarks. My much-needed cup of coffee is sitting on the rear wing of a Porsche 911 GT3 and I’m listening to a briefing from an instructor whose Ring lap-count is in the thousands. Shortly I’ll be following his wheeltracks in the GT3, to try to learn this most unlearnable of…

BUNDLED INTO THE BACK OF A DEFENDER support vehicle, we’re making our way from AlUla’s remote airport to the paddock – or bivouac in Dakar terms. It’s not long before it comes into sight. Amidst Saudi Arabia’s vast, barren desert sits the automotive equivalent of Nevada’s ‘Burning Man’ festival, a vast collection of tents and structures, and a hive of activity. But unlike Burning Man there are no out-of-body spiritual journeys to be had here; this experience is very real, and the most demanding in modern motorsport by some margin. For a total Dakar novice like me, it’s an eye-widening encounter. I’ve always had immense admiration for the people and the machinery of the Dakar, but witnessing it first-hand is something else. And the sheer scale of the operation is…

AFTER NINE MONTHS AND 8400 MILES, our time with the Dacia Duster is up. Much like the Peugeot 208 that I ran previously, this was a car that few on the evo team scrambled to drive. After all, the Duster is a high-riding budget crossover with precisely zero performance credentials. Judging a book by its cover is a foolish thing to do, though, and so I made a conscious effort to put my prejudices aside. Dickie Meaden had spent a good amount of time in NA74 SVR before it was my turn to take its key, and he had positive feedback, praising its poise and ability to carry speed across country. But would I share his enthusiasm? With the steady stream of test cars passing through evo, it’s not uncommon…

THIS ISN’T WHAT WE CAME TO SPAIN FOR. THE ROADS are lined with snowbanks taller than the car, and brown slush covers the surface as we duck and dive through the mountains, dodging blocks of ice lining the road’s edge. The car scrabbles over frozen patches of water, the steering wheel jinking around as the front tyres hunt for whatever traction they can find. It’s like a special stage of the Monte Carlo rally, and we’re in what should be the wrong car: the new Golf GTI Edition 50. Stiffened, focused and running on modestly treaded Bridgestone Potenza Race tyres, it’s optimised for dry track work – and emphatically not a snowy mountain pass in the foothills of the Pyrenees. But the thing is, even here, the Edition 50 feels…

WE SIT IN SILENCE AT THE SUMMIT OF THE Col de Turini. Too late for tourists but too soon for snow, the place is eerily deserted, hushed apart from the rustle of windblown pine trees, the güiro-like rasp of a passing crow and the gentle tick-tick-tick of cooling brakes and powertrain after a suitably attacking charge up from the valley floor. The Turini lives a double life, today’s tranquillity in stark contrast to its rabble-rousing reputation as the most iconic stage of the Monte Carlo Rally and occasional lung-bursting leg of the Tour de France. Whether it’s thronged with rowdy bobble-hatted fans lighting flares and honking airhorns, or Lycra lovers clanging cowbells and throwing smoke-bombs, this place knows how to party. No wonder it’s a bucket list destination for drivers and…

THIS MINI JCW SEEMS TO HAVE AN APPETITE FOR small Japanese coupes. The first GT86 in the convoy peels off into a lay-by on the right to let us through, shortly followed by the second. The third seems to be unmodified and the most humble of the lot – no big wing or shouty exhaust, and a sensible ride height – but it’s being pedalled by someone who clearly knows what they’re doing, and exactly where and how this relentlessly winding road meanders through the forest. The Toyota’s slim body is dancing through direction changes and carrying momentum beautifully, hooking tight lines and kicking up the autumn leaves lining the inside of the corners. It’s a joy to watch. Neither of us is pushing especially hard, but the cars seem…

@evomagazine @evomagazine @officialevomagazine THERE’S ALWAYS A FLICKER OF APPREHENSION when you agree to let someone else behind the wheel of your personal pride and joy. Especially when you know they’re going to drive it in what we’ll call a spirited fashion. In this case, though, the thought uppermost in my mind is not ‘I really hope they don’t stick it in a field’ but rather ‘I really, really hope they like it’. ‘They’ in this case being evo deputy ed James Taylor, himself the custodian of an MX-5, the blue 2025 RF 2.0 Homura pictured above with my red 2016 2.0 Sport Nav. Roughly ten years separate the two, the RF being the very latest spec ‘ND3’ with the upgraded limited-slip diff, recalibrated electric steering, latest Bilstein dampers, Brembo brakes…

OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS IT HAS become obvious that what I’m doing is making Project Capri v2. The point at which this truly dawned on me was when I was standing in the workshop at Nene Valley Body Repairs looking at a naked, curiously silver Capri. Stripped back to bare metal, it looked very different and not unattractive. Then Tom, boss of NVBR, knocked me sideways with a question I didn’t see coming: ‘So, what colour is it going to be?’ Up to that moment it was going to be black again, and then it wasn’t. I hadn’t considered a change, but the seed had been planted and instantly took root. I chose NVBR for a couple of reasons, but primarily because they have a reputation for excellent-quality work.…

JUMPS. YOU CAN’T DOCUMENT life with a Land Rover Defender Octa without discussing jumps. Bluntly, it loves ’em. Yumps. Bumps. Sharp crests. Hump-backed bridges. Nothing fazes it. The more three-dimensional the road, the better. As you’d imagine, it tackles them best in Octa mode, which somehow endows this Defender with a freaky sense of bottomless wheel travel. You feel it leave the ground. You imagine the wheels drooping in the arches. You get that slightly giddy weightless sensation where everything goes smooth and quiet. And then you brace for the bruising impact that never materialises. Of course, you feel the car reconnect with terra firma. But instead of overwhelming the dampers and thudding into its bump-stops–as well you might expect of a car we weighed at 2700kg with a full…