Evo January 2022

‘WHY AREN’T THERE ANY ELECTRIC CARS ON ECOTY?’ asked contributing editor Steve Sutcliffe while doing his best Jeremy Paxman impression for our eCoty film (head to evo’s YouTube channel closer to Christmas, when you’re bored of Bond). Good question. We discussed it and ran through potential contenders, and there are a good few. Porsche’s Taycan Cross Turismo (the 4S is the sweet spot), so too Audi’s e-tron GT – our RS Fast Fleeter has served us well for 9000 miles. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E GT is a bit bulky but has many strands of Ford Performance DNA running through it, and BMW’s i4 M50 also looks promising. So where were they? Quite simply the cars are there, or thereabouts in terms of seamlessly becoming part of more people’s motoring lives. There are more…

OUR TIME WITH TOYOTA’S GR86 IS SHORT, BUT IT INCLUDES a good couple of hundred klicks on the roads that round the foothills of Montserrat in northern Spain, and we’ll have more than half a dozen laps of the flowing, but deceptively technical, Castelloli circuit. It should be plenty to discern if the GR86 is the car we want it to be. The Christmas wrapping paper covering the body indicates that this is a prototype – or a production car made to look like one. The fact is, it’s representative of the car that will go on sale next spring. Most importantly, it’s a remarkably compact, light, fun sports coupe. The car we need more than ever in our changing automotive world. This is not a new concept for Toyota, of course.…

McLAREN AUTOMOTIVE HAS RAPIDLY BECOME THE mother of reinvention, even though it’s still little more than a decade old. The new £310,500, 205mph 765LT Spider is very much a case in point. On paper it appears to be little more than a 765LT coupe with the same folding hard-top used in the 720S Spider, and even if this were the case there wouldn’t be a whole lot wrong with that. The 720 Spider’s roof is an excellent one, adding little overall weight while introducing a welcome hit of al fresco appeal to the driving experience. And, as a platform from which to remove the roof, the 765 coupe already has a vast amount going for it – in simple terms it’s one of the fastest, most visceral supercars money can buy. As…

TO BEGIN WITH, YOU CAN’T HELP wondering about the McLaren 720S GT3X. Wondering if, despite its 740bhp twin-turbocharged V8 that is so much more powerful than the GT3 engine on which it’s based, it is actually just an expensive irrelevance that has no real purpose in life. After all, it costs £720,000, can never be raced and can’t legally be driven on the road either. A cynic (or maybe even just a realist) could easily accuse it of being little more than a folly on four wheels with a great big wing on the back. But the very fact there will be just 15 examples made will surely enhance its appeal among its intended audience, even though only half this allocation has so far been fulfilled. And if you consider it in…

DON’T THINK. JUST ANSWER. GREATEST supersaloon ever? You pictured an E39-generation M5, didn’t you? I know this not because of my Derren Brown-style mindreading abilities, but because BMW’s V8-powered M5 just seems to have The Right Stuff. Not too big or heavy, not too complex or highly strung, thumping soundtrack, sinister yet understated looks, deep-dish alloys, six-speed manual gearbox. It’s one of those cars that seems delivered straight from the gods. Like a 997 GTS or a Ferrari 458 Italia or a Clio 182 Trophy. You wouldn’t change a thing. Even having experienced first-hand how utterly wonderful the very latest M5 CS is over many miles and all sorts of roads, and having marvelled at its effective yet brilliantly involving four-wheel-drive system, the E39 M5’s recipe still seems perfectly simple and…

THE MISSION R SOUNDS VICIOUS. NOT IN A CONVENTIONAL SENSE, you understand; there’s no shockwave from a raucous racing V8, punching through the air and resonating up through your feet, nor the high-pitched wail of a V12. Indeed, even though it’s ready to go right now, systems primed and whatever else goes on inside this machine out of sight, it’s currently silent bar only the whir of a fan, rather like being shut in a server room. They say it runs at 900 volts, that today it has around 450bhp, but that in time it will offer anywhere between 671bhp and 1073bhp depending on the mode it’s in, and yet… there is nothing to give away the raw power that lurks within. All I can hear is the sound of my…