Best luxury supercar reviews
Ariel Motor Company has revealed the new Atom 4RR, a limited-run, track-focused but road-legal machine that marks 25 years of the Atom and takes the minimalist British performance car to an even more uncompromising level. Built to order and developed as the most focused Ariel yet, the 4RR becomes the quickest and most powerful Atom the company has ever produced.
The marketing blurb of the Volkswagen Grand California promises freedom, flexibility and a ‘Teutonic’ level of competence – sounds lovely. But I think what it actually delivers over a four day trip from Hampshire to the Lakes and back was a family holiday with just enough chaos and adventure to be utterly memorable.
Some cars reward discretion. Others demand to be seen, preferably somewhere scenic, with good tarmac and an audience that understands what they are looking at. The Porsche Macan 4S Electric falls very firmly into the latter category. It is far too resolved, far too handsome, and frankly far too confident to be hidden away. So a few colleagues and I took it exactly where it belonged, across the Sussex Downs, through the Surrey Hills, and eventually into central London, where elegance is judged ruthlessly and patience is optional.
Wiltshire Roads, Cold Mornings & Electric Surprises
The SUV That Started It All: Still the One to Beat
Christmas. Snowdonia. Mud. Ice. Mountains. Yr Wyddfa. Logic suggested I should be flinging a rally-spec electric Mustang up the side of Eryri National Park like some sort of eco-conscious mountain goat. Reality, however, intervened. I took the Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally to The Ritz instead. Champagne. White tablecloths. Soft lighting. Our own table, suspiciously close to David and Victoria Beckham.
International Women’s Day can be marked in many ways: flowers, speeches, panel discussions, social media posts. Maserati, however, chose something far more appropriate - handing a group of women the keys to several of its most powerful cars and inviting us to drive them at full throttle around the historic Goodwood Motor Circuit.
We were recently invited to a private, behind-the-scenes peek at TranAm’s UK operation, with a look at some of the new products in their portfolio.
Images by Hayden Povey
There are angry SUVs and then there is the BMW XM Label. The former tends to apologise for their size by trying to look athletic or vaguely restrained. The latter makes no such effort. It arrives like it already owns the road and the minerals beneath it. Vast, square-shouldered, ostentatiously illuminated and absolutely certain of its own importance.
There was a time when an Audi RS model announced itself with little more than a swollen set of wheel arches and the faint whiff of mischief. Now it arrives armed with a charging cable, a 400-volt electrical system and enough computing power to run a modest space programme.
This is the new Audi RS 5, Audi Sport’s first high-performance plug-in hybrid and it produces a faintly ridiculous 470 kW, or 630 bhp in old money. Which is to say, quite a lot.
