THE TEST ROUTE
From their individual bases, ranging from Lincolnshire to the south coast, our ecoty team have rendezvoused at Dunkeld, one of the ‘gateways to the Highlands’, from where the in-depth testing will commence along a 500-mile route (inset) taking in best roads in Scotland
LIKE A LAS VEGAS HOTEL SUITE THE MORNING after the night before, dawn in the car park of Scotland’s dismal homage to Fawlty Towers betrays the debauched parking of last night’s late night arrivals. Yes, there’s always a loosely formed plan for turning up on location, Sunday night, ready for ecoty kick off on the Monday morning, but somehow that schedule inevitably slips. Which is how the hotel’s walls came to reverberate at some ungodly hour to the rumble of a heavily turbocharged Ferrari V8, and why, glancing around now at familiar shapes coated in distinctly chilly dew, there’s a random nature to how 2021’s ecoty contenders have been dozing.
It is a scintillating sight: a black 992 GT3 Touring, the early hours moisture beading sensuously over its almost cartoon-esque curvatures. A BMW M5 CS, squeezed into a space in the corner like bionic forearms into a onesize-too-small T-shirt, its bronze detailing glistening like Spartan war paint. A ludicrous matt camouflage Huracán STO parked around the corner like something from an influencer’s social media feed. As ever with ecoty, there’s that welcome disparity between contenders, illustrated by the presence of the Hyundai i20 N in all its baby blue glory, juxtaposed with the large slab of Aston Martin parked alongside and a cool half-a-million pounds’ worth
of heavily optioned Rosso Corsa Ferrari hybrid supercar nearby. We really do have a cracking line-up this year.
There is a plan, which is just as well, all things considered. For 2021 we want to stretch our horizons, freed – largely – from the Covid restraints that kept us nearer to home last year, but still based within the United Kingdom for fear of any random new legislation leaving our tantalising selection of cars stranded with the wrong paperwork halfway up a mountain somewhere overseas.
So we’ll begin here, in a small town near Pitlochry in Perthshire, and then work our way into the Cairngorm mountains for the best part of a couple of days, before then swinging northwards and basing the remainder of the week on our favoured western side of the North Coast 500. We’ve not been here en masse since that unforgettable ecoty back in 2015, when freakishly warm, sunny weather and the excitement of discovering amazing roads for the first time for many of us, me included, came together in a week to remember. The winner back then was the Porsche 981 Cayman GT4, and there’s a GT department Porsche present once again in 2021 after the 718 GT4 triumphed in 2019. Will it be a Porsche year again with the new GT3, or will a resurgent BMW M keep the momentum going after its victory last year with the M2 CS? Then again, with both Ferrari and Lamborghini present, not to mention the ultimate Civic Type R, anything could happen.
Where moments ago there was silence, now there is a bustle and chatter in the air. The first cars are fired up, plumes of condensation sprout from oversized exhaust pipes and wipers flick moisture off cold windscreens. Above even the bellow of the Lambo’s V10 on cold start I can hear some fairly roughly hewn consonants from Jethro, who’s clearly not happy about something, and it turns out it’s the poor Ferrari that’s in the firing line. ‘You can’t make anything work,’ is the polite version of his general summarisation. ‘You plug the Apple Carplay in and it doesn’t work, the radio has no signal. Maybe you get used to it but it’s so annoying!’ The F-word features heavily, and I don’t mean ‘Ferrari’. Not that I know it right this very moment, but it won’t be the last time someone has an issue with the way the Ferrari presents its information and interacts with the driver.
I’m going to stick with the M3 – my drive up here – for the short trip to our designated first fuel stop, and shall then be dumping it faster than forest-fire retardant from an air tanker. This might seem rather unfair on the Beemer, but the majority of the 7000 or so miles on its odometer are mine as it’s my current Fast Fleet car, and from Ferrari SF90 to Lamborghini Huracán STO and Porsche 992 GT3 Touring, there are many cars here that I’m just itching to drive for the first time, and others I can’t wait to be reacquainted with.
After some shenanigans with a lack of superunleaded, and an overladen trolley-load of sandwiches and crisps that’s probably visible from deep space, our convoy of eight cars, plus further support vehicles for photographers Aston Parrott and Andy Morgan, filmmakers Ed Day and Jack Worrall, and editorial assistant Sam Jenkins, heads for the Old Military Road. The Ferrari is mine.
The SF90 is the sort of car where the PR operation sends you briefing documents in advance to better understand how to operate this fiendishly complex piece of machinery. I’m not sure how many of my colleagues actually read said documents, but they’re going to wish they had if they haven’t
already. There are so many screens, so many functions, so much information coming at you. Once the manettino drive mode selector seemed like an exotic nod to F1-like control, but now it’s the simplest thing about the car. Among the numerous other controls that have joined it on the steering wheel there is now an ‘emanettino’, which allows you to choose a powertrain mode and consists of a row of haptic buttons under a swathe of rather cheap-feeling black plastic.
Shall I start in Hybrid mode? Seems to make sense, the Ferrari gliding forth, but then the tranquillity is shattered by the introduction of the V8. It’s not a pleasing noise. It’s a tough, hard, mechanical sort of roar, the kind you’d expect from Ferrari’s V8 but awkwardly straddling the line between purposeful and industrial, the abrupt nature of its introduction really jarring.
I can haphazardly twiddle my finger around the haptic pad on the right-hand spoke of the wheel, which allows me to navigate the screen, and I’m beginning to access different pages, to put the whole system together in my head like an automotive version of The Imitation Game. But unlike almost any other performance car I can think of, driving the SF90 really does begin with a comfy chair and the user manual.
What I can tell you is that the steering is very light – fingertip light, and unremittingly fast in ratio, and that when the combined efforts of the electric motors and the V8 chime into life the acceleration is enough to utterly rock my world. When I park up near our rendezvous at the ski resort I’m more than a little befuddled by the SF90.
The first thing I do is go and find Jethro. He’s in full flow about the GT3 – the general gist of which certainly makes my ears prick up (more on that later) – but when I butt in with the word ‘Ferrari’ he turns and says, ‘Feels pretty muddled and uncharacteristically intimidating,’ and I think I know what he means. John Barker, meanwhile, is telling all and sundry how his kids sorted his drive up with a Bluetooth speaker and the BBC Sounds app, so he didn’t really mind the Honda’s lack of any infotainment system whatsoever. You don’t even get a USB socket in the Civic, just a good old fashioned 12V socket.
‘I was surprised initially at the weight of the steering,’ John says of the Honda. ‘The whole car feels just a little less polished than the standard car at average speeds. From cold this morning it was a bit… oooh…’ at which point he does some air understeer and I’m reminded that our road out of the town was like something from the Tour de Corse rally, complete with a fresh surface that wouldn’t have been out of place on the Silverstone GP circuit. It must have been ‘interesting’, to say the least, on cold Cup 2s. ‘It needed to warm up and so did I,’ John continues. ‘These are interesting roads in terms of where they go next and their camber, but I think the Limited will come into its own in time. And when you get into the 911 and think, “Oh, the brakes at the top of their travel don’t feel quite as good and the gearchange isn’t quite as nice as the Honda’s,” that isn’t bad going for a 40-grand car.” Clearly the old Civic Type R magic is beginning to weave itself once again.
Days at ecoty involve a lot of photography, both stills and video, to ensure you’ve got something pretty to look at on these pages and also on Youtube later. As judges, the driving we do tends to fit in around this, either while doing said photography, while driving to a location where said photography is going to take place, or by convincing a photographer that they don’t need Car A for the next 30 minutes so you can disappear with it for a hopefully enlightening drive. Right now, cars are coming and going from the layby we have taken over, the wail of the GT3’S flatsix in particular echoing down to Glenshee for what seems like an eternity, only to find a sonic foe in the Lamborghini’s V10, which is even louder and threatens to wake entire clans buried underground for centuries.
I’m in the Civic, while Steve Sutcliffe is in the i20 N, and we have to run back and forth for the indulgence of the camera across what could just be the evilest stretch of asphalt in the whole of the UK: about a mile or so of sudden crests, dips and blind corners that bears the scars of a thousand scraped or even ruptured sumps. The man who finished fourth in the 1999 TVR Tuscan Challenge is not in the mood to hang about. (When is he ever?) The little Hyundai spears off towards the first crest, near to which a cameraman is crouching, and I need to be close on Steve’s bumper for the shot to make sense.
Snick, into first gear, give the turbo 2-litre engine maximum throttle and feel the wriggle through the Alcantara-clad wheel rim. There’s that same hard, gritty, induction noise – it’s never been tuneful, but what it lacks in musicality it more than makes up for in a willingness to head for the red line that at least gives a nod to the naturally aspirated VTEC screamers of old. The Honda closes down on the i20, takes off and lands sturdily. The ride is really firm on these roads, and once there’s some heat in the Michelins the grip levels are extreme too, so much so that the Civic almost tries to rip the road from underneath it, hopping and bobbing at times as it claws at the surface. Inside, it’s
‘IT FEELS LIKE A WATERSHED YEAR IN TERMS OF POWER, WEIGHT AND SIZE’
‘I’M NOT SURE THAT ANYTHING COULD HAVE GONE DOWN THAT ROAD QUICKER’
really intense – the engine fizzing and braying, a flash of the left hand to seize another ratio, a momentary separation of bum and seat cushion. When we arrive at the other end I feel like I’ve been on a rally stage; I’m not sure anything could have gone down that road quicker than the Limited. In terms of how it steers, stops and goes it’s the match of anything here on the public road.
That’s our afternoon, Steve and I, switching between the two hatchbacks, long after the rest of the team has moved on further up the road. Finally, the traffic begins to die down – today has been a lot busier than I’ve ever seen here before – but as softer evening light replaces what has been a dull, grey day, two brightly coloured hatchbacks can be seen making keen progress along the banks of the River Dee tributary, the occasional tent and campfire of hardy outdoor types the only other signs of human life. Videographers love to ask for ‘just one more run’, but with the lads finally satisfied with their haul of footage we’re heading for our overnight accommodation in Aboyne, just to the east of the Cairngorms National Park, and I’m leading the way in the Hyundai.
After the brain scramble that is the SF90, the Hyundai’s simplicity holds a tangible appeal. Earlier Stuart Gallagher praised the appeal of ‘three pedals and a stick’, and while you have to delve into the i20’s N Custom mode to get the best from it (most of us dislike the heavier steering setting), once suitably configured it’s just you, the car and the road.
What I love about the i20 N is its completeness. The engine thrives on a good thrashing, and with 201bhp you can give it one without fear of instantly hitting three-figure speeds and the associated potential risk to personal liberty that entails. The gears slot home lightly, the rear is always willing to be mobile but controlled with a little provocation. Grip is not in doubt, and in fact cornering becomes partly a mental exercise centred on how much you think the limited-slip differential will haul the little car’s nose around a corner. The answer is almost always ‘more than you think’, especially in quicker curves, where there’s almost no limit to the speed you can seemingly carry; in slower ones it’s tripoding all the way.
Past Her Majesty’s favourite turreted residence and onwards we go, until arriving at a hotel car park that already has the rest of the bug-strewn ecoty fleet commandeering most of the available spaces. Everyone else is already in the bar, and as we join them the thoughts are pouring forth, along with the first beers of the evening.
A key conversation concerns what is currently going on at BMW M. Stu wonders who it is at Munich that is making this rich seam of form happen, and from that I presume that the M5 CS and M3 Competition are already making plenty of friends. Jethro, who wrote our original review of the M5 CS, is not holding back: ‘I’ve already experienced the CS in all sorts of conditions and yet it still blows my mind just how good this thing is. The real magic of it is that it excels in all conditions, and whilst it summons extraordinary speed across the ground, it feels special even when you’re barely
‘AFTER THE BRAIN SCRAMBLING SF90, THE i20’s SIMPLICITY HOLDS A TANGIBLE APPEAL’
‘THE H UR ACÁNS TO IS A FAR MORE DEFT PIECE OF KIT THAN YOU MIGHT SUPPOSE’
‘I’VE DRIVEN FEW ROAD CARS WITH A GREATER HUNGER FOR CORNERS THAN THE TROPHY-R’
unearthing ten per cent of its potential. Can you remember another supersaloon that communicates so clearly, lets you nudge up to the limits of the front tyres and then swing the balance with your right foot, and does so with such an organic, natural feeling? It really is amazing.’
Henry Catchpole is an M5 CS fan too: ‘The steering is the element that really makes the CS so memorable and special. It is so full of feel from the moment you set off. It has a slight lightness to it that I remember from the F80 M3 CS in particular, but it’s a lightness that also gives you a sense of real connection and control. The result is that you don’t feel like you are driving a big car. You can thread it down tight, testing roads with utter confidence. Equally you can cover miles in a relatively relaxed fashion but also feel like you’re doing more than just controlling the car. That sense of connection is always there through the Alcantara rim.’
Our Henry is also finding the GT3 ‘confusing’, the Aston Martin ‘likeable but strangely not memorable’ and the i20 N ‘lacking a bit of purity in the steering’, adding, ‘I can’t help but wonder if this sort of car wouldn’t be better with fewer tweakable settings.’ He’s a fan of the M3, too, although thinks it only really works on these roads with the dampers in the Sport Plus setting, which doesn’t make it overly harsh but does give what is a fairly hefty car the required body control.
Meanwhile, a sage Dickie Meaden is reflecting on – or perhaps lamenting – the growth of dimensions and power in many of this year’s contenders, questioning whether they’ve reached, or even exceeded, a tipping point: ‘I think this year is a bit of a watershed in as much as many of the cars feel too big, too heavy and too powerful for the roads,’ he opines. ‘They rely on raw grip and tight body control to keep everything in check, which just feels a bit too much on roads where you simply want to find a flow. When the conditions and roads are with them, they – that’s to say the Aston, Porsche and M3 – really fly and feel like they are beginning to make sense, albeit at stupid speeds. But throw in awkward bumps or slippery conditions and it’s hard to gain true confidence in them. Perversely, the big guns – the M5, and to lesser degree the Lambo – confound this theory, but are glorious exceptions.’
I CAN’T RECOMMEND THE BOAT INN ENOUGH as a place to stay if you’re up this way, and after a hearty breakfast it’s back into the mountains. The weather is not so kind for day two. Mist clings persistently to trees, cutting down ultimate visibility, and the clouds ahead look determined to dampen our day. Still, it’s hard to feel gloomy when you’ve the ‘key’, such as it is, to a black GT3 Touring in your mitt, and as I settle into the fixed-back bucket seat I wonder if I’m about to drive our 2021 evo Car of the Year. A bolshy prediction? Maybe, but history suggests that when the Porsche GT department fires a new GT3 missile from Weissach, it rarely fails to detonate on target.
The engine certainly had me at ‘Guten Morgen’; its agitated, hard-edged but melodic note is a constant presence in the cabin, the
very lifeblood of the car. No pandering to being something it’s not, no hiding behind layers of civility and the pretence of inoffensive blandness, which in my view seriously damages the appeal of many a modern sports car. If you like petrolpowered combustion engines arranged in a 180-degree, horizontally opposed boxer layout featuring six cylinders, you’re going to love this one.
Other aspects of the GT3 are slightly alien though. Somehow, somewhere, it feels fundamentally different to a 911. I know, I shouldn’t be surprised. Because fundamentally, and specifically in terms of the car’s front suspension, it is fundamentally different, isn’t it? There are double wishbones where for decades there have been Macpherson struts, and whatever the tuning, that will, logically, feel different. As we leave the town and head onto faster, more sweeping roads, the GT3 is busy – it is being dragged across cambers and the steering is faster than expected, so a small input has the nose moving by a greater degree than I had imagined. It is nothing if not exciting. There is, however, a certain clunkiness to the gearchange that takes just the last ten per cent of shine off the act – no longer do you visualise the mechanism at work in quite the same way, rods and cogs moving in finely toleranced unison.
The rain has started as we climb onto the mountain, the piercing laser lights of the M3 flickering in the Porsche’s rearview mirror and the Lambo snarling away not much further behind. I’m trying to set a fair pace, enough to learn what the car has to offer and to not be a mobile chicane to those behind, but not so much as to risk an indiscretion. It’s one of those moments when the concentration levels simply have to be up at 100 per cent, where just a sliver too much throttle over a sodden crest has the rear wheels over-rotating and my stomach tightens as feet and hands go to work at trying to keep us moving in the right direction.
When I reach the cafe that marks our base camp for today I am almost shaking with the amount of adrenaline that’s flowing around my veins. So much so that the snatched remarks I record into my phone will be virtually incomprehensible when played back later. It has been a stirring drive, but has brought almost as many questions as it has answers. There’s something about this car that isn’t responding to the way I’m driving it. With previous GT3S you had to learn that sometimes the steering reacted just to let you know what the surface was doing, and then other times it would react and you’d have to put a corrective input in to keep it on course. In this car every reaction requires input from the driver; if you leave it alone – dismissing a reaction as simply a ‘wriggle’ – then you are already one step behind what the car is doing.
Stuart remains a fan, describing it thus: ‘Every time I loop my finger through the door pull and close the Touring’s door I feel at home. The 992 has been a slow burner for me and for evo, but it comes together in the Touring. It feels personal, less of a device and more of a precision machine.’ But Dickie, now comfortably ensconced over the other side of the table and on his second coffee, is finding its dynamics less to his liking, as are a number of other judges. It’s too soon to say whether this is just a lengthy familiarisation process with the new car, or whether this is a sign of a more serious issue that the judging
team has. All, including Mr Meaden, are in agreement over its unsurpassed powerplant, which continues to make a mockery of turbocharged engines chasing ever more power (much like the Lambo’s V10, although given their own impressive numbers, all things are relative), and most of us think the Touring look, sans rear wing, is absolutely to die for on the visuals front. Whatever questions are being raised by its steering, it’s still the recipe for a driver’s car most of us are naturally drawn to.
Meanwhile, John is scratching his head over the Ferrari, which he found ‘wilfully unintuitive’, and it turns out it was Sutcliffe behind me in the M3 earlier, and said car is not really doing it for him: ‘It’s still bubbling with appeal and represents a sizeable return to form over the previous M3, but I still think it feels quite heavy and just a little bit cumbersome beside most of the other cars here. I also don’t get on with its seats, and even the engine, though massively potent, seems quite ordinary in this company. Same goes for the auto gearbox, which feels fine in isolation but really does lack the snap of a DSG or, oddly, the response of the ’box in the similarly equipped M5 CS.’ Maybe I should share with him Henry’s point about the dampers…
Oh well, we’ve got time to argue about it, because Steve and I break off with the Italian pair. Up near the ski resort it feels like we’re overlooking a vast fantasy world, and with getting on for a million quids’ worth of supercars from which to admire the view, the privilege of the occasion is not to be underestimated. Could there possibly be a more different pair than these two, despite them being born so geographically close to each other, and both – to the uninitiated – being so similar in conception? They’re not chasing the same market, of course; the Lamborghini is a road racer, a trackday refugee, while the SF90 in Stradale form is an amalgamation of GT and the ultimate sports car, a mid-engined fast forward into the near future where electricity meets petrol and real fireworks erupt.
The STO is certainly not without its quirks. It’s yet another Lamborghini where you can see next to nothing behind you, thanks to the dorsal induction system that stretches down its spine. It seems almost negligent not to fit some kind of permanent rear-view camera, much like the new Ferrari 812 Competizione has. With a car as loud, fast and look-at-me outgoing as the Huracán STO, you really need to be sure what’s tracking your movements, and apart from a wiggle of the car’s hips to check each side mirror in turn, you’ve got scant chance of that. The tablet-style info screen is still like
navigating Rome traffic to me, but given the formidable V10 sounds and feels like it’s sharing the cabin with you, the notion of musical entertainment seems as ludicrous as the Lambo’s Sto-specific body extensions.
One thing that’s less forgivable is the driver modes, because once again there is no Individual setting, so no ability to tailor different elements to how you want them. Instead it offers road (STO), wet track (Pioggia) and dry track (Trofeo) modes, which are all exactly how you might expect them to be. I like the more rounded ride quality in STO, and prefer the option to not have the V10 shattering its surroundings at all times, but I’m much less enamoured with the auto upshift on the twin-clutch ’box, and the kickdown function for that matter. If the going gets racy, a millimetre too much depression on the throttle has the engine suddenly changing down a gear and shrieking over your shoulder. It makes the driver look like a chump, could come at a very unfortunate moment mid-corner, and certainly startles you if you’re not expecting it.
Otherwise, and beneath the almost comedic exterior, the STO is a far more deft piece of kit than you might have supposed. The steering is really lovely: super sensitive, but never nervous, with a fast ratio but enough substance and texture to work with so that you feel confident in your actions and connected to a chassis with the most startling levels of outright grip. Once that nose is on its way into a corner it feels like ‘understeer’ just isn’t a word that’s been translated into the Italian lexicon. As we climb the mountain, the Ferrari’s busy rear-end ahead, I find I can tweak the STO’S steering by the most infinitesimal amount as it goes fully light over each crest, just enough to have it positioned perfectly for the compression (or even the landing if it’s flown) on the other side, and there’s something so deliciously delicate about the task that’s in direct contrast to the sheer brutality being unleashed by the engine at the same time.
The cars are fuelled but sadly we’re not, yet lunch is an inevitable casualty of today. I’m back in the Ferrari, the first drops of rain are appearing on the windscreen, and we need to be a long way north for our evening group static photo. Has the test car lottery worked in my favour? Using purely EV power to roll along the A9, I am feeling a little smug. Even as an ardent petrolhead the ability to use energy in different ways, and feel – at least – like you’re cheating the system has a novelty that has yet to grow old. When you want the SF90 to be silent and low key, it certainly obliges; when you want it to scare you senseless it does that too. With the emanettino in Performance or Qualify mode the combined outputs give it more pace than anything else here, perhaps more than seems advisable on
any public road, anywhere. It’s not the sort of performance you can stand back from; it’s hard to dip into it subtly, or sample the edge of it while it comes on boost or on cam. It’s just there, at any revs, seemingly in any gear, instantly. Metering it out becomes the biggest challenge, and there the real work begins, for the SF90 is not a car that wants to give much away, particularly when the tyres are fairly cold and there’s a smattering of dampness on the ground. Attempting to decipher its intentions is like trying to read the rapid-fire small print on a financial services advert – you can grab words, maybe even parts of phrases, but before you’ve really made sense of it the text is gone and the advert is over.
The SF90 is not as stiff as I was expecting, with almost an unnerving suggestion of roll oversteer across the back end and the sense that the true weight of the car is becoming unmasked. I try it in CT Off, and get a perverted thrill from attempting to get it moving around without having a huge accident.
By the time we reach the car park alongside the loch I am more mystified about the Ferrari than ever. I don’t like how it looks, I don’t like how it sounds, and I can’t stand the way the HMI is laid out. But even so, I can’t deny that there’s something hugely exciting about trying to control such ferocious power.
Steve, my shadow for the past few hours, is in agreement on this one: ‘Its performance in Qualify mode and with the manettino set to CT Off is pretty much as nutcase as it gets for a car that wears a set of number plates. Its acceleration
is so intense it makes me feel physically uncomfortable and mentally a bit worried that it could all go very wrong, very quickly, and in a very big way indeed. Which is kind of magnificent if you really stop and think about it. The SF90 is gigantically faster than the Huracán STO in a straight line, for example, and there aren’t many cars you can say that about. This alone means it is a car that intrigues and terrifies me, often both at the same time. But in too many ways it also feels oddly unresolved dynamically. On wet roads it feels very nervous at both ends, and you don’t need to be travelling particularly fast to sense this. The brakes also feel deeply strange underfoot on occasions; sometimes the pedal response is sweet and pure, sometimes it feels entirely artificial. The fact that you never know quite which response you’re going to get from one application to the next quickly erodes your overall confidence in the car – to a point where on a damp road I’m honestly not sure I could keep up with a well driven Civic Type R in the Ferrari, let alone a well driven M5 CS, Lambo STO, M3 and so on.’
John joins in the chat: ‘The SF90 is ferociously, instantly fast, picking up speed like it has warp drive. But with sharp steering and a chassis that feels a bit too relaxed, too soft at the rear, nailing it mid-turn doesn’t seem a sensible move. Ferrari is brilliant at stability and traction control but I didn’t feel like marking their homework on the road, even with a warm road and those Cup tyres and, nominally, four-wheel drive. It rides well, almost too well – a bit more control would be good because tellingly you end up nailing
it only on the straights. It’s not the hybrid Ferrari I was expecting. There was talk at the first presentation of the electric element complementing and assisting the ICE to enhance the car’s ability. To me, the SF90 seems to want to be an electric car as much as possible and so feels very unferrari. It’s the conundrum for all supercar makers, but one that Lamborghini is simply ignoring for now, to the benefit of its cars as far as a driver is concerned.’
Still, worrying over cartwheeling in a fireball down a mountainside in an errant SF90 is nothing compared to the terror of an evening waterside midge attack in the Highlands in September, and the whole crew is soon hopping from foot to foot, running around trying to escape the barely visible enemy in a bizarre dance, or hiding in cars that seem full of the blighters already. It’s a beautiful shot, but we’ve paid for it in bites, that’s for sure.
An order seems to be forming tonight – my radar for these things, honed over previous years, has reported back on the airwaves and built a picture. The quiet one seems to be the Aston. Gallagher, a former Vantage custodian on our Fast Fleet, reckons it’s ‘the car the Vantage should have been all along had its development not been rushed out the door.’ Jethro believes it’s ‘an exciting, accurate and really characterful car. If only it wasn’t quite so much money.’ He also laments the width of it and the claustrophobic view out of its cabin. Dickie agrees, and also hates the detailing and ‘F1’ additions, but summarises it as ‘a more complete dynamic package’.
Most if not all of the judges seem united in thinking that the Civic Limited Edition would almost certainly be a better Type R on a circuit, or if you can find the right road to suit it, but that it’s also lost some of the ‘win anywhere’ ability that marks the standard car out as something so special. I wonder how many of us will get those drives when everything falls into place for the Limited, and what that might do to the car’s final finishing position. Henry, like all of us, is finding the Limited’s changes ‘differences rather than improvements’.
But it’s back to the Ferrari that talk turns, and Dickie isn’t pulling any punches: ‘Aloof and inconsistent when you want it to feel connected and intuitive, it properly gave me the willies, especially in the wet. I just couldn’t get any confidence in it. The powertrain is an exercise in more equals less. There’s so much torque you don’t need to use the gears, and it’s so bloody quick you only get to experience the performance in brief bursts. Combined with the lack of feel and jagged handling it just becomes a point and squirt kind of car – the first Ferrari I can remember not wanting to really drive hard.’
Meanwhile, the Hyundai is probably attracting the least chatter of all, but I think this is only because it’s just a really nicely rounded car, albeit possibly one that in this company hasn’t the edge that allowed cars such as the Clio 182 Trophy or other pint-sized greats to really take it to the big boys.
Most of all though, there is endless chatter around the GT3. Those who have driven 992 GT3S before have a strong suspicion that this one feels a little different to the (white)