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This month's Top Gear magazine features a true global odyssey. For the first time, we visit all seven continents in a single issue and take a relevant vehicle to each for an epic adventure. Quite an ambitious plan, you may think. And you'd be correct, but - for a change - it's definitely not rubbish.

We kick off the tour in the USA with an exclusive look at the new Fiesta ST. We take Ford's new hot hatch for a showdown with the Shelby Mustang GT500 on the best road in America to look at what it means to claim iconic status, and just how to manage brands in a globalised future.

In Asia, we visit the Maruti Suzuki factory in India where a car is (quite unbelievably) produced every 16 seconds. Read how Henry Ford's production-line techniques have been redefined to deliver some jaw-dropping statistics.

South America is fast emerging as a new economic world powerhouse, but with vast shanty towns overshadowed by gleaming skyscrapers, it's a land full of contradiction. The car industry is no exception, and VW still produces the original Fifties Kombi alongside modern hatches. Jason Barlow takes the new-but-old VW Camper across Rio to get a feel for a country that's set to be a big player in the automotive future.

We airlift Sam Phillip into the middle of the Namibian desert to drive the VW Amarok, a pickup that threatens to chip away at Toyota's dominance in emerging markets. To succeed in such a tough environment requires incredible reliability and longevity, so how will the Amarok fare? (More importantly, how will Sam cope in the 54-degree heat?)

Moving closer to home, Paul Horrell climbs aboard the stunning McLaren MP4-12C to find out why Europe is so good at supercars. He ventures to the South of France for supercar-driving heaven, followed swiftly by supercar hell in Monte Carlo traffic.

Going a bit further afield - well, actually about as far as you can go - we experience the Australian outback in a super ute, a big, bold pickup with bags of character and strongly loved by our friends from down under. We meet the most passionate of petrolheads and come face-to-face with a rather irate bull. This is definitely the outback...

Feeling very ambitious at this stage, we only had one continent left to complete all seven... Antarctica. Not famed for its accessibility, this wasn't going to be easy. Fortunately, a team of plucky Brits, led by the legendary Sir Ranulph Fiennes, spoke to us before undertaking the ‘World's Coldest Journey' with two big yellow Caterpillar bulldozers. Job done.

And with that, our ambitious, but not rubbish, mission is complete.

Read all this and much more, only in the March issue of Top Gear magazine - out now!

Also this month...

Global Superpowers

We investigate how supercar manufacturers are popping up all over the globe promising us the next Veyron for half the price. Well, not all of them. Take W Motors, for example, the new Middle Eastern outfit offering us the Lykan Hypersport at twice the price of a Veyron. Yes, that's £2.2m. Might need a few more months to save, then...

Clarkson, Hammond and May

This month, Jeremy takes us through the importance - or not - of road signs, Richard tells us never to assume what our eyes tell us is true, and James discusses bringing back Victorian forward-thinking to car design.

Suzi Perry's Guide to F1

The new face of BBC's GP coverage talks Lewis, Fernando, Eddie and why 2013 will be a cracker. We also give you the Top Gear F1 ‘Predictionator', our guide to what will happen this season, probably...

Hammond Drives the Icons

Supercar styling inside and out, pop-up headlights, ruched leather - Hammond drives the simply gorgeous Lotus Esprit Essex.

The Hottest Reviews

In addition, we still found the time to review some of the best new cars on the market, including the Porsche Cayman S, Mazda6, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, Citroen DS3 Cabriolet, Skoda Octavia, Peugeot RCZ, Nissan Juke Nismo, BMW 320iX and many more...

Get all this only in the new issue of Top Gear magazine - in stores and on iPad now.