Evo April 2022

I ONLY DROVE IT BRIEFLY, TWO OR three laps on a circuit in cold, damp conditions and with the piercing eyes of a photographer looking on, tapping his watch to indicate that some of us have a job to do and can you bring the car back. There might have been a please in there somewhere, too. Possibly. They were quick-ish laps. Well, for me they were, less so for my passenger, but they were instructive, informative and above all heart warming. They confirmed my best hopes, suppressed my worst fears and left me wanting more. But photographers wait for no one, not even their boss. Quite right, too. These laps were part of another day that confirmed the right decisions have been made and continue to be, and are crucially being…

WAY BACK IN 2010, BMW CHARGED (yes, it’s a pun I wanted to get out of the way early doors) its Mini brand with developing a line-up of electric-powered cars to hand out to customers so that the company could gather data on how such vehicles are – and would be – used. As a result, BMW’s ‘Project i’ plan was born and led to the marvellously innovative and fit for purpose i3 city car and i8 hybrid sports car. Naturally, being marvellously innovative and fit for the needs of the car-buying public, no one bought them. Not in serious enough numbers, at least, so both are consigned to the history books alongside Audi’s A2 and Honda’s NSX under the heading ‘Cars consumers didn’t get until they were collectable’. But BMW wasn’t…

DT MIGHT BE TIME TO REVISIT OUR BACK-of-the-mag summary of the 296bhp Mk7.5 Volkswagen Golf R. It currently reads ‘Outrageous but accessible performance’. Outrageous? Those words obviously predate the arrival of the 415bhp Mercedes-AMG A45 S, still the most powerful production hot hatch more than two years on from its launch. Audi’s RS3 gets close, retaining 394bhp in its latest incarnation, but you don’t need to wait for VAG to crack 400bhp if you want to challenge the supremacy of the Stuttgart-Affalterbach alliance. There’s a very healthy aftermarket tuning scene geared to increasing the power of the previous generation Golf R, from simple, plug-in tunes that lift the output of the 2-litre, four-cylinder engine to 350bhp, to more complete conversions costing thousands that promise north of 600bhp. There was even a…

IT’S A FAIR BET THAT BBR DOESN’T NEED any introduction, particularly in relation to tuning Mazda’s perennial roadster. We’ve driven a number of its conversions in recent years – some tuned but still naturally aspirated, others turbocharged – and generally enjoyed them enormously. More recently, BBR had been working on conversions for the different MX-5 generations using a Rotrex supercharger, when part-way through its development cycle it was approached by another tuning firm, Corten Miller, who had already designed, developed and extensively tested a supercharger installation for the Mk3 (NC) model. As BBR’s own research had already suggested there was no real alternative in terms of how the Rotrex should be installed, and since Corten Miller was moving on to other things, a deal was struck where BBR took over all…

IT’S NOT BEEN THE STRONGEST OF RELATIONSHIPS between evo and Porsche’s 992-gen 911. We’ve admired it, been impressed by its capabilities on both road and track, and enjoyed moments that only Zuffenhausen’s rearengined icon can deliver. Yet we haven’t really fallen for it, not in the way previous generations have tugged at our heartstrings and left us craving a 911 hit at every possible opportunity. Why? It’s been hard to identify one single thing that’s left a blemish on our 911 relationship, but neither the Carrera nor Carrera S models have got under our skin as much as their predecessors did. Yes, they’ve grown and put on a few kilos, though so have all modern cars as they succumb to legislation requirements and the need to carry ever more tech and…

THIS IS THE POLESTAR O2, A NEW, electric-powered ‘hardtop convertible’ concept from the rapidly growing Swedish EV brand. Underneath the sharp suit is the underpinnings of the forthcoming Polestar 5, the all-new Taycan-rival, with a sophisticated all-aluminium chassis designed in the UK at Polestar’s new MIRA-based technology centre. Polestar has a very busy few years ahead of it, with the 3, 4 and 5 models set to appear in 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively, and while the firm’s CEO, Thomas Ingenlath, has stated that there are currently no plans to put the O2 into production, he also told evo that it would be ‘very irresponsible’ not to build the O2 at some point, given that production ‘is possible’. For now, the O2’s role is that of a halo concept for the rest…