Table of contents for October 2024 in Evo

IT’S NO LITTLE UNDERSTATEMENT to say that it’s been quite the year for evo. Not only have we continued to mark our 25th anniversary but there was also the small matter of us being acquired by the Carwow Group back in the spring. The good news about the acquisition is that nothing changes for evo as a result – or rather the only changes are ones for the better, meaning you will see improvements for the brand that you invest so much of your time and money in, for which I remain ridiculously grateful. Without you we literally wouldn’t be able to do what we do. And what we are doing is growing the brand and improving upon everything we have established over the last quarter of a century. You…

THIS IS THE FASTEST ROAD CAR AMG HAS ever built. How fast? Well, it takes as long to read its name out loud – Mercedes-AMG GT63 S E Performance – as it does to launch and hit 62mph: a mere 2.8sec. That’s faster even than the AMG One supercar. Find yourself a stretch of straight, dry asphalt (it doesn’t have to be very long), engage launch control, hold the brake, pin the throttle, feel the seat belt automatically tension, hear the V8blat-blat-blat at the optimum revs and release the brake. BLAM! With not even a hint of tyre slip, the AMG GT is gone, into second gear, then third and still hauling in the horizon like you’re in a dolly zoom scene in a movie. Very impressive, although the question…

EVEN THOUGH MORE MODERN alternatives muster bigger numbers from lower capacity powerplants, there is no denying the appeal of Lamborghini’s Huracán and its 5.2-litre V10. Naturally aspirated and with a soundtrack few can match, the V10’s demise is undoubtedly a cause for regret. But now Sant’Agata Bolognese has lifted the covers on the Temerario, an all-new creation that Lamborghini deems a worthy replacement for its outgoing entry-level supercar. And early indications suggest it should more than live up to that billing. The current trends for downsizing and electrification are too often associated with an increased focus on efficiency and a corresponding decrease in driver engagement. While the Temerario (Italian for ‘fearless’) embraces the same trends, it promises to be something of an outlier, its smaller-capacity engine and hybrid assistance meticulously…

WHETHER IT’S A MANUFACTURER’S FLIGHT OF FANCY or a wild homebuilt special, the notion of slotting an oversized or unlikely engine into an equally unexpected host is a novelty that never fails to capture the imagination. There have been some spectacular efforts over the years. You’ll doubtless recall Renault’s remarkable money-no-object V10-engined Espace F1. Likewise, BMW’s bonkers McLaren F1 V12-engined X5 Le Mans. Nissan GB’s one-off 350Z V6-powered Micra and Aston Martin’s more recent V8 Vantage-engined Cygnet are other prime examples, while US pro drifter Ryan Tuerck’s Ferrari 458-engined Toyota GT86 and Judd V10-engined Supra are iconoclastic indie outliers. And now there’s ‘Vini’ to add to the Engine Swap Hall of Fame. Brainchild of Powerflex boss David Power, this wild V8 Mini is the result of almost six years’ hard…

RICHARD MEADEN Editor-at-large I LOVED THE i20 N EVEN BEFORE I DROVE IT. Small, honest, modest and developed by a talented team led by a former boss of BMW’s M division, Albert Biermann, it promised to be that rarest of things, a truly affordable performance car with a real depth of capability and character. The first time I drove an i20 N was for anevo group test against an ST Edition Fiesta and non-Track Pack GR Yaris. The long cross-country drive from home to the Elan Valley in mid-Wales was a perfect introduction. Weighing just 1190kg and with a little over 200bhp and 200lb ft of torque, it had just about the perfect amount of accessible performance. Combined with a sweet manual gearbox, mechanical Torsen diff and firm passive damping,…

SCOURING THE USED CAR ADS FOR THIS end-of-term report, I failed to find a bum-basic Gen 1 GR Yaris like ours. Almost all were Circuit Pack versions, which we heartily endorse of course, having come to the conclusion early on that with its stiffer suspension, front and rear limited-slip diffs and Michelin-shod, lighter road wheels, it was the spec to have. The question I posed at the start of our five-month loan was this: would extended exposure to a non-Circuitversion change our minds? No, it didn’t. But perhaps the question should have been: is the base Yaris as enjoyable? Before we took delivery in December, we had no idea that there was a third derivative of the original GR Yaris, assuming the choice was between Circuit Pack and Convenience Pack.…

AFTER SEVEN HARD-WORKING MONTHS on the evo fleet, our Cupra Leon Estate 310 4Drive has left us. It’s certainly not the first fast Leon we’ve run, and it likely won’t be the last, but the 7000 miles we covered in this example highlighted why it’s a model we keep returning to as it steadily evolves – and why this particular version might be one of the best we’ve lived with yet. KY73 VNS came in VZ3 Design Edition trim – the lop level Cupra offers. This cost an additional £2720 over the VZ2 spec, but added matrix LED headlights on the outside and nappa leather to the inside – in Petrol Blue in this case, although you can choose regular black if you’re feeling less adventurous. Also optional on our…

LIFE HASN’T BEEN EASY FOR THE MK8 Golf GTI. After the heights of the Mk7, which was superbly rounded and one of the best GTIs there’s ever been, things came tumbling down when Volkswagen decided that the Golf needed more digitisation and more screens to move forward into the current decade. We won’t beat what is a very dead horse here, but if you’ve ever tried to tap, poke and stroke your way around the eighth-gen Golf’s interface, you’ll know just how much of a blunder that was. But it wasn’t just the HMI system. When it launched in 2019, the Mk8 Golf no longer felt like the class benchmark for quality, while as a hot hatch there was a sense that it had lost some of the polish and…

IT FEELS LIKE THE ABARTH 695 HAS BEEN around forever. It may have gained a new name, a subtly different face and a few other trinkets since the Abarth 500 first appeared in 2008, but climbing into one in 2024 feels very much like stepping into the not-so-distant past. To put things into context, the original Abarth 500 went up against the Mk1 Suzuki Swift Sport at launch, and we’ve been through three generations of Swift since then. Yes, three. So at a time when traditional hot superminis are dying out in favour of battery-powered ones – not least Abarth’s own 500e – is the 695 the ultimate refresher of what a small hot hatch should be, or does it feel hopelessly out of date? A spell in the new…

UNLIKE MANY OF MY INDUSTRY colleagues I’ve never had that big an issue with fast SUVs. Yes, they’re unnecessarily big and often extremely vulgar, but I can’t deny enjoying the absurdity of their performance. Not to mention admiring the tech they use and the lengths development engineers go to in an effort to make them stop, steer and handle like sports cars. Call it my guilty pleasure. Despite my closet liking for the genre, even I have to admit that the X6 M Competition conforms to the worst super-SUV stereotypes. For starters it has decidedly porcine features, its bluff nose, huge nostrils and stout body totally at odds with the raked roofline. To paraphrase the late and much-missed comedian Sean Lock’s best punchline, it’s a challenging tank. Quite how M’s…

I’VE BEEN VERY LUCKY TO RUN SOME pretty special long-term test cars in the past but I’m not sure I’ve ever run a car so many people have asked me about. Readers at evo trackdays, people from various car companies, other journalists: all of them wanted to know more about the Carrera GTS. ‘You’re running that 911 aren’t you? Great spec! What’s it like?’ It really was a great spec. Coupe body, manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive and the £6834 Lightweight Package: deleted rear seats, less sound insulation, thinner glass, lightweight battery and carbon bucket front seats (which can be swapped for thicker, more adjustable Comfort seats), plus altered underbody aero and rear-wheel steering too. As for the 992.1 Carrera GTS variant itself, it’s separated from lesser Carreras by more power…

FROM THE CORTINA TO THE ESCORT AND THE FIESTA, Ford is responsible for some of the most popular cars in British history. But alongside these everyday machines it has also produced a stream of desirable driver’s cars. Many would argue the first Ford performance car outside of the USA was 1963’s Lotus Cortina. Some stellar non-Lotus-fettled models followed, not least rally-proven Escort derivatives, and the ’80s and ’90s brought some classic collabs with Cosworth. These days the phrase ‘fast Ford’ is synonymous with hot hatches, and a stream of ST and RS-badged hatchbacks have graced evo’s pages in recent years. But it’s worth acknowledging Ford has real supercar pedigree too, with the Ferrari-beating GT40 supercar of the ’60s and its two reimagined GT successors. We could fill every page in…

THIS IS NOT THE NEW FACELIFTED Cupra Formentor, which lands in the UK around the same time as this issue of evo. Rather, it’s the last of the old Formentors, a run-out model limited to 160 cars in the UK. As the Abt badging inside and out suggests, its upgrades have been selected and tested by Abt Sportsline, the German motorsport and tuning specialist that has partnered with SEAT and Cupra on various projects over the years, including the current Cupra Formula E team. A run-out model can be a very good thing indeed, and we rather liked the last Abt-badged Cupra, the all-wheel-drive, estate-bodied SEAT Leon Cupra R ST Abt of 2020 (see evo 271). While this Abt Formentor is a limited-run offering, there are still a handful of…

CUTTING-EDGE CHASSIS TECH, ADAPTIVE ALL-WHEEL DRIVE and a record-breaking top speed helped the Porsche 959 earn instant icon status. Designed to form the basis of a Group B rally car, it was the epitome of automotive engineering excellence in its day. Now, just shy of four decades since the 959 made its debut at the 1985 Frankfurt motor show, Estonian firm Kalmar Automotive has unveiled its own, modern take on Porsche’s ground-breaking supercar. Named the 9X9, it will be offered in three distinct forms, with just nine examples of each being built. Ranging from the ‘standard’ 9X9 to Sport and Leichtbau (lightweight) variants, the line-up is intended to offer something for almost every use case. The product of a three-year development programme, the 9X9 is said to blend the charm…

‘I’VE NO FAMILY HISTORY OF CARS OR motorsport,’ says Nathalie McGloin. That hasn’t stopped her creating quite a legacy, though. She’s the world’s only female tetraplegic racing driver, she’s the FIA Disability and Accessibility Commission president, promoting access for all to all aspects of motorsport, and in 2016, with her husband, rally champion Andrew Bayliss, she cofounded Spinal Track, a charity giving track and rally driving experiences to people with spinal injuries. ‘I’ve always been competitive, the firstborn,’ says McGloin. ‘I always had to be top dog. I didn’t use it in a productive way before my injury but definitely have since.’ She was 16 and had just started her A-levels when she had the accident that left her paralysed from the chest down. ‘Growing up in Bridlington, there wasn’t…

IF SOMEONE DESCRIBES A CAR AS A ‘TOY’, IT CAN BE taken two ways. It can sound a bit pejorative, implying a frippery, an unnecessary indulgence, an ego-driven purchase, perhaps. Or it can be a compliment, recognising a pure-in-purpose recreational vehicle, one that’s unashamedly about having fun for fun’s sake. The Ariel Nomad is a toy in the most emphatically positive sense of the word: an open-air two-seater capable of extreme off-road use, yet also uniquely brilliant fun on the road. The original launched in 2015 and captured customers’ imaginations in a way that took even Ariel itself by surprise. Nomad owners did all sorts with their cars – extreme off-roading, simple Sunday-drive-to-the-pub motoring, round-the-world expeditions, trackdays, and all points in between. It was the sports car the world never…

SOMETIMES, AT THE REVEAL OF A NEW CAR, you feel like pausing the conversations about brand ethos, market positioning and design language and just saying, ‘Wow, that thing looks damn cool.’ The reveal of the new Vanquish was one of those moments. With the DB12 gaining more DBS-style aggression, we wondered how Aston would build a unique character into its new flagship GT, but, even sitting still, it’s clear this is a different animal. Longer in wheelbase, wider in track and with more intricate detailing than the DB12, the Vanquish has all the presence of a crown-jewel Aston Martin. And that’s before we get to the fact that it has a V12… The Lawrence Stroll era of Aston Martins has seen the company shift towards a new brand ethos (yes,…

WE’RE cars and IN MID-WALES, BUT I’M THINKING ABOUT Western Australia. And not only because it’s tipping it down. A couple of years ago on holiday in Cottesloe, Perth, I was in a car travelling down a seafront street at sunset and unexpectedly found myself in the middle of a convoy of N-model Hyundais: i20 N, i30 N, Kona N and Elantra N (sold as the i30 N Sedan down under, and not sold at all in the UK). They were emerging from a park, where an N owners’ meet was clearly in full swing, with plenty of other their keepers chatting under the dusk sky. It was a slightly incongruous scene, not because it was on the other side of the world – Australia has a healthy appetite for hot…

ITS ‘GT’ BADGING CERTAINLY DOESN’T make this 208 a grand tourer in the conventional sense, but over 1000 miles of motorway driving in the last month have well and truly put its long-distance abilities to the test. And regardless of what we’ve thrown at it, the Fast Fleet supermini has proven to be a trusty companion. Sitting on cruise control for hundreds of miles on end is something the 208 is perfectly happy to do, and although it sounds rather gruff while accelerating up to motorway speeds, its 134bhp three-pot motor provides more than enough performance for the task. However, what has also become clear while covering this month’s many miles is that the 208’s flaws go beyond the infamously poor view of its digital dash. On sunny days, the…

I RECENTLY HAD ONE OF MY BEST drives in the Elise for a long time. It wasn’t up in Scotland or the Lake District, but on a plain old Oxfordshire A-road in a steady flow of rush-hour traffic. I was on my way home from the HQ of damper specialist Nitron, after having a set of adjustable NTR40 coilovers fitted, and as soon as I had turned out of the workshop and flicked through a few roundabouts, the new suspension had made me fall even more in love with the Elise. I didn’t think that would be possible. Nitron has become synonymous with Lotus over the years, and not just in the aftermarket realm – it supplied the standard-fit dampers for some later Exige models. My first encounter with its…