Tag: topgear.com

Bugatti’s official story is that the seed of the Veyron was planted in 1997. VW Group boss Ferdinand Piëch and his powertrain chief Karl-Heinz Neumann were on a Japanese train brewing up engine ideas. Piëch sketched ideas for an 18-cylinder. Yes, 18 not 16. We’ll come back to that. Yet in 1999 Piëch himself told…

Batteries are bulky and heavy and no one wants that. Worse, a lot of that excess stems not from the actual cells that store the electricity, but from structures designed to house and cool them. EVs use individual cells, wired in series to reach the approx 400V or even 800V that the drive systems use.…

Top Gear: We heard that many years ago you had sketched a ‘Veyron facelift’ that never came to be. Is that true? Tell us the story. Frank Heyl: Yes, there was an inbetween stage. We were working on the [Veyron] Super Sport with 1,200hp, this is now 2008, 2009. But the engineering team had another…

What is it? That is essentially a Unimog U4023. Except it isn’t, because it’s been subject to the tender ministrations of Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks Division, in collaboration with a company called Hellgeth Engineering. That particular Avengers team-up has produced the ‘most luxurious and powerful Unimog’ ever made, although strictly it’s still a prototype. What you’re…

Renowned photographer Mark has been working with Top Gear for many, many years. When not taking photos he’s buying inappropriate cars. Here he shares his addiction with the world. A few months back I shared an unusually sensible plan of tidying up my Pajero Evolution with the goal of selling it to help finish the…

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 Lamborghini Temerario. The Temerario arrived carrying a difficult design…

This is a Subaru Impreza Turbo 2000, and when new back in 1996 it probably would have cost just under £20,000. Except, this particular Turbo 2000 wasn’t immediately sold when it first arrived on our shores… Nope, this was an official Subaru UK press car and as such was one of the first bonnet scooped,…

I’m going to just say it right from the outset. I don’t really like the Jaguar E-type. I know this is sacrilege to so many, but as a car magazine obsessed kid the E-Type emblazoned on the cover of classic car titles represented the worst and laziest journalism. I wanted to read new things about…

Athletic billionaires of the world, rejoice. You can now have a Bugatti bike to match your new Tourbillon. And it’ll cost you less than painting a stripe down your car. Presumably. This is the Bugatti Factor One, a race bike that’s so radical it’s not actually allowed to race. They should have just called it…

The Mercedes SL. Which generation? Mercedes has a brilliant history of model lines that maintain and justify their reputations for generations. Not just the S-Class, but the E-Class and C-Class too, and their predecessors even before they got those names. So when you realise the SL has been around for a staggering 72 years and…