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One of the most talked about, universally loved, and hankered after cars of the last few years isn’t German, doesn’t have a brace of turbochargers, and won’t require a fresh mortgage to buy. It’s also not technically a car. The Citröen Ami is a quadricycle. And a terrible car. But if I’m brutally honest, that’s part of its charm.
Ten years ago Mate Rimac had no idea the newly formed company carrying his name would end up supplying Porsche and Hyundai, become synonymous with yet another Richard Hammond crash, or grow so fast he’d have to build a new $238 million campus for 2,500 employees outside of Croatia’s capital, Zagreb. Rimac has gone from struggling to pay employees to a shining example of new Croatian industry, and now it’s planning to build a factory to match its reputation.
You know that bit towards the end of a relationship when you both know that it’s coming to an end but don’t want to admit it? When you put extra effort in to cover up the fact that you’re two people heading in very different directions, it can be wonderful, but tainted with foresight of the inevitable. That is what it feels like to tool around in the updated 2021 Jaguar F-Pace SVR.
Here’s the iconic Beast of Turin Fiat being fettled at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. It should be swarmed by people with beards getting very excited that it exists. But now everything is different, and very strange.
Designer Ian Callum retired from Jaguar with a portfolio envied the world over including designs driven by millions of people every day. So what happens when a guy like that wants to remake one of his most iconic cars, the Aston Martin Vanquish? You get the 580 horsepower CALLUM 25—manifested nostalgia in a beautiful $587,000 package.
We all knew tuners would be coming for the A90 Toyota Supra. Litchfield was one of the first to have a go cranking more grunt out of the car’s BMW-sourced powertrain, and its first car took the stock output from 335 to over 400. And there’s more to come once its ECU has been properly mapped.
Minis are probably some of the most recognizable cars on the road, even though they’re not all that common anywhere anymore. Most of the Minis you see today are probably driven by enthusiasts rather than commuters, and some of the most extreme versions are currently being made by David Brown Automotive in England.
The 2019 Ford Ranger Raptor is not available in America, the land of wide parking spots and wider-open spaces where wild trucks can roam free. Instead, this angry off-roader comes to England. Roads are tight, getting off-road isn’t simply a matter of “oh look, a desert,” and slinging mud from all-terrain tires is generally frowned upon here.
Under ownership from Geely, British sports car icon Lotus has gone from trying to keep the lights on to producing the all-electric Lotus Evija hypercar: a land missile that promises 250 miles of range, 0-62 mph in less than three seconds, a staggering 2,000 horsepower and a top speed over 200 mph. It’s quite the thing.
We’ve had teases, a name reveal, and plenty of speculation about what it’ll be, and now the Lotus Evija, which Lotus says will have almost 2,000 horsepower and more than 1,200 pound-feet of torque, is with us.
Ever think you’ve had a varied career? Well, you’ve probably got nothing on Aston Martin’s artist in residence, the Rev. Adam Gompertz. Or as he’s known, the scribbling vicar. I caught up with him at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to find out a bit more about him.
I’m guessing that a lot of you out there look up to your fathers, and some of you have even followed in their footsteps in some way or another. In which case, you can compare yourselves to 17-year-old Oliver Solberg, son of 2003 World Rally Championship winner and bona fide driving legend, Petter Solberg. Oliver’s gone in to the family business and is doing really rather well.
At this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the electric Volkswagen ID.R EV prototype didn’t only beat but smashed the record for the event’s hill climb by flying up in 39.9 seconds. The previous record of 41.6 seconds was set by Nick Heidfeld in a McLaren MP4/13 Formula One car in 1999.
Have you ever felt an overwhelming desire to be thrown down a canyon while humming classical music, wearing a tailored suit, and kicking the crap out of someone you don’t like? Well then–you’ve just imagined what driving the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante is like.
On the rainy fourth and final day of the Goodwood Festival of Speed I did one of my favorite things: take a gander at the parking lot. Yeah, there’s loads of cool metal running up the hill faster than Kate Bush, but there’s also a ton of good stuff parked up outside. Here’s a selection of what I found in a couple of the various spots around the festival. Oh, and one thing I can’t ID, so... commenters get your nerd knowledge ready.
Ah, the flying car. Every year a new concept or company appears with promises of taking us off the road and in to the fluffy clouds, and it’s always just two years away. But one new company, Airspeeder, has a different goal in mind: flying car racing. Specifically, a new 124 mph single-seater flying race series.
De Tomaso, famed for making the Pantera, is back with the P72—an homage to 1960s prototypes with a modern twist. And like any good homage to old-school racers, it has a manual gearbox.
Ford has purged its non-truck catalog of American cars, meaning that the 2019 Focus ST won’t be sold stateside. That’s a tragedy, in concept, because the idea of this car’s pretty great. The execution may not be a hardcore turbomeganutterhatch, but there are still some reasons to take a look at the thing.
Had Norman Dewis not lost his father when he was 14, the world of cars may well have been a very different place. Disc brake development for road cars wouldn’t have gone the way it did, Jaguar’s C- and D-Type racers wouldn’t have established that marque’s legend, and some royal advisors may not have had a headache in 1957. Norman Dewis, the legendary Jaguar test driver who died Saturday at the age of 98, was one in a million.
A while back, Jalopnik’s own Alanis King and Elizabeth Blackstock looked in to Formula One’s strangest sponsor, Rich Energy. If you’re baffled as to how a come-out-of-nowhere energy drink that’s difficult to find (at best) can sponsor an F1 team, you’re not alone. Amid the facts and figures in that story, what stuck out to me is that Rich Energy is apparently available in the UK, yet the six people sent out to find it came up empty.
Caffeine and Machine is a little like Cheers... where everybody knows your car. Just outside of the tiny town of Ettington in Warwickshire, UK, this pub is like a permanent cars and coffee event, where people come together to celebrate all kinds of vehicles and, of course, tasty beverages year round.
For some, the Aston Martin DB5 is the single coolest car to have ever put rubber to tarmac. Made famous by Sean Connery’s portrayal of James Bond, the DB5 has indelible link with Ian Fleming’s super smooth spy. And it’s one of the more famous examples of “cars with gadgets” thanks to Goldfinger, where it offered neat ways to dispatch henchmen on a mission to off him on the fly. Now some of those gadgets will be a reality, and here’s how.
There are plenty of articles and videos doing the rounds from people gleefully stating they’ve bought the cheapest example of formerly silly expensive fast cars. I have not copied them.
Take a Volkswagen Golf R. Give it a sexier body and a Spanish name. Make it front-wheel drive instead of all-wheel drive, but keep the 306 brake horsepower rating. Then make only 799 of them. It’s an odd recipe, but it’s a fun one that gets you this: the SEAT Leon Cupra R.
The Audi RS2, made in conjunction with Porsche, was a mid-’90s icon. But sadly, it was never sold in the United States and plenty of Americans have never even seen one. Well, these cars are finally old enough to import and we found one Audi UK has been hiding in its private reserve for over two decades.
If Singer helped jumpstart our current restomod revolution, 2018 seems to be the year to buy a reimagined version of what you lusted after when you were a kid. Singer’s still kicking ass, Amos just made the planet cross its legs with a pretty ridiculous Integrale, and outside of the headlines there’re a ton more places willing to sell you a new version of an old car you used to love. One such company is Paul Stephens.
When Ford released the Focus way back in the 2000s, replacing the Escort, it brought a little dollop of style and decent driving dynamics to an otherwise drab small family car party. The Focus was a hit, and now, 20-ish years since launch it’s in its fourth generation. The third generation was a global car, which meant you could get them pretty much everywhere, but this new one isn’t. Sorry, America, the 2019 Ford Focus is not for you.
