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Everything you need to know about cars this week: 25 Jul '21
A new five-cylinder hot hatch, plus Musk's plans to open up Tesla's Superchargers
F1 ace Adrian Newey would love to do another road car
“Red Bull’s Adrian Newey has told TopGear.com that he’d be excited to design and build another road car, now that his work on the Aston Martin Valkyrie is ending.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowReview: Hyundai Bayon
“Manages to be pretty good at everything without being exceptional at anything, but it’ll be a doddle to live with.”
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Official: this is the brand new 395bhp Audi RS3
“Welcome then, to the third stanza in Audi’s ongoing love-affair with its multi-award-winning 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine, and the car that's wrapped around it. The new RS3 is now the only hot hatch to have more than four cylinders, and when at full song, all five kick out 395bhp and 369lb ft of torque. The former exactly the same as before, the latter a mild increase. Still, it’s three-tenths quicker in that benchmark sprint than the outgoing RS3.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowSir Lewis Hamilton has been racially abused after winning his eighth British Grand Prix
"Not for the first time this summer, a black British sports star has been the subject of racist abuse on social media. Sir Lewis Hamilton was targeted online both during and after the 2021 British Grand Prix, which was watched by a crowd of over 140,000 spectators at the Silverstone circuit.”
This company will convert your 2CV into an EV
"Wiltshire based company The 2CV Shop is now offering – you guessed it – electric conversions for classic Citroen 2CVs.”
Behold: the facelifted Porsche Macan
"The entry-level Macan uses a newly-developed 2.0-litre petrol engine with 261bhp – it manages 0-62mph in 6.2 seconds and has a top speed of 144mph. The Macan S and GTS use the same twin-turbo 2.9-litre V6 with 375 and 434bhp respectively. That makes the incoming Macan S as powerful as the outgoing Macan GTS, and the new GTS as powerful as the old Turbo.”
Review: Toyota Yaris Cross
"The Yaris Cross doesn’t have the interior flair of rivals, but the exterior is bold and different without being divisive, and the hybrid set-up offers an economical alternative for those who don’t have the budget or the stomach to go fully electric just yet.”
Advertisement - Page continues belowNovitec has slightly modified this Ferrari SF90 to 1,019bhp
"Normally a tuner like Novitec would, before fitting any new parts, have a play with the ECU. But we suspect the SF90’s brain is more complicated than most cars’, so for now the extra 33bhp and 43lb ft comes solely from a new exhaust.”
Bugatti has fully restored the first Veyron Grand Sport
"The prototype itself dates back to 2008 and its reveal at Pebble Beach; a ‘white silver’ metallic Veyron with a ‘Cognac’ leather interior. Bugatti internally named this Veyron ‘Grand Sport 2.1’, and the unregistered demo car was paraded all over the world. (Remember, Bugatti only built 150 of the things).”
Advertisement - Page continues belowLand Rover Defender V8 review: supercharged 4x4 tested
"The new Defender’s Programme Director Stuart Frith recently told TG that a V8 wasn’t even in the product plan when the project began eight years ago. The team with the unenviable (but at the same time impossibly exciting) task of reinventing Land Rover’s iconic 4x4 did build a couple of mules early on, though, and in the end it was just too good an opportunity to miss.”
MG5 Long Range review: um, longer-range electric MG driven
"Now, we at Top Gear do love an estate. The 5 is actually the only full-electric estate before you get to the Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo. That's three times the price for the same range.”
TG’s 350th issue out now: grab a special triple-mag Summer Edition
"September 1993. Meatloaf is doing anything for love and X-Files is introducing binge-watching as a concept. A new car magazine also appears on shelves with a leather-clad Clarkson on the cover, a hard-earned photo of every new car on sale, together, and the promise of a MASSIVE FREE POSTER inside. Well, some things just don’t get old, do they?"
Official: Britain makes more fast, weird and clever cars than anywhere on Earth
"Forgive us for getting just a tad patriotic here, what-what, but Britain is a world-leader in the global car industry again. That is, if you’re in the market for 200mph+ supercars, wheelchair-friendly taxis, camper-vans and hearses. Jolly good show.”
Elon Musk says all EVs will be allowed to use Tesla’s Supercharger network (soon)
"This is potentially big news for Planet EV, because Superchargers are some of the most common, recognisable and - in TG’s experience using them all over the world but particularly in the UK - reliable charging hubs around.”
Kia has magicked* some more range from the funky new EV6
"What’s especially noteworthy here is this is an electric car (and a Kia at that) you might not buy purely because of sensible things like range or warranty or how big the boot is. Just look at it. This is from the people that used to give us the Rio, and thought being wacky was ‘putting an apostrophe in a reasonably priced hatchback’s name'. How times have changed."
Feast your eyes upon this $10,000,000 Mercedes-Benz AMG CLK GTR
"This is less a news story about an extraordinarily rare Mercedes-Benz coming up for auction, and more a chance to just flat out gawp at an extraordinary Mercedes-Benz. It’s the CLK GTR Strassenversion, estimated to sell for many, many [cue Dr Evil voice] millions.”
Gaming: Los Santos Tuners brings car meets to GTA Online
"Spending $50k of in-game money buys you membership to the LS Car Meet 'club', with a new social area under a building in the Cypress Flats area of the map, where you can hang out without fear of precision airstrike, and a test track for drifting and drag racing in peace.”
Mercedes is working on a ‘Vision EQXX’ electric special with a 1,000km range
"That’s 620 miles – enough to drive from Paris to Monte Carlo on a single charge. Or, if you prefer neon and cabaret to champagne and caviar, a trip from San Francisco to Vegas, without the ‘please recharge’ warning ever blinking on.”
Review: Ford S-Max
"If you have a big family and aren't dead-set on a crossover, go look at an S-Max. Not glam, but good to drive and hugely practical.”
Red Bull’s Newey reveals the hardest parts of designing the Aston Valkryie
"Adrian Newey – storied F1 designer who won championships with three F1 teams, fond of an old Lotus – doesn’t have a particularly ‘favourite’ detail on the 1,160bhp Aston Martin Valkyrie, the car he helped design.”
Gordon Murray's next supercar will be a more accessible V12
"Would you – like us – love a Gordon Murray V12 supercar but don't have a slot on the T50 waiting list or the £3m to fund it? We bring glad tidings. Murray has told us a bit about his next project. It will be more accessible. Well, a bit.”
