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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 9 Aug '20
Gordon Murray's long-awaited T.50, plus drives of the Ferrari Roma and a prototype Bentley
Review: Porsche 718 Cayman GTS
"Pretty damn perfect. Could well be the best car Porsche makes right now"
Advertisement - Page continues belowEight of the best supercar concepts from the 1980s
"In 1980 Lamborghini wasn’t in a good way, in so far as it didn’t really have any money. To show its support for the Raging Bull, Bertone brought this thing to that year’s Turin Motor Show. Based on a Silhouette, and retaining its 260bhp 3.0-litre V8 and manual gearbox, the Athon was named for the Egyptian cult of the sun. Appropriate, given it has no roof to speak of."
The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series costs £335,000
"Struggling to gauge just how serious a thing the new AMG GT Black Series is? Let us help by offering up some all-important context, in the form of its asking price. If you want to own one of the few Black Series that’ll end up in the UK, you’ll need to hand Mercedes at least £335,000. Which is a lot of money. £146,655 more than the already quite serious AMG GT R Pro. But how does it compare to others?"
Advertisement - Page continues belowReview: Ferrari Roma
"It might be a more 'accessible' Ferrari, but don't be fooled - something of an assassin still lurks within"
Five convertibles to buy instead of a summer holiday
"As our very own Charlie Turner recently discovered, £400 will get you an ’02, 149,500 miler MX-5. Best to pay more for one with a little less rust, though..."
Review: Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio
"If you're looking for a wonderful and straightforward super-saloon, step this way"
Zagato is building a ‘Vette-engined IsoRivolta GTZ
"It’s a tribute to the gorgeous Iso A3/C from 1963, and like that car will feature a big, American heart. Specifically, the supercharged V8 heart from a Corvette Z06, though here it’s been pumped up from 6.2-litres to 6.8-litres. Power? There will be lots, we just don’t know how much yet."
Advertisement - Page continues belowFord has got a new boss, and he's a proper car guy
"In his teens Farley worked at a garage owned by F1 Champion Phil Hill, and owned/restored a ’66 Mustang he’d bought with a blown engine for just $500. Nowadays he has a ’65 Ford GT40 – yes an actual GT40 – which he’s raced at the Le Mans Classic and Goodwood Members’ Meeting among others."
Shelby American has unveiled an 800bhp+ Mustang GT500
"You’d have been forgiven for thinking that the circa 750bhp in the standard Mustang GT500 was plenty to be getting on with, but Shelby is now offering a $29,995 upgrade pack which includes engine updates to take the 5.2-litre V8 over the 800bhp mark."
Advertisement - Page continues belowThis is it: Gordon Murray's astonishing £2.36m T.50
"Meet the hypercar that does things differently. It doesn’t produce much downforce. It doesn’t care about 0-60mph times or top speeds. Power figures are the least impressive thing about the engine. It’s not very big, and it’s not particularly striking to look at. Everything else about it is absolutely astonishing, though."
Video: the secrets behind Murray's T.50 and McLaren F1
"How on earth do you follow something like the McLaren F1? Nearly 30 years on, Gordon Murray has the answer in the shape of the £2.5m, 650bhp T.50 hypercar."
Concepts that time forgot: the General Motors Firebird I
"Well hold on, it doesn’t actually fly, it’s just pretending to. This is the General Motors Firebird I concept from 1954 – the first working gas turbine car in the US."
Review: Alfa Romeo Stelvio
"With so much Giulia DNA, the Stelvio was bound to be good. At last an Alfa to buy with your heart *and* head"
Geek out on the Murray T.50's amazing details
"Gordon Murray is telling stories. Most of them include the word ‘kilogram’. The really special ones, ‘gramme’. Once he even mentions tenths of a gramme. He wouldn’t deny being obsessive about weight, but the word I’d choose to use is ‘evangelical’. Fits better with the quasi-religious symbology. "
This crazy Ferrari 360 limo is up for sale for £219k
"Three hundred and ninety-nine thousand Australian dollars for a Ferrari 360 Modena seems ambitious doesn’t it? That’s the equivalent of around £219,000, and in the UK there are 360s listed for under 60 grand."
Toyota Land Cruiser Commercial review: coolest van on sale?
"Its recipe is simple – tons of space at the back and a big, torquey diesel up front driving all four wheels below – and its aesthetic simpler still. And all from around £27,000 if you’re not paying VAT, or just over £33,000 if you are. Which is nearly nine grand cheaper than the new Land Rover Defender van."
McLaren F1s are now worth £16million
"But by the end of 2008 prices had trebled to around £1.5million. By 2014 F1s were worth £5million. In 2015 Rowan Atkinson sold his car, which he’d crashed twice, for £8million, then in 2017 Chassis #044 made just under £12million at auction. The buyer? Lewis Hamilton, allegedly."
Does the Audi RS6's hybrid system make it less thirsty?
"The new RS6, with its hyped mild hybrid system is actually less efficient than the old RS6. I ran one for nine months back in 2014. It was a little less powerful (552bhp and 516lb ft) but, crucially, it was a lot lighter. And being lighter is a much simpler and more effective way of being both faster and more efficient. At 1,935kg the old one wasn’t light, but at 2,075kg the new one is properly tubby. Over the course of 20,000 miles the best the C7 did on a tankful was 26.2mpg, and overall it settled in at about 21.5mpg. After 6,000 miles the C8 has a best of 23.6 against an average of 20.4mpg."
Racing Point fined €400k, docked points for copying Merc's F1 car
"Having lodged complaints after every race so far this season, Renault has finally succeeded in taking down Racing Point. Sort of. The FIA has now ruled that, though the front brake ducts are legal, the rears (which are vastly different to last year’s Racing Point car, because of the car switching to a Merc-esque ‘low rake’ aero set-up) are just too similar. Busted!"
Eight things Gordon Murray *hates* about the McLaren F1
"Some things in life are universally accepted as The Truth. Pineapple is an unacceptable pizza topping, for example. Christian Bale played the best on-screen Batman. The McLaren F1 is perfect. Of these things, there can be no argument."
Review: Volkswagen T-Roc Cabriolet
"The regular T-Roc isn’t VW’s finest hour, so binning the roof doesn’t create a classic. Doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you"
Of course there’s a new Bentley Bentayga Speed in the works
"Top Gear understands the tweaked Bentayga Speed, seen here testing near the factory, will indeed retain its mighty W12 engine. We’re not expecting a power increase, because the existing 626bhp and 664lb ft was already enough to make the Bentayga the fastest stately home in the universe."
How to improve F1’s podium ceremony
"Here’s what I’m picturing. The third-placed driver on a plinth two metres off the ground. Second place on an adjacent podium, two metres above that. In the middle, the winner, balancing on a small plinth a mighty six metres high, like Nelson on his column. A glorious spectacle, all totally COVID-compliant."
Top Gear’s Top 9: the best iconic toy cars
"A British icon, Dinky Toys was the miniature car division of Frank Hornby’s Meccano empire. Introduced in 1934, the pre-WWII cars are now especially rare, due to most of them being made out of a dodgy zamac-zinc alloy which crumbled to dust as it aged."
Driving the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar prototype (in the rain)
"I don’t expect any of the 12 eventual owners of this limited-edition speedster will be familiar with cowering behind its swept-back screen as a lightly refreshing drizzle dribbles down the back of their neck and soaks into the rich, waxy hides of the Bacalar’s pair of generously quilted seats. They’ll experience it in lands of eternal sunshine, where rainy days are as likely as their credit card bouncing after a champagne luncheon."
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