GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Among those leaving us in 2018 were some great cars, legendary racers, trusted hardware, inspirational leaders… and common sense
PERFORMANCE HEROES, KILLED BY NEW CO2 TESTS
New Vehicle Worldwide Testing Procedure Harmonised (WLTP) Light economy and emissions tests made many new cars look as green as sunbleached grass. VW’s Up GTI’s mpg numbers fell from 49mpg to 42mpg, and retuning the Golf R to make it WLTP compliant meant losing 10bhp. Its GTI brother fared even worse. Along with the BMW M3 it was axed altogether.
SERGIO MARCHIONNE
The grandfatherly sweaters and rounded shoulders were a ruse. FCA CEO Marchionne, who died from complications after an operation, was ruthless. He loated Ferrari after booting out Enzo’s golden boy, Luca di Montezemolo, ramped up production, then green-lit an SUV just for good measure. But he was a genius with it, a former accountant who revitalised Fiat, boosting its share value by 10 times despite having no previous experience in the car business.
DAN GURNEY
First person to wear a full-face helmet in F1; inventor of the Gurney lap rear spoiler; inventor of the celebratory champagne shower; one of only three men to win in sports cars, F1, Indy and Nascar: Dan Gurney’s life was busier than a Mk1 Focus RS’s steering wheel at full boost, yet he also remained an unassuming gentleman to the end of his 86 years.
NATURALLY ASPIRATED MAINSTREAM ENGINES
If you wanted to go turbo-free in 2018 your choices were limited to basic superminis, big-bucks supercars and the odd sports car freak (Lotus Elise 1.6, Ford Mustang GT, Lexus LC500). Even the Suzuki Swift Sport sprouted a turbo this year, and worse, we hear the next Porsche 911 GT3 will too. Fortunately Ferrari and Lamborghini remain wedded to the naturally-aspirated engine, with Maranello taking the time at its Capital Markets Day in the autumn to rea¢irm its commitment to its raging V12 (now at 800bhp in the SP1 and SP2 Monzas). But think on this: how many years before we’re marking the dwindling number of internal-combustion engines of any type?
OUR GRIP ON REALITY
The helium-illed values of classic cars have become so accepted that few of us were shocked when a Ferrari 250 GTO sold for $48m (£36.7m) at Pebble Beach, breaking all records. Or when a BMW 507 once owned by John Surtees sold for almost £4m the month before. They’re old cars. Old and rare, each with
a fascinating story to tell of a life lived. The sums might be obscene for cars, but arguably justi ied by their stories and historical signi icance.
But in 2018 the new-car world latched on to that same trend in spectacular style. The Aston Martin Valkyrie, Mercedes-AMG One and McLaren Speedtail swelled the ranks of the £1m+ hypercar club, and all three were sold out before they’d hit the streets. But even they looked cheap besides the Bugatti Divo, a kind of repurposed ‘Club Sport’ Chiron with a ludicrous (plus taxes) price tag that even a small 40-unit run can’t adequately explain.
Only one car trumped it for lunacy: the €900k Nissan GTR50, a roofchopped, hopped-up 10-year-old Datsun built to celebrate the 50th anniversaries of the GTR and Italdesign – and the 5000th anniversary of parting gullible rich people from their cash.