Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2025 i Evo

NEW CARS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE. Or so we’re told. But are they really more expensive today than a few decades ago? The direct on-paper comparison confirms that yes, they are. The Porsche 911 Carrera in our 1990s evo Eras test this month cost £64,800 when new in 1998, while today the 911 Carrera buy-in starts at £103,700. However, adjust that 1998 figure for inflation and you discover that a quarter of a century or so ago, new 996 owners paid the equivalent of £124,000 today for a car with less power, poorer efficiency and far more basic technology. If any. Adjust the Clio 16V’s 1991 £12,725 list price to 2025 prices and you reach £28,750, or £4515 less than today’s Mini Cooper JCW. A £133-a-year increase over 34 years doesn’t…

THE NEW RENAULT 5 HAS TAKEN THE automotive world by storm, proving that retro-inspired revivals can be more than just a marketing exercise when properly executed. Despite its humble underpinnings, the electric 5 has even proven a hit with enthusiasts thanks to the strong dynamics that back up its nostalgic looks and everyday usability. Now Renault hopes to keep the ball rolling by bringing back another model from its past, the 4, which is returning after a three-decade hiatus. The original Renault 5 may have been an archetypal hatch, but the 4 that preceded it was the world’s first mass-produced hatchback when it was launched in 1961. This new version is more of a crossover, marginally larger than the new 5, but it’s based on the same AmpR Small platform…

MAKING IT IN THE RESTOMOD BUSINESS isn’t as easy as some may think. Everyone has had the same bright idea of rebuilding and upgrading a classic, usually a Porsche 911, and charging some ungodly sum of money for it. But, somehow, Jan Kalmar has found himself a space to squeeze into, and Kalmar Automotive is gathering steam and getting more ambitious by the day. What began in 2018 as a company offering fettled, restored 964s is now on the brink of launching a hypercar, to sit next to a range of extensively re-engineered 911 road and safari cars, some costing upwards of half a million pounds. Speaking to Kalmar, you begin to understand why his world moves at such pace. He’s as far from a polished, PR-trained company boss as…

THE WELSH FARMER IS NONE TOO IMPRESSED with our group of 1990s icons. Reckons we’re always up here causing a nuisance, driving like idiots and making too much bloody noise. John Barker is patiently explaining that we’re not the usual boy racers – ‘Look at that chap in the TVR – he’s practically a pensioner!’ – at which point I realise he’s talking about me. None taken, I’m sure. ‘We’re just taking some photos for a magazine article,’ JB continues, but our purple-faced countryman is having none of it. ‘You can take your camera and you can stick it right up your…’ Ruuuoooaaaarghhh! His last words are drowned out by the returning F355. Boy, is that one loud car. He may have a point. My right hand hovers over the…

‘FOUR STUDS CONNECT THE V12 TO THE TUB. YOU’RE EFFECTIVELY WEARING IT AS A BACKPACK’ THE ASTON MARTIN FORMULA 1 TEAM’S HQ CAMPUS, completed in 2024 at a cost somewhere around £200m, is as clean, shiny and imposing as you’d expect. Lots of metal, lots of glass, reflecting the blue sky and hiding the secrets within. Somewhere in there is Adrian Newey’s famous drawing board, no doubt already witnessing details of 2026’s Aston Martin F1 challenger. We’re here not to drive Lance or Fernando’s Grand Prix machines but the closest thing to a road-going Aston F1 car. One that also took shape in hand-drawn sketches by Newey: the Valkyrie. It’s an almost mythical creation; an Icarus car with a design so pure and demanding in focus and ambition that it…

HYBRID, HUMUNGOUS AND HEINOUSLY HEAVY, the G99 M5 Touring and its G90 saloon sibling have not exactly been welcomed with fully open arms. But the latest M5 is far from the first M product to spark controversy upon its launch: there have been the SUVs, and those first few M cars with turbocharged engines, and the models with M badges that aren’t really full-blown M machines, and the current M3/M4 with its contentious size/weight/face. Yet while all of these raised an eyebrow or two on first acquaintance, we soon got used to and accepted them all. Except maybe the XM. So the new M5 might simply be the next in that line. Give it a few months and we’ll barely think twice about all the things that appear to be…

STANDING TRACKSIDE AT SPA, WATCHING Pagani’s spectacular new Huayra R Evo Roadster scream headlong towards the legendary swoop through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, I’m reminded of Enzo Ferrari’s famous quote about his customers only paying for the V12 engine and getting the rest of the car for free. From where I’m standing, Horacio Pagani has gone one better, the Roadster’s unsilenced shriek alone worth every penny of the near £4million asking price. It’s all-consuming; the quality, clarity and sheer volume of the Huayra’s operatic exhaust note triggering a kind of euphoria. Stand here long enough and you will surely get drunk on decibels. In a few short hours it’ll be me strapped into the long-tailed Huayra accelerating towards F1’s most evocative sequence of corners. To be completely honest it’s a…

WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE, THEN? A PAIR OF TWIN TESTS or a four-car group test? Perhaps confusingly it’s both. It used to be that 600bhp-plus and 200mph was the exclusive preserve of God-tier exotics. But thanks to relentless engineering advances, the advent of hybrid powertrains hybrid and the top-heavy nature of the high-performance luxury car market, all that has changed. So, in a change from the more predictable apples-to-apples comparison test, we’ve picked an eclectic quartet of stellar GT, sports and supercars. One that defies conventional comparisons but – we think – is more intriguing for it. Which one is your money on? In the broadest sense, all four can be described as mid-engined, the Aston and AMG tucking their their biturbo V8 petrol mounting their twin-turbo V6s just…

THIS MONTH I HAD THE CHANCE to experience the Stelvio on some truly spectacular driving roads in Scotland. The routes were quiet and open, with a perfect mix of corners, lots of dramatic, scenic straights, plenty of dips and crests, and a variety of surfaces to add to the challenge. I was over the border shooting last month’s GT group test, and with the sun shining and plenty of distance to cover between locations, it was the perfect opportunity to secure and strap down my photographic gear, ladder, jet wash, cleaning supplies and kitchen sink and tag along with the group. It turned out to be some of the most fun I’ve had behind the wheel of the Alfa since taking it on. The more you push the Stelvio, the…

IT’S FUNNY THE CARS THAT ATTRACT attention. Especially from the people around you. As you can imagine, Meaden Towers tends to have some wild and wonderful kit parked in the yard. The neighbours have become a bit blasé, but every now and again a few will stop to pass comment. Ferraris and Aston Martins tend to get the most admiration, with bewinged RS 911s hot on their heels. So imagine my surprise when neighbours commented on the Duster. Yes, a few of those were asking who I’d upset at evo (a more pertinent question to ask would be who haven’t I upset), but bants aside there seems to be genuine curiosity about the Duster as a car and Dacia as a brand. Part of that is undoubtedly the famed affordability,…

THERE ARE FEW THINGS MORE satisfying in this job than setting up a twin or group test where you have absolutely no inkling which car will win. When we decided to get our Audi RS6 Avant Performance together with Alpina’s B3 GT Touring this month, that’s exactly the situation we found ourselves in. Both are big-horsepower, four-wheel-drive estates, both are highly rated by evo, but the outcome would be anyone’s guess. I was looking forward to this test for another reason, too. It’s been half a decade since the launch of the C8-generation RS6, but this would be the first time I’d spent any time behind the wheel of one. In fact, this would be the first time I’d driven an RS6 of any kind, as I’ve also never experienced…

RIGHT NOW, ALL TALK ABOUT SMALL BMW M cars is centred firmly on the new M2 CS (see page 28), M division’s next great hope for icon status and a car very much in the image of M of old. The M2 CS also casts something of a shadow over another M-flavoured car in the 2-series ranks. The M235 xDrive Gran Coupé is, as its full title implies, the four-door coupe version of the M135 hot hatch, with both dropping the ‘i’ to avoid customers getting them confused with the electrified products with which they share showroom space. Obviously that still leaves the problem of then explaining to customers that the 2-series Gran Coupé is a totally different and unrelated car to the two-door 2-series coupe, but such is the…

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THERE’S A VIVID SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU AS the Atom rolls out of the covered transporter into the Welsh sunshine. I can’t remember the last time I saw an original Atom but I certainly remember the first time, and what makes this meeting so uncanny is that with its yellow body panels this car looks just like the prototype I drove for evo back in 1999. I say ‘body panels’ but obviously a key feature of the Atom is that it doesn’t really have a body; a single-seat race car has more bodywork. What panels there are act as fig leaves, covering up mechanical gubbins so that the rest of the car can be remarkably clean and clutter-free, allowing the bold purity of the structure and design to wow you.…

THE BOXSTER IS WELL AND TRULY BACK behind that), it’s racked up an awful lot of miles, ferrying me to tests, photoshoots, airports and a few racetrack visits: Goodwood for Members’ Meeting, Castle Combe for a trackday, and Brands Hatch – to visit the Boxster’s racing cousins in the Porsche Sprint Challenge Great Britain. Supporting the British Touring Car Championship, the Sprint Challenge is a one-make series for GT4-spec 718 Cayman Clubsports, organised by Porsche Motorsport GB. This means the race cars have plenty of shared DNA with our road-going Boxster, the Cayman’s roofless twin. ‘The race car and road car are virtually identical structurally, the main difference being the roll-cage,’ explains front-running driver Tom Bradshaw of the Toro Verde GT team. ‘The lap-time advantage comes from bigger brakes, racing…