BBC Top Gear Magazine

@jack_rix editor@bbctopgearmagazine.com It was the 355 Spider that got me. Rosso paint, crema leather, manual gearbox, *chef’s kiss*. As a teenager I had a model I would ogle for hours. Couldn’t find a bad angle, still can’t. Close my eyes at night, that’s the one I’d see – me driving, a not-unattractive person in the passenger seat, V8 howling, unnecessary gearshifts to revel in the click-clack… full fantasy mode. Still never driven one with my eyes open, might have to keep it that way. For me, Ferraris hit different. Porsches epitomise precision engineering, rarely do they give you a reason to shop elsewhere, McLaren’s road cars have flirted with genius but prove that pace and consistency of product isn’t easy and Lamborghini has shown with a series of run-out Huracáns that it understands…

Nestled among the multitude of excellence that emerged from fabled Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro sit both the DeLorean and the Hyundai Pony Coupe; the latter influencing the former, according to Hyundai. So you could say the company’s gone back to its future, because the Pony has now influenced this. Hyundai calls it the N Vision 74 concept, a car that revives that Coupe and propels it so quickly into the future you’ll be shrieking 1.21 gigawatts in no time. Well, not quite 1.21. There’s a 670bhp hybrid drivetrain on board that allows for a 155mph top speed, hybrid here referencing the 74’s battery and hydrogen fuel cell set-up. The battery is a 62.4kWh unit with 800V rapid charging capability, while the hydrogen fuel cell is said to be “the most advanced” the…

“A luxury solution to urban motoring in a unique and innovative format,” Aston stated proudly in 2011, “Cygnet was conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin.” All very enticing, save for one tiny issue. It was cobblers. The Cygnet wasn’t conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin. It was a Toyota iQ with a chinny new grille and a bullock-worth of leather upholstery. An exercise in badge engineering with the cynical aim of lowering Aston’s average fleet emissions. Which, in its own way, was kinda fine. As cynical strategies to lower fleet emissions go, aristocratic Aston giving a tiny Toyota the full Love Island makeover is, at the very least, an original one. And the standard iQ, while embodying exactly none of the traditional Aston brand values,…

Alpine has revealed a new version of its A110, which the French firm has badged ‘E-TERNITE’. No need to shout, we hear you loud and clear. Except we won’t hear it, because it’s a fully electric Alpine A110, built to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the model. Alpine turned to the Renault Megane E-Tech for the battery, and plugged in 12 cells wrapped in bespoke casings in order to fit it into the A110’s internal architecture. They add 392kg of mass, but thanks to other measures like building panels from a material called ‘flax’, it weighs 1,378kg, compared with the regular car’s 1,100kg. The total battery capacity is 60kWh, with 268bhp of power available. Alpine reckons on a 0–62mph time of 4.5secs, which is not far off the ICE car, and a top…

SCANDI-LESS I’ve not needed this technique much, but every rally driver has it in their back pocket for slippery conditions. It’s a flick of the wheel in the opposite direction to the corner, to send the car’s momentum in that direction before transferring it back towards the corner, creating a pendulum effect. Rally cars used to have pretty poor brakes so it helped slow the car before releasing the momentum in the desired direction in a controlled slide. IS IT USEFUL? Absolutely. On slippery surfaces it’s stylish and fast. You had to be aggressive with older rally cars (especially FWD), using weight transfer to find the grip and avoid endless understeer. The flick also helps you to feel the grip first, instead of braking super late and committing to the bend. These days…

What is Italy’s greatest contribution to the watch industry? It has a growing number of watch companies, several of which would doubtless like to put their names forward. But the correct answer is a titan of business who had no direct involvement with the watch industry: the late Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli. In the late Sixties, reformed playboy Agnelli took over the company started by his grandfather and turned it into one of the main drivers of Italy’s post-war boom, making him the country’s richest man. But as successful as he was in business, Agnelli is remembered as much for being an icon of style, whose impeccable custom-made suits see him regularly included in those lists of the best-dressed men of all time. One fashion quirk was wearing a watch over his…