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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 26 Aug '18
Pebble Beach, real-life Bond cars and a cutesy EV. It's this week in cars...
Aston Martin will build 25 ‘Goldfinger’ DB5s… for £3.3m
"Just like the DB4 GT Continuation models we saw at the end of 2016, Aston is building 25 brand-new Aston Martin DB5s, built as 'authentic reproductions' of the exact car that Connery, Brosnan and Craig all drove in various screen outings."
Advertisement - Page continues belowTwin test: Ford Fiesta ST 3 vs Mini Cooper S
"We’ve lined up a Mini Cooper S to this Fiesta ST 3, because it offers a premium-feeling edge to the match-up, and they’re both honorary British citizens, even though only the Cooper S is actually built on this sceptered isle."
Fernando Alonso won then lost the Six Hours of Silverstone
"Toyota took a 1-2 at the Six Hours of Silverstone with Alonso’s number 8 car - also driven by Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima - first to the chequered flag. The taste of victory didn’t last long, however, with both cars disqualified after a post-race technical inspection."
Advertisement - Page continues belowLamborghini Urus review: big Lambo hits the UK
"If ‘fun’ files in your lexicon under ‘speed’, then you’ll have a ball. But I want something else. More connection and feedback. The Urus’s steering is numb, its brake pedal a little soggy (if, for the avoidance of doubt, unendingly effective) and its throttle slightly inexact too because of the turbos. This is the fastest SUV but not the one that tingles with the most intimate engagement. Alfa makes that."
This Vauxhall GT X concept might show us the next Corsa
"This is the Vauxhall GT X Experimental. And get your car industry buzz-word bingo card at the ready, because this is the full house: an electric SUV coupe with autonomous driving abilities. If we fully knew how to use such a phrase, we might describe it as ‘on point’."
The Rimac C_Two has gone blue and boozy for Pebble
"Dubbed the ‘California’, the C_Two also gets bright blue paint and new wheels. Not that it needed much else to be impressive. Remember, this is the level four autonomous successor to the Concept_One electric hypercar. It’s more powerful, faster, goes further on a charge, and terrifyingly clever."
Inside the diamanté-encrusted world of Anija
"Based on the outskirts of Tokyo, it’s the place to go if you have an Italian exotic and penchant for diamanté-encrusted things. Ever wondered where the world’s rhinestones went after vajazzles were in vogue? Well, they’re mostly in and around Anija’s cars. Cars like Lamborghini Diablos, a one-off Pagani C12S and disco ball Murciélagos."
Advertisement - Page continues belowGoodwood Revival will host a £200m grid of cars
"How’s this for a spectacle? Kicking off this year’s Goodwood Revival weekend is what’s thought to be the world’s most valuable ever race grid, with £200million worth of classics taking part in the Kinrara Trophy."
Toy story: driving the adorable Microlino EV
"Introducing the Microlino. Cootchie-coo! It’s an Italian-Swiss electro-dwarf that couldn’t be any more obviously inspired by the Isetta bubble car if it had a ‘My other car is a Bimmer’ sticker in the window."
Advertisement - Page continues belowJaguar will sell you an all-electric E-Type
"Jaguar has confirmed its electric E-Type is going into production. Indeed, in the same week Aston Martin has squeezed some actual Bond gadgets into a DB5 you can buy, Jag’s pepped up another Sixties icon with some actually relevant tech."
Say hello to the Infiniti Prototype 10
"While we’re 110 per cent sure Infiniti isn’t going to start building single-seater speedsters all of a sudden, the odds are that elements of the Prototype 10’s design will start to trickle down into its road cars."
Porsche has built a brand-new, 20-year-old 911 Turbo
"Using over 6,500 genuine new parts from Porsche’s archives and an original bodyshell, the folks over in Stuttgart have spent the last year-and-a-half building a brand-new 20-year-old Turbo S. Featuring a fresh 3.6-litre twin-turbo flat-six with 450bhp, a period-correct manual transmission and four-wheel drive, it’s like a Blue Peter garden time capsule gift from the mid-nineties, just without all the digging."
The new BMW Z4 is finally here
"The journey from concept to production isn’t always an easy one, and our immediate hunch is that the BMW Z4’s was particularly fraught. From a clean, simple and sophisticated show car, this is the third-gen Z4 you’ll actually be able to buy."
The Audi PB18 e-tron has 753 electric horsepower
"If at first you don’t succeed, stop thinking logically and design something so white-hot radical it burns a hole straight through the middle of the drawing board and lands smouldering on the floor.
"We can assume that’s the brief at Audi’s ‘Design Loft’ in Malibu, California, which has dreamt up this concept for a shooting brake electric hypercar inspired by Audi’s dominant decade in Le Mans racing. This 23rd century rollerskate is the Audi PB18 e-tron."
Stop everything: it's the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ
"This is the new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, the most extreme version of Lambo’s big-boy supercar yet. It’s a car we already know to some degree – it’s already claimed the Nürburgring Nordschleife record, and we’ve also driven it – but this is our first glimpse of the SVJ without any confuddling camouflage."
The Mercedes EQ Silver Arrow is a stunning electric speedster
"The EQ Silver Arrow plunders real heritage (not Infiniti’s wish-we-were-there wistfulness) and applies an electrified spin to the record-breaking Benz single-seaters of the Thirties. Imagine, if you will, this design study as a fantasy future for Formula E. Oof. Yes please."
McLaren is taking this extraordinary 720S GT3 racing
"The old 650S GT3 has been soldiering on in competition while McLaren readied its current Super Series contender for motorsport duty, but today we’ve got out first look at the racing version, and a price for its services. It’s yours for £440,000 and it’ll be going trophy-hunting from 2019."
Gallery: the best bits of TG’s special Porsche magazine
"In this collection of Top Gear’s best ever Porsche road trips and adventures, no stone is left unturned. We have the Porsche bookends, the 356 and 911 GT2 RS, travelling across Scotland. We check out not one but two Le Mans heroes: a 962 that still gets its daily miles, and the record (and internet) breaking 919 Hybrid."
The Honda NSX has been Tango'd
"The third-generation NSX was a decade in the making. But, ever keen to tweak, Honda has now decided to give the all-wheel-drive V6 hybrid supercar a nip ‘n’ tuck to make it cleaner, greener and easier to live with. They’ve even given it a fake tan ready for winter."
Meet the €5m, 236mph Bugatti Divo
"Rule one of the Bugatti Divo: do not try to rationalise it – your head will explode and you’ll ruin the carpet. At €5m a pop, it’s twice the price of a Bugatti Chiron, so unless the propshaft is forged in gold, dipped in unicorn poo and rolled in diamonds, it’s not a number that can be justified by any normal means."
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