Tag: topgear.com

What people say and what they mean are often very different. If, for example, a work colleague starts an email with ‘I don’t want to make a fuss, but…’ this actually means they do want, and indeed are about, to make an enormous fuss. When a doctor says, ‘this may sting a little’, what they…

Sorry to interrupt your scheduled programming, but I’ve been unfaithful to the blue saloon CLA. Truth is, I’d barely had the blue one a week when some odious berk reversed into it, scuffing the rear bumper and cracking the ‘diffuser’ panel beneath. Obviously there was no apologetic note on my windscreen, and sadly the CLA’s…

Reigning F1 world champion and former Fiat 500 Jolly owner Lando Norris (those being his two biggest claims to fame) has established his own junior racing team, which will start competing throughout the motorsport ladder in 2027. Co-founded by Lando and an investment firm led by business guru Dan Richards, the team will be called…

Which middle-age crisis is this? It’s the latest Corvette Grand Sport, the just-right blend of all the coolest bits from Chevy’s vaunted sports car’s line-up. If the Z06 and ZR1 are a bit much in terms of power and price, the Grand Sport dials things back to be less extreme but just as potent. The…

Polestar’s calling it an ‘SUV’ but to TopGear.com’s hopeful eyes, it looks like a lifted estate. A handsome, well-proportioned lifted estate. Welcome to the Polestar 4’s sensible sibling: the, um, Polestar 4 SUV. Funny, because earlier this year Polestar said this new car would follow Swedish automotive tradition, the country being “famous for its estate…

A Lotus Elise S1 is already a bit of a lightweight marvel, weighing in at around 700kg. A company called Analogue Automotive has stripped yet more bulk out of the thing and given it a single-seat, central driving position. It’s this: the ‘VHPK’. We first got – well not so much ‘wind’ because that’d blow…

The buzz continues around Donut Lab’s solid state battery. So does the controversy. Today the Finnish/Estonian company announced test results by the Finnish state lab VTT for its cell’s energy density: 409Wh per kilo. That’s about half as much again as an average lithium-ion cell, or put another way two-thirds the battery mass for a…

You’re looking at “a new era” in Bristol Cars’ history. The long-defunct and self-proclaimed ‘enigmatic’ British carmaker has returned… with an old car. Well, a new-old car. For it has discovered five unused Fighter chassis’, and it intends to rebuild all five of them. This is the first one, and like the Fighters Bristol made…

Not the original hot hatch, but the car that reframed the template. The GTI maxed out Gérard Welter’s crisp 3dr design by the simple expedient of adding side mouldings and red go-faster inserts, while a 900kg kerbweight ensured that even 1984’s 105bhp 1.6-litre suffered little inertia. Then came the 115bhp version, and the 130bhp 1.9…

Frank Stephenson is a car designer with more hits than the Beatles, including the Escort RS Cossie, first BMW Mini, Maser MC12, numerous Ferraris and the McLaren P1. These days he runs his own consultancy – Frank Stephenson Design. Here he shares his views on the 5 Turbo 3E This is how you bring an…