Autocar August 17, 2022

HAPPILY, YOU WILL find on this week’s pages the modern-day rarity that is a 12-cylinder engine (p40). The absurdly priced but spectacular Pagani Huayra BC Roadster shows a company committed to the drama and noise of its V12, at least until 2026. But if we’re honest about the future, only a few niche firms can justify the ongoing existence of such gargantuan combustion engines, which is why our road test of the Flying Spur Hybrid (p32) is so encouraging, especially as it comes from a maker famous for its W12. Bentley’s 12-cylinder, engineered and built in Crewe, has been the jewel in the crown of its top-spec models for years. But Bentley will become an electric brand from 2025 and hybridisation is paving the way for its customers to embrace the carbon-neutral…

HAPPILY, YOU WILL find on this week’s pages the modern-day rarity that is a 12-cylinder engine (p40). The absurdly priced but spectacular Pagani Huayra BC Roadster shows a company committed to the drama and noise of its V12, at least until 2026. But if we’re honest about the future, only a few niche firms can justify the ongoing existence of such gargantuan combustion engines, which is why our road test of the Flying Spur Hybrid (p32) is so encouraging, especially as it comes from a maker famous for its W12. Bentley’s 12-cylinder, engineered and built in Crewe, has been the jewel in the crown of its top-spec models for years. But Bentley will become an electric brand from 2025 and hybridisation is paving the way for its customers to embrace…

“Both are based on a sporting version of a scalable platform being developed by Porsche” Porsche is preparing to introduce a second generation of the wildly successful Taycan EV – and it will be twinned with an electric version of the Panamera as part of a new “electrified luxury” plan under which up to six electric models will be ushered in by the end of this decade. Both new EVs are based on a sporting version of the Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), which is being developed by Porsche. The so-called SSP Sport structure adopts the backbone of the SSP architecture set to be used by other more volumeorientated electric Volkswagen Group models. However, it will be combined with what have been described to Autocar as “Porsche-specific modules”. Among the key architectural developments…

When a road tester is asked to comment on what they would like to find in the second-generation Taycan, the low-hanging, juvenile response is, of course, ‘a 500bhp petrol flat six’. Except that, actually, the vast majority of people who have driven the Taycan have been won over by it wholesale. It’s a brilliant car; one whose brilliance exists neither in spite of its electric powertrain nor because of it. It’s an unusually well-conceived product whose forward-looking manner of propulsion happens to suit it very well indeed. The fact is it needs no flat six and, more to the point and leaving range to one side (controversial), there are very, very few cars that balance sports-car and GT-car ride and handling characteristics quite so deftly. Also, the steering is plain gorgeous. But like…

“Both are based on a sporting version of a scalable platform being developed by Porsche” Porsche is preparing to introduce a second generation of the wildly successful Taycan EV – and it will be twinned with an electric version of the Panamera as part of a new “electrified luxury” plan under which up to six electric models will be ushered in by the end of this decade. Both new EVs are based on a sporting version of the Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), which is being developed by Porsche. The so-called SSP Sport structure adopts the backbone of the SSP architecture set to be used by other more volumeorientated electric Volkswagen Group models. However, it will be combined with what have been described to Autocar as “Porsche-specific modules”. Among…

When a road tester is asked to comment on what they would like to find in the second-generation Taycan, the low-hanging, juvenile response is, of course, ‘a 500bhp petrol flat six’. Except that, actually, the vast majority of people who have driven the Taycan have been won over by it wholesale. It’s a brilliant car; one whose brilliance exists neither in spite of its electric powertrain nor because of it. It’s an unusually well-conceived product whose forward-looking manner of propulsion happens to suit it very well indeed. The fact is it needs no flat six and, more to the point and leaving range to one side (controversial), there are very, very few cars that balance sports-car and GT-car ride and handling characteristics quite so deftly. Also, the steering is plain…