FERRARI 296 GTB DACIA JOGGER
This has been a vintage year for the supercar Some continue to rage against the dying of internal combustion with Lamborghini somehow managing to find more life in the ageing Huracán chassis and Aston plonking the biggest motor it can find in the Vantage Porsche has sought to bend nature with the latest GT RS creating perhaps the first car to live in the shadow of its own wing while Maserati has stepped out of the shadows and given us its first supercar for years McLaren meanwhile has delivered the Artura
The hybrid supercar era has arrived However its first icon doesn’t belong to McLaren but Ferrari The GTB is a stellar supercar not just the best of this year but perhaps the best of the last decade What makes it so good? That it took the learning of the immensely capable and shockingly fast SF and used it as a springboard The tech involved is deeply furiously complex but the comes across as wonderfully simple to drive and while the SF was gobsmacking but complex and felt like it this one is pure fun
There are drawbacks The steering wheel’s haptic buttons are hopeless and the plain unadorned cabin is underwhelming and ordinary And don’t have the Assetto Fiorano pack to lose kg and only gain discomfort isn’t the right way to go for this tactile approachable road car The V is a gem you can’t detect a single join between it and the electric motor as a combined bhp fires out from the rear wheels But so manageably and controllably No other car with this amount of power has ever been described as “playful” unless the driver is speaking through clenched teeth or prone to terminal understatement And it rides dextrously And the boot is big enough for actual luggage And you can knock about silently on electric A vintage year and yet this one’s a standout the most complete supercar there is
Well aren’t you lot clever. Of course you picked a genuine TopGear hero as your Readers’ Choice Award winner. You voted in your thousands and the Dacia Jogger triumphed in a public vote on TopGear.com in a field of 43 contenders, all of which had been driven and highly rated by the TG team in the past 12 months.
The Jogger – an affordable, rugged and practical MPV (remember them?) – beat the Toyota GR86, with the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS missing out on the silver medal by one solitary vote. Given that the poll also included cars like the F1-engined Mercedes-AMG One, the £2m Ferrari Daytona SP3 and 300+mph Hennessey Venom F5, this is quite the coup for Dacia. We’re assured that a new public holiday is being planned in Romania to mark the occasion.
The Jogger starts at just £16,645 in the UK, making it the cheapest seven-seater on sale by some margin. Even a top spec, fully loaded Extreme SE can be had for £264 per month at the time of writing. It’s hard to make your money go far these days, but in a Jogger there’s still proper bang for your buck. OK, maybe not much bang from the teeny 108bhp 1.0-litre 3cyl engine, but given it only weighs 1,200kg and is combined with a manual box, the Jogger is surprisingly fun to drive. Economical too.
Dacia’s cut price people carrier is the worthiest of winners.