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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 11 Nov '18
Speed Week, some old BMW roadsters and the best garage you'll ever see
How a bunch of Teslas are futureproofing tuner cars
"How will the world of car modifying adapt to electrification? Pretty well if Unplugged Performance is anything to go by. It’s run by Ben Schaffer, who’s also in charge Bulletproof Automotive, a company with thousand horsepower GT-Rs and Max Power cover cars in its history."
Advertisement - Page continues belowBMW Z8 review: the coolest BMW Z car ever?
"The BMW Z8 was to be nothing more than a styling exercise. A retro tribute to the 507, seen once as a motorshow concept and then wheeled off into immediate retirement and a life of occasional event and film appearances. But when it appeared at the Tokyo motorshow in 1997, the world went mad for it."
Is this the greatest supercar collection in the world?
"I feel like a secret agent. After weeks of chasing and being passed from one contact to another, we’ve been given the all clear to visit the biggest private supercar collection in Bahrain. First, we’re given a general area to head to, a short drive from the capital Manama, then told to wait for a dropped pin detailing the exact location. We’re eating a burger when the message comes through… I half expect it to self-destruct after reading."
Advertisement - Page continues belowDoes the 1,479bhp Bugatti Chiron work as a pace car?
"As you well know, we’re sticklers for regulations here at TG. So when we decided that we ought to have a pace car at Charade for our Speed Week track test - to appease the track authorities and our insurers - I went straight away to the big book of FIA regulations and looked up the requirements for a Formula One safety car. Because that’s how we roll."
Here are Speed Week's 14 cars in numbers
"The class of PCOTY: 14 cars, 7,640bhp, 36 driven wheels and a total value of £4,052,991"
Ferrari 488 Pista vs McLaren 600LT vs Porsche 911 GT2 RS
"A big one, this. Porsche vs Ferrari vs McLaren. Last time we refereed this inter-marque fight the contenders were hybrids collectively referred to as the Holy Trinity. That was a couple of days I won’t forget. Mainly for praying the rain would stop falling. This time my prayers are focused on the barriers. Whoever thought concrete was the right protective barrier for spindly Seventies F1 cars? Emerson Fittpaldi must have thrashed around here in the full knowledge that the only impact cushioning would come from his sideburns."
BMW Z1 review
"A pioneering little roadster that is satisfying on so many levels. Plus, retracting doors!"
Advertisement - Page continues belowBehold the Rocket Z, a mid-engined nine-seater diesel 4x4
"There you were thinking premium German carmakers were good at filling niches. What you see before you is a mid-engined diesel nine-seat 4x4, and we’re not sure there’s a vehicle we currently want more."
BMW Z4 review
"The Z4 has changed. It’s become sportier – the old one, with its folding hardtop and cuddly dynamics, took aim mostly at the Mercedes SLK (now SLC). The new one has a fabric top, dropping the weight measurement and centre of gravity. It’s evidently having a pop at the Porsche 718, itself in a vulnerable position since the much-lamented departure of that old flat six."
Advertisement - Page continues belowFord Fiesta ST vs Hyundai i30N
"Badge snobs will have clicked straight past this page. Their loss. Now you’re in on Speed Week’s best-kept secret. I don’t want this to sound too ‘school sports day’, but these two are already winners. Difficult second album syndrome didn’t strike when the old Fiesta ST made way for this prettier, more mature, downsized-engine sequel. Meanwhile, Hyundai has come from nowhere to build an authentic first hot hatch that sweats credibility. These two are by no means the token bargains of Speed Week; they’ve earned their pit garages at Charade."
The fastest, weirdest and wackiest cars from SEMA: part 2
"Thought you could escape the modified madness? Think again"
Take a look inside Aston Martin’s shiny new factory
"Blimey, Aston Martin has been busy. A mere 18 months since we helped them ‘settle in’ to their new second home in Wales - by skidding £65m of their back catalogue around several empty Ministry of Defense ‘Super Hangers’ - it’s released a first set of pictures of the nearly-finished factory… paint shop, production line, the lot. Even the chairs in the canteen."
Aston Martin Vantage vs BMW M2 Competition
"Two cars separated by 99bhp, £70,000, eight-tenths from 0–62mph and 40mph at the top end. Not much competition when it comes to image, either: the Vantage is a tailored suit; the BMW, a pair of off-the-peg Levis. Yet draw away from the details and they play much the same role. Both are rapid rear-drive coupes, both aren’t cut out for family life (although the BMW can claim rear seats) and both are just as capable at squashing huge distances as they are vaporising a set of rear tyres."
The Livewire is Harley-Davidson's first electric motorcycle
"We don’t normally do motorcycles on TopGear.com, but every now and then something quite interesting comes along that forces us to make an exception. Today’s something is the Harley-Davidson Livewire, the brand’s first all-electric motorcycle. And boy, doesn’t it look good."
Good luck buying a prettier race car than this Jaguar XJ220C
"This Jaguar XJ220C won the GT class at the 1993 Le Mans 24 Hours, only to be disqualified for its lack of catalytic converters. Bet it sounds all the better for missing them off, though."
Next up from Ares Design, a Tesla Model S Roadster
"More renderings of future products from Ares Design have landed on the internet. The Modena-based coachbuilder fronted by Dany Bahar and already mooting a retro Ferrari 412-inspired GTC4 Lusso and reborn DeTomaso Pantera is now mulling a more modern-looking product. It’s a drop-top Tesla Model S."
McLaren 720S review: new Track Pack driven
"You can now have the rear wing in carbon fibre. And rather than having to spec that individually, you can now tick a single box labelled ‘Track Pack’, which collects all the sportiest bits in one place. You might say ‘curated’ if you were being utterly pretentious."
Mercedes G63 vs Alfa Stelvio QV vs Lamborghini Urus
"Spoiler alert: none of these SUVs is the winner of Speed Week. Despite their best efforts, no carmaker has yet managed to engineer its way around the laws of physics. A bigger, heavier car is almost always less capable than a smaller, lighter one, and so it will remain until someone figures out how to make a chassis out of antimatter."
Dallara Stradale vs Lotus Exige Cup 430 vs Alpine A110
"These are the best cars at Speed Week 2018. Of course they are. They’re focused lightweights, and if you’re going to drive on track – especially a track as endlessly testing as Circuit de Charade – you ought to be in a car designed precisely for the job. Not a plush supercar that’s had stuff removed (a backwards route to lightweight) and certainly not a big tractor with a V8 in it (just backwards, full stop)."
Is the McLaren Speedtail mule prettier than the real thing?
"Now you’ve digested the other-worldly looks of the 1,050bhp, 250mph McLaren Speedtail, its maker can set about testing it on and off the public highway, without fear of its styling being papped. Durability tests, track shakedowns and road trials are all about to kick off, and leading the test programme is this Speedtail mule. It’s called ‘Albert’, in a nod to the test mules of the mighty McLaren F1, one of which was named after Albert Drive, where Gordon Murray’s epochal supercar was designed."
The new BMW M8 Coupe will get over 600bhp
"Good news from Bavaria – for BMW has finally given us some concrete info on next year’s M8, its forthcoming flagship. Admittedly, none of this info is especially surprising, but it’s nonetheless very much welcome."
The new DevBot 2.0 autonomous racer looks wild
"You’re absolutely right, it does look wild. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Roborace’s DevBot 2.0: a fully autonomous electric racing prototype that’ll see the right side of a racetrack next year."
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