Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i Evo

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT IS MY sad duty to inform you that Alpine has confirmed that the A110 has entered its final year of production. A direct replacement won’t be forthcoming. The A110 has been a remarkable achievement. Not only for how it drives, although this is something we have praised highly and at every opportunity since our first time behind its wheel, back when it was still in development (and as we said at the time, still requiring quite a bit more development). Indeed, it was at this stage we got our first inkling of just how seriously Alpine was taking the project. Traditionally, early access to an as-yet-unlaunched car is for context rather than to provide genuine feedback for the engineering team to act upon. Not so with…

NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS BELOW 3000rpm. There’s a mild surge forwards and a hollow blare from the exhaust, but it’s all very manageable. Then at 3750rpm it sounds like something’s punched a hole in the intake. The blare hardens into a harsh, metallic snarl, the power builds and the rev needle sweeps around in a frenzy, shooting into the red paint and past the last number on the tacho, where it really shouldn’t be. Your surroundings tell you you’re in an MX-5, but no normal MX-5 feels this intense, frantic and just plain exciting. That’s because this MX-5 is a PL R300, built by Gloucester-based specialists Performance Link. As the hunger for revs might suggest, it’s been fitted with a VTEC Honda K-series motor as part of an in-house, drive-in conversion…

RIGHT NOW, I’M A PASSENGER IN THE GT2 Stradale. Not in the ‘I’ve hit a patch of ice, wound on the opposite lock and now might as well be holding a flag and a spatula for all the control I’ve got’ sense. Thankfully. Just a normal passenger. It’s not a situation I find myself in very often these days, but Maserati’s launch programme dictates a sharing of cars for the journey from Marbella to the Ascari Race Resort, so I’ve hopped into the right-hand seat and it’s bringing the memories flooding back. When I joined evo 20 years ago, bright-eyed and even skinnier, I spent hour upon hour as a sack of spuds, watching the timing gear while lapping Bedford’s West Circuit or ploughing a furrow up and down the…

‘GET THE TAIL MOVING, THEN PICK UP THE POWER AS YOU WOULD IN A REAR–DRIVE CAR’ THE ROADS OF SNOWDONIA PAINT A DETAILED PICTURE of our trio’s relative characters and capabilities, but the speed and wide open space of the Ty Croes circuit afford us the freedom to push hard enough to explore the outer limits of their performance and handling. We’re not taking lap times to find a finishing order. There’s little point when the most potent car has a 50 per cent horsepower advantage over the least powerful. Instead we want to discover whether their most aggressive, least restrictive dynamic modes unlock an extra level of ability and enjoyment. Oh, and have some fun on the way. If you’ve just read Yousuf’s account of how we got on…

WE ARE NO STRANGERS TO RUNNING RS6s ON the evo Fast Fleet, this 2025-model Performance Carbon Vorsprung edition being our fifth and, yes, my second. Sadly it will also be the last of its type before Audi’s halo fast estate gets turned on its head. For when this C8 generation is retired, its V8-only powertrain will be too. This would, had Audi’s plan gone to, er, plan, have meant the end of the RS6 as we have known it, as in its place would have been an electric model based on the new A6 e-tron. And then it all changed again, as out went Audi’s latest naming strategy that was meant to see even-numbered models powered by a battery and however many electric motors were deemed necessary, and the odd-numbered…

‘IT LIKES A DRINK,’ SAID ED-IN-CHIEF Gallagher as he handed me the key to the Defender just before Christmas. A few weeks later I’m beginning to understand what he meant, regular £115 hammerings of my credit card highlighting the reality of running a V8-engined barn-door-shaped SUV as your daily driver. Short journeys see 16mpg if you’re lucky, with 20-21 on middling trips. Anything over 22 is basically hypermiling. Despite the regular forecourt trauma, the Defender 90 V8 is one of those gloriously unnecessary models that’s hard to justify but impossible to resist. First impressions are of a car that shamelessly taps into childhood Tonka Toy nostalgia thanks to satisfyingly stubby styling and the way it sits high on its 22-inch rims. It’s also stealthy, a pair of small V8 badges…

IF YOU’VE EVER WONDERED ABOUT THE origin ofevo’s dislike for the Mitsubishi 3000GT, the car which prompted the best line I’ve ever read in a car magazine, ‘A lot of awful car for the money’ (credit: P Tomalin), let me take you back to the early ’90s. This was a fertile time for coupes. Indeed, there were so many, we at Performance Car magazine decided a group test was needed to find the very best that £30k-50k would buy. The contenders were the Lotus Esprit Turbo and Venturi 260, Alpine A610 and Porsche 968, and no less than four from Japan: Nissan 300ZX, Mazda RX-7, Subaru SVX and the 3000GT. We drove them to Wales and back again and then took them to Millbrook to performance test them. Very early…

WE’RE NOT USUALLY STOKED FOR convertible versions of supercars, chiefly because they’re generally heavier and less stiff but also because travelling at high speeds in open-top cars is often plain uncomfortable. However, the Spider version of Ferrari’s 12 Cilindri might just be the one to have. If you’ve followed coverage of the berlinetta 12 Cilindri, you probably know why. Ferrari worked hard to bring the model to market without hybridisation, keeping all 819bhp of the naturally aspirated, 6.5-litre V12 intact while being fully compliant with global emission and noise regulations. A laudable achievement. Yet despite being named in celebration of its wonderful engine, the result is a bit Roosevelt, that’s to say ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, because the closed 12 Cilindri doesn’t have much of a voice.…

‘WE HAD CUSTOMERS WHO DID SAFARI tours with us and said, “We want the coolest car possible for this, and we don’t care what it costs,”’ says Jan Kalmar, founder of Kalmar Automotive. ‘That’s how the 7-97 RS-R came about.’ The cost is indeed quite a lot – around half a million pounds – but having driven the RS-R on an ice track in northern Finland, we can confirm that it delivers a lot of fun, too. Think the essential analogue driving dynamics of a classic 911 mixed with the huge roll angles and grin factor of an Ariel Nomad. Is there room for another Porsche restomod company to squeeze in next to the likes of Singer, Tuthill and Theon? Kalmar thinks so. The Danish firm was founded in 2018,…

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THE CORNER FALLS AWAY IN A CASCADING CORKSCREW; tyres go light, revs flare. Barber Motorsports Park is a rollercoaster. It’s Day Two of a sports car enduro at the undulating IndyCar-grade circuit running through Alabama woodland. I’m driving a Toyota, its mid-mounted engine singing at high revs, locked in a skirmish with a Porsche. I tuck into its slipstream as it slices past a backmarker. Toyota versus Porsche. It’s a classic endurance racing battle. Except that the Porsche is a 924 with a giant model fish attached to the roof. And the Mk3 MR2 I’m driving is currently running on 15 valves, with a piece of licence plate patching a hole in its engine. That backmarker is a Ford Edsel, flanked by a pickup truck, and we’re among more than…

AS MUCH AS I’D LOVE TO DRIVE THE Elise come rain, shine, slush or snow, when winter arrives I tend to tuck it up in the garage to keep the salt off it, and sort any niggles that I’m otherwise having too much fun to tackle. This year, I decided to treat it to a clean bill of health at Analogue Automotive, the Lotus wizards that produce the £150k Elise SuperSport restomod (see evo 311). It’s been a few years since I’ve had a specialist take care of the car, and who better to give it a once-over than the makers of the ultimate Elise? The sight of exquisite SuperSport builds, pristine bare Elise chassis and an F40 LM (yes, really) undergoing restoration in Analogue’s workshop was about as reassuring…

‘THE NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME’ sang Nappy Brown, as did Roosevelt Sykes and Big Bill Broonzy before him. I’m reasonably certain that none of these American blues singers were referring to the best hours during which to drive a sports car with the top down during a British winter, but they might as well have been. You see, while it’s perfectly possible, pleasant even, to drive our Z4 roofless in colder temperatures – heated steering wheel keeping your fingers toasty, heated seats doing the same for your posterior and torso, and the side glass and rear wind deflector fending off the worst of the chill air you’re cutting a path through – it’s hard not to imagine that those observing you travelling in this state might be thinking…

THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF MISTAKE. hat was my immediate reaction when the news hit that Audi wanted ‘their’ S8 back. We’d had the flagship model for a near-record 15 months, and after that much time in a test car it starts to feel like it’s yours… Surely, there must be a legal loophole to prevent this cruel repossession? Sadly, there isn’t. Our generous long-term loan had come to an end, much to the delight of the driver who came to reclaim the S8 from us. ‘Looking forward to this!’ he said excitedly. ‘You don’t see many of these around.’ And he was right – in all my time running KY73 OTZ, not once did I see another of its kind on the road. Then again, if I had…

BMW M HAS BEEN ON A ROLL IN RECENT YEARS. THE latest M2, M3/4 and M5 have all proven to be excellent driver’s cars despite increasing pressure on the segment, resulting in them becoming familiar sights on our roads. Should the M division’s creations be too common for your liking, however, Alpina has long offered a selection of more exclusive and curated alternatives. The latest to join the line-up is the B3 GT Touring, a model designed for those who can’t quite see themselves in BMW’s M3 Touring. It is also the last Alpina B3 before BMW assumes full control of the brand, which it acquired in 2022. On first impressions, the B3 GT is an entirely different proposition to the M3. Granted, it’s still a highly tuned 3-series estate,…

IT SEEMED ALMOST SACRILEGIOUS, BUT when it came to the Continental GT, we always preferred it with a V8. Bentley’s W12 engine was an icon and a class-leading powerhouse, but the V8’s plentiful outputs and significant weight saving made it the way to go if the driving experience was the main priority. The Flying Spur was a different matter, though. With low-down torque and refinement key, the W12 seemed a better fit for Bentley’s flagship saloon. But with that 12-cylinder now dead, an electrified V8 has taken its place, and this time fewer cylinders doesn’t mean a reduction in performance or a detrimental impact on the experience. The only significant visual difference between the outgoing W12 Flying Spur and this hybrid V8 version is the adoption of a new diamond-pattern…

THE RAIN HAS PETERED OUT AND SUDDENLY THE sun breaks through the clouds, painting the monochrome scenery with swathes of rich colour. Glassy patches of standing water still demand circumspection, but stroking the M4 Competition along these undulating roads, I can’t help thinking I’m in the right car. I might not be able to use all of the straight-six’s considerable power, but what I am confident enough to use should get to the road without much drama thanks to the xDrive four-wheel-drive system. The rear-drive M4 Competition that launched the G82 M4 range was discontinued just over a year ago when power was raised by another 20bhp to an even more substantial 523bhp and all models became four-wheel drive. The good news is that with xDrive the M4 is still…

‘THE BRUTALITY AND MUSCLE YOU’D EXPECT OF A FAST AUDI IS UNDERLINED WITH REAL EDGE’ DON’T WAIT UP FOR ME, I TEXT PHOTOGRAPHER Aston Parrott, who’s arrived at our overnight stay just in time to grab dinner. I’m in a lay-by somewhere near the foothills of Snowdonia, at least an hour from the hotel with no signs of civilisation, listening to the throbbing, idling pulse of the RS3’s five-pot. The last few miles have been intense, the Audi punching through the darkness and scrambling up the side of a mountain on this ragged, weather-beaten road. The inky black void over the edge suggests we’re now at quite a height. There’s an eery silence as I switch off the engine and climb out to grab a few grainy snaps on my…

IT’S JUNE 2000. AN ENORMOUS EVO contingent has descended on Anglesey to form a welcoming party for the brand new Renault Sport Clio 172. Once everyone’s arrived, there are 15 cars assembled in the pitlane. Fifteen! It’s a far cry from the current hot hatch market, where outside of 4WD, £50k+ megahatches there’s precious little choice. It makes a generation of Punto HGTs and Rover GTIs feel like ancient history. Maybe the new Alpine A290 is the brightest beacon of hope that we’ll soon have a return to rambunctious, right-sized form in one of our favourite corners of the market. Sure, it draws its power from the grid, but the Alpine team includes former Renault Sport engineers, while this Titanium Silver Clio was built at the Dieppe plant that now…

WE KNEW WE’D MISS THE GIULIA BEFORE it departed Fast Fleet, and miss it we do. This latest 2024-on version is a facelift of a facelift, the Quadrifoglio having now been around for more or less ten years. But it feels as magical as ever. More so, in fact, as it contrasts ever more sharply with the larger, more complex new cars around it in 2025. It has a new digital instrument panel but it’s a clear, understated design that informs rather than distracts; the Giulia’s medium-sized dimensions and kerb weight (1660kg, officially) feel ever more appropriate for our roads; and in a world where the vast majority of performance saloons have active all-wheel drive, it’s resolutely rear driven – and now with a mechanical limited-slip differential rather than the…

RATINGS += new entry this month. Cars in italics are no longer on sale. Issue no. is for our most recent major test of the car (D = Driven, F = feature). Engine shows details of the car’s combustion engine, or for BEVs the peak combined output of the electric motors in kW. Weight (claimed) is as quoted by the manufacturer, with a manual gearbox if offered. In most cases this figure is to DIN standards, i.e. with fluids, including a 90 per cent full fuel tank, but without a driver. However, where only a ‘dry’ weight is quoted (i.e. without any fluids) this is indicated by *. Note that a dry weight makes a car’s power-to-weight ratio (bhp/ton) appear more favourable. Weight (tested) is our measurement of a test…