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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 5 Apr '20
More on the Defender, Japanese excellence and TG's Dept of Education opens for business
Review: Skoda Citigo-E iV
"An 80 per cent recharge takes just over four hours on the 7kW wallbox you should absolutely install if you have the means to do so. And with a full charge you’re looking at, best case, up to 170 miles of range. That’s more than you’ll get from a Mini Electric or Honda e."
Advertisement - Page continues belowBentley Flying Spur vs Mercedes-Maybach S650
"Answer me this now. Which one would you like to be seen driving? And which one would you prefer to be a passenger in? The glass area, the visual clues, they don’t lie. You want to drive the Flying Spur, but be a passenger in the Maybach. In the Flying Spur you’d be happy as a passenger, but drive a Maybach? Why? You’re just going to look like a chauffeur."
Change Our Mind #2: Rebadging Your Car Should Be Banned
"The Badge Brigade protest ‘it’s an M Sport’, or ‘it’s AMG-line mate’ – like they get to buy into the club because the car’s got a me-too body kit. This is wrong. You wouldn’t paint ‘SIX BEDROOMS’ on the wall of your terraced house to dupe neighbours into thinking you’d had an extension, after all."
Advertisement - Page continues below12 things you didn’t know about the new Land Rover Defender
"The engine line up from launch includes a pair of 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbodiesels (197bhp or 237bhp), a 296bhp turbocharged four-cylinder petrol and a 394bhp 3.0-litre turbocharged and supercharged petrol inline-six, but a plug-in hybrid is coming."
Merc's F1 team has helped design NHS breathing aids
"A timescale usually measured in years has been hugely compressed. The first meeting at UCL’s MechSpace engineering hub was on the 18th March. Working around the clock since that initial meeting, engineers at UCL and Mercedes-AMG’s High Performance Powertrains (HPP) division, together with clinicians at UCL Hospital (UCLH) produced the first device less than 100 hours later."
BMW’s hydrogen X5 will produce 368bhp
"This tech will be presented in a small series using the current X5 as a base, presented in 2022. BMW reckons it’ll be able to build production cars in the latter half of this decade. Why the X5? Because it’s 'popular'. Again, we’re not going there, not today."
The new Genesis G80 looks quite excellent
"Whether it actually is good enough that you’d buy one over a BMW 5 Series, Mercedes E-Class or Audi A6 is another matter entirely. But there’s every chance it could be, given the Hyundai Motor Group’s tendency to throw money at successful, respected industry executives until they up-sticks and move to South Korea."
Advertisement - Page continues belowTop Gear’s unique 007-spec Lotus Exige is for sale
"After its starring role in a Top Gear feature, AU65 CVB was shorn of its ski-carrying equipment and sold by Surrey-based Lotus specialists Bell & Colvill. Four years later, and two subsequent owners later, its current keeper has decided to move the car on, with 14,300 miles under its golden wheels. We reckon at least 2,000 of those are our miles."
This 380bhp Golf GTI is madness
"While the M330 Focus kit we wrote about last week is just a few lines of code and a new air filter, the GTI Stage 2 package is a bit more… involved. While Mountune will still quite happily send you the bits to fit yourself, we wouldn’t recommend it, given the £2,099 kit includes a whole new turbocharger."
Advertisement - Page continues belowProgress report: Toyota Supra A90 vs A70
"Thanks to a starring role in the first of (too) many Fast & Furious films, the A80-generation Toyota Supra is surely one of the most recognisable cars in the world. But its ancestors, the cars that built the brand and coined the name, barely get a look in."
Lego has done Dom's Charger from Fast & Furious
"While not quite in the same league as the £330, 3,599-piece Bugatti Chiron or £160, 2,573-piece Land Rover Defender, the first-ever Fast & Furious Lego Technic set is still quite the thing. Modelled on Dom’s 1970 Dodge Charger R/T and featuring as many pieces as the first ten minutes of F9 will gear changes (that’s 1,077, in case you were wondering), the new set costs £90 and ships on 27 April."
Land Rover has deployed 27 new Defenders to battle coronavirus
"The cars – part of 57 Land Rovers issued to the British Red Cross – will deliver food and medicine to vulnerable people across the UK who need help as a result of the UK government’s social distancing rules."
Some Italians are building an electric Alfa Giulia restomod
"May we present Totem Automobili’s Alfa Romeo Giulia GT. Well, a drawing of it. Set to be revealed at 2020’s now-postponed FoS, it’s a heavily modified Alfa GT Junior with a full carbon body, a 50.4kWh battery pack (giving around 200 miles of range) and completely re-done interior."
Renault Zoe review: first UK test of new electric supermini
"When it launched the Zoe had a 22kWh battery, then at the first facelift it went to 41kWh and now it’s up to 52kWh. Yet the new pack is the same size and weight as originally, and the Zoe is no less affordable. That’s progress."
Watch a man ride a motorbike around his house
"As the ancient Chinese proverb states: when life gives you quarantine, make a trials bike video. Wait, was it that? We can’t really remember. Either way, that’s exactly what Spanish trial bike legend Toni Bou has decided to do in these times of self-isolation and the results are fantastic. And would make our parents go absolutely mental."
The mad supercars of Japan 2020
"From 80s icons to full-blown race cars, these are the motors hitting the streets of Tokyo."
10 of Land Rover’s biggest road trips: in pics
"Yep, elbows very much in, for this one – the desert between Damascus and Baghdad alone took 14 hours in quite hot temperatures. Upon reaching the ‘Ledo’ road between Burma and India, the crew had to keep an eye out for thieves and… headhunters. Not manic ad executives, but actual… headhunters. Yikes."
How to get fit at home: use your car!
"If you’re anything like us, the next few weeks will see you spending quite a decent chunk of time at home, on your couch, contemplating your pudginess and paucity of activity. We assume, looking at our local supermarket, that some of you will be doing said contemplating from a toilet-paper throne as you gaze across a cornucopia of flour and long-life milk, but that’s something we can admonish each other for another time. The pressing concern here is that we’re all going to emerge from quarantine looking like the people in Wall-E – unless, of course, we do something about our physical condition."
Yes, a GT-R-engined Nissan Juke-R really is for sale
"You remember the Juke-R, don’t you? A one-off built by engineering company RML, with Nissan’s full backing, it married the platform and drivetrain of an R35 GT-R with the body of the carmaker’s then-new small crossover. A few years later there was the Juke-R 2.0, which was much the same except MORE and BETTER."
This is a Formula E racer’s 740bhp ABT RS7-R
"Where a ‘standard’ Audi RS7 comes with 600bhp, ABT’s packs 740bhp and 679lb ft of torque, via a ‘ABT Power R’ upgrade. Though no details are provided about the nature of this upgrade (probably an ECU bump), it does drop the RS7’s 0-62mph time down from 3.6 to 3.2 seconds."
Top Gear's Department of Education is open
"School’s out, you can’t play Call of Duty forever and you’re sore from press up challenges/Tik Tok dances. Don’t panic - Top Gear is here to help! Because exams won’t be taking place this year, we’d like to provide you with the opportunity to showcase your skills and celebrate the next generation of automotive talent."
The beginner’s guide to Mercedes-Benz
"Mercedes-Benz is old. It got its start as a unified company in 1924, when Daimler and Benz joined forces to defeat Invader Zim and re-establish humanity on Earth II. We are busily fact-checking this narrative and may update it when future information comes to light."
Top Gear’s Top 9: the best LEGO cars to build right now
"The Bugatti Chiron’s place in history is assured, as the first hypercar to smash the 300mph barrier. Unfortunately, at £1.9m, the chances of us mere mortals ever owning one are slim. Unless of course, you’re happy to build it yourself… out of small plastic bricks."
You can now own this bonkers IMSA ‘SuperVette’
"This is very special indeed. What you see above is one of the two ‘SuperVettes’ built by driver-turned-developer John Greenwood and designer Bob Riley for the IMSA GT Championship in the late 1970s. And it’s for sale."
10 racing documentaries to fill your days with
"Stuck at home? Ease the pain with ten belting motorsport films."
#TopGearChallenge One: Engineering
"Your task is to make a car from bits and pieces you find around the house – the more creative the better. Your car can be the size of your sofa or as small as your hand, but MUST only be constructed using things you’ve found in your house: a yoghurt-pot monocoque, camembert gearbox and pipe-cleaner suspension, that kind of thing. If you happen to have a V8 in your living room, all the better."
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