Classic cars: Why the Honda Integra Type R is one of the finest front-wheel drivers ever built January 20, 2020 The Japanese have a flair for combining flavours that shouldn’t work together, but somehow do. Visiting the Tokyo Motor Show a few years ago, my culinary adventures included popcorn with soy sauce, coal-infused ice cream and cola with eel extract. Honda assembled an equally unlikely mix of ingredients back in 1998. Front-wheel drive, a peaky [...]
What does the future hold for Lotus? CEO Phil Popham on the classic marque’s direction January 14, 2020 Last summer, I boarded a red Routemaster bus for a London sightseeing tour. Along with a handful of British hacks, the top deck was crammed with Chinese journalists and social media stars, many armed with selfie sticks. Our final stop was the Royal Horticultural Halls near Victoria, where the Lotus Evija would be revealed. The [...]
The McLaren GT is a rambunctious beast with bountiful boot space January 9, 2020 Supercar reviews don’t usually begin by discussing boot space, but this isn’t a supercar. At least, not according to McLaren. The GT is a Gran Turismo – or perhaps the anglicised (and somewhat less exotic) ‘Grand Tourer’, given it hails from Woking. It’s designed for going far and fast, blatting across Europe on hedonistic weekends [...]
The Ford Fiesta ST Performance Edition is a riot to drive and a classic of the future December 2, 2019 He can’t afford a Rolls or a Bentley, he has to buy a second-hand Ford,” sang Ray Davies of The Kinks in 1969. How times have changed. Today, you can buy a 1980s Bentley for banger money, while Fords of that era are blue-chip classics. Eye-watering prices paid at auction include £122,500 for a 1987 [...]
The Bentley Bentayga Speed is officially the fastest SUV on sale. But should you buy one? November 18, 2019 Zero-point-six-two miles per hour. That slender margin – half the speed of a spider scuttling across your bathroom floor – is enough to make the Bentayga Speed the fastest SUV in the world. Yes, Lamborghini rounds up to an identical 190mph maximum for its second-placed Urus. But whether you’re blitzing a German autobahn or bragging [...]
The Lister LFT-C is a modified Jaguar F-Type with a devilish 666bhp November 11, 2019 What would Jesus drive? It’s a question you see posed by bumper stickers across America. The answer, of course, is an old Honda he prefers not to talk about: “For I did not speak of my own Accord”. The devil, one suspects, has more extravagant taste, and while the scriptures aren’t specific – I checked, [...]
The Jaguar F-Pace SVR is a fire-breathing SUV brute. But Tim Pitt discovers its softer side September 9, 2019 Jaguar’s Special Vehicle Operations division hasn’t been backwards about coming forwards. Its opening salvo was the 2016 F-Type SVR, a bona fide British supercar to rival the Porsche 911 GT3. In 2018, SVO then followed up with something even more extreme. The XE SV Project 8 was a hand-built 600hp road racer that vaguely resembled [...]
The Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante is the best looking car in town – and boy is it a rush August 12, 2019 Forgive me, officer, for I have sinned. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then 725 metric horsepower tests even the sternest sense of resolve. It will blast you to 62mph in less time than it takes to say ‘Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante’ and leave black lines on the Tarmac longer than the Costa Brava. Thankfully, [...]
The David Brown Mini Remastered is a small car with a big price tag August 6, 2019 My first car was a Mini. If you’re fast-approaching middle age, yours probably was too. I bought my (t)rusty 1983 Mini City for £325, sprayed go-faster stripes on the bonnet and shoehorned a subwoofer into the boot. After passing my test, I enjoyed one day of glorious freedom, then crashed it in Croydon. Result: a [...]
The new A35 isn’t Mercedes-AMG’s hottest hatchback, but it certainly isn’t tepid July 16, 2019 The hot hatch has reached boiling point. Very soon, Mercedes will reveal a new AMG A45, with the most powerful four-cylinder engine ever. Its scorching 416hp bests a 288 GTO – Ferrari’s mid-1980s poster car – in a game of Top Trumps, and may well get from 0-62mph in less than four seconds. A supercar-slaying [...]
