BBC Top Gear Magazine Jul 2021

welcome

Here’s a fun project. All you need is 787,372 Ford F-Series trucks – the number sold in the US in 2020, a relatively lean year by all accounts – placed nose to tail and then to follow the line in a Eurofighter Typhoon at its top speed of Mach 1.8. Do so and it’ll take 1hr 57mins before you clear them all. My point is: Ford F-150s… there’s a lot of them. There are two electric cars in this issue that have the power to change the car industry profoundly, but we’ll start with the truck – America’s bestselling vehicle for 44 years in a row, and now there’s an EV version: the F-150 Lightning. Thing is, your average F-150 customer probably isn’t too concerned by the plight of the polar…

ford’s up town frunk

I think this is the most important electric vehicle we’re going to see this year. More so than the Tesla Cybertruck, the Rivian or the Model S Plaid or anything else that may or may not come out in 2021. It’s the Ford F-150 Lightning – the battery powered version of the bestselling vehicle in the US for the previous 40 years straight. And I got to spend a few hours with it at my studio in New Jersey. So there are two versions. The standard range model costs just under $40,000 and has a 230-mile range. Then there’s the extended range battery option. That starts at just under $50,000 and has a 300-mile range. And get this – Ford told me that the 300-mile range is the EPA estimate with…

coffee break

What we’re watching/listening/doing, while we should be working Alan Partridge LIVE, 2022 “Stratagem” is a full-on mic’d up TED talk style show, officially curated by Alan. We’re expecting THIS to be the roadmap/mantra the UK will follow post COVID/Brexit. Tickets on sale now! Mogwai, As the Love Continues The love for this Scottish outfit defo does continue with their new album. Mogwai’s music is largely lyric-free, so who knows WTF ‘Ceiling Granny’ is about 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 Royal Blood, Typhoons The loud, booming duo return with a new album produced and refined by QOTSA frontman Josh Homme. His touch is all over the Brighton band’s third album. Pure…

vauxhall adam rocks air

In the market for a new car, but can’t decide whether you need an SUV, a city car or a convertible? Why choose, when you could have all three in one convenient package, courtesy of the veritable Swiss Army knife that is the Vauxhall Adam Rocks Air? Well, firstly because, mercifully, you can’t buy a new Adam Rocks Air any more. But even if you’ve recently developed the ability to time-travel back to 2014, we’d still strongly advise not buying a new Adam Rocks Air. (Not least because, seriously, you’ve just mastered time travel. There are more exciting and lucrative things to be done than queuing at your local Vauxhall dealership.) Because while the Adam Rocks Air (in addition to sounding like the Old Testament version of scissors-paper-stone) promised three cars for…

shady business

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail – a near 6m long grand tourer with removable canopy roof and something called a “hosting suite” beneath the rear deck. Based on the same basic platform as the Phantom, and likely fitted with its V12, Rolls has hand-built three of these for customers who “share a deep appreciation of contemporary nautical design”. Right. The Boat Tail is road legal, and Rolls claims it’s undergone all the same dynamic testing as its core models. The company’s existing aluminium architecture took eight months to adapt to its proportions and the new car features 1,813 bespoke parts. The so-called hosting suite has five ECUs of its own and a special wiring harness that took nine months to develop. The rear deck opens butterfly style to reveal…

lando & danny’s f1 diary

LN: Getting on the podium in Monaco was pretty special, this livery deserved that result. Cool trophy too. Of course the first thing you’ve gotta do after a result like that is call Mum. LN: I’ve loved these colours for years. The old McLaren F1 Le Mans car from the Nineties was probably my first favourite car, I just loved the design. DR: Dude, where’s my car? Visualising what I do in the car is a really important part of the process. Even in the pits. DR: Not the easiest weekend in Monaco, but we looked good in Gulf racing blue. I love Monaco, it’s such a unique challenge in a modern F1 car and I’m counting the days until we hit those streets again. LN: Taking a moment to remember Mansour Ojjeh. He…