Evo December 2021

THIS MONTH HAS SEEN THE REVEAL OF two renewed automotive icons, models that over the decades have put in the hard miles to earn their place in the history books. Yet while one of these appears to have nailed the brief, the other hasn’t. Well, not to me at least. For five decades, the Range Rover has been unmistakeably a Range Rover. Admittedly the P38 left a little to be desired in the looks department, but it retained the key attributes that made it the car that rival manufacturers wanted to make but didn’t have the confidence to. Today’s fifth generation is a masterstroke of evolution, appealing to existing customers while having enough about it to attract new ones. And then there is the new Mercedes SL. Except it’s not a Mercedes…

IT’S HARD NOT TO FEEL A BIT SORRY FOR the folks at Chevrolet, specifically for their representatives in Europe. At the beginning of 2020 they were all revved up about selling us the new eighth-generation, mid-engined C8 Corvette on this side of the pond. And in the UK the excitement must have been especially intense given that the car was going to be factory built in right-hand drive for the very first time. To whet our appetites we drove the new Vette out in the US and, bar some mild reservations about its styling, we reckoned it was ready to take on the best European sports cars that less than £100k could buy. It bore all the hallmarks of being a 911 rival but for Cayman money, plus, of course, it…

AUDI’S RS3 HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE automotive kid who has everything handed to them on a plate but still managed to flunk it all and achieve very little. It’s failed to capitalise on the unique characteristics of its five-cylinder engine, make the most of its four-wheel drive, or take advantage of having the might of Audi Sport in its corner. It has, instead, had more of a ‘that will do’ approach to life, which is why it leaves many disappointed and signing up for Ford RS, Honda Type R and VW R models instead. And in more recent times, AMG’s hot and hyper-hatches. All this could be about to change, because the new RS3 feels more the honed hyper-hatch – or, as pictured here, compact saloon – than a sales box-ticking…

I THINK I CAN GUESS WHAT SOME OF you are thinking. Is it not bad enough that the latest BMW M3 – and the M4 for that matter – weighs significantly more than the last one? That it’s switched to a torque converter automatic gearbox? Not exactly the stuff of Steve Soper and Roberto Ravaglia yumping their E30 M3 touring cars at The Ring, is it? And I haven’t even mentioned the divisive styling yet… And now there’s this, an M3 with four-wheel drive. Humph. It’s enough to make an M-car purist cry into their pint of Warsteiner. However, don’t be taking to sniffing the Wintershall rocket fuel just yet, because given the glittering run of form that BMW M has been on lately, and just what a frankly superb and…

MERCEDES-AMG HAS REVEALED THE all-new SL, the next instalment of the iconic ‘Sport Leicht’ series that has been in production for almost 70 years. The new model sees a number of changes over its predecessor, returning to a fabric soft-top and a 2+2 layout. Unlike previous SLs, this one has been designed and engineered by AMG from the ground up, and, according to Mercedes, it shares nothing with the previous model, or AMG’s GT Roadster, despite looking near identical to the latter. It will be launched initially with two V8 engine options, both connected to a nine-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. A plug-in hybrid E Performance model will also eventually join the range. The engines are lightly modified versions of the M177 hot-V V8 found elsewhere in the AMG line-up,…

IT’S NOT THE CAR YOU TAKE FOR THAT life-affirming dawn drive on a summer’s morning. But it is likely to be a guilty pleasure amongst many of us. The Range Rover is an evo car but not in the traditional sense. And here’s the fifth generation, with an evolutionary new look, an interior that puts many first-class airline cabins to shame, and new or updated powertrains to accompany the tech that it’s hoped will keep the world’s original SUV relevant for the decade ahead. The Range Rover has no direct rival, the competition avoiding going head-to-head to sidestep an unsightly mauling. It means the team behind it enjoy the freedom to focus on what their customers want rather than chasing rivals. And if they’ve nailed the reliability, there’s no reason why the…