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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 26 Jan '20
Might Honda be planning an e Type R? Plus what to expect from TG season 28
DMS McLaren 720S review: 838bhp tuner special tested
"The airy, habitable cabin, the practicality, the low speed docility, the ride quality. Tyre noise (and yes, occasional IRIS infotainment system and quality glitches) aside, this is an almost vice-free supercar. Less histrionic, more focused on the actual driving. Now with added zip."
Advertisement - Page continues belowBMW 330e review: plug-in hybrid 3 Series driven
"It’s a combination of four-cylinder petrol and a 112bhp electric motor sending a maximum of 288bhp to the rear wheels. The battery is now 12kwh (up from 9kW in the last one), for an electric-only range of 35 miles. BMW is predicting this should be among the biggest sellers in the UK."
Is this unofficial concept the flying Ferrari of the future?
"OK, admittedly, Italian-based studio Lazzarini may have had way too many edibles, but if this is the future, sign us up. It’s been dubbed the FD-One and is a conceptual racing tricopter drone that takes inspiration from the 1950s, with a very close resemblance to the tubular framed Ferrari 500 F2, the car Alberto Ascari took the two first world titles for himself and for Ferrari."
Advertisement - Page continues belowPaul Walker's E36 BMW M3 just sold for £300,000
"This is an E36 BMW M3 from the mid 1990s. It has just sold at auction for $385,000, the equivalent of around £300,000. Which in turn makes it the equivalent of a brand new Ferrari 812 Superfast with options."
Subaru has built a hybrid XV called the e-Boxer
"This is the brand-new Subaru XV e-Boxer – essentially a self-charging hybrid version of the brand’s rough’n’tumble crossover – and if you continue reading after this point we highly commend your commitment to, y’know, Cars."
Gaze at this achingly desirable Alpina B12 5.7 Coupe
"What would you do if someone handed you €350,000 and told you to buy anything you wanted? Right now, we can’t think of anything we’d rather spend our money on than this biblically-gorgeous BMW Alpina B12 5.7 Coupe. In fact, we’ve already started our hunt for lamps to rub and genies to awaken."
Porsche 911 Carrera review: entry-level 911 tested in the UK
"The first rung of the ladder for the latest, eighth-generation of Porsche’s iconic sports car, the 911. Up until now, there have only been two flavours in the UK: a 450bhp Carrera S and 4S, respectively with rear- and four-wheel drive. Both with the possibility to chop off their roofs. But now there’s a lesser-powered, cheaper option."
Advertisement - Page continues belowA Honda e Type R? It might happen
"We cornered Takahiro Shinya - the Assistant Large Project Leader, Head of Dynamic Performance, no less - on the Honda e press launch (stay tuned for driving impressions next Monday) and in the time-honoured tradition grilled him on whether a faster version was on the way. His response was… unexpected."
Gallery: the bespoke Rolls-Royces of 2019
"2019 was the biggest year yet for Rolls’ Bespoke department. Here are some of its creations."
Advertisement - Page continues belowSono Motors’ solar-powered hatchback has been reborn
"Oh, and did we mention that as well as being plugged-in to charge, the Sion can run on the power of the sun? Yep, you’ll no doubt have noticed the lashings of solar panels, and Sono says that if you left it outside in Germany for a single day it’d recoup enough charge for just over 20 miles of driving. Impressive."
Time is running out to buy a Bugatti Chiron
"If you’ve spent the four years since the Bugatti Chiron was revealed down the back of your sofa, desperately hunting for the £2.5million needed to actually buy one, we have good news – you’ve got a bit more time."
Top Gear season 28: your full preview
"Top Gear TV is back! Last time, they were cooked alive in the Ethiopian desert, inverted in a hearse and electrocuted in the Midlands but, for some reason, Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris have agreed to come back for another series of telly at least tangentially connected to automotive journalism."
The Cruise Origin is GM’s take on an autonomous vehicle
"The Origin is essentially a six-seat ride-sharing taxi, which Cruise says would be in operation 24/7 and would be hailed via an app. Thanks to its modular construction, each Origin will apparently be able to cover over one million miles in its lifetime and could be built for roughly half the cost of an electric SUV today."
Jannarelly Design-1 review: 325bhp sports car tested
"From France via Dubai, the Jannarelly is a Mazda MX-5-sized two-seater with definite shades of 1950s endurance racer to it. Those scooped-out pontoon front wings channel the original Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, while the fulsome rump is drinking deep at the well of AC Cobra."
BMW X5 45e review: plug-in hybrid SUV tested
"BMW has upped the battery size from the previous gen car, going from a miserly 9kWh to a much beefier 24kWh (twice the size you’ll find in either the 330e or 530e), and in the process this fourth-gen battery takes the e-only range to a little over 50 miles."
This Bugatti could sell for £10million
"If you are really unimaginably wealthy, you could buy a brand-new Bugatti for upwards of £2.5million. Seriously, there are still some Chirons up for grabs. Or you could buy this – an old, arguably much cooler, battle-scarred Bugatti that once finished third at the Monaco Grand Prix and was later owned by an actual King."
The Laffite G-Tec X-Road wants to shame all other uber-SUVs
"Recognise the hulking shape that presents itself before you? Nope? How about if we mention the name Zarooq Sand Racer? Still no, probably. Anyway, for reasons unknown to us, this off-road supercar thing is now known as the Laffite G-Tec X-Road."
The £1.5m TDF-1 is a Formula 1 car you can run yourself
"Meet the TDF-1, a fairly unique proposition. It’s a 2011/12-era Formula 1 car – an actual chassis raced at motorsport’s highest level less than a decade ago – but with some shamelessly major changes to make it cheaper to run, simpler to maintain and easier to drive. This is a car that’s thrown originality clean out the window in the pursuit of something else entirely."
Alpine A110 vs Alpine A110S: which one's better?
"You want to buy an Alpine A110. Of course you do. It’s the coupe that does things differently – bucks the trend for more power and weight, spins the virtuous circle back the other way. You’ve already decided it’s the right coupe for you, over and above a Toyota Supra, Porsche Cayman or Audi TT, which means you’ve justified the minuscule stowage, the fact it’s both French and £50,000 and hopefully already experienced the infotainment (if you haven’t, do)."
This Range Rover can match your shotgun
"Here’s a first-world problem for you: don’t you just hate it when your shotgun doesn’t match your car? Yeah, us too. Well, luckily two of the world’s finest gun and carmakers have come together to help wash away your anxiety. Ladies and gents, Royals and Earls, we give you the new Holland & Holland Range Rover."
This throwback R34 Skyline will blow your mind
"Liberty Walk’s mad founder Wataru Kato knows how to stir up the internet. When he’s not angle-grinding the arches of supercars, he’s feeding trolls. And his latest creation is proper troll bait, mainly because he’s taken his angle-grinder to the internet’s golden child: the R34 Skyline."
Top Gear’s Top 9: the Porsche U-turn edition
"As recently as last week, Porsche was still startling the timid, shy world of sports cars. We’re not saying that dropping a 4.0-litre, naturally aspirated flat-six back into the Boxster and Cayman GTS (instead of the widely-panned 2.5-litre four-banger) is basically an admission that the downsized engine was a load of industrial-sounding, character-bereft old tosh that offered no tangible real-world fuel saving… but, well, yes, that is pretty much what we’re saying."
Chris Harris on… the BMW 1M
"When it launched in 2010, the BMW 1M coupe was accused of not being a proper M car. Whatever that means. The adenoidal voices of complaint pointed out the engine was straight from a 135i, and that the core of any M car was a special, high-revving motor. I often think of those whingers as my glorious 1M, now just passing the 60,000-mile mark and pushing an easy 400bhp with a decent remap, demolishes V8 E90 M3s built in the same year."
Is Alfa Romeo planning a mad, 620bhp Giulia?
"According to moparinsiders.com – who cite ‘sources inside Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ – Alfa wants to pump out a limited edition, low-volume SuperGiulia. One packing 620bhp from its 2.9-litre turbo V6."
Gallery: Top Gear series 28, episode 1
"Coming up on this Sunday’s episode, Paddy, Freddie and Chris spend £600 - the average cost of a summer holiday, per person - to buy themselves a cheap convertible and set out on a glamorous road trip. From Bognor Regis to Essex. Very Serious consumer testing of our trio’s glorious motors includes: being squirted with ‘sweat substitute’, pelted with golf balls and marooned in the sea."
Nissan Leaf RC review: Nismo racecar driven
"This is a Leaf that’s living out its motorsport dreams. It’s the work of Nismo – Nissan’s motorsport arm – and it’s designed to show us just how much untapped potential there is in electrically powered hatchbacks."
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