Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Evo

A LAMBORGHINI SHARING TRACK space with a Range Rover – a pairing you probably never thought you’d see in the pages of evo. Perhaps a pairing you never thought you should see in the pages of evo. But the performance car landscape started to shift some years ago, and today the differentiation in what lies beneath disparate body styles is narrower than ever. The rise of the all-wheel-drive performance car in particular has broadened the scope of what’s possible with any type of car, to the extent that literally nothing is off the table when it comes to building these vehicles. You want a mid-engined, 1000bhp supercar to handle like an Elise? No problem. Rear-wheel steering, torque vectoring on the front axle and the capability to send power and torque…

AS YOU START READING THIS REVIEW of Audi’s new, £99,300, S6 Avant e-tron (and no, that price isn’t a typo), bear in mind that its name might well have changed before you reach the end. It’s fair to say Audi is currently having a bit of an internal argument with itself over how it names its cars. After first switching from traditional engine-capacity-based naming conventions to meaningless 35, 45 and 55 tags, Audi went a step further with the introduction of its e-tron electric range and declared that its battery-powered models would have an even-numbered name – A4, A6, Q4, Q6, etc – and those with an internal combustion engine would use an odd number – A5, A7, etc, etc. However, after Audi’s marketing folk had it pointed out to…

THE STORY OF HENNESSEY PERFORMANCE IS steeped in speed. It started with founder John Hennessey’s early forays to Pikes Peak, Bonneville Speed Week and the Silver State Challenge in his self-built Mitsubishi 3000GT, quickly progressing to tuned Dodge Vipers that punched through the 200mph barrier and established the Hennessey brand as a force to be reckoned with. Since then, a succession of outrageously powerful cars, trucks and SUVs has reinforced Hennessey’s position as one of America’s largest and most enduring tuning companies. As a brand synonymous with tyres-moking, ultra-boosted muscle cars with names like Marvel characters – The Exorcist, VelociRaptor, Super Venom – Hennessey’s portfolio embodies a gung-ho, more-is-more ethos that’s unashamedly American and very hard to resist. But there’s another side to Hennessey. One that has gone beyond tuning…

AN ALFA ROMEO STELVIO QUADRIFOGLIO IS ON the evo fleet again. We last ran one back in 2019 and it left a lasting impression: ferociously quick, full of character, and just a little bit unhinged. Six years on, I’m keen to see if the latest version still possesses that same mix of pace and personality. At a glance, the 2024-model-year Stelvio Quadrifoglio doesn’t look dramatically different from the original, and that’s no bad thing. Alfa has kept the same classic-style five-hole 20-inch wheels and made only subtle tweaks to the rest of the exterior: adaptive full-LED headlights with an updated DRL graphic give it a fresher face, but otherwise it’s still the same aggressive, purposeful-looking SUV. Under the bonnet, the 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 remains, now pushing out 513bhp – up…

THUMP. IT TOOK ME A MOMENT TO realise what had happened. I was just pulling away onto a roundabout after waiting for traffic to clear when I suddenly felt a hefty clout at the back of the Boxster; I’d been hit by a car behind. The other driver was very apologetic: they’d been looking to the right to check the roundabout was clear, kept up momentum, and didn’t look ahead to see me until it was too late. Apart from a nasty hole punched in the rear bumper, the Porsche was perfectly driveable, and apart from a damaged front bumper, so was the other driver’s SUV. I took down their details, we went our separate ways and I drove the Boxster carefully home in case there was any unseen damage.…

IT’S A WELL TOLD STORY, BUT NOT WITHOUT GOOD reason. Before the Audi quattro, four-wheel drive was for farmers. After it, to turn up to a rally without four driven wheels was to admit defeat even before the flag had fallen to commence the opening stage. When Audi introduced the quattro for the first round of the 1981 World Rally Championship, at the Monte Carlo rally no less, it not only began a new era for itself as a company, but also for the world of performance cars and the sport of rallying. A four-wheel-drive Audi road car was originally proposed by engineer Jörg Bensinger in the late 1970s, during development of the Iltis military vehicle for Volkswagen. The idea was enthusiastically championed by newly appointed Audi boss Ferdinand Piëch as…

AS THE NEW MILLENNIUM DAWNED, AUDI SPORT embarked upon its next challenge. It had achieved unprecedented success in a variety of motorsport disciplines, but now the biggest prize of all beckoned: the Le Mans 24 Hours. And once again, transferring technology from the track to the road was at the epicentre of its objectives. As has been the case with many legendary racing cars, the R8 project had a challenging birth that masked the true potential that lay beneath the surface. The original R8R made its 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in 1999 powered by an all-new twin-turbo 3.6-litre V8. It was Audi’s first purpose-built racing engine since the 1930s and its centrepiece was its use of direct fuel injection technology. The R8Rs finished third and fourth, yet this was…

IT SEEMS ABSURD, DOESN’T IT? HOW could anyone possibly make the 992 GT3 RS more track-capable or endow it with a meaningful increase in downforce? Moreover, who would be crazy enough to attempt it? The answer to both those questions lies in understanding this car’s creator, Manthey Racing. Something of a cult amongst fans of hardcore Porsches, Manthey is based in Meuspath, just a stone’s throw from the Nordschleife’s Döttinger Höhe straight. The team’s record in the N24 is the stuff of legend, its seven victories (all achieved with Porsche 911s) matched only by its arch rival, Audi-supported Phoenix Racing, who scored a seventh victory for the R8 LMS last year. Established in 1996 by successful Carrera Cup, DTM and VLN racer Olaf Manthey, the team rapidly forged a formidable…

THE SHADOWY CAR UNDER COVER ON the left is a modern reimagining of the Ford RS200, the mid-engined Group B rally car of the 1980s. The gleaming green Escort Mk1 RS on the right is a reinterpretation of the 1960s original, engineered and manufactured to 2025 standards. Just don’t call it a restomod. Its creators, Boreham Motorworks, describe it as a ‘continumod’. Officially licensed by the Ford Motor Company, each from-scratch new-build RS will have a continuation Escort chassis number. The new cars are built to the dimensions of a ’60s race-spec Escort RS but will possess a far more rigid structure, be produced to the standards and tolerances of a modern-day mainstream manufacturer, and be homologated for small-series production. That differentiates the Boreham Escort from cars such as the…

THE FACE OF ALL-WHEEL-DRIVE PERFORMANCE has changed. No longer employed purely as a mechanical means of sharing the division of labour between front and rear axles, the single-minded pursuit of raw traction has been transcended by a more nuanced objective. Pragmatism still plays a part, as today’s all-wheel-drive systems are charged with taming the ever-increasing power and torque outputs of immensely potent ICE, hybrid and EV powertrains. But now they also play a pivotal role in actively shaping handling behaviour and broadening dynamic bandwidth. Highly configurable driving modes employing sophisticated electronic control systems mean a dizzying degree of adjustability is now at our fingertips. Torque vectoring is commonplace, and when this is combined with the equally powerful effects of rear-wheel steering it delivers a level of rotational energy and steering…

ARRIVING AT HENNESSEY’S HQ, YOU’RE STRUCK BY the sheer size of the campus. Comprising 142 acres of land, 5000 square metres of buildings, a drag strip, a small network of perimeter roads and endless parking, it’s like a ranch for horsepower. The sheer quantity of vehicles parked around the place is mind-boggling. Whether awaiting transformation or ready for collection, everywhere you look there’s a Mustang Dark Horse, Challenger Hellcat, Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing or Camaro ZL1. And then there are the Raptors and Rams that tower over everything. If you love muscle cars and super-trucks, this place is off the scale. Somewhat hilariously, pretty much everything appears to have been tuned to 1000bhp. Then again, if you’re bringing your car to a place that’s also in the business of building halo…

IT’S In more ways STILL QUICK. TRULY, BREATHTAKINGLY quick. With turbo-spooled fire in its belly and a semi-active-suspension magic carpet beneath its body, the McLaren MP4-12C doesn’t so much drive down the road as teleport from one bit of it to the next. We’re on a slightly dilapidated ribbon of B-road loosely draped over some of the steeper bits of the Peak District. I’ve driven this road at various times in various cars, but in the McLaren it’s as though all the straights have been taken out. I suppose 616bhp and a sub nine-second 0-120mph time will do that. It’s also like driving it with most of the bumps taken out. The 12C’s innovative suspension smooths the ripples and corrugations, yet also steadfastly resists body roll. It’s a pretty singular…

CONNECTIVITY. IT’S A WORD THAT has been the mainstay of a car manufacturer’s lexicon for coming on for two decades and I’m still not convinced some have got the hang of it. The RS6, for example, seemingly suffers at the hands of the Volkswagen Group’s HMI gremlins that cost at least one CEO his job. The electronic architecture in the C8-generation RS6 isn’t the latest, the model being launched during the time of Audi’s laser-focused development of the electric e-tron family in readiness for world domination. So it’s a little more last decade than tomorrow’s world and in the main it’s so much better for it. Buttons are rare but the touchscreens don’t require endless swiping to reach your final destination; the secondary screen positioned at the end of the…

I POP OPEN THE BOOT AND PAUSE FOR a moment. Odd – there’s no sign of the usual stash of microfibre towels, bottles of Autoglym, hairspray, step ladders or photography gear. Stranger still, the empty Costa coffee cup that always seems to live in the drinks holder is nowhere to be found either. Then it hits me: for the first time in some time, Aston Parrott, our talented photographer, is not running a Fast Fleet Skoda. This one, our new, facelifted Mk4 Octavia vRS, is mine. And you won’t hear me complaining about that. Back in the early days of my evo tenure, I had the pleasure of running a Kodiaq vRS, and it was a car that I admired and enjoyed greatly. The same goes for the early Mk4 Octavia…

DURING THE ELISE’S RECENT SERVICE AT Analogue Automotive some corrosion was spotted on the exhaust downpipe where it connects to the flexi section, to the point where bits were flaking off and it probably wouldn’t be attached to the car for much longer. OE-spec replacements are readily available, but I decided to go a bit further than that. It seemed the perfect opportunity to unlock some extra performance and a sweeter noise from the K-series motor, so after falling down a bit of a rabbit hole I settled on a complete new system from Janspeed. That means astainless-steel4-2-1 manifold, link pipe, sports cat and back box. The combined cost of the parts was £2426, with fitting another £350, but they’ve livened up the car no end. In addition to its…

JUST AS BRITAIN BEGINS TO WARM UP, I find myself on a frozen lake in Swedish Lapland. It could be worse though, as it’s unseasonably warm at a balmy -9 degrees Celsius and there’s a prototype of an all-new Alpine defrosting beneath its camouflage. The car in question is not a featherweight, low-slung coupe, but a ‘sport fastback’ – or a crossover to you and me. Named the A390, it will join the A290 hot hatch in the marque’s EV line-up and will also, for a while at least, plug Alpine’s flagship gap when the A110 goes off sale next year. The A390 was first previewed last year in concept form and is now just a few months from a market launch that will, with no little significance, fall on…

ROOF ON, SIDESCREENS OFF. THE MOUNTAIN AIR spilling into the cabin is bitingly cold but the air flowing through the vents in the dash is toasty and the heated seats are on. The tarmac is dry but blankets of fresh snow border the road. A storm is brewing on the horizon, coal-black clouds rolling in, but the sunlight reflected from the snow is so bright I’m squinting even through my sunglasses. It’s a setting of contrasts and a car of contrasts too. We’re a couple of hours north of Barcelona in the Morgan Supersport. It’s a new flagship for the 116-year-old company, indirectly replacing the Plus Six, which ended production in March. In positioning, it sits somewhere between the Plus Six and the previous Aero 8. In style, it’s one…

PLUNGING BACK TO EARTH AFTER A 50-MILE-HIGH foray into the outer fringes of the atmosphere, the Falcon 9 booster reappears in the skies above Cape Canaveral like a huge lawn dart. A squirt of flame shoots from its base to arrest the hypersonic rate of descent. Straightening and slowing, it settles onto Landing Zone 1, the surreal scene played out in eerie silence. At first it seems the promised sonic boom has failed to materialise, but then two sharp cracks cleave the silence: the final mic-drop moment in a jaw-dropping demonstration of visionary engineering. We’re standing atop the control tower at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. It makes a great – if distant – viewing platform for SpaceX’s latest launch, but we’re not here to watch Elon’s brilliant…

WHO MAKES THE BEST HOT HATCHBACK on sale? Spoiler: it isn’t Volkswagen or Cupra. Rather, the likes of the Honda Civic Type R, Audi RS3 and Toyota GR Yaris are at the apex of hot hatch engineering and driving thrills right now, redefining what can be extracted from humble underpinnings. But they also come with some major caveats. At £50k the Honda is out of reach for most traditional hot hatch buyers, and the RS3 creeps into a space occupied by full-blown sports cars with its £60k asking price. And the Yaris? Good luck ordering a new one. Even if you can, you’ll be handing over £44,250 for a three-door supermini that’s somewhat limited for daily tasks. So what about the best archetypal hot hatch? One that sticks to the…

THE SUN WAS SHINING, THE ROADS were dry and, for once, I had a free weekend. It was the perfect excuse to wake the 993 from hibernation and give it a proper run. My destination? Caffeine & Machine’s The Bowl in Bedfordshire, which was hosting a supercar meet. But honestly, half the fun was just getting back behind the wheel. Sliding into the driver’s seat, turning the key and hearing the air-cooled flat-six fire into life, it never gets old. The 993 isn’t the fastest car by today’s standards, but with 317bhp and 275lb ft of torque, it’s more than enough to keep you entertained. Especially as this is a car that demands involvement: every throttle input, every steering adjustment, every gearchange is a reminder of just how satisfying real…

IT’S A SIMPLE QUESTION TO BREAK THE ICE, BUT ALWAYS an effective one to see whether a car company ‘big cheese’ can elucidate what their cars really stand for: ‘Just exactly what makes an Audi RS an Audi RS, Herr Bamberger?’ Steffen Bamberger, Head of Technical Development and Project Management at Audi Sport GmbH, does not hesitate in his reply: ‘It’s not such a big secret. For sure, it’s the exterior design; you have to see the difference. Then, when you open the door, you have to see at once that it’s an Audi RS: the steering wheel, the seats, the materials, the way the stitchings are formed in the car. ‘The next step is starting the engine – the starting process, even with an EV. Then the acceleration, how…

IF AUDI SPORT’S EARLY REPUTATION WAS FORGED IN THE fire of international rallying, by the late 1980s it began to broaden its horizons. When the Group B rally formula was suddenly banned in 1986 after a spate of tragic accidents, the quattro S1 E2s fell silent for the last time and a new challenge beckoned. But where? The answer lay across the Atlantic. Not that Audi was going to simply throw aside the astonishing developments that had delivered so much success on the world’s rally stages; its new challenger was the 200 quattro Trans-Am developed for the 1988 Trans Am series. series. Utilising the powerful turbocharged five-cylinder engine mated to a quattro four-wheel-drive system, thisthis now familiar recipe created a sensation, capturing the championship and in the process helping to establish…

T’S AN ODD FEELING, KNOWING YOUR FINAL destination for the day is some 200 miles to the left, yet at a fork in the road you turn right instead. Tonight we’re due at a hotel nestled in the foothills of the Kaunertal Glacier in Austria, but for now, I must point the RS e-tron GT’s sleek, restyled nose northwards from Heilbronn – a medium-sized city to the north of Stuttgart in Germany – to quite literally the place of its birth. This right-hand-drive example, built just weeks before our trip, must never have expected to see the glazed frontage of Audi Sport’s Böllinger Höfe base so soon if ever again. Yet here we are, before the availability of breakfast, leaving our hotel’s car park and setting the nav for the home…