Tabla de contenidos para December 2022 en Evo

TRUNDLING AROUND A COBBLED SQUARE in Ronda, warm Spanish sunlight dappling the pavé, my mind wanders, obviously, to skis. Nothing to do with the lengthy load space of the Avant that I’m in, but everything to do with the coilover suspension that is managing the multitudinous bumps of the stony surface beneath. You see, the last time I bought some winter sports planks I did a bit of try-before-you-buy at an indoor ski slope in Milton Keynes. I had already invested the usual hours poring over catalogues and websites, reading numerous reviews. I knew I wanted more width underfoot, with a bit more performance off-piste. A pair that was light, but still capable of speed. The options were whittled down and then I spent a couple of hours switching between…

BEFORE YOU CONCLUDE THAT WE’VE LOST THE PLOT BY lining up a near-60-grand mid-engined sports car from France with a pair of front-engined wannabes from Japan that cost half as much and aren’t anywhere near as quick, consider this: when Toyota launched the GT86 in 2012 it all but redefined the way we think about so-called driver’s cars. At a stroke, the rear-drive but not very grippy, not especially potent GT86 underlined the notion that speed in itself is not the holy grail when it comes to pure driver enjoyment, and we’ve celebrated its existence ever since. Which is why the prospect of a faster, meaner, leaner GT86 can’t help but grab our attention ten years and one global pandemic later. It also explains why the traditional parameters of price,…

‘THE FIRST BRISTOL CAR DESIGNED BY CAD and not by a quill pen and ink.’ The words of Toby Silverton, the man whose baby the Fighter was. And while he may have had his tongue firmly in his cheek, there’s no question that the Fighter was nothing if not an audacious break with the past. Bristol Cars had made its reputation in the post-war years with a series of aristocratic saloons and sports cars – elegant, streamlined machines that combined BMW-derived underpinnings with aerospace standards of construction (the car company originally being a spin-off from the Bristol Aircraft Corporation). Then in the ’60s came Chrysler V8 power and a new generation of gentlemen’s expresses – fast, discreet, and hand-built in small numbers. But from the mid-’70s it all began to…

THEY’VE THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING. Sweated the details. Of course they have. Despite the connotations of the name Maserati – which range from impossibly mysterious glamour to characterful oddball to plain old-fashioned shoddy irrelevance, depending on your point of view – it’s very obvious that the MC20 supercar and the new spider version, named MC20 Cielo, have been developed with engineering rigour, fully informed of rivals’ strengths and weaknesses and with clear performance and dynamic targets. That’s just the way it is in 2022. Even at Maserati. And yet, it doesn’t feel like it for a second. That doesn’t mean that it’s woefully off the pace. Not at all. The MC20 Cielo (‘Sky’ in Italian) is brutally fast, its carbonfibre chassis is commendably stiff, it grips and turns with a light-footed…

IT’D BE REMISS WHEN REVIEWING THE Lamborghini Urus Performante not to mention how out of kilter it is with the world around it. How can a £209,000, 657bhp SUV exist comfortably alongside a general populace worrying about climate and cost-of-living crises? The simple fact is it can’t, and to prospective owners that may be the very point. Though it would be unfair to single Lamborghini out in this regard, of course: the Urus isn’t short of rivals, and the Performante sees it bulk up to better take on the DBX 707s and Turbo GTs of this world. Given the way the Urus has flown off the shelves – becoming the best-selling Lambo ever in a laughably short space of time – the Performante could feasibly have been a light ECU…

Accurist Origin Chronograph From £189 accurist.com British brand Accurist has hit the reset button and returned with a new logo and an entirely revamped range. Particularly standing out is the ‘Origin’ line-up, which takes inspiration from a 1970s Accurist best seller. It includes three-handed models (priced from £139) and chronographs (pictured) in a variety of colour schemes and with the choice of straps or integrated bracelets. Turismo Le Mans Pilote Chronograph £695 turismo-watches.com Turismo launched last year with a Swiss-made, motorsport-inspired chronograph called ‘Tertre Rouge’ that featured a steering wheel motif on its dial and caseback. Three more variations on that theme are now following and include colour schemes that should be familiar to endurance racing fans, as with this ‘Le Mans Pilote’ version. TAG Heuer Carrera x Porsche RS…

SEVEN YEARS AGO, BMW M CEO FRANK VAN Meel was given a rare opportunity. He was asked to change the strategy; to retain the identity of BMW M but push the brand further. He was given the freedom to hire the best people, including a new R&D boss, Dirk Häcker. More potently, he was given the freedom to design and build just about whatever he wanted, with one key caveat: all M models must be profitable. This year, M’s 50th anniversary, the real fruits of this arrangement are coming to bear. Some new models, like the M4 CSL and the forthcoming 3.0 CSL, we’ve been expecting; others, such as the XM SUV, we haven’t. But away from these extremes you’ll also find a new M2 – a car that sits…

I’VE CHECKED AND DOUBLE-CHECKED. EVEN though I know it to be true, it’s still scarcely believable that the Lotus Seven was designed in 1957. Sixty-five years ago. Even the relative upstart Caterham has had the rights to the design since 1973. Half a century ago. And yet it never even occurs to me that the Seven is ‘old’ or vintage in any way. Drive a modern Caterham and you’re struck by its tiny footprint, the simplicity, the sheer excitement and involvement, but never does it feel outdated. This is not an experience to liken to, say, a classically built new Morgan. It’s just a scalpel-sharp, fully immersive driving experience. Unique certainly, but to me it always seems fresh and new. If anything, the Seven gets more relevant and more enlightening…

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE PREPARE the smallest violin you can find, for I’m about to reveal that a launch event for a new Ferrari can be stressful, rushed and deeply frustrating. So packed with activity that it passes in a blur and when you finally slump into the seat of the aeroplane for the return leg you’re completely shattered and can’t piece together exactly what’s happened in the last 14 hours or so. You see, we quite like Ferraris, as do the genuinely esteemed readers of this magazine and the vast YouTube masses that lurk in hiding ready to pounce when a new video arrives featuring the Prancing Horse’s latest and greatest. Millions of incredibly knowledgeable, erudite and well-reasoned enthusiasts salivating at the thought of a lively, balanced debate full…

IT WOULDN’T BE THE BRITISH CAR INDUSTRY IF IT DIDN’T lurch from triumph to disaster with inescapable regularity. Regardless of the sector that UK companies operate in – and the sunlit uplands that they occasionally enjoy – there always seems to be a cloud on the horizon ready to rain on their celebrations, and in some cases wash them away completely. For every Range Rover scaling new heights of profitability, there’s a Jaguar limping through losses. For every Caterham, Ariel, Morgan or BAC there’s a TVR, Westfield or Keating (remember them?). And then there’s Aston Martin, Lotus and McLaren, who regularly enjoy drinking to their successes with little thought of the hangover to follow. McLaren’s hangover might not be as bad as the one that has reduced bosses at Gaydon…

FOR A PAGE COVERING CARS THAT CAME close to production only to be culled at the prototype stage, the Group B rally years are fertile ground, and here we are again with another obscurity from that amazing era of homologation specials. Despite the Japanese name above the door, the story of this car is also rooted in Italy and Innocenti, the Milanese company that made BMC Minis under licence, was bought by British Leyland in 1972, and in 1974 introduced its own Mini, using the same old underparts but dressed in a crisp Bertone-styled body. This was such a convincing update that BL considered selling it through its own channels, only abandoning this plan because the Italian remix had less interior space than the British original and Longbridge marketing people…

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME EVO HAS driven a brand new 911 GT3 RS at Silverstone. Rewind back to 2003 (issue 062 to be precise) and you’d have found us getting our first taste of the original 996 GT3 RS, courtesy of a kind reader who’d managed to get one of the very first cars to arrive in the UK. Well ahead of Porsche GB receiving its own press demonstrator, our drive was a somewhat improvised affair. But we blagged some track time, did some skids and got ourselves an exclusive. Much has changed since those dim and distant millennial days. Not least Porsche’s grip of how its hottest new models find their way into the hands of the motoring media. However, it’s the product that has seen the greatest…

@evomagazine @evomagazine @officialevomagazine An outing to the North York Moors sees our fleet’s lesser-spotted 964 make a rare appearance, and gives our 993 owner a chance to try his car’s legendary ancestor NO, YOUR EYES AREN’T DECEIVING you. This is a Fast Fleet update on my 964 RS. For those of you unfamiliar with the ‘Unicorn’, I bought J74 KAE back in the spring of 2006. Just typing that seems surreal, as I refuse to believe my name has been on the logbook for 16 years. With 2022 marking its 30th birthday, this means I’ve owned this RS more than half its life. It’s long been a joke that I don’t drive it anywhere near enough. Some would contend I don’t drive it at all, which is a little harsh,…