Revealed: Top Gear's best performance car of 2025

The racetrack has barely receded into our rear view mirrors before the inevitable modern day petrolhead S.O.S chirps from the walkie talkie. “Argh! Does anyone know BMW's cheat code to switch off the lane assist speed s***?” Jethro groans from the M2. Jack gloats in the EVO37’s simplicity. “Funny I don't have that problem in the Kimera.”

Largely because at about half the width of the Revuelto ahead, it’d be pretty damn unlikely to wander out of its lane. After minutes strapped aboard the Manthey 911, Rowan is fantasising about eloping to a tarmac road rally, blissfully unaware as its razor blade diffuser flirts with slicing the undulating, technical B roads of the Algarve.

I’m quietly taking this in from the cossetting opulence of the Aston Martin Vanquish. With about half the Top Gear team (plus several factory spannermen) struck down with a mystery virus, I’m feeling peaky and the decision to begin our road finalist showdown in a comforting gentleman’s express in an air conditioned seat is entirely out of self interest. Sorry boys.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

Even without the impromptu crash diet, I’d gladly skip breakfast to hit the road in our fab five. Sometimes road bound finalists decide themselves unanimously, but 2025’s crop was a points decision.

The Lambo bred intrigue. Stupefyingly fast and glorious to listen to from two villages away. A proper shock ’n’ awe 21st century supercar. But would the two tonne 1,001bhp rocket ship prove frustratingly constrained on the public road?

The GT3 RS too – easily the best road legal car I’ve ever lapped a racetrack in – but it can’t be usable on the public highway. Can it? Surely twisting the lap time focus knob until it breaks off in Manthey Racing’s hand is too much even for the endlessly adaptable Porsche 911? We had to know. Once we’d set some juicy bait to tempt out The Stig.

From the instant it rolled off the transporter and flashed us the prettiest four cylinder engine bay ever created, we yearned for the Kimera to be as supreme to drive as it is to look at. On track it was hard work, but worth putting in a shift. So we gambled it wouldn’t succumb to the usual restomod reliability woes.

The Aston pipped the Ferrari, just as it did on our road showdown last winter. Both are hilariously powerful indulgent V12s and the Ferrari’s heart has a more soulful crescendo, but you’re too arse puckeringly s***-scared to savour the moment. Ferrari’s had to muffle its touchstone powerplant to limbo under noise and emission barriers (which isn’t its fault) so it presents itself as a relaxed GT to distance itself from the mid-engined horses in the stable.

But one by one, ashen faced drivers staggered from it in Portimão’s pitlane, miming sudden gobs of oversteer with sodden, white knuckled hands, stammering expletives with bone dry mouths. Might be the lurgy. Or it might be that the wallowy yet spikey 12Cilindri is caught between two stools. The more trustworthy, better role-defined Vanquish wins the battle, and brings a British pluck to an Italian and German dominated final.

It nearly had Korean interest, but by just one vote the BMW M2 CS nicked it from under the playful Hyundai Ioniq 6 N’s manatee nose. Like the Porsche, there’s a curiosity about how it will translate onto the road on less extreme rubber, after BMW insisted it could only be driven on track wearing optional Cup 2 R tyres treated to a tedious warm up cycle. Y’know, just like you do at home before enjoying a B road blast.

A worthy, world class quintet then. The restomod. The track refugee. The hybrid hypercar. The sports coupe. And surveying them from the rear gunner position, the big, raffish grand touring cruise missile. There will be no horses for courses nonsense here. No sports day participation rosettes, I promise you. Let’s go crown a champion.

The sun’s barely crept above the treetops, but editor Jack is already moist in the Kimera, which only has aircon until the water temp gauge reads 90°C. Then it’s like being strapped down in front of four salon hairdryers on max reheat. Normally photographers insist we drive windows up, but Rix is being boiled.

“I’ve got to have the windows down, but that just adds to it. I feel like I should have a cigarette on just for the look,” he pants. Too right. With Martini overalls, floppy 1980s Group B hair and sunglasses even bigger than Jethro’s ‘Ibiza Final Boss’ effort.

Billowing overrun flames from its tarnished tailpipes, the Kimera looks perfectly at home as we climb into the hills, as if we’ve been teleported onto a forgotten stage of the Acropolis rally. Chasing it down, the M2 is all taut and upright, the Lambo like a camp stealth bomber and the Manthey hilariously incongruous. “How is that f****** thing road legal?” Jethro guffaws for the thousandth time, as Rowan deploys the DRS.

The Vanquish is left behind in the narrow, blind bends but has the entire convoy on a piece of elastic. As the road unfurls, the V12 bellows into the boost zone and it reels in everything in its path. Supercars. Vegetation. Small animals. It’s a proper battle cruiser. Scratch that, it manages the curious trick of feeling overengined despite being the size of an aircraft carrier and rides more maturely than last year’s tearaway Vantage.

By the time we regroup in the northeastern reaches of the Serra de Monchique, doing warp nine in the lavish Vanquish cabin has left my morning queasiness at sea level. It’s that life affirming.

I cannot think of an engine which exudes more energy than this – it’s like being inside the engine bay

Rowan yearns for the Aston’s blown V12 to sound as exotic as it looks, but Jethro declares it the most bad arse car in the world and his eyes brim with patriotic pride at its ability to paint black lines up the road without breaking traction, so rich is the torque. I wish it had more snap to its gearchanges, but it’s so relentlessly fast through third and fourth that quibbling over shift speeds is like grumbling at Liam Gallagher for drawling out of key.

It’s a beauty, a cad, and amid the lunatic Vantage, vastly improved interiors and becoming a mid-engined supercar force, Aston Martin has never done it better.

Car swap time. I employ Jack’s patented PCOTY tactic – grab the fastest, scariest thing you can see. Don’t build up to it. That’ll be the Lambo then, which Tom Ford has been impressed with on the way up. “I’m enjoying it, despite my better judgement,” he says. “It doesn’t feel as wide, or as stupid as it looks.”

It’s swear out loud fast though. Of all the recent super hybrids, this Lambo is easily the most cohesive. You aren’t aware there’s an electrically assisted V12 meshing with an eight speed twin clutch gearbox, plus an electric motor for each front wheel. There’s no sense of a committee meeting going on downstairs, negotiating how many horses charge where.

It’s just pedal, noise, force. Lamborghini has understood the job of its flagship V12 is to turn petrol and carbon fibre into drama. It’s still a massive intimidating wedge, but I feel well positioned in the nose to manage the hellfire being unleashed. It controls its considerable mass impressively, and the engine and gearbox is just about peerless, but you’ve got to put up with a ride that’s as yielding as its sadistic seats, and no one gels with the stiff, numb brake pedal.

Parked, the Revuelto magnetises swooning bystanders and camera phones until the Kimera arrives, at which point even a pinky gold V12 Lambo driven by TV’s Tom ‘Wookie’ Ford turns invisible. Jethro sounds mind made up after another sweaty sprint down the N-267 in the EVO37. “It’s authentic, it’s a feast, it’s a restomod for people who really want to drive. I cannot think of an engine which exudes more energy than this – it’s like being inside the engine bay.”

I reason the biggest contrast after the Lambo on full afterburner is to try the most normal car, so I naff off in the M2 CS. Which absolutely aces it. It has the poise and aggression missing from the lardy (but nice to live with) standard M2. Pugnacious, exploitable without playing life insurance Russian roulette and finally freed of temperature sensitive track rubber, it’s just a superb road car.

I arrive back at base camp wondering if that’s not the most fun I’ve had all week. If nothing else, it’s a useful palate cleanser. No hybrid this or aero that. Just a mother lode of straight six poke and a playful tail end. The M car signature dish.

At our lunch stop, a summit converges to thrash out some sort of order. Wookie wields the axe first. “For me the Aston can’t win. It’s the one that gives up first when you’re driving quick – it has all that vertical movement which tells you it’s not really a supercar, it’s a very, very, very fast GT car.”

The BMW is in mine and Jethro’s top three but hasn’t won over Jack, Rowan or Wook, and we’re united in horror at the price. We love an underdog on these tests, but £90k for a 2 Series is obscene. Yes, inflation is high. Cars are expensive. But the entry level M car has to offer something we can aspire to affording, I sagely reason while opening the door to a car draped in a £100,000 body kit.

Alright, that’s harsh on the Manthey Racing 911. This is pukka motorsport blooded aero from a pedigree outfit, plus gorgeous overhauled suspension and indestructible brakes. And the absolute brass neck of looking at a GT3 RS and thinking “We can top that”.

It’s a warrantied, official piece of Porsche accessorydom too. Jethro has recently returned from the Nürburgring and reports a GT3 RS MR is very much the du jour uniform. Meanwhile on the road... you’ve got to be in the mood.

The Manthey drops a tactical nuke on the maxim that sliding a car is fun, that misbehaviour is personality. It makes grip fun. Vast, cosmic quantities of grip. So much road wrinkling grip it starts giving you physiotherapy. In the middle of one corner I swear it made my neck click. To give you an idea of just how mental the grip is, you almost forget the car is being pushed along by possibly the best engine ever shoved up a 911’s bottom. That searing 9,000rpm flat six is overshadowed by sheer physics.

But no one – not even certifiable car sadist Rowan – can pretend it’s uncompromised on the road, or as dailyable as a GT3. It’s not just the filled in window. Whatever you do with the dampers – Normal, Sport or Track, rebound or compression twizzled either way, it’s spectacularly controlled but rock solid. And spends most of the day catching air until it rips its own diffuser off. It’s an astonishingly selfish experience. Only bring a passenger if they’re as fully committed as you to raw, undiluted speed.

As I winch myself out of the Manthey’s grown up, ice cool cabin I realise I’ve catastrophically misjudged when to drive the Kimera. It’s the hottest point of the day and its unadorned steering wheel is already damp with the others’ sweat. To the generous owner who lent his personal EVO37 for this test, obrigado. Send us the steam cleaning bill. Or if you don’t want it any more, your car. For keeps.

Wow. Jethro wasn’t wrong when he mooted the Kimera is even better out here than it was on the circuit. This right sized, achingly cool machine is utterly absorbing to drive.

It’s mesmerising to drive – physical, refreshing, nostalgic, and the reset we all crave

There is almost no part of your body not being kept busy. All of your left leg, from hip to calf to ankle and toe, forces down the sturdy clutch. Right foot tippy tapping across the offset pedals to manage rev matching and keep the twin engine boosting. Left hand clasping the wriggling wheel. Right hand slotting delectable gearchanges. Eyebrows catching bullets of sweat, ears deciphering the snorting, chirruping, whining cacophony. Mouth whooping with laughter you can barely hear.

Up until now, I’ve merely been commanding the other cars, guiding them, mostly restraining them. But this – this is driving. The only thing wrong besides cabin temperature is the name. It needs something more Italian and flamboyant than Kimera, the seventh Kardashian.

After our lunchtime negotiations and a dollop more driving, a podium has emerged. Fine cars both, but the Aston and BMW are cut adrift. Each are best in class, but neither can unite enough support to spray the champagne. It’s going to come down to the Manthey, the Kimera, or the Lamborghini. All three are intoxicating experiences that frankly feel like they ought to be illegal in 2025. How do we separate them?

There’s handwringing over the Lambo technically not emerging in the 12 months since our previous PCOTY – but truth is we’ve begged Lambo for one to take part since we first drove it in Oct 2023, but this is the first year the factory has been able to supply one. No one drawn into its tractor beam quibbled about its age. They went slack jawed and weak kneed, then frowned in confusion as it slipped away in e-mode before the V12 barked into life. What an engine!

Usually, a Lamborghini trades on lunacy and a Porsche is the all rounder. This year upended that. The forgiving yet frightening Revuelto is a more complete car than the singular Manthey RS. Lamborghini just ‘gets’ how to distill what makes a great supercar better than anyone right now. Excess all areas, but your grannie could max it. The fact it’s the ‘base model’ is very tantalising indeed.

But from the moment it chuntered into our lives and hypnotised everyone in earshot – even Ferrari’s mechanics – one car has stolen the show this year. And we hope you understand this controversial call.

Because the Kimera EVO37 is not a new car. It’s descended, very distantly, from the late 1970s. Therefore it is small and light. It has thin pillars and no airbag. It does not have to comply with any of the brutal crash tests or emissions exams which dictate how the other four are built and operate. Though it’s essentially brand new from camera equipped ducktail to slightly tarty LED headlamp, the law considers it a venerable antique. And into that loophole, Kimera’s scored a hole in one.

And we aren’t aghast to find it doesn’t connect to our phone, or helpfully chirp when parking, or even keep us cool. This gives it an enormous unfair advantage over the children of the system in 2025. Which let’s face it, is making driving more stupefyingly irritable by the month.

We thought the Kimera might break down. It was bulletproof. We worried it might be form over function, retro style over substance. But it’s mesmerising to drive – physical, refreshing, nostalgic, and the reset we all crave. The Revuelto is the very best of what a cutting edge fast car can be... and yet, the industry has more to learn from the EVO37 than anything else present.

Cars simply cannot go on getting bigger, heavier, more powerful and more technologically advanced yet remain tactile and rewarding to drive. Thrilling yes, but this satisfying? Not for us.

And though – like all restomods – it’s flipping expensive, this reborn Lancia is no pricier than this particular Lambo. We literally sweated it. We grimaced and argued and agonised. And then we decided, unanimously, that the sensational Kimera EVO37 is Top Gear's 2025 Performance Car of the Year.

Performance Car of the Year 2025 winner: Kimera EVO37