BBC Top Gear Magazine February 2021

Editor @jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com Should I be concerned that I can’t recite my wife’s phone number and I struggle to remember my age but, clear as crystal, locked away in a heavily guarded corner of my brain is C331 UDD – the reg of my first car? A red Renault 5 GTL. Called Bertha. No surprise, then, that when I saw pictures of Renault’s crack at reviving the 5 as an affordable, pure electric hatch my heart melted a bit, followed by a warm fuzzy feeling and an impulse to dig out some old photos. I love it. I love the proportions, the crisp arches, the vertical tail-lights. I love the idea of buying one when it eventually goes into production and it being my four-year-old’s first car, 13 years from now. I also realise that…

Your first glance at this crisp little concept puts one number in your mind. Five. Yup, it’s a new Renault 5. It’s not just candy whistled up for a non-existent motor show, or some designer dead-end render-doodle. A production version will launch in under three years from now. It’ll be all-electric. Oh, and as Renault resets the course for all its brands (see p18) and Alpine goes electric, it’s confirmed there’s a plan for an Alpine hot hatch version of this 5. The idea of a revived 5 was something Renault’s designers had been nurturing for a long time. But the company was in crisis and there was no money. Then, a year ago, new CEO Luca de Meo arrived. In that time he’s marshalled all the company’s expertise and come up…

1 DACIA TEAMS UP WITH LADA, SHOWS OFF BIGSTER CONCEPT Meet the Dacia Bigster. As in, big Duster. A production version is due for 2024, with hybrid power, to sit above the wildly successful Duster. Like any Dacia, it shuns frippery. Design director Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos says it’s “essential, with a touch of cool and an outdoor spirit. It proves that accessible is not opposed to attractiveness.” Dacia is the Renault Group’s quiet success. No industry rival has managed to replicate its formula of straightforward cars that people want, at pared-to-the-bone prices, and still make money. For that reason the Bigster will use a stretched version of the Duster’s platform. And because Renault also owns Lada, huge sales will be added in Russia by redoing it as a new Niva. 2 ALPINE AND LOTUS JOIN FORCES The…

‘Solid State Logik 1’ KLF For the first time since 1992, KLF’s best known songs are available to stream. Famous for deleting their back catalogue and heading to Jura to burn a cool £1m of earnings, finally a new generation can learn about great history of The KLF A Perfect Planet, BBC One Sir David Attenborough returns to our screens. Nothing more to say, other than sit back and watch TopGear magazine fix You can download the latest edition and back issues direct to your phone or tablet from the App Store. Because when life gives you lemons… settle in and read TG Back to the stadiums! While we wait to actually head back, why not start your own mini live football match? Pretend you’re there by making a scale model of your home from home Home schooling…

Our time on this planet is short and precious. Unless scientists succeed in unlocking that knotty ‘secret of eternal life’ thing sometime soon, statistically you’re looking at about 700,000 hours of conscious, corporeal existence upon this mortal coil. Sounds like a decent chunk of time, but remember you’ll spend close to half of those hours sleeping, and a significant chunk of the rest consumed by the tedious, necessary administrivia of living: emptying the dishwasher, resetting your password for online banking, refilling the dishwasher. Which leaves a soberingly tiny slice of time to enjoy the myriad joys that life on earth has to offer. So it is the responsibility, the very duty, of all of us to make the most of every valuable minute of being alive, right now, on this strange…

“The fastest and most powerful BMW M production car ever!” Given what’s in the back catalogue" that’s quite a statement But the new M5 CS looks and sounds like quite the super saloon. Following on from the hardcore M3, M4 and M2 CSes, the new fastest Five gets a 10bhp bump over the M5 Competition thanks to slight adjustments to its twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8. The result is a monumental 626bhp and 553lb ft of torque delivered to all four wheels (or just the rears if you’re feeling brave), with 0–62mph dispatched in 3.0secs. That’s just a tenth off a Ferrari 812 BMW has shaved 70kg from the standard Competition too, with the biggest savings coming from CFRP exterior panels and the carbon fibre bucket seats in each corner of the cabin. Yep, it’s…