30
Best of 2015
Our biggest car reviews of 2015
Aston Martin GT12? Ferrari 488 Spider? Check out our best and biggest drives of the year
Aston Martin GT12
“Use the fabulous carbon ceramic brakes to dive into corners, let the steering sweep the front end in and then get back on the power immediately.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowHonda NSX
“The steering isn’t twitchily high geared, and it’s tuned with a progression that satisfies you from the get-go... You can brake deep into a corner and accelerate early out of it, and it never gets out of shape.”
McLaren 570S
“McLaren has taken aim at some serious opposition, and emerged head held high. This isn’t only a technically capable car, but a hugely engaging one too.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowLexus GS F
“In all honesty you probably wouldn’t notice the speakers if they weren’t pointed out, so hats off to Lexus for making a little artificial enhancement so invisible.”
Ferrari 488 Spider
“It takes the pulse of the car’s electronic chassis software – which now includes the active dampers – enabling it to blast out of corners with an almost comical mix of poise and flamboyance.”
Avtoros Shaman
“Each of its eight wheels drive and steer, giving it the tenacity to belittle any SUV you care to name, and the agility to trivialise its 6.3-metre length and 4.8-tonne kerbweight. And all for the Russian equivalent of around £88,000.”
Shelby GT350 & GT350R Mustang
“It sounds great – but only when you’ve opened the exhaust valves via the dash-mounted switch. Keep this on and the car sounds like a strangled six.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowMcLaren 675LT
"And we’re going to cut to the chase – the 675 LT is the best McLaren road car since the original F1. This is the one we’ve been waiting for."
Ferrari 488 GTB
"If Ferrari let its engineers go crazy on the engine, the aerodynamics clearly represent a breakout at the asylum. There’s plenty of F1-derived knowhow here - in fact, so strict are Formula One’s bodywork regulations that there’s arguably more aero cleverness here than on Seb Vettel’s F2015. Only the roof panel has been carried over from the 458."
Advertisement - Page continues belowHonda Civic Type R
"OK, it only goes to 7,000rpm now and, despite Honda’s engineering nous, is a little more laggy on the throttle than the car you’ll be reading about in a couple of pages’ time, but by gum it’s not slow. Honda claims 0–62mph in 5.7secs, we plugged in our timing gear and hit 60mph in 5.3, 100 in 11.3. That’s outrageous for a FWD hatch."
Mazda MX-5
"It's just fun. Not wide-eyed fun like a Porsche GT3, or sweaty-palm fun like a muscle car. Just light, easy, peppy fun. The MX-5 moves really, really well, asking nothing of you but darting merrily along like it's having the time of its life. It seems to whistle cheerily to itself all the time..."
Read the full reviewDodge Viper ACR
"It’s not just a bit faster than your standard trackday entrants, but so much faster it’s almost unfair. Like a parent competing at a kid’s school sports day."
Cadillac CTS-V
"As befits its luxury car status, the V8 is much more muted than in the ‘Vette, perhaps a little too much. But in performance terms, there’s no doubt whatsoever what’s driving the big V. It piles on the speed rapidly enough and bolts out of turns, so you rarely want for more."
Porsche Cayman GT4
"The attention to detail that's gone into every facet of this car makes it a riveting driving experience at any speed. You can feel the love that has gone into making the GT4 the car we always suspected it could be. £64k looks rather exceptional value for money for a car that can hold its head high alongside some very serious metal indeed..."
Read the full reviewAston Martin Lagonda Taraf
"It’s a deeply impressive looking thing, pretty much what its predecessor would have evolved into had it been allowed to. The surfacing is sublime, particularly the line that runs from the top of the front wheelarch and continues the length of the car beneath and past the window."
VW Golf GTi Clubsport
"Until we can get both on a real road, we’d still take an R, but the ClubSport is a nice little addition to the GTi range we never knew we needed…"
Lamborghini Aventador SV Roadster
"We’d buy two because, well, why not? If ever there was a distillation of the philosophy that has served Lamborghini so well over the years, this car is it. There was an inkling with the new Huracan that Lambo had gone a touch soft. Poppycock. It’s still hard as nails."
Bentley Bentayga
"If the Veyron was the VW Group at the top of its performance game, and the XL1 its eco-masterpiece, this is Europe’s great automotive empire doing luxury better than anyone else."
Porsche 911
"You are now looking at an epochal moment in 911 history. As significant, maybe, as the day they went from air- to water-cooled. Because now the mainstream Porsche 911s, the Carrera and Carrera S, have twin turbochargers."
Ferrari F12tdf
"It has the neutrality, poise and agility of a smaller, lighter, mid-engined car, with all the thunder and colossal force of a large, normally aspirated V12. All in all, a technical tour de force."
Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe
"There’s something charmingly raucous about the C63, a dedication to excess that seems even sillier – in a good way – in coupe form. Yes, it might have embraced turbocharging in a sop to economy and emissions, but this is still a petrol-gargling brute of an old-school coupe."
Lotus Exige Sport 350
"My word, this car is good to drive. On the road it retains suppleness, despite using racecar-spec dampers from the Exige Cup car. You can feel them dealing with every pothole and bump hyper-quickly, without getting flustered and pinging £55k’s worth of tartan-infested Lotus into a tree."
Renault R.S. 01
"I have no official performance figures to dispense, but believe me, it has 600bhp supercars covered in a straight line, then destroys them in the braking zone and leaves them flailing helplessly in the corners. That’s courtesy of the bespoke Michelin slicks, carbon-ceramic brakes and a very serious aero package that produces 1.7 tonnes of downforce at its 186mph top speed. Crikey."
Porsche Boxster Spyder
"Turn all the electronics off and push really hard, and you can unstick it, but it’s so well balanced that any impending slidiness is well flagged up. Mid-engined cars always demand respect, but this one suffers fools more gladly than most. Anyway, there’s more fun to be had nibbling up close to the limit than overstepping it."
Lamborghini Huracan LP580-2
"Lamborghini say it's built for fun, and that one of the five pillars that defines this model – the other four being handling, load transfer, wheel control and steering feel – is ‘Power Oversteer’. It deserves the capitals."
Audi R8
"This engine really is a rare treasure. Download its furious voice and set it as your phone’s alarm tone – a literal wake-up call to those who say turbocharged engines can sound great. They can’t, not compared with natural aspiration and multiple pistons moving up and down a hectic 8,700 times a minute, at which point they’re hitting 60mph in the bores."
Peugeot 308 R Hybrid
"With launch control engaged and every last horsepower used, this car will hit 60mph in under four seconds. It feels that fast, too. The incongruity of lunging so quickly towards the horizon in a sensible hatchback is every bit as eye watering as even quicker launches in Atoms and GT-Rs."
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