Welcome...
OK. Whose New Year’s resolutions have already ended in ignominious failure, our good intentions struggling to be compatible with the reality of our lives? For me, a well-intended dry January saw me buckle in week two. So, for those of us who struggle to find the discipline to deliver on short-term goals, can I suggest we aim for a slightly broader, more ambitious plan with an extended timeline? Welcome then to the “TopGear 50 things to do before you die” issue. Our automotive bucket list.
As a reader of this magazine, it’s a fair assumption that cars, car culture and everything else that goes around it to make the automotive world so fascinating form a core strand of your DNA (a chromosome you share with the team that makes this magazine). We all have a checklist in our heads of things we’d like to achieve in our lives, but the “TopGear 50 things to do before you die” gives us all a shared bucket list to shoot for. For some, a number of the boxes will already have been ticked; for others, the time spent planning how to achieve the full 50 will be half the fun. While spur-ofthe-moment promises and resolutions come and go, the journey we’re all on to create our own bucket list will last a lifetime – it’s a journey that defines us. And we really want to know how you get on, so tell us about the adventures you’re planning and the boxes you’ve ticked by emailing editor@topgear.com. Good luck.
As we head further into 2017, it’s clear it’s going to be another fascinating year... 12 months in which we’ll be driving the physics-bullying Bugatti Chiron, finally getting behind the wheel of the Ford GT and hoping Alfa’s resurgence continues in the form of the Stelvio SUV. There’ll be an all-new all-wheeldrive BMW M5, which arrives to do battle with the Merc E63, Alpine’s back with its long-awaited Porsche Cayman rival, plus there’s a new brutalist Honda Civic Type R arriving in the summer. Tesla will continue to disrupt the automotive world as the Model Three arrives, while, in Stuttgart, highlights from Porsche’s GT department will include a new GT3 and, later in the year, a rear-wheel-drive GT2 rumoured to deliver close to 700bhp (think we’ll send Harris on that one). Then there are the next-generation hypercars in the form of the Aston Martin AM-RB 001 and the Merc-AMG Project One featuring a 1,000bhp F1-derived powerplant – the development of which we’ll be lifting the lid on in the coming months. There’s clearly not going to be much in the way of downtime this year, and, like you, we can’t wait.
Enjoy the issue,