THESE ARE HARDCORE
From European coupes to Far East curios, the roster of hardcore driver’s cars has members from all corners of the globe, but all follow the same mantra. We look at some of the very best
Mugen Civic Type R, GT3 RS, GTI Clubsport S, Speciale, Skyline GT-R, AMG Black Series, 675LT, Type RA, Nomad… We gather a selection of some of the most intense – and some of our favourite – hardcore performance models from the last two decades to celebrate the most extreme cars of a generation
BMW’S M3, PORSCHE’S 911 AND MERCEDESAMG’S C63 are all achingly desirable machines, cars that have the ability to perform as proficient, exciting road and track cars. But as well as appealing to you and me, they also need to work over a broader spectrum, to satisfy a wider audience, and this means that their ultimate potential to thrill isn’t being realised. Narrow such a car’s operating window, however, make it stiffer and noisier and its controls heavier, and it can deliver so much more for people like us.
What Porsche, AMG, BMW et al do to make their most hardcore sports coupes feel more at home around the Nordschleife than the North Circular will be familiar to scholars of the Demon Tweeks motorsport catalogue. Big brakes, stickier tyres, roll-cages, bucket seats, harnesses, Plexiglas windows, uprated springs and dampers, thicker anti-roll bars, solid-mounted or rose-jointed suspension, carbonfibre wings, lighter and louder exhausts – these cars already have everything you might otherwise earmark in that sacred catalogue. But the factory-prepped cars also get changes that only their manufacturer could or would make: stiffer and sometimes wider body shells, bigger capacity or unique engines, bespoke gearboxes.
It can be easy to forget just how thorough and comprehensive the work that goes into such cars is. The leap from 4-series to M4 GTS is colossal; put a C-class next to a C63 Black Series and it’s like they’re barely related at all. Tot it all up and the price premium – sometimes as much as 100 per cent – that such hardcore cars might command over the merely sporty originals starts to seem reasonable.
But these cars are defined as much by what you don’t get as what you do. Back seats, sound deadening, door pockets and proper interior door-release handles are rarely seen, and air con and satnav can often be deleted, too. The absence of such nonessential equipment, combined with a higher price, only serves to divide those who ‘get’ these cars and those who’ll never understand. Other than the price, the only major downside for connoisseurs of the hardcore coupe is that they are often limited to tiny numbers or sold only to ‘special’ customers.
The trend for hardcore coupes really gathered momentum just after the turn of the millennium. Between 2000 and 2004 Lotus released the S1 Exige, Porsche the 996 GT3 RS, TVR the Sagaris and BMW the E46 M3 CSL. Since then, Aston Martin has created the GT12 and GT8 versions of its Vantage, Nismo has given the GT-R a thorough going over, BMW took things really seriously with its M3 GTS and M4 GTS and even the Americans have had a go with the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.
One of the most unlikely contributors to the niche, however, is Mercedes-benz. AMG goes some way to eradicate the waftability from many of Mercedes’ coupes and saloons, but it wasn’t until the Black Series arrived that its road cars could really be considered hardcore.
The CLK63 AMG Black Series of 2007 was the second model to bear the dark title (an SLK55 with a fixed carbonfibre roof was the first). The naturally aspirated 6.2-litre AMG V8 was given a less restrictive inlet and exhaust system, a new ECU, bigger radiators and an additional oil cooler to increase its output to 500bhp (up 26bhp). A further two oil coolers were added – one for the seven-speed auto gearbox and another for the multi-plate limited-slip differential. The body was strengthened, strut braces were added and the chassis had bespoke suspension components, too. Even the wheels were vastly different in size and width from a regular CLK’S, although their chrome finish is a reminder to the car’s lessthan-hardcore origins.
But then there’s the massive Dtm-style wheelarches, the carbonfibre vents, spoiler, diffuser and door cards, the absence of rear seats, and basic cloth-covered fixed-back buckets up front all reminding you that this is no ordinary AMG.
Behind the wheel, the Recaros provide a seating position that makes you feel like you’re being tipped forward, and this focuses your attention on the squat, wide front axle. But you’re glad it does. The CLK Black’s nose is so planted it feels as though the whole car has grown from the front tyres backwards. The pointy snout is more like that of a featherweight front-drive hot hatch than a 500bhp rear-drive coupe, only there’s none of the pulling and tugging as the driveshafts fight the steering wheel, just a crisp, clean action from lock to lock.
Such aggressive agility and grip has its consequences, though. At speed, each time you move the steering wheel the rear tyres feel as though they’re teetering on the edge of grip. It then only takes the lightest additional touch of the throttle and the gargling V8 can light up the back tyres and you smoke your way through a corner. Do so and you can simply choose your angle: a light throttle keeps it neater, the back tyres just slightly over-rotating, but big jabs of the accelerator induce some spectacular angles – and just when you think you’ve gone too far, there’s just an extra bit more lock than you thought to help catch your slide.
So to get the best out of the Black you need to keep your inputs smooth and be progressive with the throttle, feeding in the prodigious torque as the grip allows. Even with that incredible V8 it’s the CLK’S edgy chassis that’s most memorable. Guiding it through corners is just the most exquisite experience. Until you’ve got used to the Porsche, that is.
‘One blast down a straight and you can see why the GT3 RS is one of our all-time favourites’
Credit has to go to Porsche for flying the flag of the hardcore coupe for such an impressively long time. The company helped define what this sort of car is and for over 50 years has created road cars that offer raw experiences. Many of them were born from competition; homologationspecial road cars fitted with lighter panels, bigger engines and extra wings to allow evermore trick components to become legal on its race cars. The 911 2.7 RS is one of the most memorable, but the STS that preceded it, and even the 356 Carrera with its four-cam race engine, also fit the hardcore mould.
The 997.2-generation 911 GT3 RS needs little introduction in this magazine. Its race-derived 3.8-litre flat-six provides 444bhp and it has plenty of the hardcore calling cards: a roll-cage, Recaro bucket seats, fabric door pulls, Michelin Cup tyres, a plastic rear screen and a huge wing.
One blast down a straight, with the ‘Mezger’ flat-six turning a snarling mechanical growl to a shriek as the needle swings around the rev counter, and you can see why it’s one of our all-time favourites. The drama unfolding behind you then pauses for the briefest moment as you shift gears at a speed that a PDK ’ box would be ashamed of. The stiff clutch and close gate is far harder to finesse than a simple paddle, but it’s infinitely more enjoyable.
However, you begin to doubt the RS’S brilliance when you enter the first corner. Being tentative and cautious, as you would be in your inaugural go in a road-legal race car, you’re served up heaps of understeer. It feels like a painstaking amount of time before you can get on the throttle fully, each squeeze of the accelerator with any lock on making the nose push wider.
But put your brave face on and properly commit to a corner – brake hard and late, pinning the nose to the line, turn in decisively, use the throttle like you know the rear-engined layout will give you the traction you need – and the GT3 RS makes sense. String a corner together just right, the nose tucking into an apex as you roll off the brakes, settling the car with the throttle, the nose lifting as you power out of the corner, and you won’t want it to end.
Ultimately, it’s the way this kind of car is set up that’s most impressive. The nononsense, take-no-prisoners, absolutely won’t-suffer-fools balance and aggression they exhibit is tricky to master, but also phenomenally exciting when you do.
‘It’s not the most polished performer, but the Honda is most definitely hardcore’
THE HARDCORE HOT HATCH REALLY DEFIES all rational thinking. The best pocket rockets deliver on practicality as much as they do performance and poise, so making one that’s as difficult to live with as a stripped-out supercar makes no sense on any number of levels. However, when you’re in the pursuit of driving thrills you tend to leave cool, hard logic at the door.
First of the mad hatches was the 2006 Mini Cooper S Works GP, which ditched the rear seats and air con as part of a 50kg diet, and featured a tweaked, 215bhp version of the familiar supercharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder, plus a limited-slip diff. All 459 UK cars found homes, and today prices start at £14k.
A couple of years later came the Renault Sport Mégane R26.R. A carbonfibre bonnet, polycarbonate windows, Sabelt racing seats and harnesses and the ditching of soundproofing helped hack an astonishing 125kg from the regular hot Mégane and, in combination with sticky Toyo 888 rubber, saw it deliver a record-breaking 8min 17sec tour of the Nürburgring. Its focus on speed set a trend, with more and more manufacturers turning out specialised hatches tasked with lowering lap times, culminating in 2016’s Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S.
It may be based on a Golf GTI, but poke your head inside and there’s all the confirmation you’ll need that this car belongs in the category marked ‘special’: a giant strut brace where the rear bench should be and a pair of chunky, figure-hugging seats up front. Oh, and a manual gearbox – the DSG was deemed too chunky. The VW’S lap-slaying pace (7min 49sec) comes from its 306bhp 2-litre four-cylinder, carefully tuned aerodynamics, reworked suspension and bespoke Michelins Cup 2s.
In many ways it doesn’t feel all that hardcore, with the sophisticated damping and light controls making it as easy to drive as any Golf. It’s when you up the pace that the Clubsport comes alive, scything through corners with tenacious grip and unflappable poise. It’s a fantastic device, and it’s not hard to see why all 150 UK cars sold out almost instantly, or why those that are for sale today command £40k.
That’s about what a Honda Civic Type R Mugen cost when it landed in 2009. Developed and built by Mugen’s European HQ in Northampton, just 20 of these FN2 super Civics were made. The naturally aspirated 2-litre VTEC unit featured more aggressive cams, new pistons, a revised inlet system and a remapped ECU, all of which helped raise power from the standard Type R’s 198bhp at 7800rpm to 237bhp at a frenzied 8300rpm. It also took seven days to build, compared with a single day for a regular Type R. Elsewhere there was lowered and stiffened suspension, larger brakes, a limited-slip diff and special Yokohamas so attached to the tarmac you wondered whether they were suffering from separation anxiety.
On the move the washboard ride is clearly suited to the track rather than a B-road. It’s the engine that shines brightest and dominates the dynamic disposition of the car. But you really, really have to work it hard to get results, the Honda only fully waking up as the needle swings past 5500rpm. From there to the 8600rpm cut-out it’s a different beast, revving with real urgency and emitting an ear-tingling metallic howl. It’s made even more exciting by the seductively slick gearshift that eggs you on into swapping cogs just for the hell of it. It’s not the most polished performer, but the Honda is most definitely hardcore, and in all the right ways.
As for the future of the hardcore hot hatch, SEAT’S new Cupra R doesn’t really go far enough, and price in this sector is a considerable factor that manufacturers lose sleep over. Not that this stops us from dreaming of the next Mugen Type R or Mégane Trophy RS…
THE HARDCORE SPORTING CAR CAN BE found in all four corners of the earth, from the minimalist lightweight French hatchback to a specialedition Aussie V8, but the Japanese strain of the hardcore driving virus is particularly infectious, provoking strong feelings of a partisan nature and often combined with an overwhelming desire to individualise – to modify. Japanese tuning is a way of life for some people, and while plenty of the visual stuff isn’t for us, the cars and much of the work that goes into making them faster still most definitely is.
While Japanese hardcore motoring could potentially cover a very broad remit right up to the present day, you and I both know what we’re really talking about – that rich seam of performance classics built between roughly 1989 and the mid-noughties; the Impreza, NSX and Skyline GT-R era.
And there’s my first – entirely innocent – mistake, because I’ve left out the Mitsubishi Evo. Not mentioning the Mazda RX-7 was a potentially abuse-generating faux pas, too. But that’s the point in a way: there were so many great driver’s cars developed in Japan during this era that you’re spoilt for choice, from something as humble as a higher-spec JDM Mazda MX-5 Mk1 to a twin-turbo Supra (those are two more I left out) and all those screaming Type R Hondas (and another one). Until recently prices were, in the main, very reasonable, although that has shifted considerably of late, and you may have to look hard and at something slightly less obvious if you’re on a tighter budget.
Japanese manufacturers in this era loved to make a hardcore special, and while you can enjoy them in their factory form, you can also tune them into something altogether different. Here we have an example of each – and it’s just a drop in the ocean of what’s available and what’s possible.
It doesn’t get much more hardcore than a Type RA Subaru Impreza. What the moniker actually means has been a little mysterious over the years, but ‘Record Attempt’ is one meaning and ‘Rallying Group A’ another. Either way, it stands for a car that’s about going very quickly indeed, and emphatically at the expense of creature comforts. This white Impreza here is the very first STI version of the GC8 Impreza WRX, in Type RA form, dating from 1994. Need an instruction manual to decode that? Well, turbocharged, four-wheel-drive Imprezas weren’t badged WRX in the UK until the advent of the Mk2 in 2000, but the JDM Mk1 Impreza WRX equates roughly to what we all knew as the ‘classic’ Turbo 2000 in the UK. Ordering your mid-’90s Subaru sports saloon in Ra-spec meant you were either a Banbury-based rally team about to build a shell up for a certain C Mcrae, or a keen amateur trackday goer or hill-climber who didn’t mind winding the windows up and down manually if it meant saving a vital few kilograms. Add in the spicy STI bits – the high-revving motor quoted as being on the voluntary Japanese power limit of the day (276bhp), and the brilliantly short gear ratios for maximum accelerative potential (many of these cars melted their engines
in the UK due to constantly running at high revs on motorways) – and you have a car that may have windows and a roof, but is as focused and uncompromising as any pure sports car. Note that the STI version even got a roof air vent – it doesn’t get much more Group A homologation fetish than that. At 1200kg (or even less for a non-sti RA) it is wonderfully light by modern standards. Yaris Grmn-light, virtually. It’s surprisingly small, too, and its fundamental shape is so inherently bland it’s a reminder that the original Impreza legend wasn’t built on design or a conventional marketing-led image at all, but through rallying, the ability of the road cars, their value-for-money and the tuning scene.
On the move the RA is fantastically agile, wonderfully intimate and rapid, and, of course, possesses a rumbly soundtrack that will always be what a real Subaru should sound like, whether blasting sideways through Hafren Forest or keeping people awake in a town centre at night.
If you’re of the Lancer Evolution persuasion there is no less choice. With Mitsubishi’s great homologation special virtually every version could be called hardcore, let alone the models that fulfilled the Type RA role, namely the pared-back RS that was every bit as spartan as its Impreza equivalent. First-generation Evos (1-3) are harder to find and more for the Evo collector, so it’s the wonderful second (4- 6) and third (7-9) generations that you’re more likely to be looking at. Thankfully, apart from Tommi Mäkinen versions of the 6, in red, most of these cars have yet to become hugely inflated in price on the ‘investment’ market, so it’s possible to find a tidy Evo 6 for below £15,000, with earlier models even cheaper.
Driving an Evo – any Evo – on any kind of journey is a hardcore experience; you don’t need to find a great B-road. The sharpness of its responses and the whole unfiltered nature in which it works as a machine has no real equivalent today. They simply don’t make cars like this anymore, and what a great pity that is.
Buyers of either the Impreza or the Lancer are often obsessed with originality, and understandably so, but what really can cause trouble is rust. Corrosion isn’t something that usually troubles our minds here at evo because we deal in predominantly new or nearly new cars, and no one expects them to rust. However, these are Japanese cars based on fairly basic designs that date back to the early 1990s, and decades of salt spray and harsh winters can reduce them to scrap. Evo
‘Something like this R34 GT-R is a brutal experience, far more physical and demanding than its present-day R35 equivalent’
chassis legs at the rear, for example, often need to be cut away and replaced in major surgery by a specialist. Of course, you could import a car directly from Japan, and these tend to be in vastly better condition – at least underneath.
Let’s talk GT-R. It’s hard for anything else to get a look-in today when there’s a modified Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R parked up in the Bedford Autodrome pitlane. Even the Speciale struggles to garner much more attention, and that’s before the big RB26 inline six fires into life – as you might expect given the visuals, it’s loud. We’ve featured this Hosaka Tuning Factory car before, as it’s part of Richard Wheeler’s extraordinary collection of Skylines ( evo 234). Like most of the cars we could feature in this group, there was once a time when Skylines had relatively little value, and the original Rb26-engined four-wheeldrive R32 could be had for five grand. Unsurprisingly, those days have sadly long gone for those of us with more meagre means, and the top of the market – for late-production R34s in specific colours – can break the £100,000 barrier for the right car.
Most of those collectors (many stockpiling cars for when they can be officially imported into the US) are after standard-specification examples, and as anyone who knows Skylines can tell you, a standard GT-R is a rare thing. That makes cars that have been tuned well, especially as complete projects by respected tuning houses, a way into the market at more sensible prices. It’s also a relatively cheap way of getting a 600, 700 or even 800bhp car compared with the usual supercar routes into this kind of firepower.
Is it hardcore? In the main, very much ‘ yes’. Perhaps a standard R33 GT-R is a little more towards a sports GT than a bare-knuckle road-racer, but the R34 put a lot of the aggression back, and the GT-R’S six-cylinder engine was specifically designed to handle a lot more power in racing: that’s why so many road cars are heavily tuned, because the temptation is hard to resist. It may be fourwheel drive, but something like this white GT-R is a brutal experience, far more physical and demanding than its present-day R35 equivalent.
If you’re after a more conventional alternative, there’s always Toyota’s Supra, but it’s getting hard to find good, manual-gearbox examples these days. Not many came to the UK officially, and the Japanese don’t like to see their best cars leaving the home country – something that applies to the original NSX as well. The Supra is much more of a GT, too, so to qualify for hardcore status it’ll need some modifying. An NSX Type R would do it, but prices of these are in Ferrari territory. Thankfully, you can get at least some of that manic revving experience with an EK9 Civic or DC2 Integra Type R. Like I said, the choice is tantalisingly huge. I’m off to look at early Impreza classifieds…
ARIEL MAKES YOU QUESTION HOW MUCH car you really need. Back seats? Those are just extra weight, more so if you’re foolish enough to carry more than one other person around with you. Heating? Not necessary. You dress for a drive in an Ariel much as you might for any other outdoor activity, turning a very long and suspicious eye to the weather before donning as few layers as you think you can get away with for the prevailing conditions. In-car entertainment? You wouldn’t be able to hear it over the wind roar and the howl of the Honda engine behind you, and you’ll probably be wearing a helmet anyway.
And bodywork? What do you think this is, a Caterham? Even the Nomad – with such luxuries as a thin sheet of Perspex to ensure at least some of your face won’t be slathered in mud – allows you to see the front tyres through the exoskeleton and only keeps rain off you if you’re in motion.
Ariel, then, offers minimum-car, maximum hardcore. You’ll find little – possibly nothing – on them that isn’t directly related to either the driving experience or for the boring but necessary subject of legality. So you do get headlights and tail lights, a wiper for the Nomad’s optional windscreen, vestigial cycle fenders over each wheel and a set of number plates.
More importantly, you get an engine. A 2-litre K20Z Honda four-cylinder in the Atom, making 245bhp at a suitably Honda- like 8600rpm, or up to 350bhp with a supercharger in the Atom 3.5R. The Nomad does a little less with a little more, its K24 2.4-litre unit from the Us-spec Civic makes ‘only’ 235bhp at 7200rpm, though the clue to its character is not in the power but the torque figure: 221lb ft at 4300rpm being a mite more useable than the regular Atom’s 177lb ft at 7200rpm.
In cars with dry weights of 520kg and 670kg respectively, those outputs are, well, more than enough. The standard 245bhp Atom has a better dry power-to-weight ratio than a Lamborghini Aventador S (479bhp per ton plays 471).
Then there’s the huge list of options to turn your just-abouta-road-car into definitely-a-race-car, from sequential Sadev gearboxes to data loggers, slick tyres and carbonfibre front and rear wings – or rally-spec gravel tyres, a winch and a snorkel if you’re planning more serious off-roading in the Nomad.
Hardcore? Almost too much for the road in the case of the Atom. As a clue to its focus, an Atom has only appeared in evo Car of the Year once, back in 2004, and the weather, wind and grit of north Wales made the experience quite unpleasant for some and meant the Atom narrowly avoided last place – several spots below a Mercedes SLK, of all things. ‘Just glad to get back to the hotel in one piece,’ was how Peter Tomalin put it. Eek.
Yet Atoms have appeared in our Track Car of the Year tests several times, for the reasons you might expect: they’re
‘You’ll find little on them that isn’t directly related to the driving experience’
blisteringly fast, astonishingly grippy and addictively responsive, while bugbears such as a firm ride and a lack of weather protection fade into insignificance when you’re reeling in supercars like they’re superminis.
The Nomad’s trick is combining the Atom’s thrills with more usability. Not in the traditional sense – you probably wouldn’t go shopping in it, though we’d positively encourage the odd sortie for a pint of milk or loaf of bread, particularly if there are a few green lanes between your home and the corner shop – but nor do you need a socket set to adjust the driving position, a full-face helmet to preserve your vision, or an aversion to anything approaching a bump. The Nomad’s long-travel suspension absorbs everything a road can throw at it without ever feeling floaty, and the car also squats, dives and rolls enough to let you know what’s going on underneath you.
As we discovered upon the Nomad’s launch, this extra travel makes even more sense away from tarmac, on the sort of surfaces that even an Impreza might think twice about. Just as the Atom has kept pukka race machines honest in our on-track tests, so the Nomad didn’t lose its shine (metaphorically, at least) when up against WRC Fiestas and Tuthill 911s in Henry Catchpole’s gravel group test in evo 218. Kicking stones in the face of race cars? That’s pretty hardcore.
OF THE CARS IN OUR GATHERING THAT have evolved from existing models, it’s the mid-engined machines that were ripest for the hardcore treatment. Perfectly balanced thanks to their motorsport-inspired distribution of masses, they have the capacity to thrill like no other. Yes, they can also snap with the ferocity of a great white, but this fine line between risk and reward is all part of their sweaty-palmed, heart-racing appeal.
The 360 Challenge Stradale of 2003 galloped pretty much straight off the circuit and onto the road. Light, powerful and with a laser-guided focus on driver engagement, it was raw and richly involving in equal measure. The 430 Scuderia upped the stakes and performance four years later, but in 2014 the Prancing Horse took an even bigger leap with the 458 Speciale.
Thanks to its use of carbonfibre, thinner glass, forged alloy wheels and ceramic brakes, the Speciale trimmed 90kg from the standard 458 Italia, but it was what was hiding under the engine cover that was really exciting. Among a raft of changes, the 4.5-litre V8 featured lightened components and a higher compression ratio, resulting in 597bhp (up from 562bhp) at a howling, nape-prickling 9000rpm – few engines deliver such brutal acceleration or such a symphonic soundtrack.
The suspension was given a similarly no-holds-barred overhaul, plus there were Michelin Pilot Cup 2s and the first iteration of Ferrari’s Side Slip Control. The handling was, and is, sublime, with quick steering and a chassis that offers nonstop communication. No pressure then, 488 Pista.
Although a relative newcomer to the supercar class, Mclaren had an answer to the Speciale in the form of the 675LT. The legendary F1 and P1 are proper, blue blood hypercars, but it’s arguably the 675 that’s the most dedicated driver’s car yet to turn a wheel out of Woking. Based on the 650S, the LT featured bespoke carbonfibre rear bodywork and radically enhanced aero additions that increased downforce by 40 per cent, plus helped towards the impressive 100kg weight loss over the 650. It was 20mm lower and 20mm wider, while the twin-turbo V8 featured many new components, helping to push power up from 641bhp to a demonic 666bhp. The performance figures make fairly startling reading, with the 0- 62mph sprint over in 2.9sec and a top speed of 205mph – no wonder some Mclaren insiders reckon it’s faster than the P1.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the LT is its capacity to entertain. Until it arrived, Mclarens had gained a reputation for being shatteringly quick but a little aloof – you almost drove by numbers, relying on the car’s technology rather than its balance and your feel. Yet from the spartan carbon cabin of the 675 you were treated to a car of true personality, one that could generate incredible cornering forces and lap times that would test the bravest, but one that also dripped with feedback and an intensity that left you buzzing after every journey.
Entry to this hardcore high-end market isn’t cheap – you’ll need at least £300k to buy either of these models. But they represent the best of their breeds in terms of thrills and enjoyment. The Mclaren is wickedly fast and oh-so-capable, the Ferrari one of the very best.
‘Arguably the 675 is the most dedicated driver’s car to come out of Woking’